by Marc | Nov 8, 2017 | Chronicles
CONNER: “Hi, there. I think you and I should have a talk.”
Oh. No. This is not another vision from the past, given by the ring of Oa. This is a living, breathing, cape wearing Superman. Who’s taken to hovering only about ten feet up and over from where Kyle has traversed through Coast City. The uniform is impressive to most. Those who saw the original in person or even in pictures or on television can see distinct differences. The blue is a shade or two darker, the red a shade or two brighter. There is no yellow to the Krytonian shield, just a black backing to the symbol. Where the original Superman might have seemed hung in the air by a complete disbelief in gravity, there’s a twinge of red that encompasses this figure.
Whether or not Kyle really wants to talk with someone? He’s going to get to do that very thing. It wasn’t so much a request, as it was a notification that we are going to talk. “So. You’re new here. It would probably be in your best interests to be more careful. Those Wayne guys are working hard, but this place is still filled with dangers. Even for someone wearing one of those.”
“Power Ring,” whistling like someone would when being impressed by a fancy car. “Nice. I’m going to confess, I’ve met a lot of people with a lot of abilities. You’re my first Power Ring. Does it really work the way they say in the Papers? Light constructs, powered by the pure force of your Will?”
Casually lowering to the ground, not that far from Kyle Rayner. Showing absolutely no fear of the man. Nor do I seem fooled by any sort of effort to conceal the ring itself. While I don’t seem to have heard whatever it was that Kyle was seeing? I do seem to fit right in to the scheme of how played out. He’d heard a voice from behind and mine cut through the History Lesson.
“You’re not the guy I’ve seen wearing one of those before, but then I’m not the same guy who wore this shield before either.” The landing sees the red aura around me fade away, just as I offer my hand in friendship, “My friends call me Con.”
KYLE: I was on my way heading towards my mystery destination when I came to a fork in the road. Landing on my feet I was about to lift my hand up to see which way the ring wanted me to go. However instead I took a moment to lose myself in the song that was playing through the earbuds I slipped in to make the mini flight go by even faster.
Nothing wrong with a few tunes right? However, it meant that I was completely unaware that I was being followed even when Con spoke at first. Instead Conner was probably treated to something far more nightmarish than the crater sized pockmarks that scattered throughout the area.
What could be more terrifying than that. Kyle Rayner’s dancing…and singing.
”Got your body on my mind, and my mind on your body. Got a taste for the cherry, I just want to take a bite.”
At which I turned with a bit of a flourish along with the song. “Don’t you’re mother. Kiss one another. Die for each…”. ..other the lyric should have ended along with a few more lines, but instead there was a harsh mental record scratch in its place.
Holy Demi Lovato! (don’t judge)
I quickly pull the earbuds out of his ears as the song continued while Super…wait a minute. My eyes were all over the costume. Toroso right. Dimensions right, but the texture of the costume is off and what about the “S” shield. There’s no yellow it’s black. What is this black ops Superman? It couldn’t be helped, but my eyes continued to work ever edge and plane of the costume even as Con continued speaking.
Moving shifting my discerning eyes up towards Con’s face I had completely forgot, for the moment at least what he caught me doing when I realized that he was probably here because of the ring. This was odd. I didn’t have the flight or fight look in my eyes. It’s quite noticeable, because it’s a frantic look that a baby gazelle gets when there’s danger and involves not so graceful movements that’s a cross between a baby giraffe crossed with a drunk elephant.
My mind was processing everything he said when I reached out with my ringless hand to shake his.
“Kyle.” Don’t tell him that, but what else was I supposed to say. I’m nobody. Beside he’s looking at me. I don’t have a mask or anything on.
Damn it! Covering your face with your hands won’t make him forget what you look like, Kyle.
“So, am I like in trouble? I note the fading red aura. It’s something that I’ve begun to notice given the fact that I give off one well the ring does when I’m flying. Interesting. Also…he’s not My Superman. Ok not my Superman, but
Focus Kyle!
CONNER: When you see someone doing something like what I’d seen Kyle Rayner doing? You just go with it. Ignore it or work with it. You don’t really have a lot of choices here. In the past I would have made some sort of smarmy comment about it, but today I was in the midst of a trip back from France. I’ve seen a whole lot of weird and fruity behavior in the last hour. Good for Kyle, bad for my ability to sleep well. If I really slept in the first place. Bad things come for those who doze off. As long as the great big ball of fire comes up in the morning, I won’t need to sleep again for a month or so.
“Kyle,” shaking his hand with just the right amount of pressure, practiced in not harming people who lack super-strength. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Should you be in trouble? I mean, you probably shouldn’t be here Kyle. This place isn’t safe yet. You could get hurt out here. Especially all alone. They say it’s best to have a buddy, when you’re out here like this. Probably for the best that I happened upon you, huh?”
The hay-shucks shrug is text book. As practiced as shaking a normal person’s hand. I was trained for this, methodically, by the virtual reality system that prepped me for the life I’ve lead since escaping the Cloning Vat. I just don’t have a lot of opportunity to use these particular skills. Manners. What a novel concept.
“Nice song, by the way. Here. Next time you have a second, give this a listen. She’s a local voice,” my hand has disappeared for a brief second in to a small compartment on the suit, retrieving a tiny microSD card. “Out of Gotham. Not bad on the ears, nor the eyes. I think you’ll like her.”
Boots on the ground. Not the normal thing for me, but I’m giving this a shot. Taking the approach differently than normal. All of it. This is the moment, in the past, when everything would always go wrong. Because I would always take the wrong approach. So for the second time in as many weeks, I try something different. “In a second, I’m going to ask you why you’re out here Kyle, but before I do that I want to be completely honest with you.”
“I’m sure you know that being an un-registered Meta-Human is illegal in the United States. There is a government Agency, that is tasked with tracking down people of extraordinary abilities. Quite honestly, Kyle, I work with that group to keep dangerous Meta-Humans from causing things like… this.” Opening my hands up wide, to encompass Coast City proper. “A man with a ring, just like your’s, was at Ground Zero here in Coast City.”
“Which brings me to the question. Why are you and the ring here, Kyle?”
KYLE: There are many things that can be unseen. Me dancing is one of them isn’t one of them. Poor Con. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it in the mirror for the better part of my life. I share in his pain, but that aside I steeled myself against a massive freak out, because I can only imagine what drew him here. The ring giving me snippets of information and as overwhelmed I could get I focus on listening instead of reacting. I mean I could go all out ring a blazing and everything and where would that get me.
Superman 101. Quickly in my field of vision an imaginary HUD display appears before my eyes and series of simulations play out mentally between me and Con.
Scenario 1: Finger blown off. Ring confiscated. No more Green Lantern. No more Kyle. Mom in tears. Yeah let’s not go that route. Rings a blazing is not the way to go with this.
Scenario 2: Ring removed because he moves faster than I anticipate which could result in me losing part of my finger, because it’s been snapped off.
Scenario 3: SUPERMAN SMASH! He punches me. Kicks me. Lands on me hard and take what he wants. I will leave out the obligatory dropping a tank on me for my own mental health.
Scenario 4: He smiles at me with a raised brow. “Hey Kyle…” The ring’s gone and he’s flying off. ”Noob! I got a girlfriend” Cute cat eared Kyle bawling in the distance, because he’s been duped.
I probably read too much manga and watch too much anime for my own good.
Also, he did the whole. I come in peace.
Which is good thing unless you’re a Visitor or you happened to a see a quaint little B movie where an alien was all I come in peace and then vaporized you. So, I’m a little wary of that, but not completely. Also, I’ve semi been through this before, but I doubt Con wants to hear me go through all of that right now. You know, the tests and everything to see if I was meta. They don’t do those tests for your benefit. They do it for theirs.
Thing is that it wasn’t a low-level field agent that came out from the field office. It was their number one top dog. Poster boy? Poster man? Hmm. I’m thinking boy, but at the same time. Poster contest. This is a great moment to get some references. I take a moment to let my eye move along his lines again. He probably thinks I’m checking him out.
I am, but for completely artistic purposes. I know. I’m surprised as the next. I guess I’m a one Superman kind of guy. Go figure.
I take the offered Micro SD card looking it over. “I’ll have to check her out. We can compare notes.” Or something. I don’t look over my shoulder like I’m paranoid, because I want to believe he’s being genuine. I mean seriously he wouldn’t be telling me all this right?
“Heard rumors about that. The government agency that is.” I was doing my best to stay off the radar, but inevitable.
My arms are relaxed at my side and while I make no effort to make myself look small I also do nothing to make myself look threatening. What I do attempt to do is try to hold back the inner fan boy, because while it isn’t Classic Superman it’s Superman!
“Seeing you on TV is one thing seeing you in person.” I reach up and make a mind blown gesture. “And because of me…well not me.” Con wasn’t here for me. He was here because of the ring. I never did answer his question.
Willpower. Interesting. That make sense. Ability to overcome great fear. Takes someone who has will of Steel. Man of Steel. Will of Steel. Get it! That’s a bad dad joke in the making.
“It does work like that.” He was honest with him and it seemed that he knew a bit about the ring so why lie. Saves me from doing a Billy Flynn tap dance number. “I came here to learn. To find out about the Lantern who came before me so the mistakes of the past weren’t repeated. I needed to see for myself not to be told. Some things you can’t be told.” You have to see it for yourself.
Honestly it was a semi-relief to be able to talk about it. It’s not like I’ve been at this for years or even a year. It was just recent, but I’ve been keeping it to myself, because of the very things that Con had said.
“Coast City isn’t safe, but I’m connected to it.” Even if I can’t remember all of the events myself. So, I’m not sharing everything, but just enough right. “Something tells me this isn’t exactly protocol what you’re doing here. Aren’t you going to get in trouble, Con?” The fact that he introduced himself as Con isn’t lost on me either.
CONNER: Being checked out isn’t new to me. Maybe it’s new to have someone doing it while I’m in this particular outfit, but while I’m running around as ‘Conner Luthor’ people check me out all the time. In fact the whole basis for my ‘Secret Identity’ was about drawing as much attention as possible. I don’t know if the original Superman did it. Had a real life outside of the Cape, but I needed one to be able to spend time with Cassie. So I embraced my Father’s legacy with all I could. Richer than sin. Genetically superior. Most people that I do know, never realize how much of an Act that Conner Luthor is. Even fewer people realize that I’m taking the real me and dialing it up for sake of appearances.
Gotta turn that dial the opposite way to be Superman though. I’ve been finding it a lot easier to be Conner than Superman lately. Kyle makes me laugh though. The real sort of laughter that I don’t even have to fake. Taking a breath and giving him a clap on the shoulder, once again being very careful not harm him. I have no idea if he’s sturdy all the time or only when actively using the ring. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m probably going to be in a whole lot of trouble. This suit I’m wearing? It’s a real Kryptonian battle-suit. The original Superman’s got damaged a while back. Star Labs helped him repair it. The people I work with? They confiscated it a while back. It’s been retro-fitted with surveillance technology.”
“They’re going to know we met. They’re going to ask questions. They’re probably not going to like my answers.” Unless, of course, Kyle really is here for something other than what he’s telling me. In which case I will, in fact, do my ‘Job.’ I won’t let something like this happen again. “They’re going to want me to tell them I’ve either confiscated your ring or that I believe you’re someone I can ‘recruit to the team.'”
“Truth is, Kyle. When the call came, as I was heading back from Europe, the energy readings N.O.W.H.E.R.E. picked up on their satellites were consistent with a Green Lantern. You’ve got them a little worked up. More than a little. Heh. I haven’t seen them this close to mobilizing the whole team in years. Your predecessor scared the hell out of them. Well. He scared everybody, I guess.”
“Not me though. The only thing that has ever scared me, Kyle, isn’t some dancing machine with a green ring. Which plays in to the question you haven’t asked me. You have to be wondering why I’m not trying to take that ring or take you to them?”
KYLE: I’m all kinds of curious, but I have an active imagination that needs to be reeled in. There’s a reason why I keep to myself at school. More like people let me keep to myself. It’s sometimes best not to travel into the mouth of madness here. That’s what I’m thinking about when I get a clap on the back and I do stumble a bit, because I’m definitely not the sturdy when the ring isn’t active. I’m a wisp of a person, but there was definitely a bit of strength behind that slap on the shoulder. It gets a bit of a sheepish grin out of me, because I can only imagine what Con thinks.
I stop it there before the Wheels of Rayner. Get going.
Do I tell him that the ring is actively guiding me? Do I show him the map that I drew complete with sites I wanted to see? It’s so weird. I should probably be backing off examining this with the critical eye that my mom would give things, but really…honestly. After the accident I can count on one hand how many friends I have.
Most of them died in the crash. The ones that didn’t. Everything changed and I was something I wasn’t. They all thought I was meta, but I wasn’t and now I am. I miss having friends. I miss having people to talk to. I miss popcorn and movies. I miss all the stupid stuff wait did he say he was on his way back from Europe?
“That is just too cool.” He grinned a bit. I hadn’t done anything like that, because you know. Big Brother and Sister are watching. And see they were watching me right now. They even probably saw the dancing and singing. Maybe that scared them away. Right. Never that lucky.
“So you’re kind of putting it on the line for me…kind of.” He chewed on his lower lip, because he knew how quickly this could escalate. One cross check and they would pull my file and then the government would be back in my life in an entirely different way.
What if they think I caused the crash? Crap on a cracker. I don’t need that on my mom.
The ring wasn’t there’s the take, confiscate.
I wanted to be honest. I didn’t want to overreact, but if I was going to be honest well as honest as I thought I could be then I don’t know. “You can’t shut that off can you?” I pointed at the suit. I feel so exposed.” I went as far to cover myself with my hands. “Is it always on? Is that like invading your privacy? That has to suck.” Wait. Kyle’s brows furrowed as he gave it some thought. “When you introduced Wonder Woman to the world is her suit like yours? Does it surveil her too? Is that what happens when you join up. You keep your freedom, but you lose another?” I couldn’t help but shudder thinking about that.
“I’m sorry.” I really was. That’s no way to live. “That’s a raw deal.” Either way I did have something to say. “I don’t know why you haven’t taken me in. Maybe you want to give me a chance? Maybe you’re curious? Maybe…why haven’t you followed your protocols? The suit’s ratted us both out. You haven’t given me the pitch to join with the Department of Extranormal Affairs so either you’re leading up to it or..” He thought about it.
Is Con going Rogue? I’m not talking about Sarah Palin rogue either.
“Can I tell you something?”
CONNER: I’m all kinds of curious, but I have an active imagination that needs to be reeled in. There’s a reason why I keep to myself at school. More like people let me keep to myself. It’s sometimes best not to travel into the mouth of madness here. That’s what I’m thinking about when I get a clap on the back and I do stumble a bit, because I’m definitely not the sturdy when the ring isn’t active. I’m a wisp of a person, but there was definitely a bit of strength behind that slap on the shoulder. It gets a bit of a sheepish grin out of me, because I can only imagine what Con thinks.
I stop it there before the Wheels of Rayner. Get going.
Do I tell him that the ring is actively guiding me? Do I show him the map that I drew complete with sites I wanted to see? It’s so weird. I should probably be backing off examining this with the critical eye that my mom would give things, but really…honestly. After the accident I can count on one hand how many friends I have.
Most of them died in the crash. The ones that didn’t. Everything changed and I was something I wasn’t. They all thought I was meta, but I wasn’t and now I am. I miss having friends. I miss having people to talk to. I miss popcorn and movies. I miss all the stupid stuff wait did he say he was on his way back from Europe?
“That is just too cool.” He grinned a bit. I hadn’t done anything like that, because you know. Big Brother and Sister are watching. And see they were watching me right now. They even probably saw the dancing and singing. Maybe that scared them away. Right. Never that lucky.
“So you’re kind of putting it on the line for me…kind of.” He chewed on his lower lip, because he knew how quickly this could escalate. One cross check and they would pull my file and then the government would be back in my life in an entirely different way.
What if they think I caused the crash? Crap on a cracker. I don’t need that on my mom.
The ring wasn’t theirs to take, ti confiscate.
I wanted to be honest. I didn’t want to overreact, but if I was going to be honest well as honest as I thought I could be then I don’t know. “You can’t shut that off can you?” I pointed at the suit. I feel so exposed.” I went as far to cover myself with my hands. “Is it always on? Is that like invading your privacy? That has to suck.” Wait. Kyle’s brows furrowed as he gave it some thought. “When you introduced Wonder Woman to the world is her suit like yours? Does it surveil her too? Is that what happens when you join up. You keep your freedom, but you lose another?” I couldn’t help but shudder thinking about that.
“I’m sorry.” I really was. That’s no way to live. “That’s a raw deal.” Either way I did have something to say. “I don’t know why you haven’t taken me in. Maybe you want to give me a chance? Maybe you’re curious? Maybe…why haven’t you followed your protocols? The suit’s ratted us both out. You haven’t given me the pitch to join with the Department of Extranormal Affairs so either you’re leading up to it or..” He thought about it.
Is Con going Rogue? I’m not talking about Sarah Palin rogue either.
“Can I tell you something?”
CONNER: “Thanks. My girlfriend wanted some french thing, from France. Except not really. She was making up a reason to get me out of her hair for a minute, while she went off to be Wonder Woman.” Once more rolling my shoulders in a shrug. “It kind of sucks. I’m probably the strongest guy on this World and I can’t figure out how to turn my VCR off. They monitor everything I do, really. Everyone I meet. Everyone I speak too.”
“No wireless though. Not after I ran in to a Meta that could hijack technology. So they don’t know about you, yet. Just the ring. Or rather, the energy signature of the ring. So right now, we control the narrative, Kyle. That’s why I’m here. I really, really hope you’re a good guy. Because you’re right, I’m kinda sticking my neck out for you here. A wise person recently told me you have to trust people, if you want them to trust you too.”
His question about Cassie’s suit actually gives me pause. I mean N.O.W.H.E.R.E. is actually the source of her suit too. Could it be recording everything she does too? I’ve scanned it more than once. Not just for bugs either. I happen to like seeing what’s under it. “Her suit is not a thing of technology like this battle-suit. Her suit was woven from the fibers of the Golden Fleece. I’m not a big believer in magic, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck? It’s probably goose. So, I doubt they could jam in any surveillance technology in to that thing. Plus. I kind of took the material without permission. So I don’t think they had time to put any sort of magical bugs on it.”
“Now that you mention it though, I should probably have someone verify that.”
“… either I’m leading up to it or… I’m hoping that the file on your ring is true and you’re wearing the strongest weapon in the world, Kyle. Because I need you to break my Kryptonian battle suit for me.” This time the shrug is a little more lighthearted than before, because what I’ve just said is really not something you say to someone when you first meet them. But hey. This is a week of firsts for me. “Because if you can do that, Kyle. You can tell me anything.”
KYLE: “What like truffles or macaroons?” I actually had no idea, but that sounds like something French to get. Something authentic that you didn’t want to get at the local market or the sort. Still, I guess that’s how it all shook out. Someone wants you out of their hair you send them to market. You want Superman out of hair you send him to France.
“Well, there has to be a way. Not a tech expert though. Maybe you can overwhelm the systems though it probably has some kind of high tech circuit breaker worked into the suit. Still sophisticated tech like probably would need a protection of some kind.” Stroking my chin I was really considering how he could get around it when it turned to Wonder Woman’s suit.
When he spoke about the Golden Fleece my eyes widen. That’s real? Like really real? He said it so matter of fact that it had to be real right? My mind clicked right to it. Deciding to go with what I knew. “Was it woven from the entire fleece or were their strands missing? I don’t know that would work, but if there’s no bugs on it maybe the suit itself is a bug. You probably want to check that out, because think about it. I’m no magic expert.” Magic exists. I’m stuck on that for a moment.
“But what if they needed just a piece of it to perform a spell of some kind to connect the two together and from that they had all the access they needed?” This is me considering all the possibilities. However, Con said he was going to have someone check it out which was probably for the best, but his next statement made my eyes widen a tad.
“You want me to break the suit?” The strongest weapon in the world? My eyes shifted towards the ring and I felt like it might just fall off right this second. The finger not the ring.
“So there’s some kind of a detection system within the suit. Sensors. The wireless has been disabled. That means that its either storing energy or generating energy. Or perhaps its running off a battery. It’s not solar powered is it?” I it was working right this moment then there should be some kind of energy signature to detect.
Just like that the ring started to glow and a pair of fancy looking glasses appeared on my face. “If I can scan for the information I can possibly start to dissect how it works.” Not that I’m a expert. “Or I could blast it with everything I got, but that would definitely set of the alarms. A blast like that would make them more than a little jumpy. The suit might register it as an attack.” I don’t think he could explain his way out of that.
“I’d like to give it a shot I mean scanning it and going from there. “ There was a question that had been on his mind, but was it one he should bring up now? He had been cautious about using the ring, but at some point it was going to run out of fuel.
CONNER: “Macaroons.” That’s what Cassie wanted. It’s what I was off to get and it’s what happens to be stored in the backpack that I left in a tree a few miles from here. Along with Conner Luthor’s clothing. “Not the whole Fleece, per say. N.O.W.H.E.R.E. actually tried to use the fleece for some other things for a while. Like a conduit wire for harnessing magical energy. It never worked. So the Fleece got abandoned until I pulled it out of cold storage.”
‘Pulled it out of cold storage,’ is a really good way of saying that I stole it. Superman doesn’t steal, so I don’t use that phrase. When I appropriated it, I didn’t know that it would react to the Divinity inside of my girlfriend. Nor did I realize it would literally obey her commands, so long as she formed the commands with her will focused properly. In fact, it works a lot like Kyle’s ring supposedly does. I had never considered that someone might be able to use the magic of a single strand to do something -to- Cassie’s threads. Magic is something I’m almost illiterate about. Knowing just enough to be able to work out a strategy for taking people down who use it.
“Definitely stores solar energy. In fact that’s one of it’s major purposes. It replenishes Kryptonians, who use solar energy like a fuel source for powers.” The wording I’m employing is very specific, because very few people actually know that I’m not a Kryptonian and I’m keeping that as one of my few secrets these days. The couple people I’ve actually told, didn’t react especially well to my true origins. “As far as I know, the suit doesn’t have a lot of offensive capability. But, to be fair it didn’t come with an instruction manual. All I can tell you, is that I’ve thrown fists with some very powerful people. The suit has never reacted to danger with any sort of counter-attack. So you should be safe.”
“With that said, Kyle, I was kind of hoping your ring would allow you to do something a little more low-key than obliterating it. If you can scan it, maybe your ring can identify the non-Kryptonian elements that N.O.W.H.E.R.E. installed. Those are the parts I need to not work anymore.” Taking a step back, away from Kyle in order to give the man some room to do whatever he’s got in mind. “No matter what happens here, Kyle. I want you to know two things. I’m not going to turn you in or take your ring. And. When you’re done here, you should go to Gotham City. Find a man named Alan Scott. He used to have a ring like your’s, according to the files. Before N.O.W.H.E.R.E. retired him.”
KYLE: He went to France for macaroons. “You must get the best boyfriend award a lot for stuff like that. I mean not everyone can jaunt over the France and back just to pick up macaroons. Pretty sure all girls will be swooning over that. The guys are probably gonna hate.” Kyle snickered thinking about it, because seriously how can someone compare to that?
“That’s pretty clever, but probably dangerous.” Glancing at the ring I can’t help but wonder if they would or have tried to do something like that. I don’t even want to think about it, but now it’s there like a weed that won’t die.
“Seems like it worked out for the best there, but I do recommend making sure you guys get that check. My mom always says you can always count on not being able to trust the government. There’s always something with them. Their line the fine print in a credit card statement or rules in a contest that’s fifty pages before the end in the lower margin.” Seriously my mom says things like that. She doesn’t like the government. She doesn’t say why, but she gets a look in her eye that says its best to leave alone like when I ask about my dad.
That little bit there about the suit storing solar energy that it was used by Kryptonians. The thing is that the sun is right there. Why would he need a suit that did that? I considered that for a moment while thinking about what would best help me in this situation. The ring might be capable of doing that. It did tell me about a few people that was apparently in its memory banks.
“I think I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to use the ring to scan and the goggles they’re going to give me read out like a HUD. We’re looking for any non Kryptonian technology. Once I get all scanned in I’ll look it over and project it out and see what we can find. Sound like a plan?” Course it does? Unless you know the suit decide it does have some kind of defensive capability and tries to eliminate me.
“Come on. Man of Steel. Will of Steel. Right?” Freddy held out his first. If Con put his out. Kyle bump on top. Con bump on top. Fist bump together.
CONNER: “You would think that, yeah, but I’m in the dog house a surprising amount of time.” There’s another shrug, but this one isn’t so helpless. How can the guys compete with that? “Just because I can do something, doesn’t always mean that I should. I’m still learning when I should versus when I shouldn’t.”
There’s a moment here when I’m looking at the proffered fist like I’m unclear what to do with it. This isn’t some strange alien thing that I’ve never seen before. The last time someone did this was during a basketball game. In front of Cassie. One of the guys on my team tried to do it after he made a bucket. One bucket. In a game that I scored most of the points. It was like this pathetic little dork, needing a consolation prize. I hadn’t understood then, that I need to embrace this sort of gesture because it makes people feel more comfortable around me. Apparently that’s something I should endeavor to cultivate, instead of just expecting to have accept me because of my last night. (Or they were programmed that way.) So I end up reciprocating the gesture, but after a couple moments of awkward silence.
“Sounds like a good plan, Kyle.” With a step back, for distance, I take a vitruvian man style of pose. I’ve done this a thousand times for maintenance after a fight. Not to mention medical examinations for the Doc. “You said that you had a question for me Kyle or that you wanted to tell me something.”
“Even if this doesn’t work, you’re doing me a favor. Which means I owe you one. If I can help by answering a question or two, or just by listening? You’ve got it, Chum.”
KYLE: When Con bumped my fist I pulled my fingers apart and made a little explosion noise while wiggling my fingers. I had no idea that this was a foreign concept to him. Something he’s observed, but not actively participated in. “There’s no rule out there that says that because you can do super cool awesome things that you get in to the dog house with your significant other. It just happens. You can be having the best day of your life, did the most fantastic thing and some how they will look at you make you feel like you’ve done everything wrong. It sucks, but it’s good. Keeps you grounded.” At least that’s the way I thought about it.
“Someone has to balance us out. I’m think about it. They put up with all our antics so they’ve heard the right to bring us back down to earth, but we get to do it to them too. It’s like an unwritten rule. It’s how relationships works. Not keeping score or anything just that ying yang business.” At least that’s what I take away from it, but that’s neither here or there.
“Ok, let’s do this.” When he gets into his pose I can’t help but smile. “L’Uomo Vitruviano….that…” He took a moment walking towards Con moving from the left then towards the right. “Perfect. Con you’re like perfectly symmetrical.” Shaking his head. “Sorry it’s the artist in me. Musicians go off on things about perfect pitch and tone. Me it’s lines and you have some amazing lines.” That said I had a scan to conduct.
“Alright this won’t hurt all.” Just a passive scan. Balling up my fist I held it out taking a moment to acknowledge the question about the question. “This first. Question later.” I hadn’t forgotten about the question, but this was more important. I gave a moment to focus and hear we go. “Identify all non-Kryptonian based technology.” I said aloud not that the ring needed a voice command or perhaps it did either way I waited and a second letter a beam of light was emitted from the ring that spread out horizontally as it moved across, top to bottom before turning vertical to scan him from left to right.
“Let’s see what we’re working with here.” The read out should come out through the HUD. There was information that started to come through anything the ring could pick up it would, but it picked up a few more things. It scanned both Con and the shut. There were two images. What was I looking at? I paused for a moment to get a handle how things looked like in the googles. The image looked like it was right in front of me both of them.
There was one of Con which was too my left and it began listing out his vitals along with all other types of information. I hadn’t expected that, but to my right there was the suit and it began to highlight areas where non-Kryptonian tech was being identified.
“Holy crap.” It highlighted the shield which contained a holographic imaging system, the belt buckle appeared to be a port of some kind, probably to download whatever information that had been acquired by the suit and that was just the beginning, but there was something else. In the left lens Conner’s information it was identifying portions of genes and DNA…non-Kryptonian. I said tech.
I blinked a few time and shifted back to the right lens and projected that information so Conner could see the suit broken down an entirely different way. “There’s a lot going on there.”
CONNER: “She does that a lot, actually. It’s strange. I’m new to this. All of this,” once more opening my hands up to encompass –everything–, life or something like it. “There has been times, recently in fact, where I thought I’d done something right. Just the way she’d want. Only to find out that I did the right thing, the wrong way.”
“There’s a learning curve to this. Not just being a Super Hero, Kyle. I mean to being Human. Finding the path that is right for you, not necessarily the one that people lay out for you. You have to find your own way. There are going to be mistakes, failures. Those aren’t what define us. We’re defined by how we respond to those failures, by how we overcome and adapt to our mistakes.” Kyle’s talking about relationships. I suppose we both are, in a way. But I’m talking about something more. Something deeper than just my problems with my girlfriend. “Sometimes, Kyle. We’re even defined by how we adapt to other people’s mistakes. Especially if it’s the ones that came before us.”
As I stand there, allowing someone to do far more than merely check me out, I’m left to wonder. Does this guy actually see what I’m saying? Does he get it? The two of us are very alike. The chance of meeting a Green Lantern, was astronomical. Much less meeting here in Coast City. The moment that N.O.W.H.E.R.E. sent out the alert, I responded. I knew exactly how I would approach him. Because for once, I’ve been here. Standing in the ashes of the one that came before. Trying to decide if I could cope with the long shadow that they cast. I didn’t have a ring to guide me, to teach me about how to cope. It’s been a learning process. One that I’ve failed at too many times to count and probably will fail at least a hundred times more too.
“That’s what the Doctor’s and Wonder Woman tell me. I assume you’re looking at my dick, of course.” I’ve been cautioned about divulging too much information many times in the past. Funny enough, it’s one of the few things that the Project and Cassie both seem to agree on. “The suit is meant to stabilize my genetic matrix. My Human genetics lowered my Kryptonian half’s ability to process solar energy. I absorb at the same rate of normal Kryptonians, but I process it slower. That means, I use my energy slower and perform more efficiently, but with the side-effect of potentially absorbing too much, too quickly.”
“I’m a clone, Kyle,” the tone, the timber of my voice, should tell the other man just how rarely I say those words. “I need the suit, but I need it not to tattle to the ‘Bad Guys’ or I’m never going to be able to be the man who wears this shield. Given who you are. Where we are. I’m hoping you understand how important it is for me, to be better. Now.”
KYLE: I’m processing the information that is laid out before me in the goggles, but I’m processing what Con is saying. Considering all that had been shared so far, I decided that I would listen instead of responding immediately. I kept silent letting it all sink in. The conversation started about relationships, but it took left turn somewhere, not bad, but interesting.
“It’s why I’m here Con to know who the person was before me. Like I said to kind of understand who he was, what he did. I only saw from afar, but now.” I glance at the ring. “Now I am him, but I’m me. I don’t even know what it means to be a Green Lantern only that it’s a big deal.” It could be a little overwhelming the more I found out about it, but I wanted to take it all in stride. Some might say this was a serendipitous event.
I only received glimpses of what happened. I didn’t get the entire picture. There was a story to tell here, but the ring only released portions of information, not everything. The ring revealed only so much and I know there was so much more to learn.
“It’s how the world sees people sometimes. There’s this event or moment in time that’s crystallized. It becomes the basis of all that they know of the person. I’m not that Green Lantern, but for some it won’t matter. I am a Green Lantern and for some they will see a hero, others a monster. They’ll think of the event no the person and even if they did if it could happen to one Green Lantern it could happen to another.” It’s weird I probably never spoke about being the Green Lantern aloud. Never had a reason to because it was just me and the ring and I don’t think the ring would provide meaningful feedback like Con is.
“I’m not looking at your dick.” I totally wasn’t. I kept my eyes north of the equator, I only looked down when I did the scan and even when it popped up on the HUD I was focused on everything else. Gah now I can’t stop thinking about it. Damn it! The googles disappear, but the information Is still displayed.
“All jokes aside. I hear you. The expectation it’s there. Whether we want it or not, but who we become is up to us. How those moments, moments we had not part in defines us is up to us no matter what anyone says.” We would have to figure it out one step at a time.
Then he drops the bomb the one that I was putting together like a regular modern-day Sherlock Holmes, IQ thank you very much. However, it explained a lot. The suit, on so many levels. It also made me wary not of Con, but for Con.
I was living a real-life anime. “A little blue man that let a message for me in the ring telling me that I’m good enough.” More or less. Con being a clone is probably right up there with that. “This is the hand life has dealt us. How we play the cards is up to us.” I don’t care. I mean I know the science behind it to a degree and fiction fills in the rest. “You’re Con. That’s what matter. You didn’t black bag me and carry me off. That’s what matters.” That’s what matters to me.
“What matters is that we need to get Big Brother and Big Sister off your back so you can be who you to be not who they want to be. So, we’re going to go low tech on this. I’m going to get you everything you need to know about the suit and put down on paper. At least then you have technical schematics on the suit and maybe we can figure out who can help you start to undo all of this.” He looked over in the distance at the big T.
“Sound like a plan?” Unless he could remember everything he saw right now.
CONNER: “Far be it for me to tell you what to think, but I’m going to let you in on a secret that I’ve learned over the last year.” Standing like this is something I’ve done before, a lot in fact. There’s not so much as a twitch as I keep the pose for Kyle until he makes it clear to me that he’s done. “Before she was Wonder Woman, my girlfriend thought it was very important that I use my abilities to help people. She nudged me in to doing it, even before I wanted too. So I spent most of the last year trying to discover what it meant to be Superman. Truth, Justice, the American Way. Apple Pie and all that. That’s what everyone expected. That’s what they wanted.”
“I’m not going to lie about it, Kyle. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I was pretty sure I shouldn’t be doing it for free. Like I said, I’ve stumbled along the way, but I’m starting to see now that I don’t have to live up to some big ideal people have about the first Superman. I have to try to be the best person I can be, in the moment. I have to stop trying to worry about my image. About what people think of me. Because if I start thinking about anything but the moment; about what is happening right here and now? I’m going to lose myself in the metaphysics of ‘What If?’ ‘What might be?’ or ‘What do they think?'”
“If you see someone that needs help and the only one that can do it, is you and your ring. Can you look yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning, if you don’t help?” How many times have I shrugged since meeting Kyle, I feel like it’s a trend but I do it again none the less. Offering it to him noncommittally. “I’m pretty sure I already know how you’d answer that question. After all you’re the only one here. You and that ring. And you’re helping me, aren’t you?”
With him being done, I finally lower my hands. Well, hand. Since one of them is being offered out to Kyle directly when I step in closer. “That sounds like the best plan I’ve heard all day. And considering that one of the plans I heard today involved saving the world? Puts you in rare company.”
“It’s going to be a sight,” remarking about the direction his eyes are going in. “Coast City has been a symbol of everything our predecessors did wrong. I hope that building can one day be a monument to the things we do right.”
KYLE: I make sure the ring has collected all the information it needs. Now that Con has been scanned in I should be able to get him everything he needs. I listen to everything he says not because I’m not capable of making up my own mind, but because we’re walking similar paths. We’ve inherited mantles and at the same time we want to be who we want to be, but who is that person?
My eyes shift to the ground. “It’s the right thing to do. It’s what I would hope someone would do for me if they could,” he said in a lower tone. “I…” How do I even start?
“I was in a plane crash. I was the only one that survived. All my friends all the people that knew me. That got me well as much as someone could get another person died. Everyone died, but I didn’t. I came into the ring after like right after amid the flames and the smoke, amid the wreckage. DIdn’t know it at the time, because I was in a bad way. There was no bit moment where I was given the ring and protected from the crashed my body was broken shattered, but I was alive and then they came. Department of Extranormal Affairs. Surely something had to be different about me because I was the lone crash survivor.”
It was overwhelming. Everything about it has been a puzzle, a puzzle that I need to solve to understand just a little bit more about what this ring means. I need to know why I don’t remember what happened to Coast why such as significant event feels like a fading memory.
“I was alone. I couldn’t even see my mom. God knows what they did to her when they thought I was a meta. Thing is there wasn’t anyone there to help me or pull me up. Not a soul.” I didn’t say it like it was. “But with everything that I was put through I can only imagine what they have done to you, Con. I want to help you because the right thing to do, because I’ve been where you’re at. It may not exactly be the same, but it’s close enough. You’re right if I did turn away I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror.”
When the hand was stretched out to me I took to give it a shake.
“It will be. If we hold true to what you said. If we face every day like that. It will be.”
CONNER: I make sure the ring has collected all the information it needs. Now that Con has been scanned in I should be able to get him everything he needs. I listen to everything he says not because I’m not capable of making up my own mind, but because we’re walking similar paths. We’ve inherited mantles and at the same time we want to be who we want to be, but who is that person?
My eyes shift to the ground. “It’s the right thing to do. It’s what I would hope someone would do for me if they could,” he said in a lower tone. “I…” How do I even start?
“I was in a plane crash. I was the only one that survived. All my friends all the people that knew me. That got me well as much as someone could get another person died. Everyone died, but I didn’t. I came into the ring after like right after amid the flames and the smoke, amid the wreckage. Didn’t know it at the time, because I was in a bad way. There was no bit moment where I was given the ring and protected from the crashed my body was broken shattered, but I was alive and then they came. Department of Extranormal Affairs. Surely something had to be different about me because I was the lone crash survivor.”
It was overwhelming. Everything about it has been a puzzle, a puzzle that I need to solve to understand just a little bit more about what this ring means. I need to know why I don’t remember what happened to Coast why such as significant event feels like a fading memory.
“I was alone. I couldn’t even see my mom. God knows what they did to her when they thought I was a meta. Thing is there wasn’t anyone there to help me or pull me up. Not a soul.” I didn’t say it like it was. “But with everything that I was put through I can only imagine what they have done to you, Con. I want to help you because the right thing to do, because I’ve been where you’re at. It may not exactly be the same, but it’s close enough. You’re right if I did turn away I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror.”
When the hand was stretched out to me I took to give it a shake.
“It will be. If we hold true to what you said. If we face every day like that. It will be.”
KYLE: “Thank you.” It’s the first time I actually said it allowed. My mother and I didn’t talk about it. The less said the better it seemed to be. Also there was the non-disclosure agreement we signed and the money provided for our time which allowed me to go to school in Metropolis. Being able to talk to someone about it finally was like weight being lifted from my shoulders.
The clap on my shoulder didn’t make me stumble this time and that was a good thing, but hearing how things begin make me think about how things began for Jordan. He started out a hero, but then descended into someone capable of becoming one of the most feared beings on the planet. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Something to remember.
When he started talking about inflated egos I couldn’t help the slight smirk, because I wonder what Wonder Woman had to say about that?
Of course, what came next I didn’t expect. The amount of information he had about the ring was surprising. It helped to put a few more pieces together, but then came the bombshell.
“Say what come again?” I’m a cop. A space cop. My eyes widen for a moment. “Wait…” I needed a moment because my mind was blown for a second.
“Oh my God do you know what this mean. I’m a space cop and you’re like the top cop for the planet right? We can be cop buddies. We can be Riggs and Murtaugh!” Tender moment over Kyle Rayner is back to being Kyle Rayner.
“Wait..I wasn’t not looking at your dick. Stop that!”
CONNER: “Thank you.” It’s the first time I actually said it allowed. My mother and I didn’t talk about it. The less said the better it seemed to be. Also there was the non-disclosure agreement we signed and the money provided for our time which allowed me to go to school in Metropolis. Being able to talk to someone about it finally was like weight being lifted from my shoulders.
The clap on my shoulder didn’t make me stumble this time and that was a good thing, but hearing how things begin make me think about how things began for Jordan. He started out a hero, but then descended into someone capable of becoming one of the most feared beings on the planet. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Something to remember.
When he started talking about inflated egos I couldn’t help the slight smirk, because I wonder what Wonder Woman had to say about that?
Of course, what came next I didn’t expect. The amount of information he had about the ring was surprising. It helped to put a few more pieces together, but then came the bombshell.
“Say what come again?” I’m a cop. A space cop. My eyes widen for a moment. “Wait…” I needed a moment because my mind was blown for a second.
“Oh my God do you know what this mean. I’m a space cop and you’re like the top cop for the planet right? We can be cop buddies. We can be Riggs and Murtaugh!” Tender moment over Kyle Rayner is back to being Kyle Rayner.
“Wait..I wasn’t not looking at your dick. Stop that!”
KYLE: “That’s Rush Hour. No no. Lethal Weapon. You need to watch the movies and check out the show. Check out and you’ll totally get the reference.” Because they could totally do buddy cop stuff. Still the idea that I was a space cop. I don’t even know how to handle that one. Given the fact that I’ve been doing graffiti art, I’m a little surprised that I’ve been recruited to be a space cop.
“I didn’t look.” Ok I might have looked, but my eyes snapped up like supper quick. I will never admit this. “Hey, hey hey. I have some…” Skills as a liar, but that would make me look guilty. DAMN IT! I shake my fist.
Ok now this is like way weird. Sure it’s not the same scenario, but that’s remarkably close to one of the ones that I played through my head about how this might have gone down.
“NO!! Not that…and he wear’s Yellow!” Speaking of which what does a Green Lantern wear? I groan just a bit, but wave regardless. I’m pretty sure that we’ll be talking soon. Even more than that after being Metropolis for more than a year I think I just made a friend.
CONNER: “Lethal Weapon. Gotcha. I’ll put that on back at the Crib, maybe Wondy will watch it with me.” That reminds me though, I’ve been gone a lot longer than I should have been just to make a run to France. “It was nice meeting you, Kyle and don’t worry. When the D.E.A. asks me for my report, I’m going to tell them that there’s a distinct potential for cooperation or recruitment. That will buy us some time. Not a lot of time, but I hope enough for you to help me break my leash.”
There’s a point that I don’t want to exert any pressure on Kyle. Because pressure isn’t always the way to drive results, but I also don’t want to be dishonest with the second Friend I’ve ever made. Probably the first legitimate one, given that I made friendly with Tim because of his name or Cassie because she’s hot and won’t break like a twig during sex. Yeah. I guess that makes Kyle my first true friend, ever. Yikes. I’m kind of sad and pathetic, despite being jam packed full of awesomesauce and amazeballs.
“Before I forget,” there’s a little series of pockets on my belt, from which I draw out what looks like a small fitbit. “When you need to contact me, just hold the center button down. It emits an ultra-sonic frequency that only Kryptonians can hear. I’ll find you.”
“I’ve got to pick up those macaroons and get back to Metropolis, but before I go you did say you wanted to ask me something.”
KYLE: “I’ll finish up here and do like you suggested. Make my way to Gotham.” He said that there was someone there that used to wield a power ring. Alan Scott. I wonder what happened. I could probably do a search on him, but it also meant I wouldn’t be able to surprise my mom, but this was important. She was too, but if there was a former Lantern here I did want to meat them.
I just needed to wrap things up here. The ring was leading me somewhere. I wanted to see what it wanted to show me. I hadn’t forgotten about that. “Ok. Thanks , Con. Hopefully I won’t get into too much trouble, but I’ll remember.” He took the fitbit looking device and slipped it on his wrist. “If you need me..” How would he reach him? There was his cellphone. He reached into his backpack tore of a scrap of paper and scribbled his number on it.
“Best I can do for the moment.” Not cool like the ultra-sonic beacon, but we work with what we got right?
“I did, but you answered it.” Not through words, but actions. “More than answered. No go grab the macaroons before you get in the dog house.”
(Kyle’s Coast City Journey Continues here.)
by Marc | Oct 29, 2017 | Chronicles
“Son, are you sure this is where you want to go?” I could still hear the man’s voice as he dropped me off at the city limits. It’s exactly where I wanted to be despite the fact sign welcoming people to Coast City read Welcome to Coast Death City, Pop. 0.
Always a welcoming site, but according to the waitress from the neighboring town, three neighboring towns over there was actually some work going on in the area. There was a crew that stopped in before or after working hours that was heading into the city. That was surprising. I actually caught a ride in to the city proper on a food truck that drove into the area for the lunch crew. I may have stretched the truth in saying that I was in the area looking for work.
I look the part sort of. It’s not like I was running around with a school blazer on. We chatted a little and this is where being from California helps. Told him where I had been up and along the coast and even talked about what a shame it was what happened with Coast City. That’s where I learned that it wasn’t a demolition crew that was coming through, not quite, that’s what a few people believed it was that someone was coming through to kind of level certain areas that were structurally unsafe. They said that there was construction going on.
Construction? Of course, being a child of the internet like I was I began to scour the internet for this information. I had been so focused on the destruction of Coast City that I hadn’t seen anything that spoke about reconstruction. As we road through the city I glanced around taking everything I could.
I wasn’t sure what I thought I would find. Ghost town. Desolate city. It was one thing for a city to be abandoned, but Coast City was something altogether different. I kept my comments to myself, because the last thing I wanted was to let out that I was looking for anything but work. When the truck came to a stop I looked towards the owner and smiled.
“Thanks for the lift.” I told him as I grabbed my bag and slipped out of the truck.
“You sure you’re going to be ok? Are you going to be able to get a ride back out?” It wasn’t like that Coast City as the hub of activity at the moment. Anything but that.
“I’ll be alright.” That much was true. I was pretty good at getting around with or without my ring. “Thank you.”
“Alright, good luck. I hope you find something,” he offered with a nod.
“You and me both.” With that I took a deep breath and shut the door before heading towards the foreman’s office, which consisted of a portable trailer, but the moment the truck pulled off and headed to the designated area where he could set up shop I slipped out of sight walking away from the sight which I took note of.
“Wayne Enterprises.” I mutter to myself whipping out my phone and added another line to the notes that I had been taking. Someone was trying to build out this way. Problem was that they had their work cut out for them. I didn’t take a look at what was coming up, but when I got far enough away I turned to see the buildings skeleton which appeared to be in the shape of a T at least that’s it looked like. It was an interesting shape for a building.
Couldn’t exactly make a C could they? Rather than ponder it more than that for the moment I took a picture of the sight and did what most kids my age would. I took a selfie. Probably wouldn’t be the last picture I took, but perhaps it was a sign that anything was possible. That not all was lost, that enough time passed, and it was time rebuild. I didn’t know the government had given the all clear. Probably a deal that had been struck with Wayne Enterprises. You know, if the Wayne name is on it then they will come and such.
Most people said that not many people had ventured to Coast City since the incident. Most avoided it. There were people that opted not to take the 101 just to avoid it. It was weird. Which I found odd, because it wasn’t like I was completely unaware of Coast City, but it all feels so foreign. It’s like an entirely different world. Looking at my phone I slip it back into my pocket after doing a time check. Burning daylight. I came here for answers, even though I have no idea what my questions are.
Slipping my bag off my shoulder I open it reaching in to it to pull out the spiral composition book that I had been using to take notes. Can’t be all electronic. Phones only hold so much of a charge and I also drew some pictures, because I made a map of the city which wasn’t small. However, there were some points that I wanted to check out. Things that I wanted to see.
I wonder if this means that Edwards has opened back up or if it’s going to remain shuttered? I remember reading that it had been closed along with Ferris Aircraft. The incident had impacted not only the city, but the surrounding area. Coast City had close to seven million residents. It was a huge population center and with the high number of casualties, the loss of life there’s no way the area wouldn’t be impacted. There was significant amount of life loss.
Reading over some of the notes I took I turned the corner and found myself staring at an area that hadn’t been cleared out completely. It wasn’t level anything but. Buildings were damaged and that was putting it lightly. They were hollowed, the tops of them have been sheared off and the surrounding area looked more like it had seen earthquake damage more than anything. There was a crack running down the street and glass everywhere.
Blocks away construction was beginning, but there was still a lot to clean up. I can only imagine the amount of search and rescue efforts that had been mounted. At a certain point the city had been closed to the public and officially declared a disaster zone. Now that it had been lifted repairing the city could begin, which meant that it would soon see a lot of work, which I guess in one way was good, because it meant that people might be able to start healing.
I don’t know why, but there was a part of me that told me I should keep going, but instead I found a spot to sit and pulled out my sketch pad and began to draw, capturing everything my eyes saw. I could easily take a picture, but it felt like that would be a disservice. I needed to capture on paper. Waste of time? Not to me. I couldn’t forget this. I didn’t want to forget this.
The entire picture took me thirty minutes, but when it was finished I took it in trying as best I could to imagine what it could have been like that day. Shutting my eyes I know that I don’t want to bring anything into existence I just want to get an idea of what it was like before. Unbeknownst to me my ring began to pulse with light not once, but a few times. After a moment or so I could actually feel the pulses which brought me out of my thoughts. Glancing down at the ring tilting my head I stood up as looked at the ring. It pulsed a few more times before stopping.
“Hmm.” Now it’s never done that. Gathering my thing I stashed them away with the exception of my composition book. Zipping up my pack I looked at the map that I drew that had different areas that I wanted to visit. Staring off to Star Square I thought it would be the best place to start. Just to start from there and work my way out. Glancing at the ring checking to see if it was pulsing again I saw that nothing was happening. Stepping out into the middle of the street I decide to do what I did before focus on what that day could have been like. Just a way to test a theory.
Sliding my eyes shut I begin to focus on that day again. Shortly after a while the ring begins to pulse , but when I open my eyes there’s something else that occurs the ring doesn’t just pulse there are images created there’s one of a car coming right towards me, but it’s made of green light, but it’s not solid I can tell as it barrels down the road way and as it does I see someone else behind it in the air.
My eyes widen when I see the man.
“Wait..” He’s wearing an outfit that has an insignia on the front of it much like the one that Ganthet had on his robes. He’s chasing the car. I watch as he stretches out his arm his hand balled in a fist as the ring emits energy from it forming ice picks that damage the car’s tire causing it to be stopped. The ghost like image fades and the ring continues pulsing.
“You shall have to do.” I don’t know why. I just… have a feeling.
The ring stops pulsing as I turn around coming face to face with the man that was just chasing down the car, but he seems to be frozen in place not looking at me, not looking at anything. He’s another construct. “Green…”
“Designation: Hal Jordan. Jurisdiction: Green Lantern of Sector 2814. Planet of origin: Earth. Species: Human. Base of operations: Coast City.”
I look around to see where it came from when I realize it came from the ring. It spoke. Again. I remember it had spoken before.
“I…” I don’t even know. The image remained there for a moment longer before it faded away. Looking over my shoulder I try to see if there was anyone else there construct or otherwise, but there was no one but me. Which is good, because I don’t want to have to explain this.
The ring was no longer pulsing, but it left with nothing but questions. How and why was that happening?
Hal Jordan. I had a name. A name that sounded familiar, but thinking about everything I knew from research and what was shared through Ganthet’s message I wondered if Jordan was one of the heroes that fell during the incident. Looking over my notes from the articles I read a lot of the information make allusions to an enemy so dangerous that it took the combined might of many heroes to stop it, but they only succeed in driving the threat away from the earth. Everyone celebrated it as victory, but the celebration was short, given the loss of life that occurred.
I’m sure someone knows what happened, but it’s probably classified above top secret. They could see it from miles away and evacuations were ordered from the area as the battle began. The Fall of Coast City, the Battle for Coast City. The tragedy of Coast City. Strangely enough it reminds me of that event from Giant Robo, The Tragedy of Bashtarle.
It stuck out from my mind so clearly when I look at the devastation around me. The lives lost the broken buildings. The fallout from that massive explosion that tore through the region, but it not only brought darkness to the land it leveled the surface. The wave of power that spread out from the epicenter left buildings shattered and broken, crumbling as if the area had been through decades of warfare. That’s what Coast City reminded me of.
I was by no means making light of this by comparing it to events in an anime, it’s simply how my mind worked at times. References. Whether it was animation, television shows, movies or things that I had read. The tragedy was real, but the references helped turn the pencils into ink and soon to color. Everything took on deeper meaning when references were added especially when you felt disconnected to it. This was a major event for the planet, for California, but for me it was like a different world.
It was like bomb after bomb had gone off across the city as he traveled through the area. How could I forget this happening? How could this be something that I couldn’t recall? Plane crash aside I felt that I should remember something. When I woke up it had to be something that everyone was talking about. Everyone was discussing. This was new. How does something like this not get talked about not in the hospital or in the lab that they took me took to test and see if I was a metahuman.
I told them I wasn’t, but did I make a liar out of myself, because I have the ring? But it wasn’t active then. It didn’t even look the same. It wasn’t green, it was silver, but that night it changed. The night of the fire. I was pretty sure I wasn’t saved, because I remember hearing Ganthet’s voice while I was laying on the ground. Nothing protected me. Months in the hospital demonstrated that. There was nothing extraordinary about me and no amount of poking or prodding by the government said otherwise, but here I was walking into Star Square because I was on the hunt for information. Looking for something hoping for something that would give me answers that Ganthet couldn’t, because his time was limited.
He was being hunted by the Fallen One. The one that caused him to think that I was just good enough more like I would do, because why? He couldn’t go any further? Any longer and he would have been found. Was the fallen one responsible for this? Was he the one that destroyed the city?
Looking at the ring I hoped that it might start to pulse again, but there was nothing, not until I moved through the square looking around. It was a place where people gathered, families gathered. It was a place for the community. There I stood at the center of the square where I found what looked like to be a pedestal and upon it the words hadn’t been crossed they looked like they had been blasted off somehow perhaps sandblasted or some other tool.
Whatever had been there had been replaced with TRAITOR. and MONSTER. “What happened?” What would make someone do this. Why would they do this?
It was here that the ring started to pulse again like it did before first pulses of light then I could feel it vibrate with each pulse. Reaching out with my hand I did like I did before I thought on what could have been here. What was here before. What families were like in this area. Just normal citizens. When I opened my eyes it all started to happen lines that turned into shapes that turned into people. They were gathered here cheering as the statue that once stood here was unveiled for the first time.
It was the same man I had seen before. The Green Lantern, Hal Jordan well it was his likeness good one at that. I wondered for a moment who they got to do the work. I know neither here or there, but it was a thought that crossed mind.
Alright I guess it’s time to test out the theory pass phrase theory “You shall have to do.” I said opening my eyes.
There he was in the sky sailing down to cheers everywhere and just like that it was gone replaced with something else a blast of energy that shattered the statue causing me to throw my hands and arms up in a defensive posture. When everything passed through me I had to remind myself it wasn’t solid. Looking behind me I cringed a bit as there was very scary looking man if you could call him that standing there. He was quite imposing, massive even. He had to be at least eight feet tall with yellow skin.
”Designation: Mongul. Base of Operations: Warworld. Threat Level: High Single combat not recommended.”
“Mongul.” The moment I said it the projected image, all of them faded. They were projects not hard constructs. It was like watching a bit of a movie or a slide show. Still I didn’t know what that meant. Obviously, he came to Coast City and he wasn’t happy to Green Lantern, but he blasted the statue apart, but it didn’t show him carving the words into front of the pedestal.
The composition book was opened allowing me to sketch pictures of everything that I had seen, images that should remain fresh along with a few notes. Mongul was added along with the statue as they appeared then and now. I came here for answers and these were all pieces of the puzzle. Hal protected this city this was his city. This is where he made his home. I wonder how long he lived here.
Stopping I tipped my head to the side looking at my drawing them back at the pedestal. I know I can get pulled into my art when I’m working on it, but I considered myself to have very good observational skills, but I swore that the only thing around it was rubble, where did those vines come through if you could call them that. They looked rather I don’t know less than healthy.
They weren’t pertinent to the picture, but still weird. Maybe I was more focused on the projections. Walking away from the statue I looked around my eyes taking in more and more of the area trying to get a better idea of what the city was like. Walking out of Star Square I pull out my cellphone and decided to do search.
H-A-L J-O-R-D-A-N
He had to be more than the Green Lantern, of course it doesn’t really work like that either. You can’t just type up someone’s name and get all the information in the world. If they’re not someone that’s been in the news or something to that effect then you won’t get anything. They’ll be a random person with no reason for anyone to record information about.
Yet there is something a few somethings. First, there’s a few articles about Martin Jordan who was a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft. Which I know from earlier research is connected or was connected to Coast City, but its operations in the area were shut down when the city was destroyed. It moved out of the area. I wonder with Wayne Enterprises coming in if it will come back to help with the revitalization. Will people want to move back? I think it’s a fair question.
Walking slowly I go on to learn that Martin Jordan was survived by his wife, Jessica and his three children, Jack, Harold and Jim. The next article is about home town son Harold “Hal” Jordan coming back to Coast City to work at Ferris Aircraft as a test pilot following in the footsteps of his father Martin. I can see why the paper would carry that information. It’s not every day you have something like that happening. It goes on to provide information about Jordan, his time as a pilot, working out of Edwards and then moving into the private sector to work with Ferris.
I continue to read through the information coming to a stop when I decide to change the search parameters. I input Green Lantern and scary yellow faced alien. The ring said place of origin was Warworld whatever that is and I’m not sure I want to find out right this second. One thing a time, but I do want to know more about the altercation. I don’t know if any publication would come back with an actual name, so right now it’s scary yellow faced alien.
It takes a momentum but a few pieces of information come up including one lauding the Green Lantern. Green Lantern and Coalition of Super Heroes Triumphant over Alien Threat.
“Interesting.” It is interesting, because here’s a second incident that would have been all over the news. Something that I would have been able to ignore, something I wouldn’t have wanted to ignore. I mean there are a few pictures, pictures that would have given me something to want to draw and work on. Again, it doesn’t make sense. Two events in Coast City that I don’t recall and when I try it feels like a distant echo. I can’t even say memory, because nothing happens when I try to think on it. Instead it’s one big haze. It’s like a fog has rolled in and my memory is obscured by it. It’s not like I was here when either of those things happened not possible.
Standing still for a moment I try to think about it for a moment. I try to think on this moment, but nothing comes. It’s empty. It’s not happening. Looking over my phone I begin to read over the article and that causes me to shake my head. “Wait so Coast City wasn’t destroyed by the Fallen One?” I understand. I’m confused and believe or not I don’t like to be confused. Everything was point to something I didn’t want to consider, but now.
According to the article the unnamed alien and Green Lantern fought above, in and around Coast City which is what ultimately lead to its destruction. This feels like something that would have been caught by someone pictures and everything. There are very few and it’s not like the internet not to have anything. It can’t be the Dark Web and the government and that’s it.
I begin walking again putting my phone away to converse the charge. I look at the map that I drew of places that I wanted to visit. So, there were two battles at least that’s what I’m getting as I make my way towards the one of the points marked on my hand drawn map. It’s right around the city center which is where I’m located at. There’s a channel that runs through the city dividing it. The bridge would carry me over to the other side, and it was one of the areas that had seen one of the quickest parts of reconstruction. An expressway runs through it, the 101. No way around it unless you opt not to take the express way. I can see it from here, but right now I’m concerned about the information that’s coming out in pieces.
Looking at my ring I check for anything as I keep walking. Perhaps there’s nothing here. Walking away from the area I star walking and I keep walking trying to do my best to keep my mind clear of stray thoughts. I’m nearing one of the stadiums when I feel the ring start to pulse. Looking at the ring it’s pulsing quickly.
“You shall have to do.”
I don’t see anything immediately until I look over head and I see someone flying through the air more like hurtling through the air. He hits the ground hard and the mark is still there. His impacted not only scored the ground, but it ripped it up as he tore through it.
”Stay down and out of my way, Grunge!“
I memorize the face and body of the man that crashed into the ground when he stands. Everything stands out including the winged skull tattoo, but it’s the voice from behind that causes me to turn.
“O-M-G.”
“Desgination: Parallax. Real Name: Hal Jordan. Origin: Earth. Base of Operations: Unknown. Threat Level: Omega. Permission to kill target on sight granted.
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. No one’s killing anyone Mister Ring. “ Kyle held his hand up looking at the green band wrapped around his finger. “And stop displaying that image.” Shaking his hand a few times he watched as the modified image of Hal Jordan as Parallax bounced around through the air and along the ground.
When the ring began to state the oh so helpful who, what, where and total kill order again Kyle mutter. “Stop! Enough. Finito or whatever,” I shouted and the image faded away. Hearing it once was enough, but he didn’t want it to repeat itself again. He wanted to say that it was wrong, but the ring wouldn’t lie to him? Would it?
Then again it wasn’t the ring it was some kind of prerecorded message like a record. That took a moment to wrap his head around. Figuring out the mechanics of the ring was something that he wanted to do, but he pretty much understood the basics, but apparently there was information that I needed to know. I knew I started things, but this was something I wasn’t expecting.I tell myself to calm down, because there had to be more to it than that. You don’t just go from being a hero with your won statue to someone that you know is referred to as the Fallen One and apparently enemy number one according to the ring.
It still didn’t explain why I couldn’t recall everything that happened in Coast City. Something like this isn’t something you would forget. It would be something that people would recall over and over again. It would be all over the news. Before I get ahead of myself I decide to take the moment to find a spot to take a few notes in the form of images one of the man who was a hero a Lantern. I want to remember him as he was, but I also make sure that record the image of the man he became. Parallax.
Why? How? I’m sure I could ask a zillion questions about how that came to be, but for right now it’s another piece of information I’ve collected. Perhaps it’s something that I need to know required to know. The little information that was shared seemed to indicate that he was still at large. It seems that he was partly responsible for the current condition of the city between him and that Mongul it seemed Coast City never stood a chance.
They were nuggets of information, pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole. I needed more information to complete the picture. I felt like I had been handed a five-hundred-piece puzzle box but there were only fifty pieces inside. Pieces were missing. Pieces that needed to be collected in order to help me fashion the complete story.
Shutting my composition book after scribbling down a few notes I moved to my feet so I could continue on my way. There were still a few other place that I wanted to see, before I called it a day. Before long night would fall and I had no intention of spending my night here. It was a tough call though, because I felt that there was so much for me to learn.
“Don’t freak out, Kyle. Remember what the doctors told you.” Doctors. Too many of them for my taste, but that’s what they were all about when they were trying to figure out what I was. I told them plain and simple, Kyle Rayner. I bleed. I had broken bones. I lived with the fear of possibly not being able to draw again, because they didn’t know how extensive the damage was, but I pushed through that. I pushed through a lot.
I can’t let this get the better of me. Even though Ganthet gave me the ring something tells me that it would work if I wasn’t capable on some level. He’s not pulling any strings. I’m the one that’s making this happen.
“Can’t go opening door and spazz out at what I find. He said that I was a Green Lantern. Green Lantern,” I muttered under my breath as I resumed walking up the street. “I don’t know. I still feel like Kyle and maybe that’s not a bad thing.” Never was before. Why should it start now? There will always be questions some that received answers and some that might not. I would have to live with that. Not that it would be easy, because there was a need to figure things out.
I spent more than a few months attempting to recall the events that happened after the plane went down and the voice. It found its way into a lot of the art I did until I became obsessed with it. Look how long it took to unravel that piece of information.
Back to the doctor’s. They told me that sometimes things couldn’t be forced. Sometimes our minds only allowed us so much that we could handle. It didn’t always work that way, but sometimes it did and when that appeared the case not to force what you want instead,let it happen. The information would come to you eventually. It was there just at the surface sometimes waiting to burst through, but it had to be coaxed not forced. I coaxed it the only way I knew how by incorporating into what I did best.
Sure, it might not always present itself at the most convenient times, but you work with it. That’s what lead me to spray painting on rooftops.
It was better than attempting to explain to my instructors where the images were coming from and how significant they were to me. The less I told them about it the better. Just like the ring? Who was I could to tell? Who was I going to share this with? Something told me that if good man gone bad happened before the world wasn’t going to be thrilled to see another one rising from the ashes so to speak.
Looking out at the road before me I could saw not only the shattered ruins of a once great city I saw a place where hope died, but it can rise again. As mom says nothing worth having or wanting is easy. Sometimes, it’s a constant battle and if it’s important to you couldn’t give an inch, no quarter. Stand your ground and fight.
“That’s what she would say, but I think she would have like ten other things to say about this situation.” Situation is that the best word for it? Looking at the ring it began to pulse, but this area wasn’t on my map at least I don’t think it is. Opening the composition book scanning over the map I had drawn there wasn’t anything on it, nothing that I called out.
Whatever it was it seemed that the ring was adamant about getting my attention.
“Alright. You shall have to do.” There was nothing but pulsing. No image began to come into existence. Looking around them up I saw nothing. Glancing down I took a step back when I saw the diseased like vine that had pushed out of the ground. It wasn’t the first time I saw it, but again I swear it wasn’t there before.
“If Wayne Enterprises is going to start doing projects out here they probably are going to have to do something about this, because vines are a bitch to get rid of.” Looking at the ring it continued to pulse until I noticed when I turned in one direction the pulses slowed. Turning in another caused them slow even more. Turning back in the direction I was headed in originally the pulses began to pick back until I made half quarter turns in either direction to see which would cause the ring pulse faster or slower. Turning towards the west the ring began to pulse faster until it stopped, and a tight beam of green light shot out from it.
“I guess we’re headed that way.” I moved in that direction realizing that it might take me a little longer by foot. Quickly I was surrounded by an aura of green light, but rather zipping into the air stuck close to the ground, but gliding about teen feet above the surface as I propelled myself forward in the direction that the ring sent me off in. Whatever was there here I come. A trail green light flowed behind me until I was out of sight. If my mom could see me now.
She’d freak, but man is this cool.
CONNER: “Hi, there. I think you and I should have a talk.”
Oh. No. This is not another vision from the past, given by the ring of Oa. This is a living, breathing, cape wearing Superman. Who’s taken to hovering only about ten feet up and over from where Kyle has traversed through Coast City. The uniform is impressive to most. Those who saw the original in person or even in pictures or on television can see distinct differences. The blue is a shade or two darker, the red a shade or two brighter. There is no yellow to the Krytonian shield, just a black backing to the symbol. Where the original Superman might have seemed hung in the air by a complete disbelief in gravity, there’s a twinge of red that encompasses this figure.
Whether or not Kyle really wants to talk with someone? He’s going to get to do that very thing. It wasn’t so much a request, as it was a notification that we are going to talk. “So. You’re new here. It would probably be in your best interests to be more careful. Those Wayne guys are working hard, but this place is still filled with dangers. Even for someone wearing one of those.”
“Power Ring,” whistling like someone would when being impressed by a fancy car. “Nice. I’m going to confess, I’ve met a lot of people with a lot of abilities. You’re my first Power Ring. Does it really work the way they say in the Papers? Light constructs, powered by the pure force of your Will?”
Casually lowering to the ground, not that far from Kyle Rayner. Showing absolutely no fear of the man. Nor do I seem fooled by any sort of effort to conceal the ring itself. While I don’t seem to have heard whatever it was that Kyle was seeing? I do seem to fit right in to the scheme of how played out. He’d heard a voice from behind and mine cut through the History Lesson.
(The rest of Kyle and Conner’s interaction continues in Connections Interlude: Legacies & New Friends.)
That was an interesting conversation a good conversation. Con takes off and I’m slipping my composition book back into my back pack. Glancing down at the fitbit looking device I smile a bit and focus on what I was doing before I was paid a visit by Superman. That’s something that you would want to tell your friends, but at the same time it gave me a lot to think about. I’m glad he told me he was a clone. Finding out through the ring is one thing, but it’s not something I’m going to blurt out, because you know the entire wrapping your mind around it. Also, it’s not my business to tell. The fact that he shared it with me said a lot. Didn’t sound like it was something that he talked to people about. How do you have that conversation.
When you land all people see is the shield and the S everything else goes out the window. You become that symbol. It would make for an interesting paper. Iconography in the new millennium. I saw the symbol that as on Jordan’s I guess uniform and Ganthet’s robe. What would people think when they see that symbol. I hadn’t even found seen a hair of a costume, I didn’t know that there was one for me to wear.
That was something to consider. What would I want my uniform to look like? I mean I’m a cop. Intergalactic Peacekeepers. Space cops. There’s tons of fiction out there about groups like that, but the idea that they’re out there. That they’re real and I’m one of them? That’s pretty darn cool, but there was something else Con said that gave me the boost I didn’t even know I needed.
The ring chose me. Yes Ganthet dropped it off with his, <i>”You shall have to do.</i> It didn’t necessarily mean that the ring wanted that which also made me think about the ring a bit. If it chose me then there are some criteria that needs to be met. The capacity to overcome great fear. Fueled by willpower.
I take it all in while lifting my hand up. “Let’s see what you had to show me? You shall have to do.” With that the slither of light that was guiding before reappeared much like a compass needle guiding me to my destination. Coasting as quickly as I could. The DEA was on the lookout for the Green Lantern, the energy signal. I didn’t want to get Con in trouble, but it was a faster way to travel but I didn’t sail through the air I coasted close to the ground again as I came to a stop when the ring began pulsing again and I found myself standing in front of a structure that looked like it was a house once.
Walking up the walk way I stood at the entrance of the house pushing the door open. I barely put any force behind it but the door fell forward. Looking around I could make out the various rooms. The ring starts to pulse and I had to wonder for a moment as I turned to see if there was anything that came into being, but there was nothing.
“You shall have to do.” And just like that almost like magic the entire house came to life it wasn’t green it was full of vibrant color. People were moving through the halls, a family. They passed by like a recording going in reverse until it reached a certain point and moved forward at normal speed. I could hear the sounds there were explosions going on outside.
“Jack, take Jan and the kids and get out of the city. I can’t. I need you to all to go. Get to the shelter. Jim will be waiting for you there.” Kyle turned for a moment as the man spoke and found himself standing face to face with Hal Jordan.
“I’m marshalling a force together to stop Mongul, but you have to get out of the area. I can’t guarantee your safety..” Hal looked upon his brother with deep concern. “Take Jan and the kids and get as far away you can. Past Edwards.”
“Hal, what are you talking about. The DEA…”
“I’m working with the DEA.” He said holding up what appeared to be an old style lantern of some kind, but not quite. Kyle would note that it looked very much like the emblem that Jordan and Ganthet both had.
“I wish I could have told you before, but….now isn’t the time for questions, Jack.”
I watched as Jordan pressed his ring towards the green device.
“In darkest “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!”
“100% charge achieved.”
Not only did that happen I witnessed as Jordan changed from plain clothes to his Green Lantern uniform. My eyes zeroed in on the battery and what the ring said. The entire scene wasn’t lost on me, but it I couldn’t help but observe the exchange between Hal and someone close to him, brother perhaps they did favor one another.
“I’m trusting this to you. I’ll find you no matter where you are, Jack. Jim and Sue were out of the area already. I had to make sure that you, Sue and the kids were on your way.” Hal continued, but Jack was at a loss for words. “I need you to get out. Please.” The power battery was pressed into his brother’s hands, but he couldn’t speak.
”I’ll explain everything. I promise.” Hal seemed nervous rushed even. He moved towards the door and as he opened the door and shot out into the air.
”HAL!” The power battery was set down as Jack ran after him and all he could see was a trail of green light after Hal as the Green Lantern went to rendezvous with the task force. Time elapsed it had to be an hour or more that had past as Jack was hustling to get his family out of the area gathering up what they could. There were trucks that were coming in to evacuate the civilians, but the problem was they thought they had time. They were unprepared for what Mongol unleashed upon them. The bombs? They hadn’t expected that. Looking up I watched as the sky flashed and it there were dozens upon dozens of spherical objects that rain down upon the city.
Each one that touched down caused and explosion it had begun.
Turning towards the house I watched as Jack pushed his family back into the house telling them to get into the basement, but right across the street a sphere dropped and two houses down another and explosions were triggered, and the entire area was leveled the house still stood, but it was badly damaged. There was no getting out of this. It was hunkering down and praying.
More time elapsed. More bombs and there were attempts to move people out. Another transport team came through to evacuate as things were occurring on the other side of the city. The family was moved out, Jack was unconscious the children crying the mother hysterical, but they were moved out. I I watch them walk right through me, but I notice there was nothing in their hands only the people. There was no time for personal belongings.
As they move out I look over my shoulder and the transport team, the second one has moved out. Everything thing fades from sight and the scene is as was before desolation. It doesn’t stop me from running into the house. I look around at the spot where the device had been set down, but nothing was there. Basement. I pull a flashlight from my backpack and flick it on. I start looking, but pausing in my steps I focus and let the ring guide me.
I make it down the stairs when I find the door that lead to the basement. I take it slow because I don’t know the state of thing. I look around for a second for anything and at first there’s nothing. I swing the flashlight around, but then it happens the ring glows and almost like magic there’s a bit of a flash and the green looking lantern reveals itself. I swear it wasn’t there before it was not sitting there. It’s like it came out of nowhere.
”Power battery successfully retrieved.”
Walking over towards it I take it by the handle holding it up, but I don’t touch the ring to it. I think about it, first as I walk up the stairs slowly remembering everything I saw and everything that Conner said.
We bear the burden of our predecessors. Their triumphs. Their defeats. Their catastrophes. Making my way to the entrance. I step outside considering it all.
Touching the ring to the power battery I take a deep breath.
“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!” There’s a flash and two things happen.
“100% charge achieved.”
When the flash of light dies down I stand there not in my clothing, but my uniform which is a bit of a different take, but definitely something I can work with. I let the generate a mirror and I look myself over.
“Bad ass.” I tuck the power battery away and I head off in the direction I came in go high and fast. Will this get me in trouble maybe but right now I just want to live in the moment.
“WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!”
I’ll be back I know I will. I want to see what becomes of Coast City. Gotham City. Alan Scott. At least it’s closer to Metropolis. I head where I need to go so I can catch my bus. Leaving Coast City behind.
—–
As Kyle sails away into the sunset ready for new adventures he looks towards tomorrow unaware of what remains behind as the ground pushes up and away as the diseased vines that he noticed in areas of the city pulsate for a moment before they cease movement.
“Married on Wednesday. Took ill on Thursday….Alan Scooooooott Green…Greeen. Gooootham City…Hoooome. Grew worse on Friday. Died on Saturday. Going Home.”
by Marc | Oct 23, 2017 | Chronicles
Synopsis: Freddy races to the Wizard’s sanctum through the broom closest in Fawcett High only to come face to face with Black Adam. After some enlightening conversation the school boiler room is besieged by new group Crocodile People leading to the awe and horror that is Black Adam, a revelation, multiple tragedies and a Pyrrhic victory.
BLACK ADAM: “Welcome, Boy.”
When you think of all the ways to make an entrance? Those two words aren’t likely in it. There are no fireworks. No parade of a theme song. You might even expect thunder and lightning, given what and who we’re dealing with. None of which are present. One moment you’re looking through a broiler room at the basement of Fawcett City High School, home of the Fighting Spartans. You’ve spent a considerable amount of time conferring with the Wisdom of Solomon about what such a ‘Door’ might look like. It never occurs to you that opening the Broom Closet door is going to transport you through time and space.
Leaving you standing at the door to what looks like a Museum of Oddities. The Sanctum of the Wizard is not like the Tales of a Book. In this particular case it looks like something ripped from the pages of a History book. Shazam’s Sanctum would be right at home in Ancient Greece. With all its marble and candle lighting. From experience you know that it’s got several stories and that each one is like a glimpse in to another time period. The Wizard adapted to each Age he was forced to exist in with the passage of time.
But really. None of that is important right now. Because it’s very difficult to get beyond what literally sits right before you. On a throne of books, torn from the walls of the Wizard’s sanctum. His face may be shrouded but nothing stops Solomon from recognizing exactly what Freddy’s seeing. Cloaked though he may be, lightning crackles around him. The sights of just that first room tell Freddy that Black Adam has been waiting upon him for some time.
“I’m afraid the Wizard isn’t at home right now.”
FREDDY: It happened it all came tumbling in ways that Freddy hadn’t expected. He didn’t abandon Chief Callaghan, not in the least. He left him with a warning that not all is as it seems in Fawcett City to trust his instincts and his eyes. The ones that were connected to his gut. Be that bastion of strength and leadership that Fawcett City knew and depended upon. They needed it, because there was far too much happening just behind the veil that seemed ready to push through and they were going to need people with solid and clear-headed thinking so they wouldn’t panic. However, Freddy was panicked to a degree. He was worried about the Wizard.
When he touched the broach he saw, no he lived everything that happened. From Teth-Adam to Mighty Adam to Khem-Adam. The three faces of a man who touched the gods, walked as one of them in a sense then fell and fell again. How does one begin to comprehend that? They don’t. The compartmentalized. With the knowledge that Solomon allowed him to glean Freddy understood on several levels what was happening which lead him to run out of the Fawcett City police department as quickly as he could into the night and down the alley towards the one once he needed to be.
He called out Shazam’s name to empower him not because he believed there would be danger right then and there only to get him there faster. He needed Mercury with him, the wind at his back to carry him to the Fawcett High School. The Fighting Spartans. He was one of them. Once a Spartan always a Spartan they said as he began to seek out the door that would gain him entry into the Sanctum. Solomon aided him in his search until he pulled it opened and stepped through.
Gone where the locker filled hallways and the drab colors of school. Gone where the homecoming banners and trophy cases. It was all replaced with something that looked straight out of a history book. Perhaps a research room of a classical building of some kind. It’s something Freddy would conjure up from Ancient Greece or perhaps a research room from the Library of Alexandria if it had been erected in Athens perhaps. Marble and candle light. Scroll and quills. Books and jars. It all looked quite beautiful, but beautiful. He wasn’t here to take it in instead he searched for someone, but instead he found someone all-together different it was enough to make Freddy to take a step back.
It was like that episode of Charmed (yes, he watched it) where Phoebe was trying to tell Piper that they were standing in front of the Source who had possessed someone through looking through the enchanted glasses. Solomon didn’t need to whisper in his mind who was in front of him, Freddy knew full well who the hooded man was from the stature, posture and bearing.
“Khem-Adam.” He said his jaw tightening. Definitely not a tea and scones moment.
“Oh. Darn. I guess we missed him. Well, if you’d like me to leave note for him let me get to the ink pot and quill there and I’ll jot one down. Back in town. Thought we could catch up. We need to talk. Hugs and kisses, Teth That about covers it right?”
BLACK ADAM: “Jokes? The Wizard is Gone. Your Trial is shattered. You stand before your better and the first thing that comes to mind are Jokes?”
If that’s you think that’s the sound of impatience? You’ve misjudged just how annoyed that tone of voice actually is. The ‘Heavens’ actually seem to roll with ominous thunder with the vitriol that slides off the tongue of Black Adam. His reclined posture broken only then, when he rises off his throne of spell-books and sends them scattered with the force his defiance of gravity exerts. There are no footfalls that bring Adam closer, because he doesn’t consider the ground of this place worthy of his own feet. Such is the broiling power that Freddy is standing in the face of.
Bravado only carries someone so far. Eventually you have no choice but to stand face to face with the object of your fear and make a choice. Stand firm or flee. There are no other choices when you are in the face of one such as him. “Surrender the blessings you have and perhaps you’ll live to actually regret speaking to me thus.”
Beyond Black Adam’s bristling is a Sanctum filled with wonders. The signs of it being ransacked are present. Obviously, the books from the shelves have been pilled upon the floor, but so too are the scrolls. Each one unbound and obviously read. Those candles which seem to burn for an eternity are withering down to the wick. How long has Adam been here, waiting? It’s barely been a handful of days since the Bank Robbery, but this looks as if the would-be God has been here far longer.
“Of course, that depends on if you tell me where she is, Boy.”
FREDDY: Freddy needed the moment precious moments to look upon the room see what needed to be seen. Was there anything here that might give a clue as to where the Wizard where he might have gone. Freddy had come to warn but he himself was perhaps a day or two late. There were things that needed to be done. You couldn’t bust into a police station and demand to speak with the Police Chief or anyone of the sort same goes for any type of law enforcement individual or first responder
Additionally, he did speak with some of the witnesses it’s where he could start as someone not in a kind of official capacity. He had no fancy Department of Extranormal Affairs badge to flash. Nor did he want to from everything Cassie told him, but it would be pretty cool. Psychic Paper would be real handy, but back to the regularly schedule programming.
Interior the Wizard Shazam’s Sanctum. Our intrepid hero Freddy Freeman has come face to face with the man whose life he just lived moments ago, Teth-Adam, who appears to be rather unpleasant at the moment as he rose from his throne of books. Game of Thrones much? He approached Freddy who dared to be an insolent cur in his eyes. He did not walk he floated towards him appearing ready to rend him asunder if he did not acquiesce.
Still moments. This is what Freddy needed. He used all his power of observation to gather what he needed. No blood. No flesh. No pile of ash or charred corpse. The Wizard was not here. He beat feet. When? How long had he been gone? The Sanctum had been invaded. When how? Was it Adam’s doing, another or both? He considered that for a moment wondering when Black Adam arrived.
Freddy considered all of this stared into the dark star itself. Most would turn away. You don’t stare into the sun, but in this case he had to. He wouldn’t say he knew this man, but perhaps he did. Bless you Solomon, he thought. There were somethings you could be told, some things you could be shown, but sometimes you had to live them. To live them is to know them. To breathe them. To breathe them is to know why.
As commanding and authoritative as Adam was being at a moment. This would probably be a bad time to tell him that he probably would make a really good Dom, Freddy thought, there were two things that crossed his mind probably to Solomon’s delight, because let’s face it Freddy had odd thoughts, inappropriate ones at all the time. The candles, the height of them told a store. As did the state of the room. He flashed back to the Bank the desperate search that Isis made. Oh, how that picture and the events swirled in his mind very much like that scene in Jumanji the first movie (there’s going to be a new one!) when the tornado sucked everything that emerged in the game back in. It was like he could see it all before him.
Husband and wife pick up some of their habits. Isis was true to her namesake desperate to bring her husband back to life, but in a different sense bring him back to the life that he had grown accustomed to. Stripped of what he was she bargained for him with the gods of Egypt to restore what had been lost. Give him the life that had been stolen by the villain in this story…the Wizard (more on that to come). Freddy needed to be focused.
There was no sign of Isis after the lightning strike. They escaped. Solomon told him to flee it was Zeus. Zeus you fool.
Confidence. Perhaps, but Freddy finally let his eyes settle upon Black Adam. There was no arrogance in his eyes. Cold hard facts. Confront the brutal truth.
“She broke the rules. The board was reset.” Where she is? There was no escape from the bank. There was no banjo playing as Aunty Minerva and her crocodile boys drove away. She was so close to claiming Osiris…not her husband but her son. A mother desperate to reconnect to bring him back to life as she had been to correct a terrible wrong. To give the Wizard and all the gods a big middle finger. Yet there was the Wizard and there was always Zeus who was to his part trying to keep this fair.
“My Trials remains intact.” Trial. No. Trials. Party’s not over yet.
BLACK ADAM: In approaching Freddie, Adam has put himself momentarily in the path of the young man’s vision. That changes in the span of mere heart-beats though, in demonstration of Black Adam’s own version of the same power that Freddie knows first-hand. Speed which is used to grasp the young man. Strength which is put to pulling him up in to the air several inches. Turning and holding Freddie aloft like a small child that is too repellent to be held close. Yet what Adam does then is perhaps unexpected. He shows Freddie something more.
While the Sanctum is in tatters, there is a certain harmony to the chaos. Books, scrolls and ancient items are strewn all around, but the discarded pile of books which Adam sat upon is different. There the tomes of knowledge all have a common theme. One that Solomon can’t help but whisper in to Freddie’s head about: Osris, Resurrection. Eternal Life, Hades. This theme binds each of the items together. Whom ever did all of this was searching for information in a veritable treasure trove of it. Whether the knowledge that was sought was found or not? Hard to say.
“She came back to me. Rose from the sands of Khandaq. She showed me many things, Boy, but most of all she showed me her disdain for this world’s butchery of our people. We sought to change it, to make it better, but the moment she touched the Amulet of Isis, she was…different. Her disdain for has spread, consumed her.”
This might seem strange. Having a sort of ‘story time with Black Adam,’ but this is no heart to heart. No confession of guilt. There is no remorse to a single word he speaks. No spark of hope that might come with some indicator that Black Adam is here to help. His cruel tone only breaks when speaking of Isis, of her plight and her intentions.
“You think your Trials are intact? You are but a boy, who is a fool. Solomon of not. My Wife has broken your Trials, Boy. You have done nothing but delay her. Already she has stolen the strength of Zeus’ son and eaten the heart that fueled the God who holds the world upon his shoulders. You think Isis needs those powers for her own self? They are but fuel child. No different than the Wax of these candles. Once burned out they are gone. Lost forever.”
“Give me the Amulet, Boy. Give me the Blessings you hold. You are a Mouse, standing before a Lion. Give them to me, before she …”
He was quite clearly ramping up to something when the Sanctum trembles to it’s very foundations. Even Khem Adam is brought to a sort of stunned silence at such a thing. Freddie is discarded, tossed among the rubble of the books on the floor as the lightning begins to course across Adam’s features. Another tremble sends a caress of air through the Sanctum, blotting out the candles and bathing the two ‘Champions’ in utter darkness. Until the door that Freddie just entered through opens once more.
If Black Adam fears whatever tears open the door to Shazam’s Sanctum? It doesn’t show. There is not a split-second of hesitation before he surges with unspoken speed at the first intruder that enters. Freddie gets but a moment to see a horde of Crocodile Men ready to fight their way inside, before Adam tears through them. Even before they’re out of sight he’ll hear the response of gunfire. It sounds like an army is on the other side of that door…
FREDDY: Freddy has cards to play. Cards that present themselves with each passing second. Every word spoken is like another card presented and he can either hold and treasure it or discard it. Was he aiming to win or hold his own. Perhaps a bit of the latter than the former. He could try and reason with Adam, but he couldn’t begin to until he got a little information and the only way to get information sometimes was to play the information you had and frame it into what you believed to be the truth.
Truth is highly subjective, but with a little work the subjectivity can be stripped away and replaced with objectivity until enough information was provided and only the facts remained. Cold hard facts.
One of which Adam believed the Trials to be broken and over, but if that were the case Freddy would have failed and the world would hold a new Champion good or bad. Freddy whether he was wrong or right had to hold onto the idea that the Trials were still in play that he could earn the blessings of the other gods, the other Lords of Magic. Why? The world tilts between order and chaos. Despair and hope. What was has been broken and must be put right one brick a time.
Hope empowers. Not only mortals, but the gods, because Freddy knew from the moment he was tossed about by Isis that not only were mortals in danger, the gods in danger which means magic is danger. This is what he was training for. This is why he was on the trials to protect magic from all. Whether people believed it or not the one that was chosen was meant to protect mortals from magic and magic from mortals. Whether it be mortal or god. Right or wrong he was meant to protect them even if they felt they didn’t need defending themselves.
As quick as Adam was Freddy steeled himself. He focused on Callaghan how he steeled himself through the chaos and remain the bastion of calm and strength. It’s not that Freddy meant to impart that on Adam, but he sorely needed it for himself. He could not allow himself to succumb to chaos and emotions. Freddy lacked the Wizard’s guidance and Solomon only could provide so much, but Freddy was smarter than your average bear. He took in all he could clung to the gifts that Adam lavished upon him in only the way Adam could through fear, intimidation and anger and yes, a little bit of a hate. Hate goes a long way.
He was a foolish. Foolish boy, but even a foolish boy can hear the pain, the agony, the loss. Despite everything that happened the capacity to feel these things were present which whether the Wizard would admit or not or the gods themselves would is the key. The heart of what makes a champion a champion. Pure. Innocent. True. Honorable. These are things that make a good champion, but what makes a great champion.
Empathy. Somewhere Adam lost his. That one moment when you make a decision that darkens your heart. All is not lost, but when it is allowed to fester and only grow as more and more are made then all is lost unless someone intervenes, but who intervened for Adam?
Empathy is what Freddy feels despite the fact that this is not a heart to heart between him and the terrible Black Adam. No empathy is what Freddy summons, because he has to be able to cut through to the fact. Not the power of a god, but a boy, a human a lowly mortal. The most pedestrian of all things when compared to the power of a god or is it?
Adam has unleashed a Pandora’s box upon the world by trying to right what he felt was a terrible wrong. Unite his family. Fix what had gone wrong, but could he had considered what would happen when he presented his wife with the power to right the wrongs that had befallen their people. Instead of empowering magnified her power, her pain and suffering blending it with the pain and suffering of another who knew loss. Freddy could be wrong, but given the few brief seconds to consider it’s where his mind went.
Solomon’s there pushing him to look upon all the things that were searched through. Was it Adam or another. Either way it all of it pointed to death. Life and death. Isis is life. Osiris god of the afterlife connected to death. Death for life. Life for death An atom bomb ready to go off.
Fuel Adam called it and Freddy felt his blood run cold even as he was carried away through the air discarded like a used tissue by a rather odious individual. Freddy landed, but the words pulsed through his mind. Not only his, but Isis’s as well. <i>”The Power of Gods can be used for more than Championing.”</i>
When silence had come to Adam and darkness fell Freddy moved to his feet. Even in darkness he knew where he was not because he could see in the dark, but because he had an eidetic memory. Blessing of Solomon. He knew where he was and knew to move for cover quickly not from Adam, but whatever brought him to silence he moved to a column pressed his back against it ready to act however it was Adam that went forward when the door opened. The light spilled forth and there was a crocodile man and next there was gunfire.
Freddy moved to get closer towards the door in an attempt to catch a glimpse of what was occurring but not offering himself up as a target. Black Adam fully empowered. Freddy Freedman power of two.
The fact that Adam wanted him to give up his powers wasn’t lost on him, but he didn’t seek them for Isis. Perhaps his son? Perhaps himself, but he did have a thought. A cold thought along with an insightful one. If Isis wasn’t in a penalty box and was searching for more power apparently a god of underworld, the god of the dead.
This is where having the Wizard here would be awesome. Think like the wizard. Recreate what he would say.
”Khem-Adam you fool what have you done! She’s taken her over and now you seek my knowledge to undo what you have done! She will ravage the gods themselves to restore Osiris!” It takes power to raise the dead. ”You thought to empower your wife and now she has become possessed by Isis.” Well, maybe that’s what the Wizard would say. Gone was the wife who had the same name of the god he thought to gift her wife like she was a god damned Pokemon and now she’s on a got to collect them all to get Osiris back.
Black Adam’s been jilted and double-crossed? Not the time to spin it Freddy gunshots and divine empowered ex-champion out there who may come back to wrest Solomon and Mercury’s blessings from him.
STORYTELLER: Beyond the door is no mystery. It is a horror show. Freddy peers through the door in time to see Black Adam at his finest or perhaps his worst. Depending on how one looks at it. A Crocodile Man’s throat in one hand and another upon his back. They do to him as they had done with Cassandra in the bank. It’s a swarm of a pack that prey upon the weak. One on one they stand no chance in all of creation against one empowered such as Adam. In small numbers such as the bank job, they stood against Wonder Woman. In the sheer volume of them that lunge at Adam from all directions, there is a true chance to overwhelm any normal man. Even one with the Power of the Gods.
If only Khem Adam was normal. If only he was a man who would fight them, knowing as Freddie does, that these are somehow creatures transformed by Sobek. That beneath the crocodile exterior these are normal people. Perhaps students or teachers of this very school. If Adam were someone like Cassie Sandsmark or Freddy Freeman, the numbers would eventually catch up to him. But he is most assuredly not like them. The sickening crunch of esophagus actually overpowers the other sounds of battle. A fist completely skewers another. While the one upon his back ends in an explosive furry of blood and gore, when Adam flies backward at a super-sonic speed and impales him upon the broiler.
There is no Numbers Game to be played when Black Adam kills each Crocodile Man he touches. Their numbers dwindle before they’re able to overcome him. Maybe Adam knew that. Maybe some spark of reason told him that it was ‘Do or Die.’ That might be what Freddie tries to tell himself later, when he’s replaying his perfect memory of the scene before him. But he’ll never shake the look upon Adam’s face. The cruelty in his eyes, that betrays a small smile when he quite literally pulls a crocodile man in half.
Freddy Freeman has seen enough. Before he can look away there are other details far more important to be seen here. Not all of the Crocodile Men wear the tattered clothing of children. A flicker of golden light catches the eye. The blood scored shape of a badge. Mixed with the gunfire that spatters the room. The Chaos of the Broiler Room is confusing for anyone. Even a trained soldier. But it’s impossible to miss that some of these Crocodile Men were, at one time, Police Officers. As if Freddie needed the confirmation of that…
Chief Callaghan, covered in the gore and blood of the fight that is pressing ever closer to the doorway to the Sanctum, shoves Freddie back. Away from the door, in to the Sanctum. For the second time in as many moments, Freddie finds himself skidding to a halt on his bum. Only this time he’s holding an Amulet. The Amulet from the Bank Heist.
“We tailed you here, Kid, I thought you were part of the problem. Being the only one who seems to not have forgotten what happened at the Bank. We were trying to figure out how you got out of that Broiler Room when the Crocguy from the Bank showed up. He tore through my guys, said he wanted this…”
Half way through the Police Chief’s rambling Solomon kids in to ear again. Only this time he’s showing Freddie something else. Something hidden. Out there beyond the door, people are fighting. Savagely. Black Adam is killing anyone who touches him. Sobek empowers more and more of them to join the fray. But there is a finite number of police officers to turn in to wanton creatures of destruction. As the Chief speaks his hurried explanation, Sobek appears for only as long as it takes him to slash Chief Callaghan’s back. As gruesome as it is to see, Solomon makes Freddie watch as the Chief’s life begin to shift and his skin darkens in to scales. A hue, glowing power forms all about him. Flittering essence flees the Police Chief just as he too becomes one of the Crocodile Men.
.. don’t be afraid…
And with the last vestige of Courage, Callaghan slams shut the door to the Shazam’s Sanctum. Leaving Freddie to sit in darkness while the power of Achilles enters him. Freddie was right. The Trials are not over. So too was Adam right. They have been Broken. When Freddie summons the courage to open the door once more? He will not step in to the Broiler room of the Fawcett City High School, but in to the pristine Labyrinth of Metropolis’ City Library. A television screen is displaying the news, like in most libraries. Only today the News is dominated by reports, coming in live. Of the massive broiler room melt down at Fawcett City High School. A devastating explosion. Unknown amounts of Casualties.
That door to the Sanctum is gone. Physically destroyed. He’s safe. From the Crocodile Men. From Black Adam. From Isis herself. For now. For how long that remains true, seems to depend upon the Amulet that Police Chief Callaghan gave his life to put in to Freddie’s hands.
FREDDY: Unlike most Freddy wasn’t repulsed. He took no joy in this. It wasn’t revelry that spread through his mind it was memory. Memory of Adam in his prime in the past not that he looked past it right in this moment, but the last effects of what he had seen of Adam’s life was strong with in him. It was like raw power unchained and he would not stop until ever last crocodile man dead. The crocodile men were attacking him. They were standing in the way of what was to come. He was no friend to them. Not an ally. Another piece of information that Freddy gathered.
If only that was the only thing that he gathered. The way divined empowered man moved it was a sight to behold it was like being there again, in the past, but he focused on the present. The present that brought into focus that those crocodile men that he was tearing through were wearing clothing, football uniforms, school clothing.
The horror of it settle in as the sounds of bone breaking and flesh rending did nothing to deter the one-man crocodile people killing machine that was Black Adam. Magic like most things in life wasn’t always pretty. It was pain and destruction a ballet of chaos that gave way to nightmarish visions. Unlike the Crocodile Men that he and Cassie face when Adam hit them they stayed down. He didn’t mean to stop them he meant to kill them. They weren’t getting up never again.
Freddy took it all even as Crocodile men came apart at the hand of this man. He could feel his hands balling into fists. There was culling that occurred in the boiler room and only Adam was going to walk away from it unscathed. Still as Freddy continued to look on wanting to yell, but what he could he say all he could do was watch as they kept coming and slowly the clothing changed they changed from that of high schoolers to the police.
The police. The thing about is that they didn’t talk they didn’t even mouth off they were more wild and feral than the crocmaggia like they lost themselves to the orgy of death that they thought they would rain down upon the man instead he was the one sending them to early graves. Compartmentalize. It was all Freddy could do until he found himself being pressed back face to face with the bloodied and gore covered face of Callaghan.
“Chief!” It was the first thing he said the only thing he could say. Freddy was desperate to save someone anyone. “Chief get in and close the door. Get in and close the door,” he said talking over him. He got it. He understood why he would think he was responsible. We’ll face this together…” He pleaded before felt the amulet pressed into his hand as he was pushed back causing him to fall back. He had wanted to grip.
Looking up he stared he couldn’t look away because there he was. It was the composer and conductor of this symphony of death in key of Blood and Gore minor. <b>SOBEK!</b>
Had this been any time Freddy have had a moment of triumph. He knew it! He got something right, but he watched as Callaghan’s hand was torn open by the slash of Sobek’s claws turning him from a pillar of the community, a leader into one of Sobek’s minions. Most would turn away, but Freddy was compelled to watch to see. He couldn’t look away. He was on the floor looking up crying out in frustration as the one person that he could trust with all of this someone that knew what Fawcett City was and could be was taken away from him.
Someone he could look up to someone that Fawcett City could depend on. He was taken from them with just a touch and with that touch his death all but certain by Adam’s hand.
“NOOOOOOOO!” Freddy made his way to his feet, but even with his speed he couldn’t reach Callaghan the man was no longer there, but what he was, who he was fled the defiled flesh settling into where he was meant to be. The glow lasted for a moment, but it settled in his flesh bonding itself to the others. He knew immediately who he was. He was a hero. He was a warrior. He was the bravest man he knew. He was Chief Callaghan the vessel of Achilles he died doing what he did best protecting people. Shutting his eyes Freddy took a moment, the sound and smell of death had vanished.
Walking towards the door he reached for the handle opening it and found himself miles away from home as he stepped out into the sprawling expanse of the Metropolis Public Library, but he couldn’t escape the events that transpired. It was right there on the flat screen to see. Gripping the amulet tightly he took deep breath.
Compartmentalize.
STORYTELLER: News outlets around the world will tell a story tonight. It will be a tale of tragedy; a school in mid-central America that was under funded and ill-equipped. Some will say it was children playing where they shouldn’t. Others will talk about how some ne’er do wells always used the broiler room to deal ‘The Drugs.’ Yet the prevailing story will be about a school’s broiler room malfunctioning. It will be the Tale of a Police Chief and his loyal team that went in to try to get every child out they could. And they did. Many still live because Chief Callaghan followed Freddie Freeman to that school. He did so under the suspicion that Freeman was peculiar. He did so because he thought the young man was connected. Though in the end he was right, he had known in the end that he was also very wrong about Freddie Freeman.
The News won’t tell that story. Strangely enough though, it isn’t like the Bank. There is no cover up to speak of. No clandestine group that went in to wipe the minds of the surviving witnesses. Mostly because the only survivors are the ones that Callaghan’s people saved before things took a turn for the worse. Then another turn for the disastrous. While the Reporters and the Police will never know how it happened, the voice of Solomon can shed some light upon it for Freddie. He had witnessed Black Adam flicker across the room, colliding with the Broiler. He’d seen the desperation of Sobek to get access to the Chief and the Amulet, desperate enough to turn more and more in to his creatures and send them against Khem Adam. In the end there had been no Hope for the Crocodile Men. Not after the Chief closed the door.
Among the news reports is a small sliver of information that few would pick up on. The storm that came, that brought the rain that helped ease the resulting fire. Few people would take notice of the young Egyptian man in the crowd of onlookers. Few outside of Freddie Freeman and the Wisdom of Solomon. Whether Adam caused the explosion to bring an end to all of the Crocodile Men or Sobek did so in a last-ditch effort to stop Adam’s blood lust? It would seem that Black Adam lives.
Out of all of this comes one fleck of good news. Freddie Freeman has passed his third Trial. The Avatar of Achilles has gifted him a blessing. One step closer to being the World’s Champion. One step further away from answers. Was Sobek dead or did he too survive? If Black Adam is searching for Isis too, then where is she? Why was he telling Freddie to surrender the Blessings he already had? These answers and more soon.
S H A Z A M!
by Marc | Oct 21, 2017 | Chronicles
Synopsis: Kyle Rayner begins a trip of self discovery as he attempts to learn more about the Green Lantern about himself by traveling to the ruins of Coast City. However before he gets to Coast City he stops at the site of the plane crash he survived unaware after he’s left that he may have awakened someone or something.
He was supposed to be on a flight home to visit his mother instead he told her that he was going to be traveling to New York visit a few museums. Kyle Rayner liar. He didn’t like lying to his mother, but how was he going to tell her that he was headed to Coast City. She didn’t like talking about Coast City. All Kyle could remember was that she usually got quiet and said that it was such a shame. Such a shame. It’s what she always said before changing the subject. Kyle didn’t give it any real thought. He was recovering getting better. That’s what he was supposed to focus on. Not to mention he was being studied to try and find out why he survived. It hadn’t made any sense. Those were the things that consumed him, not the tragedy of Coast City.
True he would have to fly to one of the regional airports and take a bus in and then figure out how he was going to get there from there, but truth was that he would be taking a bus all the way in, because there was another place he wanted to stop at first. It really wasn’t anywhere special for most people, they would find it quite unremarkable, but for Kyle he guessed its where everything changed.
He took the flight as close as he could get it and decided that he would take a bus there. It was crazy wasn’t it? He was on break from school, just one of those random things that happens sense he attended a private one. Something about some of the previous classes lobbying for some kind of fall break like spring break. He didn’t know what that was about but he was grateful for it. He had a little money saved up plush the money he had for the flight home.
It was tearing him up that he lied to his mother, but he didn’t know how he was going to explain this to her. He knew what she would say. She would try to rip the ring from his finger and give it away. She didn’t want any trouble. Just the way his mother was, but she didn’t understand she didn’t see what he was able to do with it.
True he had only done it that once, but there were things for him to learn apparently things that he had to figure out for himself and he wouldn’t be able to do that if his mother went all helicopter mom on him. He was almost a man somewhat, and he had to start making decisions for himself. The little blue man…Ganthet said he was the Green Lantern. What did it mean?
The information he gathered wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to make him start researching and what he found surprised and terrified him. When he read about what happened Coast City he couldn’t figure out why…why he couldn’t he recall the events. Why did it feel like any time he looked at anything remotely connected to what happened it was like uncovering it for the first time?
It was weird, but if he was going to make any sense of it then he was going to have to go there. He needed to see it for himself. He needed to touch it. He didn’t know. Honestly, he was making it up as he went along, but right now he needed to do something first. He needed to make a stop before he made the connection to Coast City, well more like the two towns away. No buses went into Coast City, why? It was in ruins, but before he went there he needed to visit another area first. It was important.
The connection was a day lay over which meant that he could ask around to find out how to get where he needed to be. He knew what the ring was capable off, well he seen what he could do with it but that would be pretty flashy so Kyle used the wits he had. His mother would kill him. Hitchhiking? What was he thinking. How could he do such a thing? Well, how else was he going to get to a crash site. He knew everything had been gathered, bodies taken away and buried, but he had to see it, the scorched ground, what little bits of the plane they left behind if any.
He hadn’t been back since he had been rescued. Kyle couldn’t quite explain it, but he needed to stop here first. Perhaps that was the theme of the trip visiting places where lives ended. He didn’t know how else to explain it. He wasn’t going to say that he had a deep connection with Coast City, but there was a connection one that couldn’t be denied. He needed to see the truth for himself. He read some of the good a lot of the bad and he needed to see the bad. It needed to be seared into his mind so he knew how bad it could get.
He needed to see how real it was. Saving people was one thing, but what happens when he takes that step and steps into the light instead of doing thing from the shadows. He had seen enough reports on television to know that this could turn his life upside down. The question became was it worth it. No one could answer that question for him, but him. This was Kyle trying to figure out what those answers were.
In a way it was very The Greatest American Hero. It was the closest analogy he could think off while he made his way to the site. Sun was close to setting. It was going to have to be quick. He had to be on the bus tomorrow. He was working on a time table. If he timed it right he might be able to surprise his mom. Might. He didn’t know. Looking down at the map he drew he checked his watch and resumed heading in the direction until he came upon the field he was looking for.
Kyle stopped for a moment doing his best to try and remember, but what could he remember? He was unconscious. The world was black, darkness, fuzzy. He was in and on, but this was the spot. He closed his eyes and focused, really focused on what he wanted to see. What he could remember. He had drawn so many images that dealt with it, but to be here. He could recall the plane dropping the pilot saying that they were going to make an emergency landing.
Reaching out with the ring he did his best to recall what he could. He had been through enough visualization exercises to remember how that worked. Start with one detail, one small tiny detail and work your way from that detail to the next. Balling his hand into his fist he took a deep breath as the ring began to glow and almost like magic lines of green light began to appear in the air almost like it was Kyle’s canvas as he began to recreate the crash site. He tried his best to visualize the what he could remember bringing some pieces into sharp detail.
Quickly the ground was covered with pieces of a broken plane, all constructed from energy that was emitted by the ring. When he felt it was enough Kyle opened his eyes to look upon what he created. His mother and his friends from home and probably the school would be appalled, but the shrinks? They probably would say it was a step in the right direction.
Releasing the fist he let his hand fall at his side so he could look upon what he created, what had been made. There were probably far better uses for the ring than to confront your personal demons, but if he couldn’t look this in the eye what good was he? He remembered what the ring had said, it spoke. It said he had a great capacity to overcome fear.
Didn’t that mean that he needed to put this to bed and move on, that he needed to look upon it and see it for what it was. Perhaps it would help him with the pieces of his memory that were fuzzy. Walking towards some of the pieces that had been recreated. He wasn’t here to guilt himself. He knew that bad things happen. It was a fluke that he survived. He began moving through the wreckage to find the spot where he was laid out at. The spoke where he saw Ganthet for the first time.
The plane crashed and there were bodies around him seats everything, but that’s when it happened. He was in and out. He thought it was a dream, a hallucination. Right here in this spot.
Chewing on his lower lip turned and laid on the ground as he used the ring again to create a rather good approximation of Ganthet hovering over him. It was like he appeared. He was the only one left. You shall have to do.
Licking his lips, Kyle stared up at the sky reaching out to his hand that held the ring wondering where Ganthet came from, where did the ring come from. Most people might consider the why me? However, he had that pretty much cleared up. He was the only one around, but should it matter? Did it make a difference? He had the ring, it meant that he was entrusted with using it wisely and keeping it safe.
Right?
Shutting his eyes, Kyle played the moment over in his mind like it was a movie. Still he couldn’t linger here. No, lingering. He was working on a timetable and a budget. Opening his eyes, he pressed against the ground so he could stand up. The moment he stopped thinking about the plane it faded from sight and he was left in an empty field again.
If he was going to make it back to the town then he was going to have to fly. It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting there. He could make it without being seen. He didn’t need the ring to see the plane he saw it in his head every day he closed his eyes or thought about it. With a few steps he was surrounded by the aura of green light that carried him into the air away from the site.
Crash in the bus station and tomorrow he would be on his way. Next stop Coast City.
It was time to put it behind. He had to look to the future. Future was ahead of him not behind him. Connections that’s what Kyle needed to focus on as he flew away until he was nothing more than a dot in the sky unaware of the shifting ground of the field he left behind him, ground that gave way to what appeared to be plant, but it wasn’t green it was gnarled and diseased. It pushed against the ground until it was several inches above it.
The growth rose a bit more until it stopped until a hand emerged afterwards and the faint sound of a voice could be heard coming from below.
“…Born on a Monday, Christened on Tuesday….”
by Marc | Oct 7, 2017 | Chronicles
Walking down the street looking like my shoulder is sewed to the side of my head I groan just a bit, because I’m going to kill Carter. I haven’t been able to find my headset since he sat at my desk. Taking calls have been a pain, because I haven’t been able to stop at the store to get another one. Twisting and turning. Bobbing and weaving I make my way through the hustle and bustle of the crowds of Metropolis as I make my way back to the Planet.
Since they opened that new coffeehouse around the corner everyone’s been craving them. I for one was starting to think that they put something in the coffee. Not that I cared for the drink. It was unpleasant and it made me gag, but I didn’t say that. Course not fetching coffee was one of my jobs wasn’t it?
“Yes, Ms. Grant. I heard you. I got you exactly what you wanted. I’m walking through the doors right now. I’ll be up stairs shortly.” Yes I’ll be upstairs to deliver orders and then I will be banished to the basement to finish the research that I was doing. Nearly all of the Planets copies had been digitized, but there were still items that needed to be cataloged to determine if they were going to be kept or not. I was also working on a bit of a project for one of the reporters gathering information that the Planet had on metahumans. Earliest sightings. Something about a retrospective.
Truth be told with the press conference held by Superman to introduce Wonder Woman people were curious. Some skeptical. Some of the older reporters said it was nothing more than history repeating itself. Why was I doing this? Well, I had the good fortune or misfortune of offering information…strike that. Volunteering information while Mister White was describing the assignment that he was handing out to said reporter.
I knew a little more than anyone expected. They probably thought I was some kind of metahuman groupie as I expounded on the events that lead to the period of silence as I like to call it.
“The Keen Act…” It slipped off my lips easily and I provided a little more detail. So, I was the one singled out to investigate the archives. What wasn’t digitized I had to go into the stack as some liked to call it. Basement was more like it, because that’s what it was, literally.
Still, it provided me with a good deal of time to myself while I was at the Planet and when I wasn’t there I was at school fitting in like any normal college sophomore who was majoring or considering to major in communications and information management sciences or at least that’s what they were calling it today. I had a minor in mind, but that was neither here and there.
Right now I was simply Jackson Hyde, intern…maybe reporter someday. True there was talk of a quite earnest reporter that had been among their ranks, but he went on sabbatical and no one had heard anything from him. Kent. Had a desk no office, desk had been cleared a new hot shot was brought in to replace him.
It was water cooler talk. It’s how I got in with people listening to what they told me as I made my rounds becoming familiar with this person and another. Tagging along all in the interest in furthering my education and interest in journalism. Print media was a dying breed they said, but there were a few forward-thinking individuals that believed they could help revolutionize how information was shared and accessed by the public. That’s not to say that the Planet hadn’t been through a few lean years. The period between the Keene Act and Superman’s appearance were difficult, but give people something focus on and suddenly there’s a rebirth. Add the fact that a corporate industrialist openly opposes him given his status as an alien. You have something to sink your teeth into.
Of course, no one thought things would go the way they did and someone said corporate industrialist and megalomaniac would find a way to do the very thing the founding fathers of this nation abhorred, a life time leader…a king like leader.
The declaration was unexpected, but it seemed that power was being consolidated and with the laws of the land that had been crafted it seemed that a once great nation had fallen without even a single blow being struck. Ebbs and flows like the tide.
I cannot order you to do this. However, I can ask.
The voice, his voice played through my mind and I wonder what he would think about the path I have chosen. It was my decision. It has always been my decision and there are days that I have regretted the decision, because I always considered what if, but then I remember all the things that I have been told about what if. I shouldn’t consider what I could of done especially when I was not present. I was focused on my task, my assignment.
Still what if one person could have made a difference and the world wouldn’t seem to be as dark as it was. It seems that the world I walk in now is no different from the one I came from. I needed to consider what I was capable of and where I could do the most good and right now that meant continuing to learn more about the people that we shared the planet with. True I was far cry from the leaders, but I did have information.
I needed information about all kinds of people which lead me to take a particular interest in some of articles that they did regarding metahumans, vigilantes and the like. It was good to know how they were treated. To know how those that were different were treated. It could provide invaluable insight on how they might treat potential friends. Though with the current state of affairs one had to wonder how it all might unfold.
Even as I passed out the beverages I wondered when and how. What would he do. Would it be enough? There was far too much to focus on and even though I had been instructed, counseled to keep my head down I found it difficult to do. I spent the better part of a year waiting, because I was unable to act, but now that I am able to do so I find it difficult to simply sit on my hands and wait for someone to alert me as to when we would make our next move.
I felt that I was doing nothing more than gathering information that would never be utilized, not by the people it was meant for. There was a danger lurking, but which threat was greater? The threat above or the one below?
Focus. Focus Jackson. Jackson. The mask that needs to be worn in order to keep my person safe less I’m found and brought back to stand trial for treason against the crown. So rather than let my anger get the better of me I get coffee and focus on the assignment that has been provided by Mister White. Provide research on rise and fall of metahumans over the nation’s history.
Still, one couldn’t help but notice the various leads regarding missing metahumans, young ones. They weren’t that common but every so often there was a source that talked about a metahuman that they were familiar with that disappeared. It wasn’t something that the Planet wrote a story about, but I had come across notes from the reporter that had gone on sabbatical, Kent. He was looking into it.
It wasn’t something I shared with Johnson. It should be tossed away, but I couldn’t let it go. I had bigger things to worry, bigger things I couldn’t do anything about right now, but this? I don’t know. Perhaps someone could give them a voice when the time was right.
Work came and went and I found myself walking the streets. I wasn’t in a hurry to return to his apartment, off campus apartment. It was the agreement that I made with Joshua. It was better for everyone involved if he moved off campus rather than staying on campus. Especially given the fact that I was starting to work a lot of late hours at the Planet. I was going to be in and out a lot and there were classes of course. It took some convincing, but I rather not put anyone in a compromising position if I could avoid it.
Besides I told him there were going to be times when I needed to be myself. That I needed to be me and that wasn’t always convenient if I had to deal with roommates. I needed to breathe. To be honest I knew that I wasn’t always the most pleasant person to be around. At the apartment I could be whoever I wanted. I also could smile to the neighbors help them with their groceries and then shut the door and shut them out when I needed to.
Never in a million years did I believe I would find myself in this position. I knew I wasn’t alone, but the support, the support I was accustomed to that I could turn to was gone. Friend gone, dead by my hand. Talking with Joshua and the others wasn’t the same. They had their own lives to focus on even though there were routine reports about what was happening.
They had been tasked with tracking Manta’s movements and letting me know if he or his men were in the area. He was Orm’s eyes and ears on the surface. Atlantis lost one operative and replaced him with another. Manta had men and resources that could be places anywhere that Orm wanted. Tracking their movements were critical in determining what came next.
It should be something I was involved in. If, anything they could be using them to track down the Others and anyone else that may have been loyal to the Orin. They needed to eliminate and sympathizers. There was a part of me that wanted to believe that I wasn’t in this alone. That it was more than me and the remaining Others.
Which is why it was difficult for me to figure out exactly what I should be doing. I should be out there with them, but I couldn’t. I was not allowed. That was difficult to handle. In my mind, I knew that I wasn’t being sidelined, but I was used to being able to take an active part in anything that I was involved in. This was my life. They weren’t the only ones that were being hunted and perhaps that is why I found myself taking an interest in Kent’s notes. The idea that someone went missing because they were metahumans. The possibility that something could have happened to them.
It almost feels wrong, because it could easily be seen as a distraction, but it is far from it. It is not a distraction. It’s something that provides focus and clarity. It also keeps me out of the hair of those that are doing their best to help me. A distraction is what I’m doing right now, walking the streets so I don’t return to the apartment and try and get Joshua on the phone to see what he’s found out if anything. Focus on the mission. My mission whatever’s left of it.
