The Gold Corps: Gold Justice Chapter 7: Plans, a Green Lantern + Young Justice Crossover fanfic

The Gold Corps: Gold Justice, Chapter 7 : Plans

Arisia's team was searching throughout the wreckage of the once-populated planet. As she'd told the Guardians, there was no indication of any sort of weapon or other technology used in the devastation; apparently the attacker(s) had utilized only brute force. But what sort of marauder would attack anyone and take nothing? What would be the point?

A quick call to the Guardians: "And that's all we can discover at this site, Masters. What are your orders?"

"You are to proceed to the next inhabited world. And Lantern Arisia: we cannot stress this strongly enough: whatever you find, whoever, whatever is behind these attacks, do not, repeat do not engage it in combat. You are to locate the attacker and report. That is all you do, at this juncture. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Masters." Puzzling, but clear. "But what should we do if we come upon innocents being endangered?" It wasn't in her nature to let such assaults go unchecked.

"We repeat: take no action of your own. Report to us first, and await our instructions." Pause. "You have determined the nature of the attacks. Have you determined their trajectory? What world is next in line?"

"If the attackers follow the pattern we've seen, the next world in line is an unpopulated planet, an ice planet, in fact. However, I'm receiving the distinct impression that that may not be the world we should be looking for."

"And you base this observation upon what data?"

"The attackers seem to target inhabited worlds. Were I one of them, I doubt I'd waste my time on a glaciated planet. There are other planets, not all that far off from this line, that do have life, and civilizations. But which one the attackers would go towards is…unknown."

There was a pause from the other end, and Arisia could see Ganthet's brow frowning in concentration. "You may split your team up, but place a priority upon whichever world has the highest technological civilization. If our suspicions have merit, they will be next in line. But above all, remember: we need information. Do not engage any adversary without our express permission. Oa out."

….

Ragnar's home world: Miss Martian sat, stunned, by his revelation. Ragnar's parents…slavers? "You don't know that, Ragnar…"she began.

"The evidence points towards it, Megan. How else would they have come by this?" And he gestured behind him, to the wrecked spaceship that had been his home for so long. "Even assuming what you call a 'best case scenario,' that they were among the slaves, but who somehow managed to make it to a life-boat or something…don't you think it would be doubtful that they would be able to understand and use what would surely have been, to them, unfamiliar technology? So it follows that they were familiar with it. Even as they would have had to have been…if they were the ones in charge of the…expedition" And Miss Martian could see how he arrived at that conclusion.

Analogy: an Earthly 18th century slave ship, crossing the Atlantic, its holds full of "merchandise." A successful revolt, a coup, from that "merchandise," and now the former slaves were in charge of the ship. What would they do? Would they be able to navigate the vessel? Would they know how to use the instruments? No matter how intelligent they might have been, unless they had been within visual sight of a landfall, the odds were they'd be unable to work the ship.

But those who'd been holding them in chains could.

"Ragnar, I….I don't know what to say to that…" she began. Where to begin? He was obviously distraught over the prospect that his parents, his parents, might have actually been the sort to hold their fellow beings in captivity, to be sold.

"Well, I do," he said, standing up, an expression of determination on his blue face. "Goodbye." And without another word, he lifted off into the gathering dark, rapidly disappearing from view.

"Ragnar, wait!" She called to him. "Wait, Ragnar!" She immediately flew upwards, trying to follow him, but his trail went steadily upward, passing beyond the atmosphere. {{Ragnar!}} she called, telepathically, frantically trying to reach him, but to no avail.

…

An unidentified asteroid, on the other side of the sun from Ragnar's home world: Ragnar sat, protected by his ring's field, just looking out at the stars. He didn't know what he himself was thinking about.

Culturally, he still had a lot to learn. But he'd definitely picked up on one thing: slavers were not nice people.

And the evidence pointed to his parents as being slavers. Or at least working in conjunction with beings who regarded people like him as "cargo." How could there possibly be an upside to that?

All his life, he'd nursed this fantasy of, not finding his parents, for he knew they were dead, but finding out that they'd been great people, leaders, scientists, explorers, travelers, adventurers of one nature or another.

And now this.

He sighed, there in the airlessness of space. He couldn't expect anyone else to understand. How could they? His whole world had collapsed like one of those "house of cards" they spoke of on Earth. Why would anyone build such a house? He didn't know. At the moment, he didn't really care.

He'd heard Megan's frantic calls to him, in his mind, even as he zipped out of the planet's gravity well. Right then, he didn't want to face her. He didn't want to face anyone, not right then. How could he?

He was just now coming to the realization that he'd been living a fantasy. Here he was, the forgotten, long-lost son of heroes. He'd even told the zombies posing as them, the Black Lanterns, that his parents had been good people. Apparently, he couldn't have been more wrong.

He wished he could talk to Sarah about this matter. Somehow, the being that always appeared to him as a little eight-year old girl always seemed to know what to say. What would she say if she were here now?

Why did you save her, Mr. Ragnar? She'd asked him that question, back on Earth, back on Megan's adopted world, after he'd rescued Megan from an inferno started by the zombies. Why did you save her? She'd asked.

"There was no reason not to." He'd responded then. "She wasn't to blame. She was only the bait in the trap…."

But wasn't she part of the group that tried to capture you? Didn't she try to attack you with her mental powers, before?

Well, yes, she had. Do you really think she wasn't aware of her team's desire to capture you? Come to think of it, no. No, he was sure she at least knew about those plans. So how can you say she wasn't to blame?

I guess, he thought to himself, that, really, she was to blame. Sort of. But…

But you did not blame her. Why not? He gazed out at the myriad stars, each of them with their own stories, their own secrets. "I didn't blame her because…because I didn't want to blame her. I…liked her. I like her. I…didn't want to blame her for wanting to capture or hurt me."

He could just picture Sarah sitting by him, in her school uniform, the only outfit he'd ever seen her wear, there on the asteroid beside him. So…you didn't blame her, not so much because she wasn't to blame, but because you liked her?

"Basically," he muttered into the airless void. "Basically, yes."

Doesn't she like you? Yes, that's exactly what Sarah would be saying to him, were she here. In fact, so strong was the impression that he looked around, scanning with both his ring and his senses, just to make sure he was alone.

He was.

"I….I don't see how she could like me, not with…all this."

All what?

"All this…my finding out my parents weren't…weren't nice people."

Were her ancestors nice people?

"Uhm. Well, from what she's told me, no. But that doesn't mat-*"

Wasn't she afraid to tell you about herself? About being a white Martian?

"Yes…but…."

But what?

"She's never done anything to hurt anyone. At least, not that I know of. She's always been my friend, has helped me in lots of ways."

Have you ever hurt anyone?

"No…but…"

But how is it different? She doesn't like being a white Martian, and now you've discovered—you think—something that says your parents might have been people you aren't proud of. Aren't you projecting your feelings about yourself onto her, thinking she must feel the same way about yourself as you do?

"Projecting…..?"

Have you asked her how she feels about you?

He sat up, there on that airless rock. Looked around him. "Sarah? You're here, aren't you? Where are you? And…and what are you?" His ring told him he was the only life form for many millions of miles around, but this internal conversation was becoming more complex than mere memory could account for.

I'm right here, Mr. Ragnar. I've always been right here.

And I've always been your friend.

…..

"Hoe Lee crap." John Stewart looked as though somebody had just beaned him over the head with a large blunt object. "Slavers? Man, that's….uh, gotta be rough." Hal Jordan also looked stunned.

"And then he just flew off. A-and, now I can't reach him. My-my telepathy doesn't extend that far." She sniffled. Must be catching a cold, she thought. Yeah, right.

"Well, we gotta find him," Hal said, already readying his ring. "John, you take-*"

"That won't be necessary," said a familiar voice from the door way. Ragnar had returned; he kept his gaze steadfastly on the floor and wouldn't meet their eyes. "I am back."

Megan flew—literally—to his side, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him, by sheer physical force, outside the room and down the hallway. "'Scuze us a moment, you two." And she dragged him down the hall to a room.

Once inside, she turned on him. "How dare you run off on us like that! Ragnar, we're your friends! Or at least, I thought we were! What did you mean, by running off like that?"

He still wouldn't meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Megan. I… Well. I guess I am having a hard time adjusting to…some things. Maybe I was trying to run away from the truth, in a way."

"And did it work?"

"No. I should've realized that. Again, I'm sorry."

She softened. The guy was evidently hurting. "Look, Ragnar. I—we don't know, for a fact, that those people in your mind, who put you in the escape pod, even were your parents. They might not have been. Your memories are all jumbled, and you ought to know by now that you can't trust the word of a Black Lantern, so that's out. But even if they were, even if they were your parents, even if your parents were, were the scum of the universe, that's not your fault! You couldn't help that! Any more than I could help…being what I am! You don't blame me for that, do you?"

"Of course not!"

"So how's it different? You are you," and here, she poked him in the chest, "You're the guy I….I really like. A lot." The last was spoken hastily, as though it were being crowded out by a torrent of words behind it. "It doesn't matter who your ancestors were! So…let's try to live in the here and now, okay? The past can't be changed, so all we have is the future. You don't want to go back to the past, now, do you?"

"Definitely not. Especially now."

"Good. 'Cos here's a taste of the future…" And with that, she seized him and drew him into a passionate kiss, very much unlike the platonic kiss on the cheek she'd given him earlier. It seemed to go on and on forever…

Finally, they broke apart, and she smiled up at him, there in his embrace. "I don't know about you, but the future looks pretty good to me, right now," she said.

"Er, to—to me, as well," he responded. New feelings were beginning to wake up in him, warm and tender feelings towards his…..

….his friend.

"It's like I've said, Ragnar. You're a good person. I don't care if your parents were, were Trigon and Nekron—and, boy is there ever a mental image to shake—that doesn't mean anything about you. You're you, and from everything I've seen, I don't think you can help but be a good person. You helped that little boy, you saved those people from burning to death, and you stood up to those zombies, to keep them from hurting anyone else. And all by sheer instinct! I don't think you can help but do good. It's just in your nature." She absently brushed a tear away, before he could see it. Miss Martian wasn't human, but that didn't mean she didn't have human-like emotions, or a human-equivalent sex drive. And being here, in his arms like this, was beginning to make her feel tingly, all over….in some places more than others. I can see we're gonna have some things to talk about…but not now. "So, for now, let's just take it as a given that, that you, that you're…one of us. Uhm. Liked. Okay? And we don't care who or what your parents were or might've been. Doesn't matter. You're you. And, no matter what, you're my friend."

He looked at her for a long, long time, looking deep into her eyes. She noticed his own eyes, though as black as his hair, seemed to have golden flecks in them. Something about them… "Thank you, Megan. And you are my friend, as well." And he drew her to him again, pressing her close. "I think I might've spoken with Sarah, a few moments ago. And she said much the same thing."

She drew back a bit in surprise. "Sarah? She's here?"

"No, that's the thing. She…she didn't appear to me, so much as…the conversation seemed to take place in my mind. I didn't actually see her.

"But she told me the same thing."

More data for another time. "Well, we'd best go out and reassure Hal and John that everything's okay. And, you'll see, Ragnar: nobody blames you for what your ancestors did. It's what you do that matters."

….

But what, exactly, are we supposed to do, wondered Arisia. True to the Guardians' prediction, the next world following the trajectory of the raiders or whoever, whatever it might be, was in shambles. But this time, there were survivors. Not that they were much help. "Something huge, and fast," was about the best they could get out of the shellshocked remainders of the once populated world. The only reason the ones they talked to had survived was due to the fact that they had been deep underground, in some underground storage units, or mines, doing routine maintenance work, when the disaster had struck. "And it felt like some sort of quake," one reported, "then the mine just caved in."

Arisia reported these findings back to the Guardians. "And nobody seems to have a really good description as to the attackers, Masters."

"That is acceptable, Lantern Arisia. We believe we have identified the source of our troubles. Bring your team out to the following coordinates; we are sending in a specialized strike team. Oa out."

….

The gods entered Arisia's universe at the point where the monster had first struck. Highfather looked over the scene of devastation, his heart sinking within him. We did this. "Metron, can you place the beast?"

"Not precisely, Highfather. Evidently, the tracking mechanism suffered somewhat during its passage through the black hole. It is not reliable. But," the scientist swiveled his Mobius chair towards a spot in the sky, "all evidence points to the creature traveling in that direction. Exactly how, I cannot say."

"Highfather, let me go do battle with this monster! Enough innocent lives have been lost! I will find this, this monster, this fiend, and utterly destroy it! Erase it from existence!" Orion was practically beside himself with battle-lust, not to mention righteous fury.

"Calm, my son." Highfather considered his next move. "Battles planned in haste are as hastily lost. Lightray, follow the coordinates Metron will supply you with. Locate the monster, and determine how it is getting from planet to planet so easily. It did not demonstrate the ability to fly before, but that may have changed. Find out, and report back." Off he went.

….

Oa: The Guardians had convened, concerning the matter of this destroyer of worlds. {{I think we can safely say this creature is the same one we encountered long ago, this genetic experiment, the being the Earth humans have named "Doomsday," can we not? The question arises: what will we do about this monster? For we must do something.}}

Sayd "spoke" up: {{At our last knowing of the creature, it was thought to be dead, destroyed by the one known as "Superman," of Earth. How did it manage to return? This may prove crucial.}}

{{If the creature has been resurrected as a Black Lantern, then our means of dealing with it must differ substantially from any previous solution. And we know there have been reports of Black Lantern activity on Earth.}}

Ganthet shook his head. {{We have nothing pointing towards the beast being a resurrected corpse. Rather, it must have somehow…rejuvenated, regenerated itself somehow. And now it is back.}}

{{It is important that we know the manner of its "death" this last time, as all evidence points towards it being able to overcome previous means of termination.}}

Paalko interjected, {{If we assume, for the moment, that the creature is "simply" a rejuvenated version of itself, what options are available to us?}}

Ganthet nodded towards Sayd. {{We are already preparing a specialized strike team to deal with the monster. However, we must be prepared for said strike team to be…perhaps less than totally effective.}}

{{Meaning we may be sending Green Lanterns to their deaths? Is that what you're saying?}}

{{Meaning we must be prepared for a worst case scenario. Our strike team may be sufficient. Lantern Kilowog is, even now, assembling our best and most capable to lead against the creature. But should they fail…we must have options.}}

{{We can quarantine the solar system in which the beast currently finds itself. We can place a subquantum force-field around the entire star system. There is no indication that the creature possesses the ability to overcome such a passive response. It seems to respond primarily to aggressive actions, and is able to adapt accordingly, but it can, as far as we know, be contained. That would, however, leave it alive. And, as long as the creature lives, it is a very real threat to any other living thing in the universe.}} Pause. {{Of course, that will mean certain death for any beings unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped within the field with it. This…is not wholly and totally acceptable to me.}}

Lianna stared into space, lost in thought. {{If only there was some way of safely studying the monster. We could perhaps come up with something a bit more…sure.}}

{{Safely studying the creature doesn't appear to be an option. We have investigated, and the renegade scientist who created the thing, Bertron, is long dead, and his base of operations long since destroyed. The only data we have on his experiments is the creature itself. And studying it is…problematical.}}

Ganthet sighed. {{There doesn't seem to be. Each and every time the monster has been killed, it has returned. Even Darkseid's Omega effect was unable to finally kill it. Quarantine appears to be the most effective response to the monster's incursion into our universe.}}

{{The problem with such a quarantine is that someone may let the monster out, at some point in time, for reasons unknown. As you say, it is not a wholly satisfactory solution. But it may be the only one we have.}}

…..

Dammit, thought Nightwing, They just had to have energy guns. Even as he thought that, another volley bracketed his position. Kid Flash was moving as fast as he could, but even he couldn't outrun beam weaponry.

Nightwing signaled to Superboy, also crouched behind cover. Get ready. Superboy echoed the signal to the rest of the team, and they donned their goggles.

Then Nightwing readied two disks: the first one, a gas grenade, went off behind the perps' hiding positions, with the cloud of noxious gas billowing out. The perps had, of course, thought to wear rebreathers, so the gas itself was of no effect.

But the second disk was a strober, hovering in mid-air and flashing like a high-intensity disco ball, the beams reflecting and refracting off the gas suspended in the air, disorienting the kidnappers, and making it next to impossible for them to pinpoint their own feet, let alone members of the Team. "Now! Go! Take 'em down!"

Superboy closed with two muscular henchmen, while Nightwing himself accounted for three. Kid Flash knocked the wind out of two more, leaving only two for Artemis, who quickly netted them both with a bolo arrow.

While the suspects were being cuffed, Nightwing and Artemis freed the kidnapped children, all of whom were, of course, completely terrified. "It's alright, kids, you're okay. We'll get you back to your parents," soothed Artemis.

Nightwing zeroed in on one boy, a bit older than the rest, who seemed to be taking things a bit better than the others. "Are you alright?" He asked. The boy looked familiar…wait. Something clicked. "Tommy? Do you remember me?"

"Yes, sir," Tommy said. Tommy was a boy whose mother had been killed by a zombie, a Black Lantern, during the time the newsies had come to call the "Blackest Night" incident. He'd been so traumatized that he'd lost his will to live, until a very recently arrived Ragnar Rok had somehow—just how, nobody, not even Ragnar, was sure—had somehow brought him out of the shell he'd been in. Poor kid, thought Nightwing, his mother killed before his very eyes, and now this. "Are you alright, Tommy?"

Tommy seemed very composed, strangely so for a child who'd just been a victim of a kidnapping. And, Nightwing knew, sometimes the rescuing itself can be traumatic…but he seemed to be coping. "Yes, sir." He was looking around. "Where's the other one? The man with the gold ring?"

"He didn't come with us this time. He had to go off on another mission. "Why, Tommy? Did you want me to tell him anything when he gets back?"

Tommy rubbed his eyes. "I, I keep having these dreams…" I'll bet you do, thought Dick. But the child's next words surprised him. "I dream he's in danger. But, but not, not like…" he gestured towards where the kidnappers were being hauled off to jail. "Not like this. Not this kind of danger. Some other kind. Something, something worse. I, I don't know how to 'xplain it any better. Something about…I don't know what it is, but it's dangerous. But, but I keep trying, in my dreams, to warn him, to tell him to look out, to not go there. But I never can. I always wake up, 'n' can't go back to sleep 'n' warn him."

Something cold seemed to settle across the back of Nightwing's neck. Once again, here was a hint of something beyond the explainable. He could've understood it if Tommy had dreamed of being in danger himself; he had been. It had taken a magic man with a magic ring to save him from the demons of his own mind before. But to dream about the same magic man being in danger himself? What he knew of the dream psychology of children would seem to indicate that wasn't completely normal. Unless Tommy identified so strongly with Ragnar…"Tommy. Listen to me. Do you know who Sarah Marshall is?"

Tommy looked at him oddly. "No. Why?"

"You don't know any kids named Sarah Marshall who go to your school?"

"No, sir. There are a couple of girls named Sarah, but, but nobody named that."

Nightwing straightened up. "Well, that's alright, Tommy. Here's the people who'll take you back to your folks. You gonna be okay?"

But Tommy clutched at him. "Tell him not to go to the wall."

"The wall?"

"It's a wall. A really really big wall. Hanging in space." A look of fear came into his eyes. His voice dropped to a whisper. "An' it's got faces stuck in it."

Again, that peculiar prickling sensation went down Nightwing's spine.

To be continued…