<div class="floatleft">(http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5499ff2ce4b0b85c868a2158/t/556fb05ae4b01eeb36c217a6/1433383003661/)</div><hr/><strong>Name:</strong>Arthur Curry/Orin (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=239229.msg11802466#msg11802466)<br/><strong>Affiliation:</strong>The Atlantean Empire.<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Saturday the 17th of October 2015, 20:13<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Gotham Central Bank, Central Gotham<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Hood, Flash, Ivy, Thorn.<br/><strong>Music:</strong>Starvation - Thomas Bergersen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnGaCAHhGfo)<br/><hr/><br/>And just like that...they won.<br/><br/>The Flash managed to pull Ivy back from wherever it was that she was attempting to flee to, Thorn was imprisoned and about to apparently start talking and - if the sounds outside growing more muted and confused rather than loud and aggressive and violent was any indication - the weapon outside had either worn off or been negated somehow. They had successfully thwarted the bank robbery, saved the civilians and managed to actually avoid much collateral damage (at least, considering the situation outside; when everybody was fighting everybody else and there were large vines attacking everything in sight,<em>some</em>collateral damage was perhaps inevitable), and now the villains were at their mercy and ready to be taken into custody and tried for their crimes. Obviously if that police woman, Hood and Booster had anything to say about it, they'd be locked up in a Max Security Prison for the rest of their natural lives, and probably even longer...and they'd deserve every minute of it. Such a bioweapon should be considered a war crime to deploy - and he was speaking from the experience of somebody who had both used and endured such effects before - and that was nothing to say of the hundreds of injuries and sicknesses she had caused alone. Thorn would get a lesser sentence, but she would still be charged with aiding and abetting, resisting arrest and a smattering of other crimes that had been linked to her over the years. The heroes had arrived, confronted the villains and beaten them, and they were about to be arrested and carted off to the nearest secure jailing facility...and yet, Orin couldn't help but feel like they'd done anything<em>but</em>win.<br/><br/>Of course, saving the civilians outside from bloody, psychotic deaths was a victory and one that he would have taken even had Ivy gotten away in the end and was almost certainly the main priority when engaging a villain like Thorn or Ivy (that was, prevent any civilian deaths), but what they said about The Rot...well, it worried Orin. For one, Ivy seemed absolutely certain that it was approaching like some implacable plague and that she needed to prepare in order to fight it off properly, and Thorn certainly seemed to believe her. It could have been some elaborate ruse, of course - a fallback story to get them out of prison or to try and convince the heroes to help them instead of sending them to prison; Poseidon knows that Villains always had some justification or excuse as to why they did what they did, and as far as hero excuses go, "There's a bigger threat coming so we need to fight it together"<em>was</em>an effective way to get heroes to indeed band together - and Orin didn't feel like being taken for a ride. It could well be a lie, and a big one at that, but something about it bothered him; something didn't quite add up. Thorn was quite correct in that Ivy didn't<em>need</em>money, and that her agenda and Thorn's never intersected in the past. If The Rot was such a big threat, it could explain why the pair of them were in cahoots to rob a bank for money that they wouldn't ordinarily need. And Ivy being the Avatar of some primal force of nature certainly would explain her apparent spike in power if nothing else. And what if The Rot was the disaster that his Oracle's had warned him about? They had said that it was coming to Gotham, so...could they be connected? Ivy seemed worried about it, and if what he heard about her was true, she rarely got worried or nervous about anything (at least, as far as was externally visible). Take right then; she was surrounded by four powerful heroes, her only ally was trapped in a golden cage and she seemed more worried about The Rot than them. Curious.<br/><br/>Of course, he couldn't just take her word for it, now could he? He'd need some pretty big evidence that this "Rot" wasn't just a made-up piece of nonsense designed to distract or unnerve the heroes, or just a stalling tactic before something else happened that swung the odds in Ivy's favour again. He wasn't a powerful enough telepath to force the answers out of her and M'gann was off somewhere hopefully being treated for whatever had struck her down - he pushed the worry to the back of his mind; he had more pressing things to deal with, as much as it hurt him not to go looking for her - so he couldn't enlist her aid...so how could he possibly determine whether she was telling the truth...? Ah! Of course! Telepathy was only one way to ensure that somebody was being honest; whilst there was technology that indicated whether somebody was lying and somebody who was good enough at facial feature reading to indicate whether somebody was being completely honest, Orin didn't have access to the advanced technology of his people or have the skills required to read faces. What he<em>did</em>have was a powerful Sorcerer within the very city; only a few months ago, his own Mage Marshal and personal Second In Command of Atlantis, Garth, had arrived in order to support Orin in his search for whatever Calamity was about to occur...Mage Marshal Tempest, as he liked to be called, was perhaps the most powerful sorcerer that Atlantis had produced since it fell into the sea millennia ago and if anybody could cast the necessary spells, it would be him; he knew of a spell that created a circle of varying size that forced the occupier to answer any question truthfully. If they didn't answer they weren't compelled to, but sometimes a non-answer told you far more than any denial ever could. They could enlist Garth's help to ensure that Ivy and Thorn were telling the truth. If they weren't, prison. If they were...then they'd figure out what to do after that.<br/><br/>But first, he had to make sure that neither Booster nor Hood did anything stupid or psychopathic respectively. Booster, at that point, was only grandstanding; he'd get to him in a second. But Hood was starting to get on Orin's nerves with his constant tactic of threatening violence. Was this moron really trained by Batman? He seemed to have no restraint, no finesse and no real understanding of how interrogations worked. If you were the one getting emotional and riled up and aggressive, then you were obviously doing a very poor job of questioning the subject; quick, sharp bursts of emotion were effective in the right context, but with somebody as unflappable and competent as Ivy? You were just making a fool of yourself, much like a child stomping his foot and demanding that people be "weawwy scawed" of him because he was "angwy" and "super sewious." It was pathetic. Yes, his dislike of the man may have been colouring his view, but really...did everything Hood said have to be said in the language of thugs attempting to collect protection money from some poor shopkeeper? Honestly, what was the difference between saying "Tell me what you know or I'll break your legs" and "Pay me the money you owe or I break your legs?" The ends don't justify the means. Orin learned that the hard way. First thing was first, then; make sure that Hood couldn't follow up on that threat, and that Ivy couldn't cause any issues if they got distracted. His trident glowed again as his shield shrunk by a foot or two - compacting it into a much smaller area, only a little bigger than him - and the one that was housing Thorn pulsed and grew. The shield pushed out a few feet in only a second or so, pulsing once and being just behind Ivy, then pulsing a second time and suddenly encasing Ivy as well....though he did place a dividing wall between Thorn and Ivy, just in case. More for their own protection from the psychopath threatening torture, of course, but still; you could never put it past Ivy not to have another trick up her sleeve.<br/><br/>"Does every word out of your mouth have to end in a thuggish threat, Hood?" he asked, turning his head towards Hood. His tone of voice was not exactly impressed. "And even if she answered, would you believe her? For all we know, she's making the entire thing up." He took a step closer, his shield following along with him, so that his shield was almost touching the shield containing Ivy and Thorn. He glanced at Booster. "However, we cannot simply turn them over to the Justice System without ascertaining whether their claims have any hint of truth. You may grandstand all you like, Booster, but to invite danger without gathering any intelligence on what you will face is foolishness of the highest order."<em>Besides,</em>he thought,<em>where's the guarantee that he'll still be here if the Rot is real and does arrive? He wasn't there when the JLA needed him to fight Darkseid.</em>A nasty thought, and one that he didn't bother airing; sniping at Booster did nothing worthy of note other than create tension among the trio, and they needed to remain calm and civilised, for the moment. He looked back at Thorn and Ivy. "Of course, you would understand if we refused to believe a word that you say, would you not? You are, after all, only volunteering this information after being captured, so you have a vested interest in convincing us that your robbery was necessary to protect the city as a whole, especially after trying to destroy it so many times." He paused, looking around the room, then returned his gaze to Ivy and Thorn, his eyes never leaving their faces. He was in a battlefield, and they were enemies; he had no interest in their physical beauty. For one thing, if he needed to engage in carnal activities, there were surely plenty of willing partners in the city that<em>didn't</em>want to kill him. These two? He wouldn't trust them to not slit his throat while he was sleeping or, in Ivy's case, attempt to bite his head off at the moment of climax like a Preying Mantis.<br/><br/>"Of course, if there is even a hint of truth to what they are claiming...then we need to be prepared, and gather all the information we can. We need to know what they know, if they are telling the truth, but we can't trust them to do exactly that...which is why I have a suggestion." He glanced at Hood and Booster. "My Mage Marshal, Tempest, is in Gotham. We take the prisoners to him, and he places them inside a Ring Of Truth, an enchanted circle within which it is impossible to lie. We question them extensively within that circle, and ascertain whether they are telling the truth about The Rot, The Green and The Red...and we decide what to do from there onwards, depending on what we learn." He looked back at the pair of women. "I would usually inquire as to whether you would submit to such a test, but considering your crimes and just what you did to those people outside, you<em>don't</em>have a choice. If The Rot is real and is coming, we need to know what it is, what it can do and how to stop it...and we need to be able to trust the answers. Your permission and cooperation is not a factor." He turned his head to look back at Hood, Booster and Flash...they needed extra information, and it was something that they couldn't let Ivy or Thorn know, just in case they used it somehow. He hated doing it, but he opened up a telepathic communication line with the trio of them. He did his best to ignore the fact that he was now sharing a Brainspace with the psychopath in the Red Mask.<br/><em>I'm inclined to give them a chance to make their case,</em>he Sent,<em>just in case. The Atlantean Oracles claim that a Calamity is headed straight for Gotham, and that if it isn't stopped, it could destroy the entire planet...and Atlantean Oracles are very, very rarely wrong. If there's even a chance that The Rot is this Calamity, it bears investigating and if it is, in fact, real...we need to know what Ivy knows.</em>He lifted an eyebrow at them. He could very well just take Ivy and Thorn and leave himself against their wishes...but then he'd have a trio of powerful heroes that were pissed off at him, and that wouldn't exactly make his life easier. It would be much simpler and easier if they agreed to his suggestion...otherwise, things could get messy.