Gold Justice: Chapter 1: The Survivor

I don't own the Green Lantern Corps, Young Justice, etc. You know the drill.

Ragnar's first day with the other members of the team served to confuse him mightily. In training with them, he was learning to adapt his fighting style to include the skills of others, even as they were learning to accommodate themselves to him. Kid Flash had been right about one thing: having their very own ringslinger certainly seemed to be a step up. But Ragnar was also learning to moderate his responses; deadly force wasn't needed in his new circumstances.

Tuesday: Megan was shepherding him through the process of registration at high school. His mind was awhirl with all the things that seemed to need doing, most of which seemed needlessly complicated to him. "And here," she'd said, back at Mt. Justice, "Batman created a new identity for you, an Earth name." She gave him a hard plastic card with the name "Ragin Ramanuja" on it, next to a retouched photo of himself. "You're an exchange student from India. You can answer to 'Ray,' for simplicity's sake. And that'll cover your accent, as well as any unfamiliarity with our language or culture you may encounter. Green Lantern says it should be no problem for you to use your ring to alter your skin tone."

He looked at the picture. It was him, but the color of his skin was heavily "photoshopped," as the human saying went. He didn't really know what that meant, except it wasn't how he really looked. And while he wondered why it should matter, whether or not he had blue skin or brown, he accepted it. This was Megan's world (even though she was actually from Mars), and so he felt it wise to accede to her advice. "Yes, of course." With only a thought, he "photoshopped" (and he was beginning to like the sound of that word) his appearance to match the image on the card. Chocolate brown skin, thick, black, short-cut wavy hair….

"Now, about your clothes…" And here she circled him, looking him up and down speculatively. He was beginning to get a little nervous. What's wrong with my clothes? "Hm. Yes. I think I see what we can do. Come on!"

Three hours and six clothing stores later, he had a complete lineup of Earth-style clothing. He still had no idea as to what went with what ("That's alright, Ragnar; I've noticed most human men seem to have no fashion sense. In that, you're just normal"), but now he had some "civilian" clothes to wear.

Megan had insisted on paying for them, over his protests. "It's alright, Ragnar. This is just for now. You'll get your first paycheck in a couple of weeks, you can pay me back then…oh, and that reminds me, we have to set you up for direct deposit…" And many more terms he barely understood. What was a "paycheck"? And what was "direct deposit"? For that matter, what was a "bank"? Why did everything have to be so confusing?

Right then, Megan's communicator beeped. "Megan? Hal. You didn't forget about meeting us for lunch, did you?"

She slapped her forehead. "Of course I did. Hello, Megan!" Ragnar looked around in surprise. He knew "hello" to be a greeting; why would his new friend greet herself? Was there maybe another "Megan" around? He looked for one…

…and she caught his arm, almost unbalancing him, pulling him towards the door. "C'mon, Ragnar. You won't need to disguise yourself; this restaurant is used to us."

So it came to pass that he found himself, in his full "Gold Lantern Corps" uniform, along with her, entering a medium-sized building from which the most enticing odors originated. Ragnar's mouth was already watering…and then he remembered: he still didn't have any of that unit of exchange everybody was seemingly focused on: money. The last time he'd been in an Earthly eating establishment, he'd been with his mysterious friend, Sarah, whoever, whatever, she was. She'd given him money to buy food with. He hadn't wanted to take it then, but she'd insisted…

It looked like history was going to repeat itself. He sighed a barely audible sigh. He really didn't want to become a burden to his newfound friends, here on this puzzling planet…he was much more comfortable with taking care of himself.

Megan guided them both through the restaurant to the table where waited Hal Jordan, one of sector 2814's Green Lanterns, and Arisia Raab, a member of the Green Lantern Corps, who'd originally been charged with finding him and bringing him in. That had changed, when both Hal Jordan and Miss Martian had stated they'd personally accept responsibility for his actions. He certainly didn't want to do anything to get them in trouble with their superiors, these mysterious "Guardians of the Universe," that he'd heard of. "Sorry, guys, guess we got a little busy. Ragnar, here, needed some civilian clothes."

Hal Jordan eyed the blue skinned young man, his eyebrow rising in amusement. "Don't tell me: she dragged you to half a hundred clothing stores and had you try on everything in there, right?"

"Uhm. If—if you wish me not to tell you that, why do you ask for confirmation of your statement?"

"Thaaat's what I thought."

Arisia lightly cuffed Jordan on the arm. "Well, I think it's sweet of her to do that. Don't you agree, Hal?" The tone of her voice wasn't in any way questioning, thought Ragnar. Then she turned her attention to the Gold Lantern. "So. You're Ragnar Rok." She looked him up and down. "You know, somehow I didn't picture you as being so…tall." And Hal Jordan noticed a curious thing.

In almost the same instant that Arisia had looked at Ragnar, sizing him up, his new friend, Megan Morse, aka Miss Martian, had hooked her arm through his, and somehow moved ever so slightly so that she was just a fraction of an inch closer to being between Arisia and Ragnar. And of course, Ragnar remained blissfully unaware of it all. Hal noticed, and hid a smirk behind his face. Yes. The boy was definitely in for it now.

Hal saw it was up to him to break up the dance. "Anyway. Is everybody ready to order?" He turned to his menu. "I can recommend the fettucini alfredo highly, though, Ragnar, if you aren't used to spicy foods, you might want to try something else."

"What are 'spicy foods'?"

"In that case, I'd recommend the something else."

As they were waiting for their food (and Ragnar marveled once again at this strange new culture; imagine, somebody else actually preparing food for you that they themselves were not going to eat! Remarkable!), Arisia turned to Ragnar and asked, "So, Ragnar. You said you grew up on a wrecked spaceship?"

"Yes. I spent my first fifteen Earth years on that planet."

"No other people? No other survivors?"

He shook his head. "None. The ship's computer had a voice recognition and response capacity, so that I could tell it what to do and it could answer back, but…no, no other intelligent beings."

The waiter arrived with their rolls. Absently, Arisia buttered one, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Hal, I just tele'd the Guardians, regarding any missing starships in that sector. There hasn't been a single ship go through that area in thousands of years. Hundreds of thousands." She paused a moment, a faraway look on her face. "Make that millions."

Ragnar observed his new friends, and how they ate. He'd learned, from an early age, to observe his surroundings, and to learn from them. So, he, too, took a roll and buttered it. "I don't know where the ship originally came from. I only know where it ended up. And, to the best of my knowledge, the planet has no name. Even I didn't give it one, there being no need."

"Oh, I'm not denying that. I take your word for it. It's just….I imagine the crew could have been in suspended animation for, for a long time, or, or—" And here, her face lit up, "Or…if it, the ship, was traveling really close to the speed of light, then time dilation onboard would've slowed time down to a crawl. So…who knows how many years could've gone past, until the ship crashed on the planet itself. Hal," she turned to her fellow GL, "That would have to have been a long time ago. The Guardians' records go back a long way." She turned back to the blue skinned young man, sitting across the table from her. "Ragnar…if that's true, there's a good chance your people, whoever they were, might…not be around anymore. I mean, civilizations, even whole species, do rise and fall, over the eons."

Ragnar thought about that, chewing on this amazing thing they called bread and that they so took for granted. Then, with the most imperceptible of shrugs. "If so, then so. For most of my life, the universe consisted of only one intelligent being: me. Even if there is no other exactly like me, I still find its current population status a distinct improvement."

"Well said!" Hal spoke up, raising his water glass in a toast. "Anyway, here's to answers, regardless of where they lead. Arisia? M'Gann? Ragnar?" And they all raised their glasses.

But Megan noticed Ragnar looking up at the ceiling, his gaze tracking across the ceiling, almost as if he were listening for the sounds of someone walking on the roof. "Something wrong, Ragnar?"

His tone was puzzled. "I…I don't know…exactly. I mean, I don't know if it's what you'd call wrong or not, but…." Again, his eyes tracked across the ceiling. The others waited. "Somewhere…somewhere far, far away….someone is thinking about me."

Back on the crashed spaceship that had housed Ragnar Rok for so long, and had been the only home he'd ever known, certain circuits closed. An ancient line of programming came into play, and features and functions even Ragnar himself had remained unaware of became active.

A signal was sent out.

….

Mt. Justice: Megan had showed Ragnar to the quarters he'd been assigned to. Aside from the clothes she'd bought for him that day, it was basically a bare room. She couldn't help but feel like it needed a little sprucing up. "Ragnar? Don't you have any, like, pictures of your parents or anything? You could bring those here. It would give the place a better look."

He shook his head. "I never had any pictures of my parents. All I ever had to remember them by, aside from what my ship's computer told me, was their bones, in a storage area, I suppose you'd call it, of my old home." He half-smiled, an expression that just didn't look at home on his face. "Somehow, I don't think those would make good decorations."

"Well, yeah. Except maybe for Halloween." She grimaced, fully expecting him to ask about "Halloween."

But he didn't. Instead he asked, "Megan? Have you ever felt like…somebody was watching you, or, or maybe just thinking about you? I mean, when nobody was?"

"What, you mean like what you talked about today, at lunch?" She thought. "Not really. Not like that. I mean, I am a telepath, so when someone's thinking about me, I usually know it anyway. But I don't think that's what you mean."

"No. It's not that. I really don't know how to explain it…"

"Look, you once said that, back before you came here, you'd traveled around the universe, teaching this 'Lesson of Fear' thing? Could that be it? Someone or something you met then thinking about you now?"

He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with remembering that part of his past. "I…suppose it's possible…but, somehow, I doubt that's what this is. It, it doesn't feel like that." He shook his head. "I can't really explain it any better than that."

She nodded. "I know. Having more than the Earth-usual five senses, I know how frustrating it can be, to be trying to explain something like that in plain words." She looked up at him, from where she'd sat, on the couch in his room. "Do you suppose it could be Sarah?" Referring to Ragnar's mysterious friend, who appeared as a little human girl, but was evidently so much more.

Again he shook his head. "I don't think so. This felt….so very far away. Like, like, maybe in another galaxy, even. I mean, whoever, whatever Sarah is, I guess she could be in another galaxy. But why would I sense her there, when she could just as easily be here?"

"Good point." Megan bit her lip, gathering her courage. What she was about to ask… "Ragnar? Would you mind if I scanned your mind? Just a little? It might give us some answers, give you some answers."

He thought for a long, long moment, during which Megan worried. Her breakup with Conner—Superboy—had involved mostly what he felt was her unnecessary (read: violation of his mind) use of her telepathic powers. While they had remained friends, it had still been something that had come between them.

Finally, Ragnar nodded. "If you think it will help, yes. You may."

"Alright. Come over here and sit on the couch by me." She knelt on the couch beside him, placing her hands on either side of his head. Not that she needed to do so, normally, but it helped. And, in the past, she'd been unable to read his mind directly, for some reason… "Now. Just…relax, close your eyes, don't try to concentrate on anything, just let it flow…." And a cascade of images flooded her mind.

Blue skinned people, all crowded together, jammed together, the sounds of someone—man or woman, she couldn't tell—weeping, sobbing uncontrollably. A steady background murmur of rising tension. The sound of many voices, speaking a language she couldn't understand, speaking in terrified tones, someone in the background screaming…

And two of the humanoids, one, a female, carrying him, fighting their way past the others, trying to get to someplace, someplace important. The two humanoids—Ragnar's parents, she assumed—talking in hushed tones, as if afraid of being overheard, after having finally made it to someplace without the crowd outside. They spoke in hushed whispers, again in a language she couldn't understand, the woman leaning against the man, sobbing, with him holding her, comforting her as best as he could. Then, Ragnar's point of view: the two of them placing him in a small chamber or pod, smiling at him through their tears, again saying words he both could and couldn't understand…a door or hatch closing…something happening, a sudden jolt or shock…

Ragnar's gradual coming to self-awareness, there in the confines of his wrecked ship. She saw the questions in his mind: who am I? What am I? And, perhaps, to him, the most important one of all: am I alone? Why?

She caught fleeting glimpses of his life, growing up on the deserted planet where his ship had crashed. She saw how he learned his own Lesson of Fear: find those threats to your life and take action. Often lethal action. A harsh upbringing, but the only one available to him…

and over and above all else, his growing desire, no, make that his growing need for the company of others, others like himself, with whom he could talk.

Then, the night when the predators had cornered him outside his ship, his unsuccessful attempts to drive them off, the ring, falling out of the sky…

She broke off contact, both of them somewhat stunned by the sheer impact of what they'd both just experienced. "Ragnar…I…" She didn't know how to continue.

Neither did he. "I…was unaware my mind contained such memories. But they must have been there…in the hidden corners of my mind." He looked off at nothing in particular. "Did you see anything like what you were looking for?"

"No. Not really." The image came back into her mind, of the crowded…place, where the infant Ragnar and his parents had been. It reminded her of documentaries she'd seen on Earthly television, about concentration camps during World War II. Could Ragnar's parents have come from such a place?

Where, really had they been? What had been going on? Since all she had to go by was what Ragnar himself had seen, she really couldn't make clear sense out of it, seeing as that he hadn't understood it himself at the time. Just a jumble of images that failed to add up to anything concrete.

But one thing she was sure of: whatever had been going on, back there, when Ragnar had been a baby, had been….something terrible.

"So." He said, sitting beside her on the couch. "Now what?"

"Huh? Uh, what do you mean?"

He scratched the back of his hand. "I mean, what do we do now? What do humans normally do, at this time of day?"

Hm. That was a question, wasn't it? She'd taken it upon herself to show him around "the world," i.e. human civilization here in Happy Harbor, but she hadn't really had anything planned for that evening. "Well, most of the time, people here on Earth just…sit back and relax. Watch television or something." The hour was growing a bit late, and tomorrow would be his first actual day at high school.

"What is 'television'?"

"It's like watching something on a monitor screen, only it's for entertainment. Here." She switched on the small flat-screen in his room, turning it to one of her favorite channels, settling back with him there, to watch.

"Megan?"

"Hm?"

"Who is this 'Spongebob Squarepants'?"

…..

Far, far away, on the planet known as Oa, home of the Guardians of the Universe, a tense meeting was being held. The Guardians had received Arisia's report, and had found certain aspects of it….troubling. So they met, hovering in mid-air, in their green-lit conference room, to discuss the matter.

Ganthet spoke up, using the common telepathic communication the Guardians employed amongst themselves. {{So we are agreed, I take it?}}

{{Yes. This case of this wielder of a Golden light bears investigation. It is to be hoped,}} Sayd continued, hesitantly, {{that our fears have not come to pass so quickly.}}

Herupa Hondo Hu "spoke" up: {{But if they have? What will we do?}}

{{That depends on the exact nature of the…problem. If it is a problem; after all, there is nothing that says it must be a problem, although it is, admittedly, safer to assume the worst, even as we hope for the best.}}

Valorex frowned in concentration. {{But should our worst fears be realized…what courses of actions are open to us?}}

Lianna drew a deep breath, not because she needed to, but because what she was about to say troubled her more than usual. {{As much as I hate to admit it, in a worst case scenario, there is always the alternative of sterilization. End the problem at its source.}}

{{Interesting you should mention the Source, as that may be, literally, the source of this…complication.}}

{{Yes. And if so, then sterilizing the planet will neither contain nor solve the issue.}}

{{Another thing,}} Ganthet spoke up, diverting the conversation away from a topic they were all clearly uneasy with, {{this 'Ragnar Rok.' He evidently came from a lost starcraft passing through the Forbidden Zone, at such a time in history, that we haven't even any records of it. It might behoove us to determine his point and planet of origin.}}

{{Agreed,}} they all chorused. The Guardians didn't like to consider destroying a whole world. Their mission was to guard, not destroy. But desperate times… {{So I believe I speak for all when I say, we must meet with and examine this new ring wielder. Are there any objections?}} There were none. {{Very well. I shall instruct Lantern Arisia to escort Ragnar Rok here, for examination.}}

….

Wednesday: Megan had walked a by now thoroughly bewildered Ragnar through the process of registration, and had assisted him in setting himself up for the necessary tests. Batman had provided Ragnar with a complete identity, school records and transcripts included, but there were still some hoops he'd have to jump through. Megan only hoped that nothing would go awry; he'd basically been raised in isolation, by a machine. He'd never had to learn such things as mathematics, algebra, and other courses.

She left him at the door of the testing room, and had gone on to her own classes. She'd arranged it (with a little Bat-help) that he should be in the same classes as she was, so she could help him over any hurdles that he was sure to encounter.

But at lunchtime, he joined her in the cafeteria. "So, how did the tests go?" she asked him.

"Quite well, I believe. The problems didn't seem all that difficult." He opened his milk cautiously. This was, after all, some sort of beverage from an Earth animal, and he wasn't sure he could trust it. Or if he would like it, assuming, even, that he could tolerate it. "I do not think I made a good impression on the teacher, however."

"Oh? How's that?" Megan took a bite of hamburger steak in her mouth.

"The way she looked at me. It was a suspicious look. Several times she asked me if I was cheating."

"Cheating? What did she mean?"

He shrugged, digging into his green bean casserole, another delightful Earthly experience for him. "I received the distinct impression that she thought I finished the tests too soon, too quickly. But I only answered them as best as I could, and saw no reason to wait any length of time before I answered. The answer was almost invariably clearly evident, anyway."

"Hmm." Chewing and swallowing. "So did your ship teach you about mathematics?" It must have, she thought.

"Actually no. Oh, it taught me some of the basics, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, but nothing beyond that.

"But what was presented on the tests seemed easy enough. What is," and here he turned to face her a bit better, "calculus, anyway?"

….

Arisia stood before the Guardians' high council. "Lantern Arisia. You will bring this new color ring wielder to us. This is not to take the form of a formal arrest; you are not to use force. We merely wish to examine and interview him. And, once you have done that, report back here for further instructions."

She saluted, a salute common to her people. The Guardians themselves required no salutes, merely obedience. Sometimes, Arisia had thought, along with Hal Jordan, it might be said they required blind obedience.

A somewhat ironic term, she'd thought, to be applied to those who had weaponized light itself.

"One question, masters. What if Ragnar Rok does not wish to comply with your requests?"

"Then you are authorized to use force. But only then."

To be continued…