This was the first chapter in a while that just flowed, so I really hope you like it. Please review and let me know! I'm about to wrap up this year, so I'll be planning the next year soon. Let me know if you have any suggestions, because there isn't that much of the story left to go. :)

"Inferno, take off the ring," Conner repeated. "You don't need it anymore."

"No," Mallory said again, floating a few feet into the air in anticipation of having to defend herself. "I do need it. There was no other way we could have won this. My powers aren't enough. Yours aren't enough, but this ring will fix all that."

The heroes on the ground looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Star Sapphire, of all people, was the first to speak up. She laughed from the back of the crowd, earning some glares. She ignored them and flew over everyone to where Mallory was. "Good for you, kid, figuring out which side you belong on."

Mallory narrowed her eyes and moved without any warning, creating a construct of a fist and punching the woman into the concrete below so hard she made a dent. Hawk Woman knelt to check on her, but everyone else stared at the pyrokinetic in shock, their eyes wide. Razor looked around at the League and team, where some of the heroes were visibly getting ready for a fight.

"Is this… you aren't going to call this a BWR are you?" he asked, edging closer to Mallory to try to defend her from the crowd.

"No!" Nightwing said quickly, holding a hand out to the others to tell them to stand down. He realized that he was still holding his escrima sticks and he lowered them as he turned back to Mallory, signaling to her that he didn't want to fight. "It's ok, no one's going to force you to do anything," he told her. "Just come down, and we'll talk about it, ok?"

She shook her head. "There's nothing to talk about," she said firmly. "What we're doing isn't working. You should know that by now. We need a new approach, a firmer hand on the crime we fight. We need to not be afraid to go further. You should know as well as anyone, Boy Wonder, fear is a tool, and I'm finally going to use it."

"I do know about that," he said, "and I know that's not the way. Not for you. We need our fears sometimes."

She scoffed. "Oh, really? Tell me, Nightwing. What is your greatest fear? Does it really help you?"

He relaxed completely, raising his eyebrows slightly. "You already know the answer to that," he said softly, "just like I know that yours has helped you."

Her face hardened. "I'm not scared of anything," she proclaimed.

"That's not true," he said. He glanced at the crowd behind him, then at Megan, and the Martian set the link up immediately. "You're scared of being the reason someone you love gets hurt. There's no shame in that, Mallory, it's a good fear to have."

"He's right," Megan said soothingly. "Everyone's afraid of something. It doesn't make them any less of a hero."

"Fear is weakness," Mallory insisted.

"It doesn't have to be," Dick pointed out gently. "Your fears make you the person you are. They can give you compassion, or keep you in check from your darkest instincts, or even give you the push you need to be the hero you're supposed to be. You're not some vigilante working from the shadows, Mal. You're a hero, shining hope into the darkness."

Her face softened, her eyes shifting to the side for a moment as she started to doubt herself. "What if…what if I can't see that?" she asked.

He smiled a little. "Take the ring off and you will."

She hesitated a moment, thinking it over, but she did slowly descend to the ground, left standing in front of Nightwing. She looked at the ring once, then back up at him. The small, encouraging smile was still on his face, and he gave her a small nod. She sighed and shut her eyes, yanking the ring off before she could give it a second thought. She gasped as the power of the ring left her body, leaving her with the familiar rush of warmth now that her fire was her only power. All the fear that she'd shoved to the back of her mind flooded her again, making her realize just how much the ring had altered her thinking. She looked into Dick's eyes and nodded a thanks for talking her down when he had, and she turned on her heel and strode over to Sinestro, who had been watching the scene with interest from behind her.

"Here," she said, shoving the object into his hands. "We're even. I never want to see that thing again." Quieter, more to herself, she added, "If I do, I don't think I'll be able to give it up."

The villain shrugged and pocketed her ring. "As you wish," he said. "It's a shame, though. You would have been a good addition to my ranks."

"I'm not a soldier," she reminded him.

"Aren't you?"

He flew away before she could respond, and she decided to go back to her friends and not worry about the comment. When she saw that Red Arrow had joined the group, she smiled a greeting. "Hey, wasn't expecting to see you here."

"A BWR comes through, it's all hands on deck," he replied. "I'm just glad we managed to keep this short."

"You keep saying BWR," Arrowette said. "What does that even mean?"

The older members of the team exchanged a smile, enjoying the inside joke now that the danger had passed.

"It comes from an old League fight from back when it was just the OGs, you know, Bats, Supes, Wonder Woman, Manhunter, GL, Aquaman, and Flash," Roy started to explain.

Conner took over, "you already know how Batman is, so it's no big shock to find out that way back in those days, he already had plans to take them all down singlehanded, just in case he ever needed to. The plans ended up getting stolen and used against them, so it ended up being a big fight between them."

"Eventually the others realized that Bats wasn't going to budge on keeping the plans, so they accepted that it was just a reality," Artemis continued. She grinned and ruffled Dick's hair as she added, "and then when these guys came along, they started calling them the 'Batman was right' files, and if a hero ever went rogue they would just say the same thing, 'Batman was right'."

"Ohh, I get it. B.W.R.," Arrowette said, nodding slowly.

Dick huffed, glancing at Roy, who was grinning. "Yeah, the nickname stuck. It's a lot faster than saying 'we need the contingency plans' every time someone gets mind controlled."

"So that's how you guys managed to take down the entire Justice League when Savage took control of it," Cassie said.

"Woah, woah, woah, absolutely not," Zatanna interjected, shaking her head in mock offense. "That was all on us, thank you very much. Pure teenage brilliance and courage."

"And a little bit of Kryptonite," Mallory added with a grin, remembering how close they'd been to not being able to take out Superman and Batman. She looked at Razor, taking in the red suit now that they had more time. "So…what's with the color change?" she asked.

He grimaced, looking at the ring on his finger, but before he could answer he looked over her shoulder, and she followed his gaze to see that Hal was regaining consciousness, and Wonder Woman and Superman were helping him out of the crater. He was shaking his head a lot, his whole body trembling as he was filled in on what had happened. The young heroes started walking towards him without a word to the group they were with. Clark saw them coming first, and he said something the Diana before helping Hal to sit on the sidewalk. The pair passed them on the way back, and Clark paused to talk to Mallory.

"He's shaken. I guess that's to be expected. I'm hoping talking to you two will help him, he's blaming himself, as if he did everything intentionally."

She nodded, appreciating the tip, and she and Razor continued over to the man on the sidewalk. He stared up at them, wide-eyed, studying them for injuries or scarring he may have caused. When his eyes landed on Razor, his face sank even more.

"Oh, kid, you shouldn't have done it," he said quietly.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Razor asked matter-of-factly. "I couldn't have helped with the blue ring."

"You shouldn't have had to fight me at all!" Hal snapped. He took a shuddery breath and looked at Mallory. "They told me what you did. Neither of you should have had to battle with those rings. If I had been stronger, you wouldn't have had to."

He looked around at the shattered section of the city. Emergency vehicles were just starting to show up, and the heroes were helping with evacuation and medical rescue in the background, along with helping to pull bodies from under the wreckage.

Mallory winced, kneeling in front of him so he wouldn't keep following the path of a team of paramedics carrying a body out of the street near the crater. "Hal, none of this is your fault," she said firmly, risking taking her mask off so he could see the sincerity in her eyes. "You weren't in control."

"I tried to convince myself of that the last time this happened," he said, "but at some point you can't keep passing off the blame."

"Don't be stupid," Razor said bluntly, sitting down with the other two. "It's not passing the blame. Parallax did this, and he's been caught and is in transport to Oa as we speak to answer for it. Done, case closed."

Mallory tilted her head, her forehead creasing as a small bell went off in her head at the mention of the name. Hal shook his head. "I don't care if Parallax was controlling my mind. I did this, my body, my power." He looked down at the single ring left out of the twenty-six that had been there just hours earlier. "Maybe…maybe I shouldn't have this power, if I can't protect people from it."

Mallory and Razor looked at each other, their eyes widened in shock at the statement. "Hal, no, you can't," Mallory stammered, and Razor said, "being a Green Lantern is your life. You do not have to give that up."

Hal wasn't listening to them, though. He pulled the ring off his finger, staring at it for a moment, before he let it go. The three of them watched as it started to glow, then flew up and shot into the sky, just like the twenty-five plus had before it. The Green Lantern uniform disappeared, leaving the man in his civilian clothes. The younger two heroes couldn't do anything but stare for a moment, not knowing what to do to help him, but he was far beyond any help that they could give.

He pushed himself to his feet with some difficulty, but before he started walking back to the League, he paused, his back to them, and said, "I guess I owe you both an apology. I tried to help you, but all I did was set you back."

He started walking, not waiting for them to deny the claim. Not that they could have done it if he had. Mallory's voice was stuck in her throat, and it took a moment to compose herself. She put her mask back on and looked at Razor, neither of them speaking for a moment. The alien pulled something out of his pocket and pulled off the red ring, replacing it with the blue one that he'd worn since Mallory had first met him.

"I guess I'm not getting an explanation about that, huh?" she asked after a moment, testing a lighter mood so she wouldn't have to deal with the weight of everything going on.

He seemed to understand, even offered her a small smile. "It does not really matter," he said. "That was a lifetime ago. Still, it troubles me that I was still able to get it to work. I have tried for years to purge the rage from my heart, but clearly it still festers." She huffed, understanding the feeling all too well. "I must find a way to get rid of it so that I am not tempted to put it on again, for any reason," he mused. "I do not want to curse anyone else to a life of servitude to the rage in themselves, either, though."

"You'll figure something out," she said, and she had no doubt that he would.

He nodded, pocketing the red ring. They were quiet for another moment, and Mallory was just starting to think about joining the rescue teams when her companion said, "I believe this should be goodbye."

She tilted her head, looking at him. "What do you mean?"

"I believe that I should leave now," he clarified.

"Oh," was all she could manage, despite the disappointment she felt at the news. "I'll miss you."

He smiled a little. "I will miss you, too. In taking me into your world for these few months, you have shown me what I am looking for, and now more than ever I have the hope that I can have it. All I have to do is find her."

She smiled, glad that he had regained his purpose. "Good luck," she told him.

"Thank you. To you, as well. I hope we will cross paths again."

With that, the Lantern started to fly away, shooting up in a flash of blue light. Mallory watched until she could no longer see him in the sky, then she went and found her friends clearing the edges of the crater. She slipped in to join them without a word, lifting the rubble to check for people who might have been trapped or just to help clear the roads to allow more rescue vehicles to get through. Megan included her in the link as soon as she saw her.

They were still talking about the attack, but Zatanna paused her spell of stopping the spewing pipes to ask, "where's Razor going?"

"Away," she replied. "He's going to start looking for his girl again."

"Did Hal seem better after you guys talked to him?" Artemis asked.

Mallory shook her head. "Not at all. I feel like we just made things worse. He gave up his ring, he's not a Green Lantern anymore."

They stopped their work, exchanging surprised looks. Conner broke the silence with an angry grunt as he threw a chunk of pavement to the side. "None of this is right," he muttered. "Where did this Parallax even come from?"

The little bell went off in Mallory's head again. She knew the name, she knew she did, but she couldn't place from where. Her forehead creased as she racked her brain for the answer, barely listening to the chatter as it continued on the link.

"I agree, it is strange that we have never come across the creature before," Kaldur said.

"Yeah, well, it's probably a good thing we haven't," Artemis said. "Did you see the look on its face? You could practically see the evil dripping off it. It looked like it came straight from Hell."

Mallory's eyes snapped open and she dropped the slab she'd been moving with a thud. Her friends looked up at the sudden movement, tilting their heads in concern.

"Mal, you ok?" Dick asked, but she didn't answer.

She flamed up in a split second and shot into the sky, flying twice as fast as she normally did. She finally remembered where she'd heard the name before, and it had her heart racing in her chest, fear seeping in like ice down her back. There was only one man on Earth who could answer the questions burning in her mind, and that was exactly who she intended to see: Constantine.


She found John in an old apartment house three blocks away from the first bar she'd tried in London, after asking his normal bartender where he was. Her footsteps were quick as she practically jogged down the hall and opened the door without bothering to knock. She was so focused on her mission that she barely even noticed the little boy levitating in front of her friend's ex, she just crossed the room and grabbed his arm, swinging him across the room until he ended up against the wall.

"Bloody Hell, what the blazes do you think you're doing?!" he yelled, furious at the interruption.

"You knew!" Mallory yelled back. "You knew and you didn't tell me!"

"What the devil are you talking about?! Can't you see I'm in the middle of something here?"

"Parallax! I'm talking about Parallax, and Hell, and the hall, and I think Joker, and–"

His eyes widened slightly and he glanced at the parents of the boy, who had a mix between fear and irritation on their faces. "I'm gonna take ten, just leave him be and if any demons show up to claim him, spray this around the room," he instructed, setting a perfume bottle on a table nearby. He strode out the door without another word, and Mallory followed, even more unnerved at his sudden change. He kept walking without a word to her until they reached the roof, and even then he made sure they were alone before he turned to her.

"You said Parallax was here?"

"Was, yeah, it's handled now," she said, starting to get a better grip on herself.

"All right, then, ask the bloody question," he said.

She felt dizzy, and she had to keep her hands in fists at her sides to stop them from trembling. She knew she had to word it right, though, to make all the pieces that were jumbled up in her head fit together logically, so that he wouldn't try to blow her off with an easy answer. Though, she had to admit to herself, part of her wanted that easy answer.

"When you brought me to Hell," she started carefully, looking anywhere but his face, "and the Demons Three separated us, I was in Arkham, but it wasn't Arkham. That's where I knew the word from. Parallax was written on one of the cells, right next to the Joker, and Zazz, and Atrocious, and…John, I woke up in one of those cells. I know you know about the prophecy, you were waiting for me to ask it then, so tell me straight. Do I sacrifice myself to save the world, or am I the reason it's going to need saving?"