Title: Teigu User in Young Justice
Premise/Rough Summary: A teenage orphan with dreams of one day making it out of the streets of Gotham discovers his ring may just be the catalyst, but will it lead to his desired future or something else?
Extra Info: MC is not reincarnated, he was born in the world of YJ. No harem, he will have one LI and it will be Zatanna. This whole thing is kinda meh if I'm being honest, but I liked it.
MC Appearance: Aaron Taylor Johnson
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Chapter Title: Ring
Gotham City
May 4, 18:00 EDT
In a subway car packed so tight, the passengers were like a can of sardines, a brown-haired green-eyed boy standing at 5' 8" (172 cm) wearing glasses, a Gotham University hoodie, and a backpack with a ratty-old skateboard strapped to it, had a pen in his mouth while looking at the folded-up newspaper showing the day's crossword puzzle.
Directly next to him, a man in a suit covered by a trench coat was talking on the phone loudly, disrupting all the other passengers.
With a sudden jolt of movement from the train, the boy bumped into the man in the suit before moving back to his original position and apologizing for the contact.
After a minute, the train came to a stop and the boy got off the train and made his way to the surface while checking the wallet he had nabbed from the man.
'Enough for a few days.' thought Max Sheffield, as he took the cash from the wallet, threw the rest away in the nearest trash can, and put his hood up before blending into the crowd.
After walking for a few minutes, he ensured he wasn't being followed before putting his hood back down and removing the fake glasses. He then unstrapped the skateboard from his backpack and hopped on it. Unfortunately, as soon as he put his weight on the old board, it splintered in half, finally giving out.
"Shit." he mumbled to himself, sad that his favorite mode of transportation and only means of fun had finally given out.
He picked up the two halves of the board, looked at them, and reminisced for a moment before throwing them into a trash can and starting his walk home.
Max walked the streets with a familiarity, not one that could be found in any person who had lived their entire life in one city but rather the sense of familiarity that comes with living on the streets.
Max was homeless, a street rat.
He was orphaned at a very young age and was left with only vague memories of smiling faces and a plain unadorned ring he wore as a necklace by which to remember his parents.
Due to having no living relatives, he was thrown into the system. Unfortunately, the orphanage he was thrown into was not an ideal place to live and after a few years of enduring the hellhole, he decided to run away.
That was the start of his life as a street rat, but Max didn't feel bad about it, after all, there were worse ways to live.
Just because Max was homeless didn't mean he wanted to be homeless forever. He had plans to enroll in high school, graduate, and get into a good college to live a normal life. He hoped to get a high-paying job that would allow him to donate money and/or supplies to orphanages, and he even dreamed of one day fully funding a proper orphanage. But for the time being, those were all just hopes and dreams that he had.
The thing he needed to focus on was staying alive long enough to make those dreams a reality. And when you lived on the streets of Gotham, that was easier said than done.
On the way from the subway stop to the area Max called home, he heard the sounds of sirens and gunshots more than once. And it wasn't even nighttime. After all, nighttime was when the real bad guys came out, not the two-bit thugs that played at being villains but the real villains of Gotham.
Of course, nighttime was also when Batman and his sidekick, Robin, came out to fight the villains. They were the flashlights in Gotham's pitch darkness, and like any other regular person, Max admired them.
Back when he first became a street rat at the age of 9, Max had accidentally wandered into a drug deal while looking for a place to sleep. Naturally, the participating parties did not take kindly to his interruption and decided to get rid of him then and there to avoid any potential witnesses.
Being a young kid who had gone through his fair share of experiences, especially while living at the orphanage, he was more calm and collected than one would expect from a kid his age. But even as calm as he usually was, having a gun pointed at him was not something he was ready for.
Thankfully, Batman and his, at the time, new sidekick appeared and they took down the dealers before anything could happen to him. They told him to go home and not wander at night, and then they disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
That was the day his admiration for heroes began, and that's also when he, like any other kid, began to dream of one day being a hero. Of course, he knew better than to think he would one day be one, but he decided that when he got older, he would be one in his own way.
But as he got older and more jaded at the world, those dreams of being heroic morphed into being a decent person who does decent things. Though his pickpocketing is not something one would consider decent, he only takes from those who seem like they wouldn't miss it so no foul there.
As Max walked block after block, his surroundings began to change from the cleaner and wealthier parts of Gotham to the grungier and shadier parts. Unfortunately, a street rat like Max couldn't make his home in the nicer parts of Gotham because all the places there were taken by other homeless people, so he had to make his home in the real Gotham.
Thanks to years of living on the streets of Gotham, he wasn't afraid of walking alone at night so he didn't see any need to rush home. He decided to enjoy his walk and let his mind wander.
A while later, nightfall had fallen, and the streets were deserted. Max was already near his home, an abandoned building that had been condemned for some reason.
As he neared his home, he heard the all too familiar noises of distant gunshots and screeching tires so he decided to ignore them and keep walking. But the terrified scream for help from a female was something that made him stop in his tracks.
"Help! Hel-" managed to shout a female voice before being cut off at the end.
'Not good.' thought Max as he turned and made his way in the direction from which the shouting came before ending up in front of an alley.
'Always an alley.'
The alleyway was between two tall buildings and there was no light source except the faint moonlight, making it nearly pitch black.
Max strained his eyes to try to see anything but was unable. Unsure of whether to go in, a very faint noise of what sounded like something being dragged across the ground made his mind up for him.
Instead of rushing in and potentially getting hurt or worse dying, he decided to crouch and quietly make his way down the alleyway. As he made his way down it, the dragging noise began to get louder and louder until finally, he could faintly see two figures.
The one being dragged was an unconscious woman and the other was a man wearing a pig mask.
"I'll make you beautiful, don't worry. You'll be perfect. Just like the rest of them. Perfect. Beautiful and perfect." muttered the pig man as he continued to drag the woman.
'This guy is definitely off his rocker. Even if I could call the cops, they wouldn't get here in time and that woman is probably as good as dead. Which means it's on me if that lady lives or dies.' thought Max.
Looking around his immediate surroundings, Max tried to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon but the lack of light was working against him. Using his hands to slowly and carefully feel around himself, his hand came upon some pebbles before coming across a big glass bottle.
Carefully picking it up, he felt it was a heavy and thick glass bottle that still faintly smelled of alcohol.
'This'll do. Okay, the plan is to distract him by throwing a pebble past him, make him turn around, sneak up on him, and hit him over the head while trying not to smash the bottle into a million pieces. Go time.'
Picking up one of the pebbles he felt moments earlier, he then tossed it as hard as he could in the direction the pig man was dragging the lady.
PLINK
"Hm?" said the pig man, dropping the lady's legs and turning to look in the direction the noise came from.
Seeing this, Max started to quietly but quickly approach the pig man while he was still turned around. As soon as he was close enough to hit him, Max swung the bottle as hard as he could at the pig man's head, shattering the bottle in the process.
CRACK THUNK THUD
The bottle breaking and the subsequent cuts on Max's hands and face were not part of the plan, but having the pig man go down was worth a few injuries.
'Deal with my injuries later, I got to get her out of here.' he thought with gritted teeth as he threw away what was left of the bottle before going over to the lady and gently shaking her.
"Wake up." he said as he shook her before looking back at the pig man to make sure he was still down.
"Damn." he said after not getting a response from her, "I'll have to move her."
Before he could get behind her head and drag her away by her arms, his foot was pulled from under him, catching him off guard and causing him to fall over.
"Oof." said Max as the wind was knocked out from him.
"How dare you interrupt me?! I'm making her beautiful!" shouted the pig man as he stood back up and loomed over Max.
"Why must people like you stop me from making people beautiful?! I'm helping them! Can't you see that?! I'm making her perfect!" he shouted like a madman, spit flying everywhere.
"You're a psycho." said Max as he quickly stood back up and got into a defensive stance while slowly inching away from the pig man.
"I'm not a psycho! I'm an artist! A humanitarian! These people tell me they want to be beautiful and perfect! I help them be who they really want to be!" he shouted before pulling out a giant meat cleaver.
"I heard her scream for help." said Max, trying to keep him talking while looking for something to help him deal with the situation.
"Exactly! She screamed for help! She wanted my help!" he said waving the cleaver around.
"Then why did you knock her out?" he asked as he slowly inched his way to the broken bottle, the only thing near him that would be of any use.
"Enough talking!" he shouted at Max, cleaver pulled back for a throw.
As soon as Max heard the word enough come out from the pig man's mouth, he made a beeline for the broken bottle, but in his rush to get there, his footing wasn't perfect, causing him to slip.
WHOOSH
As luck would have it, Max's poor footing allowed him to narrowly dodge the cleaver that was on track to hit him square in the head.
Looking back at where the cleaver landed, Max paused for a moment and realized that he was in a situation where one mistake would cost him his life. But seeing the unconscious lady and the pig madman made all those thoughts disappear from his head.
He reached for the ring his parents left, something he did quite often when in distress or when he needed to reaffirm his decisions. As soon as his bloodied hands grabbed the ring, it started to glow.
A second later the ring had disappeared from the string and reappeared on Max's left-hand index finger. Gone was the plain and unadorned grey ring that Max was used to. The ring was now black, metallic, and cold to the touch with an inner band surrounding the wider outer band, with intricate silver carvings on the outer band.
"What the hell?" said Max whose calm demeanor, which had not wavered much even in the face of a madman, was completely replaced by bewilderment.
Yet even that level of bewilderment was surpassed when some information appeared in Max's head.
"Imperial Arms Ring?" he said after digesting the information which only included the name of the ring and what he was supposed to do to activate it.
But his ruminations would be left to wait.
"Ahh! Enough!" yelled the pig man pulling out another cleaver before running at Max.
Seeing the pig man running at him, Max recalled the information that was implanted into him and he looked down at the ring before using his thumb to spin it.
As soon as the inner band began to spin, numbers began to flash on the band before finally settling on the number 39.
'Snake Staff: Jaffar'
The next second, the ring disappeared before reappearing as a staff topped with a cobra's head. The cobra was crafted from gold, shimmering and polished with an intricately detailed head inlaid with ruby red menacing eyes and emerald green bands along the elegantly curved body.
Along with the transformation from ring to staff, came basic information about the weapon, but Max was unable to fully digest the information thanks to the pig man trying to butcher him.
Max raised the staff, pointed the cobra's eyes in the pig man's direction, and willed it to activate.
The cobra's ruby eyes lit up, grabbing the rushing pig man's attention. The beautiful ruby eyes began to swirl in a mesmerizing pattern and the pig man was entranced, causing him to slow down and stop.
Max, seeing that the pig man stopped, quickly digested the information of the staff and realized that it had the power to hypnotize people and make them very susceptible to his orders.
"Drop the cleaver." said Max, testing out the waters.
Without a moment of hesitation, the pig man dropped the cleaver.
"Uh, sit." he said.
Again, without hesitating, he dropped to the floor and sat down.
'Holy shit.' thought Max, 'This thing works. But why did my ring transform into a new ring and then transform into this staff? And why has it never been activated before?'
Caught up in his thoughts, Max let his concentration slip, deactivating the staff's powers.
"What did you do?!" yelled the pig man after snapping out of the hypnosis.
"Shit." said Max, willing the staff to activate again.
Like the first time, the cobra's ruby eyes began to shine, enticing any who looked but unlike the first time, the pig man was not affected.
"Ahh!" he yelled as he rushed Max and tackled him, once again knocking the wind out of him.
"You ruined everything!" yelled the pig man as he started to wail on Max, rattling his brain and causing him to be unable to focus.
Even with his brain rattled Max knew he had to do something or he would die.
'Can't...die...yet.' he thought as he forced himself to endure.
A few moments later, the pig man stopped punching Max and was just breathing heavily on top of him. That's when Max saw his opportunity.
With as much strength as he could muster, he swung the snake staff at the pig man's head, hitting him straight on and knocking him off of him.
Quickly scrambling to his feet, swaying as he did so, he grabbed the staff like a bat, ready to swing it at the pig man should he be still on the attack. Instead, he noticed that the pig man was on his side and unconscious. Having been tricked once, Max gave him a good kick to the face to make sure he was out.
"Sigh." said Max as all the tension in his body disappeared, dropping to the ground to rest.
'Holy shit.' he thought as he put his hand to his chest only to feel his heart beating hard and fast.
After a minute or two to calm down, Max decided to inspect the staff more closely. As he was about to do so, the staff melted and the ring reappeared on his finger.
'Imperial Arms Ring. Contains 48 different Imperial Arms, each with its own unique appearance and abilities. I have to spin the ring to see which one of the 48 I get.' he thought as he recalled the information that appeared with the ring.
'Just one is already strong and useful, I can't imagine what the 47 others are like.' he thought, tempted to spin the ring again to see another Imperial Arm.
"Cool ring." said a young voice from above Max.
Turning to look at who talked, Max laid eyes on the most famous duo in Gotham, Batman and Robin.
"Thanks." said Max after staring at the two in awe for a few seconds.
"Can it do anything else?" asked Robin.
"Robin." said Batman in a gruff and deep voice while tying up the pig man.
"Hahaha, sorry." said Robin, "Nice job on the fight. For an amateur anyway."
"How long have you two been watching?" asked Max.
"Since you slipped." he said with a smile.
"And you didn't help me? I could've died." said Max, a little angry that they let him fight for so long without stepping in.
"We were going to step in but then that whole shining ring thing happened. Then Bats got curious." he explained.
"How did you get involved in this mess?" asked Batman after he had finished tying up the pig man.
"I was walking by when I heard a woman scream for help. I ran over and I saw that pig man dragging her so I put his attention elsewhere and then I hit him with a bottle. I was going to drag her away but he wasn't out completely and he got me. You saw the rest after that." explained Max.
"You got lucky. That's no regular bad guy. That's Professor Pyg. He's a kidnapper and murderer who does surgery on his kidnapees. Most die but the ones who live wish they had." said Robin.
"Good thing I intervened then." said Max, looking at the lady.
"What's your name? Do your parents know where you are?" asked Batman.
"Max Sheffield and I'm an orphan. Don't have parents or a home. Just a place where I sleep." he said, not noticing that the duo gave each other a look when he mentioned that he was an orphan due to still looking at his ring.
"I see." said Batman.
"So what's the deal with the ring? Some new kind of tech? Or something alien?" he asked getting close to Max to see the ring.
"No clue. Before today it was just a normal ring that I've had around my neck for as long as I can remember. It was the only thing I had to remember my parents." explained Max as he looked at the ring.
"Then how'd you know to spin it?" asked Batman.
"I just knew. I felt like I should and I did. That's also how I knew what the staff did. I felt it." said Max, keeping the fact that he had the information implanted directly into his mind a secret.
"So if it gave you that staff when it landed on 39, does that mean if you spin it again it'll give you something else?" asked Robin.
"I think so."
"Spin it." said Robin with a smile.
"No." said Batman.
"But."
"No."
"Fine, fine. Anyway, Bats, can-"
"No."
"But-"
"No."
"Come on. You gave me a chance. Give him one." said Robin, confusing Max.
"No." said Batman.
"Fine then consider it keeping an eye on that ring. We don't know if someone else can use it and if they can, we don't know what that ring can do." said Robin.
"..."
While Batman was silent, Robin looked at Max and gave him a wink, confusing him even more.
"Fine."
"Alright!" said Robin before putting his arm around Max, "Looks like you're coming home with us."
"Huh?"
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AN
I am not going to choose what Teigu/Imperial Arms is used, I roll a number picker from 1 to 48 and the number that it lands on is the Teigu the number corresponds to that will be used.
As for the Teigu themselves, not all of them are known. 31 of them have names, 5 of them are unnamed, and the rest are unknown.
Of the 31 known ones, I decided to make changes to some of them but left nearly all of them the same. For example, Black Marlin, the ring that allowed for water to be controlled I changed to a tattoo that is the water equivalent of Esdeath's, allowing for conjuring/controlling of water/liquids.
Another example would be the scythe Adayusu, I changed it to Rhaast and since its abilities were nearly all unknown I made it like Kayn's Shadow form from League. Also, I know Rhaast is the Daarkin but I thought shadow abilities would be more interesting than hemomancy/sentient scythe, though it does talk to him when he uses it.
I also changed the forms for some, but as with their abilities, most of them are as they are in the anime/manga.
Of the 5 that are unnamed, some have descriptions of what they do and some have their abilities fully described but I had to come up with it myself for the most part. There is one that is a Trap Teigu that is used in the Imperial Palace, I changed that to something else as it's pretty useless IMO.
Of the remaining 12, I made some up myself and chose some from other anime/media. For example, I chose Mjolnir from Records of Ragnarok as one or Lostvayne from Seven Deadly Sins, things like that.
I was thinking of adding the Shingu which are weaker versions of Teigu that mostly come out in the prequel but decided against it. I did get inspiration from the Shingu for one of the missing Teigu.
As for the names, it's actually a lot harder than you might think so some of the names are quite simple/ass.