*
“
We're still building then burning down love! Burning down love! And when I go there… I go there with you! It's all I can do--”
He thought about his life. It was good. Damn good. He thought about his responsibilities. He found the balance. He thought about the fact that this baby handled like a dream and it was like flying under the power of his Oan Power Ring, albeit inside a massive metal chassis.
“Highball, Highball, stop showboating and just run the maneuvers. No need to drive the engines to their limit.”
“I’ll stop showboating when you tell me where I can get one of these babies, Ms Ferris! I swear, this is the best way to travel!”
“Highball, let’s just say you’d have to work here for a few decades past your inevitable fiery death to pay off the tab on this one. So no crash landings, thank you, thank you!”
“Sorry, ma’am, bringing her back round. Though if my hands happen to slip and slowly push her into low orbit, I don’t know, that would be an awful shame--”
“
JORDAN!”
“Right, right, I hear ya’ loud and clear, Ms Ferris. Bringing her in--”
It was at that moment that every single ounce of magical energy stored up beneath the dome tore up through the ground, focused inside the generator that the Professor was sat inside, and belched up into the sky. It was at that moment that Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Sector 2814, of Earth, lost the tail end of his plane. It was at that moment that Hal Jordan vowed disturbingly violent revenge on the person or persons that turned his baby into scrap.
He swore a few times as he realised that the plane had lost any semblance of flight capability and had in fact become a flaming, plummeting coffin. He tugged on the ejector seat release. It had seized up. He was trapped. “Huh. Typical.”
He threw his energies into thinking. He could feel the desert air rushing in behind him, he could feel the gravity pushing down on the plane. He could feel… His emerald baby slipping onto his finger and powering up. The forcefield expanded around him in a blink, glass and metal tearing as he shot up into the sky. “Ring, scan for energy discharge. Residual trace on the big metal casket that just hit the desert floor, if needed.”
The ring didn’t need it, and neither did Hal. The column of magical energy was still shooting into the sky. It was still there, crackling and hissing as air molecules burst on impact.
<Unknown energy signature>“Oh, come on, that’s never a good thing. Is reality going to turn off or something? Because I am not enjoying that possible scenario…” He chuckled. “Alright, let’s fly.”
He thanked his lucky stars that his ring was so connected to him that he could summon it from across the desert where he had left it in his locker. His emerald baby sang as it responded to his urges, sent him shooting down into the dome where the thunder strike of magic had erupted from. He was cautious. His ring sparked slightly, on edge.
Hal Jordan landed just outside the magical maelstrom that licked at what was left of the lab. Around him was torn metal, shaped like it was organic, reaching for something, and charred skeletons. He shook his head regretfully. “Damn. Life signs?”
<One.>“Let me guess, in the middle of that thing? In the middle of the unknown energy source?”
<Affirmative. Tracking. Approaching.>“Of course it is. Run combat diagnostics, are we ready for whatever comes this way?”
<Power levels at 129%>A shape emerged from the column of magical power. Its voice quivered but was still the loudest, deepest thing that Hal had ever heard.
“Thoughts… Rushing… Inside me… Thoughts and… Ideas… Ideas… Focus… Got to…”<Creature is composed of 3000% more neural pathways than baseline human. Latent metagene detected. Could account for mutation. Energy still unknown>“3000%? Jeez-Louise…”
Hal approached cautiously. No need to go in guns blazing, but this guy may have caused the deaths of… Hal couldn’t count. Bone and sinew were tangled together, like someone had taken a giant soldering iron to these peoples anatomy. He went in slow. Hands raised. He had been in the Air Force, he knew how to deal with people. He thought. He thought a lot of things. Kind of distracting, actually.
“Are you ok, man?”
“Can’t stop thinking things, can’t stop with… With…” He looked up, his body a mess of glowing blue energy, flickering and spitting like gushing water. Black eyes stared at Hal, picking him apart at the seams.
“You can think. Brain like… Brain needs to spread to contain the ideas, need to plant the seeds, lay the eggs…”“Oh.” Hal didn’t like the sound of that. But his head was a mess of memories. His brothers. Hurt. His father. Loss. His mother. Failure. No. NO. “NO, get out of my head you ba--” His ring activated on instinct, sending the monstrous creation flying through the magical energy and to the other side of the wrecked lab. He collided with a wall and landed in a pile of melted lab equipment. “Ring, I need psychic defences inserted right now.” Talking out loud helped him regain focus. Vocalising put his ideas at the forefront. It also lulled some of his more stupid enemies into a false sense of security. Disable the vocal cords, disable the man. Then have whatever weapon your touting shoved up your ass when you find out that isn’t true.
“Brain hurts, can’t contain it! Can’t contain the ideas and the thoughts, got to find a release before boil and burn and melt away…” The creature clambered to its feet, and approached Hal slowly. The Green Lantern ran battle plans inside his head. Green images flashed before his left eye whilst his right eye saw green schematics being constructed.
“Why did you hurt me, don’t want to hurt, want to THINK.”The creature vomited up concepts. They hit Hal hard. He was left reeling with thought and ideas. His forcefield analysed the attack.
<Unknown energy signature. Suggest avoiding contact in future.> Hal smirked at Abin Sur’s sarcastic tone. Strange. He smirked, even as his head was wracked with knowledge that shouldn’t be there. His ring sparked and he knew what he had to do. He had to release his own ideas.
“Ok, so I’m assuming that you’re a villain. I don’t want to, but you’ve attacked me. You’re a suspect in the deaths, or what I’m assuming to be murders, of all these people, so I’m going to have to ask you one last time, step down, or I will take you down.”
“Your ideas… Vibrant. Thoughts and beliefs pretty. But you hold… Burden. Of knowledge. Of being the last, for all you know, and I think, I think I know what that mean. I trapped between… Place. Funnelled inside flesh cage… Now, want, escape, spread, share. Reproduce.” The creature again vomited the strange fluid that he had before, but Hal dodged it. He set his ring working.
Analyse and find a way to neutralise the column that was up in the sky. He didn’t like it.
Reconstruct schematics on the machinery that had created that thing. He’d need to send it back somehow. He didn’t know how, but the machinery would help.
Scan the body of that thing. Need to find out what it’s talking about.
And finally, weapon displays.
“You want some ideas? Have them.” A massive safe constructed out of green willpower slammed into the goliath, and sent him to his knees. Restraints formed and held him down. He was tied up like a birthday present when he looked Hal straight in the eye.
“Beautiful ideas, but you doubt sometimes what you do. You doubt because of failure. I see ideas and I am ideas and I will give you more.”Hal’s head exploded with pain as his psychic barriers were assaulted by this creature. His constructs dissolved and he fell to his knees. “Jeeeeesus…” He held on tightly to his skull, fearing it might fall away, but was able to climb back up to his feet, even though he couldn’t stop shaking. “God, damn, God, damn,” he couldn’t form a coherent thought.
“Lay my eggs elsewhere, spread and grow and move like supposed to. Spread and grow and share and inform and inspire.”“N-nuuuuh.” The creature grabbed Hal and pulled him close to it’s chest, blue energy crackling against the soft forcefield the ring ran on automatic. “Geeeerrrrooffff….” A last ditch thought, and Hal sprang up through what was left of the ceiling and into high orbit before the creature could think. He was gone like a spark, like a flash, and then the creature stood and thought for a while.
“Ideas. Spread. Ideas.” He looked out across the desert.
“Moulds. To fill. With ideas. Better ideas and more ideas than they could ever. Conceive.”Hal Jordan was wracked with memories. He was tortured by memories of every decision he had made, and then by ideas on how he could have fixed them when they happened. He was being tortured by the path not taken. Chloe, and his responsibility. How he hadn’t even spoken to her about… The baby. Damn. And the Green Lantern Corps. He should be there, fighting, right now, fighting for his friends, his colleagues. The League. The Society. Carol. The Air Force. Everything he had done. Ever. Mom. Her cancer. His dad. The crash. His brothers, and their complete lack of relationship. “Fffffocus.”
In high orbit, a voice broke the silence.
{You made those choices because you had to, son. Because you didn’t know what else to do. Nobody’s perfect. Not even you, Hal. Yes, you made mistakes but who hasn’t? You’re only human.}
“Should be better than that, should be better, I’m Green Lantern, I’m a hero, I’ve got, I’ve got to make the right choices… Right decisions.” He clenched his teeth, ground his jaw. “I should be BETTER.”
{You are
Hal Jordan. You are Green Lantern. You have done the best you can do and you have saved millions, dozens of times over. You saved the multiverse, Hal, you saved it in the face of Darkseid. Do you not understand that? You are a hero millions of times over.}
Hal’s mind began to clear. “Focus. Come. On. Focus.” He centred himself, and then looked at his ring. “What… The hell was that?”
<Power levels at 118%>“What was that? Did you just pep talk me? What..?”
<Power levels at 118%>He stared at his ring for a moment. “Power levels at 118%. Right. I’m guessing that’s enough to whup this guy’s ass. Tracking?”
<Located. Creature in vicinity of: Coast City. Entering city limits… … … Now.>“Oh, crap…” Hal shot down through the vacuum of space within moments. If he had been in the lower atmosphere, a sonic book would echo outward but alas no, instead he shot through the atmosphere and then hit America flying. He was above the ocean, the water lapped about him as he sped toward the harbour like a flash of green light.
The city was still. There was the sound of car horns continually honking as heads lay on steering wheels, of fire hydrants spraying water upwards after cars had collided with them, and store alarms blaring as cars had swerved through glass. People were lying on the ground, lost in thought. “Damn.” Hal landed in the middle of the city, and looked around. “So this guy works by filling heads with eggs? Ideas? Thought children…” Hal looked at his ring. “Ring, tell me, how many modes do you have?”
<Query: Reword question.>Hal thought. Hal could get his words out better if he thought. The ring replied in kind, straight into his head.
“Are you serious?”
<Affirmative.>Hal thought for a minute. “That could work. How dangerous?”
<Running on silent mode can remove higher brain functions in use-->“Hell, who cares how dangerous it is, let’s do this. Where is that monstrosity?”
<Two miles east.>Hal kissed his ring and smiled. “Let’s go.”
