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John sighed heavily, raking a hand through his hair. "The short of it is, I don't know," he admitted.
She crossed her arms, trying to hide how much she was shaking. "Then give me the long version. Why is there a cell waiting for me in the place where the worst of the worst go?"
He looked around the roof again, this time for something to lean on. The only thing around was the door, so he went to the ledge and sat down. Mallory followed closely, getting more and more impatient.
"Hell works outside of this realm's understanding of space and time," he started. "Just because there's a place prepared for you doesn't mean that's where you'll end up. They tend to like to prepare for your worst, just in case."
"But why there?" she asked, her tone becoming calmer.
He gave a half shrug. "You have the potential for bringing on the end of the world as we know it," he said flatly.
She sank down to the ledge, feeling like she'd just been punched. All this time, she'd been struggling to come to terms with her death, and she'd only had peace with it because she thought it was her sacrifice for the planet, but now? She shook her head.
"Chin up, luv, it's not as bad as all that. Just because you've got the potential for being the planet's destruction doesn't mean that's what's going to happen."
She narrowed her eyes a little. "You just said…"
"I know what I said, but I told you something at the time that you seem to have forgotten. The script in the Book of Souls is constantly changing. See, humanity's been granted a pesky little thing called free will. Nuisance, really, when you really get down to it, but it means that your destiny isn't set until you decide it is. I don't know what's going to happen to you because no one knows exactly. There are elements we can be sure of, but even those can be cheated or blurred sometimes."
She tilted her head, thinking about that. "The invasion's over," she mused, "so I thought the prophecy was over, too. But when I remembered where I saw Parallax, I'm not so sure anymore."
"Could be," he said. "I might be able to find out for you, if you wanted."
She stared at him for a moment, considering his offer, but ultimately she shook her head. "Someone told me my future once, and it ruined my life. I don't want to go through that again. If it happens, I'll be ready, and if it doesn't, then I'll be ready for that too." He nodded with understanding and she took a breath, wincing at the thickness of the London air. "I'm sorry I threw you," she said, standing up.
He chuckled, getting to his feet as well. "Wasn't the first or the last time tonight."
She nodded. "I'll let you go back to work. Those people are probably pretty irritated by now."
John waved a hand in the air, though he did start moving towards the door. "Oh, let them be. They've been nothing but whiners since they hired me. 'My baby this' and 'my baby that'. It's like they've never seen a possession before."
She smirked, and he flashed a smile before disappearing back into the building, and she flamed up and flew away, back to the zeta tube that had brought her.
It took eight days for the incident in Coast City to get overshadowed by the next big crisis, a missile scare between Qurac and Bialya. The media had latched onto the story so tightly that there were protests reappearing, calling for the decommission of the Justice League for investigation and people asking if the idea of heroes was one they wanted to keep or not.
Mallory kept to herself for the week after the attack, more because of what had happened after. Conner decided that she'd had enough time, though, and asked if she wanted to patrol with him. When she agreed, he picked her up from her roof on the supercycle, Wolf settled in the seat.
"I thought you were gonna bring Moe," he called from the bike.
She smiled a little and unzipped her jacket, letting the baby fox poke his head out, blinking sleepily in the sunlight. Conner grinned and maneuvered Sphere closer, letting her climb in before they flew off. She settled in as he took the wheel, sitting sideways so she could pet Wolf. They flew over the city in silence for a while, Mallory staring ahead of them, absently stroking Wolf's head. Conner cleared his throat and she half turned her head so she could see him out of the corner of her eye. "So, did you want to talk about something?" She looked back out at the city. "No, not really." He let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Oh, good." She smiled, looking over her shoulder to see that he was returning it. "Do you want to patrol?" he asked. She shrugged. "Not really." "Ok, well, I have all day. You want to get some food and just…not patrol?" She nodded, the smile still on her face. "Yeah, I like that option. You want to split some nachos?" "Yeah, sounds good." He turned Sphere around, heading to the best food truck in the city, and Mallory glanced down at her lap where Moe was starting to wake up. "Hey, took you long enough," she said with a chuckle. He went right to the edge and looked out. She thought for a moment that he was going to panic at the height, but he barely even seemed to notice it before he was jumping over to investigate the large white animal lying in the seat behind them. The little fox immediately started jumping around, trying to play, but Wolf just ignored him, resting his head on the side of the supercycle and watching the city go by.
Mallory tilted her head. "Is he ok? It's been a while since he's been on missions."
Conner sighed, looking at his pet. "Yeah, he hasn't been feeling it lately. But what's your excuse?"
She tilted her head. "For what?"
"You haven't brought Moe to the Watchtower once since you brought him home."
She rolled her eyes, watching her pet jumping all over the seat. "That's because I can't control this little guy! Trust me, you guys don't want me to bring him with me. I had to baby-proof my room so I could close him in during the day. He learned how to open the fridge! I still don't know how he did it. I'll have to borrow some cameras from Dick and set them up around the place."
He shook his head. "He's never going to get better if you leave him behind all the time," he pointed out.
She rolled her eyes. "Please, you got both of your pets already full grown and intuitive. Moe's just a baby. It'll be like having Peter and Gar in the cave together when they were little. No one wants to relive those days with a fox."
"So let the rookies babysit. It'll give them something to do."
She tilted her head, opening her mouth to respond, but a flash of green flew across from them a few buildings down and they both leaned forward in surprise. "Hal?" Mallory muttered, and
Conner already had Sphere heading towards him. Mallory glanced at distance and jumped over the side, flaming up and shooting forward. She could fly faster than Sphere, and she thought she knew where she could get ahead of him. She flew through an alley, cutting from downtown to the business district five blocks sooner than the light should have. Once she got there, she sped down the street, scanning the side streets and alleys and looking above her at the sky. She saw the green glow reflecting off one of the glass buildings and made it to the opening of the street just in time to block the way. The man nearly flew right into her, but he managed to veer to the side just in time, stopping beside her.
"Hal, when did you–" Her eyes widened and the sentence died out in her mouth. Conner caught up to them, and they glanced at each other, then back at the man who was, though he did look similar, definitely not Hal Jordan. "Uh, who are you?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
The man seemed to be around their age, with messy brown hair and, besides his slightly pointed ears, smooth features. "Woah," he said quietly. "You're Inferno and Super…uh, boy?"
"Um, yeah, we know who we are. Who are you?" Mallory asked again.
He spread his arms out, gesturing to the Green Lantern uniform he was wearing. "I'm Green Lantern."
Conner rubbed a hand over his face. "Ok, sure, but for how long?" he asked, trying a new approach.
The new Green Lantern shrugged. "About a week, I guess."
They looked at each other. "I thought all the rings went back to space," Conner muttered. "Or, what about the last one, his original one?"
"No, that one went back too," Mallory insisted. "I saw it myself. Unless…"
"Unless it doubled back at some point," Conner finished.
The Lantern was looking between them in confusion. "Do you know why I got this ring?" he asked.
They turned back to him, considering how to answer the question. "Um, sort of," Conner said.
"Have you been approached by anyone other than us?" Mallory asked. "Any other Greens, or maybe some little blue guys in robes?"
He laughed. "Uh, not that I know of," he replied. "Should I have been?"
She flew backwards a little so she was even with Conner. "Should we…do something?" she asked quietly.
He shrugged. "I mean, we could bring him with us. John's not back yet, but we can let the League deal with him I guess."
She snorted. "Who are you kidding? We bring him to the League and he'll get dumped on us."
He smiled. "True."
"I guess we could bring him to…" he voice died out as she tried to think of where they could bring him. Normally she would have said the Hall of Justice, but it was currently leveled thanks to Despero.
"What about the warehouse?" Conner asked.
She shook her head. "Quitters still use it."
"Isn't there a cache site near the Hall?"
"I mean, yeah, Red's, but he still uses it sometimes I think."
They were quiet for a moment, still thinking, and Moe took the opportunity to leap out of the Supercycle towards the Lantern. Mallory dove for her pet, but he was already safe in the new hero's arms.
"He's a little daredevil," Green Lantern said, smiling at the little fox. "What's his name? Oh, or am I allowed to know?"
Mallory smiled a little. "Firefox," she said without thinking.
He laughed. "Seriously? Is that his real name, or did you give him a code name?"
She shrugged. "Well, you can never be too careful." She glanced at Conner, then continued, "If you want to come with us, we can get someone to meet you, maybe they can help you figure things out."
He shrugged. "Sure, not like I have work today anyway."
Mallory expected him to hand Moe back to her, but he didn't. As they went, she pressed her comm, calling whoever was on monitor duty.
"Go ahead," Martian Manhunter said.
"Inferno here. Can you get some Leaguers up there? Superboy and I ran into someone, and he'd love an introduction."
"Woah," the Lantern muttered, taking a step forward after the zeta tube deposited them on the bridge of the Watchtower. Mallory took her pet from him, striding past him. Sphere folded up once Conner and Wolf got out of her, and they went straight over to where Superman, Captain Atom, and Martian Manhunter were standing around a holographic screen where John Stewart was waiting.
"This is Green Lantern," Mallory said, looking back to see that he was several paces behind, staring in awe at the four near legends of the League. "New GL, this is Superman, Captain Atom, old GL, and Martian Manhunter."
He made a sound that they took for either a greeting or acknowledgement, and Clark started the ball rolling. "So, uh, Green Lantern, how long have you had the ring?" he asked.
The new Green Lantern finished making his way to the group and cleared his throat awkwardly. His voice started out weak, but it grew steadier with every word. "Well, I guess about a week. The ring came to me, it hit me in the head. When I put it on, it put me in this uniform. I kind of figured out what I was supposed to do after that."
"How did you learn to use it?" Captain Atom asked.
He shrugged. "I taught myself. I mean, everyone knows the basics about the Green Lanterns, so I pierced together what I needed to do to get started and just practiced with it."
Mallory raised her eyebrows a little, impressed. She knew from experience how hard it was to learn to use one of the rings.
"Well, I wish there was someone on Earth to guide you through your initial training," John said, "but unfortunately we are on Oa at the moment, taking care of some loose ends."
"Oh yeah, and I'm alive, by the way," Guy yelled from the background. "Really appreciated the concern."
Mallory smirked, glancing at Conner. "We're relieved to hear it," Clark said, but they moved on.
"We should be back by the end of the week," John continued. "Until then, you can rely on the League to help you when you need it."
"Sure, they will," Conner muttered, and Mallory bit her lip to hide her smile. "So, you should know that with all the Green Lanterns there are, we're gonna need something to call you eventually, just for clarity's sake," he said louder.
The newest hero tilted his head, considering it, then shrugged. "I guess it's not that big of a deal. My name's Kyle. Kyle Rayner."
John nodded. "Well, Kyle Rayner, welcome to the Corps."