With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
16:18 GMT

"Ragnar, good to see you with us." I form cold gun constructs and transmit my targeting solutions to Guy. "You're on rearguard duty. Keep moving downwards at best speed, and otherwise do your best to kill anyone following us."

His head appears over my second ring, flickering and glitching as its ancient and primitive systems try to cope with his ersatz ring's transmissions. "This feels like fleeing."

"It may feel like fleeing but it's actually a tactical manoeuvre which brings us closer to our objective. Feel free to turn and face Lantern Duran once we're out over the Ash Plains."

Okay, the tunnel going downwards is sixty metres in diameter. It probably used to be used for spacecraft or missiles, but from the cargo lifts built into the sides I'm going to assume that it is now used mostly for transporting goods, supplies and personnel. Should I be surprised that the Qwardians don't have a teleportation system, or would that just be because if they can teleport from one point to another any potential attacker would have the same ability? This way, anyone who wants to get in has to either blast their way through miles of rock or breach a heavily fortified location.

I spin across the passageway as the first blasts from the automated defences fire, fat orange/yellow Kirby Dot impregnated beams of something firing up at me and mine. Shots are… Relative velocity… About half a second long, the guns' capacitors taking an appreciable amount of time to charge up between shots. I see Guy firing bolts of green energy at them… Still bolts, but at least he's not projecting them directly from his ring anymore. The guns have energy shielding… What kind, I wonder? I aim my cold guns at the ones he's already weakened and fire, even as I generate railguns to replace-.

Oh my goodness me, Guy just made a railgun. For a fraction of a second I'm so flabbergasted that I just blink. Yes, I gave him some ammunition for Christmas but I never actually thought that he'd use it in combat. Okay. I fire at the other turrets, crumbler rounds striking and disintegrating the… Plasma shields. Those we can deal with. The armoured cowling is made of the same stuff as the Thunderers' shields but rings are nothing if not precise instruments and the guns are fixed. Hitting the lightly armoured areas is no problem.

Flying downwards fast like this is actually quite an odd experience. I'm blasting towards a ground I can't see… Can't even detect, really. I mean, I got a reasonable map of the place from Guy so I know roughly how far down we're going but I'm very glad that my ring is making it so that my inner ear thinks I'm flying level-.

Dull green beams flash past me and score the sides of the tunnel.

"Ragnar, have-?"

"I checked the angle. I knew he would miss."

"If you're hard pressed, I can fire-."

"No! I have this!"

On his head be it. Duran doesn't appear able to fly faster than us, so the melee weapons he and Ragnar both favour are off the table. Energy bolt exchanges are largely ineffectual, with both of them able to absorb shots better than they can land them. There isn't.. really an easy way for me to assist Ragnar. Duran appears to have decided that the best approach is to keep Ragnar between him and us, and neither of them are dodging that much. I can't get a clear shot with a crumbler-.

Another volley from the tunnel guns fires upwards. One gets a glancing hit on my construct armour, abrading it but otherwise causing no damage. Guy isn't using armour, he's just maintaining an armoured plate in front of him and letting it fail as he takes hits. It's probably a lot easier for a Green Lantern to do it that way than making conventional armour. We both target the new guns and open fire, blowing them apart in a hail of railgun rounds, energy pulses and cold beams. The wrecked guns from our initial exchange flash past me-.

The guns further down open fire, this time with light speed weapons. I increase the reflectivity of my construct armour in response, causing the lasers to splash off harmlessly. A pink-agh-.

Ugh. I shove off the wall, recreate my engine constructs and resume my full throttle downwards blast. Okay, quantum detonators aren't affected by shininess. I send Guy a revised targeting schedule at the exact same moment I receive his. I send an acknowledgement, then start firing. Actually, I should probably start firing something at the armoured door at the bottom of the shaft. Or at least at the walls near the end, because we're probably going to either come out into a fortified building in a Qwardian city or a fortress in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, let's get-.

My shots pass harmlessly through the weapon hardpoints as they shift out of phase.

Aaaaahhhh… That's a problem.

"Guy, phasing turrets. Don't have any Nth Metal on you, do you?"

"Actually, no."

Okay… Okay… I've got phasic rounds. It's just a matter of matching phase, and there are only a few dozen that are usable with the energy requirements that other frequencies have. Um, select a target, set the round to a frequency at random, fire-.

Below me, Guy blasts a chunk out of the tunnel wall next to a phased turret, causing the rock and metal to explode outwards and send the turret tumbling downwards.

…

Okay, brute force and ignorance it is then.

I dismiss my existing weapon constructs and generate two large railguns, load them with crumbler rounds and fire.

"Ragnar, if you get the chance, try to provoke Lantern Duran into throwing a qwa-bolt directly down towards the bottom of the shaft."

"He is not some puppet I can play at your convenience!"

I fire again, smashing another pair to guns off their mounts. "Try taunting him."

"I am taunting him!"

"Try taunting him more." Another pair of shots, but this time the lasers switch their attention from me to strike at my rounds. The simple kinetic strike that results when the crumbler mechanism is destroyed does nothing like enough damage to prevent the gun from-.

Araugh!

Constructs gone, I'm hurtling downwards… Slower than I was a moment ago. Ah, let's see, construct armour gone, weapons gone, armour… Somewhat battered but actually doing-.

Lasers pierce my right arm, chest and left leg, and-. Okay, the ring prevents me from feeling pain exactly but it's still bloody disconcerting. I re-establish my construct armour-. No, thicken it, I'm not going to have to fight anything particularly manoeuvrable in it. Good, thrusters back on and try catching up with Guy-.

"Guy, are you alright?"

"Been better. Still… Flyin'."

"Okay, we should only have a minute until we're inside Qward and can try breaking out. Did you ever get around to adding a kinetic barrier to your costume?"

"Yeah? Why?"

"Because I'm not totally sure where the bottom is, and I want to make sure that we'll both survive if we fly into it at full force."

"…good thinkin' thereooooh crap."

"What?"

A qwa-bolt burns through the air to my right.

"We got incomin'."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
16:21 GMT

The fact that the Thunderers surging up the tunnel are armed identically to the ones we defeated up above probably says something about Qwardian psychology. Okay, I can understand standardising armaments, and in a place like Qward those are always going to be high quality… But they must already know that those aren't enough to kill us. I didn't detect any transmissions, but hiding transmissions from power rings is something I had assumed that Qwardians did by default. Plus, they're slower than us, so once we're past them they're going to struggle to catch up. Their formation is okay; dispersed enough horizontally and vertically that they can evade without flying into each other and fire without queering each other's shots.

Thin purple beams from the Thunderers' conventional guns stab upwards as Guy and I both adopt more violent evasive patterns. A couple of hits, but it's nothing that my construct armour can't take. Two more yellow blurs shoot past me, the qwa-energy smashing into the tunnel above us. Hah! The debris is falling more slowly than we are! I mean, unless the Thunderers have much better inertia control than I think they do it'll be a problem for them-.

I wonder how much damage this tunnel can take without crumbling completely?

"Guy, it might be helpful for us to grab some of their qwa-bolts."

"Those things go off if anyone who ain't Qwardian touches 'em. Cutting off their hands ain't gunna cut it."

Drat. Oh, wait, I can mind control people. "Can you handle the tunnel guns for a bit? I've got an idea."

"Oh, sure. No sweat."

"Thank you."

I select a Thunderer toward the rear of the pack. He has a full quiver, probably because his hands are occupied with a gun… I'm going to guess a graviton-augmented positron blaster. Not something I'd want to get hit by, but nothing like in the same damage league as a qwa-bolt. Still dodging around the tunnel I spread filaments outwards and then down, moving them as fast as I can ahead of me.

"That's interesting. What are you doing?"

Right, Kalmin.

"These aren't your men I take it?"

"Thunderers answer to the Thunderlord, and through him to the Council of Commanders. I don't command them. In fact, this is the longest conversation I've had with another living being in years."

"Since Sinestro welshed on his end of your compact."

"Whether through improbity or a failure of capacity, his inability to destroy the Green Lantern Corps, kill any Guardians or provide us with further information on the Anti-Monitor marked me as a failure. I gambled on an alien and I lost."

Recognising my filaments as potential threats the Thunderers start directing fire towards them. Several are broken, but any Thunderer who stops weaving long enough to get a decent shot gets shot himself. To cover the gaps I cause the filaments to branch, dividing themselves to ensure that I maintain full coverage. I also make them extend back up towards me in order to ensure that I maintain a connection to as many points as possible.

And now the bottom ends of the filaments are past the outer ranks of the Thunderers. Assuming that Thunderer armour is construct-resistant enough to defy weak filaments, that leaves my target's unarmoured neck and face as my only potential points of contact. I think he's noticed that they haven't carried on travelling past him, but rather than trying to dodge more he's dodging less to try and shoot them.

Alright then.

Filaments surge out and latch onto his neck.

Brand.

Too much red-orange around for me to see clearly, but I imagine that he's experiencing a fair bit of yellow at the moment. Resistance feels minimal, the Thunderer's desire to destroy being stronger than their obedience to whatever orders they've been given.

"Brand complete."

I abandon the lower section of filaments, then release Praexis Demons higher up. Directly into the faces of the Thunderers.

Hem them in.

Demons latch onto Thunderers, scrabbling at their armour and struggling to bite them. Several miss, falling past them and then trying to go fast enough to obey my command. I change my orders to the ones who end up lowest, instructing them to scout ahead instead. Others I tag with filaments, recall and then fire at the Thunderers again.

You want to kill the other Thunderers.

My new companion slows his ascent slightly and takes a qwa-bolt out of his quiver.

The Thunderer response to the Demons is well disciplined. They stow their guns and draw their qwa-swords, each stab disintegrating a Demon with little visible damage being inflicted on the Thunderer. But now they're drifting together, and they're too distracted to see their brother in arms prepping a qwa-bolt.

"What are those? Some form of Demon of the Orange Light? I have not seen such things since our master's departure."

"You'll see a whole lot more in a little while."

"Oh, I hope so."

My other ring lights up again. "How do I make this ring heal me again?"

"Focus on your desire for absolute physical wellness… Ah, in your case, your need to be in perfect condition in order to give your foes the best fight possible. And-"

"Agh!"

"-growing things back can hurt a great deal."

"… Understood."

The Thunderers are as bunched up as they're going to get, and my operative sees that and throws. The qwa-bolt strikes a Thunderer towards the centre of the group, utterly annihilating him and those closest.

Connection lost.

It also annihilates my Praexis Demons and heavily injures the rest of the Thunderer strike force as well, sending them careening around in an out-of-control tumble or plummeting downwards. Excellent. My operative beneath then blinks, smiling slightly as he grabs a new bolt to throw at us.

No. You no longer want to kill us. Your highest priority is to blast a hole through the guard at the base of the tunnel.

He jerks, then slows to a stop in the air. Then he grabs a qwa-bolt, aims and throws as we fly past him. The yellow beam blasts past us and I can dimly see it destroying something. Of course, at the speed we're going-.

"Tunnel end approaching! Brace brace brace!"

"I am somewhat occupied-."

Guy and I plunge through into the layer of sensor-dampening dust and rubble. The Praexis Demons I sent ahead as scouts are.. somewhere in here and they can't see more than-.

We shoot out into the sky of Qward, the ruins of the lower entry point behind us and rubble raining down on the Qwardian city below us. Guy and I pull up immediately, lowering our speed. He smiles, flares his environmental shield to remove the dust and nods at me.

"Made it."

"Right, so now we have the hard bit-."

Ragnar and Duran drop out, fat tentacles of orange and green pulling, ripping and tearing at each other as they both hurtle towards the ground.

"Stopping Ragnar getting himself killed."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
16:24 GMT

I raise my left hand as Ragnar generates a new sword and slashes at Duran in a spirited attempt to cleave him in two which Duran blocks on a new shield construct. Rather than, say, try to get away.

"Kalmin, is there any way to extend an Anti-Green Lantern's life? If it's just a matter of pride now I'm sure that Ragnar would be happy to fight him later."

"I focused my research on destructive technologies. It may well be that there are ways of extending their lives known to others. But there are none known to me."

"Wait, you're talkin' t'-?" Guy stares at the floating head. "The hell y' doin', Paul?"

"A Green Lantern! I am pleased."

"He just appeared. And it's not like they can't track us anyway." I generate a railgun construct and load a crumbler round. "Just a moment."

"You!" Guy comes closer, jabbing his right forefinger at Kalmin's face. "You're that Chief Weaponer bastard who created the Anti-Green rings!"

I fire, the crumbler round neatly striking the dull green construct tentacles a moment before Ragnar is fully enveloped. They evaporate, throwing Ragnar free as his own construct continues to hold Duran in place. "Ragnar! Fight on the move!"

"You tell me where you are-" Guy cracks his knuckles. "-an' I might go easy on yah."

"But I don't want you to 'go easy' on me. I want you to kill me."

Guy nods. "We can do that."

Ragnar heads in our direction, his constructs constricting Duran weakening enough for him to break free in a surge of green light moments before slamming into a Qwardian skyscraper. He slams through the armoured window, construct armour flickering and cracking as he continues to plough through the building's interior.

"We can? I mean, obviously I can, but you can?"

"Took a while, but the Guardians approved a shoot to kill on Qwardian officers. So come on, tell us where you are and we'll make it quick. In the palace in Krama Dhu? Hal said that was where you used to-."

"Allow me." His face is replaced by a floating arrow as a decidedly unhappy Ragnar reaches us. "It should take you minutes at most."

Guy and I look at each other and he shrugs. "He's the objective. Might as well."

He and Ragnar accelerate in the direction indicated. I take a moment to watch the city, noting the Thunder Fortresses even now sending Thunderers after us. Yep. We're going to need to head back to the matter universe the moment we reach Kalmin. Fortunately, there don't appear to be any patrol fleets nearby and the fixed guns around the outer walls have even less chance of hitting us than the ones in the tunnel did. Duran pulls himself out of the smashed in building a moment later, so I take a moment to fire a volley of crumbler rounds at him before taking off after Guy. The ring shows him try to evade, but he still takes a hit which collapses his construct armour.

The air howls through the intakes of our scramjet constructs as we power through the air.

"Ships comin' in from the…" Guy takes a moment as he realises that Earthly directions don't mean anything on Qward. He points. "Thataway. Any idea where we're goin'?"

"My keep isn't far. You will reach me before they will reach you. And if they work out that you are coming here they will most likely pull back."

"Why do you want to die?"

"Because I am a loyal servant of the Anti-Monitor. I studied under Chief Weaponer Kiman the Studious. I was there when he finally succeeded in breaking open the Golden Obelisk of Qward."

"Wasn't that whole thing some kinda Qwardian practical joke? You all spent hundreds of years tryin' t' get in, then it turned out there was nothin' in there?"

"So my ignorant countrymen believed. So they still believe to this day. You, orange Lantern. What say you?"

"It's not the destination, it's the journey?"

"Yes! Exactly! The effort of breaking into it forced us to constantly improve our understanding and control of the universe. Even Yokal The Atrocious' use of wild alien animals forced us to reach out our hands to other worlds in order to capture them. Always, we had a goal, and when we reached it we found that the mission it set us had given us everything we hoped to take from the interior of the obelisk itself! Sublime!"

"Still not seeing-."

"Kiman fell from power after most other Qwardians didn't appreciate that point. I saw then that Qward needed a new mission, and that a man as widely held in contempt as he could not provide it. So I killed him and took his place."

"Yeah, you're a real piece of work."

"But if your gamble with Sinestro failed, why are you still alive?"

"Because Varnathon is a coward. I accepted culpability! I should be dead now! That I am allowed to continue living is an insult to the Anti-Monitor, to Qward and to me. But if I cannot die by the hand of my successor as is my right, dying at the hands of my enemy is the next best thing." He looks mildly disappointed. "And if Harold Jordan of Earth isn't here, you'll have to do."

"Little while ago, you sayin' that would a' really got t' me."

"But now you recognise the truth of his natural superiority?"

"No. I learned how t' do this."

Guy raises his left hand, a brilliant corona of emerald light building around it for three seconds before a beam of emerald energy lances out into the distance. Ring, where was he aiming?

The ring shows me what looks like a squat stone castle, now missing one tower and quite a lot of wall.

"You weren't in that bit, right?"

"Astounding. Lantern, I am genuinely impressed."

Guy grins. "Well… I hate t' brag…"

"Allow me to retort."

Gun turrets deploy along the battlements, and we all raise construct shields moments before the high-powered light speed shots start slamming into us.

"Hey! I thought you wann'ed t' die!"

"Everything worthwhile in life is bought with blood and pain, Green Lantern. If you want to be the one to kill me, you're going to have to earn it."

Ragnar nods enthusiastically. "I like the way this one thinks!"

Yes. Of course you do.

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
16:27 GMT

Guy grimaces and tries to brace himself in mid-air, semi-crouching behind a construct barrier as the shots slam into us. "For a guy who wants to die-" I generate construct railguns and cold guns and begin targeting the turrets. "-you're sure putting a lotta effort-" The initial fusillade stops as the guns switch to firing in sequence. "-int' stoppin' us!"

"I neither want to die nor want to live. I simply realise that I have outlived my time, and that death is… An appropriate conclusion to my career."

I fire at a turret which is about to fire, striking the barrel just as its firing mechanism activates. The resulting misfire totally disintegrates the weapon itself while somehow leaving the stone it was sitting on totally unaffected.

"A good shot." The guns break pattern, all firing at once directly at me. Guy's shield fails, my own construct armour fails and I'm knocked back with my personal shields and armour barely holding together. "But it's not enough. Do better. Show me your divinity, your destructive power. Show me the face of the Anti-Monitor before I die."

Ragnar raises his sword, his aura intensifying. "I'll show you-"

A tether wraps itself around his head. He struggles for a moment, then it sprouts two blades which slice through his link to his scramjet constructs and drags him backwards through the air.

"I have an alternative suggestion." Guy re-establishes his barrier, a quick look of concern in my direction as I retake my position beside him, repairing and recreating my armour. Fire's still coming in, but Guy's barrier is good enough that they need to fire simultaneously to breach it. "Would you consider taking a commission?"

This is our cause. This is our fight.

"From another alien?" He looks almost amused. "Sinestro impressed me with his personal virtues. I had not even heard of you a hour ago, and I am not bought so cheaply as Varnathon and his cronies."

Let none who live dispute our right.

"I'm not offering you money. I'm offering you an opportunity."

"Paul…"

Ragnar conjures up a bladewind, swirling sharp edges slicing through his bindings and then exploding towards the recovered and closing Lantern Duran. "This time there will be no distractions!"

Lantern Duran generates construct qwa-bolts. "Good!"

A pair of shots strike the shield in front of my face.

"Explain yourself."

"The Anti-Monitor rewards destruction, right? Novel and destructive weapons from the Weaponers, feats of destruction and skill from Thunderers."

Powered by need, our tireless might.

"In essence. Now destroy me and send me to my god!"

"Do you really believe that your capacity for destruction is ended? Have you suddenly become incapable of making weapons because you were betrayed by one alien?"

A tall.. circular device extends itself slowly from the castle's battlements, crackling with yellow lightning. A qwa-amp. "No. For even suggesting-."

Guides all souls with orange light.

A translucent orange snake outline surrounds me for a moment as my eyes and rings blaze with orange power. Guy drops to the side as we surge forward, a dozen tiny constructs flickering into existence as the qwa-amp discharges at us. Being able to handle qwa-energy is the difference between a Weaponer and 'some crazy alien who makes weapons'. On Qward, successfully controlling it and forming it into a weapon marks the end of an Weaponer's apprenticeship, a process that has a survival rate of nearly fifteen percent according to John's files.

The blast hits our constructs and appears to… Precipitate out of itself. Plenty of force gets through; if we tried this without merging we'd probably be torn apart. But like this, we can manage the spill-over and keep our efforts focused on our work.

Qwa-energy: particle, wave and something else. Perhaps magic, we don't know. Perhaps like the colours in some way: a force that doesn't fit politely into a convenient definition. The key to handling it isn't understanding the energy itself, but how it can be transformed from one form to another.

The qwa-amp dims as its excited energy store is expended. My constructs move, twist and strike…

And a giant qwa-bolt appears where once there was qwa-lightning.

"How… Did..?"

A construct tong points the bolt in the direction of the Qwardian defence fleet heading in our direction. Now, we twist like so…

The bolt turns back into energy, striking the fleet almost immediately and detonating with such enthusiasm that we can see it unaided from here. Most of the ships are gone, and the few capable of moving under their own power are turning away just as fast as they can.

"Why did you not throw it at me?"

"We have a use for you. You value destruction above everything. We are building an army for a war which will consume a vast area of space and destroy-"

"No. No."

"-a huge number of beings. Would that not be a more fitting conclusion to your life than begging aliens to attack your home so that you could die without shame? Would that not be a greater service to the Anti-Monitor?"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"He is a mortal who can make power rings. He is unique. He is special. We want his service." The glow fades as the Ophidian returns fully to my lantern. "And he won't be making Sinestro any more rings if he's working on Maltus."

"Maltus? The original home of the Guardians?"

"Just so. We're making war on the Reach: a large interstellar empire who habitually exterminate the civilisations they conquer. They also have some rather interesting anti-Lantern weapons we'll be expecting you to work out how to overcome. We'll also need ships and weapons for conventional warriors. You could die in the field, in honest combat. Or live and take revenge against Sinestro, the man who betrayed you and caused you to be cast out. Or against Varnathon, who perverts your god's mission for personal profit."

I pull a ring out of one of my armour's pouches. "These rings don't kill you after twenty four hours. I ask you, Weaponer Kalmin: what do you want?"

"You gotta be kiddin' me. Are you serious?"

I close my left fist, shutting down my connection to the conflicted Weaponer. "You know why I want a new personal lantern for Alan?"

"'cause he doesn't get old so long as he has one?"

"Yes. And all the Controllers who know anything about power rings attuned themselves to the Orange Central Power Battery before I got around to asking them about it. Which means they can only make orange lanterns."

He looks pained. "This guy?"

I open my hand, Kalmin's face reappearing. "Well?"

"I have decided. Let us kill some people together."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
16:41 GMT

Guy and I stand on the broken battlements of Kalmin's keep, idly watching Ragnar and Duran slam increasingly large constructs into one another.

"Can't believe you're serious about this."

"You mean, how I recruited an expert weapon smith and ring forger who knows Sinestro better than anyone alive?"

He glances sideways at me, clearly unimpressed. "Recruiting a monster."

I shrug. "I need to fight the Reach. You know as well as I do that outside the periphery region there aren't any other civilisations in their territory. An expert in destructive technology is far more useful to me than a morally praiseworthy individual."

"Even if that-."

"The Green Lantern strike force who lost-"

"Drew."

"-with the Reach all those centuries ago was composed of heroes." I smile faintly. "Do you know what happens to a Beetle hit by a qwa-bolt?"

"Or you, when he stabs you in the back."

I reach up with my right hand and tap my faceplate. "I'm a pretty good judge of character. Unless the Anti-Monitor shows up in person, I invade Qward or I try coming to terms with Sinestro, I think he'll be happy designing and making weapons." I turn my attention back to the fight as Duran generates a colossal Anti-Monitor construct which punches Ragnar into the ground. Ragnar shines brilliant orange as he gets his feet under him and pushes upwards, slowly forcing the dark god's hand off him. "Which Dox might have been thinking about doing, by the way."

Guy twitches, his head turning to face me fully. "Fer real?"

"Dox and I both hate being dependent. At the moment, he's dependent on me for training. The Controllers don't have an existing conflict with Sinestro, Sinestro's an expert power ring user… And it's not as if the Greenies on the boundary of Reach space would dare make an issue of it either."

"You know that bastard wears a necklace of rings he's taken off Lanterns he's killed, yeah?"

"No, but it doesn't surprise me. Now congratulate me for ensuring that I'll never have to work with him."

"Yeah." He turns back to the spectacle before us. "Great work."

The Anti-Monitor staggers back as Ragnar shoves it off and fires a volley of energy pulses at its creator. Duran responds by giving the Anti-Monitor a shield in its right hand to block for him and causes it to fire a beam of energy out of its left.

"Tora and you still getting along alright?"

"Yeah. Well. She's not thrilled about me workin' away more, but…" He shrugs.

"We could probably sort out some sort of portal from Earth to Oa. Cut down on travel times."

"How you plannin' on gettin' the Guardians t' agree t' that?"

Ah. "Doesn't have to be on Oa. Just… Closer than Earth."

"I don't wanna make it look like they're playin' favorites."

"No reason why other Lanterns couldn't have a similar arrangement. I mean, they can… Actually pay for theirs…" Guy chuckles, bowing his head slightly. "Nothing… Major happen on Earth?"

"What, like the Justice League bein' at each other's throats cause'a the tawkin' to you gave us?"

"Not… Specifically… Just… You know… How people are…"

"Things got a bit shouty right after you left. In the end, Batman told everyone t'… Go home, cool off a little. That was a real bad time t' be a supervillain."

"And after they calmed down?"

"I was kinda impressed. You pullin' something like that, none of us havin' the slightest clue until it was already done." He looks downwards, missing Ragnar split the Anti-Monitor's beam with a sword construct as he flies against the stream to slice through its arm. Huh. That was a raw power thing, but it would still have been quite difficult. "Think you might be off a few Christmas card lists…"

"I'm a Hellenist."

That gets me an unimpressed glance as Duran abandons the Anti-Monitor construct and switches to a simple shield and lightning bolt combo while Ragnar opts to keep his sword. Having learned something from the ongoing fight, Ragnar repeatedly moves around his environment rather than simply charging headlong, an action which wrong foots Duran and results in his defensive blasts missing completely.

"I wasn't trying to make friends. I was trying to make a point."

"Well… Point made." He looks at the ongoing fight. "Ragnar ain't doin' too bad."

"Short range combat against single opponents is his thing. If he can't win this then there probably isn't any point in me recruiting him."

"And if Tui finds out..?"

"I can use bad people."

"I am glad to hear it." We both turn as Kalmin walks out of the door behind us, hammer and shield strapped to his back. "I would be disappointed if you were trying to destroy the Reach with harsh words."

"I dunno. Paul here nearly destroyed the Justice League with harsh words."

Kalmin nods. "Perhaps he has a natural gift." He walks over to the wall on the far side of Guy, watching the fight with interest. "He isn't doing too badly for a beginner."

A blur, and a dozen construct Ragnars dive at Duran. Duran blocks, shooting the first few as he retreats-.

The real Ragnar surges out of the ground beneath him, construct sword slicing through Duran's wrist and severing his ring from his body. Duran's body goes limp as the disconnect from his ring shreds his brain but Ragnar goes for a killing stroke anyway. Grinning, he grabs the still-bleeding head and holds it up for our approval.

"Nicely done. Reasonable use of misdirection."

The anti-green ring rises off Duran's severed hand and flies over to Kalmin, who pockets it.

"We're finished here, Ragnar. Time to head back."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
16:45 GMT

Kalmin's hand reaches for his hammer as soon as he spots where we are. "This isn't Maltus."

We've reappeared in the Green Lantern Sector House of Sector One Four One Six, Lantern Tui… Ah, good, she's here back already. Lantern Tui manning the monitors. She turns, blinking for a moment as she sees Kalmin and then raising her ring-.

"Cool it, Tui. He's on… Paul's side." Guy still isn't happy with my decision, but if he'd been intending to force the issue now would be the time. I'm glad to see that he doesn't. "Everyone on Maltus lives on the surface. Did'ja wanna dig your way out through miles a' rock?"

Kalmin nods, his hand retreating slightly. "I suppose not. Not without doing a great deal of preparation in advance."

Ragnar waves his left hand dismissively. "I doubt that the flight will be a long one. Having used this-" He holds his left hand in front of his face. "-magnificent weapon in combat, I am looking forward to meeting my new brothers-in-arms."

"Nice to hear that you're so motivated, Lantern Ragnar."

"I am pleased that my concerns were unfounded." He hesitates for a moment, then draws himself up slightly and brings his fists together at his sternum. "Grand Master. I am eager to slaughter our enemies."

I nod. That reaction is within the bounds I predicted, 'Grand Master' being an approximate translation from his language of the title for the revered leader of a war band. Him saying that actually means more than him using my actual title. However… I look at Lantern Tui, tilt my head slightly towards Ragnar and raise my eyebrows.

She nods.

Ah.

"How is your ring's charge holding out?"

Ragnar shrugs. "My ring dims, but it is of little concern now that I am to be equipped with my own lantern."

"I ask, because I was surprised how long you had been able to make a single ring charge last. You've had that for… What, fifty days or so?"

Ragnar looks slightly uncomfortable. "Something like that. I rationed my usage carefully."

"Oh, that surprises me. Just after I got my first ring, I was recharging every few days, even when I wasn't using it for very much." I nod contemplatively. "I suppose if you limited yourself to an environmental shield and the occasional flight, you could eke that out-"

Ragnar smiles. "Exactly."

"-but you wanted that ring hard enough to draw it to you. You're a huge fan." I shrug. "It seemed.. odd to me that someone like you wouldn't have experimented."

I nod to Lantern Tui, and she brings up images of Ragnar taken from Betrassus' data networks. He's clearly using constructs, armour, some sort of personal flying vehicle and… A construct of himself to use as a sparring opponent.

"And going by the date-stamps, those were taken fairly close together."

"Yes, I-. Used it like that at first. Then I realised how unwise it-" Lantern Tui presses another button, bringing up an image of a dead Barrionian. "-was, to waste power like that."

With a crystalline life form it isn't always easy to tell what the cause of death was, but given the smooth cuts which appear to have severed the victim's manipulator appendages as well as the cracking throughout its epidermis… It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that it might well have been a buzz blade.

"Her name was Verilion." Lantern Tui's face is stoical. "And based on data gathered from local surveillance systems, I think there's a good chance that she-" More images appear, orange blurs visible in all of them. "-had an orange ring as well."

Guy sighs as he looks at me. "A murderer too? You sure know how t'-."

"It was not murder!" Ragnar's glow fades to nothing as the rage at the insult to his honour suffuses him. For a moment I consider taking his ring from him, but… I think I'll let this play out. See what he does. "She had a ring on her tentacle, and her heart was filled with the same need I feel! We fought and I won! I will not be insulted and I will not have you insult her by calling it murder!"

"That's not quite how Barrio III's police see it. Or-" Lantern Tui moves the images aside and brings up new ones. Four different individuals, four more corpses. "-the governments of any of the worlds you visited."

A green image of Lantern Dulok appears above one of the consoles, Ragnar's brother Prince Stentar by his side. "That matches the five dead orange rings we found in Prince Ragnar's quarters. He's been killing other Orange Lantern rookies to keep himself powered."

Ragnar throws his arms wide. "I freely confess to it! The fights were glorious, and none who stood against me shamed themselves!"

Stentar leans forward, glaring at his younger brother. "You know full well that is not how it works amongst aliens, brother."

I walk over to the control panel, extending a filament to it as I update myself with the details of their investigation. Hm. "The most recent death is believed to have occurred over a month ago."

"Plannin' on goin' huntin' again? Bet you were real glad when we turned up."

Ragnar's eyes crease up. "No, I'd… Adapted, at that point. I was planning on approaching one of you, once I had finished accepting oaths of vassalage from all of my father's rivals."

"You seriously expect us t' believe-."

"Guy."

He turns to me, throwing his arms up as he does so. "Oh, come on Paul! I mean, the Weaponer I kinda get, but this-."

"Each of the police reports mentions that the victim's behaviour changed noticeably shortly before their deaths. He changed his strategy a little while after we finished setting up the Orange Central Power Battery. There was a good reason why I did that before handing out other rings."

Guy's eyes narrow slightly as he nods. "You think that they were all goin' orange light crazy, like you did a couple a' times."

"I think it's possible. Prince Stentar, have you ever known your brother to tell a direct lie?"

"Not since Lantern Sinestro told him that Green Lanterns were always honest." Ragnar folds his arms and nods proudly at the affirmation.

I stare into Ragnar, trying to look back through… Yes, there are regions where the orange light associations are much stronger. Jagged. Power funnelled in but not properly directed.

"I think it was."

"So, what? You just wanna let him off?"

"I have committed no-!"

I turn to him. "Ragnar, shut up, there's a good fellow." He shuts. "I am… Uncertain. Certainly, each of those police forces should be notified so that they can close the cases. However, I see very little point in requiring Lantern Ragnar to hand himself over. We both know full well that people hopped up on the orange light can behave in very unusual and.. out of character ways. I doubt very much that we could prove exactly what the situation was when Ragnar encountered them, or how responsible they could be considered to be for their own actions."

Guy grunts.

"What I'm going to suggest is that Lantern Ragnar return to Maltus with me, and I assign him to support Darkstar field teams immediately. You and the police forces can continue to gather evidence. If you collectively come to the conclusion that there is a realistic prospect of conviction, I will guarantee his return. In the meantime, he will be fighting the Reach, which is a far more valuable contribution to galactic life than sitting in a prison cell or rotting in a grave. Is that acceptable to you?"

Guy bows his head slightly as he considers the offer.

"Somethin' like that… Workin' out how Green Lanterns an' Orange Lanterns 're gunna deal with each other… That's one fer the Guardians." He looks up. "This one time, if you swear t' me you'll bring him back..? Okay. But right after, you an' me need to take a trip to Oa."

I nod. "That sounds wise."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
14:12 GMT -7
Earth 8096

I take a moment to look out across the treetops of the White River National Forest just as I drop below the canopy. It's a beautiful green at this time of year, the colour of the leaves contrasting wonderfully with the pale orange of the rocky fingers jutting out of the ground. I suppose that if you're a criminal wanted in about forty countries, this is the place to hide out. Of all the places I thought that he'd end up, this wasn't even in my top fifty. Assuming that he's actually here of course.

Ring, confirm that we've arrived.

Confirmed. We are at the coordinates indicated.

I've got a sneaky suspicion that the first part of this is going to be tiresome. Still, best to get it over with.

I touch down gently, leaf mould crunching gently under my feet. Hm. I don't see anything...

"Mister Lehnsherr?" I make a point of obviously looking around. Yes, a ring scan would probably find him, but it's not like I've got a huge reserve of good will-.

Alert! Magnetic-

Armour.

-flux detected!

Orange armoured plates appear about half a second before several lengths of steel chain wrench themselves from the ground and fly at me. While that was hardly unexpected, I am gratified that they wrap around my torso, arms and legs rather than my head and neck. It implies that he does actually want to talk to me. As it is, rather than yank me into the air or tie me to a tree, my armour gets a little stressed and I have to exert myself slightly to remain in one place. He keeps trying for about fifteen seconds, then the chains cease pulling and settle for wrapping themselves in knots around one another.

"I told you to come unarmed."

Ring, scan. Ah. A speaker.

"True, but to be fair, I never actually agreed to that stipulation." I try moving slightly, the chains around me jangling quietly as they shift. "Do you intend to come out… Or do I keep talking to the trees?"

"What makes you think that I'm anywhere near you?"

"I analysed your fights. The greatest distance I saw you exercising precise control over was two hundred metres. I also noticed that your brute force magnetic pulses taper off significantly after a kilometre, even if you have line of sight. So, you're almost certainly close by, and while you might have some sort of camouflage system set up the X gene does rather stand out to power ring sensors."

No immediate response.

"Mr Lehnsherr, I came here because I wanted to talk to you. I'm armed, but I'm not exactly loaded for bear and I didn't bring any backup." I move my arms as far as the chains will allow. "Would you mind?"

The chains shake slightly, then begin to uncoil, dropping to the floor and then slithering snake-like over to… An utterly unremarkable looking elderly man dressed in an outdoorsman's attire, right hand resting on a metal walking stick. If that's who I think it is, he's looking pretty good for an eighty year old. He smiles faintly. "Not quite what you were expecting?"

"I'm a little disappointed that you didn't think I was worth the full costume. You're just about the only man I know of who could make the cape work." I frown as I drop my construct armour. "And your.. face is rather different."

"A gift from my eldest daughter, when I… Retired. If I put on my old armour, my natural face reappears. Otherwise…" He shrugs. "Nobody looks at me twice."

"That explains how you've managed to hide, I suppose."

"That, and my own skills." He brings the stick to the fore, resting both hands on it. "So. Why have you put all of this effort into tracking down a retired supervillain?"

I nod. "I was.. hoping that you'd be willing to help me with something. I think it would be up your street-."

He makes a noise halfway between a cough and a laugh. "The last thing mutantkind need is me becoming active again. Decades of fighting and I'm still not really sure whether I made any sort of difference. We're not threatened by Sentinels any longer, but despite Charles' efforts we're no closer to being accepted than we were when we started."

I nod. "True. Mutants are quite unpopular." I frown. "Don't you find that a little odd?"

"You are aware that the part of my childhood I did not spend in a ghetto I spent in a concentration camp?"

"Sure. In the forties. But now? Two generations raised knowing that the holocaust is the most horrific thing to have occurred. I mean-" I take some files out of subspace. "-take… Bolton and Gonzalez. They tested a wide cross section of the population, and found that people from all groups generally rated mutants less positively than similar baseline Humans. And those were mutants who were outwardly indistinguishable from baseline Humans most of the time."

"I'm not certain that I see what you're getting at."

"Byrne, Pacheco and Pak. People were read a story about a superhuman and asked how they felt about their activities. Same story each time, but one third were told that the superhuman was an x-gene mutant, one third that they were a magician and another third that they used advanced technology. No significant different in positive or negative responses between the second two groups, but the mutant was generally described less favourably. And there's dozens of other studies, demonstrating a similar sort of thing. It's not mutant powers. I'm far scarier than.. eighty percent of mutants? And I get a pretty good response. A.. cursory analysis suggests that there's something about being a mutant that sets people off."

He frowns as he considers what I'm saying. "That's… a little odd. I'd.. always assumed that there simply weren't enough of people like you to make an impact on the public consciousness."

I nod. "I considered that. But I had lunch with Mister Gonzalez, to.. see if he had any thoughts on the subject. And he told me something very interesting that didn't get published. It turns out that one of the volunteers they put in the 'baseline Human' pictures was actually a mutant. She just didn't tell anyone until one of the experimenters told her what the picture was going to be used for." I lean forwards slightly. "And as soon as she did, her responses became more negative, even from people who hadn't heard that."

"I don't… I don't understand?"

"I didn't either. But on a tangential note: have you ever heard of a microbe called Archaea Tractabilis? Don't worry if you haven't, there's been very little research done on it. It lives exclusively in the Human brain in minute quantities. As far as anyone can tell, it does nothing except die very quickly when the host does. The current 'guess' in the medical profession is that it does something with dead cells… But the interesting thing about it? Two groups of Humans don't have it. At all. One of those groups consists of people like me." I put my right hand on my chest. "And the Hulk. People whose bodies are either so different from the Human norm that microbes adapted for Human bodies can't survive in them, or who appeared from a parallel universe without that microbe and wear a device which constantly restores their body to 'factory settings'."

"Want to guess who the second group is?"

"Mutants?"

"Specifically, people with the x-gene. As… An aside, I don't actually believe that the x-gene is a natural mutation, but we'll leave that for now."

"But what does that have to do with Human hostility to mutants?"

"I have a power ring. If I want to study a microbe, I force that microbe to stay alive while I study it. I didn't find out much… Until I waved Tony's experimental telepathy detector at it."

I generate a scanner construct.

"Beep beep beep."

"The microbe is telepathic."

"Yep. I mean, it sort of makes sense. There's no point worrying about people like me; we're flukes and freaks. But a breeding population that has immunity -and you do by the way, I checked- is a more coherent threat."

"Humans hate mutants because they're.. infected with something controlling their brains?"

"No, no, not controlling. It looks like it's more of a nudge towards hostility. And I don't have any evidence that the things are really intelligent. It's more likely that they're reacting to others of their kind not being present. But if I'm right… It's a microbe. We can kill microbes."

"I see." He shrugs. "Clearly, I approve, but what do you need me for?"

"You're an expert in x-gene research. If we can work out exactly what makes… So many different mutants immune to the same thing, and share that with the rest of the species-."

"With Humans."

"If you like. We'll fix the problem. Social regard for mutants will gradually shift to seeing them as just another group of superhumans with heritable powers. So. How about it?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd August
16:45 GMT

High Weaponlord Varnathon smiles pleasantly at me as we stroll along a gantry overlooking one of the Weaponers' foundries, his blue and green pet roboheads flying alongside him. "I apologise for the.. awkwardness, above. The Thunderers really should have known better than to challenge a member of the Apokoliptian… Elite? That's the term, isn't it?"

I nod. Perhaps I was.. wrong to hold off this long. Getting to Qward 16… Or… Qward Anti-16? They're part of the same parallel after all… Not sure. Getting to Qward was simple enough, even without Sinestro's guidance. I vaguely remember from the comics that Qward's surface was supposed to be barren with the civilisation existing beneath it. Here, it's largely barren, with clusters of civilisation around authorised trading ports.

"Quite alright. No harm done. To me. And I'm sure… Duran..? Will recover in the fullness of time."

Perhaps jumping into the fighting pit with the man wasn't the cleverest thing I could have done, but I thought that his taunts were getting a bit on the racist side.

"Alright enough that you are prepared to let the Commander go?"

I look under my right arm at where Commander Roval has given up on struggling to get away. After his initial rush failed to fell me he ordered his subordinates to use qwa-bolts on me. Preventing them from doing so wasn't.. that much of a trial, though it did force me to reveal my drones.

I raise my right arm, and Roval groans weakly as he hits the floor.

"Uuuuhuuhuuugh?"

The green head swoops down and scans him. "Commander Irik T. Roval has been incapacitated."

"So I see." I watch him for a moment, but it doesn't look like he's going to get up. "Let that be a lesson to you, Commander. Whatever ideology you hold, however good your equipment or how much hatred or contempt you hold in your heart: there is always a bigger fish."

Varnathon nods as we leave the recumbent commander behind. "Wise words. Though you may want to avoid repeating them around the Anti-Monitor's more dogmatic followers."

I nod. "To be fair, I'm not sure that it's true in his case." I shrug. "Not with grandfather stuck on the Source Wall, at least."

"Your grandfather?"

"Yuga Khan. I doubt that you'll have heard of him, he's been… Gone for a very long time."

Varnathon smiles. "But not forgotten."

"Alas, no." Ah. "Just so that we don't have a misunderstanding, while he's feared by everyone who remembers him and we're all very glad that he isn't coming back, as far as we can tell he isn't actually dead."

"So what brings you here?" Varnathon has apparently decided to move things along. "While I'm confident of the quality of Qward's armouries, Apokolips has historically preferred to rely on its own development programs."

"Oh, I'm not precious about it. Besides, I'm mostly here to get a weapon I own that was originally made on Qward repaired."

"Oh."

"I make my own.. infantry and support weapons, but this is a specialist piece and I wouldn't want to risk it in the hands of someone who didn't know what they were doing."

"I'm certain that we can come to terms. For a valued client such as yourself we should even be able to find the original Weaponer who made it." He glances at me. "What exactly is it?"

I open a pouch mounted onto my chest armour and gently pull out the velvet bag containing my yellow power ring. "Something I picked up in a parallel universe, made on their version of Qward."

"Then while I may struggle to get the particular Weaponer, perhaps their alter-eg-" I tip the ring out onto my right palm. "-ooooo."

"If you could, that would be splendid. I'm particularly eager to recover as much of its AI as possible. It was patterned after the mind of its former wearer, Thaal Sinestro, and I've grown rather fond of it."

"You've-? Taken the power ring from a parallel universe version of Thaal Sinestro?"

"No, I took it from a holding facility. He was already dead."

"I see. I'm afraid that… Ah, the creator, Weaponer Kalmin, was.. discharged… Some time ago."

"Oh." I frown. "That's a pity. Do you have anyone else capable of doing the work?"

"Yes, actually. Council-Member Diataria Lysis worked under him on the Anti-Green Lantern Corps project. I'm certain that her expertise will be sufficient."

Jordan's record of the event only mentioned one female Qwardian being involved. "And where might we find her?"

22nd August
17:14 GMT

Weaponer Lysis bends over her work station as the mechanical appendages go to work on my ring. "You needn't worry, Grayven. I assure you that this is well within my abilities."

"I doubt that you made it onto the Council of Commanders making slug throwers. Still, please excuse my concern. I have grown rather fond of the AI's voice."

The armatures move, light flickering between their probe attachments and my ring. Tuning me out or just ignoring me?

"I note that you're… Somewhat more comprehensively dressed than you were during your confrontation with Lantern Jordan. I don't know Qwardian fashion-."

"Once I realised that I had ascended as far in the Qwardian hierarchy as I was likely to, I decided that I would dress to please myself and not any observers. This is far more practical."

"Oh, I approve. I'm an armour man myself, but I imagine that for a scientist and engineer like yourself heavy plate would prove somewhat cumbersome."

She sighs very faintly and tries to indicate with her posture that she has no interest in conversing with me. "I have little interest in your feelings on the matter."

"Oh, good, because… I recently finished a long term relationship and… Not that you're unattractive or anything, but you're… Kind of small… For me? I just don't think it would work."

She straightens up slightly, and from the tensing of the skin around her eye sockets I think that if her implants allowed her to hold her eyes closed that she would be doing so. "Please stop unless you want me to vomit on your power ring."

"But if you've really hit the ole transparent aluminium ceiling… I could always use a talented armourer in my service. You'd have to relocate to Tamaran, of course. Pretty egalitarian place, and not in the Apokoliptian 'you're all equally worthless' kind of way. We're working on designs and doctrines for an as yet unbuilt fleet, and I'm sure that the people involved would be grateful for any input you wished to provide."

She pauses. "A.. war fleet?"

"Perhaps, eventually. At the moment, a simple self defence fleet. But it's in a very unstable region of space. All sorts of things are possible, in the medium term. Any trouble?"

"No. Correcting the errors in the physical structure is a relatively simple task. I recognise Kalmin's design. Some sort of gravity pulse weapon?"

"A telekine, but effectively. How long?"

"I will have completed a full restore of the physical structures in under three hours. Other elements may take longer, but I doubt that I'll be working on it past day-end."

I smile. "Excellent news."

"Would there be a dress code?"

"Tamaranians traditionally don't wear-" I generate a construct image of a Tamaranian street largely occupied by men in pants and boots. "-much, but I prefer a more relaxed dress code and no one's said anything. Though…" I reach into a pouch and pull out an orange power ring. "If you want to really throw yourself into it, these things usually require a colour's sigil to be displayed somewhere."

"Interesting. Though working for an alien did not work out well for my former tutor."

"True, but-."

"Why don't you tell me about yourself, so that I have more data to include in my decision-making?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Collegiality

23rd August
11:58 GMT

Kalmin nods at me as I walk into his partially completed workshop. "Illustres."

"Lan-." I note the lack of an orange glow. "Weaponer Kalmin." I look around the room until I see the ring I gave him sitting in a vice on a work bench. "Is there something wrong with your ring?"

"Yes." He nods in affirmation. "I didn't make it." He raises his hammer and brings it down on his forge, the sound of ringing metal reverberating around the room. He mmms, then turns aside and alters some settings on a nearby instrument panel.

"Controller Hannanan does good work. As far as I'm able to tell. I mean, if there was any major problem I'm sure that Clarissi Dox would have found it by now."

"Perhaps. But it's a point of pride: Weaponers do not use weapons made by other people. I will wait until my own understanding of the orange light is great enough, and then make my own. Or perhaps another colour; I'm sure that I can hate enough for red."

Could he-? Yes, yes, of course he can. "Probably, but I should warn you that the colours furthest from the centre have-."

That earns me a mild glare. "I have read your notes. Unclear as they were as to how you actually learned some of that information, I am a scientist. And much as I love destruction, I value the control of it as well. I will not experiment recklessly."

"Glad to hear it."

"But I doubt that you really want me here just to design your warships. Why did you take the risk of travelling to Qward in order to make contact with me?"

"No one reason. We do need ships and weapons, and with you right there and apparently willing to take the commission, killing you seemed… Wasteful. Secondly, you can make rings. If things with the Controllers don't work out…"

He smiles faintly. "You want someone else who can do the job."

"No. I want someone who can teach me. My understanding of avarice is flawless. It should be well within my abilities." I hold out my right hand, orange light pooling in a band over my palm while Kalmin looks on with undisguised interest. "But so far it… Hasn't gone well. It occurred to me that someone who isn't millions of years old would be far more capable of understanding the approach I'd need. Thirdly, I'd like you to make me a lantern."

"If you like Hinon's work so much, why not just ask her for one."

"It's not for me. It's for a friend of mine, a former Green Lantern."

"Hah! That didn't go particularly well for me last time."

"Oh, he wasn't a member of the Green Lantern Corps. One of their Lanterns, a man by the name of Yalan Gur, went rogue. The Guardians wiped his ring's AI and a group of primitive villagers from my homeworld killed him. Wind the clock on two thousand years, his ring ends up in the hands of my friend Alan Scott. He was able to use it to great effect for about twenty five years before entering a state of semi-retirement."

Kalmin frowns. "The Guardians accept that?"

"He didn't meet either of my homeworld's Sector Lanterns." I shrug. "Either they didn't care or they didn't know. Once my world had its first normal recruit, he asked about it and the Guardians told him that they had nothing to do with it."

"But if he had been using a ring for twenty five years, his strength of will must have been incredible." Kalmin considers for a moment, then smiles in satisfaction. "Ah. I see."

"They won't recruit him, so unless I can talk some sense into them today I'll have to get him a personal lantern from somewhere else."

"What happened to the one he inherited from Yalan Gur?"

I turn my right hand palm down and clench my fist, my lantern appearing in my hand. "He gave it to me. I owe him my ability to fight at this level, and I intend to pay my debt."

Kalmin pulls his Anti-Green ring out of his pocket and lays it on his anvil. "I made these to run without personal lanterns. Their users weren't supposed to live long enough to need to recharge. Lantern Jordan destroyed the Anti-Green Lantern Central Power Battery. I only have this one because I was still working on it when the final confrontation happened, and it only has as much charge as it has."

"Can you build green personal lanterns? Ones which don't kill the users after twenty four hours?"

He tenses and relaxes the muscles in his shoulders. "Not… Quickly. The Guardians jealously guard their control of the green light. Making my original Central Power Battery required me to work around their protections, and they've improved them since. If you brought me some Green Lanterns I could hijack their equipment without too much difficulty, but given how you were treating with those three I doubt that you'd like my methods."

"Anything less evil?"

"Hmm." He strokes his chin with his left hand. "A parallel universe, perhaps? One without Guardians?"

Blue-Me's files made no mention of Guardians… "And you could make one if you went there?"

"Parallel universes aren't an area I've studied in any depth. Maybe. If the green light worked similarly there to how it does here, I could make a lantern that maintained the connection. How soon would you want it?"

"Probably sooner than that method would allow."

"I can understand wanting to take to the field again, but why do you need to hurry?"

"Alan's a very old man. Something… About what the Guardians did to Yalan Gur's ring, caused green light to bleed into his soul. At this point, he's partially elemental. If he gets a replacement ring-."

Kalmin's eyes widen, which is a little disturbing to see in a Qwardian. "He could become as the Guardians are."

"He'd rejuvenate and have a much longer lifespan. I don't.. really care about anything else. As it is he's in danger of dying soon, so…"

"I assume that a twenty four hour extension-?"

"No. Any other ideas?"

"The yellow light is… Not entirely incompatible with the green. This.. Alan of Earth. Does he inspire great fear?" An image of 'Boss Scott' of Earth -14 appears in my mind. "If he is a warrior of great notoriety, it may be possible-."

"I don't think yellow is… His colour. What about blue?"

Kalmin frowns. "Hope? What use is hope? Hope is a poison, a trap for the spirit. It encourages gormless passivity rather than action. What is the value in hope?"

"You mean, like a whole series of Qwardian leaders hoping that they'd be the ones to break into the Golden Obelisk and so causing your civilisation to develop technologically and imperialistically?"

"That…" His frown deepens. "I don't think that was hope."

"Or you yourself. You could have just walked into Krama Dhu with a quarrel of qwa-bolts and forced Varnathon to either kill you or be killed and replaced. I don't think that you were staying at home because you were afraid, so what was it? Was it a wish that something else would happen, some honourable option that you hoped existed but could not see for yourself? How many years did that keep you going?"

His frown deepens further. "Hmm."

"Fear might drive people, but hope causes them to drive themselves on. And they're generally happier about it than they are about being afraid. Are you telling me you can't see a use for that sort of ability?"

Slowly, he starts to smile. "What a novel idea. You might be on to something, alien. I'll start looking into it at once."

 

[Mr Zoat]

23rd August
12:33 GMT

"Controller Hin-."

"Ah, my Illustres!" Hinon beams as she sees me. "I understand that we're playing host to a Qwardian Weaponer now."

"Yes, I-."

"I wanted to check, because I had been under the impression that you were going to cooperate on an arrest with Lantern Gardner. Was I mistaken?"

"No, b-."

"You are aware that the Qwardians served as the Anti-Monitor's army during the Great Crisis, yes?"

"Yes, b-." I frown. "Wait, how do you-?"

"Did you know that I fought him directly myself? By my reckoning I came to within a nanometre of being snuffed out and having retroactively never existed. So please understand that I'm less than pleased about this."

"It was-."

"And now Dox tells me that you're going to Oa." She sighs. "The Guardians. Really. You thought that was a good idea?"

I wait a moment, in order to see if she's finished this time. Nothing. Okay. "Would y-?"

"And this Ragnar fellow. Is there some rational reason why we're also playing host to a serial killer of the less impersonal variety?"

"Is there-?"

"What exactly does he bring-?"

My rings flare as the Scold's Bridle construct appears over her head. "Do you intend to let me answer your questions at any point?"

She gives me a decidedly unimpressed look.

"In the order in which you asked them. I have invited former Chief Weaponer Kalmin to join the Corps. Under the agreement you signed on behalf of the Controllers, I have the authority to do that. Removing the 'wild' Orange Lantern from his homeworld was a simple matter. Taking him on a mission to Qward -which was something Guy agreed to quite eagerly, the Guardians do like to keep an eye on the place- allowed me to get a better sense of how he behaves, to earn his loyalty and allowed Lantern Tui to investigate his past conduct. I was fully aware of the Qwardian people's loyalty to the Anti-Monitor, though I should inform you that it's nothing like uniform. But the Anti-Monitor hasn't been seen for quite some time, and if he does then we're in a rather better position to find out about it than Kalmin is. I will want to talk to you about the Crisis later. Kalmin is a dangerous individual, but he's nothing like as dangerous as the Anti-Monitor. I have some rather pointed questions to ask the Guardians myself, and the last thing they're going to want is for me to inform their Corps what really happened to depopulate Sector Six Six Six. As such, I imagine they'll make an effort to be cordial and in the interests of future cooperation I will return the favour. Ragnar has demonstrated the ability to use an orange power ring in combat. He isn't an.. ideal candidate, but he's capable and sane after two months."

We stare at each other for a moment, then I allow the construct to evaporate.

She flexes her facial muscles for a moment. "Well."

"Ask an uncivil question, get an uncivil answer."

She frowns slightly. "I couldn't break your construct."

"I wouldn't be much use as an Illustres if just anyone could break my constructs."

"Eckhc-cuh!" She looks indignant. "Anyone? Do I need to remind you who made that ring?"

I raise my right hand. "Krona? No, I hadn't forgotten. Do you think it's likely to come up?"

Her eyes narrow. "Paul, this is serious. The Guardians may react extremely badly to a mortal with a command of the spectrum quite as good as you have."

"Guy decided to be open with them after the confrontation with Oceanus. He briefly used his higher order abilities on Qward, and I'm sure that he'll include that in his report. I'm more worried about him than I am about me. Besides, if they didn't want Humans being good at spectrum manipulation then they shouldn't have…" I spread out the four fingers of my right hand one way and the three longer fingers of my left the other.

"Do you know what happened to the last place they did that to?"

Nothing that I remember from the comics, but on the basis that Earth was referred to as the Fifth World… "Split in two, becoming Apokolips and New Genesis. The one before that… It's basically abandoned, with the last few inhabitants keeping tabs on Mageddon, isn't it?"

"And the one before that? And the one before that?"

"I… Destroyed..? I assume..?"

She looks away for a moment. "It's something of a relief to learn that you don't know everything. I am older than your world's gods, and some of the things I have seen in my time…" She smiles unhappily up at me. "Though I suppose you've got that to look forward to." She reaches up slightly and straightens my robes. "The Guardians are good people, but they weren't good at.. flowing with the circumstances before, and I doubt that they've gotten better since. They.. were friends and colleagues. Now… I'm not sure who they are. Just don't get yourself stuck in a sciencell."

I bring my hands to my chest, trapping hers between them and my chest. "I'll do my best. Thank you for your concern." She nods, not trying to pull her hands away. "You're not angling for an invitation, are you?"

"No."

"Because-."

"Don't worry, I'm not. I don't think that one of us being there would make things any better. You're not going to Zamaron as well, are you?"

"You said that you wanted me to talk to Nadia Safir-."

"I think… Put that on hold?"

I nod. "It's on hold."

"And I'm pretending not to notice that you didn't mention the redoubtable Mister Alan Scott when you were explaining to me why Kalmin is here."

"I appreciate that. And I'm pretending not to notice that you haven't agreed to tell me about the Crisis yet."

"Pray I never have to."

"No!" She snatches her hands back. "I worship a goddess of chaos. Praying to her about something like that is the worst thing to do!"

Hinon squeezes her eyes closed and turns away. "Oh… Shoo, you tiresome man. Tell Dennap she has my blessing to keep you in the sciencells for a few weeks."

"I'll be sure to do that!"

She half looks back, then waves her right hand irritably. I think I'm dismissed.

Alright then. Onwards to Oa.