Birth of A Lantern
Chapter 16
Lantern School
John stood on top of Mount Lantern with Dorn Dre, Jadicus, and Ora Nye, and they climbed the mountain on their day off from Lantern training. The thick haze made it hard for the earthling to see more than a few feet in front of his face, but he used the power of his ring to navigate the steep mountain. They were wearing their basic Lantern uniforms for outside work, and not the form-fitting uniform that they often wore during training. There wasn't much vegetation on the way up the large mountain, and about a few feet in front of his face, he saw a white unicorn nibbling on bugs underneath the loose rocks. The wind blew slightly and it carried a hint of watermelons from the patches of fresh melons that grew along the ridges of the mountain.
"It's hard to get used to these unicorns," John said with a smile on his face. He had beads of sweat on his forehead and so did Dorn Drew, but when it came to Ora Nye and Jadicus, the trek up the mountain didn't phase them at all.
Jadicus scoffed, and then said, "We have them everywhere on Thanagar. Those little boogers. They eat everything."
For a second, Ora Nye paused in place, held on to her midsection, and then said, "Breakfast isn't sitting well with me." Her stomach began to growl loud enough for John to hear it.
Dorn Dre asked in a condescending manner, "Um. Preggo?" He smirked, and then started laughing, but neither John nor Ora Nye thought it was funny.
"Don't say that," she said with a serious tone. She scoffed and then tapped him on the shoulder aggressively. "Why would you even say that?"
"Yeah, Dorn Dre," John said while Jadicus snickered in the background.
"Just joking," he said, "Don't be so sensitive, guys."
The mountain stood far above all buildings and above where the flying cars flew, but it was thin air, a lot less oxygen than any of them was used to at the time. For a moment, John felt somewhat lightheaded, but he was working through it. Since the team wasn't using their rings' powers to deal with the different pressures in the atmosphere, the altitude bothered them. The top part of the mountain wasn't a point but a stretch of flatland with a small abode in the middle of it, and as they made it to the top, they had to step over the green melons. Off to the side, several unicorns grazed in the grass and looked over at the Lanterns as they walked past. Some of them were eating the ripe melons and John thought they looked like the sweetest, red watermelons in the universe.
The resident of the abode was cooking something sweet, something potent, but something John didn't recognize in a large black pot in front of her house. It had a spicy smell to it that caused the crew to cough and made John frown as he walked toward the pot. "What's that aroma?" John asked.
The old, female Guardian who lived in the abode was Leetha, an ancient Oan who decided to leave the Guardian Order nearly thirty thousand years earlier after a war within the Lantern Corps that killed the majority of her Sage Warriors, an elite fighting force that dated back to the time before human beings. John had heard about the war from Dorn Dre because he knew quite a bit about Lantern history, but he couldn't access the ring's historical database on what caused the demise of the Sage Warriors.
Suddenly Leetha charged out of her abode, the ring held high, and she grabbed all the Lanterns by a huge green fist and threw them off the mountain. She flung them nearly two miles down the road, and John nearly lost his lunch when she did. He tumbled through the air like he didn't have any control over his abilities, and it bothered him because he tried his best to regain control with the power of his ring. But at the same time, he suspected that she would attack them because of what Eli told him during their training sessions on Earth.
He thought back to what Eli told him on the football field in Freeland. "If you come in contact with Leetha, watch her closely because she's always in training mode," Eli said, "Always be on guard."
"Oh, shit!" He screamed as he realized that she was testing the team. "She's testing us, Lanterns. Let's get her." Quickly, the team caught their balance and stood side by side with one another with John in the middle of the group. "Let's get her. Jadicus, flank her from the left. Dorn, take her from the right." He pointed to Ora Nye, and then said, "Take her from the sky."
"She's highly trained," Dorn Dre said with a grimace. "She can wield that ring effortlessly."
"So can we!" Ora Nye said as she patted her right hand on her chest.
Suddenly, they charged Mount Lantern and tried to hit Leetha with a series of lasers, but she blocked them and slammed John to the ground so hard that he stayed on his back while she beat the rest of his crew up. As soon as Dorn Dre tried to attack her, she deflected his beam of light, slammed him to the ground, and left him moaning toward the far edge of the mountain. Within seconds, she had all the Lanterns on his team on their backs, and they were moaning and groaning.
"Weak asses!" She yelled. "Katma told me you four knuckleheads were her best." She shook her head in disbelief and then started performing an ancient fighting routine that looked similar to Kung Fu called Muvar Yar or in the words of the gods, The Dance. She did several long, flowing gestures with her arms, several backflips, and then a series of kicks. She pointed at John to get up off the ground, and then said, "Don't come to Mount Lantern unless you have the willpower to be here."
"We have the will," John said as he stood back to his feet. "We were just surprised."
She scoffed, pointed to the four rookies, and asked, "Do you think the enemy will announce themselves?" She looked at them with a serious visage, and then said, "You have to always be ready to fight, Lanterns." Without warning, she fired another series of lasers at John, and he blocked them all without any problems. But as soon as he took pride in how well he did, she surprised him with a right hook from the ring that put him on his bottom. "You're going to learn the power of Muvar Yar. Lanterns who know and practice the ancient Lantern art of Muvar Yar have an advantage over their enemies."
"I thought today was our day off!" Ora Nye exclaimed.
"Every day is a good day for an ass-whooping, Little Lady," Leetha said as she tossed her back off the mountain.
Jadicus and Dorn Dre looked at each other, and then charged the seasoned Lantern at the same time with their ring hands held high. They tried to shoot her from two different directions with laser fire, but she blocked their incoming fire with little to no effort. She then hit her hand on the ground, and it caused all three Lanterns to fly back onto the ground. Ora Nye came from above and tried to slap her with a flat hand, but she effortlessly grabbed her from the sky and threw her off the mountain again.
Slowly, Ora Nye crawled back up on the mountain, and rolled onto her back, groaned, and said, "Ugh!"
"Come sit with me, Lanterns?" She asked as she pointed to four large rocks that stood around her pot of goodies.
John lifted Ora Nye off the ground with a green hand and set her down next to him.
When all the Lanterns sat with her, she said, "You must always have three to four combinations of thoughts happening with every move. You can't think of one blow and then another blow. It must be a combination of blows to make this ring work effectively." She walked over to a slab that was directly in front of her abode, stood on it, and then took a fighting stance. She began to jab at the air, and then said, "This is how you guys are thinking when you wield the ring." She jabbed several more times, and then said, "This is how I need you to think." She began throwing a combination of punches that went to two quick jabs, uppercuts, and then into a hammer hand. "Am I making myself clear, Lanterns?"
"Yes, Lantern Leetha," John said, "Eli told me the same thing, but I've forgotten a lot of my training on Earth already. I will do better in wielding this ring and start practicing Muvar Yar on a daily basis."
She smiled, and said, "Yes. Eli was a fantastic pupil, John Stewart. Her Muvar Yar skills were above reproach, but she did lack in some areas too." She paused for a moment, and then said, " But now with the war moving closer to Oa, it's only a matter of time before it consumes us all. The destruction of Preelix has escalated the war and brought it to Oa."
Ora Nye placed her head on John's shoulder while rubbing her stomach. He then put his right arm around her, and said, "You good?"
"Yeah," she said with a grimace on her face. "My tummy's just a little upset."
Dorn Dre looked over at Ora Nye for a moment, and then at Leetha as she sat with her hands collapsed. He raised his right arm, and then asked, "Is there any way to stop this war before billions of more people die?" He lowered his right hand and rocked back and forth slightly on his rock.
She sighed, and said, "The verse has always been in some kind of conflict, Dorn Dre. Even in the universe's beginning, it was brought about by gasses igniting violently in the void. We can bring peace to the verse, but it's going to take the right kind of Lanterns to do it."
Ora Nye raised her right hand, and then Leetha nodded to her. "Lantern Leetha, what happened to the Sage Warriors?" She asked in a calm voice. When she lowered her right hand, she placed her left hand on John's knee, and Leetha seemed to take notice.
The Sage Warriors:
Eight hundred thousand years ago, I must admit there was a different Universe on every level in those days. I formed the Sage Warriors due to the aftermath of the Great War, a war between the Gods that encompassed the entire universe. I was young in those days-only seventy years old when I brought together thirty great warriors from all over the verse to assassinate my Grandfather, Ptah. My father, Ganthet, hated his father with a passion because of how he interfered with sentient life throughout the verse. The gods of old often decided what races thrived and what races died.
The war started when Ptah realized the Kryptonians were not a race he could easily control when they lived under a yellow star for they were strong like the gods. The Kryptonians were so strong that they obliterated the manbots that Oa sent in to keep the peace in the region. In addition, they killed the Gidisons who helped rebuild their race. When the manbots failed, Ganthet asked me to come up with a viable solution to Ptah and the Kryptonians, and I said, "I will find the best warriors in the verse to handle the situation." But when word of my efforts found its way to Ptah, he said:
"No, child, don't interfere with what I'm trying to do. Stay on your side of the verse."
Little did we know of his plans, but he shot a powerful ray into the Kryptonian sun that changed it into a red dwarf star that sapped the Kryptonians of their super strength. But Ptah couldn't merely let the Kryptonians live their lives in peace and without his meddling; he had to interfere with their lives by impregnating a Kryptonian woman and producing a half God baby he named Rao-El. In the winter months, Rao would reside in the Kryptonian sun, and during the summer months, he would live on Krypton and eat grapes by the river Distol with the most beautiful of Kryptonian women. He impregnated a woman named Sa-El, and she gave birth to Erok-El, and it was Erok-El who started the El Dynasty.
I came to Ptah after the birth of Erok-El, and said, "Grandfather, you must not allow Erok-El to continue to mix his seed with the Kryptonian people. It gives them an unfair advantage over the other worlds."
"How dare you tell me what I can and can't do!" He said, "You need to head back to Oa and keep out of my business."
I'm not sure what was going through my mind at the time, but I said, "Then I will return with my Sage Warriors, and you will meet the wrath of our rings."
He began laughing at me in a very disrespectful manner, and raised up his right hand for me to see; he had a large yellow ring on his right index finger, and then said, "I will bathe in the blood of your Sage Warriors, granddaughter."
During those days, I was very young, and when I went up against my Grandfather, he wielded his golden power ring in a way we had never seen, but he was using three-dimensional patterns as opposed to the Sage Warriors two-dimensional patterns. He slaughtered all my Sage Warriors while he used his telekinetic powers to keep me from moving. All I could do was watch him as he slaughtered the Sage Knights like they were babies. And out of spite, he drank their blood to instill fear in me.
When he was done killing my people, he turned to me, reached out his right hand, and I flew into his grip. He still had red and green blood dripping from his mouth, and his teeth were sharp like the teeth of a wolf. He brought me close to his face, and said, "Bring me more Sage Warriors!" He then threw me to the ground like I was a rag doll, and I had fear in my heart. Until this very day, I have never experienced fear as I did on that day when I lost my Sage Warriors.
After approximately fifteen years of reinventing myself and weeding out the fear I had in my heart, a new batch of warriors returned with me to fight Ptah, but now he was in Thanagar, married, and had a son who he referred to as the Winged Warrior. But this time, we fought Ptah and we fought hard, fast, and with three-dimensional fighting patterns, and then after we finished with the battle, he left Krypton for good, and remained on Thanagar. But when his son turned six hundred years of age, he took Ptah's ship the Phantom, attacked Oa, and killed thousands of Oans with one blast from his ship. It was an unprovoked attack, but the Sage Warriors were ready to retaliate. Immediately, we took to the air, and after a long battle where I lost twenty-two Lanterns, we killed the Winged Warrior.
We lost tens of thousands of Sage Warriors for the next seven hundred thousand years, and then Ptah disappeared with no known explanation, but there was still no peace in the verse. We had other god-like beings who surfaced, and then thirty thousand years ago, we had treachery within our ranks. Some of the Guardians thought the Sage Warriors had become too strong, too divisive, and one day out of nowhere, the Guardian, Bo Donnis, turned on the Sage Warriors and killed most of them by unleashing a toxic nerve agent in their dorms. None of the other Guardians admonished Bo Donnis for what he had done, so I slipped him a cup of Ambrosia in his morning tea. The drink not only allows for gods to get drunk, but it weakens them enough so they can easily be killed. I slit his damn throat in the middle of the night.
End
"Why did the Guardians not admonish the rogue Guardian Bo Donnis after he attacked the order of the Sage Warriors?" John asked with a look of confusion on his face.
"They couldn't tell me their hesitation, Stewart," she said with a grimace, "But the Lantern Council is now in place that sets the codes and ensures the Lanterns have nothing to fear from another rogue Guardian. But I will say this, seven hundred years of war changed us all, John. I fear we are headed for that again."
Jadicus cleared his throat, and then asked, "Tell me more about this Ambrosia?"
She smiled and said, "Ambrosia steals a god's invincibility for a short while."
"It depends on the potency of the drink on how long it impairs a god's powers," Dorn Dre said.
"Oh! You know about Ambrosia?" Jadicus asked Dorn Dre.
"Only through the myths of Ptah and Ro'Dan," he said, "It's a tale of strength and horror at the same time."
Leetha shook her head in agreement with the two Lanterns, and then said, "Ptah always had Oriona by his side in all the good and bad that he had done through the years, but she was a machine, a sophisticated robot with a metal casing, but the mind of an ancient Nymph. He had placed her into a humanoid body a thousand times, but every time Oriona would feel the pain of growing old, growing frail, and experiencing a possible death. But Ptah had the ability to make his wife's body young again, and would repeat the process until she would beg to return to the flying disc."
"Did you say Orion or Oriona?" John asked.
"Oriona!" Dorn Dre said with a grimace.
"We have a powerful being on Earth with a flying robot named Orion," John said, "He's a tall, powerful being."
Leetha gasped. "Probably not the same," she said. She paused for a moment, and then said, "When Ptah and Oriona were working on the plan to build the Speed Force, he asked her, 'Will you become flesh for me?' She looked at him for a moment, and said, 'No, my love. It's too painful for me to put my mind into the body of a Trilobite, grow old, and then repeat the process at your behest. Let me stay like this?' Due to the fact he had so much love for Oriona, he did leave her alone, but she also wanted to please him. Therefore, she found an old, dying Trilobite who lived a wonderful life aboard the Celestial Kingdom with her husband. They were both next to death when Oriona offered them youth as long as she pleased the god Ptah, and before she even had a chance to think about it, her husband said, 'Yes.' Oriona used a ray that came out of her viewport that turned the couple young again. Ptah had given her powers equal to a god millions of years earlier, and she often used them to please her Lord. But before she made Ro'Dan young again, she downloaded a copy of her mind into Ro'Dan, so Ptah would have a beautiful Trilobite paramour but with Oriona's attitude. Every few hours, Oriona's mind was uploaded into the Celestial Computer on Ptah's ship, so there were endless copies of her mind that they could use. During this time, he was working on curing the Kryptonians of a blight that had nearly eradicated their race. He turned the remaining Kryptonians to stone until he found a cure for their unfortunate disease. And while he was doing that, he was also creating the Speed Force to imprison his son, Hermes, for the next time he betrayed him. It took nearly twenty-eight thousand years for Ptah to cure the Kryptonians, and every day of that twenty-eight thousand years, he had sex with Ro'Dan even if she didn't want it. Every forty years during the twenty-eight thousand years, he turned her to her youthfulness, but even when she begged to die, he wouldn't let it happen. During the last thirty years of that twenty-eight thousand years, Ptah impregnated Ro'Dan three times, and Oriona hid the children; they were mixed in with the other Trilobites, and he never even knew about them. After Oriona repeatedly begged Ptah to release Ro'Dan from her obligation, he bitterly declined, so she put some errant code into the programming of the Speed Force that would sweep up Ro'Dan into it when he turned it on for the first time. She was in the room when Ptah hit the switch, and when he did, Ro'Dan disappeared into the stream, and he thought she was gone forever."
"That's a sad story," Ora Nye said with a grimace.
"That's not all of it," she said, "Ro'Dan's children used a special metal to build a ship called the She Ah Vog that they used to enter the Speed Force, but they never found their mother. Oriona sent Ro'Dan's kids into the Speed Force, but they never came out of it. But in those days, Ptah was angry with his son, Hermes, because he betrayed him again when he sided with Ganthet on the Kryptonians. Instead of negotiating with his son, he flung him into the Speed Force for twenty thousand years. But Ptah knew how to navigate the strange verse, and he went to visit his son in his captivity, and when he did, he saw a beautiful creature, tall, and blackened by the elements of the Speed Force. When he went to talk to this creature, he called her a Succubus because no matter how hard he tried, he could barely resist her allure. And when he touched her face, he knew it was his Ro'Dan, so he pulled her out of the Speed Force, but she didn't care to be with him. On several occasions, she tried to escape, but he would always catch her. Eventually, he grew tired of her defiance and chained her up in the dungeon, and every night he came to her, he forced her to please him and then left. The first child that Ptah and the Succubus made was Incubus, the second child was Succubus, and the third child was Deceiver. And when Ro'Dan gave birth to her third child, she looked up at Ptah as she sat on the dirty dungeon floor, and said, 'My children will never love you! They will always deceive you!' After nearly one hundred thousand years in captivity, she realized that she couldn't merely escape the god Ptah. Oriona told her the best way to have a good life was to comply with Ptah's wishes, to play his game, and only then would she find her escape. Ro'Dan began sobbing because she thought Oriona had forsaken her, but that wasn't the case at all. She looked at Oriona and said, 'All I want to do is die!' The flying disc turned to her, and then said, 'Just do as I said.' It was always said that if Ptah had a conscience, then it was Oriona, so Ro'Dan made nice with the god, and did everything in her power to please him. He allowed her to walk around the Celestial Kingdom with the freedom that she deserved. One day, Oriona came to her Lord, and merely said, 'I want to see more of this verse. I'm going to spend the next one hundred years exploring every livable planet that I can find.' The Lord Ptah simply shrugged his shoulders and allowed for his first wife to leave his side. Meanwhile, Ro'Dan continued to please her master, and then one night, she served him a drink so tasty that he could barely resist it. When he gulped it all down, he realized that it was Ambrosia, but a pure form of it. When he drank Ambrosia, it only limited his power to heal others. It wiped out that ability, but all his other skills were intact. Ro'Dan walked in front of him, in the nude, and holding a golden dagger in her right hand. 'I loved you as my Lord, but I hate you as my lover,' she said as she held the dagger to her own throat. Before he had a chance to react to her she slit her throat. The blood spewed out, and he tried to heal her like he did a million other times, but he couldn't. He began screaming for Oriona, but she was exploring the verse. He then screamed for the Great Mother, but she refused to help. 'I would never help you, Ptah, to continue to abuse this poor creature,' The Great Mother said, 'She finally won.' "
"So, she died?" John asked with a grimace.
"She did," Ora Nye said, "Her death is celebrated throughout the verse as a sacrifice for the greater good."
"That's true," Leetha said, "When it came to his love life, he learned to treat his partner better, and it improved Oriona's life. But the reason why I bring this up is that several worlds throughout the Dark Corridor worship Ptah and hold Oriona close to their hearts. Keep this in mind."
Later in the afternoon, right before the Lanterns left the mountain, Leetha pulled John to the side. "Who is this being on your planet who has a flying robot?" She asked.
"He calls himself Vulcan," he said.
She had a scowl on her face, and then said, "The Thanagarians called Ptah Vulcan."
"You look worried, Leetha," John said.
She scoffed. "It could be my grandfather."
The Lanterns stood outside of the barracks. It was a warm afternoon and the aroma of barbeque unicorn permeated throughout the area from Niba Rus's grill. Drill Lantern Katma sat on the porch of her abode and polished her boots. Lanterns from other barracks sat outside of them and polished their boots too, but not all Lanterns wore footwear as the humanoids did. Some of the Lanterns practiced hand-to-hand combat out in the field while other Lanterns carried their suitcases off the property because they couldn't handle the stresses of the school.
Flying cars littered the skyline and the sounds of the town folks partying traveled up the hill.
Several of the Lanterns sat on the warm concrete, polished their boots for the next day, and joked about some outtakes of the previous day's training. When John looked up, he saw Brack Lo with his bags walking away from the barracks, and that bothered him. He was in a group of other Lanterns and they all looked depressed, but firm in their decisions to leave. Immediately, John flew over to him, and asked, "Where are you going, Brack Lo?"
Brack tried to smile but struggled with it, and then a tear rolled down his face. "I gave my ring to Drill Lantern Katma," he said, "It's over for me." The other failures continued to walk toward the front gate at the bottom of the hill, but Brack stood with John for a moment.
"Why?" He asked, "Why are you giving up so easily?"
"Because I'm not cut out for this, John," he said with a brittle voice. "I'm not about smashing heads and cutting bodies in half with one of the deadliest weapons in the verse. I'm from a race of pacifists."
John scoffed. "Being a Lantern is more than being violent, brother," he said, "Not only are we peacekeepers, but we're diplomats. Your world needs you to be a Lantern."
He placed his right hand on John's left shoulder, and said, "You're a good man, John Stewart. You'll be a great Lantern." He then quickly walked away and left the young earthling in the middle of the field with a look of dismay on his face, but when he looked up, he noticed Drill Lantern Katma watching him from her abode.
Jadicus walked over to him, and said, "Did you think you could change his mind, Stewart?"
John smiled, and then said, "You know I did." He then shook his head in disappointment, and asked, "Did Mari-El leave us too?"
Jadicus scoffed and then pointed over his shoulder, and when he turned to see what he was pointing to, it was Mari-El practicing with Ora Nye with her power ring.
"That's what I'm talking about," John said, "I guess Ora's tummy is feeling a lot better."
"Yeah," he said, "She complained earlier, but that was about it."
When John and Jadicus returned to the rest area right outside the barracks, Dorn Dre was still polishing his boots, and then the other two Lanterns began doing the same thing. They sat on a flat piece of concrete with John's shoe polish being shared between them all. Niba Rus roasted an entire unicorn on the large, enclosed outdoor grill, and some of the other Lanterns played a game they called Simbus, but it looked similar to volleyball to the young earthling. A Lantern named Trello Geer from the planet called Vega Prime brought a music box in the vill and began playing music that sounded like some kind of electronic funk. He was a somewhat tall creature with fur all over his body and a red patch of fur in the center of his chest. But when the music started playing, he began dancing all over the grassy area in front of the barracks.
Meanwhile, twenty-five Lanterns that came from all the surrounding Barracks left with their baggage, and it shocked John because nothing seemed hard about the course so far; but at the same time, not everybody was cut out for military life. It must have taken two hours for all the Lanterns who were going to leave, and the rest of the Lanterns were outside enjoying the nice weather.
"We all won't make it," Dorn Dre said as he placed his shiny boots on the concrete. "Something makes us leave, something makes us stay." He looked directly into the shine and seemed to enjoy his work.
"We had only one person who dropped out in our platoon," Jadicus said with a smirk. "But it's because we have you, John Stewart, inspiring us. That's why almost everybody here has done so well." He looked at Dorn Dre's boots, and said, "You're cheating!"
"Thanks, Jadicus," he said, "That makes me feel good."
"It's true," Dorn Dre said as he snatched his boots from Jadicus. "How do you cheat in boot polishing?"
"You're using something extra," he said, "I've been in the Thanagarian Army, Dorn. I know the tricks."
Niba Rus was turning the unicorn meat in the large smoker, and said, "I agree with Jadicus on that. We would've lost several Lanterns if not for you motivating us, John."
"Thanks, Niba," John said, "We all have added to this platoon. Your grilling skills help keep me motivated."
"Dorn, your boots look like glass," John said with a look of shock. "I know you, bro. What's your trick?"
He began laughing, and said, "Dragon grease."
"I knew it!" Jadicus exclaimed, "You little trickster! Now pass it over."
"John?" Brack Lo said as he stepped on the concrete platform.
"You still here?" Dorn Dre asked.
"I think I made a mistake," he said, "Can you come with me to discuss this with Drill Lantern Katma?"
John reached into his pocket, pulled out Brack Lo's ring, and said, "You're a Lantern, Brack Lo. I see it in your eyes and feel it in my heart." He handed him the ring.
"How did you know?" He asked.
"I had faith in you, brother," John said.
Jadicus began laughing and laughing hard.
"What?" John asked.
"We're halfway through this course, and I think we're going to finish with everybody we started with," he said, "It's possible."
Niba Rus held up a piece of the unicorn meat, and then said, "Let's eat, Lanterns."
Eight Years Earlier:
Po'Lariet Von was stationed on the Moon Oriona that overlooked the dying, sentient planet Brion Noir, a beautiful sapphire world with nine large oceans full of all types of fish, nymphets, fairies, and three-headed dragons. In the old world, the planet was called Dora, a sentient body that Ptah loved, but a million years earlier, he renamed the planet Brion Noir because of his undying affection for her. He spent so much time with her that he populated the planet with the brown unicorns, the ones that he thought were the tastiest.
By renaming the planet, It was a way of disguising her so Cronos Zeus, his father, wouldn't try to destroy her as he tried in the old verse out of spite for his son. But in the days of old, a race of trilobites lived in the world, and they attended to Ptah's every need. They were a plentiful race of sapphire-colored, lower lifeforms. But when the god made deep, passionate love to Dora while it existed in the old verse, his energy mixed with her energy, and not only did it produce the planet Moxia, but it morphed the trilobites into an ambered colored people called Ochrenians.
The overly crowded Moon Oriona wasn't too far from Brion Noir, approximately one hundred and eighty thousand miles away, and when Po'Lariet looked out the window of her sweet-smelling abode, she could make out land structures on the dying, ancient world. She made Oriona her home since she was passed over for the position of the Premier Lantern of Moxia, a coveted position for any Lantern who resided in the Dark Corridor. She had some unicorn horn tea brewing in a machine attached to the far wall, and it gave off a sweet aroma that permeated throughout her home. She poured some of the tea into a small cup, walked out to the front porch, and enjoyed the view.
Her front porch extended out far enough for her to have about fifteen guests on it, dancing, and mingling. On the left side of her front porch was a high-rise grill that allowed for her to cook a full-sized unicorn in it, and she often did when she held local events with her snooty friends. The front porch itself was made out of a synthetic material that looked like authentic wood, but it wasn't. She was the cousin of Prince Nefare and the niece of the King, and when it came to her father, he was the Duke of Ishtar State, and his name was Por Jerric Von. The wealth of the Von family was beyond anything that could be imagined, but the offspring often tried to live modestly. Moxia's population was over eight hundred billion individuals strong, and they only populated a quarter of the landmass in the world. There were eight different types of humanoids who originated in the world, and they all considered the trilobites as their ancestors.
Po'Lariet was bitter, somewhat agitated because she wanted to be the Premier Lantern of Moxia, a position that would've suited her well when it came to mediate peace between the Northern and Southern regions of her world. But during a dog fight a few years back with a rowdy Thaddican fighter, it damaged her warp engine and caused a vital fluid to drain from her ship, and when that happened, the result was her traveling back in time to Earth to the year two thousand. She didn't realize that she had traveled back in time, but she did know her location in the universe, and it was clear across the galaxy. In order to get the materials she needed to fix her engine, she gave a scientist some vital technology that changed the course of history on Earth, and it alerted the Federation of Planets Time Bureau Division.
By the time she made it back to her region of space after months of travel, the Time Bureau had tracked down her vessel, arrested her, and brought her in front of the Council of Time Monitors. The council had twelve members on the board from different regions of the universe, and when she stood in front of them, she thought they would put her in prison in the Speed Force on one of the hostile planets located on the inside. She remembered how sorry she felt for herself on that day, and her mistake tarnished her reputation within the Royal Family of Moxia. Not only did they have her in handcuffs, but they had taken her ring, placed it inside of an unbreakable glass case, and threatened to make sure she would never wear the Lantern ring again.
"Lantern Po'Lariet Von, the Council of Time Monitors have charged you with breaking three rules of the Time Travel Code," Ionic Vlask said as he stepped in front of her with a creepy grin on his craggy face. He looked withered and old, and he walked with a cane. His forehead protruded out a bit, and his eyes were sunken into his head. He wore a white robe like all the other members of the council. "How do you plead?" He asked.
Before he could finish his sentence, she said, "Not guilty, sir!"
"Did you not travel back in time four years, and give Earth technology that leaped them forward in technological advances?" He asked with a look of disbelief on his face.
"That was merely an accident," she said, "I didn't realize I had slipped through time, sir. The Thaddican fighter damaged my warp engines, and I punched the accelerator as hard as I could. I did what I had to do on that day."
One of the council members named Misha Pligus pushed a button, and the light directly in front of him lit up. He had pinkish skin with ears like a pig, thick, dark eyebrows, and sapphire eyes. He was a fit-looking specimen, and when he stood up, he was approximately six feet in height. But when he talked, he had a nasally voice that Po'Lariet found annoying. "Lantern, I read your file and your record puts you in the top tier of Lanterns. Why did you break protocol by giving the earthlings tech? Even if it was an accident like you said, you knew Earth was a primitive rock."
"I did," she said with a look of contrition on her face. "But I had to barter to obtain the materials needed to fix my engine."
Ionic Vlask scoffed, and then the monitor at the front of the room turned on, and the King, Sir Thordic Von appeared on the screen with a young Prince Nefare by his side. The Prince was only about fourteen years old at the time and he had on his black military uniform with the black beret. The Von family crest was on the front of his hat. He had a serious visage and sat next to his father as a man.
"Dear Council, Lantern Po'Lariet made an egregious mistake by traveling back in time and giving the primitives Moxian technology," Prince Nefare said, "If you show leniency, we will punish her on Moxia, a punishment fitting for Lady Po'Lariet Von."
Ionic Vlask looked over at his councilmen and then back at Prince Nefare. "What might that punishment be, Prince?" He asked. "To merely let her go with a slap on the wrist isn't honorable."
"We have overlooked her for the Premier Lantern of Moxia and given it to a Doraxian," he said as he showed a ballroom full of fancy cars on the monitor.
Some of the councilmen said, "Those are some nice hovers."
"Not only do they hover, but they have warp capabilities," the King said.
"What?" Po'Lariet asked. "I'm not going to be Premier?"
"You've embarrassed your king and your family enough, Po'Lariet," the Prince said, "This is your punishment. Councilmen, do you agree?"
"We do, Prince Nefare," Ionic Vlask said. "When can we pick up our conveyances?"
"They are being delivered as we speak, Honorable Ionic Vlask," Prince Nefare said with a serious visage.
The glass case that held Po'Lariet's ring opened and the ring flew to her right index finger.
Immediately, she pulled herself out of her thoughts, and said, "Damn them all to the pits of Hades!" She had hate in her heart for the Prince, and no matter how hard she tried to move past it, she couldn't.
She flew over to the armory in the middle of Veona Prime, a large airbase on the moon; it was where her primary office sat, and she had an intern from Brion Noir named Croyolo Le who worked in her office. The race of people on Brion Noir was orange in color, and they called themselves Ochrenians, a proud people that ranged from dark orange to light orange in color. He was an amber-colored Ochrenian Warrior who grew up in the badlands and raised with a horde of Nymphs, Elfs, and Mermaids. He had high cheekbones and broad shoulders, and when it came to the Lantern Corp and the Federation of Planets, he didn't trust any of them. A Lantern enforced intergalactic laws and upheld the wishes of the Federation of Planets; they had no loyalty to any planet.
When Po'Lariet walked into her office, Croyolo was at his desk eating breakfast. He had his feet on the table, but when she gave him a nasty snarl, he dropped them to the floor. She looked over at him consuming his food, and it looked like some honey biscuits with uni-gravy over potatoes.
"Is that uni-gravy?" She asked with a soft smile.
"That it is," he said, "It's one of my favorite dishes."
Her office building only had four rooms in it: the main room with two desks, the kitchen area, and two back rooms with cages in them in case she needed to lock up somebody that charged with a crime.
She looked over at him, and asked, "Are the metals ready to be escorted to Moxia?"
"The ship came first thing this morning," he said as he continued to munch away on his food. "It's on the south end of the airbase. The crates are huge. I believe it's two hundred thousand tons of tantalum."
"That's correct," she said, "It's used in the manufacturing of electronic devices." She walked over to his desk with her arms folded. Not only did she have the rare metal on her mind, but she was concerned with the unicorns dying on Brion Noir; they were the animals hit first and the hardest when the Thaddicans damaged Brion Noir's core.
"I'm surprised your government is still allowing the consumption of uni-meat," she said as she watched him devour his food.
"They have stopped us from feeding off the local uni-meat, but this stuff is from Vega Prime," he said, "It's not as good as what we have but it's okay." He paused for a moment, and then said, "I heard about the attack on Prince Nefare." He rubbed his forehead with his left hand as if it truly stressed him. He then set his bowl on the desk and looked up at the Lantern.
"Yes," she said in a terse manner. "I was on Vega Star when it happened, but the Prince was not harmed."
"Didn't you encourage him to leave? To go back home to Moxia where it's safe? Moxia is one of the biggest worlds in the Dark Corridor. He would be safest with his own people."
She scoffed. "The Prince is his own man and it's not within my rights to tell an elite what to do," she said, "I would love for him to be back on Moxian soil, but he wants to attend school on Vega Star. The Prince gets whatever the Prince wants."
"But if he's assassinated, it will throw the entire Dark Corridor into chaos," he stressed in a loud voice. "Brion Noir can't take another attack, Lantern Po'Lariet. My world is dying as is."
Po'Lariet thought for a moment about the Lords of Decay, and then said, "The Lords won't come this far into the Dark Corridor, if that is what bothers you, because of the Treaty of Intergalactic Peace."
"When have the Lords obeyed any treaty?" He asked, "Have they not threatened Gorgonia on multiple occasions and raided Fraragon? It's only a matter of time before the Lords attack Gorgonia and kill off the royal family."
For a moment, she almost smiled but held herself back. "The Lords are powerful, but the Federation of Planets can keep them under control," she said with a less than serious visage. She knew that wasn't the case, but she wanted to calm her intern a little. It had already been determined that if the Lords attacked Gorgonia, it wouldn't be met militarily, but diplomatically. The Lantern Corps planned on using sanctions against Decay and starved their economy if they attacked Gorgonia.
But at the same time, Po'Lariet didn't trust the Lantern Corps fully because she knew the turmoil on Moxia was caused when the Lantern Corps and the Federation of Planets negotiated a better treaty with Drago Banter and left some of the other major regions out of the negotiations. It caused eternal strife that helped cripple the comity between the Northern and Southern regions of Moxia.
Po'Lariet shot an emerald beam out of her power ring, picked up all the crates, and situated them in the ship. It was more of a panoramic ray that came out of her ring, and she loaded the crates carefully and placed them in the center of the bay. Croyolo helped guide the crates to their exact position in the ship, and then when she set them down, it made a loud thump. He wore his yellow jumpsuit for safety reasons, but his regular clothes were underneath it.
She landed in front of him as he exited the ship, and said, "We're done for the day."
"Cool," he said with a smile.
When he walked off the Flightline, she thought she heard breathing but from a distance, and then she used her sixth sense to see if she could detect another lifeform in her immediate area. Slowly she turned in a counterclockwise direction obedient to her extraordinary abilities to sense anomalies. Suddenly, she saw a displacement near the freighter, and said, "Show yourself?" Suddenly, she heard somebody clear their throat.
"Can I just say, this post has made you lazy?" A male's voice said. It originated from near the freighter, and the Lantern Hal Jordan appeared before her eyes.
She scoffed. "Why must you bother me while I'm in exile?" She asked with a grimace. Carefully she walked over to him, tapped rings, and then embraced. "It's been a minute." When she saw it was Hal Jordan, she immediately felt better because they went through Lantern Basic together and were on the same team. For a short while, they even had a fling, but it ended when her father found out about it.
"I've been meaning to drop by ever since I heard about your troubles," he said, "But I've been working with Sinestro on a project."
She looked somewhat agitated because of the thought of going into the Speed Force. "They would've banished me to the Speed Force if not for my uncle," she said, "I could've ended up on any one of the prison planets inside of the prison." She placed her hands on his muscular chest, and then said, "What is Sinestro planning?"
He paused, looked around the area for a moment, and then said, "We have eight very strong Lanterns on our side, and we're going to take over the Lantern Corps."
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"Sinestro will rid us of the Guardians, and lead us into a new era," he said, "The same way he did on Korugar."
She scoffed, and said, "What did Katma have to say about this?"
He placed his hands on his face as if he was worried, and then said, "She's loyal to the Lantern Corps exactly the way it is."
"Let me tell you a little truth, Hal Jordan?" She asked.
"I'm sure I can't stop you," he said.
"Katma is the best of us," she said, "She trained us and trained us well, but it was Leetha who trained her, the leader of the Sage Warriors from over thirty thousand years ago."
"I'm aware of her training," he said with a grimace. "We'll have to do this without her because she can't be changed. Even Sinestro said that she was going to be a problem."
"What about Tomar Re?" She asked. "Is he with us?"
He began laughing. "I'm not even asking that little snitch! He's been recording us as if we can't tell what he's doing. Anything he hears goes directly to the Lantern Council."
She walked over to the freighter ship, looked back at Hal Jordan, and then said, "The entire Dark Corridor will be at war within the next ten years."
"How do you figure that?" He asked.
She smiled, "Because I'm going to cause it," she said, "A little Prince of Moxia is going to disappear and it's going to throw everything into chaos." She walked up to Hal, placed her right hand on his left shoulder, and then said, "Brother, my family would go to the pits of Hades for the Prince, and slaughter an entire world for his safe return."
Hal began laughing, and then said, "You'll kidnap your own cousin?"
"It's for the good of the verse," she said, "Besides, I will be damned if they choose the Lantern T'Nead over me." She shook her head in disbelief, and then said, "Every time I see that Doraxian I want to cut off his head."
"Damn! See, we have a lot of work to do, but we have several dangerous Lanterns who could thwart our entire mission," he said, "Tomar Re, Katma, Kilowag, and T'Nead are badasses."
"It will take some serious planning to make this work, but I have the kidnapping in the works as we speak," she said, "I have a mole with the Prince as we speak, and he'll do whatever it takes for the family, but I do worry about Eli Ga'Narian Von."
"I've seen the list of all the Lanterns within the next two years who will receive a ring, Po'Lariet," he said with a serious visage. He walked around to her back, placed his hands on the back of her neck, and then said, "Eli's at the top of the list for a special ring."
"What do you mean by a special ring?" She asked.
"The ring of a Sage Warrior," he said, "A ring like Katma's ring and Tomar Re's ring." He pulled her close to him and whispered into her left ear. "It means they have been trained personally by the ancients, and at the end of Lantern Basics, they are bestowed with the ring of a Sage Warrior."
She scoffed. "No wonder everybody fears Katma!"
"That's not the reason," he said, "She's just that badass."
She enjoyed Hal massaging her neck, but then immediately grabbed his hands, pushed him away, and said, "Stop that! I thought the Sage Warriors were no more."
"I did too," he said, "All knowledge of their past deeds are blocked by our rings, but according to Sinestro, they still exist to protect the Lantern Code and to thwart any rogue Lanterns."
Coffee Shot on Vega Star:
(Before the War)
Eli Ga'Narian, Prince Nefare's cousin, sat in a coffee shop in the middle of downtown Porvo all by herself wearing civilian clothing. She had a forearm computer that was her personal assistant named Ku'Ron, and she mostly used him for information, but it also had the ability to form a shield to protect her from a laser blast and shoot a low-powered positronic laser that could kill most humanoids. She had the laser set to incapacitate.
The aroma of roasted unicorn horned coffee permeated throughout the entire shop and could be smelled all over the downtown area. The brown unicorn horns had healing properties, and a small glass of coffee promoted a healthy lifestyle. The dust from a brown unicorn horn was mixed with several different types of ground coffee beans to make it work, and when Eli drank coffee, she preferred the Torillian blend, a coffee made from beans grown in the southern jungles on Vega Star.
The shop was sparsely crowded with mostly Vega-Knights ordering their coffees and then quickly leaving. But not Eli, she sat at a wooden table with the symbol of the Vega-Knight government located on the surface. It was more of a booth seat, and she was waiting on Broady, but he had a nasty habit of arriving late most of the time.
The baristas wore light brown bodysuits with green aprons over them. They all had their hair pulled back in ponytails with their pointy ears on display, and at least two of them were Dregs. Most of the Vega-Knights had a brownish to an extremely dark brown skin tone and often a reddish hue under certain lights, and they referred to their race as Torillians in most writings and on the moon called Shi-Ro, but when speaking to any Torillian, they referred to their race as Vega-Knight, a ferocious warrior from the planet Vega Star.
As she sat at her booth, she saw one of the baristas drop the tray of hot coffee on the ground, and the fluid went all over the place but not hitting any of the customers. The owner of the shop came from the back of the coffee shop, and he was a large man with thick sideburns and a big stomach. He wore a white t-shirt and his belly protruded from the bottom of it.
"You damn, Drek! Can't you do anything right?" He said in the meanest way possible. When he called her a Drek, it was a slur against the robotic citizens of Vega Star.
"Sir, how dare you refer to her as a Drek?" Eli said immediately. She walked quickly over to the barista, and asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yes, Princess," she said, "Thank you?"
"Princess?" The owner asked.
"This is Princess Eli Ga'Narian Von," the barista said, and as soon as she said that, the entire coffee shop gasped.
"I didn't mean to raise my voice," the shop owner said, "My name is Tu'Lan Vic." Eli could see that he was visibly nervous, and that somewhat offended her because she didn't want to throw around the Von name. From the time she was a little Moxian, she wanted to move through the verse under her own merits and not the merits of her family name.
"Treat your workers better," Eli said, "That's all I ask."
"Yes, Princess," Tu'Lan said.
One of the customers scoffed and then said, "I don't care if you are a princess from Moxia. You don't tell us what to do."
"Shut up," Tu'Lan said, "She's of the Royal Family of Moxia. They own half of Vega Star."
Eli looked at the lady, and then just walked out of the coffee shop where Broady, a husky Torillian, was standing outside. When she stepped onto the sidewalk, Tu'Lan ran out of the shop, and said, "She didn't mean anything by that, Princess!"
She turned around, and said, "It's okay, Tu'Lan. Peace to you and yours." She then pressed a button on the computer attached to her right arm, and her hoverboard flew over to her.
"What was that all about?" Broady asked with a smile on his face.
"Nothing," she said, "You know how I snap when somebody disrespects others for no reason."
"I know," he said. He climbed aboard his hoverboard, and then said, "There's a lot of hostility on Vega Star. People are angry right now due to the government cracking down on businesses for their hiring practices."
"How far is Snake Bend Park?" She asked.
"About two miles," he said, "Just down the road," he said.
The citizens of Porvo moved up and down the thoroughfare on their hoverboards. It was somewhat of a crowded area with thousands of Vega Knights moving about the area, shopping, sightseeing, and enjoying the nice weather. The hoverboards usually remained on tier one of the thoroughfare but had the ability to rise to a tier two and even up to the tier four level. The tier two levels were for hovercar travel and the only time a hovercar dropped to a tier-one was when it was parked. The cars rose to a tier two level before they were permitted to travel in a safe manner, and the tier two level went up into the stratosphere. Vehicles that traveled on the tier three level were long haulers that usually traveled between states, and then when vehicles made it to the fourth tier, they were traveling into space. But when it came to hoverboards, some of them traveled fast enough at the tier two-level, but it wasn't advised to travel on a hoverboard at that level for safety reasons.
Porvo was an active city, large and beautiful, and the Dregs cleaned the streets constantly, and even though the rebuilt robots did a wonderful job on the landscape, they had lost their culture and their ability to be true Vega-Knights because of the laws the government implemented. But at one point in the nation's history, the Dregs were steeped in the Vega-Knight culture and had families until the government began to restrict their movements.
When Eli and Broady arrived at the Snake Bend Park, it was teeming with all species of humanoids, and some Thaddicans were walking along the trails. After stepping off the hoverboards, they automatically docked in the charging stations located on the edges of the park.
"I hope you don't feel uneasy around all these Thaddicans," Broady said. He was much wider than Eli and taller, but he had a usually small head compared to the rest of his body. But when it came to his ability to fix starships, he was above average.
"Not at all," she said with a smile. "I judge people by their actions." She placed her right hand on Broady's chest, and then said, "The Thaddicans made a mistake when they damaged Brion Noir's core in the war."
As they walked around the trail, several of the Thaddicans gawked at Eli, but she went about her business without paying them any attention. Every now and again a white unicorn would trot along the outer edge of the park, and then when humanoids would make a ruckus, the animals would run into the deep woods. When She and Broady walked down the trail, her head was tucked into his large right arm. But as they made it halfway down the trail, she noticed a Thaddican male coming toward her with a golden blade in his right hand.
Quickly, she held up her forearm computer, and when the Thaddican tried to strike her, the knife couldn't pierce her shield. It made a spark so big that it caused Broady to fly back onto the ground. "My back!" He screamed.
"You have a bounty on your head, Princess!" The Thaddican exclaimed. His voice was gruffy and he had hair that looked wild on his head. He snarled at the Princess and his canines resembled the fangs of a wolf. Often, Thaddicans sharpened their teeth when their world went to war with another world. She had fought plenty of Thaddicans in holographic simulations, but never in real life, and she felt the nervousness in her tummy. "And I'm going to collect." He seemed strong in his convictions about killing her, but he was a skinny humanoid with pasty white skin, and all he had on his person was the golden blade.
She brought her forearm close to her body, and the blue lights on the device turned red, and then a positronic ray shot out of it and immobilized the Thaddican. He began screaming as the ray burned into his chest, and then he fell back on the grass. She leaped into the air and stomped his face with her right boot. But after about the third-foot stomp, Broady picked her up around her tiny waist, and said, "That's enough, killer."
"He threatened to kill me," she lamented, "Don't ever mess with a Princess in the middle of an ass-whooping."
"There are too many onlookers for you, a Princess, to allow them to see you fighting," he said, "Everybody had cameras and was filming you."
When he set her down, they were in the center of the park near some large bushes. The Thaddican was still in her view, on the ground, and struggling to climb to his feet. Several of the Dregs in the park made an attempt to help the would-be assassin to his feet, but he took exception to that and tried to push them off him. She stood directly in front of Broady with her arms folded but had her eyes on the Thaddican the entire time.
"He threatened to kill me, Broady," she said, "It's a dog-eat-dog world around here."
He scoffed. "But you're not a dog," he said, "If you had killed him, the enemies of the Von family would've used it against you."