Lightshear
08/17/2010, 23:07
Green Lantern Corps #19
“Red Planet”
By Lightshear
"A decision must be made."
"Yes - truth or deception."
"It is not so simple, Ganthet."
"Yes, Ganthet - truth brings great consequence."
"Where Honor Guardsman Prime has gone, none must follow. Destruction lays there-- any who seek him will burn."
"We don't know that! That fire hasn't yet been lit; we have no idea how far along that course we have come."
"Ganthet speaks true, brothers. Lantern Honor Guardsman Prime has done too much for us to abandon him over fear."
"Fear?"
"Fear?!"
"We can not fear."
"Never fear!"
"We are beyond emotion. We act on matters through logic and reason. Rationality must lead us to our answer."
"And our answer is to abandon Lantern Jordan to death? To lie to our Corps and say he is already perished? Such deception can only bring greater conflict."
"If it is discovered… trust in our word is already waning..."
"Yes. Thinned since Krona and Sinestro and the lighting of the yellow flame."
"No! There is a reason the forbidden sector was closed to the Green Lantern Corps - a reason why we forbade any of our agents enter."
"A reason we forbade any knowledge of its events escape."
"A reason we forbade any Lantern who discovers the red planet to ever again leave."
"The Inversions…"
"Inversions…"
"Do not forget, brothers and sisters, the tragedy of Abin Sur."
"Let it not be forgotten!"
"And so we condemn Hal Jordan to repeat the tragedy of his predecessor? I find these circumstances too familiar."
"Altogether too familiar."
"Enough. The edict of millennia will not be undone for the sake of a single man, no matter how indebted to his service you think we are. The deception of the Inversions must not escape their prison."
"The red planet must remain sealed."
"The fire must remain unlit."
"For the good of us all…"
"For the good of all beings…"
"Honor Guardsman Prime is deceased."
"Harold Jordan of Earth is dead.".
_______________________________________
Hal sat up with a start. It was morning, and he was still alive. He threw off the tarp he used as a blanket and collected the survival implements he'd scavenged from the dead city he'd passed some miles back. It had been little more than barely recognizable foundations of buildings long since destroyed, but he'd still managed to salvage some bare-bones survival gear - a tarp, some rope, a few short lengths of pole, some flasks for water, a hatchet so he could conserve the last of his ring's charge for important tasks. He checked them all in the makeshift backpack he'd made and gave another thanks for the survival training he'd gotten in the Air Force. It was supposed to help him live off the land and stay alive if his plane was ever shot down in the wilderness; it was finally paying off.
He pulled the tarp around him and adjusted the flap he was using as a hood to protect against the heat of the sun. As unforgiving and barren as this world was, at least there weren't any predators interested in his life. That meant he didn't have to be constantly on-edge. The first couple days after he’d crashed here, hurtled through space to the unknown world by Sinestro for some reason beyond his understanding, he was always looking over his shoulder; living like he was being hunted. But the only life-forms he ever found were the insects that were now his only steady food source. The ring told him they were non-toxic and would provide adequate sustenance in numbers, and so he'd gotten pretty good at catching them.
Somewhere in there was a 'fast food' joke, but Jenny wasn't here to make it for him. And Katma wasn't here either, so it wasn't worth him coming up with one himself. He sighed to himself, realizing how much he'd come to enjoy having them around. Even G'nort, the too-eager talking space-dog, had grown on him since he'd left Earth. Now he had nobody.
He hadn't seen another living thing larger than his thumb in days. Even in the long-dead city he'd found, there was no sign that any life had ever been there other than the foundations of the buildings themselves; no bodies, no remains, not even the sun-bleached skeletons from old western movies. There was virtually no vegetation here, and what there was was dry, brown and tasted like sand. This whole planet was basically dead. The red sun painted the sky crimson, the clay earth beneath his feet was stiff and often sharp. He'd only found one water source since he'd gotten here, and it tasted as coppery as it looked. It couldn't be healthy, but dehydration was worse. The days were impossibly hot and the nights frigid-cold. The hazy ripple from the heat off the burning ground in the red distance made it look like the whole planet was on fire.
He scratched his stubbled jaw and wondered if this was what Mars looked like, then laughed painfully remembering his friend J'Onn and all his other friends in the League. Two had died in defense of their planet - was he going to die in defense of nothing on some dead world where nobody would ever find him? And why was he laughing so hard at that?
The thing that nagged at him, that pulled at his mind and wouldn't let go, was the question of why his ring wasn't working right. It could do low-power tasks like scanning bugs and water to make sure he wasn't poisoning himself, but it couldn't fly him out of here? Or send a message to anybody outside? The charge was dwindling down day by day and he'd be out of power soon but no closer to an escape from this place. What was causing it? What could block the power of a power ring?
Ironically, it was the only thing that gave him hope; if his ring wasn't working, then something had to be blocking it. No natural phenomena could do that, so there had to be somebody else around here. At the least, there had to be some kind of facility broadcasting the-- what? The signal? The jamming frequency? Some kind of energy field? Whatever it was, it was coming from somewhere and being done purposely. If he could find that place, he could at best shut it down and use his ring to escape, and at worst shut it down and build or steal another way off this rock.
So he was following the strength of the jamming field. The more his ring went on the fritz, the closer he must be getting to the source. Yesterday he spotted what he thought had to be where he was headed - a huge ruined city half-way up a mountain in the distance. It was clearly a wreck, but it actually had standing structures large enough to be seen from a long way away so that was already something worth investigating. Even if it turned out to be a bust, he could find more or better supplies and maybe a better water source. Something. Survival was all about keeping yourself positive and focused on your next objective. Now he had a new one - he was going to get to that city, whatever it took.
_______________________________________
"Anything?" Jenny Hayden asked as Katma Tui came back into the office of the Green Lantern Honor Guard. She could already tell from the Korugaran woman's face, but she had to ask.
"Nothing. Salaak is stonewalling me, saying the whole operation has been boxed and all the files are frozen so we can't get any of them."
"Even though we were there?" Jenny scoffed. "This is unbelievable."
"Oh, it's plenty believable," Katma scowled. "This is how they-- this is what happened to Sin'nus. Whatever happened to Hal, we all stumbled into something the Guardians don't want anybody knowing about."
"I can vouch for that," Tomar said. "When I brought in reinforcements to help you*, I had to do so under the auspices of stopping and arresting the leadership of the Black Circle crime syndicate. When I'd tried to gather a rescue team to search for you I was flatly rejected at all turns."
"Hal and me probably only got to go looking for you in the first place because we didn't ask first," Jenny smiled sardonically.
"Any progress?" John Stewart asked as he and G'nort came into the room and saw Katma had returned. Unlike the others, he wasn't technically a Green Lantern. He still wore his dingy, dark-green coveralls with the sleeves rolled up.
"None," she shook her head. "How is Yrra?"
"She's better," he sighed, rubbing his close-cropped hair. "She's actually working with a Bymmin therapist, which amazed me. Kr'kuli from sector 3293? She says Yrra's made the most important step, being willing to talk at all. We'll see what happens next."
Katma nodded in understanding. The Xanshi girl had been an enigma to her from the beginning. Believing that John and the Corps had been more directly responsible for the destruction of her planet, she had gone on a campaign of revenge that led to the deaths of ten Green Lanterns and John's kidnapping. When Katma and G'nort had found and apprehended her, the Black Circle had crashed them all on an uninhabited world in the forbidden sector. The ensuing weeks had revealed Yrra, who called herself Fatality, to be little more than a sad, broken little girl, and profoundly empathic.
They had all escaped when Hal and Jade had come for them, but not before the Black Circle had sprung their trap. They found out that the head of the Circle, Amon Sur, had been the one to fill Yrra's head with her blood-thirst and supply her with the technology she needed to wage a private war on the Lantern Corps, all as an elaborate trap to catch and kill Hal Jordan. In the end, Yrra had saved them all from certain death, even though it had almost cost her her life.
Back on Oa, the Guardians had accepted John and Katma's request that the girl be treated on-planet and that her crimes be attributed to Amon Sur and not herself. She had been as much a victim as the rest; in some ways more. Ever since, John had kept close watch on her recuperation. Katma knew that she was special to him. He still blamed himself for what happened to her planet and her people, and he had tied his own redemption to saving Yrra and giving her a future.
"She's doing better than I ever hoped she would be by now, if she's talking to 'Kuli," Katma smiled, rubbing his shoulder. "I think everything is going to work out for her."
"It's just a question of what happens next," he nodded, laying his hand on top of hers and patting it affectionately. They broke their stare after a moment longer and returned to business.
"If we can't get to the files," Tomar said, bringing things back to the issue at hand, "then we'll just have to go back to the scene and investigate ourselves."
"Hey, yeah!" Jade snapped her fingers, eyes shooting wide. "Why didn't I think of this before now? G'nort!"
"Yeah?" the furry, short Lantern asked, panting as he smiled wide and wagged his tail, anxious to be helpful.
"It's been a long time, but do you think you could follow Hal's trail if we were able to pick it up back at the planet where we lost him?"
"Yeah! Yeah! 'Course I can! I'm a great tracker, just you watch!" He lifted off the ground, his ring sputtering light in time with his frantic tail-wagging.
"Not yet, buddy," John said, patting his back. "There's a problem with that plan. We can't go back there without the Guardians knowing about it. Lanterns are forbidden from entering that sector of space; if they find out you've gone there, they'll force you back."
"Not if they're busy with something else," Katma arched an eyebrow.
"I don't like when you get that look," John said warily. "That's a very 'Hal' look."
"I can keep them distracted," she continued. "If they're busy with me, they won't be watching the rest of you."
"How will you keep them watching you?" Tomar asked, growing more interested.
"I'll do something I'm not supposed to," she smirked. "But I'll have to do it with a lot of power. Enough to cover your tracks. Jenn, would you like to help me get into trouble?"
"I suppose I could," the girl smiled with a wicked giggle. "And I can definitely kick up enough power to give the boys some cover."
"And then G'nort and I go in alone to find Hal?" Tomar said, thinking it over and shaking his head. "The problem is that G'nort needs someone to set him on Hal’s specific energy trail, and I don't know Hal well enough to find his needle in the cosmic haystack."
"Maybe not," Katma said, staring at John. "But we have someone who does."
"Why did I have a feeling this is where you were leading?" he asked.
"Because for a human being, you're very clever," she smiled. "John, you know you can do this. You're the only one who can. We've spent all this time trying to find another way to solve this problem, and we keep coming up empty. It's time we tried something more extreme-- but it will only work with you helping us."
"And to help you, I'll have to become a Lantern again."
"…Yes," she nodded. She knew how hard this was for him. He'd refused the offer from her, from Hal, and even from the Guardians themselves. But after the time they'd spent together, she knew him well enough to know how far he would go for someone he cared about. John Stewart would not abandon a friend in need.
"It won't be enough just to wear the ring," she continued. "If this goes badly and the Guardians step in, you'll be breaking some of the most important laws the Corps lives by. The only thing that could protect you is Honor Lantern status. I can give that to you, if you're willing to accept it."
It was a long silent moment as he went into himself. She could see him shaking almost imperceptibly. She wondered if anyone else could tell, and the look on Jenn's face told her that at least one person could. His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched, his fists kept tightening and releasing as the emotions worked through him. Eventually, he looked up at her, and she wanted badly to embrace him. She could see the pain in his eyes, but also the resolution.
After years of denial, he was going to wear the uniform again.
"I'm ready," he said. And she knew that he was.
*see last issue!
_______________________________________
The planet known colloquially as Shadowland was one giant, wretched hive of scum and villainy. It was the only planet within the Forbidden Sector that had been completely colonized, and cities covered the world leaving little room for the rugged, twisting natural fauna to scrape its way past the concrete and durasteel and claw to the open air. But Shadowland had been built entirely by and for criminals on the run from the law. Being a world deep in a galaxy where no Green Lantern could ever travel, it had grown into a thriving hornet's nest of the vilest of the vile.
Arisia knew how dangerous the place was, but she had adapted. Hunkered down in the seedy haze of the darkened bar, she sipped at the disgusting drink she'd had to order to blend in. She hid her face in the shadows of the hood on her smuggler's disguise; felt her power ring snug on her finger beneath the worn gloves she used to hide it. Even her friends wouldn't recognize her, now. Sometimes she would wake up in the morning and look at herself in the mirror and she couldn't recognize herself. Her face seemed to be changing - was this place hardening her? She hoped that when this was over, she could still go back to her life without being marked too deeply by the character she'd been playing for these last weeks.
When she'd heard about the mission to rescue Katma and the others, and that Hal had been lost and presumed dead at its end, Arisia had refused to accept it. The Guardians claimed to have ordered a thorough search, and confirmed his death. She hadn't stayed for the funeral; she left immediately and snuck her way into the sector on a tramp freighter run by a guild of slavers she had been tracking before her stay on Mogo. Losing herself in the Forbidden Sector, she swore that she wouldn't return until she found Hal and brought him back with her.
Her information hunt had led her here to Shadowland, and from here she'd been picking up a lot of good intel. Apparently the Black Circle were well known here, and she was working her way up a chain of suckers to get to somebody well-placed enough to give her data on the mission that had ended the Circle and supposedly killed Hal. She knew there was something bigger going on here, she just needed to find it.
Pretending to be older was getting easier by the day. She hid her figure under heavy layers of clothes so to avoid having to brutalize would-be assailants and rapists that would come out of the woodwork at the first scent of a female. The disguise was ragged enough to look typical, but fashionable enough to mark her as somebody who had the skills to work offworld. If they thought she was just an under-city duster, nobody would tell her jyeck-all, and she needed to be able to move up to higher circles to get better info.
She'd had to change disguises a few times, as they grew increasingly uncomfortable. She hadn't realized how much of a blessing the ring-made clothing was that she usually wore; it conformed to her body, supporting her where she needed it while breathing so well that it felt like nothing at all. This stuff… she could hardly wear it a week before it started feeling too tight and confining. She longed to be able to fire up her ring, blast her way free of this dirt-hole and rescue Hal.
"Just a little longer," she said to herself, taking another sip and shuddering with a 'blech.' She was so close she could taste it, and then she would be on her way to find the bastiches that hurt her Hal. Then he'd see that she wasn't just some little girl - she was a hero, she was tough and resourceful, she was the kind of girl he wanted.
Except if he didn't see those things. She kept having dreams about finally finding Hal, only to have him blow her off again. She wasn't stupid - she knew there was a big age difference between them. But how do you just stop loving somebody? And if she couldn't have Hal because she was too young, what was she supposed to do? She didn't know anybody her own age, and even if she did what would they have in common? What teenage boy could she ever possibly be able to relate to?
She had to become the kind of woman Hal could love, not just for his sake so she could save him, but for her own too. She couldn't take everyone thinking of her as a little girl any more. Maybe after this, they'd all change their minds. Maybe after this, everybody would see her for who she'd been all along.
_______________________________________
When Hal finally reached the ruined city, it wasn't what he'd expected. He hadn't known what he really did expect to find, but this was not it. Built into the side of the mountain was what had once been a grand and vast city that rivaled any of the biggest and most impressive he'd ever seen. Just because it was in complete ruination did nothing to diminish his respect for the marvel it used to be.
But it wasn't the city that surprised him. Sitting in the middle, as if it had been built over top of the ruins, was a massive citadel. Its walls gleamed crimson and stood smooth and shining over the debris and rubble like a predator standing proudly over its kill. Everything on this planet was death and decay, and yet this citadel looked as if it had been built yesterday. Nothing he had seen in all his time here had been so clean, fresh, and new; at the same time, for all the bleakness of the planet, nothing had felt so foul to him.
This was definitely the source of the disturbance. He could feel it in his veins, and the blood seemed to pump painfully in his hand around the ring on his finger. He pressed on to find an entrance. One way or the other, this was going to end here.
He hadn't expected the colossal gates to the citadel to be sitting open. It put him on guard, but he was too tired and hungry and desperate to wait to find another way in.
He hadn't expected all roads within to lead to the center of the structure, or for it to feel so eerily similar to walking through the Lantern Citadel at the heart of Oa. His feet found the path almost without need for him to direct them. He was too curious now to look for another path.
He certainly hadn't expected what he found at the end. In the Citadel of Oa, this place would have been where the Guardians' secret chamber was built; their inner sanctum, most venerated and secure of all locations on Oa. Here, in this rank place, was a huge open room, its walls soaring up more than half a mile into the air before being capped off by a dome of blood-red glass. Before him stood seven huge stakes with crooked cross-bars, each like a twisted crucifix large enough to torture a man twice Hal's size. The ground was uneven rock and clay, and the center of the room was dominated by a 20-yard pool of red.
Hal was uncomfortable with how much it resembled blood.
"Everything is occurring as I have foreseen," a raspy voice said. Hal looked for the source and saw a large alien humanoid hunched at the far side of the pool, clutching something with both hands and not paying much attention to his presence.
"I saw that you would come, and so you have come," it continued. "And you wear his ring. Delicious. I do so love the circuitous nature of fate; rhythms are repeated like rhyming verse. A Green Lantern came once before and we slew him with the truth of his fate. Now you come with his ring for the same."
Hal didn't answer. He had little patience for monologuing, and certainly wasn't going to play this thing's game, but it might buy him time to find out what was happening. Sometimes the best thing to do when a lunatic wanted to tell you his life story was to let them go and see what you can find out.
"I wish my brothers had lived to see this," it said, leaning down to take a large, gruesome bite from what Hal realized now was the corpse of some other creature; likely also humanoid from what he could see, and not a recent kill. Its blood ran like a river to the pool, and watching the trail led Hal's eyes to spot carcasses of other monstrous aliens that lay slain on that side of the pool.
"But I knew the truth they refused to accept," it said. "Sometimes one is more powerful than the many. When you arrived, I knew it was time. The light must be lit - you are the harbinger of my freedom, after millennia of tortuous captivity."
"What… are you?" Hal said, not meaning to speak aloud, but failing to stop himself. He couldn't help it - the thing was like something out of a nightmare, full of fangs and claws with knotted muscles and skin tight enough and thin enough that he could see every sinew and tendon flexing with its movements. It looked little better than a corpse itself; as if it should have died a long time ago. What was sustaining it? What kept this thing alive that should have been dead?
"I am what I was made," it said. "I am the final Inversion. I am the lone brother. I am the last survivor. Doombringer, slayer; pitiable victim I was named, and now I name myself Vengeance. Redemption to the fallen masses, slain by the Maltusian folly.
"I am Atrocitus, who now lights the red fire and the first bearer of its light. I slew my brothers to bring it life, and now it lives through me. My hatred gives it strength, and so it is invincible."
"Right," Hal said, raising his hand and letting his ring flare, looking to try a bluff to see how far he could get with it and how much this Atrocitus thing knew about his situation. "Well, you're going to be in a world of pain if you don't tell me what I want to know."
Atrocitus stood to his full height, eight feet if he was an inch, baring his rows of fanged teeth in some horrific mockery of a smile. Though he radiated danger, he looked emaciated and gaunt, his muscles seeming to fight against every movement he made. His brows, chin, temples, and the joints of his nude body were pocked with open sockets, as if horns once grew there but had been torn free from his skeleton and only the grisly craters remained. He was like an animated corpse, driven by will alone.
"Your trinket is weak, here. You lack the rage to fuel your conviction. You think the desire for justice can give you power here? Justice has forsaken this place!"
He began to wade into the pool, and Hal noticed a subtle glow about him. It was like a red mist began wafting from his body, glowing faintly in the light. The blood of the pool started to swirl slowly, shapes taking form within like clouds in a roiling, stormy sky. Lightning cracks of light burst through its depths, and images began to form on the surface.
"We were betrayed and slain by your Guardians and their Manhunters," Atrocitus said, and the pool showed Hal visions of the Manhunter robots he and the Corps had fought off not so long ago.
"Yes, you know them," Atrocitus said, catching the look of recognition in his eyes. "They were the heartless, soulless soldiers that preceded your Green Lantern Corps. When they decided all life was a threat to universal order and peace, they set about the greatest genocide committed in the history of existence.
"Only I and my brothers survived, and we sought justice from their keepers, your Guardians." The pool showed Atrocitus and six other nightmare-creatures arguing before the court of the Guardians on Oa. "For our insolence, we were beaten, broken, and staked here to endure the ages in agony."
"Enough!" Hal shouted. "I don't care about your sob story, certainly not your perspective on galactic history. All I care about is getting the hell off this sorry planet and back to my Corps."
"It can't happen," Atrocitus said, raising his arms as he reached the center of the pool, the blood reaching to the middle of his abdomen. "Not before you bear witness to the lighting of the red of my anger, my hatred, my fury. As your forebear was the last pillar to fall, his death set in motion the events that have now led to this. Your presence with his ring proves to me that the time is now."
"What does this have to do with Abin Sur?" Hal demanded, his ring glowing brighter.
"Really," Atrocitus smiled again. "Did you never wonder why a Green Lantern would fly a starcraft rather than using his own ring? Did you never wonder why his ring couldn't protect him from the crash? He found us once before, and we gifted him with the prophecy of his demise. He thought he could best fate… and was proven wrong."
"Stop!" Hal shouted, not noticing the slight crimson cast of the light from his ring, nor how easily he was succumbing to the anger inside him. "You're twisting this around! There's no way you could have had anything to do with that. You just want to mess with my head."
"I don't have any need for that, Harold Jordan," Atrocitus said, and Hal saw images of his life drifting in waves through the roiling blood pool. "You are already unbalanced enough. The red light is alive in you, as it is in all beings. Only its strength will power you here."
"No!" he screamed, shutting his eyes and blasting with his ring. The green light washed over Atrocitus, his own crimson glow wrapping around his body. The red mist solidified into a shield, and when the green glow faded and the sound died down, Atrocitus was unscathed.
He reared back and roared, red blood foaming around his mouth and spilling down his chest like some grotesque fountain or a ruptured organ trying to escape from his opened jaws. The crimson pool swirled around him and as a wave crashed behind him, it lifted his body and hurled it through the air at Hal. He landed on the Green Lantern, the red froth at his mouth spilling on him like bile and saliva, and it burned like white phosphorous wherever it touched. It was like acid eating its way to his flesh, and Hal's ring couldn't douse the burn, so he tore his clothes free until he was down to his tattered uniform.
"Fight me, Lantern," Atrocitus gargled and roared, beating his chest as the red mist wafted off his skin like a faint halo of power. "Die at my hand, or join me - either way, your emerald light will be the first to be doused at my hand!"
Faintly glowing shapes took form around him, like dream-visions in red. Nightmares given life, they grew more solid but slowly, as if his mind was too far gone in berserk fury to focus on the tangibility of his power. Hal reached with his will into his own ring and tried to draw on the power there, but found it as hard to control and summon as Atrocitus' own.
If he spotted the rivulets of red veining his emerald constructs, he didn't show any signs.
_______________________________________
The Green Lantern Corps:
Hal Jordan (E JL Hal Jordan) - 120
Boxing Glove Construct (R Knockout) – 70
Green Arrow Construct (E JL Green Arrow) - 70
Blaster Construct (E LoS Lightning Lad) - 70
Total: 330
Vs.
The Inversion:
Atrocitus (V Mera) – 85
w/ Blood Oath - 10
Bestial Construct (U Colonel Logan) - 70
Demon Construct (R JL The Flash) - 70
Serpent Construct (E M&M Iron Man) - 70
Total: 305
Map: Park ( http://www.ianparmenter.com/hcutils/map.jsp?map=M3)
Scenario Rules:
--> Because the constructs are made real by the will of the two combatants, they can be shaken by any significant attack against either man. Any time Hal Jordan or Atrocitus are hit and take damage from an attack where the roll was doubles, all their constructs take a cumulative -1 penalty to all their stats (attack, damage, movement, defense, and range) until the end of their player’s next turn.
“Red Planet”
By Lightshear
"A decision must be made."
"Yes - truth or deception."
"It is not so simple, Ganthet."
"Yes, Ganthet - truth brings great consequence."
"Where Honor Guardsman Prime has gone, none must follow. Destruction lays there-- any who seek him will burn."
"We don't know that! That fire hasn't yet been lit; we have no idea how far along that course we have come."
"Ganthet speaks true, brothers. Lantern Honor Guardsman Prime has done too much for us to abandon him over fear."
"Fear?"
"Fear?!"
"We can not fear."
"Never fear!"
"We are beyond emotion. We act on matters through logic and reason. Rationality must lead us to our answer."
"And our answer is to abandon Lantern Jordan to death? To lie to our Corps and say he is already perished? Such deception can only bring greater conflict."
"If it is discovered… trust in our word is already waning..."
"Yes. Thinned since Krona and Sinestro and the lighting of the yellow flame."
"No! There is a reason the forbidden sector was closed to the Green Lantern Corps - a reason why we forbade any of our agents enter."
"A reason we forbade any knowledge of its events escape."
"A reason we forbade any Lantern who discovers the red planet to ever again leave."
"The Inversions…"
"Inversions…"
"Do not forget, brothers and sisters, the tragedy of Abin Sur."
"Let it not be forgotten!"
"And so we condemn Hal Jordan to repeat the tragedy of his predecessor? I find these circumstances too familiar."
"Altogether too familiar."
"Enough. The edict of millennia will not be undone for the sake of a single man, no matter how indebted to his service you think we are. The deception of the Inversions must not escape their prison."
"The red planet must remain sealed."
"The fire must remain unlit."
"For the good of us all…"
"For the good of all beings…"
"Honor Guardsman Prime is deceased."
"Harold Jordan of Earth is dead.".
_______________________________________
Hal sat up with a start. It was morning, and he was still alive. He threw off the tarp he used as a blanket and collected the survival implements he'd scavenged from the dead city he'd passed some miles back. It had been little more than barely recognizable foundations of buildings long since destroyed, but he'd still managed to salvage some bare-bones survival gear - a tarp, some rope, a few short lengths of pole, some flasks for water, a hatchet so he could conserve the last of his ring's charge for important tasks. He checked them all in the makeshift backpack he'd made and gave another thanks for the survival training he'd gotten in the Air Force. It was supposed to help him live off the land and stay alive if his plane was ever shot down in the wilderness; it was finally paying off.
He pulled the tarp around him and adjusted the flap he was using as a hood to protect against the heat of the sun. As unforgiving and barren as this world was, at least there weren't any predators interested in his life. That meant he didn't have to be constantly on-edge. The first couple days after he’d crashed here, hurtled through space to the unknown world by Sinestro for some reason beyond his understanding, he was always looking over his shoulder; living like he was being hunted. But the only life-forms he ever found were the insects that were now his only steady food source. The ring told him they were non-toxic and would provide adequate sustenance in numbers, and so he'd gotten pretty good at catching them.
Somewhere in there was a 'fast food' joke, but Jenny wasn't here to make it for him. And Katma wasn't here either, so it wasn't worth him coming up with one himself. He sighed to himself, realizing how much he'd come to enjoy having them around. Even G'nort, the too-eager talking space-dog, had grown on him since he'd left Earth. Now he had nobody.
He hadn't seen another living thing larger than his thumb in days. Even in the long-dead city he'd found, there was no sign that any life had ever been there other than the foundations of the buildings themselves; no bodies, no remains, not even the sun-bleached skeletons from old western movies. There was virtually no vegetation here, and what there was was dry, brown and tasted like sand. This whole planet was basically dead. The red sun painted the sky crimson, the clay earth beneath his feet was stiff and often sharp. He'd only found one water source since he'd gotten here, and it tasted as coppery as it looked. It couldn't be healthy, but dehydration was worse. The days were impossibly hot and the nights frigid-cold. The hazy ripple from the heat off the burning ground in the red distance made it look like the whole planet was on fire.
He scratched his stubbled jaw and wondered if this was what Mars looked like, then laughed painfully remembering his friend J'Onn and all his other friends in the League. Two had died in defense of their planet - was he going to die in defense of nothing on some dead world where nobody would ever find him? And why was he laughing so hard at that?
The thing that nagged at him, that pulled at his mind and wouldn't let go, was the question of why his ring wasn't working right. It could do low-power tasks like scanning bugs and water to make sure he wasn't poisoning himself, but it couldn't fly him out of here? Or send a message to anybody outside? The charge was dwindling down day by day and he'd be out of power soon but no closer to an escape from this place. What was causing it? What could block the power of a power ring?
Ironically, it was the only thing that gave him hope; if his ring wasn't working, then something had to be blocking it. No natural phenomena could do that, so there had to be somebody else around here. At the least, there had to be some kind of facility broadcasting the-- what? The signal? The jamming frequency? Some kind of energy field? Whatever it was, it was coming from somewhere and being done purposely. If he could find that place, he could at best shut it down and use his ring to escape, and at worst shut it down and build or steal another way off this rock.
So he was following the strength of the jamming field. The more his ring went on the fritz, the closer he must be getting to the source. Yesterday he spotted what he thought had to be where he was headed - a huge ruined city half-way up a mountain in the distance. It was clearly a wreck, but it actually had standing structures large enough to be seen from a long way away so that was already something worth investigating. Even if it turned out to be a bust, he could find more or better supplies and maybe a better water source. Something. Survival was all about keeping yourself positive and focused on your next objective. Now he had a new one - he was going to get to that city, whatever it took.
_______________________________________
"Anything?" Jenny Hayden asked as Katma Tui came back into the office of the Green Lantern Honor Guard. She could already tell from the Korugaran woman's face, but she had to ask.
"Nothing. Salaak is stonewalling me, saying the whole operation has been boxed and all the files are frozen so we can't get any of them."
"Even though we were there?" Jenny scoffed. "This is unbelievable."
"Oh, it's plenty believable," Katma scowled. "This is how they-- this is what happened to Sin'nus. Whatever happened to Hal, we all stumbled into something the Guardians don't want anybody knowing about."
"I can vouch for that," Tomar said. "When I brought in reinforcements to help you*, I had to do so under the auspices of stopping and arresting the leadership of the Black Circle crime syndicate. When I'd tried to gather a rescue team to search for you I was flatly rejected at all turns."
"Hal and me probably only got to go looking for you in the first place because we didn't ask first," Jenny smiled sardonically.
"Any progress?" John Stewart asked as he and G'nort came into the room and saw Katma had returned. Unlike the others, he wasn't technically a Green Lantern. He still wore his dingy, dark-green coveralls with the sleeves rolled up.
"None," she shook her head. "How is Yrra?"
"She's better," he sighed, rubbing his close-cropped hair. "She's actually working with a Bymmin therapist, which amazed me. Kr'kuli from sector 3293? She says Yrra's made the most important step, being willing to talk at all. We'll see what happens next."
Katma nodded in understanding. The Xanshi girl had been an enigma to her from the beginning. Believing that John and the Corps had been more directly responsible for the destruction of her planet, she had gone on a campaign of revenge that led to the deaths of ten Green Lanterns and John's kidnapping. When Katma and G'nort had found and apprehended her, the Black Circle had crashed them all on an uninhabited world in the forbidden sector. The ensuing weeks had revealed Yrra, who called herself Fatality, to be little more than a sad, broken little girl, and profoundly empathic.
They had all escaped when Hal and Jade had come for them, but not before the Black Circle had sprung their trap. They found out that the head of the Circle, Amon Sur, had been the one to fill Yrra's head with her blood-thirst and supply her with the technology she needed to wage a private war on the Lantern Corps, all as an elaborate trap to catch and kill Hal Jordan. In the end, Yrra had saved them all from certain death, even though it had almost cost her her life.
Back on Oa, the Guardians had accepted John and Katma's request that the girl be treated on-planet and that her crimes be attributed to Amon Sur and not herself. She had been as much a victim as the rest; in some ways more. Ever since, John had kept close watch on her recuperation. Katma knew that she was special to him. He still blamed himself for what happened to her planet and her people, and he had tied his own redemption to saving Yrra and giving her a future.
"She's doing better than I ever hoped she would be by now, if she's talking to 'Kuli," Katma smiled, rubbing his shoulder. "I think everything is going to work out for her."
"It's just a question of what happens next," he nodded, laying his hand on top of hers and patting it affectionately. They broke their stare after a moment longer and returned to business.
"If we can't get to the files," Tomar said, bringing things back to the issue at hand, "then we'll just have to go back to the scene and investigate ourselves."
"Hey, yeah!" Jade snapped her fingers, eyes shooting wide. "Why didn't I think of this before now? G'nort!"
"Yeah?" the furry, short Lantern asked, panting as he smiled wide and wagged his tail, anxious to be helpful.
"It's been a long time, but do you think you could follow Hal's trail if we were able to pick it up back at the planet where we lost him?"
"Yeah! Yeah! 'Course I can! I'm a great tracker, just you watch!" He lifted off the ground, his ring sputtering light in time with his frantic tail-wagging.
"Not yet, buddy," John said, patting his back. "There's a problem with that plan. We can't go back there without the Guardians knowing about it. Lanterns are forbidden from entering that sector of space; if they find out you've gone there, they'll force you back."
"Not if they're busy with something else," Katma arched an eyebrow.
"I don't like when you get that look," John said warily. "That's a very 'Hal' look."
"I can keep them distracted," she continued. "If they're busy with me, they won't be watching the rest of you."
"How will you keep them watching you?" Tomar asked, growing more interested.
"I'll do something I'm not supposed to," she smirked. "But I'll have to do it with a lot of power. Enough to cover your tracks. Jenn, would you like to help me get into trouble?"
"I suppose I could," the girl smiled with a wicked giggle. "And I can definitely kick up enough power to give the boys some cover."
"And then G'nort and I go in alone to find Hal?" Tomar said, thinking it over and shaking his head. "The problem is that G'nort needs someone to set him on Hal’s specific energy trail, and I don't know Hal well enough to find his needle in the cosmic haystack."
"Maybe not," Katma said, staring at John. "But we have someone who does."
"Why did I have a feeling this is where you were leading?" he asked.
"Because for a human being, you're very clever," she smiled. "John, you know you can do this. You're the only one who can. We've spent all this time trying to find another way to solve this problem, and we keep coming up empty. It's time we tried something more extreme-- but it will only work with you helping us."
"And to help you, I'll have to become a Lantern again."
"…Yes," she nodded. She knew how hard this was for him. He'd refused the offer from her, from Hal, and even from the Guardians themselves. But after the time they'd spent together, she knew him well enough to know how far he would go for someone he cared about. John Stewart would not abandon a friend in need.
"It won't be enough just to wear the ring," she continued. "If this goes badly and the Guardians step in, you'll be breaking some of the most important laws the Corps lives by. The only thing that could protect you is Honor Lantern status. I can give that to you, if you're willing to accept it."
It was a long silent moment as he went into himself. She could see him shaking almost imperceptibly. She wondered if anyone else could tell, and the look on Jenn's face told her that at least one person could. His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched, his fists kept tightening and releasing as the emotions worked through him. Eventually, he looked up at her, and she wanted badly to embrace him. She could see the pain in his eyes, but also the resolution.
After years of denial, he was going to wear the uniform again.
"I'm ready," he said. And she knew that he was.
*see last issue!
_______________________________________
The planet known colloquially as Shadowland was one giant, wretched hive of scum and villainy. It was the only planet within the Forbidden Sector that had been completely colonized, and cities covered the world leaving little room for the rugged, twisting natural fauna to scrape its way past the concrete and durasteel and claw to the open air. But Shadowland had been built entirely by and for criminals on the run from the law. Being a world deep in a galaxy where no Green Lantern could ever travel, it had grown into a thriving hornet's nest of the vilest of the vile.
Arisia knew how dangerous the place was, but she had adapted. Hunkered down in the seedy haze of the darkened bar, she sipped at the disgusting drink she'd had to order to blend in. She hid her face in the shadows of the hood on her smuggler's disguise; felt her power ring snug on her finger beneath the worn gloves she used to hide it. Even her friends wouldn't recognize her, now. Sometimes she would wake up in the morning and look at herself in the mirror and she couldn't recognize herself. Her face seemed to be changing - was this place hardening her? She hoped that when this was over, she could still go back to her life without being marked too deeply by the character she'd been playing for these last weeks.
When she'd heard about the mission to rescue Katma and the others, and that Hal had been lost and presumed dead at its end, Arisia had refused to accept it. The Guardians claimed to have ordered a thorough search, and confirmed his death. She hadn't stayed for the funeral; she left immediately and snuck her way into the sector on a tramp freighter run by a guild of slavers she had been tracking before her stay on Mogo. Losing herself in the Forbidden Sector, she swore that she wouldn't return until she found Hal and brought him back with her.
Her information hunt had led her here to Shadowland, and from here she'd been picking up a lot of good intel. Apparently the Black Circle were well known here, and she was working her way up a chain of suckers to get to somebody well-placed enough to give her data on the mission that had ended the Circle and supposedly killed Hal. She knew there was something bigger going on here, she just needed to find it.
Pretending to be older was getting easier by the day. She hid her figure under heavy layers of clothes so to avoid having to brutalize would-be assailants and rapists that would come out of the woodwork at the first scent of a female. The disguise was ragged enough to look typical, but fashionable enough to mark her as somebody who had the skills to work offworld. If they thought she was just an under-city duster, nobody would tell her jyeck-all, and she needed to be able to move up to higher circles to get better info.
She'd had to change disguises a few times, as they grew increasingly uncomfortable. She hadn't realized how much of a blessing the ring-made clothing was that she usually wore; it conformed to her body, supporting her where she needed it while breathing so well that it felt like nothing at all. This stuff… she could hardly wear it a week before it started feeling too tight and confining. She longed to be able to fire up her ring, blast her way free of this dirt-hole and rescue Hal.
"Just a little longer," she said to herself, taking another sip and shuddering with a 'blech.' She was so close she could taste it, and then she would be on her way to find the bastiches that hurt her Hal. Then he'd see that she wasn't just some little girl - she was a hero, she was tough and resourceful, she was the kind of girl he wanted.
Except if he didn't see those things. She kept having dreams about finally finding Hal, only to have him blow her off again. She wasn't stupid - she knew there was a big age difference between them. But how do you just stop loving somebody? And if she couldn't have Hal because she was too young, what was she supposed to do? She didn't know anybody her own age, and even if she did what would they have in common? What teenage boy could she ever possibly be able to relate to?
She had to become the kind of woman Hal could love, not just for his sake so she could save him, but for her own too. She couldn't take everyone thinking of her as a little girl any more. Maybe after this, they'd all change their minds. Maybe after this, everybody would see her for who she'd been all along.
_______________________________________
When Hal finally reached the ruined city, it wasn't what he'd expected. He hadn't known what he really did expect to find, but this was not it. Built into the side of the mountain was what had once been a grand and vast city that rivaled any of the biggest and most impressive he'd ever seen. Just because it was in complete ruination did nothing to diminish his respect for the marvel it used to be.
But it wasn't the city that surprised him. Sitting in the middle, as if it had been built over top of the ruins, was a massive citadel. Its walls gleamed crimson and stood smooth and shining over the debris and rubble like a predator standing proudly over its kill. Everything on this planet was death and decay, and yet this citadel looked as if it had been built yesterday. Nothing he had seen in all his time here had been so clean, fresh, and new; at the same time, for all the bleakness of the planet, nothing had felt so foul to him.
This was definitely the source of the disturbance. He could feel it in his veins, and the blood seemed to pump painfully in his hand around the ring on his finger. He pressed on to find an entrance. One way or the other, this was going to end here.
He hadn't expected the colossal gates to the citadel to be sitting open. It put him on guard, but he was too tired and hungry and desperate to wait to find another way in.
He hadn't expected all roads within to lead to the center of the structure, or for it to feel so eerily similar to walking through the Lantern Citadel at the heart of Oa. His feet found the path almost without need for him to direct them. He was too curious now to look for another path.
He certainly hadn't expected what he found at the end. In the Citadel of Oa, this place would have been where the Guardians' secret chamber was built; their inner sanctum, most venerated and secure of all locations on Oa. Here, in this rank place, was a huge open room, its walls soaring up more than half a mile into the air before being capped off by a dome of blood-red glass. Before him stood seven huge stakes with crooked cross-bars, each like a twisted crucifix large enough to torture a man twice Hal's size. The ground was uneven rock and clay, and the center of the room was dominated by a 20-yard pool of red.
Hal was uncomfortable with how much it resembled blood.
"Everything is occurring as I have foreseen," a raspy voice said. Hal looked for the source and saw a large alien humanoid hunched at the far side of the pool, clutching something with both hands and not paying much attention to his presence.
"I saw that you would come, and so you have come," it continued. "And you wear his ring. Delicious. I do so love the circuitous nature of fate; rhythms are repeated like rhyming verse. A Green Lantern came once before and we slew him with the truth of his fate. Now you come with his ring for the same."
Hal didn't answer. He had little patience for monologuing, and certainly wasn't going to play this thing's game, but it might buy him time to find out what was happening. Sometimes the best thing to do when a lunatic wanted to tell you his life story was to let them go and see what you can find out.
"I wish my brothers had lived to see this," it said, leaning down to take a large, gruesome bite from what Hal realized now was the corpse of some other creature; likely also humanoid from what he could see, and not a recent kill. Its blood ran like a river to the pool, and watching the trail led Hal's eyes to spot carcasses of other monstrous aliens that lay slain on that side of the pool.
"But I knew the truth they refused to accept," it said. "Sometimes one is more powerful than the many. When you arrived, I knew it was time. The light must be lit - you are the harbinger of my freedom, after millennia of tortuous captivity."
"What… are you?" Hal said, not meaning to speak aloud, but failing to stop himself. He couldn't help it - the thing was like something out of a nightmare, full of fangs and claws with knotted muscles and skin tight enough and thin enough that he could see every sinew and tendon flexing with its movements. It looked little better than a corpse itself; as if it should have died a long time ago. What was sustaining it? What kept this thing alive that should have been dead?
"I am what I was made," it said. "I am the final Inversion. I am the lone brother. I am the last survivor. Doombringer, slayer; pitiable victim I was named, and now I name myself Vengeance. Redemption to the fallen masses, slain by the Maltusian folly.
"I am Atrocitus, who now lights the red fire and the first bearer of its light. I slew my brothers to bring it life, and now it lives through me. My hatred gives it strength, and so it is invincible."
"Right," Hal said, raising his hand and letting his ring flare, looking to try a bluff to see how far he could get with it and how much this Atrocitus thing knew about his situation. "Well, you're going to be in a world of pain if you don't tell me what I want to know."
Atrocitus stood to his full height, eight feet if he was an inch, baring his rows of fanged teeth in some horrific mockery of a smile. Though he radiated danger, he looked emaciated and gaunt, his muscles seeming to fight against every movement he made. His brows, chin, temples, and the joints of his nude body were pocked with open sockets, as if horns once grew there but had been torn free from his skeleton and only the grisly craters remained. He was like an animated corpse, driven by will alone.
"Your trinket is weak, here. You lack the rage to fuel your conviction. You think the desire for justice can give you power here? Justice has forsaken this place!"
He began to wade into the pool, and Hal noticed a subtle glow about him. It was like a red mist began wafting from his body, glowing faintly in the light. The blood of the pool started to swirl slowly, shapes taking form within like clouds in a roiling, stormy sky. Lightning cracks of light burst through its depths, and images began to form on the surface.
"We were betrayed and slain by your Guardians and their Manhunters," Atrocitus said, and the pool showed Hal visions of the Manhunter robots he and the Corps had fought off not so long ago.
"Yes, you know them," Atrocitus said, catching the look of recognition in his eyes. "They were the heartless, soulless soldiers that preceded your Green Lantern Corps. When they decided all life was a threat to universal order and peace, they set about the greatest genocide committed in the history of existence.
"Only I and my brothers survived, and we sought justice from their keepers, your Guardians." The pool showed Atrocitus and six other nightmare-creatures arguing before the court of the Guardians on Oa. "For our insolence, we were beaten, broken, and staked here to endure the ages in agony."
"Enough!" Hal shouted. "I don't care about your sob story, certainly not your perspective on galactic history. All I care about is getting the hell off this sorry planet and back to my Corps."
"It can't happen," Atrocitus said, raising his arms as he reached the center of the pool, the blood reaching to the middle of his abdomen. "Not before you bear witness to the lighting of the red of my anger, my hatred, my fury. As your forebear was the last pillar to fall, his death set in motion the events that have now led to this. Your presence with his ring proves to me that the time is now."
"What does this have to do with Abin Sur?" Hal demanded, his ring glowing brighter.
"Really," Atrocitus smiled again. "Did you never wonder why a Green Lantern would fly a starcraft rather than using his own ring? Did you never wonder why his ring couldn't protect him from the crash? He found us once before, and we gifted him with the prophecy of his demise. He thought he could best fate… and was proven wrong."
"Stop!" Hal shouted, not noticing the slight crimson cast of the light from his ring, nor how easily he was succumbing to the anger inside him. "You're twisting this around! There's no way you could have had anything to do with that. You just want to mess with my head."
"I don't have any need for that, Harold Jordan," Atrocitus said, and Hal saw images of his life drifting in waves through the roiling blood pool. "You are already unbalanced enough. The red light is alive in you, as it is in all beings. Only its strength will power you here."
"No!" he screamed, shutting his eyes and blasting with his ring. The green light washed over Atrocitus, his own crimson glow wrapping around his body. The red mist solidified into a shield, and when the green glow faded and the sound died down, Atrocitus was unscathed.
He reared back and roared, red blood foaming around his mouth and spilling down his chest like some grotesque fountain or a ruptured organ trying to escape from his opened jaws. The crimson pool swirled around him and as a wave crashed behind him, it lifted his body and hurled it through the air at Hal. He landed on the Green Lantern, the red froth at his mouth spilling on him like bile and saliva, and it burned like white phosphorous wherever it touched. It was like acid eating its way to his flesh, and Hal's ring couldn't douse the burn, so he tore his clothes free until he was down to his tattered uniform.
"Fight me, Lantern," Atrocitus gargled and roared, beating his chest as the red mist wafted off his skin like a faint halo of power. "Die at my hand, or join me - either way, your emerald light will be the first to be doused at my hand!"
Faintly glowing shapes took form around him, like dream-visions in red. Nightmares given life, they grew more solid but slowly, as if his mind was too far gone in berserk fury to focus on the tangibility of his power. Hal reached with his will into his own ring and tried to draw on the power there, but found it as hard to control and summon as Atrocitus' own.
If he spotted the rivulets of red veining his emerald constructs, he didn't show any signs.
_______________________________________
The Green Lantern Corps:
Hal Jordan (E JL Hal Jordan) - 120
Boxing Glove Construct (R Knockout) – 70
Green Arrow Construct (E JL Green Arrow) - 70
Blaster Construct (E LoS Lightning Lad) - 70
Total: 330
Vs.
The Inversion:
Atrocitus (V Mera) – 85
w/ Blood Oath - 10
Bestial Construct (U Colonel Logan) - 70
Demon Construct (R JL The Flash) - 70
Serpent Construct (E M&M Iron Man) - 70
Total: 305
Map: Park ( http://www.ianparmenter.com/hcutils/map.jsp?map=M3)
Scenario Rules:
--> Because the constructs are made real by the will of the two combatants, they can be shaken by any significant attack against either man. Any time Hal Jordan or Atrocitus are hit and take damage from an attack where the roll was doubles, all their constructs take a cumulative -1 penalty to all their stats (attack, damage, movement, defense, and range) until the end of their player’s next turn.