Chapter 66: chapter 66: In Brightest Day...
Pausanias was the first to recover from the shock of twenty green-clad aliens led by a human interrupting our improptu execution and ordering us to stop it. His was also the proper response to it.
"The hell it is you green mother..." He growled.
Pulling out his halberd, he ran at the downed and stunned Kalibak, intending to finish the job, symbolism be damned, but John grabbed him with a giant hand and threw him away as far, and fast, as he could.
"Pausanias!" Ayame screamed before rushing towards the direction Pausanias was sent flying. Mecha, however, probably realizing we'd need the extra firepower.
"Oh, crud."
"Anyone else moves or even breathes the wrong way, they're getting far worse than a giant fist." John all but growled, his gaze centered on me.
Komand'r, naturally, did not take to the arrival of the Corps kindly, no least because they had unwittingly saved Kalibak. Rachel even had to stop her from ramming into John. "You bastards dare to come to our home?! NOW?!"
Kalibak, realizing he wasn't dead yet, tried to crawl away, but Steel, ignoring Stewart's threat, ran up to him and stomped on his back. "You aren't going anywhere, you fucker!"
The Lanterns reacted by generatic arms. "Stay away from the New God!"
"Make me!" John shouted as he raised his hammer.
As much as I hated seeing Komand'r being denied her revenge, I had questions, questions that wouldn't receive answers if a brawl broke out so soon.
"Steel, do as they say."
John looked at me with incredulous eyes. "What?"
Komand'r didn't believe it either. "What the hell are you saying?!"
"Just do as they say... for now."
Steel looked between me, Kalibak and Stewart, his face-like plate frozen as he considered simply killing a frantically breathing Kalibak then and there, before grunting and stepping off of him. Komand'r was another matter: Rachel had to restrain her as she cursed and screamed obscenities at both the newcomers and me.
"Who are these bozos again?" I heard Patrick whisper outloud. "Green Loonterns or something? Wasn't paying that much attention."
"They're the Green Lantern Corps." Clark explained. "Basically Jedi, except with rings instead of the Force, and cops instead of monks. I don't know who he is, though, I only know of two humans in the Corps."
Realization hit Patrick like a truck.
"A Jedi... A space cop? Mister, I don't know what happened..." He jumped away from us, hands turned into oversized arrows. "But it's entirely THEIR fault, not mine! Take them, not me, I'm only an accomplice!"
"Plastic!"
"He's a crazy space cop!" Patrick cried. "I can't escape from space prison! I need oxygen and food and entertainment!" The actual reason for his freakout was much more serious, but only I knew about it.
Naturally, John ignored him and focused on me. "Step away from him." It wasn't clear if he spoke about Komand'r and Kalibak, or everyone and me. There was also the fact I was not the closest to Kalibak. That made me think, and as it always happens, me thinking tends to end up badly for whoever made me think.
The problem was that I couldn't just kill him, and not only because in this case it'd be an excessive reaction: unknown to everyone at the moment, his brain had been tampered with.
"Why are you here, Stewart?"
"Why the hell do you think we've come halfway through the galaxy to a planet we have no jurisdiction over and which hates us? Sell cookies?"
"To make you hate you more by being hypocrites?" Grundy asked before smacking his fist together. "We know your history, you ain't supposed to be here. Now scram before it gets ugly." He couldn't control the plants there, but he still was one of the strongest in the group.
"You don't get to talk, abomination." One of the Lanterns replied.
"Don't tempt me, dogboy."
"You can go back to Earth if you want, but he" He pointed at me.", is coming with us back to Oa."
Clark, always the mediator, put himself between us, more specifically me, and the Lanterns. "Look, I don't know why or what has made you decide to in Slayer , but this is something that has to happen."
"He's corrupted you, did he?" He gave Clark a critical look. "Or have you realized that sometimes you have to do what you have to do?"
"Doom Slayer hasn't corrupted anyone, and Kalibak has done things, things that have made me accept the fact he has to die."
But John did not see it that way, namely because it wasn't the reason they were there; it was just bad timing from his part. "I don't give a damn about the Worf wannabe, he and his bastard of a father invaded Earth." He pointed at me. "But Starship Trooper has to answer to the Guardians."
"Then why, pray tell, did you stop us from finish off this monster?" Rachel asked, her anger thinly veiled.
"You'll piss off someone who can destroy whole worlds with one snap of his fingers, someone we'd rather not fight." A Lantern explained. He couldn't really do that (crack planets with a snap. He could do it the old fashioned way just fine), but the Corps didn't have all that much information about him, or Apokolips for that matter.
"Darkseid has no love for Kalibak."
"You don't know that. We don't know that." He pointed at a moaning Kalibak. "Hell, not even the brute knows that. Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to Apokolips."
"Then where were YOU when Apokolips invaded Earth?" Mecha threw back at him, clearly wanting to force a reaction out of John. He did get one, alright, in the form of a giant sledgehammer. The only reason he didn't end as a stapler was Clark grabbing it.
"Shut your mouth, robot, if you want to keep it."
"You don't have to do this! We don't have to do this!" Clark tried to cool the situation, but it was becoming increasingly clear that John wouldn't be disuaded, especially since I could feel something was off about him, some kind of aura, but it was something that VEGA couldn't scan or pinpoint the origin of. That actually worried me.
As much as I admired Clark's pacifism and mediatory attitude, I knew this couldn't be talked out. The the laser-focused frown John had on me made sure of that. So, I moved Clark out of the way to face the former marine directly. I noted that his eyes had a reddish tint over the usual green. Something was wrong with him.
"Why for. Why do you want to arrest me." I was pretty sure he didn't simply want to shove me into a cell and throw the key away.
"Invading a planet and attempted execution of a surrendering combatant."
John, our John, said it best. "Freaking what?"
"And you do it AFTER this guy invaded first?" Mecha pointed at Kalibak. "I mean, you're not supposed to be here, but still, uncool."
"I know what you can do, I've seen what you can do, you and your Frankenstein friend. Seeing army of Terminators and getting fucking Superman of all people to agree to this was the last straw."
"Wait, seeing?"
"The invasion was enough for the Guardians to send a probe to monitorize it."
This only served to piss Komand'r even more. "You knew all this time, yet you did nothing?!" Jurisdiction or not, one would think that one of Apokolips' most ardent enemies would try to do something beyond watching events unfold, especially since later it turned out Tamaran was quite close to Oa itself. Admittedly, it was more the fault of the Guardians than the Lanterns proper, but still.
I knew enough of John (hardass, stuck to the rules, honest, and more), and the thing around him finally made me realize at that moment that something was very, very wrong with him.
"He may not have anything to do with Apokolips, but the fact he's not even from this universe is enough to question him." Another of the Lanterns pointed out. "He's been here for well over a year now, a man with a portal generator, a droid army and powerful enough to match a fully energized kryptonian. Don't we have the right to at least feel suspicion for him?"
"Now wait a minute, it's not-" Clark began to say before I stopped him.
"And you know who I do that to only. Like Kalibak and his ilk."
John didn't care. "And what happens after you kill them? Do you stop, or do you continue?"
That attitude, that temper of his reminded me too much of Bruce, except he was open about it, and unlike Batman he had the capacity to actually harm me, if only to a point. Close as we were to each other, it finally dawned on his platoon that I was the second largest person on the area.
"Ok, I have to admit it, he's a big one."
"The instructor is bigger."
"The instructor is a bolovaxian. This guy is human."
However, even though I had a over a foot and three hundred pounds on him, he wasn't intimidated. As a matter of fact, I think he got even angrier.
"You know I'm not going to get myself arrested for such stupid reasons, by someone who really shouldn't be here."
He merely raised his right hand, clenched into a fist and ring glowing. Soon, his body was covered by a green barrier, for he knew what would happen if I even nicked his shoulder. "I was counting on that."
For what seemed to be an eternity, both former marines stared one at another, waiting for the other to act. Didn't mean I couldn't talk to him, partly to maybe get him to stand down, partly out of genuine interest, partly to distract him, maybe get the first blow.
"I used to be a marine myself, you know."
"What the fuck is he doing?" I heard Steel say.
Imagine their surprise when John actually replied. "I find that... believable. Division?"
"United States Space Marine Corps. Different dimensions, different corps."
"What happened to them."
"Wiped out by the interdimensional invaders. I'm not the last one, but I will never see them again."
His gaze softened, but then it hardened again.
At least I could say I tried.
He threw the first punch. I blocked it. Steel threw his hammer at someone just as Grundy roared. The fight was on.
They outnumbered us nearly two to one, and they were all experienced Lanterns, but each of us was more than a match. But I wasn't paying attention to them, busy as I was having an improptu duel with John.
I will to admit that out of the fights I had been in since I arrived here (and not counting my brawl with Grundy), John ended up being indeed the first proper one. His barriers were tough enough to withstand most of my arsenal to a degree (I had yet to use my heavier weapons), and every time they broke through, he just raised more; conversely, he had an entire repertoire of guns and vehicles to use against me. While his attacks didn't actually hurt me, they pushed me backwards each time they hit; not a good prospect for someone like me. Admittedly me not wanting to cause him any kind of permanent damage played a part, but still, it was proof of why a single Lantern was enough to keep the peace in an entire system by themselves most of the time, and unlike a good chunk of them John had a military background. His will too was a problem; while it didn't make him stronger per se, it wouldn't allow him to stand down, no matter how many times I forced him.
But the worst had to be his speed. While nowhere as fast as Clark, he was still easily faster than anyone else I had fought in this universe while still being relatively tough, and he had the reflexes to match. I'm also a bit ashamed to admit I was kind of rusty after not fighting opponents strong enough to push me back, the last one being Grundy himself.
Add those to the fact I didn't want to kill him, but he DID, and I you'll get a fight of epic proportions. In fact, I had to take us away from the others as to not acccidentally kill the more fragile ones.
"Giving up already?" I heard him shout as he tried to pin me down in a Harrier, rockets and shells pushing me into the ground. His determination was admirable, I'll admit it, but he was also pissing me off.
Fortunately, Rachel had followed us.
John found his projected plane destroyed by bolts of black lightning, then himself grabbed and slammed against the ground by a familiar black aura. After making sure he wasn't going to escape, Rachel flew down to my side, keeping John still.
"Let me go of me, now!" He shouted.
"Will that hold?" As powerful as Rachel was, her magic had limits. Admittedly these were self-imposed ones she had as to not accidentally unleash all of it, but still.
"Long enough for me to properly see what's wrong with him." Rachel stood next to me, eyes not deviating from John. "Slayer, he's being manipulated. He fears what you can and could do, and something has increased that fear to the point he decided to act."
"Tell me something I don't know. Is it another Lantern?" If a Lantern's main emotion didn't match that of their ring, it simply wouldn't work, and John was still clearly a Green, but everything was possible. Couldn't be Atrocitus, Red Lanterns were more in the line of Ghost Rider; if anything, he'd try to kill Kalibak for his crimes. Couldn't be Parallax either, despite his fear of what I could do. The Yellow Lantern was based on inspiring normal terror and horror on others, not the users themselves, and even then, the fear that fueled John was different.
"I don't really know much about the Emotional Spectrum, but no. Whatever it is, it's fully magical in nature." She then frowned. "Magic I think I know the source of."
Figures. If only had we known from the beginning what kind of magic was messing with his brain...
"And the others?"
"If you mean the League, they're doing just fine. As for the Lanterns, they're not being manipulated, but fear of the unknown is quite the motivator. They're also pretty damn good for space cops."
"Manipulated by what?"
She pursed her lips. " If VEGA hasn't told you... Something's hiding in the ring, but I can't know what unless I touch it." She looked at me with a meaningful gaze. "That's going to take a while. And to be safe, the ring has to stay on his finger."
Didn't need to hear the rest: I'll had to restrain John while she forced whatever was inside his ring out.
The moment Rachel released John, I rammed into him, careful to not kill him but still with enough force to force the air out of his lungs. You could say that the fight was over the moment I grabbed him with enough force to bruise his ribs, breaking his focus. The easy part proper was over; it was now Rachel's turn.
"You sonuva...!"
Once more, Rachel conjurated a sphere of energy that surrounded John, took him from my hold, and lifted him into the air as he screamed, her magic permeating through him.
Except this time, it wasn't black.
Yellow, the Green's opposite spectrum, and the most effective way to disable a Green Lantern's ring; it didn't even have to come from a Yellow ring. It baffled me that something as simple as a color could counter something so powerful, but again, this was still DC.
"Azarath... Methrion... Zinthos." Rachel's eyes opened and she all but roared. "STEP INTO THE LIGHT!"
John's screams of anguish were muffled by the screeching of something seeping out of his ring, something Rachel caught the moment it was fully out.
It was a shadowy, red-colored thing, not formless yet not resembling any living creature either, but then, it was nothing more than a construct of the arcane, a weapon.
Not a demon per se, but definitely evil.
John, on the ground and panting, looked up to see what he thought had to be a demon from Hell itself hovering over him.
"What the hell is that?" His eyes then widened, as if struck by something. "What the hell did it do to me?"
"That, is the reason you were so unhinged." Rachel said as the thing screeched and struggled to escape, to no avail.
"Can you capture it in a bottle or something like that, keep it under control?" I asked her. Either of us would had killed it without a second, but aside from wanting to
"What for?"
"Because when the Guardians call him for trial for breaking the code, seeing the cause might soften the punishment, if they don't discharge him or worse."
John looked at the ground, half confused, half horrified by everything, his mind fully cleared. "Shit. I thought that... I didn't..."
"You better come with us and tell your friends to stand down."
And so we moved back to the main battle, with a silent John pondering on the fact he had been a pawn... and that his actions had metaphorically killed him.
Sorry for those who wanted Parallax. Don't worry, though, we'll get to see Sinestro in the future. Also, the SI is strong as fuck, but since a Green Lantern can take on Superman and, while not win per se, last a good tad longer than most... Besides, John still lost. And yes, the ending is kinda rushed.
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