21st August
20:58 GMT
"…simplest level of attack construct is an energy pulse." I generate a target ten metres away. "Lantern Tarant, take a shot."
Tarant looks at the target for a moment, then raises his right fist. His ring is on the middle of his three fingers, and the general pose he's using is the one he used when firing his exomantle's masers. He focuses for a moment, then a blast of orange light flashes out. The bolt strikes the target dead centre, dissipating to no appreciable effect. He makes a quiet snort to himself before looking at me to see if I want him to try again.
"A shot from a Darkstar maser will -power source allowing- always strike with the same power. Power rings do not work like that. They are empathic weapons." I dismiss the target and replace it with a Reach soldier. "Try again."
He clenches his fist, the orange bolt he fires being noticeably brighter than his first effort. The result is some minor cracking on the construct soldier's surface.
"Lantern Tarant has fought the Reach for a considerable period of time. Certainly, he defaults to wanting their soldiers destroyed more easily than he does a series of concentric circles." I dismiss the soldier and generate a Beetle construct. "When I intervened on Urrigen, the Darkstar coterie had been in continuous combat for three days. It is perfectly natural to feel fear in combat, and the Darkstars there were controlling theirs as expected from professional soldiers. Except Lantern Tarant, who was barely feeling any at all. Unusual, considering how lethal Beetles are to Darkstars."
"I've killed Scarab Warriors before."
"Glad to hear it. Kill this one."
"Meat!"
The construct Beetle opens its wings and shapeshifts its arms, a shield forming on its left and a blade on its right. It zips through the air directly towards Tarant at full speed-.
And is caught in the twin beams blasting from Tarant's forearms. The construct Beetle cracks and crumbles to orange fragments before fading completely.
"Tarant could do that because he really really wants to destroy Reach Beetles, and because animating it made it seem more like the things that he actually wants to destroy." Tarant himself is still staring in the direction the construct was coming from, his arms still raised. "But it turns out that he wants to destroy them a little too much. Lantern Tarant."
He grunts. Eyes locked, environmental shield flaring, muscles tensed and… Yes, orange sigils glowing in his eyes.
"Lantern Tarant, what planet are you on?"
"I'm-." I watch as he shudders, his overwhelming drive to fight the Reach being undermined by his rational appreciation that this is a training exercise. "I'm.. fighting…" His environmental shield fades to its original level. "What was that?"
"That was your brain on the orange light. You gave that shot your all?"
"Y-yeah."
His environmental shield cuts off for a moment as his fear of losing control like that causes yellow light interference.
"Lantern Tarant, remove your ring and take a moment to collect yourself."
"Yes sir." His hands shake slightly as he gingerly grasps his ring with the fingers of his left hand and pulls it free.
"And that's the other reason we're doing this somewhere with a breathable atmosphere." Tarant stares at his ring for a moment and then stows it in one of the pouches on his uniform. "Everyone notice what Lantern Tarant's environmental shield was doing there?" Dox doesn't move, but the others all give me affirmative gestures appropriate to their physiology. "Years of warfare have left Lantern Tarant with a very strong desire to destroy the Reach. On that last shot he channelled all of it and was overwhelmed." Tarant trudges back to the group and sits down hard, not quite looking at anyone as he tries to work out what the heck just happened. "He became convinced that the Reach were about to attack. I'm not sure that he was even aware that the rest of us were still here." I raise my eyebrows. "Were you?"
"I…" He blinks, eyes still not focusing on us. "I wasn't… Thinking about you."
"This world is highly defended and the rest of us are more than capable of taking down anything short of a full Beetle strike force. And yet, his need to strike them down overwhelmed his rationality. One of the things you're all going to learn is what your own warning signs are."
Dox give me a shallow nod. "What are yours?"
I smile, flaring out my environmental shield as I rise into the air to better emphasise my point. "I don't have any. I have attained enlightenment. I have perfect unity with and awareness of my desires. Though I am.. no longer precisely the man I was before. This doesn't mean that I can do anything; I still have to actually want to do a thing and the mortal frame is only capable of wanting a thing so much. However, it has left me exceedingly powerful and mentally stable."
K-K'p wiggles his mandibles. "How do we attain such power?"
"No idea. I did it through months of meditation and self reflection, constant ring-usage while maintaining my humanitas, followed by merging with the Ophidian and managing to separate again. If you want to try working towards that, be my guest. I'd suggest leaving the advanced stuff until you've gotten the hang of the basics, but since the first steps are the basic training I'm giving you anyway…."
"Now, did you notice how Lantern Tarant's environmental shield shut down for a moment?" Another round of affirmatives. "His fear of what happened to him overwhelmed his personal desires. As such, his ring temporarily shut down because it could no longer connect him to the orange light. Needless to say, that happening in combat is very bad. And why you'll all be wearing spacesuits or armour when we start practising space combat."
I take a hologram projector out of subspace and activate it, displaying the sigils of each of the Lantern Corps… Or at least each of the colours.
"Those of you who have seen Green Lanterns will be familiar with the sigil in the centre. Green is the colour of willpower. Those who use it focus their minds on precisely what they want the ring to do in order to generate constructs. Doing the same yourselves will turn your rings off. To the left we have the sigil of the yellow light of fear. The only extant user of this colour is the Green Lanterns' former First Lantern, Thaal Sinestro. If you act with the intent of causing fear or are overwhelmed by fear yourself, your ring will turn off. On the right, the sigil of the blue light of hope. No one uses it. Feel too much hope and your ring will turn off. At mid-left, we have our own sigil. The orange light of avarice is what you will be trained to use. Focusing on it will allow you to fight. Focusing on it too much will drive you mad. Lantern Tarant got a mild flash of what it can be like. If you want to see a more extreme example, visit the Blue Cells and try talking to Larfleeze."
"Far left, we have the red light of rage and hate. You've all got cause to be angry, and several of you hate the Reach. That's fine in itself, but if you focus on those emotions during combat?"
I click my right thumb and forefinger and point at Strata.
"What happens?"
"Our rings will turn off."
"Quite." I nod. "Mid-right, we have the indigo sigil of compassion. Feel too compassionate? Your ring will turn off. Last but not least, the violet sigil of love. Used by the Zamarons. If you focus on love your ring will turn off."
I smile. "And the kicker is, remaining able to feel each of them is a vital component to you remaining sane. I have no interest in turning you into semi-guided weapons. I am creating a Lantern Corps of Lanterns. I will teach you to focus without becoming too narrowly focused, to feel without being overwhelmed by feeling and to fight and to not fight. And if it all goes wrong and we're forced to put you in the Blue Cells with Larfleeze I will do my best to restore you to sanity."
I look around the group. "Any questions before we move on?"
