Post by jross on Feb 2, 2012 17:10:21 GMT -5
Issue 9: The Widening Gyre, Part II
Hal and Tomar-Re hovered above the remains of a Qwardian city, seeking survivors. The stark desolation turned Hal's stomach. Below on all sides lay rubble and broken men and women. In his time as a Green Lantern Hal had never encountered this extent of devastation.
<Be at peace if possible, Hal Jordan,> came Abin Sur's voice. Since Sur had revealed himself earlier, he and Hal had been conducting a sporadic conversation. The two were able to converse without speaking, which came in useful during the long ride to Qward. Hal had come to realize that it was Abin Sur who had shielded Hal's mind from the telepathic scans of other Lanterns, and that the presence of Sur's mind was responsible for the feelings of familiarity that Hal had with his corpsmen before even speaking to them. Sur continued, <Your mate now fights with the power of light. She will be safe.>
"You can't know that, Sur," Hal thought back, "Your ring wasn't enough to protect you from the Ryutian spawn. Carol's not a fighter, she doesn't have centuries of experience combating evil. Now she's off with a rage-powered maniac fighting another rage-powered maniac and being assaulted by these Deathsmiths. Oh, and you know that she's not my mate."
<Your concern is noble, but keep in mind that not only Carol Ferris was given a ring. Your friends and John Stewart and Paul Booker. Other rings were thrust into the cosmos. Think of the others, as well. You cannot fixate on one being. A Lantern holds all life in regard.>
As Hal and Tomar-Re continued their work of stabilizing structures and rescuing the fallen, Hal did think of the others. He had personally overseen Booker's training session. What he had seen gave him reason for grave concern. Booker's orange ring was powered by desire, and unlike willpower or even love, Hal had seen that desire could be infinite. Booker had been able to achieve an almost Zen-like state of greed and avarice, a hunger that had powered incredibly durable and piercing constructs, giving the veteran Hal a run for his money within only minutes of receiving his ring. There were moments where Hal could see that Booker had had some sort of epiphany but refused to share his insights into his ring. Hal shuddered at the thought of what such a man or any other recipient of an orange ring could do if his desire was for conquest.
Abin Sur had shared the details of John Stewart's training. Stewart was a conflicted man, working for a military organization and seeing his work turned into engines of war while he himself was nearly a pacifist. It had turned out that an indigo ring grew in power in proportion to the peril faced by others in the vicinity of the bearer. Stewart had been unable to do a lot of damage to his training opponents, but his power for healing was vast, and Stewart had been able to absorb massive amounts of damage. Hal was not concerned at all about the intentions of anyone with an indigo ring, only for their personal safety or will to act.
There was Tom, of course. The young Indian had seemed thrilled to receive his ring, and Hal could relate to the feeling. Tom was Hal's equal as a lawman, and Hal could recall Tom's boundless optimism, his refusal to ever give up on Hal. Tom was a fine choice for the ring, and Hal could not have felt better about having his friend join him as a comrade in arms once more.
Carol and Guy were another story, of course. Guy was a fountain of rage. Hal had never learned why his former friend was such an angry man, but it had to be something deep inside of him. Carol swore that he never hurt her, but in Hal's opinion it was only a matter of time, and the last sands of that hourglass were likely falling with Guy getting his own ring.
Carol. Carol might be able to take care of herself now that she was similarly armed. Her love was deep, Hal could remember. He had pined for it almost nightly for the last several years. To find that Carol was driven by her love gave Hal a brief spot of hope until he thought of her and Guy, and that none of her love might be directed his own way.
Hal shook his head to come back to the present. Tomar-Re was calling for assistance with a group of victims. Hal had his duty to worry about. He called his assent and flew to aid his fellow Lantern.
-
"From the Northwest! Six enemies incoming," Sines Toro called out to his recruits. The three had been trying to get to Narcanthos, the so-called Atrocitus, for nearly half an hour, but Qwardian Deathsmiths had been harassing them. The gold-armored cultists sacrificed their own lives to ensure further slaughter, the ruin of their own society. It turned Sines Toro's stomach.
"Same as last time, Guy," Carol called out. Guy nodded compliance with Carol and waited, watching as Carol snaked out intricate vines from her hands, snaring the Qwardians. Sines Toro distracted them from cutting away their bonds with an enormous raptor construct. The citrine multi-headed bird pecked at them, savagely striking two. Sines Toro noted with some puzzlement that the Qwardian weaponry which had so deftly bypassed all previous constructs was having no effect on this one.
Sines Toro's musings were cut short as hot ruby beams slammed into the warriors, vaporizing each of them in an instant. Sines Toro nodded with a grim smile of approval to his apprentice, Guy Gardner. Gardner had shown himself incapable of creating any construct beyond a personal armor during training. This limitation was either Gardner's or the ring's, and Sines Toro suspected that if the former had been the case then the ring would never have chosen Gardner in the first place. The red ring made up for its limitation quite effectively, though. Gardner was able fire ring blasts more rapidly than any Green Lantern, able to fire simultaneous blasts and to channel more energy into each than Sines Toro had ever seen.
"Forward," Sines Toro ordered the rookie corpsmen. Silently the three proceeded towards Atrocitus once more. After the first wave of Deathsmiths Ferris had protested that they ought to help the survivors before Sines Toro countered that stopping Atrocitus would prevent further destruction.
The flight was interrupted again, this time not by any Qwardian, but an expanding sphere of crimson energy, advancing rapidly towards the trio. Carol quickly erected a barrier around the group and struggled mightily but managed to just barely keep the shield active.
As the sphere abated and the level of light returned to normal, all three could plainly see the enormous figure of Atrocitus, the former Narcanthos, hovering over his newly-formed crater.
"Oi! So ye've come for more, eh? Well I'm gonna give it ta ya," Atrocitus let loose with a vicious howl as he engulfed himself in a monstrous carapace. Still screaming, he charged Sines Toro. The Korugaran readied himself, seeking the right time to strike when a blur from his right intercepted Atrocitus.
Guy grunted as he hit Atrocitus. His own personal aura bore no particular shape, merely acted as a form-fitting armor. That had been the source of Guy's frustration, an inability to harness his mental image and put it to paper. For years he had tried to be the artist that he saw in Carol. For nearly fifteen years he had struggled against his one-time friend, Hal, who had out-performed Guy on the field and in making friends and girlfriends. Even now, with the power of a red power ring at his disposal Guy was unable to give his construct the true form that he desired. And that made him all the more engraged.
The two red titans hurtled toward the ground, with Atrocitus scrambling to reach Guy while Guy squeezed his enemy's neck with his left arm and punched the back of his head with his right. In a flash they hit the ground, sending up so much dust and debris that even Sines Toro flinched. Of course, empowered by the red light of rage neither man was much the worse for the crash.
Sines Toro opened communications, "All Lanterns, it appears that we may be in for a more pitched battle than anticipated. Report to my location."
Guy and Atrocitus, knocked apart by the blast, stood and roared at one another, like two wild beasts vying for dominance. Atrocitus bellowed and beat his chest while Guy snorted and stamped his feet, shaking the earth. Both men charged at one another, running at top speed. Sines Toro observed impassively, taking in the tactical situation while Carol fired a blast at Atrocitus to no effect. She attempted to catch his foot in a vine-like snare but was unable to constrict the form around Atrocitus' leg.
Atrocitus hit first, striking down onto Guy's left shoulder. The impact drove Guy's feet into the ground, but Guy simply launched himself upward, catching Atrocitus in the solar plexus. The melee degraded into a swiftly-contorting mass of writhing flesh and energy. To Carol's mind the fighters looked like rabid coyote's at one another's throats.
As Carol watched, helpless to intervene lest she injure Guy, Carol desperately sought within herself something, some ability that she could summon to save her lover. Here he was, the man she had worked so hard to save from his own demons, crippling self-doubt aggravated by severe bi-polar disorder, succumbing to an alien force that was turning himself into the monster that he most feared. Kilowog, the gentle porcine giant, had not been able to teach her much beyond the basics of construct manipulation and flight due to his lack of experience with violet light. If Carol were to help, she would need to find the power on her own.
Below, Guy and Atrocitus kept at the fight. Unbelievably, Guy seemed to be growing visibly larger, increasing in height to over half of Atrocitus' size. After a minute of exchanging blows, Guy threw back his head and howled again, rage and pain, as he became succumbed totally, misty red flames burned from his eyes. His blows increased in speed, and Atrocitus stopped fighting, moving only to block the flurry of fists. The alien gasped in fear as he realized for the first time in his millenia-long life that he was outmatched in single combat.
Atrocitus' spark of fear touched off something in Sines Toro's mind. There was an image, of Gardner, monstrous and death-dealing, features distorted, assaulting him. Sines Toro realized that he had seen a flash of Atrocitus' own mind, quickly set to work puzzling out what it meant while still trying to keep an eye on the entire battlefield.
Guy continued fighting as his blazing fists tore into his foe. In a matter of seconds Atrocitus lay broken, literally, at Guy's feet. Guy's head jerked to one side, then the other, and he looked up to the black sky. From the back of his mind came the words.
"The dull and dour, lazy and weak,
Beneath notice, deserve their fate,
Let all who grovel, all who beg,
Tremble for me, might makes right!"
Guy turned his gaze to Carol, still hovering above him. His face contorted into a lupine grin as he set his sights on his next prey. Slowly, tauntingly he rose to her level.
At that moment Hal and Tomar-Re arrived, followed soon by Tom and Kilowog and Paul and John. Seeing the situation for what it was Hal called out desperately to Carol, but to no effect.
Carol gazed into Guy's face. In all of Guy's rages she had never feared for herself, and he had never struck her. For the first time since she had known him Carol finally saw what others saw in Guy. The menace, the hate. At the last second, as Guy was readying a backhand slap, a wave of emotion welled up within her, from a place deeper than she had ever imagined she possessed.
Light flashed over her vision, and a silken cord of lavender light bound Guy and Carol to one another at both wrists. Guy struggled futilely for a moment before he was gone. Carol was gone. To any observer the two were still in mid-air, but their consciousnesses, their selves, were in some other place.
A purple-and-white realm where infinitely-small orbs of light flitted by and the only things were Carol and Guy. He continued his struggle against the bonds, but was fixed in place as they grew to cocoon his body.
Soon, Guy began to shrink, returning to his normal size. The fire in his eyes flickered weakly as his conflicted mind attempted to find sanity. With no fear in her heart, Carol loosed the bond and stepped to Guy, gently taking his head in her hand and pulling it to her breast. She rocked him gently as the big man began to sob wildly.
"Why? Why are you holding me," Guy asked between sobs, "I tried to hurt you! I'm worthless!"
With his free hand Guy pulled at his short hair and began striking his head. Carol softly grabbed it and pulled it to her mouth, kissing his hand.
"I love you, Guy, and I always will."
Guy swallowed, his heart lifted by the indescribably wondrous feeling of being truly forgiven. He blinked and looked up to Carol.
"I love you too."
"Guy, I can keep you safe from this. If you give yourself to me, utterly, then the rage cannot own you."
"I'm, I'm scared, Carol. You know that I'm not good enough. What if you don't want me?"
"Shh, silly man. Know that you can give yourself to me because I've already given myself to you. Guy Gardner, I'm yours forever."
The two stepped back, gazed at one another briefly and then embraced. The orbs of light swirled around them, white-and-purple-and-red all at once as the two Lanterns engaged in a marriage of light. All too soon there was another flash and the two were once again in the sky of Qward.
Guy's red aura faded, leaving him naked save for the amethyst blanket that Carol wove around him. As she lowered Guy gently to the ground, a wave of peace touched each of the assembled Lanterns, leaving them in awe.
With her songbird's voice, Carol rang out.
"Though all who know you may leave you,
I'll be there in all your trials,
Ever faithful and ever true,
Violet Lantern never fails!"
Only after she had landed did Carol look up to see Hal floating high. A single tear streaked down his cheek, and he turned from her gaze with a pained expression. Carol's heart did go out the Hal for whatever pain he was feeling, but her thoughts were cut short by Kilowog's booming baritone.
"Hey, turns out that we've got another wave of Atrocitus to worry about."
As each corpsman turned to look, they all saw Ryutian spawn rising from the bits of Atrocitus that lay in the crater. Each of the new adversaries raised their fist aloft and shouted. And each fist bore a red power ring.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Hal and Tomar-Re hovered above the remains of a Qwardian city, seeking survivors. The stark desolation turned Hal's stomach. Below on all sides lay rubble and broken men and women. In his time as a Green Lantern Hal had never encountered this extent of devastation.
<Be at peace if possible, Hal Jordan,> came Abin Sur's voice. Since Sur had revealed himself earlier, he and Hal had been conducting a sporadic conversation. The two were able to converse without speaking, which came in useful during the long ride to Qward. Hal had come to realize that it was Abin Sur who had shielded Hal's mind from the telepathic scans of other Lanterns, and that the presence of Sur's mind was responsible for the feelings of familiarity that Hal had with his corpsmen before even speaking to them. Sur continued, <Your mate now fights with the power of light. She will be safe.>
"You can't know that, Sur," Hal thought back, "Your ring wasn't enough to protect you from the Ryutian spawn. Carol's not a fighter, she doesn't have centuries of experience combating evil. Now she's off with a rage-powered maniac fighting another rage-powered maniac and being assaulted by these Deathsmiths. Oh, and you know that she's not my mate."
<Your concern is noble, but keep in mind that not only Carol Ferris was given a ring. Your friends and John Stewart and Paul Booker. Other rings were thrust into the cosmos. Think of the others, as well. You cannot fixate on one being. A Lantern holds all life in regard.>
As Hal and Tomar-Re continued their work of stabilizing structures and rescuing the fallen, Hal did think of the others. He had personally overseen Booker's training session. What he had seen gave him reason for grave concern. Booker's orange ring was powered by desire, and unlike willpower or even love, Hal had seen that desire could be infinite. Booker had been able to achieve an almost Zen-like state of greed and avarice, a hunger that had powered incredibly durable and piercing constructs, giving the veteran Hal a run for his money within only minutes of receiving his ring. There were moments where Hal could see that Booker had had some sort of epiphany but refused to share his insights into his ring. Hal shuddered at the thought of what such a man or any other recipient of an orange ring could do if his desire was for conquest.
Abin Sur had shared the details of John Stewart's training. Stewart was a conflicted man, working for a military organization and seeing his work turned into engines of war while he himself was nearly a pacifist. It had turned out that an indigo ring grew in power in proportion to the peril faced by others in the vicinity of the bearer. Stewart had been unable to do a lot of damage to his training opponents, but his power for healing was vast, and Stewart had been able to absorb massive amounts of damage. Hal was not concerned at all about the intentions of anyone with an indigo ring, only for their personal safety or will to act.
There was Tom, of course. The young Indian had seemed thrilled to receive his ring, and Hal could relate to the feeling. Tom was Hal's equal as a lawman, and Hal could recall Tom's boundless optimism, his refusal to ever give up on Hal. Tom was a fine choice for the ring, and Hal could not have felt better about having his friend join him as a comrade in arms once more.
Carol and Guy were another story, of course. Guy was a fountain of rage. Hal had never learned why his former friend was such an angry man, but it had to be something deep inside of him. Carol swore that he never hurt her, but in Hal's opinion it was only a matter of time, and the last sands of that hourglass were likely falling with Guy getting his own ring.
Carol. Carol might be able to take care of herself now that she was similarly armed. Her love was deep, Hal could remember. He had pined for it almost nightly for the last several years. To find that Carol was driven by her love gave Hal a brief spot of hope until he thought of her and Guy, and that none of her love might be directed his own way.
Hal shook his head to come back to the present. Tomar-Re was calling for assistance with a group of victims. Hal had his duty to worry about. He called his assent and flew to aid his fellow Lantern.
-
"From the Northwest! Six enemies incoming," Sines Toro called out to his recruits. The three had been trying to get to Narcanthos, the so-called Atrocitus, for nearly half an hour, but Qwardian Deathsmiths had been harassing them. The gold-armored cultists sacrificed their own lives to ensure further slaughter, the ruin of their own society. It turned Sines Toro's stomach.
"Same as last time, Guy," Carol called out. Guy nodded compliance with Carol and waited, watching as Carol snaked out intricate vines from her hands, snaring the Qwardians. Sines Toro distracted them from cutting away their bonds with an enormous raptor construct. The citrine multi-headed bird pecked at them, savagely striking two. Sines Toro noted with some puzzlement that the Qwardian weaponry which had so deftly bypassed all previous constructs was having no effect on this one.
Sines Toro's musings were cut short as hot ruby beams slammed into the warriors, vaporizing each of them in an instant. Sines Toro nodded with a grim smile of approval to his apprentice, Guy Gardner. Gardner had shown himself incapable of creating any construct beyond a personal armor during training. This limitation was either Gardner's or the ring's, and Sines Toro suspected that if the former had been the case then the ring would never have chosen Gardner in the first place. The red ring made up for its limitation quite effectively, though. Gardner was able fire ring blasts more rapidly than any Green Lantern, able to fire simultaneous blasts and to channel more energy into each than Sines Toro had ever seen.
"Forward," Sines Toro ordered the rookie corpsmen. Silently the three proceeded towards Atrocitus once more. After the first wave of Deathsmiths Ferris had protested that they ought to help the survivors before Sines Toro countered that stopping Atrocitus would prevent further destruction.
The flight was interrupted again, this time not by any Qwardian, but an expanding sphere of crimson energy, advancing rapidly towards the trio. Carol quickly erected a barrier around the group and struggled mightily but managed to just barely keep the shield active.
As the sphere abated and the level of light returned to normal, all three could plainly see the enormous figure of Atrocitus, the former Narcanthos, hovering over his newly-formed crater.
"Oi! So ye've come for more, eh? Well I'm gonna give it ta ya," Atrocitus let loose with a vicious howl as he engulfed himself in a monstrous carapace. Still screaming, he charged Sines Toro. The Korugaran readied himself, seeking the right time to strike when a blur from his right intercepted Atrocitus.
Guy grunted as he hit Atrocitus. His own personal aura bore no particular shape, merely acted as a form-fitting armor. That had been the source of Guy's frustration, an inability to harness his mental image and put it to paper. For years he had tried to be the artist that he saw in Carol. For nearly fifteen years he had struggled against his one-time friend, Hal, who had out-performed Guy on the field and in making friends and girlfriends. Even now, with the power of a red power ring at his disposal Guy was unable to give his construct the true form that he desired. And that made him all the more engraged.
The two red titans hurtled toward the ground, with Atrocitus scrambling to reach Guy while Guy squeezed his enemy's neck with his left arm and punched the back of his head with his right. In a flash they hit the ground, sending up so much dust and debris that even Sines Toro flinched. Of course, empowered by the red light of rage neither man was much the worse for the crash.
Sines Toro opened communications, "All Lanterns, it appears that we may be in for a more pitched battle than anticipated. Report to my location."
Guy and Atrocitus, knocked apart by the blast, stood and roared at one another, like two wild beasts vying for dominance. Atrocitus bellowed and beat his chest while Guy snorted and stamped his feet, shaking the earth. Both men charged at one another, running at top speed. Sines Toro observed impassively, taking in the tactical situation while Carol fired a blast at Atrocitus to no effect. She attempted to catch his foot in a vine-like snare but was unable to constrict the form around Atrocitus' leg.
Atrocitus hit first, striking down onto Guy's left shoulder. The impact drove Guy's feet into the ground, but Guy simply launched himself upward, catching Atrocitus in the solar plexus. The melee degraded into a swiftly-contorting mass of writhing flesh and energy. To Carol's mind the fighters looked like rabid coyote's at one another's throats.
As Carol watched, helpless to intervene lest she injure Guy, Carol desperately sought within herself something, some ability that she could summon to save her lover. Here he was, the man she had worked so hard to save from his own demons, crippling self-doubt aggravated by severe bi-polar disorder, succumbing to an alien force that was turning himself into the monster that he most feared. Kilowog, the gentle porcine giant, had not been able to teach her much beyond the basics of construct manipulation and flight due to his lack of experience with violet light. If Carol were to help, she would need to find the power on her own.
Below, Guy and Atrocitus kept at the fight. Unbelievably, Guy seemed to be growing visibly larger, increasing in height to over half of Atrocitus' size. After a minute of exchanging blows, Guy threw back his head and howled again, rage and pain, as he became succumbed totally, misty red flames burned from his eyes. His blows increased in speed, and Atrocitus stopped fighting, moving only to block the flurry of fists. The alien gasped in fear as he realized for the first time in his millenia-long life that he was outmatched in single combat.
Atrocitus' spark of fear touched off something in Sines Toro's mind. There was an image, of Gardner, monstrous and death-dealing, features distorted, assaulting him. Sines Toro realized that he had seen a flash of Atrocitus' own mind, quickly set to work puzzling out what it meant while still trying to keep an eye on the entire battlefield.
Guy continued fighting as his blazing fists tore into his foe. In a matter of seconds Atrocitus lay broken, literally, at Guy's feet. Guy's head jerked to one side, then the other, and he looked up to the black sky. From the back of his mind came the words.
"The dull and dour, lazy and weak,
Beneath notice, deserve their fate,
Let all who grovel, all who beg,
Tremble for me, might makes right!"
Guy turned his gaze to Carol, still hovering above him. His face contorted into a lupine grin as he set his sights on his next prey. Slowly, tauntingly he rose to her level.
At that moment Hal and Tomar-Re arrived, followed soon by Tom and Kilowog and Paul and John. Seeing the situation for what it was Hal called out desperately to Carol, but to no effect.
Carol gazed into Guy's face. In all of Guy's rages she had never feared for herself, and he had never struck her. For the first time since she had known him Carol finally saw what others saw in Guy. The menace, the hate. At the last second, as Guy was readying a backhand slap, a wave of emotion welled up within her, from a place deeper than she had ever imagined she possessed.
Light flashed over her vision, and a silken cord of lavender light bound Guy and Carol to one another at both wrists. Guy struggled futilely for a moment before he was gone. Carol was gone. To any observer the two were still in mid-air, but their consciousnesses, their selves, were in some other place.
A purple-and-white realm where infinitely-small orbs of light flitted by and the only things were Carol and Guy. He continued his struggle against the bonds, but was fixed in place as they grew to cocoon his body.
Soon, Guy began to shrink, returning to his normal size. The fire in his eyes flickered weakly as his conflicted mind attempted to find sanity. With no fear in her heart, Carol loosed the bond and stepped to Guy, gently taking his head in her hand and pulling it to her breast. She rocked him gently as the big man began to sob wildly.
"Why? Why are you holding me," Guy asked between sobs, "I tried to hurt you! I'm worthless!"
With his free hand Guy pulled at his short hair and began striking his head. Carol softly grabbed it and pulled it to her mouth, kissing his hand.
"I love you, Guy, and I always will."
Guy swallowed, his heart lifted by the indescribably wondrous feeling of being truly forgiven. He blinked and looked up to Carol.
"I love you too."
"Guy, I can keep you safe from this. If you give yourself to me, utterly, then the rage cannot own you."
"I'm, I'm scared, Carol. You know that I'm not good enough. What if you don't want me?"
"Shh, silly man. Know that you can give yourself to me because I've already given myself to you. Guy Gardner, I'm yours forever."
The two stepped back, gazed at one another briefly and then embraced. The orbs of light swirled around them, white-and-purple-and-red all at once as the two Lanterns engaged in a marriage of light. All too soon there was another flash and the two were once again in the sky of Qward.
Guy's red aura faded, leaving him naked save for the amethyst blanket that Carol wove around him. As she lowered Guy gently to the ground, a wave of peace touched each of the assembled Lanterns, leaving them in awe.
With her songbird's voice, Carol rang out.
"Though all who know you may leave you,
I'll be there in all your trials,
Ever faithful and ever true,
Violet Lantern never fails!"
Only after she had landed did Carol look up to see Hal floating high. A single tear streaked down his cheek, and he turned from her gaze with a pained expression. Carol's heart did go out the Hal for whatever pain he was feeling, but her thoughts were cut short by Kilowog's booming baritone.
"Hey, turns out that we've got another wave of Atrocitus to worry about."
As each corpsman turned to look, they all saw Ryutian spawn rising from the bits of Atrocitus that lay in the crater. Each of the new adversaries raised their fist aloft and shouted. And each fist bore a red power ring.
TO BE CONTINUED...