Disclaimer: Tribune and DC Comics own the characters and the original storylines, themes, location, species and other names etc. that I reference, the Green Lantern power rings, batteries, force lances and so on and on and on... To cut an extremely long story short, all I own is a vague and possibly weird desire to enjoy myself playing with all of the aforementioned. I'm out to have fun here, not make cash of any sort. Not even donations. Any characters, species, planet(s) and/or spacecraft that I design from scratch to use in this story are things that I do own...sort of. Bit hazy on the details, but then it's eleven p.m. at the time of typing this so I'm a bit hazy about a lot of things. I am also responsible for this plot, crazy though it is.
If Tribune or DC really want to use anything I create in this fic (excuse me, I'm gonna need a couple of years to finish laughing at that idea! :DDD) just contact me and we'll hash out the details. is where I can be reached for the foreseeable future (hey, I just don't have precognitive abilities like Trance, so no guarantees!). If this changes for whatever reason, I'll put the info up here along with the name, address and police mugshots of whoever is responsible.
Author: Union-Jack2.0
Rating: 'PG13' No particular reasons at the moment, I'm just playing things safe.
Spoilers: Andromeda: Harper 2.0 (vaguely, only once or twice, but this might change), The Devil Take The Hindmost (I'm going to be focussing more on Andromeda's relief efforts to Pythia, Rev and Dylan's woodland warfare activities won't be affected by my madness), Honey Offering, Starcrossed Lovers, It Makes A Lovely Light, Its Hour Come Round At Last, The Widening Gyre, Exit Strategies...actually, in short pretty much any episode after The Devil Take The Hindmost is pretty much fair game provided it meets two conditions; if I've watched it, and if I've got the thing on tape so's I can reference it. Admittedly, as the show takes yonks after its release in the U.S. before it turns up over here and I only have access to Terrestrial and Freeview channels, so that means I'm limited to just the first two seasons. And no, I'm not going to try to write about episodes I've only read the reviews of on or anywhere else. I prefer visiting that site for the news articles, wallpaper and music in any case.
Green Lantern / DC Comics in general: vague references only, I'm not going to list by issues primarily but by the names of the collected editions 'cos they're what I've mostly got: A New Dawn, Zero Hour (only vaguely—much as I love that one to pieces and I've read my copy cover to cover hundreds of times, I don't think I'll try transcribing it into prose format with, say, Trance Gemini instead of Kyle Rayner going up against Parallax—another time, later, maybe, but not now), Baptism of Fire, Emerald Knights, New Journey, Old Path, Emerald Allies (maybe), Circle of Fire (again, vaguely), JLA: World War III, The Final Night (there's a couple of ... interesting ideas I've got in that direction that I'm carefully considering, don't know for sure yet what, if anything, will come of them), Green Lantern #0 and #111(sue me, I do have some individual issues around).
Season: One, in the aftermath of Harper 2.0. Forced Perspective, The Sum Of Its Parts and Fear And Loathing In The Milky Way aren't getting tampered with, FYI as to why, Trance just doesn't use a certain ring along with her in any of those incidents for reasons that will become apparent. Sometime after GL New Journey, Old Path—I dunno if Kyle and Jen did get married in the end, but for the purposes of this, they did. It's not really that important a detail anyhow.
Pairing: I doubt it at this stage, but then it's late at night and I have sufficient stress to give a full-grown elephant a fatal heart attack and enough adrenaline in my veins to power an electricity station which is not a good mix, so I doubt a lot of things, including my own continued existence and my ability to get the grades I need in the A-level exams I recently completed. Romance is possible, it's not planned at the moment but it is doable—hey, just 'cos I'm a bloke doesn't mean I don't appreciate a good romance story. I forget who wrote it, but the 'Drom fanfic Unified put a giant grin on my face all the way through, Even Androids Play The Blues had me captivated and I actually shed tears during some bits of Echoes Of Future Past and Invictus (there's two by that name, both are great, here I'm talking about the one involving Telemachus Rhade and Beka—great stuff, well written and highly unorthodox—the sort of thing I like best and wish I could write, in other words). Call me sappy if you like, 'cos I won't give a monkey's about it. I have emotions and unlike a lot of testosterone- charged psychos my age, I am completely shameless in my feeling and expression of them. There were parts of The Longest Shortest Day In History where I came damn close to literally cheering Trance on as she went through hell and shadow and flame to save Harper's life. In Conquered Destiny, I wanted nothing more than to give Gaheris a 'Surrey-handshake' when he started deriving pleasure when he was "watching with a little pleasure as the little man squirmed and crabbed backwards in fear"—magnificent prose there, by the way. Hell, back in my school days, in my English class' production of Romeo and Juliet, I played Romeo in a couple of scenes. Seriously. As with "Of Larvae and Love", though, I. Don't. Write. Porn. There are lumps of rock that will still be more erotic than this fic even if I were to pair off the whole lot of the regular characters, an action with regards to which I doubt my abilities in any case.
Summary: Kyle Rayner, the last of the Green Lanterns, is dead. Before he died, he commanded his ring of power to take him to one worthy of bearing the legacy, worthy to become a champion and stand against the darkness of the endless night of all existence. He journeyed long and far, across the greatest depths of time and space to another universe, where The Long Night has come, and the Systems Commonwealth, the greatest civilisation in history, has fallen. Where now one ship, one crew, have vowed to drive back the Night and rekindle the light of civilisation. And it is upon the Starship Andromeda that hope lives again. Upon her decks there walks one who, unbeknownst to Andromeda and her crew, is the being the ring of power has chosen to drive back the forces of darkness...to once more shine forth the emerald light of the Green Lantern!
Sorry about the cheesiness...I think that's the lack of sleep having some very strange effects on my mind...
As before with "Of Larvae and Love", I extend my apologies to anyone who's already done something like this or was thinking about it—that's just my 'curse' at work, and believe me there's absolutely zilch I or anyone else can do about it, I've tried—it's just a run of annoying bad luck.
Author's Note: As I've said in "Of Larvae and Love", I'm experimenting. This particular wacky idea entered my mind whilst revising for my Film Studies A-Level exams, and when multiple efforts to dislodge it failed, I wrote a brief summary in a large and bloated file I keep on my computer for such things out of sheer desperation. It worked, and now I've finished the exams and have a quarter of a year at my disposal, I thought I'd build on it a little in between body-boarding, swimming about and sunbathing at my local beach.
It's weird, and I rather like the direction it's taken so far, but I'd greatly appreciate feedback. If you can see something glaringly and obviously wrong with this, call me. If you see a way in which to correct the problem, I'll be forever indebted to you. And if you have ideas about directions to take, I'm VVVV interested. Hey, I'm not pig-headed and I never let my ego get in the way of a good thing. Just go easy with your flamethrowers and what have you, and I hope you enjoy reading this at least as much as I did writing it.
Usual notice of reassurance: the characters are not going to be written with British accents. See "Of Larvae and Love" for the reasons. As with "Of Larvae and Love", I have no idea how long this will be. To quote Wong-Kar- Wai's Chungking Express, "This flight could be quite long."
The Gemini Lantern
CHAPTER ONE:
THE PASSING OF THE LEGACY
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"To know the darkness is to love the light,
to welcome dawn and fear the coming night."
—The Book of Counted Sorrows
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In the inky depths of space, emerald light twinkled. Then again. It hastened across the vastness, almost as though it were...
Searching.
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The Andromeda Ascendant hung in space, as repair bots swarmed across the damaged areas of her hull. To an unknowing viewer their activities would seem random, even pointless. In truth, they were fortifying temporary repairs hastily made to enable her flight within slipstream after heavy damage had been sustained.Seamus Harper cursed and Andromeda's hologram flinched in pain as a brief power surge passed through her generators.
"Sorry Rom Doll," he called, as he gently thumped his forehead against the panel before him.
"It's alright, Harper," she ground out through the last of the pain. "It's nothing permanent, don't worry."
"Glad to hear it," he smiled at her. "What say you we take another shot at this, huh?"
"Once more into the breach," she agreed. She then frowned.
"What is it?"
"I'm not entirely certain. It could be a slipstream event, but something's... something's different about this anomaly. Whatever's coming through is far too small to be a ship."
"An escape pod maybe?"
The hologram shook her head. "No. It—it's like it's the size of a human..." Her eyes widened in shock as she paused. "That's impossible!" Klaxons sounded and warning lights flashed. "Intruder Alert!" Andromeda announced over her intercom system. "Condition Red! Intruder Alert!"
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"Andromeda! Report!" Dylan shouted as he left his office at a run, force lance at the ready."One intruder, a human male. He's in Medical. Dylan, this is going to sound insane, but I detected what appeared to be a slipstream portal just now, and this man is all that came through. He also seems to be able to pass through solid objects, as he went through my hull as though it wasn't even there."
"Just great," he growled. "One of Jeger's buddies with a tesseract device. Come to finish the job, I suppose."
"No," she corrected. "Dylan, I'm not detecting any sign of tesseracts. He is surrounded by some sort of energy field, which may account for how he passed through the hull and slipstreamed without a ship, but I can't get any solid readings on it...the readings I'm getting are heavily garbled, very much like when I try to scan Trance's physiology. Dylan, there's something else you should know. He's dying. He appears to have sustained many injuries, most of them life-threatening."
"It's never easy," he grumbled, running onwards.
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Kyle Rayner staggered as he regained solidity and his body submitted to the ship's artificial gravity. He approached the purple girl before him unsteadily, coughing up his own blood as he struggled to speak, causing him to drop his battery as he gagged on the life-giving fluid.Finally, he pulled the ring—his precious ring that had faithfully served him through many bitter battles and saved so very many lives—from his finger and held it out to her, scooping up the battery.
"This ring," he gasped through the waves of pain that engulfed him, "take it. You are the one...you must take up the legacy...the lantern..." He thrust the ring and battery into her hands as he collapsed to the deck, retching blood from his injuries. He rolled onto his back, looking up at her as, with trembling hands, he removed his visor.
And he winked at her. He smiled widely and hopefully, as death claimed him and his ring flashed.
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Beka, the first to arrive at Medical, was greeted by a horrific sight.Trance sat slumped and trembling against a wall, eyes wide with shock, unblinking. A large, emerald-green diamantine object lay beside her, and her fist was tightly clenched around something.
Two feet away from her lay a man who, if he was lucky, was dead. A lake of shining crimson blood seeped across the floor from his body, slowly yet steadily growing wider and wider. He wore the remnants of a shredded and tattered skintight black and white suit of some sort, and wore dark green metal gauntlets and boots. The man was young, in his mid-twenties. A mop of unruly dark hair spilled over his handsome face. Beside his corpse, an emerald-green metallic visor lay in the blood, light glinting weakly from its surface, dulled as it was in a sheen of crimson.
"Oh god Trance!" Beka cried out, rushing to her side. "Are you all right? What happened?" The purple girl turned to face her, still unblinking, still trembling barely breathing. "Trance!"
"He-he j-just died," she stammered, half-sobbing. "H-he floated in—through the wall—gave me this," she patted the item beside her, "a-and th-this ring—and he just died, Beka. H-he's dead!"
"He's dead!" she whimpered again, flinging her arms around Beka's neck and burying her face in her shoulder. "I could f-feel the pain he was in!"
Beka returned the embrace gently, slowly rubbing her hand across her friend's back in comforting circular motions as she soothed her. "It's alright Trance. You're safe, you're going to be alright."
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The ring lay on the dresser before her, where it had done so for the last two days.They'd buried the man in a disabled escape pod, the traditional spacers' funeral. Jettisoned, it had slowly floated off into space, turning slowly and quietly, floating in a deathly silence towards a nearby sun. Moments later, the pod had erupted into flames and then into a brilliant, sparkling explosion and was gone.
Andromeda had related the entire incident in careful detail to Dylan and Beka, who had later encouraged her to keep the ring and the sculpture-like object. And yet...
It disturbed her deeply. The ending of a life was never a good thing, and this young man had died horribly and in terrible agony—an agony she had shared as he died.
She had to find a way to end this, this fear. She deeply disliked it, desperately sought peace within herself. And yet, despite her efforts, she could not find it.
Finally, her courage mustered, she firmly grasped the ring.
And placed it on her finger.
A faint and slightly pleasant tingling sensation ran through her body, and she stared at the ring, which had begun to glow with an emerald light. Her tail twitched as her instincts screamed at her, trying to bring her attention to what they had noticed.
It took her a full half-second to realise her hand was covered with a glove of white fabric. She looked up at her image in the mirror.
A skin-tight green and black uniform with an emerald symbol on a white circular background adorned her slender frame, and her face was half hidden by a green mask. The clothing fitted her perfectly and exactly, covering even her tail in the comfortable fabric.
Of her own clothes, she could not see nor feel any sign.
Within the mirror's reflection, the ring glowed even more brightly, growing to a dazzling intensity. In a brilliant, blinding flash he was there, standing beside her and stretching his arms wide as though from cramp, waving away a brief yawn. It was impossible, but yet he was there.
The man who had died two days ago regarded her with a friendly expression as Trance turned to face him. He was completely green, of varying shades admittedly, but emerald green nonetheless.
"Hi. Kyle Rayner. I am—well, ah, was, really—Green Lantern. Now, you bear that title."
"Y-you—you're dead!" Trance practically shrieked. He shrugged.
"My body's dead, but ah...I found a way to put off actually dying in full, if you know what I mean. For a time, about a year or so—an Earth year, that is—I can continue to...exist...like this, in the ring. I felt that the next Lantern might need some advice every now and then to begin with—hell knows I sure could've used some when I was starting out—so I found out how to stick around. I'm dead, and I can't retain a solid form for long—at the moment I'm appearing as a light image—but I'm still the same guy. Same memories, same experience, knowledge, attitudes, reactions—the lot."
"What do you want with me?" she apprehensively asked.
He sighed. "As I said earlier, I used to be Green Lantern. There've always been Green Lanterns in the universe in one way or another—or at least, in my universe. They—and I—were heroes, champions of good and, well...you get the idea. They fought evil, saved lives when accidents happened and natural disasters struck, and generally made what could be a very hostile and unforgiving universe into a far happier place.
"The source of a Green Lantern's power lies in the ring. It's controlled by your thoughts, but you have to focus—hard—on what you want it to do most of the time. Simple things or things that are constantly in your mind are easier, things that aren't so familiar are tougher. A Green Lantern's ring enables the bearer to fly, survive in space and other hostile environments—god I sound like a cheesy robot from a low-budget TV show!—fire plasma energy blasts and create solid objects from that same plasma. Just as an example, you could sock someone with a boxing glove, carry a crate around from the other end of a room, or seal a breach in a starship's hull. They can only store a limited charge, though, so they need to be recharged from a battery—the battery for your ring's over there. This particular ring's power will last up to a week or so, but if it gets used a lot it'll run out faster.
"As to me and why I'm here, well, to cut a long story short, I was dying. I knew nothing could save my life, even my ring couldn't have saved me. It can accelerate the healing of wounds a little, but it has limits. So, I told it to take me to somewhere it was needed and to someone worthy enough to wield it—to be the new Green Lantern.
"It was...an incredible trip. Even though I was dying, I literally had my breath stolen away by some of the things I saw and felt in my mind. The ring took me to where and when it was most needed, only it was here—in a universe very different to my own and a long way into the future. To this amazing ship, to Andromeda.
"You see, you have been chosen by the ring," the spectre of the dead Kyle Rayner announced. Trance's lips quirked into a grin, ready to gently refute this claim. "You are to be the new Green Lantern. And, since my death, I have come to agree with its reasoning, having seen what I have seen of you."
"But, I—" Trance protested.
"I know all about what you're already doing, Trance," Kyle gently interrupted. "But you can do this. You have the strength, you have the creativity and a love for all life, and—" Kyle leaned a little closer, and, despite herself, Trance did so as well, as though they were sharing a grave secret. "You have a good heart. I believe that you will not be corrupted by the ring's power, not even tempted just a little."
He leaned back and sighed. "My predecessor was a human named Hal Jordan, who fought in a time when there were hundreds of Green Lanterns in the universe. Out of all those hundreds of champions, he became the greatest of them all.
"And then he fell. When his home city and all he loved were destroyed, he tried to do what he should not; break this, this natural order of things, and bring them back to life. He went insane, little by little, until he destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, absorbed the power of all the rings and batteries, and killed the Guardians of the Universe. He came into possession of ultimate levels of power, and he chose to abuse it. When I had only just gotten my ring, Earth's greatest heroes and me stopped him.
"A couple of years back, I had a similar opportunity, a similar level of power, and I avoided abusing it—instead, I gave life to new Guardians who would better guard such power. But I sure was tempted.
"You, on the other hand," he smiled confidently, "will never be tempted to abuse such power. You can do this Trance. The ring showed me a lot of this time and place since my death, and it needs a Green Lantern much more than Earth does in my time—we already had hundreds of champions. The Known Worlds, on the other hand...Captain Hunt may be a living legend, but he is not someone who has experienced this time in full—you have. You can prove to the people of these galaxies the good that is inside not only someone who has nothing in common with them, but themselves. You can show them just what they are only waiting to become.
"'Sides," he smirked, "you won't be doing this alone. You'll have your friends here, and me—I've delayed my death! I'll be around to help you when you need any, you'll always be able to find me just by using the ring and asking me to show up. Advice, tips, ideas, stories about old times—if you're willing to put up with me, I'm more than ready to talk.
"And don't sell yourself short," he warned her, "You were chosen. I was just the first guy that Ganthet—the last of the Guardians—managed to find. You want to know who I was when I got this ring?" Trance nodded, her smile matching his. "An out-of-work artist, who'd been knocking back beers in a smoky bar for a bit too long, so I stumbled out into this alleyway, right, and I'm barfing up what feels like everything I ever ate when suddenly one of the most powerful beings who ever lived drops out of the sky and shoves the most powerful weapon in the entire universe into my hands! And honestly, I do think that there are far better—and far worse—people than me he could have gotten. So, I think you'll find you'll do even better than me. And even Hal's old buddies admitted I was in his league, at least in the end before I... well, you guys buried me, you should know."
Trance sank to the floor, overwhelmed with all this knowledge. Kyle smiled sympathetically as he 'sat' beside her, cross-legged.
"I know how you feel. It was a lot for me at first too. Almost too much. But that's okay, Trance. It happened, according to some friends I made later on who'd been in the hero trade for a while, to all of those who came before me, too. But you can do this. And I believe in you, Trance. You have what it takes. You just need a little time, a little practice. But in the end, the decisions're all down to you."
She looked at the ring on her finger a moment more, calmly appraising, nearly detached; then reached out with her mind, and pushed.
She rose from the deck, suspended in a shimmering aura of green.
She turned and saw the battery where she had left it next to her bedside table. She started to float across the room to it, but Kyle held up a hand. "Trance. Don't. It's easy. Just... think about the battery. Focus on it, imagine it coming to you, not the other way around."
She nodded, gulped nervously. Another mental flex and the battery lifted, floating toward her. Trance held out her hand and touched the ring to its smooth surface. She smiled as both ring and battery glowed as the ring charged, and felt hope. She knew she could do this. She had to. She needed to.
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As she trained, Kyle would tell her about the legacy she was now a part of. He spoke of the world Oa, of the traitor Sinestro, the original and central power battery, of the Green Lantern Corps itself. How its members had come from hundreds of different worlds through the ages. It all came down to this, right here and right now: a single ring and power battery, the legacy humbling in its immensity.And the legacy now came down to her as well.
He told her other things: of the other champions he had known, of their backgrounds and amazing powers and the battles they had fought together, how they had saved Earth, even the universe. Of how he had been thrown backwards through time and had actually met the Corps and fought alongside them, if only for a short while. He gave her tips based on his own experiences when first using the ring, and warned her of the ways in which the ring's power could be countered, ways he had often discovered at his own expense.
===============================================================
Little by little, Trance practiced using the ring—her ring, as Kyle always insisted it was—in secret, engaging privacy mode wherever she was. Flight was the easiest trick, just as Kyle had assured her—although as she had never imagined herself flying as a child like he admitted to have done, so that couldn't have been the reason for it.At first she simply hovered and levitated herself about in her own quarters, but with a little encouragement she grew bolder, until she was able to complete complex and intricate manoeuvres among her plants in Hydroponics at breath-taking speeds.
She had initially dispensed with a costume, especially during her Hydroponics flights where anyone might walk in unannounced, but at Kyle's encouragement she experimented with a range of uniforms in the privacy of her own quarters. She never really settled on any single design though, and at last simply opted to let her imagination run wild each time, each uniform reflecting her mood at the time of its generation or the atmosphere of her situation.
Moving objects like boxes and tools was easy enough, and she grew bolder, manipulating up to a dozen objects simultaneously and manoeuvring them in a variety of routes and circuits. After a couple of weeks of this, Kyle suggested that since she would at some stage need to rely on her abilities to save lives, she should try moving living beings. Like plants for starters.
Trance was, initially, extremely apprehensive about this; she loved her plants as much as she loved Andromeda and the rest of Andromeda's crew after all and was worried to say the least about their safety. But after a little patient, gentle cajoling and persuasion on Kyle's part, especially after he pointed out that she might need to be able to rescue her plants whilst Andromeda was under attack or boarded, she eventually tried this technique as well. As with the other tricks of the trade, she learnt quickly. Not too quickly, but quickly nonetheless.
Constructs she got the hang of with very little training, but it took lots of practice to get details just right. Eventually, she was creating plasma constructs of plants and androids so detailed in shape, texture and movement that had Kyle not been training her himself he would have believed without question that he was looking at the real things.
Then the training went to the next step. There were some things, like barriers and protecting herself and others from attack, that Trance could not fully test on her own. For these, she would need the help of the rest of the crew.
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Trance had never been so nervous about making a trip to Command before. Still, she squared her shoulders, held her chin up proudly and looked about her with a confident, optimistic gleam in her eye. She knew that all of the others were there, for one of the informal meetings that were only sometimes arranged, and sometimes spontaneously happened.Their conversations stopped dead as she marched into Command, and she gulped nervously.
They stared at her, with a new inner strength in her stride and stance, a glowing emerald ring on her left index finger, and a form-fitting green and black one-piece costume covering her body. A slender green mask covered much of her upper face.
"Trance..." Dylan hesitantly began, "wh-what's happened?"
"Guys," she hastened, not wanting for everyone else to begin a volley of questions, something she knew she could not bear, "you remember that man who flew right through Rommie's hull only to...die...in Medical? It's kind of a long story, and I'm a bit nervous about this, so just hold off with your questions a little bit, okay, and this is tricky enough as it is." They slowly settled, interested.
"He gave me this ring and a battery before he died—the battery's back in my quarters. When I put the ring on two days later... he came to me. His, his soul as you would call it, has made a temporary haven for itself in the ring. Eventually, Kyle—Kyle Rayner, that's his name—will die, but he wanted to be able to stick around for a little while. To train his successor." This earned her a serious look from Beka, and Trance's confidence leapt a little.
"When he realised he was dying from his injuries and that there was nothing anyone could do, he told the ring to find someone—someone it judged as worthy to bear its power and take him to them so he could pass on the legacy as it had been passed on to him—the legacy of the Green Lanterns. Champions of the whole universe itself, the last of whom died thousands of years ago.
"The ring guided him to another timestream, to Andromeda. To the one it had chosen. To me."
She drifted down to 'stand' several inches above the main deck of Command and 'walked' forward by manipulating the green aura around her. Harper pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. Tyr folded his arms, features unreadable. No doubt he was seriously re-evaluating the potential threat—or power as an ally—Trance now posed to him. Let him think as he pleases, she thought to herself. It's just his way and there's not much I can really do about it.
"So...that thing's for real?" Beka arched an eyebrow.
Trance smiled as she raised her left hand. "Kyle? A little help here?" she whispered. Tyr frowned and Rommie looked a little puzzled, as they were the only ones who heard. Or at least, so they thought.
The ring glowed brighter, and with his customary flash of light, he was there. The young man nodded his thanks to her, and 'walked' towards Dylan, extending his right hand.
"Kyle Rayner," he offered by way of introduction. "I used to be the Green Lantern. Now, I'm, ah, dead. I have to tell you, I've been getting a bit nervous and excited at the same time about this, so pardon me if I'm kinda on edge a little—I haven't had a coffee in a real long time either. Anyhow," he continued as Dylan grasped his hand warily, "it's a great pleasure to meet you face-to-face at last. Trance has told me all about you, shown me some recordings of you, but I gotta say, this is...quite something for me. I wish you and Andromeda had been around in my Justice League days."
Dylan cautiously shook the emerald spectre's hand. It felt cool, smooth like water and completely unblemished. And yet...something about the feel of his form fairly crackled with life. "So...you used to be a...what, some kind of superhero? They used to be quite a popular concept in entertainment when I was a kid, but that was three hundred and forty years ago on Tarn-Vedra so..."
Kyle grinned as he stepped back and released the captain, taking his meaning. Closing his emerald eyelids, he focused for a second. When he opened them once more, he had altered his appearance to how he had looked in his uniform—with the exception of his ring and visor. "Yeah, last bearer of the Green Lantern Corps' legacy—one ring, one battery, one champion fighting evil alone—that's how things were for me at the start. My girlfriend at the time...she was murdered 'cause of the ring, by this guy working for a U.S. government agency that wanted it, so it kinda turned into something of a crusade for a while. Came to a few realisations about myself...the ring...how I fitted into the universe, both as Kyle and as Green Lantern...things got better.
"Anyway," he suddenly grinned and rubbed his hands together, "what do you want to know? Anyone?"
"Well...will this ring be harmful to any of us?" Dylan asked. "Any radiation or emissions?"
"None whatsoever," Kyle admitted. "That was something I wondered about at first myself, after I found out that there was more to the ring than it providing me with an instant suit after I put it on. But, no, there's nothing like that to worry about."
"Will the ring or its presence pose a threat to us?" Andromeda bluntly asked from a screen.
"Rommie!" Trance hissed, a little embarrassed.
"Nah, s'alright. I understand. No, there's no chance of that happening. Since my...passing, I've had a look around these galaxies you call the Known Worlds, and there's no one I recognise and no way for anyone to follow me—at least, not without another ring, a lot of skill and willpower and a ton of luck, and there's only one person I know with all those. And quite frankly, if Jenny shows up...well, I've only got a limited amount of time. If you do meet her, could you pass on a message for me? I'll get it prepared at the first opportunity."
"Jenny...?" Harper asked, eyebrows skyrocketing. Kyle grinned lopsidedly at him.
"Trance warned me about you; for your information Jenny and I were married. There was this time travel incident a few years after I became Green Lantern...long and short of it was I found a way to generate another ring in the past, and she kind of took up the mantle after she lost her powers. Her natural abilities were pretty close to what a power ring can do anyway, so it wasn't too big a change for her. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Justice League asked her to join them; they always need a 'ringbearer' around what with one thing and another."
"So," Tyr grunted, "for what purpose are you two telling us all this? You've kept it a secret so far; why reveal it now?"
"Tyr," Rev admonished, "there's no need to be so..."
"Harsh?" the Nietzschean turned to face him. "Quite frankly, Reverend, I see no good reason in wasting time getting to the point."
"It's okay Rev," Trance smiled at him as she removed her mask. "Tyr's right. There is a reason for this.
"So far I've been training with only Kyle to help—and I've gotten pretty good at stuff like flight and moving things around, but there are some things that can be done with the ring that I really need someone else around—someone, well..." She trailed off, looking apologetically at Kyle then staring at the deck, tears welling a little in her eyes.
The dead young man turned solid just long enough to take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze in reassurance. "Someone who's physical all the time," he finished. "I can go solid, but not for long. I learned most of the combat techniques by being in the wrong places at exactly the wrong times and damn near getting killed in the process."
"I...I was wondering if you could all help me with learning that stuff...just a bit more safely," Trance added, blinking back the tears and smiling a little as she looked up. "Shields and things mostly."
"Of course we will," Dylan nodded, looking over to Beka and Rommie in turn, who each gave their unspoken agreement. "One thing I'd like to know Trance, how far are you going to go with this? I mean, will you try to re-establish this 'Corps' or anything like that?"
Trance shrugged. "I'm not sure right now."
"It should be theoretically possible to make another ring and battery," Kyle admitted. "The old Green Lanterns used to make new rings from their own whenever they needed help, and I once generated a new battery from the one I brought with me —Jen needed one of her own for recharging when I had to journey into deep space—there was this whole thing with a prophecy about the end of the world, and I had to go investigate, Earth needed a Green Lantern while I was gone, so...still, it would take a lot of work to do. And if we're talking about more Lanterns, well, you've gotta be very careful. The power of the rings can be incredibly seductive, which is why in the old days a dying Green Lantern would let the ring guide them to someone it judged as 'worthy', like I did with Trance. You can't hand them around like popcorn."
"I should hope not," Dylan and the dead man regarded each other thoughtfully.
"Well," Beka grinned, rising from the slipstream chair. "Seems like you've got some competition as a 'champion', Dylan," she teased.
He smiled at this. "So it would seem. Anyway, welcome to the Andromeda Mr. Rayner, Green Lantern," he nodded at Trance.
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