Post by Wachter on Jun 16, 2018 3:58:42 GMT
Hunted.
For six days and seven nights, I’ve been hunted. Thrown on this planet halfway across the universe and forced to prove myself. I’d been so happy that first day. Ecstatic. That happiness didn’t last long. I was given one thing to help me. One thing that could enable me to survive in a hostile environment. I was given one ring.
One ring to rule them all.
Haha.
Okay, at least I can still make myself laugh.
My head rested against the trunk of the giant tree that made my hometown look like an anthill. It was the only place I found to offer me any respite from the dangers out there in the jungles and the desert, in the mountains and valleys… in the sky and the sea. I knew I was hiding every single time I took a break here. It made me feel like a coward. But… but I was so very tired.
The ring could get me home.
Except the ring didn’t work.
I didn’t know which hurt more, that I was failing or despite being chosen – being born for it – I can’t make it last for more than a couple heartbeats. So many emotions swim through my head. The irony. I needed those emotions yet I couldn’t use them to charge the power in the ring. All that power I supposedly had at my disposal and it was nothing more than a tacky piece of jewelry on my finger.
The anger, the self-loathing… I was pitiful. Pathetic.
I. Had. Been. Chosen.
Something bigger than me, bigger than my people, something perhaps as big as the whole cosmos thought me worthy enough to be a new Guardian of the Light.
The second day had me fleeing from wild animals that were some sort of cross between a six legged elephant and a tiger. I’d seen a “cub.” It was kinda funny. Biology made it so that a lot of newborns have this innate adorability to them to help them survive, encourage a sense of caring. The “cub” was nothing of the sort. The thing was unspeakably ugly. All wrinkled skin with too many legs and odd tusks. I’d screamed when it gurgled at me, snot flying out of its trunk, hitting me square in the face and sending me stumbling backwards into the giant leg of mommy dearest.
I wished I could run as fast as my sister. For a few seconds, I ran faster. That terror boosted me forward until I ran smack dab into a cliff face. The crater my crash caused an avalanche of rocks to tumble down, potentially crushing me… Definitely crushing the stampeding herd following in my wake. I only had heartbeats to remember that ugly little creature as indigo light sprang out from my ring to divert oncoming calamity. I saved its family. Then I had to worry about saving myself.
They came for me. The dust and dirt filled the air as they stopped inches away. I could feel their disgusting breath wash over me, their feline eyes reading me like an open book. The herd turned. They walked away.
Given that experience made me nearly crap myself, a bath was in order. I still needed to wash off the snot and I couldn’t get the ring to work again. Probably for the best. I heard that sort of menial use of infinite power was frowned upon.
The spring that I found on my third day was too hot to drink. The smell of rotten eggs. Sulphur… A hot spring that burned hot enough to boil the skin. Warning bells went off in my head. Geysers exploded all around me. I didn’t know all that much about science. Quite the disappointment to my grandfather I must say but when it comes down to it, if I survive this ordeal, he’ll have a whole lot more to be disappointed in. This, however, seemed oddly coincidental.
The earth rumbled in a way that made the stampede of alien elephants seem like they were walking on their tiptoes except I can’t remember if they had any toes in the first place. I’d been worried more about how big they were and if their tusks would hurt when they speared me. Through the trees, I saw the top of a mountain blow off. Magma rushed up from the planet’s core and transitioned into the same thing except as a different term… lava. Or is it the other way around?
The creatures were against me. Now the planet. Too much of a coincidence. That anger. So much of it. As cracks opened up in the earth all around me, trees falling into them as trunks and roots snapped, my rage burned hotter than it all. I walked through that lava unharmed, my crimson aura in flames around my body. My roar blasted apart a molten rock coming straight for me. Nature was nothing to the power cosmic.
I flew to safety, a comet through the night sky. A falling meteor into a large lake thousands of miles away. I’d considered trying escape into orbit. The anger… it felt right… like what I was meant for. But I wasn’t confident enough. What would happen if my rage stopped burning while I was flying through space? At least here I had a reasonable chance of survival.
Nightmares came for me on the sixth night. I saw my family die. I watched my planet erupt like that volcano, terraformed into some apocalyptic vision of heaven. Giant geysers of fire miles in diameter that broke free of the atmosphere. I thought of that fire. The look in my family’s eyes as they turned to dust.
Surprisingly, I woke with hope in my heart. Strange to say that. I knew that my mind had been invaded against my permission. However, there was a point where it stopped being someone else’s vision and became my own. The people rising against their usurpers, their demons. They looked to me as a savior as I fought for them, fought alongside others like me against this regime. Men of iron, women – sisters – who couldn't die, and another that was the fastest alive, plus some buffoon with a bow but also adamantium balls.
Heroes.
That’s what I was destined to be.
The hope carried me all through that day. The animals left me alone. Some brought me food as I reached out, one with nature. The Light was in everything. One day, if I survived, I could inspire others to be more… to do more.
That night, last night, I looked to the stars and missed my family. My violet aura kept the insects at bay, kept them from eating me alive. And I had stumbled along until I found this tree.
My solace.
Scarlet and gold lightning rained down from the sky.
They… they… they wouldn’t.
This was mine! My chance!
Mine!
How dare…
The streak made a beeline for me when the storm stopped. It was light and lightning all at once. It… was… nothing before my birthright. An orange wall protected me. There was no running through it. I crafted tracks inside. I made duplicates to face the living element for me. So much jealousy and anger and… fear.
Failure.
The vermilion constructs cracked.
The streak zoomed for me, my constructs breaking apart like shards of glass, the golden and crimson blur suddenly a vibrating hand at my throat. Breathless. I couldn’t breathe and it wasn’t my attacker’s fault. It was mine. I had my chance taken from me. This vibrating monster would prove it to everyone. At the very least, I could put up a fight. Do something.
Do something.
“Little baby gonna cry?” taunted the blur, its voice erratic in its vibrations as much as its body, “Your time to shine and you’re a broken lightbulb.”
“SHUT UP!”
“Oh. Not even a red flash. All that anger and jealousy and guess who still takes you to school?”
“You were lucky!” I screamed, I sobbed. “I was chosen! The Ring picked me.”
“I was chosen by a different Force. I don’t need a ring though, I admit, it is handy for a costume change.”
I struggled. I felt gloved fingertips begin to phase through the skin of my neck. They wouldn’t allow me to die… would they? They couldn’t.
“I really should just end your suffering. We know how this plays out. We grew up on the stories. I wake up one morning and suddenly you’re some rogue after my power, jealous and frustrated at me, after all… you’ve let the Light in just like gramps. You’ll kill people. You’ll hurt mom and dad. My friends will try to stop you but they won’t, they’ll leave it up to me. Keep it in the family. So why wait?”
“I’ll never become like him!”
“No failure, little bro, they warned you what it meant. The road to recovery is a long, hard one full of pain and suffering. One way or another, you’ll never see home… your family… your friends ever again except in the madness of your own emotions. That’s the price the Light demands of you if you can’t pass.”
The face stopped vibrating. She leaned in close. I looked into my sister’s eyes and saw the tears in the corner of them.
“That’s Dad’s ring,” she whispered in the made-up language we created back when we were little kids. “I’m not supposed to tell you that. It’s the Last Light he was entrusted with.”
My mouth remained firmly shut. All I could see were the tears she refused to shed. All I could feel from her was the earnest honesty that she’d prefer I die than suffer under the weight of the Light. And I knew… I knew… despite the bond we shared as twins… She would never visit me in the Science Cells. It’d hurt her too much.
“What are you best at, brat?”
She knew me better than I knew myself just as I knew the same about her.
“Being stubborn, proud… arrogant.”
“Then why haven’t you been? You’re not Dad. He was chosen for a specific purpose by that Power Ring. You have a different one. Show your emotions who is in charge. Overcome it all. Surpass your nature.”
Emerald lightning exploded from within me, sending my sister flying. She was always better at everything, sports, making friends, school, being a hero. I hate her for it almost as much as I'm proud to know she will always be in my corner no matter what. We love each other, two parts of a whole. I'll never stop being jealous. But I understood, I understood now more than ever just how me being chosen made her feel. I empathized. Fear was in her heart for me just as it was in mine.
There was only one thing to do to all the emotions overwhelming me. I had to show them who was the boss.
Batter up.
My sister attempted to right herself in midair with the cyclonic swirling of her limbs, stabilizing just in time for her eyes to widen when my giant green bat sent her for a home run. I gave chase, a jade comet in the sky, not fast enough to keep up but close enough to see the land beneath us morph into something else as she plummeted to the earth.
Their lack of faith should have shaken me to the core and would have a couple of days ago. I glowed more brilliant, brighter than the brightest star, willing myself to be better. I reached for her, across the distance, the hand that held hers on that first day of preschool extended, catching her gently. I concentrated, the hand transformed into a net, tangling her within it.
She winked at me. The net twisted as she spun inside ever faster, spinning me with her, until she flung bolts of lightning out the tips of her fingers straight for my chest. It hit. Didn't hurt. My aura was too powerful. Did make us both fall to the ground that now resembled the bounce houses we played in as kids. We bounced and bounced, unhurt, but the green string of fate which tied us together never broke.
I didn't need steady feet. I floated to a stop. Pulling my ring arm back, I yanked her towards me. I knew she'd be too fast. Her reactions were beyond the scope of most mortal minds. So when she ducked under my clothesline, I made sure she ran face first into a break wall. It crumbled atop her, jade dust billowing into the air.
The Flash raised her hand with a thumbs up. I settled to the ground as it returned to normal grass.
I felt them then. The entire spectrum of emotions that I willed myself to either overcome or embrace as a portal appeared. First through was someone unfamiliar, one I had heard of only in the stories. Alien and inhuman, his avarice threatened to overwhelm me. I could sense he had satisfaction in being the first to arrive. I ignored him when an indigo glow followed him through. Mrs. Stewart, a pink-skinned alien who called Earth her home for a time. Two extreme emotions timed their arrivals to balance each other out. A man I called Uncle or Granddad depending on how we – that is my sister and myself – felt like messing with him, embodied anger and fury, his crimson aura blending into his wild ginger beard and shining off his bald head. The most beautiful woman I had ever, would ever, and really would love to see more of despite her uniform already barely covering a thing stood at his side, orange skin scarcely visible through her violet glow.
Another pink skinned alien appeared, her cheek scarred from past tortures, her yellow uniform featuring a plunging neckline that I found difficult to look up from. She shared a nod with her fellow Korugaran and smiled at me. Strangely, she did not radiate her emotion like the others. The fear was there but it was contained in her heart which was –
My sister appeared in a flash and slapped the back of my head.
"Ow!" I got the message. Stop staring at the woman's cleavage. This was a very important ceremony.
Last through was an original Lantern… A Green Lantern. A man fit despite his age, hair more gray than brown these days. The pain in his eyes was limitless and his ability to will himself to wake every morning, atone for sins past, and keep going made him nearly admirable. It also made him one of the most powerful Lanterns in the cosmos. He looked around, a wry grin twitching up a corner of his lips. The portal closed behind him.
"We seem to be missing somebody."
"You know Wally," the Red Representative chuckled, "Boy was late to his own wedding and nearly missed the birth of these kids."
"He's nothing if not consistent," joked Mrs. Stewart.
We blushed in embarrassment over our father.
Another portal burst open. A blue blur, azure lightning streaking in its wake, skidded to a halt before us. He took a moment to steady himself, twin emblems of hope shining off his chest. He smiled down at us, pulling back his cowl to show just how happy he was. Wild red hair was dank with sweat, he took a step towards us, towards me, before remembering exactly why he was here.
He took his place within the entirety of the Corps who had gathered to judge me.
"I think we all have an answer after witnessing that fight," the Green Lantern crossed his arms, white gloves pristine beneath the glow of his ring. The ground beneath our feet rumbled in agreement. "West, would you like the honor?"
Wally West the Flash, a Lantern, a Corpsman, but most importantly, my dad shook his head, declining. His uniform shifted from being a Flash, the cowl retracting and the lightning bolts vanishing. He kept the blue though. "He made his choice. He's your responsibility now." He winked at me to show he was kidding. Mostly.
"Hmm. I think he deserves more given what we all witnessed during this Reckoning." He nodded towards the Red and Indigo Representatives as he stepped forward. They shifted colors before my eyes, transforming into Green Lanterns and taking their place on either side of him. As always, dad was a bit slow on the uptake. He switched to the Green spectrum and stood beside the other three.
The Orange Representative kicked the ground in jealousy at not being able to do the same.
"Rings up," four arms moved as one to cross their chest in a salute. "You too, Kid."
I mimicked their gesture.
"In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power… Green Lantern's Light!"
As I recited the Oath, my Oath, with them, I saw something I knew that was for my eyes only. A Being in White hovered behind them. He said the oath with us. And when we were done, he was gone. A ghost or something more that was never here.
"Gai West of Earth," the Green Lantern was now alone in speaking, "You Possess the Great Willpower to Understand your Emotions. Welcome to the United Lantern Corps."
Nope. That's not what he felt. He was too young for that. And he looked too young in his son's eyes for his liking. Poppop would murder him.
He reached over to grab his phone as an act of reassurance that he was in the right time at the right place. It was after midnight. His one-year anniversary. Or at least the officially decided upon date by Lin. Yeah, the ring didn't always know what was needed unless this was its way of making sure he wouldn't let teenage hormones dictate how the night would end.
The light from his ring faded away. His head sunk back into his pillow. It would probably be for the best if he kept this possible future to himself. Nobody needed to know he would ever consider naming his son after Guy Gardner.