Author's Note: I'm a pretty big comic nerd, and this idea hit me right after S02x15. It hasn't left me since, so I finally decided to shut up and put up, as it were.
The characters (and the ring) aren't mine; this is for fun, not profit; etc.
There's a bit of Jane/Maura, if you're so inclined to see it as such. I ship them like mad, but it's subdued here.
Onward!
Maura Isles of Sector 2814.
She glanced all over the room, searching for the origin of the garbled voice. Her search stopped abruptly when her windows shattered, spraying shards of glass all over her bedroom.
You have great rage in your heart.
That much was true. It churned within her, suppressed only by the fear she felt at that moment. Someone was in her home, invading her room, taking away her only refuge... the fear was set ablaze, scorched away by the molten anger flowing in her veins. Maura made her way to the broken window, heedless of the glass shards breaking the skin of her feet.
"Come on, then. Show yourself," she growled, narrowing her eyes as she peered into the darkness outside. The sky was dark; the stars were hidden behind thick, heavy clouds. Even the moon was hidden from her sight. "Show yourself!" she shouted, bracing herself for an invader. The glass dug deeply into her heels, slicing the skin wide open, and blood flowed from the wounds.
She stood stock still for a moment, bringing all her focus to bear on any aural stimuli she could pick up. At first, all she heard was the thudding of her heart within in her rib cage. Her harsh, ragged breathing registered a moment later. Finally, she noticed a faint, high-pitched "humming" noise, coming from behind her. Maura turned her head slightly, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it was in her peripheral vision... and she spun around when she caught sight of the origin of the sound.
"What the...?" she breathed, stunned by the improbable sight before her.
It was a small red ring, floating in the air, perhaps four feet away from her. It glowed faintly, and the pulsing light cast sinister shadows in her room. Blood - her blood - was flowing from beneath her feet... and flowing upward to fill the black crevices in the ring's settings. It rotated, just enough for her to make out the details of the ring's insignia, and she couldn't help but stare as her blood slipped between the circle in the middle and snaked around two slightly crooked lines that connected the circle to the outer ring. Mesmerized, her rage briefly forgotten in the throes of scientific curiosity, she reached out with her right hand to grab the ring -
- and it zoomed straight up in the air, circling around to force itself on her outstretched hand's ring finger.
Maura immediately tried to remove it, and felt the ring's insignia brand her left palm with blazing heat. Still, she tried again, howling in agony when she tried to claw at it - her fingers were singed, and ash covered her palm.
A heartbeat later, and the pain in her hand was forgotten as her blood began to boil. Nausea hit her, hard, and with it came a stream of crimson bile forcing its way up her throat. It splashed all around her, unending, incinerating nearly everything it touched. The only thing the blood-tinged liquid didn't seem to set on fire was her own skin, and the clothing that seemed to wrap around her body without her notice.
She forced herself to look in her full-length mirror in between the heaving, and her eyes widened at her reflection.
The woman in the mirror was clad in some sort of tight black leather bodysuit, with bloodstained heavy-duty combat boots of unknown design. Maura's gaze moved upward once the heaving subsided, taking in the bright crimson stripe down the middle of the chest piece, framed by segmented bits of black leather.
That damned insignia was branded right in the center of her chest.
The black bodysuit continued down each arm, ending in heavy red gloves, weighed down with extra padding on the knuckles. Again, they were of an unknown, alien design to Maura, and she wondered why they were fingerless, until she saw the glowing ring on her finger.
Finally, she tore her gaze away from the ring, and focused on the face that stared back at her.
It was her face, but pale and bloodstained. She opened her mouth, and her eye teeth were elongated. There was a dim light emanating from within, but she could not see the source. Her hazel irises had changed to a blood-red color, and the symbol of the ring was visible in her pupils.
"What... what IS this?"
You have been chosen to become a Red Lantern. Fueled by rage, you will seek revenge against those who have harmed you.
The anger within her flared to life, nearly drowning out the words invading her mind.
RAGE.
Images of Patrick Doyle, lying in a pool of his own blood, swarmed her vision. Her biological father had all of cards, all of the answers she never knew she wanted, and held them over her like some damned carrot on a stick. Part of her wanted him to suffer, to make him pay for playing with her life like that... but blood bound them, and she wanted to avenge his injuries with the same breath she wanted to inflict her own wounds onto him.
HARM.
Agent Gabriel Dean seemed so innocuous when he first arrived in Boston, so many months ago. Perhaps she found him attractive back then, but now he only provoked feelings of revulsion and disgust. He had taken Jane - taken her trust, the trust Maura had placed in her - and used it to go after Doyle. He had come to the warehouse, without back-up, perhaps without official sanction, and took one of the few people who knew anything about her birth mother, and for what? He received a bullet in the leg, and not much else to show for it... except maybe a notch in his belt when he slept with Jane. He was weakened now, going through rehabilitation. It would have been easy to go after him before, but now she could simply swoop down from above and crush him with her might. Perhaps then she would have...
REVENGE.
The mere thought of revenge caused a delicious burn to surge through her body. Jane - her best friend, the one she trusted above all others - betrayed her. Gave up her secrets to a man she had known for perhaps a total of one week. Two, at most. Maura trusted her with her secrets, with her heart, and this is what she got in return - abandoned at the last minute because of Agent Dean. She sat alone in the hospital, waiting for her mother to regain consciousness, while Jane slept with the damned FBI agent, and told him about her father after the fact.
If that wasn't enough, Jane had shot Doyle, and knocked him off the catwalk. Then she ran over to Maura, to try and comfort her... perhaps to make a mockery of their relationship. Jane had promised - PROMISED - not to go after Doyle until Maura had the information he kept teasing her with, and ended up pulling the damn trigger that nearly killed him. Jane had thrown everything away with one action, and tried to console her with another. Were they not friends? Wasn't their bond beyond mere friendship? Maura let Jane's family stay with her at any time, day or night, and Jane turned around and... and...
She would go after Jane last, she decided, and the ring pulsed with approval. Maura would go after Jane, burn down everything she held dear. Burn down the Boston Police Department, burn down her family home, go after her blood relatives, until nothing but ash and blood remained.
And then Maura would incinerate Jane herself, along with all the love she held for the detective.
The power of the crimson red,
Can lead your soul away from dread,
And heal the deepest wounds of hate,
Let no one else decide your fate.
Her heart should have been pounding with excitement, pulsating with the ring's warm glow, but instead it slowed down; Maura could feel it withering away within her chest. She tried to summon the rage again, make her pulse sing with desire, but it all washed away when she remembered the love she held for her friend.
Their lunches; their sleepovers; the way Jane had tried to train her in self-defense; the way she tried to get the detective to realize how beautiful she was, scars or no. Those moments might never happen again, but if Maura gave in, they were guaranteed to be gone forever.
The red ring started to glow white hot, and Maura snapped out of whatever trance it had put her in. She gritted her teeth together, grabbed onto the metal band, and pulled once more, ignoring the smell of charred flesh wafting from her hands. She pulled so hard she nearly yanked the finger out of place, and skin was flayed from the digit, but she succeeded - the burning ring was gripped in her left fist. Her grip tightened as she crumpled to the ground - it felt as though she was about to have a seizure, and she could barely control the tremors coursing through her. The pain was terrible, and it felt as though ice picks were stabbing up and down her entire body.
Still, Maura held on, until the pain subsided enough so she could pull herself up to her feet. She finally dropped the ring, and crushed it under her bare heel.
"Rage won't heal these wounds," she muttered, spitting the remnants of bloody bile from her mouth. "I don't know what will, but I'll never give in to that." When she moved her foot back, only black ash remained.
Drained, she stumbled to her bed and sat down. She couldn't keep herself upright, however, and slid off the edge of the bed until she was leaning up against the box spring with her legs splayed out before her. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and was surprised to see herself in her original silk pajamas. The only difference she could notice were the thin red rivulets dripping from her eyes - a scientific improbability, to be sure, but after what happened, she wasn't surprised. Exhausted and unable to clean up the mess she had made, she let her head drop forward.
Her eyelids drooped shut before she could notice the ring's symbol flashing in her pupils one more time.