thisavrou | video;

[The video turns on and it shows a whole lotta nothing. Just an empty rec room. And then:]

DD!

[When Ocelot’s voice shouts the name, a large dog that appears to be a wolf-mix with thick grey fur and an eyepatch over one eye comes into view of the camera and stands there wagging its tail eagerly.

Ocelot’s gloved red hand comes into view of the camera and points to the room.]

Search!

[The dog barks twice and turns around to quickly move about the room. It sticks its head behind a couch and pulls out a red ball, then drops it and follows its nose to another spot, inside a potted plant, where another red ball is retrieved. The dog moves expertly around obstacles, retrieving red balls that were hidden all over the room. When the last one is found, DD walks back to Ocelot and stares up at the camera with the final red ball in its mouth.]

Good boy, DD.

[DD barks again, dropping the ball and turning happily in a circle with his tail wagging. The camera then turns to show Ocelot’s face.]

You see that? Expertly trained. I’m willing to bet DD here is worth more in the field than half of you, so maybe you should get some lessons from our defense personnel.

[That’ll give Miller and Snake something to do.]

If you think you might need DD for some field work, you can ask his handler, ‘Venom’ Snake.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, I can just see how you could fake it. Like how they look like ordinary balls, but they could be specially scented.

And I'd take my team any day, thanks.

[She may only be fourteen, but she's got experience here. And the Team is pretty awesome.]

Except you were the one who basically called everyone a bunch of slackers who should go to training. I mean, I get being proud of your dog, but that doesn't mean you have to put down everyone else.

[Now he does believe she's fourteen.]

I will do my best to be more mindful of our 'sensitive' crew members.

And putting it like that? Makes you sound like even more of a jerk.

You know not everyone who got pulled here is a solider or a superhero or whatever, right? Some people are just innocent. They shouldn't be expected to act like highly trained operatives. It isn't right.

[He's been called worse than a jerk, and he isn't going to say she's wrong in her assessment of him.]

No soldier ever started out as a soldier. They were all innocent. But because of whatever circumstances happened to them, they had to become something else.

[A demon, a snake, an ocelot, whatever they're called.]

We already know this is not a pleasure cruise. We're going to encounter trouble. Unless you're going to be there every time for every crew member to lecture our enemies into putting down their guns or.. lasers.. or whatever it is, they should know what to do if the time comes where they need to defend themselves.

[He tilts his head at DD.]

If you keep tellin' everyone that it's okay to 'just be innocent' and the power of positive thinking is going to get us through this, I think DD here will live longer than any of 'em.

[That may be a jerk response, but it's an honest response.]

Uh, you know fourteen doesn't mean I'm stupid, right? [Idealistic, sure, but Zatanna's well aware of how things work in the world. To preserve the innocence of others, some people do have to act.

She just thinks it should be their choice to.]

There are people here entirely capable of protecting the ones who can't defend themselves, and yeah, that does include me. And not through positive thinking, either.

[When he thinks back on his own youth, he thinks fourteen does equate a certain level of stupidity.]

I'll sleep soundly knowing you're watching over us.

[Maybe in his case.]

Tell you what. Go ahead and hide your red balls again. Anywhere you want. Oh, after you tell me where you are.

[There'd been a reason why Zatanna had been able to pick out so many possible cheats--and beyond that, a reason why she's so confident abut this.]

You're really obsessed with whether or not this is a trick.

[Which he finds a little strange.]

Why so desperate to prove how smart you are?

[So far she's the only one who's taken the display the wrong way.]

I wasn't saying set it up again for the dog.

[Eyeroll. He's the one that just made a sarcastic comment about what she might or might not be able to do.]

And I'm not proving how smart I am. I'm going for capable.

[He shrugs, unsure of where she's going with this.]

Come by the rec room.

[He'll get it eventually. Although the walk to the rec room is enough time to make Zatanna wonder if this might not be a bad idea; after all, it's not exactly like the version of the spell she's done before.

But way too late to take it back now. She's got her pride as a teenaged superhero to think about, right?

So she shows up in short order, recognizing Ocelot from the video.]

Hey. Everything set up?

[Ocelot is reclining on a couch when Zatanna arrives. DD is curled up at his feet, but lifts his head to look at her when she comes in.]

Yup. The balls are hidden.

[He waits to see what she intends to do.]

[The dog at least gets a smile; he's definitely a cutie.]

Okay then. [Now, how to approach this. Zatanna's got two different spells she can try, but both have potential flaws. Just flat out trying to levitate the balls might not work because she can't see them when she looks into the room, and locating them is tricky because there's no magic to trace. Still, she got a good look at them when Ocelet put on his demonstration. And if Robin were here, he'd definitely be saying she could handle something like this.

So she takes a breath, then lifts her hands out in front of her to physically direct the mystical energy of the spell, and closes her eyes.]

Etacol dna etativel, rebbur sllab! [Tying the spells together, searching for what she can see in her mind and making the things float once they've been found. It's a gamble, but one that pays off when one of the balls floats up out of its hiding place a few seconds after she speaks the spell, then another, and another still. Zatanna repeats the words, strengthens the effort, until by her count she's found just as many as Ocelot had hidden before.]

There. [And there's no hiding her pleased grin as she turns to face the man, a hand on her hip.] How's that going to let you sleep at night?

[Ocelot waits to see what will happen. When she starts chanting some gibberish, it's clear there's some sort of magic at work here. The four red balls that were hiding are pulled from their spots just as she had planned.

DD looks really confused by the display and gets up to start barking at the floating objects. There's some crazy witchery happening to his chew toys and he's not sure how to feel about that!

As for Ocelot, when it's all done, he lifts his gloved hands and claps a few times.]

I'll sleep secure knowing that if I lose my keys, I know who to ask for help.

[That's a joke. He didn't bring his keys through the Ingress with him.]

But that was pretty good. You should put on a show. Talk to that morale officer on board.

[Yeah, joke or not? Still kind of a jerk.]

You know that's not all magic can do, right? [With a wave of her hand she ends the spell, letting the balls fall where they may.] Real magic, not just the stage stuff. And when I say that I can help protect people? I mean it. I've done it before.

Besides, my dad's the performer, not me. [The Amazing Zatara, who isn't on board the ship, or giving shows in Zatanna's world anymore.]

[When the balls drop DD immediately goes racing after one that rolls across the floor.]

I believe you can help protect people. But do you know how many people are on board this ship? And new ones are arriving every month.

Can your magic keep them all safe? All the time?

[Even if she said it could, he wouldn't believe it.]

As a soldier, I've walked into too many villages full of innocent people, all dead. Slaughtered. Their army couldn't protect them in time, and they had no knowledge of how to protect themselves. You start thinking every life is yours to protect, you're gonna be pretty crushed when you find out you can't protect 'em all.

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