Hunters of Justice

by trestwho

Remnant has fallen, its cities captured and its greatest defenders defeated at the hands of the alien conqueror, Brainiac. In the aftermath of his victory, the people of Remnant's last hope lies in the hands of two teams of students, whisked away to another world. A world where Gods walk among them.

66. The Green Light of Will, Part 2

Hunters of Justice (RWBY/DC)

Chapter 49: The Green Light of Will, Part 2

---

The space surrounding Brainiac's mothership had become chaotic and cluttered, filled with the shattered remains of rocky asteroids, icy comets, metallic drones, and the dead bodies of Lanterns. Far too many for Kyle Rayner to count, with their mangled, frozen, and bloated corpses just floating about in the void of space, any trace of who they were lost forever. Normally, other Green Lanterns would've made efforts to recover their bodies, but this battle was far too hectic to risk doing so. Any who tried only made targets of themselves for Brainiac's drones. Many had been injured or killed while attempting to try, including Kyle himself who was busy nursing a large bruise on his side, and by now they all knew it wasn't worth it. Any attempts to recover their comrades' bodies would have to wait until after the battle was done.

With each death, the Lanterns' motivation to bring Brainiac to justice only increased. Kyle was reminded of this as he saw yet another Lantern unceremoniously be cut down by a hail of laser fire. Nearby Lanterns responded immediately by decimating the drones with reckless abandon, then flew off to destroy more.

"Kyle, are you good?" Boodikka, a Bellatrixian from Sector 1414, asked as she flew by. Forming a large axe from the stump of where her right hand used to be, she cut apart anything in her way with a smile on her face. Bellatrixians always did love the thrill of battle, and Boodikka was no exception.

"I'm fine!" Kyle replied as his ring finished patching him up. He would likely need more specialized medical attention once the battle was over, but for now he could still function.

"Good," Boodikka replied, grinning at her fellow Lantern as he removed himself from the asteroid he was floating on. "Can't have you missing all the fun!"

"Wasn't planning on it," Kyle replied with a small smirk of his own. Boodikka laughed, then flew off to rejoin the fight against Brainiac's drones.

Rather than go with her, Kyle veered off and headed towards one of the many support ships that had emerged from the mothership. They were, by far, the biggest threats in this battle aside from the mothership itself. While the drones could whittle them down into a death by a thousand cuts, just a few direct hits from those support vessels were enough to take a Lantern down. Luckily, several had already been destroyed, cut apart by combined fire from dozens of Green Lanterns each.

As Kyle flew through the sparking husk of one, he could see its internal workings. Far more than any machine he had ever seen, it surprised Kyle with how organic it actually looked. He could see vein-like structures, wiring that superficially looked like nerves. Even the tentacles that formed from the base of the skull-like ship were structured like muscles. It was as though Brainiac took an organic skull, replaced anything organic with machinery, then enlarged it to obscene levels.

Scowling at the unspoken yet understood all the same insult and desecration, Kyle sped forward to one of the last remaining support vessels. Bright and intense yellow lasers were firing out at any Green Lantern nearby, who were buzzing around the ship and attacking it with their rings. Most were comparatively simple, such as continuous, thin lasers that were training across the silvery-grey hull of the warship or even bursts of more intense fire upon gun emplacements. Others were forming stationary weapons or mobile vehicles to fire upon the ship, and the more bloodthirsty members of their ranks were attacking it directly with axes, swords, hammers, and other melee weapons formed out of hard, green light.

Kyle, however, considered himself to be an artist. Simple lasers and swords, while certainly effective, were far too boring for him to really consider. He preferred a more artistic, flashier approach, one that let him stretch his creative mind to its limits. With a smirk on his face, Kyle blocked an oncoming laser with a large brick wall, shielding himself and a few other Lanterns who would've been caught in the crossfire. Without missing a beat, he shifted the wall into a series of gun emplacements, organized into rows and columns of heavy autocannons. Emerging from hatches, the guns opened fire, raining thick green bullets onto the ship's hull. Metallic dust was kicked up as the bullets drilled deeper into the armor.

He was only able to keep the fire up for a few moments, however, before a thick tentacle swung up to swat him aside. Quickly dissipating the wall of guns and flipping back to avoid the strike, Kyle formed a large pair of scissors to cut the tentacle in half as it swung back around. Another came up from the side, and Kyle formed a large chainsaw that he held out in front. The teeth cut through the metallic muscle effortlessly, a shower of sparks raining down all around him. Other Lanterns nearby began to assist in cutting apart the tentacles before they could harm them. One Lantern was grabbed by a tentacle, swatting her aside and sending her stumbling back into the void, but Kyle caught her quickly with a baseball glove.

Shifting gears, Kyle concentrated before thrusting his arm out. A large, serpentine dragon emerged, and it flew in an oscillating pattern across the ship's hull. Biting and clawing its way across the surface, destroying any gun battery in its way, it soon homed in on a particularly large hole in the hull. Latching onto the wound, the emerald dragon began gnawing and pulling it apart, making the hole larger and larger. Soon it began digging deeper, kicking out bits of metal and debris behind it. Realizing what he was trying to do, flights of drones converged onto Kyle, but the other Lanterns realized as well and quickly protected him. A few blasts managed to glance off Kyle as they slipped through the gaps, but Kyle powered through the pain.

After a few moments of digging, Kyle dissipated the dragon and quickly flew over to inspect the damage. He could now see into the interior of the warship, but to his dismay he could not see the power core. His first instinct was to form a massive drill and continue burrowing into the structure, but after a quick glance he could see that time was not on their side. The other Lanterns helping him were getting too tired, their rings running low on charge. Realizing that he had to end this now, Kyle flew back a bit before spreading his arms out.

Emerging from his ring, Kyle formed a massive suit of mechanical, translucent armor with him in the center of its chest. Copying his own movements, the mech pulled out a laser sword then drove it down into the hole he just formed. The metal sizzled and boiled as the laser cut through, and the armor itself protected Kyle from the attempts at retaliation. The armor was thick, so it took an intense minute for him to cut through, but eventually Kyle could see a faint glow from the ship's power core. With a smirk he put away the laser sword and flew back on a pair of jet turbine wings. Once he and the other Lanterns got clear, Kyle transformed his suit's arms into a pair of laser cannons, and he aimed both right at the hole he had just made. Firing both weapons at the same time, twin beams of emerald light shot forth and blasted straight through the weakened armor. The ship's weapons powered down, and it began to shake dangerously as sparks and fire started bursting from the seams.

"Get back!" Kyle yelled as he deconstructed the armor and flew back as fast as he could. The other Lanterns did as well, and just as he reached a safe distance the ship violently exploded. It still sent Kyle tumbling back, but with the power of his ring he was able to right himself fairly quickly. Turning around, he looked at the wreckage of the warship, and he allowed himself to smile. In the distance, he saw another warship explode as a separate group of Lanterns finished it off, then another. Soon, the only thing left was Brainiac's mothership, and the thousands upon thousands of drones that continued to fly out of its hangar ports.

"Lanterns, on me!" Kyle yelled out, then flew towards the mothership as fast as he could. Hundreds of Lanterns, from all across the universe, joined him, eager to finish Brainiac off. As they approached, they heard a voice ring out across all channels, and Kyle recognized it instantly.

"The hull is breached!" Kilowog announced as a large explosion and rush of air came out of the back of Brainiac's ship. "We're going in!"

---

Running through the hallways, Qrow and Penny refused to stop for anything. Both of them knew that, if they did, Brainiac would seize the opportunity to recapture them. If their containment was unpleasant before, it was guaranteed that Brainiac would make it even worse should he get his hands on them again. That was something they weren't looking forward to, and so even as Brainiac sent scores of drones at them from every hallway they passed, they kept running.

The only problem was that they had absolutely no idea where they should be running to.

"This ship is like a goddamn maze!" Qrow spat as he ducked underneath a volley of plasma fire from a swarm of Brainiac's drones. As the plasma struck the drones behind him, Qrow lashed out with Harbinger in its scythe configuration, cutting the drones around him apart before using the weapon to pole vault over the rest. When he landed, he lashed out again, chopping off the heads of at least a dozen more before moving onto the next.

"I noticed," Penny flatly remarked as she, with a combination of Floating Array and her newly obtained Winter Maiden powers, blasted apart the drones in a cold, righteous fury. Bright, neon green lasers were drilling into the drones through their chests and out the other end into more, while others were dismembered by more swords connected to Penny's back by thin, strong, flexible yet controllable strings. At the same time, a whirlwind of icy snow was swirling about them, freezing drones in place before flinging them hard against the walls, shattering them into tiny pieces.

Qrow was secure enough in himself to easily admit that Penny was doing most of the heavy lifting during their escape. Which was only to be expected. As a robot, she didn't have to worry about getting tired or suffering from malnutrition like Qrow was currently experiencing. While he was more than capable of holding his own, and had experience in going for long periods of time without much sustenance, it was still wearing him down. In comparison, Penny was at full strength and ready to go right from the beginning. More importantly, as Fria showed then bestowed during her final moments, Penny was now the Winter Maiden. That meant she was one of the six most powerful people from Remnant. The only thing holding her back was that Penny only had the powers for, at most, an hour. Whereas Fria's magic, while exceedingly powerful and awesome, was carefully directed and applied with the aid of decades of practice and experience, Penny's applications were clumsy, brutal, and far less efficient. There were several times where Qrow not only had to dodge an oncoming attack from one or more of Brainiac's drones, but he also had to avoid the edges of Penny's wayward attacks.

That being said, she was proving to be a fast learner, something that Qrow noted as Penny created ice copies of Floating Array to slice apart another group of drones in their way. Given enough time, Qrow was confident that, just as Fria had apparently foreseen, Penny would grow into her powers and become a fine Maiden. But they had to let her get to that point.

Continuing to slice apart the army of drones trying to recapture them, Qrow fell into a familiar rhythm. A drone would fire plasma or an electrified cable at him, and he would either dodge or parry the blow before retaliating with a strike of his own. Mostly a swipe or a stab, but sometimes he would switch it up by stabbing a drone and throwing a haymaker at another, then pull the sword out of the first drone's corpse to slice another in half. It was times like these, Qrow mused as he did just that to a group of three drones trying to wrap him in cables, that he wished he had some ammunition. That would've made this so much easier. If nothing else, it'd at least add to his options. From what Ozpin said, Brainiac was a master of analyzing patterns, and if Qrow or Penny became predicable then he would ruthlessly exploit that.

With the horde around them beginning to thin, Qrow ducked as Penny shot three ice blades into the chest of a drone behind him. She, meanwhile, kept her focus on the others, flying overhead as she decimated everything in sight. Never once did she raise her voice, nor did she even speak unless she absolutely had to, even as her face was drawn into a focused scowl. Qrow, even as he ran and spun around with Harbinger outstretched to slice apart anything in his way, could easily recognize what Penny was feeling. It was something that all Huntsmen, once they were in the business long enough, experienced. The loss of a friend or comrade would always weigh heavily, and Penny was letting it drive her completely. To be honest, Qrow would've been worried had Penny not been acting this way, if she had reacted as though Fria's death didn't even matter. The fact that she was angry enough to go into a tranquil, revenge-driven fury was proof enough that she was, at her heart, human. Especially when compared to literally every other robot Qrow had met in his life.

Finally, the latest swarm was cut down, with only the top half of a single drone, pulling itself forward on the ground with just one functioning arm left. It was swiftly put down after Qrow dispassionately stomped its head in, and once again they had a moment to breathe. As much as Qrow would've liked to keep going, and as much as Penny was more than able, he was feeling tired. With heavy breaths, he wiped the sheen of sweat that had accumulated on his brow, then he felt a cool air flow around him. Turning to his side, he saw a concerned Penny looking at him, her eyes sprouting bright green flames that matched her irises.

"Thanks," Qrow said with a soft smile on his face, which Penny returned with a nod.

"You're welcome," She said, then while keeping the breeze up she walked away slightly to stand guard over the area, on the lookout for enemy reinforcements. With her back turned to him, Qrow couldn't help but frown, knowing that he was slowing her down.

"Listen, Penny," he began after a soft sigh. "You should—"

"If you're going to tell me to leave you behind and go on my own, my answer is the same as last time," Penny curtly interrupted without turning around to look at him, her tone final. "I've already lost one friend today. I don't need to lose another."

Despite himself, Qrow couldn't help but chuckle, then he asked, "I've known you for barely more than an hour, yet you consider me a friend?"

"Why not?" Penny asked, finally turning around to give Qrow a soft smile. "I was friends with Ruby after knowing her for even less, and you risked…everything to come get me. I say that makes us friends."

Qrow stared at Penny for a moment, then rolled his eyes while saying, "Well, when you put it like that, I guess we are."

Penny didn't say anything, with her only response being a toothy grin with closed eyes. After a moment, she adopted a more serious expression, then she quietly asked, "Speaking of…"

"Ruby's alive," Qrow immediately answered, knowing exactly where Penny was going. "So is Yang and the others."

Penny took him at his word and sighed in relief. She then said, "When we get out of here…maybe we can see them again."

"I hope so," Qrow replied, clenching his fist around Harbinger's handle as his lips fell into a slight frown. "Gods, I hope so."

Penny looked at him silently for a few moments, then she quietly nodded. Qrow nodded back, then he got up off the wall he had been leaning against. They began running down a hallway, moving away from the sound of approaching drones. A few were in their way, but they quickly and ruthlessly cut them down before continuing their escape. Neither of them had any idea, as of yet, how and where to do that, but they figured that so long as they kept running they'd be able to find a way out eventually.

As they ran, they continued to feel the ship rock and vibrate as the battle outside intensified. It had been going on for several hours now as per Penny, and it showed no signs of slowing down. While the risk of the attackers being hostile to them was still ever present, the fact that it was still going on for this long kept Qrow's hopes up. If someone could give Brainiac this much of a thrashing, that meant they were worth meeting at the very least. Then, much to their surprise, they felt a particularly large tremor that nearly knocked them off their feet. The tremor was followed by a brief gust of air as the atmosphere was pulled away to somewhere else in the ship. It lasted for only a moment, but the cause was clear, nonetheless.

"That was a hull breach," Penny quietly noted, her eyes widening as she and Qrow stared down the hallway where the air was pulled.

Dropping to his knees, Qrow pressed his ear against the ground and concentrated. Filtering out the background noise as best he could, he tried to discern what, exactly, caused the hull breach. After a few moments, he could faintly make out frantic, incomprehensible barking, squawks, and more, structured in a way that was far too organic to be from machines. Listening in for a few more moments, he could make out high-pitched laser blasts, followed by dull crashes as metal was crushed by an unknown force.

Shooting back up to his feet, Qrow gasped, "That wasn't just a hull breach, it was a boarding party. Whoever these people fighting Brainiac are, they got people inside."

Penny's eyes widened further, then she asked, "Were you able to hear where they got in?"

Qrow shook his head, then answered, "No, too much noise and echoes. Could've been from anywhere on the ship."

Penny narrowed her eyes for a moment, then her irises shifted and adopted a more mechanical appearance. The alien walls surrounding her disappeared, becoming translucent and allowing her to see the advanced, complicated yet surprisingly organic-looking structures held within. Filtering everything out except for the unique thermal signature of an organic body, Penny could see Qrow as a bright red, orange, and blue silhouette. She quickly swiveled her head, looking around the ship to find wherever the boarding party was at. After a few moments of desperate searching, she saw over a dozen thermal signatures spreading out from a singular point, with more rushing in right behind them.

"I found them," Penny announced, shifting her vision back to normal. "They're above us, at least a hundred floors."

"Well, that ought to be easy to climb," Qrow quipped, then shook his head and steeled himself. "Alright, let's head straight there."

Penny nodded, but just as they began running off at full tilt, the hairs on the back of Qrow's neck rose. The world seemed to slow as a dark red portal suddenly formed in front of them. Realizing immediately what was happening, and acting on instinct, Qrow turned and grabbed Penny. Unable to stop their momentum, he shoved her sideways, even as he stumbled from her metallic weight. Gasping in surprise, Penny rolled to the side and onto the ground, and in horror she looked up as Qrow began to fall through the portal.

"Save yourself!" he ordered just as he was pulled into the void, and a moment later the portal itself disappeared. Penny could only stare blankly at the spot where Qrow had just been, her jaw hanging loose.

Snapping back up to her feet, Penny desperately began trying to search for him, but not a moment later the first of Brainiac's reinforcements arrived, forcing her back into the fray.

---

Falling through the portal, Qrow landed hard on the other side, his back hitting the cold, metal floor. Beside him, Harbinger clattered against the ground for a bit, but luckily was within reach. Without missing a beat, Qrow spun around, grabbed his weapon, then in the same motion stood back up with his sword raised.

"You know," Qrow started, narrowing his eyes as he slowly looked around at the position he found himself in, "I should say that I'm surprised…but I'm not."

Around him, Qrow felt each and every surviving member of the Branwen Tribe staring him down. They were in a large, spherical chamber, with blocky platforms raising up in a stair-like fashion from the central area. Standing on each individual platform was a bandit, each of whom were staring down at him with haughty, almost hungry eyes. Some were standing upright, others were down on their knees and hunched over. All of them had their hands hovering near weapons of some kind, but Qrow couldn't exactly see what they were concealing. After more than two decades since he last laid eyes on the whole tribe, he didn't recognize anyone other than Raven. Not that he really expected any of the familiar faces from his youth to have lived this long anyway. For all the talk of being 'survivors,' their lifestyle didn't really lend itself to living to a ripe old age.

Either way, Qrow quickly moved his attention to the two women on the floor with him. One, a young woman with short black hair, tanned skin, and a large black tattoo of a bird rising up from flowers, he didn't recognize. Judging by the fact, however, that she was standing to the right of Qrow's sister, he could tell that she was high up on the tribe's totem pole. Perhaps even the second in command.

"Qrow, Qrow, Qrow," Raven said with an almost disappointed sigh as she began walking back and forth behind her right-hand woman. She stared at Qrow, her red eyes drilling into his own, then asked, "Did you…honestly think that you could stage a breakout and Brainiac wouldn't notice?"

"Up until you stopped by to say hello, I'd say things were going pretty well. All thing's considered," Qrow darkly replied, keeping his weapon raised and his eyes trained on his sister. At the same time, he made sure to monitor what everyone else was doing, not lowering his guard for a second.

"I don't know what Ozpin has been teaching you these past few years," Raven started as she shook her head yet continued to walk back and forth, "but running through hallways of a ship randomly, directionless, with an army of drones attacking you every step of the way, isn't 'going pretty well.'"

"Better than staying put in a cage, doing whatever Brainiac tells you to do," Qrow retorted, then narrowed his eyes. "But that's all you know at this point, isn't it?"

"You shut your mouth, traitor," the woman next to Raven barked and snarled. "You have no right to-!"

She was interrupted by the sudden wheezing laughter of the filthy Huntsman, who barely stopped himself from doubling over.

"Traitor?! Oh, that's a good one!" Qrow's laughing fit trailed off into rough chuckles. He scanned the young woman up and down, and a small amount of the amused disgust in his eyes was replaced with pity. "You're pretty young, huh? I'm guessing you were either born into this, or you were taken long enough ago to not really remember any life before this?"

He ignored her grinding teeth at his assessment, then shook his head before giving her a hard glare.

"I used to be the same," Qrow continued. "Raised to be a weapon along with my sister, taught to view everyone else as the enemy, never knowing what life was actually like anywhere else. Until Beacon."

The cold disdain returned in force as he scanned the rest of them, then he yelled, "Murderers and thieves, that's all that this so-called family is. If anyone's a traitor it's you, all of you! Traitors to humanity, to the whole damn world! As if killing and feeding innocent people to the Grimm wasn't enough, now you're kissing the ass of the monster that destroyed Remnant! All for what? For another day of your empty, stolen lives?"

Qrow calmed down from his surprising venom as he finished his rant, his red eyes returning to his sister's now incensed understudy, then he said, "Leaving the tribe was the best decision I ever made."

"Easy, Vernal," Raven calmed her direct subordinate down when she reached behind her back to draw her weapons, gently placing her hand on Vernal's shoulder. With a passive look on her face, Raven looked directly at Qrow then added, "My younger brother's just being stubborn, as he always has been."

The two twins stared at each other, neither moving from their position. After a moment, Qrow quietly asked, "What do you want, Raven?"

"You're smart, even if you keep making stupid decisions," Raven replied, then had the audacity to smirk and tilt her head slightly. "What do you think I want?"

Qrow glanced around at the room then settled his eyes back onto Raven as he answered, "You want me to surrender myself back to Brainiac."

"Gets it in one. Glad to see that working for Ozpin hasn't completely poisoned your mind," Raven replied as she began to pace once again. Spreading her arms out to the side, Raven remarked, "You have to see that it's hopeless, Brother. Brainiac controls each and every facet of his vessel. There was nothing you nor that android could do that he wasn't aware of or couldn't counter. How do you think I knew exactly when to open a portal to you? While my hope was to bring the android with you, it doesn't matter. Brainiac will get her back all the same. Even if I hadn't stepped in and you miraculously managed to destroy each and every drone he sent after you two, where were you going to go?"

"First off, her name is Penny," Qrow angrily shot back, his grip tightening on Harbinger's hilt, "and spare me the moralizing. In case you haven't noticed, Brainiac's been fighting someone for the past two hours, and they've been giving him some pretty big hits. Hell, they got people inside."

"So did we, and look how that ended," Raven harshly pointed out, making Qrow's scowl deepen. "It doesn't matter if they managed to get people inside, Qrow. Brainiac is still too powerful to be stopped. The only thing that's going to happen is them getting killed and everyone ends up in the exact same place they started."

As Raven finished her sentence, yet another powerful tremor shook the vessel. Everyone shifted to stay on their feet, and Qrow couldn't help but raise his eyebrow and say, "I wouldn't be too sure about that."

Raven scoffed and rolled her eyes, then said, "I'm giving you one chance, Qrow. Don't make this harder on yourself than you already have. You're lucky I'm the one bringing you in; Brainiac wouldn't be nearly as merciful as I am. While I can't promise you that you won't be punished, you will live."

Qrow couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. With an incredulous smile on his face, he retorted, "You call that 'living?' Here's my counter: you let me go, or I do what I should've done years ago and take you and your pack of parasites down."

Raven scoffed again and placed her hand on her hip. Resting her weight on one leg, she asked, "What, is that it? Qrow, do you honestly think you can take all of us down by yourself?"

She spread her arms out in emphasis, and the rest of the assembled Branwen tribe chuckled as they stared down at Qrow. He ignored all of that in favor of continuing to glare at Raven, who's amused demeanor slowly shifted as she realized he was completely serious. Her smirk gave way, and she returned his glare with her own.

"Don't make me do this," Raven quietly, almost desperately pleaded, but Qrow didn't falter once.

"I'm not making you do anything," Qrow pointed out without missing a beat. "All of this, Raven, is you."

Raven and Qrow stared at each other silently for a few moments, neither moving a muscle. The room became utterly silent, with only the occasional tremor breaking the monotony. It was so quiet, Qrow could hear everyone's tense breathing. Finally, Raven released a sigh and hung her head, then placed her Nevermore mask over her face. Looking back up at him, Raven raised and clenched a fist, then swung it down as hard as she could.

Reacting to the signal, the members of the Branwen tribe whipped out their concealed weapons. Rather than the cheap guns, swords, and axes that Qrow was expecting, his eyes widened at the sight of the clearly alien weapons in their hands. Their swords and axes had glowing, purple lines tracing up them, with the edge of their blades coated in what looked like plasma. While their guns weren't any larger than handguns, their sleek, geometric designs with glowing purple bits had Brainiac written all over them.

"Oh, you motherfu—" Qrow began, then dove to the side as the plasma bolts rained down on him from all sides.

Refusing to stop moving for even a second, the volume of fire proved to be too much, and Qrow gasped in pain as several shots hit their mark. Fighting through the burn and staying upright after a near stumble, he thanked the Brothers that the alien plasma guns that the bandits were outfitted with were clearly set to stun, and that the bandits themselves were lousy shots. The vast majority of plasma bolts simply went wide and splashed against the metal, leaving a harmless scorch mark but nothing else. But, given the sheer amount of plasma being sent his way, it didn't really matter as nearly every second at least one bolt slammed into his body and sent him reeling from the pain.

The rest of the bandits, including Vernal, were eagerly waiting for their turn, their enhanced weapons at the ready. Raven, meanwhile, had retreated to a vantage point near the top of the room, overlooking the battle below like a bird of prey. Or, more accurately, like the scavenger she was named for, waiting for its prey to exhaust itself before moving in. Qrow, trying his best to parry the plasma bolts with Harbinger, looked around the room as fast as he could, trying to find a way out of this situation. If he did nothing, eventually his Aura would break, and then there would be nothing he could do.

Realizing that playing defense was only going to get him killed, or worse, recaptured, Qrow decided to show them what a mistake it was to surround him with people he couldn't care less about, and loosed his hold on his Semblance. Some of the gunmen closest to him suddenly experienced difficulties with their weapons, ranging from wildly inaccurate sprays, to jams, to one particular unfortunate slipping off the edge of his platform as he turned to track the dashing Huntsman.

Qrow seized the opening to go on the offensive. Zeroing in on a bandit clumsily trying to vent his overheated weapon, Qrow broke from his position and slammed into the hapless criminal. The shady man's Aura flickered dangerously as his back slammed into the platform behind him, then Qrow grabbed his legs and spun him around. Hurling him across the room as an impromptu projectile, the bandit slammed into another, providing yet another opening for him to exploit.

Their moment of surprise gone, and with Qrow now directly in their midst, the once gleeful bandits began to panic as they quickly tried to target him again. But they were no match for a fully trained and experienced Huntsman, who tore through the gunmen's ranks like a grey blur. Their shots went wild, some of which hit their own men instead of Qrow. Once he was done with one side of the room, he leaped across and over the heads of the fighters on the ground who tried swinging at him, where Qrow landed on the next level of platforms before repeating the process all over again.

"Not so fun, picking on a man who can fight back, is it?!" Qrow rhetorically asked as he knocked a gunman's plasma pistol out of his hands then threw a series of punches into his face. When his Aura broke, he threw another for good measure, breaking the man's nose with a sickening crack and sending blood spraying.

Qrow released the man, then with a snarl jumped down directly into the midst of the rest of the gathered bandits. Transforming Harbinger into its scythe configuration, he swung it hard around him. Bandits were knocked back and into the air, their screaming, flailing bodies helplessly colliding with the platforms and wall. Vernal, however, was able to jump over his swing and deliver an upward kick into his chin, knocking him off balance.

Stumbling back, Qrow immediately had to parry oncoming attacks from multiple bandits wielding plasma swords and axes. Out of everyone present, outside of Qrow himself and presumably his sister, only Vernal had a weapon clearly of Remnantian origin, albeit with alien touches to upgrade it. She was carrying a pair of ring-shaped blades with double-barrel pistols in the centers. Unlike Qrow, she had ammunition for her weapon, though he wasn't sure if the potent laser beams were powered by Dust or Brainiac-tech as she swiped, shot, and occasionally threw her weapons at him alongside her comrades. Raven, meanwhile, continued her observation from above, her hand resting on Omen's hilt.

Refusing to back down even as the bandits attempted to beat him into submission, Qrow quickly shifted Harbinger to its sword configuration and held the blade up horizontally, blocking the bandit's blows. Pushing them back, he curved the blade slightly, then threw it like a boomerang. It swept across the bandits, with Vernal ducking underneath while most of the rest were struck, but Qrow was already closing in. As she raised her head back up, Qrow immediately socked her in the face a few times with his fists, then kicked her away before grabbing his returning weapon. He then scooped up a bandit and, using Harbinger like a golf club, swung his blade into him. The victim was sent hurtling into the recovering bandits, scattering them like bowling pins.

Soon, only Vernal and one other bandit was left. The man was panicking, and with a yell raised his axe and charged at him, hoping to end the fight now. But Qrow, without even breaking eye contact with Vernal, merely ripped the weapon out of his hands and swung it hard down into his chest, shattering his Aura in one blow.

With dozens of broken yet still alive bodies laying around them, Qrow and Vernal stood directly in front of each other. She was holding both of her weapons in a defensive stance, a deep scowl on her face. Qrow, meanwhile, passively looked at her, then glanced up at where Raven was watching. She was no longer there, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Hastily raising Harbinger behind his back, Qrow blocked Raven's oncoming strike, then turned his head to look at her from over his shoulder.

"Was wondering when you'd step in after sending your goons to wear me down first," Qrow remarked, then pushed her away as Vernal charged at him. He parried her blows with his own before quickly blocking another slash from Raven, and soon the trio descended into a heavy two-on-one brawl.

---

Storming into the mother ship, Kilowog and the rest of the boarding party were immediately beset by swarms of Brainiac's drones. Armed with plasma cannons embedded into the palm of their hands, the humanoid drones attacked them from all sides. As soon as one was taken down, it seemed that yet another would emerge to take its place. The two-dozen Lanterns inside the ship were outnumbered by at least a hundred to one, making each moment a fight for their lives.

But, given what was at stake, it was a situation that Kilowog gladly accepted being in. He knew the rest of the Lanterns with him were, as the humans liked to say, in the same boat.

"Come on, you bunch of poozers!" Kilowog called out as he crushed a group of nearly a dozen drones with a giant green fist. He put so much willpower into it, the sound it made sounded like a booming cannon.

At the moment, the assembled Green Lanterns hadn't left the room they entered. The bulk of their forces were concentrated on the door, preventing Brainiac's drones from breaking in. Their more technologically inclined members, including Stel, his fellow robot C.H.A.D., and the living bio-sentient mathematical equation Dkrtzy RRR, were busy hacking into Brainiac's systems. Normally Kilowog would've joined them, but at the moment his skills were needed elsewhere.

"Directive achieved," C.H.A.D. emotionlessly called out as he disconnected his arms from an access port. "Uploading map of mothership to rings. Highlighting containment cells, science labs, and bridge."

"Perfect," Kilowog replied with a smile on his face as he brought up the map in question. True to C.H.A.D.'s word, the skull-like vessel and its maze of corridors and rooms were easily seen, with their position represented by blinking dots. The rooms of interest were automatically highlighted in a darker shade of green, and already Kilowog was mapping out the best path forward.

"C.H.A.D., Stel, Dkrtzy, are you all okay?" Arisia asked in concern while firing rockets at the oncoming horde. "Brainiac didn't try anything, did he?"

"His attempts at subverting my will were inadequate," C.H.A.D. replied, but there was a hint of anger behind his words. To anyone who hadn't fought alongside the robot for as long as she had, it sounded the same as he normally did, but Arisia could tell. From the erratic blinking of Dkrtzy's Green Lantern logo-shaped body and Stel's stomping towards the front of the group to take on Brainiac's drones directly, she could tell they felt the same.

"Alright, we stick to the plan!" Kilowog called out, dispersing the map as he flew up above his Lanterns' heads to blast away the rest of the drones coming at them with a wide beam of light.

They all knew what the plan called for once they got into the mothership. The two dozen Lanterns were divided into four teams of six Lanterns each. Alpha Team, led by Hal, were to head up to the bridge to try and apprehend Brainiac himself. If they could not, they were to at least disable the ship's controls and weapon systems, thereby making the rest of the mission easier. Bravo Team, led by Kilowog himself and joined by Arisia, Isamot Kol, Vath Sarn, Dkrtzy RRR, and Tomar-Re, were to head into the science labs to locate and liberate the captured cities. While they didn't have the technology yet to reverse their shrinking states, it was their hope that either such technology could be found in what they'd capture from Brainiac or, in time, it would be developed independently, allowing them to place the cities onto suitable planets. Gamma Team, led by the empathic shapeshifter Xrill-Vrex, were to proceed to the containment cells and free whoever was trapped inside. Finally, Delta Team, led by C.H.A.D., were to hold the line at their entrance point for extraction should the mission go south. While Kilowog had every confidence that they would succeed, only a fool didn't have an exit strategy.

Immediately moving to fulfill their assigned tasks, the Lanterns broke off and raced down the corridors. As they did, more of Brainiac's drones moved to intercept, but they were immediately cut down by a hail of green gunfire, courtesy of C.H.A.D. and his twin-rotary minigun. With the path clear, the three teams of Green Lanterns split off as they came to an intersection with multiple branching paths. Hal led his team upward, blasting their way through any drone in their path while the rest continued downward. An army of robotic drones, each devoid of anything approaching life, much less free will, stood in their way, but they were no match for the might of a Green Lantern, much less a group of them.

Splitting off from Gamma Team once they reached the level of the science labs, Kilowog stood at the front as they faced the heavy resistance head on. Blocking the hail of plasma fire with a thick wall, Kilowog charged forward while roaring defiantly, using the wall itself as a battering ram. The drones were pressed against the surface, then flattened as he slammed them against the ship's actual wall.

Beside him, he watched as Arisia swung a spiked ball into the drones, crushing them under its massive weight and force. Tomar-Re was right beside her, blasting the drones apart with simple yet powerful laser blasts from his ring. A few drones attempted to flank them from either side, but both veteran Lanterns had each other's back immediately, destroying them before moving on to the rest of the swarm. Far less effective as an actual fighter, Dkrtzy focused on giving support, firing debilitating pulses that disoriented the drones and made it easier for the rest to take them down.

Kol and Sarn, standing side by side as always, had thrown themselves deep into the fray, loudly counting how many drones they bashed, crushed, or shot with their mace and axe, respectively. Kilowog always felt they were an odd partnership, one that didn't get off to the best start. Why the rings decided to pick a Lizarkon serving in the Thanagarian army and a Rannian solider while the two powers were at war with each other was beyond Kilowog even to this day. That rivalry certainly caused them no shortage of problems, but luckily they eventually managed to sort out their differences and become genuine friends. Friends that liked to keep a running tally of how many enemies they defeated during every engagement, but that kind of rivalry was one that Kilowog was more than happy to encourage.

"Five-hundred and six!" Sarn remarked as he bashed the head of a drone in with his axe, then as he chopped off the arm of another and bisected it from the waist in the same swing, added, "Five-hundred and seven!"

"Oh, is that it?" Kol taunted as he, wielding a mace in each hand, demolished any drone in his path. "I'm at five-hundred and eight!"

"Gagh!" Sarn grunted as he redoubled his efforts, and Kol could only laugh as he did the same.

"Kilowog, we're approaching the bridge!" Hal reported as Kilowog's ring came to life.

"We've entered the containment cells as well," Xrill-Vrex chimed in. "We're cutting into the doors as we speak, but we're facing heavy resistance."

"Just keep holding them off and get as many people out as you can," Kilowog ordered as he finished off the last of the drones. With more coming up from behind them, he and the other five Lanterns with him rushed off as fast as they could, barreling through anything in their way.

"We're at the science labs!" Kilowog reported as they approached a large metallic door marked with an upside-down triangle composed of three purple dots in its center. Pointing at Kol and Sarn, he barked, "You two, get that door open. Arisia, Tomar, stay with me to hold these poozers off. Dkrtzy, as soon we get inside tap into the ship's computers and start severing its connection to the cities. Do it carefully, we don't know if there's a failsafe or not."

Dkrtzy rapidly blinked a few times in affirmation while the rest of the Lanterns moved to fulfill their tasks. Kol began firing a continuous, high intensity beam along the outer seam of the door, with Sarn grabbing the exposed edge with a pair of hydraulic pincers to pull it apart. The rest, meanwhile, stood with their backs to the door and faced the oncoming hordes of drones head on. The drones were so numerous, it was like a sea of metallic limbs rising up from the depths of Hell. The worst part, in Kilowog's opinion, wasn't the number, though. He had faced similar odds before in his long career.

No, the worst part was just how in sync all of the drones were. Normally, a rush towards a singular point by hundreds or thousands of combatants was a chaotic mess, with individuals stumbling and being trampled over as the rest tried to be the first ones there. But Brainiac's drones weren't like that at all. They were moving with one mind, one purpose, and with how humanoid their bodies were, it created an all too uncomfortable and uncanny feeling.

Kilowog let that feeling motivate him as he formed a pair of miniguns wrapped around his wrists. Aiming his weapons at the horde, he fired thousands of rounds per second at them. The bright green bullets tore into the metallic flesh, sending sparks and fluid splattering everywhere. His fellow Lanterns joined him, with Arisia creating a mounted machine gun that she used to cut them down as well. Tomar-Re, floating above them, formed a cloud of small, circular drones that fired precise beams into the skulls of their enemies, while Dkrtzy, floating beside him, fired pulsating orbs into the heart of the horde. The orbs exploded as soon as they connected with something, leaving the Lanterns themselves untouched but Brainiac's drones decimated.

"How's that door coming along?!" Kilowog called out as he was forced to take a few steps back from the onrushing horde of drones.

"Almost there!" Sarn reported, the bulkhead groaning as he continued to pry it apart, with Kol joining him.

"Well, hurry it up!" Kilowog yelled, swapping out the miniguns for arm-mounted flamethrowers that melted the drones as soon as the neon-green flames made contact.

"Kilowog, we're in!" Hal Jordan reported. Behind his voice, Kilowog could hear an explosion as the door to the bridge was destroyed, undoubtedly allowing him and the rest of Alpha Team entry. A moment later, Kilowog heard his own door be pried open, followed by Kol and Sarn hurling it back down the hallway and crushing any drone in their path.

"Block them off!" Kilowog ordered as he, Tomar-Re, and Arisia immediately began welding the ragged edges of the door to the inner hull, turning it into a makeshift barricade. As they did, they could hear the drones outside attempting to break down the imperfectly sealed barrier, but for the moment it held. There was no telling, however, how long it would last.

"Everyone, inside! Now!" Kilowog ordered as they turned around and rushed inside the science labs.

It was easily the largest room in the entire ship, packed from floor to ceiling with neatly arranged and organized experiments. As a scientist himself, Kilowog was able to recognize what many of them were. Spectral analysis on exotic materials. Advanced technology disassembled for study and possible duplication. Even recovered artifacts from countless civilizations that Brainiac had destroyed over the centuries. All of it was proudly displayed for any to see. The sight disgusted him, and he couldn't help but let out a growl as they converged onto a second set of doors. Without needing to be told, Kol and Sarn began cutting and prying it open while the rest stood watch.

"Kilowog, we have a problem!" Hal suddenly reported in a minor panic, causing Kilowog's ears to stand upright.

"Talk to me, Hal. What is it?" Kilowog asked, clenching his fist as he surveyed the room.

"It's Brainiac! He's not here!" Hal revealed, causing Kilowog's eyes to widen.

"What do you mean, he's not there?!" Kilowog barked incredulously, causing Tomar and Arisia to look at him in shock.

"I mean he's not on the bridge!" Hal clarified. "He's somewhere else on the ship!"

"Where?!" Kilowog called out, a sinking feeling forming in his gut. At the same time, Kol and Sarn finished opening the door with a loud squeal as the metal was pried loose.

"Got it! Let's get the-! Get the…" Kol began, only for his voice to trail off as they looked inside the room.

Kilowog and the other Lanterns shot their heads over, and their eyes widened at the sight. The room itself was composed of a single bridge with a wide circle in its center that stretched from end to end, hung over a deep abyss. Hardlight rails lined the edges, and observable from all sides were countless spheres. The spheres, floating and gently bobbing up and down, were hung like leaves on a vine, stretching so far down that Kilowog couldn't see the bottom. Each one housed a single city, and with the ones that were closest to them, he could just barely make out people staring out and looking at them.

But that wasn't what drew his attention. Instead, it was the lone, massive figure standing in front of a console, disconnecting himself from cables with shrill hisses of air shooting out. The figure turned to face them, and Brainiac stared at them all with dispassionate purple eyes.

"Kilowog? What's wro—Oh God, he's with you at the science labs, isn't he?" Hal quietly asked, and as Kilowog clenched his fist in righteous anger he nodded.

"He is," he confirmed, and he heard Hal curse under his breath before saying he was on his way. But Kilowog barely even heard him, instead keeping his attention entirely focused on Brainiac himself.

"I knew that, in the unlikely event of the Green Lanterns making it past my defenses, you would come here," Brainiac revealed, speaking in all too calm of a voice while anger boiled up inside of Kilowog and the other Lanterns. "Clearly I will need to update them to ensure this doesn't happen again."

A brief, heavy pause hung over the room as both sides stared at each other. Then, with a roar, Kol shot forward, blasting at Brainiac's chest with a laser beam. Brainiac simply stood there and took it, then when Kol got close enough the Coluan cyborg grabbed the Lizarkon then punched him hard in the stomach. Spittle was launched from Kol's snout as he doubled over, but before Brainiac could follow up with another punch his arm was stopped and held in place by a thick chain wrapping around it. He looked at his arm then up just as a furious Sarn slammed a spiked fist into his face. Brainiac was sent stumbling back from the force, allowing Sarn to grab his partner and pull him out of the way. With the path clear, Arisia fired a single rocket that shot forward, exploding as soon as it touched Brainiac. Dark smoke enveloped him, but it lasted for only a few moments before it dissipated, revealing their enemy to be standing perfectly still, none the worse for wear.

Growling and floating upwards, Kilowog ordered, "Dkrtzy, start getting those cities out! We'll cover you!"

Dkrtzy immediately complied, rushing over to Brainiac's terminal to begin tapping into it. With a wordless roar, Kilowog formed a single massive energy cannon that extended out in front of his chest. He fired the weapon at Brainiac, sending the Coluan skidding back slightly as he raised his arms to protect himself. As soon as he lowered them, Tomar-Re swung a spiked ball and chain into Brainiac's face, hitting him in an upward swing that knocked his head up. Undeterred, Brainiac moved with the momentum and added it to his own, spinning around to dodge a follow up attack from Arisia before grabbing her by the leg and hurling her at Tomar-Re.

Rushing forward to assist his comrades, Kilowog formed a sledgehammer then slammed it down onto the back of Brainiac's head. He double-over from the heavy blow, only to grab Kilowog's subsequent swing then use him as a shield to block a burst of green gunfire from Arisia. Kilowog gasped in pain while Arisia quickly stopped firing, but it was enough of an opening for Brainiac to hurl Kilowog at her. His body slammed into hers, but they were able to right themselves in midair before they could crash into the cities themselves.

Giving each other a quick glance, they shot back down towards the fight just as Sarn and a recovered Kol rejoined. The five Green Lanterns ganged up on Brainiac, hitting him with lasers, rockets, swords, hammers and more. Against any other target, such an assault would've ended the fight immediately, but Brainiac merely powered through the blows without much difficulty. Dodging and parrying whenever he could, he retaliated with punches and kicks of his own, accompanied by metal tentacles that extended from his back. He was using the tentacles to traverse the arena, pulling him from place to place while at the same time using them to block oncoming fire. When an opening presented itself, Brainiac would shoot one or more of the tentacles at a Lantern, striking them with enough force to send them flying back or simply grabbing them to hurl against the ground and their fellow Lanterns.

Getting struck in the chest by four tentacles, Kilowog was sent stumbling back. Before he could hit the wall, Tomar-Re managed to catch him in a glove. Kilowog gave him a thankful nod, but before he could return to the fight he heard a loud groan coming from above him. He barely had enough time to look up before a massive claw shot out of the ceiling and onto him. The claw slammed him against the wall, knocking the air out of his lungs. More tentacles were shooting out now, forcing the Lanterns to scatter. A few tried to get to Dkrtzy, but the sapient equation had formed a bubble shield around itself, preventing anything from getting to it.

Knowing that wouldn't last forever, and refusing to let this put him down, Kilowog hastily formed a swirling sawblade that cut through the tentacle. It took a few moments to go all the way through, but soon the three-fingered claw fell lifelessly into the abyss while the rest of the arm receded into its opening. Gnashing his teeth together, Kilowog swung the sawblade out as another claw attempted to pin Arisia, who was barely holding it off with a bright light shining from her ring. One by one, the rest of the claws were cut, either by Kilowog himself or by another Lantern who quickly lent their assistance in his endeavor.

As soon as the last claw was destroyed, the Lanterns charged back towards Brainiac, who met them head on with his ever present stoic and dispassionate, yet determined expression.

---

Penny ran through the halls as fast as she could in a near panic. Around her, coming from all sides, were hundreds if not thousands of Brainiac's drones. There were so many, Penny had hardly any time to think about what she was doing or where she was going. All she could do was react. Heavy winds carrying thick chunks of ice were swirling around her, slamming into drones and knocking them aside. Floating Array, stained with black fluid, stabbed and sliced into yet more drones, carving them apart like a hot knife through butter. At the same time, Penny was shooting out jets of intense flame from her hands, burning anything in her path as she continued to run.

"No, no, no! Stay away!" Penny screamed as she blasted away another swarm of drones, freezing many into chunks of ice while others melted into puddles. Eager to take advantage of this momentary respite, Penny tried switching to her enhanced thermal vision to try and determine where Qrow had been taken. But, not even a moment later, reinforcements arrived, forcing Penny to destroy them and run off as yet more emerged from the depths.

It had been like this ever since Qrow was taken from her, leaving the gynoid isolated and exposed. Penny could only assume it was Raven who had abducted him. The bandit queen likely intended to grab her as well, but it was only thanks to the quick thinking and self-sacrifice of Qrow that Penny was spared. Not that it made too much of a difference, as Brainiac ruthlessly exploited the opening all the same. Part of Penny wondered if it would've been better if she had been taken. At least she and Qrow still would've been together, and perhaps they could've fought their way out of whatever ambush he had been taken to.

The worst part was that Penny didn't even know where Qrow was. Every time she tried to find him, something, namely innumerable drones, would emerge that would require her undivided attention. She was running blind, driven purely by hope that by continuing to scour the ship she would find Qrow or someone who could help get to him. It was a blind hope at best, she knew, but she desperately clung to it all the same.

As she blasted and cut down yet another swarm of drones in her path, the last words Qrow said to her echoed in Penny's mind. How he ordered her to save herself. While he didn't have time to say anything else before disappearing, Penny knew what he wanted. He wanted her to abandon him to his fate, leave him behind at Brainiac's mercy. Or lack thereof, as Penny suspected. That alone prevented her from doing as he said. There was no way she could live with herself if she escaped, only for Qrow to suffer a fate worse than death just because he had the audacity to save her. Not only that, but Penny had lost enough friends this day, and she refused to lose another.

Rounding a corner and coming upon an intersection, Penny had to briefly steady herself as yet another violent tremor shook through the ship. Regaining her balance, she looked at the paths available to her, then picked one that led higher up into the ship as she heard more drones rushing towards her. As she expected, they were coming at her from all of the hallways, but the one she picked appeared to have the least amount. Sealing off the entrance to the hallway behind her with a thick wall of ice, Penny sprinted as fast as she could. When she came across the first group of drones, she scowled then leapt into the air. Twirling like a corkscrew, she sliced the drones apart before landing on her feet. She was already sprinting off when the drones' bodies finally fell apart into mangled heaps of scrap, but behind her she could hear the army of drones begin to melt and break down the wall of ice she had just made.

On and on she went, continuing to run blindly. At every turn, more drones emerged out of adjacent rooms, hallways, and more. Occasionally, she would see drones step out of thick tubes that ran through the body of the vessel, telling her how the drones were transported so quickly and easily. Not every room had such tubes, luckily, but there was enough to where it didn't make much of a difference for her.

Coming upon yet another set of sealed doors, Penny blasted it open with a column of flame. As the bulkhead partially melted and peeled back, she was suddenly struck in the chest by burst of plasma. She gasped in pain as she fell onto her back, and as she laid there she tilted her head to see a pair of drones approach her, their arms outstretched and their plasma cannons primed and glowing.

Scowling, Penny shot green flames out of her feet, scorching and melting the drones before she concentrated the billowing fires into intense jets that pushed her off her back before lifting her up into the air. She bobbed unsteadily for a few seconds before she managed to balance her weight on her thrust, instinctively pulling her Floating Array into a wing formation behind her back, firing short bursts of energy to stabilize her. Flying back into the chamber she was trying to enter, she didn't have long to ruminate over her next path before more drones emerged.

They immediately trained their weapons and fired upon her, forcing Penny to bob and weave in midair as she tried to retaliate. Floating Array spun around her, shifting into laser guns that fired continuous beams upon her enemies. Using her hands to direct jets of fire, she scorched any that emerged. Dozens were going down each and every moment, but it wasn't enough. More and more were emerging, barreling through the corpses of their robotic brethren without a care in the slightest. With no capacity for emotion, they simply treated their bodies as an obstacle to be ignored, a piece of debris that had no real bearing on their objective.

It was a stark, horrifying reminder of what Brainiac undoubtedly had in store for Penny should he get what he wanted. From everything he had built, it was clear that he had no real use for emotions or independent thought. Brainiac even outright told her that he regarded her capacity for emotion as an interesting defect worthy only of study. Once that study was complete, he would undoubtedly cut out those emotions that made her human, leaving her nothing more than a mindless husk to fulfill Brainiac's will. The thought of that possibility coming to pass frightened Penny, and motivated her even more to cut the drones down like she would any other Grimm.

She supposed that was an apt comparison. Like the Grimm, Brainiac's drones were mindless, endless and unceasing in their single-minded pursuit of destruction. They were even assembled in an uncanny perversion of life. The only real difference was that Penny knew exactly where the alien drones came from, whereas she had no idea about the Grimm's origins. Not that that particularly mattered at the moment as she continued to fight for her life, blasting the drones apart practically as soon as they emerged.

The air was filled with plasma, lasers, ice and fire as the two sides fought each other. One for liberation, the other for subjugation. While Penny's raw power was more than a match for any singular drone, the sheer number being thrown at her made it nearly worthless. It didn't matter how many she cut down. Neither Brainiac nor his drones had any concern for the concept of casualties. So long as they wore Penny down and captured her, it didn't matter how many she destroyed. With every plasma blast that struck and rocked Penny's body, she was reminded of how effective Brainiac's current strategy was. If things kept going the way they were headed, eventually Penny's Aura would break, and that would be it for her. One plasma blast would disable her, allowing Brainiac to bring her back into his custody.

Still, Penny fought on, trying to find an avenue to escape. At one point, she thought she managed to create an opening in the flood of drones, but that opening lasted for only a moment before more emerged and fired at her. Using Floating Array to parry the plasma blasts much like Qrow would, Penny retaliated by flying down and carving them up directly. As she moved, the newly-minted Winter Maiden left shattered metal corpses in her wake. To add to the pressure, she left a trail of fire along the ground, which shot up into thick columns of flame that encircled the entire chamber. Once she connected both ends, she flew up towards the ceiling to look at what she had wrought, hoping that it would buy her time to at least think and come up with a plan.

But, to her surprise and horror, she saw the drones shambling their way through the fire with no adherence to self-preservation. As they walked through, their bodies melted away, making them collapse onto the floor. Those which managed to retain at least some of their bodily functions kept going by crawling along the ground, but they only got so far before they shut down. Despite the fact that all of their comrades were suffering from the same fate, the drones continued to press through, falling on top of each other before yet more arrived.

Penny's irises shrunk as she took the full stock of the situation in. No matter what she did, Brainiac's forces refused to relent, refused to give up on their quarry. To them, the power she wielded might as well have been an afterthought, nothing more. A few managed to fire a shot or two before they fully shut down, which only added to the weight Penny found herself being crushed under. The final nail in the coffin was when Penny looked at her Aura, which was now down to forty-percent. Soon, it became obvious what would happen if she continued trying to do what she was doing, and her breath hitched. She wanted to cry, but no tears came.

Releasing a sigh, she looked up at a random spot of the ceiling, then whispered, "I'm sorry…"

She knew what she had to do, and by now it was clear that she had no choice. Taking a deep breath, Penny shifted her optics to scan the room she was in. Finding the wall which faced the closest to the outer hull, Penny aimed Floating Array at a singular point while also thrusting her arms outward. The swords coalesced around a single point, spinning rapidly in a circle as a vibrant, green orb formed between them. At the same time, Penny charged a fireball in her hands, which began to shake and pulsate from the energy held within. Finally, she followed Fria's guidance and redirected a significant portion of her magic into herself in the form of electricity, carefully calculating and adjusting the current with her conscious control of the magic to sustain herself without burning out her components. She felt a surge of power course through her wiring, overriding the Dust cells that previously powered her. Where she was going, they would be worthless.

Just as the wall of fire Penny had made began to die down, she released the accumulated energy. A thick jet of fire, combined with the largest, most powerful laser beam Penny had ever produced, shot directly into the metal hull. It superheated within seconds, then it powered through and out the other side. In a matter of moments, the energy boiled away the several meters of infrastructure and armor plating, not stopping for anything before it finally breached into the void of space.

For a split second, everything seemed to go still, then the room roared as the air was vacuumed out, taking Penny and all of the drones with her. She barely even had time to let out a frightened scream before everything went silent. Having involuntarily clenched her eyes shut and held her arms and legs close to her chest in a fetal position, Penny didn't do anything at first. There was this weightless sensation that enveloped her, and for a moment she thought she was dead.

But, after a few moments, she realized that she could still feel sensations. The sensation of her artificial flesh and eyes freezing and boiling away, but her systems automatically numbed whatever blinding pain that would've resulted. Slowly, Penny opened her now completely mechanical and glowing green eyes and looked around her. To her shock, Penny found herself floating in the void of space, now several miles away from Brainiac's mothership. Despite feeling the inert Dust inside of her, Penny's systems were still operational, powered exclusively by the magic Fria had gifted her. Around her, she could see but not hear an intense battle. The very same one that she had been feeling on the mothership itself.

The battle was not what she was expecting. Rather than a massive fleet of warships and fighter planes, or whatever alien equivalents there were, instead Penny witnessed hundreds of vibrant, glowing green aliens flying about. There were so many unknown species, all working in concert with one another as they squared off against thousands upon thousands of Brainiac's aerospace fighters. Rather than using standard weapons, she zoomed in on one that was relatively nearby and saw as the alien, which looked vaguely like a woman made out of rock, formed a massive shoulder-mounted cannon from a glowing ring on her finger, which she used to destroy an entire swarm of drones in one fell swoop. When another flight attempted to round on her, another alien of an entirely different species swooped in to protect her. They exchanged what Penny could only assume was thanks before they continued the fight.

Hitching her breath despite the fact that there was no air to breathe, Penny realized that her earlier fears were unfounded. Seeing such a conglomerate of alien species, all working together, fighting side by side and defending one another against the greatest evil Penny had ever met, was absolute proof that they were not her enemy. They were here to save them, or at the very least stop Brainiac from reaching whatever planet he was trying to get to. They were too far away from one for her to see where they were headed. All she could make out from the floating field of rocks that surrounded them was that they were stopped in an asteroid belt.

Knocking herself out of her stupor, Penny reeled in her scattered weapons and prepared to fly towards the nearest alien fighter, then stopped as she held out her arms. She gasped in shock as she looked upon their mangled state. Her once vibrant, pale white skin was now a deathly grey, frozen and swollen as it succumbed to the vacuum of space. Parts of it had completely fallen away, exposing the metal underneath. Slowly reaching up to her head, she could feel her artificial hair floating upward. She then touched her eyes, confirming that they were now completely devoid of the white sclera and green irises that completed her disguise. If one were to look at her now, it would be abundantly clear that she was not an organic being, and she couldn't help but wonder if the green fighters would recognize her as friend from foe.

Shaking her head and accepting that she had to take the risk, Penny tried to fly off as fast as she could. Only for the green flames to instantly sputter and die in the freezing vacuum, barely nudging her into a slow pinwheel, and of course the custom Dust emitters in her Array did nothing at all. The mechanical Maiden frowned at her feet in consternation, before the (mostly) metaphorical lightbulb lit up, and she added an injection of air into the fire she was trying to magic into being. The now oxygenated jets flared back to life beneath her feet, and Penny soared through space, dodging errant blasts as she homed in on the nearest being she could see.

As she approached, however, a swarm of drones fired upon her with yellow lasers, making Penny silently yelp as she was struck. Tumbling back through space, she barely managed to right herself as the drones flew around for another pass. Part of her said to seek cover behind a nearby asteroid, but the rest was simply enraged that, even now, Brainiac continued trying to prevent her escape.

The flames shooting from her eyes intensified, then as she kept in mind how difficult of an element Fire was to work with in this environment, instead of blasting a massive column of fire she orbited her swords in a ring around her body and channeled lightning through them with their points centered on the head drone. An arc of incandescent electrons snapped across the space between them like a plasma globe, and the drone exploded instantly, peppering the rest with shrapnel and debris.

Keeping up her attack, Penny swerved the snapping torrent into the rest, cutting them all down as they turned to escape. Only then did she release the effort, and took a few deep, instinctual breaths before getting struck again, this time from the back. Tumbling forward, she righted herself and prepared to engage again, only for a swarm of green fireworks to shoot off from above her. They homed in on the fighters, exploding in vibrant displays of color and light that left Penny shocked and amazed.

Slowly, she looked up to find the source of her salvation, and she gasped in shock. Staring down at her with confused and concerned eyes was one of the green fighters, but it wasn't an alien. Rather, it was a human. A human male with spiky black hair, wearing a green and black uniform with grey gloves that covered his forearms. Covering most of his face was a thick green mask that left only the sides of his face, his green eyes, jaw, and the upper part of his forehead exposed. On the left side of his chest was a logo, consisting of a green circle with green horizontal bands on top and bottom over a black circle and white ring. It reminded Penny, somewhat, of an old-fashioned lantern. His right ring finger had a glowing green ring on it, and from that ring came a tremendous amount of energy. Energy that enveloped the human in a green aura.

"You're…human? What?" Penny muttered, moving her jaw to make the motions but no sound came. The human, noticing this, tried to speak to her, but she couldn't hear anything. As the battle continued to be waged around her, the human then began to fiddle with his ring. A moment later, sound suddenly returned as Penny could now clearly hear the lasers blasting around her, and she flinched while involuntarily covering her ears and crouching in on herself.

"Hey, hey! It's okay, it's okay!" the human said, gently flying over to her to take her hands into his own. As Penny looked up at the human, he nodded at her then pressed his right hand to his chest before saying, "My name is Kyle Rayner. I'm a Green Lantern. Don't worry, you're safe now."

Penny looked up at Kyle Rayner in shock and surprise, momentarily unable to speak despite having a million questions on her mind. Such as how they were able to talk, whether the ring she was detecting so much energy from was powering whatever he was doing, and how was a human in space, fighting alongside aliens. But that would have to wait, as there were far more important things to worry about.

"Please, you have to help my friend!" Penny begged, causing Kyle to blink in surprise. She pointed at Brainiac's vessel and quickly added, "He's helped me escape, but he got captured! He's still in there!"

Kyle shot his eyes towards the mothership, then refocused back onto Penny and asked, "Your friend. What does he look like?"

"He's a human, like you," Penny began to explain. "Tall, with black hair, red eyes, and pale white skin. He's wearing a grey dress shirt and tattered red cloak. He'll have a scythe with him. Please, you need to hurry! I don't know how much time he has left!"

Raising his hand to his face, Kyle reported, "This is Rayner to boarding teams. We have a captured escapee somewhere on the vessel, in need of immediate assistance. Human male with black hair and white skin. Look for a scythe."

If anyone responded to Kyle, Penny couldn't hear it as Kyle turned his attention back to her. He gently said, "Don't worry, we'll get you and your friend out. What's your name?"

Feeling relief for the first time in what felt like eternity, Penny smiled and said, "My name is Penny—"

Suddenly, Penny stopped as she felt something squirm from inside her. Kyle's eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to ask her what was going on. But Penny couldn't hear what he was saying. Instead, only a deep, stoic yet menacing voice echoed in her mind, and Penny's glowing green irises shrunk to the size of pinpricks.

"Did you believe I had no greater method to stop you than mere drones? You have been mine since your initial acquisition, Project P.E.N.N.Y.," Brainiac's voice coldly informed her. "I had hoped not to use this malware I installed into your remote access function, as your defiance has provided excellent data, but you have left me no choice. You will be repaired upon recovery."

"No…" Penny quietly begged, but it was for naught as her body twitched and spasmed.

"Penny!" Kyle shouted as he watched the robotic girl lurch over, her hands shooting to the sides of her head as she screamed in fear and agony. He yelled into his ring, "I need assistance over here, now!"

Nearby Lanterns moved to respond, but suddenly Penny's body went still. She hung over like a limp doll, her arms drifting to the side and the only signs of life coming from her were the green flames framing her eyes. Then, her body suddenly shot upright, and Kyle gasped as the once vibrant green irises at the center turned into a cold purple between blinks, contrasting sharply with the ethereal emerald light that still surrounded them.

"The gynoid is not yours to take, Lantern," a cold, dispassionate male voice came out of Penny's mouth. Despite having never heard it before, Kyle knew immediately whom the voice belonged to.

"Brainiac…" Kyle growled with venom in his voice.

Penny's body, now controlled by whatever virus Brainiac implanted into her, said nothing. She then shot her arm up towards Kyle, and for a brief moment Kyle thought she would shoot one of the bolts of electricity she had used against the drones at him. Kyle formed a protective bubble around himself, not expecting to make it in time, but instead nothing happened as her outstretched palm remained empty. The nonplussed expression that Brainiac was undoubtedly wearing at the Winter Mantle's complete lack of response to his attempt to use it was mirrored on Penny's stolen face, before her body twitched for a moment. In that moment, the purple eyes returned to green, her blank expression shifted to one of abject fear and desperation, and the magic around her eyes flared briefly.

Shocked beyond words, Kyle dispersed the bubble as Brainiac retook control over her. The tyrant looked at her arms curiously, then back to Kyle before moving the swords behind Penny's back out of their symmetrical wing formation. Kyle could now see that the swords were connected to her back by wires, each now snaking around to splay out like individual tentacles before pointing at him, and he quickly twisted his body out of the way to avoid her assault.

"Don't worry, Kyle! I got it!" Guy Gardner called out as he prepared to strike her down with a spiked baseball bat, but before he could Kyle knocked Penny's body away with a green boxing glove.

"Hold your fire! She's a prisoner, not a drone!" Kyle revealed. "Brainiac's controlling her with a virus!"

"Fuck!" Guy cursed, then swapped his weapon for a much less lethal option as he moved to engage.

[~][~]

Hello, everyone! Here is the second part of the now three-part chapter, The Green Light of Will. Special thanks to NaanContributor and Jesse K for their help in bringing this chapter to life. Lots of things going on here, with plenty of action and emotion to go around. Too much to be properly depicted in just two chapters, hence the additional split into a third. We're hot at work with the next chapter, and I plan on having it up by the end of the weekend.

I'm glad you all liked Part 1 of this chapter. We put a lot of work into it and to see it get so much praise means a lot to us.

To answer the question about Alan Scott, I plan on talking about him eventually, but he's not going to be a major character in the story. That's all I'll say about him for now. You guys are correct, though, that Alan Scott isn't technically a true Green Lantern, although he was made an honorary member.

Blackfire/Komand'r is still alive, correct. More about her will come in the future.

They have tried to unlock Earthlings' Auras offscreen, but it's impossible for them. How Aura works in this story is that, while everyone who's alive does have a soul, Aura itself only manifests in Remnantians (RWBY Characters) due to their species having a sort of meta-gene that exclusively gives them that ability. No other species has that same metagene (I'm using metagene as a catch-all term to describe the genetic quirks that gives species their superpowers. Technically only humans can have the actual metagene) so they can't have their Aura unlocked. This was done specifically because I wanted to ensure that the DC and RWBY sides of the crossover remained distinct. More importantly, unlike many other franchises DC already has individuals with superpowers. Not only that, you have heroes and villains without powers fighting alongside and against those who do. Our fear was that by giving DC characters access to Aura, we would be diminishing the powers and skills they already brought to the field or would be simply adding redundancy. For example, the Flash has access to the Speed Force. On a narrative level, he does not need Aura, so adding it wouldn't do anything. Batman, meanwhile, is an example of a character who doesn't have any powers which forms a substantial part of his appeal. He willingly goes up against villains who have powers and are much more powerful than he is without blinking an eye, using his intellect, skills, and tools to tilt the odds in his favor. Giving him actual super powers would diminish that aspect of him, so giving him Aura would weaken his character. The same applies to RWBY characters. They already have Aura/superpowers, so there's no need to give them powers from DC when they can just expand upon the powers they already got. Thus we made the decision to not give Aura/Semblances to DC characters and to not give RWBY characters DC powers. I've explained this a few times before in the Author's Note sections of one or two previous chapters, but I figured this was a good time to bring it back up.

Also, this applies to a RWBY character becoming a Green Lantern. It will not be happening. That and, as this three-part chapter shows, that's a story in and of itself.

Regarding how the Maiden powers were able to power Penny, it's less of a battery and more providing a constant charge. Akin to plugging Penny into an outlet, only the outlet is coming from inside of her. That's why it was able to power her while the Dust went inert as soon as she went into space. That and, also, it's literally magic. Elemental magic, yes, but still magic. So long as it makes sense given the nature of those powers, I can do whatever I want with them.

You guys will have to wait and see as to who, if anyone, will be broken out. To be sure, however, the villains aren't going to make it easy for anyone.

That's it for this chapter. Let us know what you guys think. If any of you have a TV Tropes account, any assistance in updating HoJ's TV Tropes page would be greatly appreciated. Hope you all enjoy!