Declaring Dependents ___ Episode 01
Life Ore Death
Episode 1 - Declaring Dependents* June 24 [Lois Lane Focus]
As the woman known to be connected to Superman, Lois Lane of the Daily Planet was well aware of the risks of superhero life, particularly the risk of abduction by super villains with intent to draw the Caped Crusader’s attention. When she heard her name spoken by an unfamiliar voice, Lois twisted in her chair just enough to get a good view across the room of the likely speaker. The details of what she saw were enough to keep her focus and make her prick up her ears.
A raggedly dressed, dark skinned, besmudged young woman spoke to one of Lois’s co-workers.
I don't own this image, it was made by deviantart user/member maxa art for reasons having nothing to do with this story, I just found it on google images.
And this picture is of Renka's mother, Tindwyl, from the coppermind wiki, so if you insert some family resemblance you should get a good idea of Renka's general appearance.
To make a long story short, she stands about 6' give or take an inch, she's pretty well-muscled and athletic, her eyes are an odd tawny-goodish shade, and her hair is black, goes a bit past her shoulder blades, and tends to form a wild mass of ojou-ish ringlets because she hates to put it up in any style more restrictive than ponytail.
‘Likely age: somewhere between an old sixteen and her early twenties. Ethnicity is indeterminate, potentially mixed, but likely around the Indian sub-continent. She definitely speaks with an accent that I’ve never heard before, which is new, and she is visibly impoverished,’ Lois Lane assessed. ‘Those clothes probably came from a charity bin, have seen some wear and tear since, and it doesn’t look like she has reliable access to running water for laundry or showers. That canvas grocery bag probably holds most of what she owns.’
One part of Lois Lane felt her heart go out to the poor girl in such an unhappy situation. The journalistic part of her simultaneously wanted to weave the stranger’s story into a heart wrenching op-ed about homeless youth, and Lois wondered if the girl was seeking her out because she had a story tip. A more maternal aspect of her wanted to bundle the poor dear away in blankets, never mind that it was summertime, and feed her full of soup, bread, and vegetables in the spirit of Lois’s late mother.
The jaded, jumpy fraction of Lois Lane wondered how a girl in that condition could have gotten past the Daily Planet’s security without superpowers, and guessed that another abduction was imminent.
The intern pointed the girl straight at Lois, who waved one hand in acknowledgement. The girl waved back with an uncertain smile and began carefully making her way across the room. She seemed in no hurry.
“Hello, I heard you were looking for me.” The girl paused, a little startled at the greeting. Lois tensed nervously as she reached one hand into her bag, but no weapon was produced. ‘Maybe she’s holding onto a security blanket or something?’
“Hello,” the girl pronounced carefully in her unrecognizable accent. “I speak English not well. I am sorry. My name is Renka. Do I speak with Lois Lane? Superman’s girlfriend?”
“Yes, yes, focus on that and ignore my career and multiple journalistic awards and accomplishments,” Lois replied drily. Renka flinched uncertainly. Lois felt like a cad when she remembered the first thing the girl had said. “I am sorry,” she said slowly. “You still understand me?” Renka nodded. “I am Superman’s friend. Why do you wish to know?”
“Can you-,” she paused. Rearranged her grip on whatever she was holding in the bag. Lois tensed again when she heard the clank of metal, but nothing untoward happened. “Can you put me in contact with Superman?” she said in a rush, slightly more fluent than before.
“A lot of people want to talk to him. Is it an emergency? About a villainous plot? Is a bad person about to do a crime?” Lois corrected when Renka looked for a moment like she didn’t understand.
“Um, stop a crime from happening?” Renka hazarded. After a moment she elaborated: “I have no home. No money. No family. But I have powers.” She shrugged. “I can either commit crimes or stop them.”
Lois couldn't help but find something starkly depressive about that blunt commentary on modern society.
“I... see. A wiser choice than many people your age. But it may be some time. Can you wait a few hours?” Renka shrugged.
“I have no job. No place to be. I can wait all today and tomorrow.”
“Well then, if you don’t mind you are welcome to wait here until the day is done,” Lois invited. “After I finish this article, perhaps I could interview you? Talk to you about your life and history?”
“In some hours,” Renka allowed, “but spell I use to speak well is almost out. Need a few hours then cast again?”
‘She’s a magic user, like Giovanni Zatarra? Interesting.’
“In a few hours. Have a seat,” she invited, pulling out an empty chair. Renka smiled beatifically and plopped down, placing both hands inside her oddly clanking bag.
For the next few hours, Lois half forgot that the girl was there for the most part, other than answering a few questions if someone else dropped by to ask around. The last person of the day to do so was Clark, back from whatever lead he’d been chasing.
“I see you have a guest. What’s the occasion?” he asked gently, offering out his hand to the unknown young lady. She took it and shook politely after a moment, before returning her hands to her canvas bag.
“She wants an in with Superman,” Lois told him. Clark looked surprised for a moment, and he gave Renka a reassessing glance. “Her name is Renka. She’s a young, homeless meta-human with some sort of magic ability. Her options, as she pointed out, are either committing crimes or stopping them. Isn't that an optimistic thought? She asked me to make an introduction. Smarter than most of the punks running around, isn’t she?”
Clark nodded and departed with a minimal amount of discussion and banter.
~
“We’ll just be waiting here, and Superman should probably drop by within a few hours,” Lois Lane told Renka, closing the door to the newspaper building’s roof. There had been an embarrassing moment when she’d almost forgotten about the young spell caster and walked out without her, but Renka had thankfully caught up quickly and reminded her. “As far as I know, he usually does patrols in the air starting around this time, and anyone on a rooftop will be in his line of sight pretty clearly. While we wait, could I interest you in an interview?”
Renka dipped her hand into her bag. “I’m sorry? Say again? Please.”
“An interview? Tell me about your life? Your past?”
“Um, in a few days? After I settle in? Still have, uh, little investiture.” Lois guessed that that was how she referred to whatever mana she used for her spells. That, or Renka wasn’t willing to put in the effort of an interview if it didn’t result in her link with Superman. Neither of which was totally unreasonable, given her situation.
“In a few days,” Lois agreed, and she handed Renka a card with her contact information.
“You rang, Miss Lane?” Both women spun to find Superman hovering in the air off the side of the building. “And who might you be?” he asked Renka. She took a deep breath, bowed and answered in a rush. Lois noted that her accent had decreased.
‘Is that a comfort thing, or… it would make sense if there were translation spells with that effect, I suppose…’
“Mister Superman. My name is Renka. I have powers, but I don’t have a home, or connections. I hope you can help me find work other than crime.”
“I see.” He smiled warmly and dropped to the roof. “Well, I’m always willing to help where I can. The Justice League as a whole is very interested in recruiting the next generation of heroes as well. I won’t force you into it – if you don’t like the lifestyle we won’t throw you out on the streets – but there are definitely some arrangements I can make. Would you be willing to show me a little more about your powers, first?” She nodded.
“I can,” and she hesitated, glancing between Superman and Lois Lane. “I really hope you are good people,” she muttered. “I can store things inside metal holders and draw them out later in greater amounts for a period of time.”
“Things like… money? Weapons? Food?”
“Food a little,” she laughed. “Things like strength, speed, weight, hope. Language speak well,” she added pointedly. “Can you pick me up?” she asked, pulling a rusty nail out of her bag and extending her arms. Superman scooped her up easily. “Feel the difference? Store away weight and be light. Then pull it out and be heavy.”
“Is she doing it?” Lois asked.
“Yes. Not enough to stress me-” obviously, “-but she was very light and then about as heavy as a car for a few moments. Are there any limits?” She dropped and hopped back on her feet.
“Only as much as I can store.”
“I see. I can certainly arrange a place for you to stay for at least a few nights.” He smiled warmly. “The League will ask you some questions, ask for a few demonstrations, and we’ll see where to go from there.
She bowed twice. “Thank you, Superman. As well, thank you, Miss Lois Lane.”
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* June 26 [Renka PoV]I reclined on the bed in the closed room, holding the two metal scraps that were my aluminum-mind and duralumin-mind. 'I am not sure what I was expecting, but this wouldn't have been it,' I considered and sighed aloud. 'Still, this is hardly a bad result. They have treated me well, other than the brusque man in the black cape, and he seemed angrier at the Superman than at me. I hope I did not get the Superman in trouble with the rest of the Justice League.'
I sat in a small, closed room that still was well-lit comfortable. One wall had a screen with moving pictures, called a T.B. by their alphabet, and the furniture was utilitarian but well-made. It was big enough to pace, and while I still felt a little like a prisoner by the size of it, I knew I could exit and walk around a specific area without issue. I did not even need to keep the door to the hall closed, but I chose to do so while I meditated and practiced my storage.
Releasing my aluminum-mind and duralumin-mind, it was a few steps to open the door, then to wake up the T.B. and find a channel. I still did not understand most of what people said, but I was steadily learning to better interpret, and I could double-check my guesses with quick taps of my duralumin-mind.
I had been freely given food and more clothes, and Superman had visited several times in the past two days, so I would wait a little longer and see what plans, if any, the Justice League had for me. I was in the most dangerous time of my endeavors, and would do best to be patient. 'If there is something secretly sinister about these heroes, then I am in their power, locked in their chosen home territory, and I lack the resources to put up a meaningful fight.'
'My best interests are to guess where the borderline is that good people would be interested in what I can do, but bad people would not be interested enough to take advantage, and try to portray myself as being there. So I need to make no trouble and just wait for a decision, and I specifically should not try to prompt anything by delving into my more spiritual abilities.'
'Remember,' I reassured myself, 'my best bad outcome would be for them to decide they are not interested in me and put me back on the street, where I have lost nothing. If they are good people, I doubt that would happen, so if I aim for that and keep my manners polite I will probably get better than I expect.'
It galled me to be vulnerable, when four months ago I had been a contender as the most dangerous mortal alive on Scadrial, but the Justice League was not the Steel Ministry, and Earth was not Scadrial, and if I allowed myself to trip over my anxieties than I knew my life could come to a sudden, stupid end.
Again.
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* June 28 [Lantern Stewart Focus]
“This one is the best, sir” Renka finally told Green Lantern John Stewart, setting aside the alloy sample that matched her specifications. She smiled, and he returned a friendly nod. The homeless girl’s good manners kept her on his good side through the 23 total hours of synthesis and testing it had taken them to identify all sixteen metal formulas that worked with her abilities.
“Then I believe our work is complete. I will pass these on to Batman and he should have the metal-minds ready for you in a few days. Remind me, are there any specifications for the designs?” He believed her claim was that only the chemical formula was important, but that had been said near the beginning of the testing, when his ring hadn’t sampled her language thoroughly enough to be certain of what she said.
Renka paused, considering the question.
“I don’t... particularly need the metalminds in a specific shape to use them, but for convenience something I could wear, and several copies of each formula would be much appreciated. Rings, piercings, and arm bracers are most traditional. There are a few details specific to a few of the metals that merit some tweaks.” He made a show of producing a green pencil and notepad, which made her giggle. “Tin-minds should be pretty small, because I don’t need to charge them much, but I also need five or more of them because they each hold a different sense. I need two of the bendalloy-minds for similar reasons, please, and nicrosil-minds should also be small and numerous. Also, since gold is valuable, it would be appreciated if that was more surreptitious. Um, If all that isn’t too much to ask, sir?”
“Not at all. I hope your studying goes well, and you should have these ready in a few days.” She turned to and passed out the door, returning to her assigned guest room in the Watchtower. Green Lantern Stewart gathered the metal samples and transported to the room where Batman and Superman were waiting.
“Anything additional to report?” the Dark Knight asked, turning away from the monitors that had been viewing the room.
“So far she seems to have a good character. Renka has been dedicated, possesses a serious work ethic beneath her good cheer, is strikingly intelligent despite her lack of education, and has been at least upfront where she is not straightforward.”
“How so?”
“She hasn’t told us all of what she can do, but she hasn’t bothered to lie about it, simply claiming that either it is complicated to explain, she is uncertain, or she does not wish to answer. She has not gone into tremendous detail about her home world, but scans of her antibodies and genetics indicate diseases and inheritance traits that are human, but not native to the human population on Earth. She studies and reads voraciously in her spare time, she has consistently shown manners and discipline despite working long hours, and whatever her background is has instilled in her a firm belief in Right and Wrong, despite the places where her code does not overlap with our own.”
“I’m glad that my walk-in has such potential,” Superman said. “We’re agreed that she can stay?”
“On probation," Batman insisted to no one's surprise. "Wonder Woman has also expressed interest in meeting a budding heroine. We’ll need to get quite a lot of work done on her, though. Can you take the time to arrange it all?”
“Physical tests and training, as well as getting her literate and fluent in one of our languages? Clark Kent can take a day off for the first, and periodic check-ins for the second are easily doable whenever I drop by. Her spell is already letting her fake it well enough.”
“More than that,” Batman corrected. “Your walk-in will need vaccines and medical inoculations, because she has no resistance to many of our diseases. She needs a legal grounding in our codes of conduct and engagement, and the way our governments work. I can get papers for her secret identity, if she so desires, but she’ll need to be told about the possible countries and what citizenship entails. I also want you to try to find out more about her history and home, as well as how she came to be here.”
“Wasn’t what she mentioned in passing enough?” Lantern Stewart asked.
“Your ring's translation abilities did not extend through the camera. I was mostly working off of body language and tone,” the Batman countered.
“Point. I will send you a transcript of our translated conversation,” John Stewart said. “The most prominent bits are some specifications for a few of her vessels, which she calls metal-minds, and the fact that she comes from a parallel universe.”
“Would that be why her accent and features appear slightly off and unplaceable?” Superman guessed, as it had been niggling at his curiosity.
“Most likely. What details did she reveal?”
“Renka comes from a planet with an entirely different continental arrangement and history than ours, so I doubt any diverging point occurred in known history; she mentioned that they had no moon, among other differences. Recently there was a tremendous civil war, but before then the government was a tyrannical monarchy and she was raised as a member of one of the slave races.
"The social upheaval had some correspondence with a metaphysical upheaval among higher dimensional beings that she considered her gods, with the result being some environmental and cultural changes. She claims that her powers originated from one of these gods, whose name I believe translated as Harmony, but she was more reticent about how she worshipped and what commandments she followed. She did not recognize any of our religions or languages. Also, her earring is a religious artifact brought with her from her home.”
“You said her earring did not correspond to any metal known to your ring. Did she explain what it was made of?”
“She said, ‘I know what it is but I do not feel comfortable discussing it. It is not dangerous.’ I decided to abide by that request.”
“I’m willing to take that on trust, too,” Superman said. “But you support keeping her around?”
“I do,” Stewart affirmed.
“Wonder Woman makes three, and if Bats here ever learns to ease up a little she’ll have four of us willing to vouch for her. I’ll tell her that we’ll work on her abilities and conditioning in a few days, and to keep up the good work with her studies until then.” He started to walk away, but paused in the doorway. “Hey, John, did you ever get her to mention her age?”
“In passing. She wasn’t certain of the exact dates and her world uses a different calendar system – I think their days are a different length as well – but when I scanned her, she registered in early post-adolescence. Eighteen to twenty, we could guess. Probably of age, or we can call her seventeen if you need to.”
“Do you think she’s safe?” Batman asked.
“Treating her like she isn’t is the best way to make it so,” Stewart answered. “If she is this good an actress and liar, then the best thing to do is give her a chance to act on it; I think she’s clean, if confused, but I know the way your mind works.”
“Is it safe to let her leave?”
“Certainly. If you are worried about her stealing information of hacking our systems, keeping her up here longer only makes that more likely. Or are you thinking of offering an inch and seeing how much she tries to take?”
“Would introducing her to one of the sidekicks help?” Superman suggested. “We could send her on a low-level mission or two and see how she reacts. I certainly wouldn’t complain about a chance to take on a partner of my own, no matter how different her skill-set is from mine.”
“You don’t think she would hold you back.” Coming from the Batman, it was neither a question nor an accusation.
“Anything with enough threat to get past me and put her in danger should have half the League beaming over as back-up. You can’t seriously want to keep her up here forever, Bruce, can you?”
The Batman said nothing.
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Hello Sufficient Velocity!_________________________________________________________________________________________
Inspired by With This Ring while at the same time mildly annoyed by the recent prevalence of Self Inserts (in all fandoms, but only mildly), I'm trying something... tangential. I'm dumping an OC into the story exactly the way we would a usual SI, to explore the ideas a bit further.
Renka (or as her hero name will be, Ferris) comes from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy and she is a Feruchemist.
If you don't know and don't want so many spoilers, go ahead and skip. I'll be handing out dribs and drabs of explanation and lore as the story goes along.
This is my first time posting my own story on Spacebattles - it's already posted on SV but SB is better for stories I'm told - so I'm still going to be experimenting with writing and formatting styles. Any and all feedback is helpful.
I'm also not nearly as well-versed in DC comic lore as most of the people writing these, so if continuity errors are pointed out they may or may not be ignored because Plot, but suggestions for characters and ideas are always very welcome.
I am a total comment #%@$&, so always feel free to comment on anything or ask questions about any post, no matter how long ago it was posted.
EDIT: I was just made aware that for some reason almost all of my posts are in light gray instead of default. I used the dark background so I couldn't tell, but it makes it impossible to read this on lighter backgrounds. I'm going through trying to fix this, but it'll take a while, so please have patience.
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