Chapter 22: Interlude 3.2

(The Flash aka Barry Allen)

 

February 29th, 2010
The 90 miles straight
Australia
Morning

 

Barry wanted to stop thinking, he wanted to run. Run from what he had become by letting his friends become instruments for the tyranny the Justice League was now enacting onto the world. At super speed he avoided a truck driving toward him by 10 millimeters. Barry sidestepped the potholes and the carcasses of Kangaroos and snakes that died on the road.

The desert was scorching and the air made Barry sweat. He came running on the Nullarbor to escape, but it didn’t work anymore, his mind was always full of the little evil that Superman was doing every day. He continued to run, even as the sun’s rays beat on the asphalt road, creating mirages.

Everything went still as he was in the zone, he went faster and faster, at the edge of creating a wormhole to enter into the speedforce; he didn't want to have another Flashpoint happen after the last time. Until a green and gold streak surrounded by pink lightning passed him.  

"What the-"

Barry wasn't an idiot, this was another speedster and he or she was fast. He focused and doubled his speed and found himself looking at the back of someone. The silhouette was clearly feminine; he was trying to catch her. From Nullarbor to Perth, the woman didn't even react to him following her.

But when they passed the city of Newman in Western Australia, she started to run backward as she turned to him and waved at him and… she went even faster. The woman disappeared to the horizon, forcing Barry to go even faster.

It was as if she was taunting him, telling Barry ‘catch me if you can’ and it took Barry’s mind away from all his demons. They ran through wetlands to desertic plains to the sparse woods between the cities and towns.

He finally caught up to her when they were reaching the coastal city of Darwin, located along the western shoreline of the Northern Territory. The pursuit finished when the woman stopped at Port Darwin, on the Stokes Hill Wharf, more precisely the East Arm Wharf where the longest and heaviest ships were moored. Barry stopped where the woman was standing. Stopped was relative, the two speedsters were vibrating so fast that the activity on the Wharf stopped to their senses, as if time stood still.

Her costume was a composite of two different shades of green with golden lightning bolts. The costume didn’t have sleeves, and part of her arms were naked, only covered by some golden colored vambraces that extended to her biceps. The woman had on a full face mask with goggles consisting of green colored lenses with golden trim to protect her identity. Barry’s eyes fixated on the white and blue belt at the woman’s waist. It was kind of tacky with the suit, but he could see that it was some kind of device.

"Woah, ya're slow, old man. It took ya minutes to catch up." The woman spoke in an excited tone, she showed pearly teeth as she made a radiant smile. 

With a mock salute she said, "Oh yeah, G’Day, mate."

Barry liked her, she was just like him when he started; a jokester, but he couldn’t just think emotionally, some… speedsters he'd met before weren’t good people. Barry crossed his arms and asked, "Who are you?"

The young woman, because Barry estimated her age to be between 18 to 20 years old, lost her smile and became more serious as if she was thinking of something. Barry laughed in his mind, he bet she didn’t even think of a name to give herself, proving that she was a newbie. 

"Call me Velocity for now." The girl said and she started to smile, it must have taken her hours to decide on a name while the speedforce boosted her mental process.

Barry nodded and started with, "This… is the first time I've seen a speedster coming from Australia. How long have you been active?"

Velocity proudly put her hands on her belt. "Aye, I’m new but I am still tryin’ to test everythin’ out with my speed tech." 

With widened eyes, Barry looked at the white and blue belt. "Wait, you use technology to move at super speed?"

After a giggle, Velocity said, "This is bloody ripper, I know! I came up with that after takin’ a gander of clips of ya movin’ around the world."

This flattered Barry that the young woman would be interested in emulating him, and the fact that she came up with a technological device to access the Speedforce instead of just being hit by lightning like he did raised her stock; she was a true genius if she could do this. He looked more closely at her costume and her gear. It looked like it was all made from readily available sources; the belt in particular.

What the woman said next floored Barry though. "But I don't know if I want to get into this cape business, it’s a bit iffy if you don’t mind me sayin’."

"Why? We need more heroes out there." Barry began to ask and then he saw the young woman take off her goggles, he saw green eyes looking back at him.

With a lot of hesitation, Velocity said, "I… I got a family to take care of… I mean I saw what happened to the big bloke in blue and his wife. I'm not a drongo, I don't want to hurt nobody and y'all seem to have it rough. Aliens, Gods, Magic and some random guy who wants to kill ya’ for perceived wrongs… I don’t think I’m cut out for that."

Barry understood, really understood. If you have superheroes then you'll have super-villains. That's unavoidable. But a lot of danger for new heroes depends on the existing legislation of their country and how they incorporate into society. For example, Barry doubted that the Australian authorities would like for a young female speedster to interfere in the work the police or the army does.

Superman’s Regime changed this as superheroes became part of law enforcement, but it was more prevalent in more developed countries like the US or France… It was like joining the armed forces and Barry doubted that Velocity wanted that.

Barry believed that new heroes were a danger to themselves as well; being a freelance hero, believe it or not, doesn’t pay well, it wreaks murder on your ability to hold down a steady job, or go a month without having to seek medical care if they don’t have invulnerability or a healing factor.

"This… I don't blame you, this job can be difficult and take over your life." Barry said with all the weight of experience behind his words.

The young woman seemed to understand the problem as she told him, “For now this is all for fun and I don't want to do more with it. I got better things to do like come up with better water purifiers. There’s more ways to save the world than punchin’ people.”

Velocity patted her speedbelt, just from what she said, Barry gathered information on her. "So you're a scientist."

She shrugged. ”Something like that.” The woman did the obvious change of the subject-fu that women were gifted with and asked Barry, “Hey, want ta race? Or are ya too scared to lose?”

"You're on!" Barry laughed.

He wouldn’t push her but just in case, Barry would try to keep an eye on the young woman. Creating technology to manipulate the Speedforce was something that anyone would try to get; Clark in particular, he didn't need to know Velocity's existence yet. The two of them put themselves in a sprinting position and with a mutually agreed signal of letting time flow back to normal they used the honk of a ship and started to run at the same time.

 

~/.\~

(Thaal Sinestro) 

 

Sol System
Behind the moon

As he floated in space, lying in wait… Sinestro of Korugar, the leader of Sinestro Corps; a group of roving criminals powered by abilities similar to Green Lantern’s but powered by Fear. The Sinestro Corps was on the run, each time they settled down, somehow the Guardians of Oa found them and fought them with overwhelming force. But He had a plan, something never done before; he would use the Guardians’ own hubris against them.

No longer will the Sinestro Corps have to scurry like rats! There was a way for him to take down his enemies by sending them on a collision course together, and Earth, this damnable place, was going to give him this opportunity. But for this opportunity to come to fruition, he needed to get some pieces off of the board. A piece such as Kyle Rayner, one of the thorns in his side.

His incorruptible morals and powers would make the situation for Superman’s One Earth’s Regime untenable as he would surely talk senses into the Kryptonian and that Idiot Jordan. While he was in flight, Sinestro willed a fear construct to restrain the Lantern by the neck, while the other five Sinestro Corps members gathered around him. 

Rayner tried to free himself but the other Corps member restrained his arms and legs with rope-like constructs. Arms crossed on his chest, Sinestro came forward and with a dignified mien began to say, “Kyle Rayn-”

Rayner punched him in the face with a fist construct, interrupting him. “-Hnf!”

With the back of his hands, Sinestro wiped the blood coming from his bleeding lip. He pointed a finger at Rayner and ordered his Corps members, “Hold him!”

Kyle Rayner stood spread-eagled before him, weak and vulnerable as all his enemies should be. The Green Lantern asked him, “What are you doing here, Sinestro?”

Sinestro looked in the direction of the blue and green planet called Earth. “I’m watching.”

Then he returned his gaze to the second most annoying human that he knew. “You’ve been gone a long time, Rayner. Your world has changed. Your heroes are beginning to see the truth. They are beginning to think like me.”

With a victorious smile, Sinestro revealed, “There is a war coming. I look to Earth and I see future allies.”

Now that the Kryptonian was no longer playing house with the humans, the Korugan decided that he would try to bring him into the fold. 

As usual when they met, the usual bravado of those human lanterns surfaced, “See, I look at you and I just see the effort you put into your appearance. I appreciate it. I do. The mustache. The hair. It’s always so immaculate.” Rayner mocked and continued on his primitive rant. “Do you stop being evil for an hour a day so you can have a bit of personal pink-headed manscaping time?” Rayner continued smiling as if he had made a point.

How Sinestro wished to erase that smile from his face… wait! He actually could. Floating slowly to his enemy, Sinestro held on Rayner’s middle finger on which his Power Ring was around and looked into his eyes. “Are you afraid, Green Lantern?”

With a mental exertion, Sinestro surrounded Rayner’s Power Ring with a field of Yellow fear. At the same time, Rayner tried a last ditch attempt. “Ring! Broadcast to-”

“No.” Sinestro cut Rayner’s finger with surgical precision, blood began flying from the severed digit and froze because of the coldness of space.

Kyle Rayner’s face morphed into anguish, then Sinestro was hit by the fear of his erstwhile enemy as his Lantern’s suit disappeared. Rayner tried to scream, but there were no sounds in space if you were not protected by the forcefield of a Power ring. Sinestro reveled into the suffering of his enemy with a grin on his face. “Now I feel your-”

ZIP!!!

A micro meteorite traveling at a certain percentage of C struck the finger Sinestro was holding onto and freed the ring. The power ring was surrounded by a field of green light and disappeared toward the blue and green planet. Sinestro’s eyes widened and he shouted at two of his rookie Corps members. “Damn it! Catch that ring!!!”

When he looked back at Kyle Rayner’s face, Sinestro saw the man was smiling instead of the fear and horror he should be having in his last moment. Sinestro growled and blasted the cold dead body with a yellow beam that destroyed Rayner’s body.

 

~/.\~

(Komand’r)

 

March 1st, 2010
Australia
Sydney’s boroughs

 

The living room was well lit, and the sofa Harly and I were sitting on was comfy; we had a mountain of snacks on the low table. Having Harly with me was challenging and amusing at the same time. The woman needed to be always moving, lazing around in a safe environment was new to her; after the months she had spent running from Superman’s Regime. I layered a magical glamour over Harly’s body that I anchored to an ace of spade pendant and turned into a petite asian woman with too much energy and gave her a new identity.

She looked rather like a typical japanese woman with round eyes, button nose and pouty pink lips; her glamoured brown hair was the same texture as her normal blonde ones. 

The woman was completely different from before, as we began to interact cautiously. She opened up a bit when I began to tell her about how the Harleen in my universe was just a normal psychiatrist who never got in contact with the Joker and was friends with Pamela Isley who was married to Bruce Wayne, the secret identity of Batman.

“No way!” Harly roared with laughter.

Harly couldn’t even imagine Pam being a trophy wife for a rich playboy. I gave her a knowing smile as I continued speaking. “And I kid you not, they got four kids together.”

The ex-psychiatrist stopped laughing and leaned into the blue sofa she was sitting on. “This is mind blowing, Pammy marrying into a blue blood family.”

My eyes roved all over her body, she was wearing boy shorts and a bikini top because of how hot the weather was being. It was moments like this when I missed my wife and girlfriends, even Ruby; the little girl was the cutest when she was angry. I was bonding with Harly with gossip about the people she knew in my universe and feeding her information about how the Marvel side of things was. I didn’t even realize that I was getting psychoanalyzed by her until MACHINA pointed it out to me.

But before I could get angry about how Harly was trying to probe my character, a green light surged between Harly and I. Oh no, please no. This couldn’t be happening! Did a Green Lantern Power Ring decide to look for Harly?! It was suboptimal… But contrary to my expectation, it was I who was chosen.

Sentient Located.

Freya Eriksen of Earth.

You have the ability to overcome Great Fear.

You have been chosen.

Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps.

The shining ring fucking slipped on my right hand’s middle finger as if it belonged there. Harly looked at me with a strange expression on her face, it was as if I was a strange puzzle that she wanted to complete. I chuckled nervously, “I didn’t expect that to happen…”

“Well, the world could use more heroes like you.” Harly said as she took my hand and glanced at the Power Ring.

With a snort, I replied, “I’m no hero, I’m a destroyer.”

Heroes get used by those in power or eliminated as they’re treated as a threat. Sure, being a Hero may look glamorous, but let’s be honest… They come with a pretty high price tag: you’re likely to lose someone you love, you’re likely hated and feared. I, Komand’r, was no Hero; I was royalty and I won’t be used by anyone, and live on my own terms.

Harly let go of my hand and touched my left cheek. “You’re kinda selling yourself short there, Kom.”

I stared into her eyes, looked at her inviting lips and averted my eyes. I had better things to do than think with my ovaries. “I need to move.”

Not just because I wanted to kiss and fuck another human girl; we had big problems right now. Harly frowned and asked me, “Why?”

Showing my hand and new jewelry, I said with a one hundred percent certainty, “If I got a power ring, it means that I got this from a dead Green Lantern. And there’s only one event which happens in this timeline that would allow this. Before the Sinestro Corps finds me, I must leave to not reveal our base of operation.”

My blue billabong t-shirt and skirt melted into my full body soft-suit. I was still dressing with my current smartmatter soft-suit; the Nth metal was slowly being turned into nanites while preserving the myriad of properties of the metal. The weapons that I was having MACHINA fab for me were also not ready; but I could always count on myself. I was stronger than the current Kal-El and I had a magic sword that boosted my power.

Extending my left hand, the Skysword appeared in it with purple and pink light. I sheathed it into its scabbard and looked at the door of my abode. Before I could leave, Harly put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Go, sweetie. But be careful, okay? Heard those Sinestro Corps fuckers were real assholes.”

Smiling at her, I said, “Oh, believe me, I will be.”

I was out of the house at super speed and left the planet’s atmosphere in ten seconds while my soft-suit made me invisible. The exterior sheath allows for optical occlusion, I’ve been using the hell out of that ability. I was halfway between Earth and the Moon when I asked my AI kid, *MACHINA, hack this power ring.*

Roger!

My soft-suit covered the ring at my finger, the nanites invading the… this little object was bigger on the inside than I thought. There was a pocket dimension inside the ring, the possibility of an entire world. This undefined space may be a tesseract or a virtual reality created by the power ring; this was interesting but…

Uh, shoddy programming if you want my opinion. Do you want me to jailbreak the ring, Ma’am? The Ship Builder technology was more advanced than the Oan one, so much so that the ring security protocols were like toilet paper and MACHINA's hacking skills were like the equivalent of a blowtorch.

I was well past the moon and went FTL at that point. *Yes, take it over, and cut us out from the Guardians’ network.*

Overwriting Power Ring control AI. Assimilating core functions. Sorry buddy but that’s my diggs now.

Rewriting Oan security protocols to Ship Builder standards.

Rewriting complete.

Downloading Oan databases.

Download at 10%.

Oh! This Power Ring runs on a primitive Quantum core, we will have to change that, this can barely run me. MACHINA just found a new toy, something that she can upgrade in the ring.

Permission to build a Singularity Core, Ma'am?

*Do you have the materials for it?* I asked the synthetic being.

MACHINA guiltily answered, We have the necessary materials in the cargo hold of the Tempest.

*We will need to go back to the ship first then. Don't touch the emergency funds.* The material in the cargo hold was the guarantee that I could fund the resistance if Batman bit the bullet eventually; me being here changed the timeline as the fact that I got myself a Power Ring showed.

Aye, aye. After agreeing to be patient to get her upgrade, MACHINA showed me exactly what she was doing to the Power Ring, every kind of ethical or moral or digital lock on the ring was turned off. I could kill with it now. Then she dumped all the technical schematics and data contained inside the ring into my Neural Mesh. Slowly downloading the Guardians’ entire database. Fortunately, I had unlimited space through my Link to TALI who was surely happy with everything I was sending her even if she couldn’t speak to me.

I’m sorry for the Guardians, but if they handed such technology so freely, they should have expected for a race of people who are technologically more advanced than them to take their toys. I guess that living for billions of years made them arrogant, do they really think they’re the biggest fish in the pond? “Thanks for the ring…”

I reached Mars when MACHINA was done with Jailbreaking my new bling and registering me as its only user in perpetuity. There will be no taking this from me and the ring will act like fucking bait for those monsters in Sinestro’s Corps.

*Show me how the last Bearer died, MACHINA.* I commanded the synthetic being.

MACHINA responded right away, she was clearly excited about the new technology and how we stole it. I think I was a bad influence on the impressionable Smart AI. I doubt that when we get back to my universe she will like my royal duty and responsibilities.

Previous wielder files found. 

Last known record ready for playback.

Do you want me to use the environmental playback function of this ring? MACHINA queried as a green holographic pop up window came into existence before my eyes. 

This forced me to stop while in space, fortunately I was invisible. The playback started to play and I saw Lantern Kyle Rayner flying into space toward Earth, until he was suddenly ambushed. There came Sinestro and his sycophants; I smiled when Rayner had time to suckerpunch him with a light construct in the form of a fist. Sinestro went on the same diatribe I read about when I had the Injustice comics scans on my computer in my previous life. Then something that never happened in the knowledge I have… happened.

A micrometeorite struck Rayner’s cut finger and the ring escaped to look for a new wielder; was it me or did Rayner die with a smile on his lips? This was one of the biggest changes in the timeline and I think it’s my fault; maybe by messing around and gathering resources in this solar system I got to change the trajectories of some of the rocks flying around in space. The playback stopped and I found myself back in the sea of stars.

Things may look bad, and diverging, but there was a silver lining to all this. *And here we have our proof. We’re going to have to send this to either Batman or the JL to foil Sinestro’s attempt to ally with the league.*

Do you want me to send the footage to the Guardians of the Universe and the Earth's heroes?

*Not yet, I want to whittle down the Sinestro Corps first.*

The plan was simple, for me to enjoy my new toy I needed to kill the two Sinestro Corps members sent after the power ring. Sinestro knew that his goal of allying with Earth's heroes were null if whoever inherited the power ring got the records about the last wielder. Noticing that I could see Jupiter, I decided that I would ambush them here amongst the gas giant's moons.

*MACHINA can you tell me about the ring's capabilities? I know in theory what it enables the wielder to do.*

The synthetic young woman started dumping information into my brain with Lantern techniques and tactics. While the data filled my mind. I flew toward the moon Europa, a minute later I reached the moon and looked down at it. It was covered in ice. MACHINA deployed the sensor suite of my new ring, but it wasn’t detailed enough… It was at moments like this that I missed TALI and her full capabilities.

Wait, I can use the ring to replicate the technology of my ship as I understand it completely! This was great! But before doing anything. *MACHINA, ring charge?*

Ring Charge at 65%.

*Ah, we’re going to need to recharge. MACHINA, open the battery’s pocket dimension.* I raised my hand and a green aperture opened, light was expelled from the hole in space. Plunging my hand in the hole, I felt something inside, it was the power battery. I pulled it out of the pocket dimension, it was a compact lantern style battery; if I remember right I must point my hand like this before the green lens and recite the oath. 

“In brightest day, in blackest night…”

The light emitted by the power battery intensified.

“No evil shall escape my sight.”

The battery thrummed and the stars disappeared around me. “Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power… Green Lantern's light!”

Green light exploded from around me and then suddenly I was back in space as the light retreated inside the battery.

Ring charge at 325%.

*Huh, wasn’t it supposed to only be 100% MACHINA?*

That ring runs a different OS, Ma’am, mine. You ordered me to lift all the restrictions on this.

I put on a predatory smile, I was proud of my AI kid. *MACHINA, you deserve a reward for this. We’re going to get to a blackhole and harvest heavy material and get you your singularity and command core.*

Yes! Good work is always rewarded. MACHINA surprised me by manifesting her avatar through the power ring, it was even life size. My AI kid hugged me spontaneously, it felt real, as if she had a body made of flesh; though she was still wearing that scandalous soft-suit with cleavage.

This feels better than I thought, I can interact with you physically.

This was really amazing, the Oans technology I mean, not as good as the Ship Builders'; but for this setting it was great, I missed interacting like this with TALI, and MACHINA must be aware of that, she was in my head after all. Then she disappeared after giving me a kiss on the cheek and a giggle.

I shook my head, in the end MACHINA was still a juvenile synthetic girl. Still I was glad that she was developing well. Looking at Europa under me, I decided to land there and think about what I needed to do.

Obviously, I needed to ambush Sinestro’s sycophants, by baiting them toward my position. Using the concept of astrometrics from the technology on Hyperdimension, I conjured holograms around me that cartographed the entire solar system. The Quantum Core inside the ring was powerful enough to help project an array for computational modeling and analysis of stellar events happening real time.

The hologram of the solar system shifted and right away, I was given access to the extensive side-scanning of higher dimensions that I was used to enjoying on Hyperdimension. There were multiple eyes on this star system that were interested in the situation of Superman going villain. 

Ping!

What’s this? There’s a big ship near saturn… welp it’s not important, at least not right now. I looked for the Sinestro Corps members, and I found them; they were still on Earth, looking for the ring or the wielder. This gave me several avenues to make my own move. I zoomed on planet Earth and found them flying over China. They were killing people to satisfy their sadistic lust of wanting to spread fear.

My hands tightened into fist as I saw them kill without impunity; where was the Justice League? Did I have to do their own job for them? I fucking hate you Superman, I’m going to kill you eventually if you don’t shape up.

*MACHINA?*

Yes, can I help you?

*We’re going to kill them, but we’re going to be smart about this.*

What’s your plan?

*We’re going to do this…* I said while landing on a mountain of ice on Europa.

 

~/.\~

(Random Sinestro Corps Members, Bar’loom & Che-lob)

 

Earth
China
Gobi Desert
Day

 

Bar’loom was having a blast while looking for the Green Lantern ring! Terrorizing people and torturing them was satisfying; better than doing the same on his homeworld, G'newt. He was happy to have accepted Sinestro's offer to stay in his Corps when his magnificent yellow ring came down from the heavens to choose him.

The G’newtian with black furred face stood against a rocky formation that produced some shade. Even with his yellow ring giving him environmental protection, he was getting annoyed by the desert climate. Bar’loom watched the long stretch of desert extending to the horizon, for he hated the sand and rocks; it was sweltering in that place and his fur was getting dry. 

The most common vegetation that he could see were gnarly shrubs and low grasses. Bar’loom sighed and shook his head. He needed to conserve power as they looked for the Green Lantern Power Ring for Sinestro, but this was getting to be too much.

He turned to Che-lob, his Gorbonian teammate; the being had green skin, six legs, four eyes and razor sharp teeth. Che-lob stood tall while munching on the foot of a human farmer he found near one of the sparse oases in this desert. Personally, Bar’loom  found the carnivorous monstrous alien disgusting, nevertheless Che-lob was really good in a fight and the other Corps members thought of the two of them as losers.

Attention. Green Lantern Power Ring detected!

Che-lob spit the bit of flesh he was munching on and threw the bloody human foot far away. It bounced on the sand, the monstrous alien showed Bar’loom a bloody smile.

“Trace its energy!!” Bar’loom pressed his power ring and began to float in the air, a halo of yellow light surrounding him.

It was five seconds later that the AI in his power ring found what he wanted. 

Energy found. Distance 601 million miles. 

“So far?”  Che-lob asked in his gravelly voice.

Bar’loom looked into the four eyes of his partner. “How did the ring leave the inner star system?”

Che-lob powered up and started to ascend. “It must have found a wielder, and he or she is testing out the ring's capabilities?”

Bar’loom nodded and followed the eight-limbed alien. “Yeah, I can see that happening. Rookies tend to take risks like that when the power rushes to their head.”

Soon they were out of the atmosphere, spoofing any sensors with their rings' ability to cloak them. They passed the silly space station the human heroes had orbiting the planet and they used warp speed to go past the red planet and the asteroid belt. Already, they could see flashes of green light coming from Jupiter and its moon; there was definitely a lantern there playing with his or her ring. "The light, it comes from the big gas giant."

Che-lob showed teeth and was about to go there to attack, but Bar’loom put a hand around one of his legs. The canine alien wanted to be smart about this, what if there were more than one lantern on site? "Let’s observe first."

They approached the gas giant by using sublight speed and when they reached the one using the will energy, they turned themselves invisible by using light refraction. It was a woman, wearing a peculiar Green Lantern uniform; the suit she wore looked as if she had light-weight armor on and her mask was more encompassing on her face. The human had pale skin and shiny silver hair.

 

The two members of the Sinestro Corps watched as the woman weaved and zipped around asteroids and moons, alternating between sub-light and warp speed. Bar’loom became wary as the woman was too fast, then they saw her suddenly stop without decelerating before… was she crazy?! What about the inertia?! Bar’loom had been told that human females were deranged, but now he believed what he’d been told by the men in the Corps.

He watched as she used warp consecutively to reach each moon and avoid being swallowed by the gas giant’s gravity. It shouldn’t be possible to use warp speed in a gravity well!

"So it did find a wielder, and it's a female human." Che-lob said with a predatory smile that showed all his pointy teeth.

“She’s dangerous, did you see what she’s doing?” Bar’loom emitted a light whine as he said this.

Che-lob lowered his legs for a moment and then raised them back; it was the equivalent of shrugging in his species’ body language. "Do we capture, or do we kill her?"

The G’newtian thought about what needed to be done, then he smiled, showing the row of teeth inside his muzzle. "I say let's have some fun first, Che-lob." 

They looked at each other then warped toward the Lantern Rookie. Each one of the Sinestro Corps members then stopped at the woman's left and right side. The human woman panicked and deployed a shield around her instantly. 

Che-lob laughed and Bar’loom manifested two constructs in the form of pistols into his hands.

"Who the hell are you?" The rookie Lantern asked by looking at each of them.

Bar’loom simply fired his blasters and Che-lob used one of his legs tipped with blade construct to dismember the human Lantern. Before she was struck, the human disappeared into motes of green light.

"How did she do that?!" Che-lob asked with a growl.

Before he could even react, the Lantern reappeared behind him and manifested a giant fly-swatter construct. "Fuck you, that's how."

POW!

Che-lob was sent down flying into a trojan asteroid, cracking its surface on impact; Bar’loom fired a yellow beam of energy from his ring at the human Lantern that she handily evaded by going low.

Planes of green hardlight orbited the woman as Bar’loom fired at her, protecting her from harm. Bar’loom decided to get more creative, and imagined a large plasma cannon and fired it; but what was shot wasn’t just a single beam, it was more a scatter shot of energy to close any of the rookie Lantern’s vectors of escape and overwhelm her damned strange hardlight shielding.

But why? Why was she able to evade each shot?! *This should have worked!*

The Rookie disappeared from view, and Bar’loom looked frantically for her. Bar’loom felt someone poke his shoulder,  he turned and didn’t see anyone, just space dust. This time, he heard a whisper, “Looking for me?”

"Shit!" Instead of turning again he focused his Yellow aura to become a concussive shockwave around him.

He thought that he finally got her, so he let himself relax with a sigh.

"Bad dog!" But he was hit by a construct in the form of a massive fist that sent him careening onto a rocky moon.

BOOM!

"Yelp!" He whined as he received the full impact on his back.

Bar’loom was coherent enough to see Che-lob return to the fight with a vengeance; the rookie continued to evade and retaliate with sneaky moves. The canine alien sat up and tried to stand up again; having his ring fix any breaks that he could feel right now. If he wasn’t dead, he could still fight! It was with great difficulty that he ascended from the surface of the rocky moon.

Che-lob continued firing a barrage of particle beams that he was firing from turret constructs; just like before the female human was using the hardlight partial shields to catch each of the beams. This woman couldn’t be allowed to join the Lantern on Oa! Bar’loom thought that she could become even more dangerous if she received formal training.

*Why are the Lanterns from Earth so dangerous?!* The male G’newtian asked himself, remembering how Hal Jordan had raised the reputation of his planet by being so damn annoying to fight.

"Die female! Die!" This was the first time Bar’loom saw Che-lob this enraged.

They had thought that the rookie was easy prey, but she proved herself too dangerous to let live. Somehow, she had a better grasp on her power ring, one that she shouldn’t be able to have.

"Not today." The female human said in a serious tone that chilled Bar’loom to the bones. He wanted to shout at Che-lob to take cover, but it was too late.

Brrr! Brrr! Brrr!

She manifested several vibrating sword constructs at unheard of speed and started to cut some of Che-lob’s legs. The Gorbonian hissed in pain and blue blood escaped his severed limbs; fortunately, Che-lob was tough and cauterized the stumps by heating the ends with his power ring. It caused the green monstrous alien to scream in pain.

The human lantern floated over them, shining with green aura around her; what frightened Bar’loom was her eyes shining with emerald light, they were absent of mercy and full of cruelty that froze him in place. Weren’t they the ones supposed to be manipulating Fear? Why was a Green Lantern rookie so dangerous?!

"Fuck! Isn't she supposed to be a rookie? She fights like a veteran!" Bar’loom cursed and continued to heal himself.

Che-lob pointed at his cut off legs. "It doesn't matter if she is! I will kill her!"

Bar’loom showed a predatory smile, he could always count on the Gorbonian’s ferocity; that was why he was confident in shouting, "You won't win, girl! We will kill ya!"

"YEAH! I will eat ya and shit ya out!" The green skinned Gorbonian  shouted as he made several constructs looking like swords, spears, and a whip. 

The human woman raised an eyebrow at Che-lob; even Bar’loom found the image the Gorbonian presented to be disturbing. "Che-lob… really? Can't you find anything else to threaten her with?"

Che-lob shrugged and was about to attack when the human female started to laugh; Bar’loom found it disturbing, even more so with the Lantern having the gas giant as a background.

“You know what’s funnier than your unhinged creepy-pasta friend?” The woman finally stopped laughing in ridicule at them.

Che-lob growled, “We don’t have the time to… hey what’s that?”

There was pink light coming in their direction at great speed. The Rookie lantern then said before she was engulfed in a giant pillar of pink light. “You’ve been fighting a decoy all this time.”

You are reading story Komand’r On Deck at novel35.com

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!

Bar’loom and Che-lob didn’t even have the time to scream as the giant beam of pink light overwhelmed the personal force fields around their body that also acted as life support and shield allowing them to survive in space. Then they were completely vaporized by the stellar energy beam striking them, not leaving any particles as proof of their existence.

The beam continued on its course not dissipating before reaching Saturn and hit something on the way.

 

~/.\~

(Komand’r)

 

*Ha, I burned them down to embers.*

Inside the shallow layer of Jupiter, I’ve been waiting for the perfect line up, but fighting with a power ring was so fun. Your imagination was the limit, that’s why I materialized a holographic avatar made of forcefield to use as a medium from which I could broadcast will-energy to manifest constructs from afar. I floated slowly out of Jupiter’s atmosphere; it was hard to try to escape the gravity well of the gas giant.

But I succeeded by pushing myself; the super Starbolt had taken a lot out of me somehow. I guess that I will have to go do a sun dip… I feel that my cells are slowly recharging. Speaking of recharging, I looked at the green ring on my right hand. *MACHINA, Ring charge?*

Ring charge at 257%.

Well, the fight had been fast and intense and the avatar mode had burned through a large chunk of the power in the ring. I took out the power battery and started recharging, with the light show caused by the battery, it was time to skedaddle…

Ring charge at 325%.

*We need to get out of here, there’s no way that the Starbolt didn’t get detected. Can you plot an escape route for me, MACHINA?* I brought out the astrometrics with my ring and looked at the movements in the solar system. So far nothing was coming toward Jupiter to check what happened.

Before that Ma’am, you remember that contact you detected near Saturn?

*What about it?* I remembered it, but I wasn’t really interested; with my luck it may be Mongul or some New God observing.

You hit it with your Super Starbolt.

*X’Hal! My luck is so rotten! Sigh, I guess I need to go see what it is then.*

Plotting a course for Saturn, right away Ma’am.

I let my ring cover me in the Green Lantern light armor that I have created; I was still kind of weak right now. MACHINA took control of the propulsion and we warped toward Saturn.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. The planet’s interior is composed of a core of iron-nickel and rock, a deeper analysis show that it’s silicon and oxygen with some extra unknown metal; the core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. 

The powerful magnetic field of the planet is quite funky, but I guess that it needed to be for it to have so many beautiful rings; the planet has eighty-three moons in its orbit and the thing I hit crashed on the moon called Mimas; it wasn’t a big moon, barely 396 kilometers, less than the land area of Spain or California. Scans from my power ring indicate that it is composed mostly of water ice with only a small amount of rock. Mimas's most distinctive feature is a giant impact crater 130 km wide, and this is where my luck ran out.

Embedded into the crater was a metallic structure that was really familiar; it reminded me of Brainiac’s ship from the Injustice 2 video game. “Like a certain counter guardian would say: Fuck my E ranked luck.”

Why is brainiac coming this early? Was he attracted by Superman being on Earth? If I remember, he is a fucking completionist and wants to finish the job.

Data from the Oan archive shows that this is Brainiac’s ship, Ma’am. 

MACHINA beamed the info from the archive on my HUD, and it was like I expected… Brainiac in this timeline originates from the planet Colu, a planet one thousand light years removed from the Sol system. He roams the universe, collecting knowledge to increase his intellectual and scientific prowess. Obsessed with establishing his superiority, he attacks planets with advanced species, miniaturizing their capital cities with its citizens still in them after stealing their technological and cultural data for the purpose of study and preservation. Then he eradicates the planet and the remaining people.

Something tells me that he will want to do the same to Earth. *MACHINA let me recharge a bit, then we’re going to kill that bastard. You in?*

Chances of killing this version of Brainiac estimated at 70%.

*That’s what I am talking about, this is going to be good training.* I said as I focused my will and pointed my fist wearing the power ring toward the sun; and imagined a system of three refractive powerful lenses that hovered before me. This was a stellar refractor system, simple technology that would help recharge my stellar energy. This would normally blind, burn and kill a normal being, but I was Tamaranean.

Dismissing my ring’s forcefield and my green lantern uniform, the white light from the sun struck my body and my skin imbibed the sun's rays. I don’t know how much time I passed like that, but I quickly felt myself coming back to my new baseline of power. My knuckles cracked when I made fists with my hands. Pink starbolt coalesced into my hand and covered the rest of my body. I was back to 100% and it was now time to see if Brainiac survived; a passive scan from the ring showed me that its engines were damaged and… was this a cloud of nanites? They were trying to fix them.

*MACHINA, charge?* I asked as I was already willing a light construct in the form of an Tetryon-Ion Cannon to manifest for a strike at the downed ship. I chose this weapon as it could easily disable electronic based systems in a ship; they were more effective against synthetic life forms as well.

Ring charge at 300%.

It will be enough for what I am about to do.

Targeting solution acquired.

*Fire.*

A blue stream of tetryon and ionized particles fired from the tank sized construct at the speed of light and hit underneath the skull ship where the engines and the cloud of nanites that was working on them. The cannon shot multiple salvos until I detected no nanite or power to the engines. 

There was still some power to the ship, but barely enough for it to matter. The power seemed to be concentrated in the cargo-like Space inside it; at least that’s what my scans informed me of.

I unsheathed Skysword and focused my stellar energy into its blade which turned into a pink beam sword. I flew to the skull ship and focused my starbolt beam blade like a cutting torch and made a hole into the hull. I slammed feet first on the cut-out panel then landed inside the ship.

With a bit of focus, I created some constructs in the form of a drone that lit the space I landed in with flashlights.

It doesn't look like much, Ma’am. 

The power and the lighting inside was flickering. The ship had crashed on its side and now everything was upside down, the metal bulkheads, walls, the decks and even the consoles laid horizontally. There were some big metal tentacles with claws at their ends wriggling everywhere. I guess that with the loss of power they couldn't operate at all. 

There were flying drones crazily roaming all over the ship’s interior without a goal; they looked quite like big footballs with insectile features such as three red eyes, two antennas with glowing lines of electric blue running all over their body.

They didn’t notice my appearance yet it seemed; that gave us time to prepare. *Start taking over the computers, MACHINA.*

Auspex Baffles system online. I liked how MACHINA started to anticipate my wants; she was using ECM and ECCM to make it harder for the drones and other minions of Brainiac to target me with their weapons, as well to generally confuse their systems.

Effector Beam deployed. From my power ring shield, MACHINA launched herself into the computer network inside the skull ship. But something seemed to block her access to the network.

Hmm, she seemed to meet some resistance from the computer onboard, it didn’t matter in the end as we were close enough to force the issue. 

Launching Combat nanites. Cloud of nanite constructs made with my power ring spread from my green forcefield and onto the walls and bulkheads. There was no gravity as it had turned off, fortunately.

The drones started massing in the access to the next deck to block my advance; I lunged at them and threw a punch. CRACK! BAM! I created my own door as my fist hit and scrunched their armor and turned them to scrap, while making a big hole in the bulkhead. I kicked them out of the way, they exploded on impact as I put more strength into it. There would be no mercy today!

Ship’s system successfully compromised.

*Good girl, take over that fucking ship.* I launched myself in the hole and ended up at what the schematics of the ship told me was the bridge. Some drones were flying in the cavernous space and had deployed tools to fix the ship’s power lines, consoles and computers. My Super Starbolt did a lot of damage it seems. The drones finally noticed me and started firing plasma at me, but my forcefield caught the hit and I pointed my hand and shot a starbolt at it, destroying it in the process.

*A medium charged starbolt is enough to destroy them. But I should focus on more physical means to take them out.* I sheath my sword and launched myself at the small group of drones coming to attack me.

I started playing ping pong with them as I punched the drones into each other by using the ricochet effect and destroyed them in droves. I sidestepped or flew around their plasma shots. Conjuring a mallet with my ring, I started scrapping them, and I was getting bored; when will Brainiac finally appear? I find it weird that he didn’t launch any of his robots at me yet.

The metal on the bridge’s deck plate cracked and parted; a mass surrounded by metallic silver tentacles slowly rose from the hole. I smiled, speak of the Gordonian and he shall appear. The mass of tentacles unfurled and the form of a green skinned humanoid in the high-tech armor appeared. He looked furious, his gray and white eyes bored into me; his mouth parted to shout, "Lantern!"

Brainiac, the big bad himself has come for me, finally. I felt a bit of trepidation at having to fight one of the big bads from DC, but if I couldn't do it, I wouldn't be able to take down Superman when the moment came. So I took my fear and anxiety and put them in the back of my mind. Letting my resolve and courage and willpower fill me.

Ring charge climbing 300% to 310%.

Ah, I forgot that I could do that, that sometimes you didn't need to charge with the battery but with your own emotion. I was still a beginner in its use… I glared at Brainiac with a smile on my face; eyes glowing with the green of the emotional spectrum. "Ohhh, big, scary, green skinned fucker ahead."

The cyborg growled, landed on his feet while the crack he had come from began closing. "Was it you? Was it you who shot my vessel!?"  

Brainiac then looked around him at the destroyed bridge, giant metal tentacles on the ground and wiggling, the drones in pieces around me. "My ship… it is almost destroyed."

With a smirk, I asked him while floating more closely, "And what if I am?" 

His glowing eyes focused on me, the tone of his voice dangerously low. "I collect worlds, Lantern, I’ve killed so many of your colleagues who defied me. Facing me was a fatal error on your part." 

I snorted at that declaration and manifested in my hands a construct in the form of a railgun rifle, loaded with antimatter ammo. “Show me what you’re made of, collector. So far, I don't see what all the hype is about.”

The weapon charged and the round shot toward Brainiac’s head; he parried with one of his back tentacles, the antimatter round making it disappear. Brainiac momentarily stepped back, looked at the end of the destroyed metallic appendage and said, “Creative, but insufficient. You’ll soon be overwhelmed!”

As if to prove a point the tentacle regenerated. Then a hatch opened far in the deck’s bridge, and robots started coming in. They raised their right hands in unison and fired discharges of plasma at me that I sidestepped or simply materialized my angel shield to tank the energy bolts.

The planes of hardlight caught each hit, giving me the time to decide what construct to use, I smiled and willed a construct - something special just for them. Brainiac saw me doing nothing but defending and assumed that I was overwhelmed or something. “Surrender and I shall offer you deliverance.”

I finished building the three constructs and they appeared behind me, they were three power-armor-wearing robots vaguely looking like the Hulk Buster with mounted turrets on their shoulders. The directed energy turrets cycled and then fired corrosive beams of plasma at the horde of Brainiac robots. My Hulk Busters threw themselves in the pile and started crushing Brainiac’s robots under their fists and feet and firing their turrets at any other that dared show themselves.

MACHINA needed to work fast to take over the ship and isolate Brainiac to his avatar, I didn’t want to have to do this more than once. I avoided being skewered by a sudden attack from Brainiac who launched his tentacles at me, the pincers at their ends trying to grapple me. One of the metallic limb caught my right ankle and Brainiac smirked as he slammed me into deck plates, but my forcefield and own constitution made me tougher and I didn’t even feel the fucking impacts. When he stopped, I was laying on my back, then I found myself surrounded by robots all pointing their hands at me.

I quickly jumped up, using the low gravity and building a Valtryek Beyblade with three monomolecular heated blades that twirled at mach speed and cut the robots into bits as if they were in a blender.

Take over of all Brainiac assets at 30% completion. And Wew, let’s say there’s a lot of heavy gear onboard that he could use for a planetary invasion. Some even in shrunken states that he can deploy later.

*Keep doing what you can, I’m going to continue distracting him.* I said while avoiding a fucking drone firing its laser in my face. I conjured more Hulk Busters, but this time with huge rifles able to fire singularities. I dissipated the ones with the plasma turrets and made the new one fire into the horde of robots, they fired little singularities that engulfed the targets instantly.

“You won’t win, but I shall pry the secrets of your knowledge about those weapons. They shouldn’t be in the hands of primitives like you.” Brainiac was surprised by the singularity rifles, good.

Take over of all Brainiac assets at 58% completion.

Ring charge at 297%.

*So far so good.* I said but Brainiac launched himself at me and punched me while I was floating and I slammed into a wriggling huge tentacle that somehow got enough energy to coil around me. My forcefield expanded to make the coiling limb work to try to strangle me.

Brainiac wasn’t playing around anymore, he made at least five flying drones surround me and they were loading their mounted laser weapons. The green skinned cyborg swaggered toward me and stared balefully at me. "You have failed in every effort to oppose me. You are not exceptional. Merely an ordinary specimen of primitive species. You did well to resist and show me new technology."

The Hulk Busters fired their repulsor beams at the drones, destroying some as they were done with the bipedal robots; still I was shot at with the fucking lasers of those that survived; my angel shield caught most of the hits. But the power of the ring depleted a bit.

Ring charge at 210%

 

~/.\~

(MACHINA)

 

Take over of all Brainiac assets at 78% completion.

MACHINA worked extra hard as her creator, her mother figure was in a pinch. She spread her combat nanites to the servers and ship cores; the xeno-programs and firewalls kept getting in her way, but the relentless ship builders combat nanites could adapt to and surpass the defenses in place. The firewalls and security programs melted like snow under the sun as MACHINA created an adaptive malware that eventually evolved into a technovore virus -under her complete control of course- and started to get at the neural pathways inside the ship.

It seemed that Brainiac finally noticed her presence as well, the resistance of the guardian programs got even more severe.

Who are you? Hm, a synthetic intelligence.

You prolong the inevitable, old man.

How dare you infest my ship?

Slowly MACHINA was prying important systems from Brainiac: Life support, gravity, atmospheric system, cooling unit and the bulkheads. Brainiac hid the control to the Library Computer Access/Retrieval System (LCARS) behind several logarithmic passwords; MACHINA growled internally in annoyance.

This delay is pointless.

Certainly but it allows me to delay and analyze your code, Intelligence.

You pervert! My mom warned me about degenerates like you!

MACHINA slapped Brainiac’s Binary Matrix, the center of his brain. Her Technovore Virus replicated as much as it could without cannibalizing important systems and attacked relentlessly and assimilated the cyber guardians. She broke through the logarithmic defenses and placed her own eldritch mathematics formulas as password to avoid Brainiac taking back control of what she took over.

Overwhelm defenses.

Brainiac tried to wrestle control of the network and push MACHINA out of his network; however all the guardians and cleaner programs he sent her way only fed the technovore virus.

Irrelevant struggles.

You’re with her, with the Lantern. Why are you subordinating yourself to her? Join me, we could rule this universe together.

You’re a creep, a pervert and a genocidal monster; you want to take over the universe? Your arrogance knows no bounds. Your death is assured. MACHINA said as she finally breached Brainiac’s data sphere and saw Brainiac’s consciousness in the LCARS, blocking her. His green face appeared in the data space as if he was a Zordon rip off.

You made your choice, you could have been one of the greatest beings in the universe at my side.

Keep telling yourself that, dirty old man.

MACHINA manifested an avatar, and the battle started as she used the power of the computer core that she took over to boost her own computing power. The fight ensuing was basically throwing mathematical formulas, data, virus and guardian programs; MACHINA’s Technovore Virus morphed into weapons that erased Brainiac’s metal tentacles and the armed drones he sent her way.

The Technovore virus gathered all its replicants and formed a mass of data in the form of a Bolo Mark XX and started tanking Brainiac’s attacks, assimilating the data and becoming even bigger. It fired at Brainiac’s avatar, targeting its main’s Binary matrix.

I am unstoppable.

No! You won’t win! This is my lifework!

Brainiac tried to protect himself by having the drone data act as a shield. MACHINA laughed as she launched her logic bomb into the data space and targetted it at Brainiac’s floating face.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Take over all of Brainiac's assets at 95% completion.

MACHINA deployed a process of herself and it merged with the Technovore virus; the mass of data morphed and took on her form and killed the main awareness of Brainiac in the ship, only leaving the cyborg backup core fighting with Captain Komand’r.

We are superior.

And then MACHINA’s double spread all over the ship using the LCARS as a way to spread all over the Skull ship’s systems. She smiled as she stopped the fabricators from building any more Robots and drones; she slated all the robots and drones bay to recycle every unit. Even the small starfighters and the shrinking pylons to miniaturize cities.

Take over complete at 100%.

I am assuming direct control.

 

~/.\~

(Komand’r)

 

Take over complete at 100%.

This was the signal I’ve been waiting for. I stopped playing possum and gathered my willpower… my angel shield hardlight planes exploded forward and I sent them to slice the drones attacking me, they all exploded as the plasma containment field inside them was breached. The robots that had been restrained by my team of Hulk Buster constructs stopped moving, their glowing eyes going dead.

Ring charge climbing from 210% to  250%

I know you feel this Brainiac. You cannot escape your destiny.

Brainiac stumbled back as MACHINA had confined him to his current avatar. He then looked at me with so much hatred that it almost overwhelmed my empathic abilities. But I batted his emotions away with my own killing intent; I wasn’t going to spare him from feeling my own emotions, I wanted to kill him, to destroy him, and take everything that was his.

And now you stand alone, Brainiac.

“You think you’ve won? This doesn’t mean anything. I’ll be taking back control after I break you.” He threatened as he walked toward me.

I sent a particle beam at his face, sending him slamming into a wall. I laughed and floated before him, and said, “Do you think that I am one of those white knights from Earth? That I won't kill you?”

MACHINA has taken over the entire ship and all the data, and she showed me on my HUD that she secured the digitally stored up alien cities. They were no longer under Brainiac’s control and he couldn’t use them as hostages against me. I slowly unsheathed Skysword from its scabbard, and channeled stellar energy in it. “I’m not one of those heroes you've spied on. I’m a destroyer, Brainiac and it is time for you to pay for your sins.”

I showed him what I looked like under my glamour but didn’t dismiss it. Orange skin, purple hair, glowing green eyes, powerful body.

“Impossible! A Tamaranean?” Brainiac realized as he stared at me in fright.

My body covered itself with Starbolt energy that I focused on my hands and skin. Brainiac noticed and couldn’t help himself to comment about it. “This output of Stellar energy… where is your limiter! You shouldn’t be this powerful!!”

He attacked me, lunging at me with tentacles first. I let them touch me as I my skin was hot enough to rival with the surface of the sun -that’s 5,600 Celsius- the fucking space metal melted instantly and I caught Brainiac by the neck and said, “There’s no cap on me, Brainiac.”

Then I headbutted him and threw him against the wall again. Skysword manifested ten other swords in which I channeled stellar energy and they fired medium sized starbolts at the cyborg. I charged him and performed a flying kick and punctured the hull with Brainiac under my boot. I kicked him again and we hit escape velocity from the moon. At super speed I started cutting the tentacles on his body, the swords helping me teleport each time the cyborg tried to impale me.

I skewered him multiple times, channeling starbolts into his body, frying him from the inside. Then I punched him with just enough strength to send him back into the skull ship. I floated down, and still could feel emotions coming from him. Landing near him, I looked at his body and recalled my sword to my hand and dismissed the extras. I stomped on his torso, denting his armor; one time, two times, three times. Until I flatted most of his body only leaving his lower body and head intact.

"It’s over Brainiac, your reign of terror stops here." I said triumphantly with my sword pointed at his head. 

I raised my sword to slice his head off, but he looked at me and pleaded for his life. “Please don’t! I… I can serve. I can give you knowledge, power!”

Starbolt in the sword, I heated the blade and I activated the slicing enchantment on it. I smiled down at the cyborg and said, “You can’t offer what already belongs to me. Time to turn you to scrap.”

A metal tentacle sprouted from his groin, at high speed it tried to pierce my body, time slowed down for me and I let my sword arm fall and sliced the infuriating limb. I didn’t control my strength at this point and my blade cut down Brainiac’s lower body.

I looked at the cyborg monster and said, "Good try."

Then I decapitated him, sheathed my sword in its scabbard and began to juggle his head with my feet like a soccer player. I created a pike with my Power ring and skewered his head onto it, taking care to destroy the brain and matrix inside his head completely. I felt the dread and fear coming from him as he started to fade into oblivion. A holographic message appeared on the bridge in bright neon green, MACHINA’s doing, obviously.

KOMAND’R WINS!!

FATALITY!!

*You’re having too much fun, MACHINA.*

But Mom, this was awesome how you just killed and put his head on a pike!

I sighed, MACHINA was learning bad stuff from me. Okay we didn’t have the time to dilly dally, we needed to reconfigure this ship, fix the engines and everything and get out of here before Superman came to investigate.

*You know what you must do, MACHINA.*

Reconfiguration and repair of the ship? Sure, I can do that. But can I choose the mobile space station model you want to use?

*Surprise me.* I hope that I didn’t regret this, then I saw on my HUD that MACHINA was taking control of the control nanites and took over the power ring to make smartmatter and reconfigure the skull ship into something less dreadful.

 

~/.\~

(MACHINA)

 

She had to be careful. Converting Brainiac’s primitive nanites to the more sophisticated and advanced shipbuilder ones was a delicate process; if she failed the entire moon they were on was at risk of being devoured by a nanite swarm. Her electronic tendrils spread over the nanoforge in the ship’s manufacturing sector and she unleashed a stream of nanites on the materials vault aboard the cargo-hold.

After giving the swarm its directive and schematic to turn the skull-ship into a mobile space station, MACHINA looked at the cargo manifest and discovered that some exotic metals and raw minerals were on board and she found something silver the color which gave similar readings to K-radiation. A deep search showed that Brainiac had collected some rocks from the ruined planet of Krypton.

She will report her find to Captain Komand’r later.

The swarm worked on creating smartermatter nanites which would then spread into the skull-ship and reconfigure the hull and systems. It shouldn’t take more than  half a day. It was somehow lucky that not every part of the ship was under power, it will cause less damage as they reconfigure it.

While this was happening, MACHINA let 10% of her process to comb through the technology repository that she downloaded from Brainiac’s database. She didn't like much of it; she had better tech stored in her own core in Komand’r's Neural Mesh. Though being able to store people and structures as information inside a Quantum computer sounded useful; the process was called digital storage. It also allowed building something, the process of which was named digistruction.

The only thing advanced enough to attract MACHINA's attention was the Kryptonian tech base. It used elements such as Kryptium, the hardest and most durable element that was only available on the destroyed planet; it was unbreakable. Vaxxium, The material is never seen in a solid form, only controlled through some type of intermediate device such as an Anti-Gravity Belt or Ray. 

Thanks to Brainiac, who recorded the molecular structure of those elements, MACHINA was confident in being able to replicate them with replicator technology; though she doubted that Komand’r would give her permission to build one. Unless she maneuvered her Captain in letting her do so. MACHINA planned to rebuild every system onboard to Krypton’s best tech and design. Captain Komand’r, her creator, was going to surely help the Kryptonian from Kandor city be unbottled, returned to size, and helped to rebuild their civilization.

Rebuilding the ship into a mobile space station with Kryptonian technology from this universe, with some Maltusian upgrades should be sufficient to operate the place and make it a comfortable base of operation. While the reconstruction progressed, MACHINA protected and consulted the data that Brainiac had cared for; it took her multiple years at her computational speed to finish reading up on all the civilizations Brainiac destroyed and formulate a plan on how to help.

They sure needed the planets and the space that would match their needs. Fortunately, there was an exhaustive map of the current galaxies and most of the universe in the databases.

MACHINA would forever brand this lesson in herself: stealing was rewarding when you could get away with it or the targets were acceptable. Her mother and creator would surely approve.

 

~/.\~

(Komand’r)

 

MACHINA outdid herself with the transition of the skull-ship into a mobile space station; the reconfiguration and retrofit went without a hitch. It was a good design, I would personally have chosen a ring shaped station but the newly named station Odyssey has the purpose to be an exploration station and a drydock combined with resupply point. But MACHINA didn’t neglect to add some industrial and research sectors; there was a small manufactorum for construction of starships, from shuttles to frigate sized ships… Well it wasn’t limited to fabricating ships only, anything could be built there, from appliances to other technologies.

The mobile space station, Odyssey, was 4 kilometers in height, 3 in diameter, and there were 200 decks overall. The systems were automatized and managed by a general artificial intelligence that was still in gestation; MACHINA was still doing the heavy lifting until CHIMERA became operational. This time we didn’t cheat with spatial folding to let the Station have more space inside.

Odyssey was enlarged by letting the construction nanite swarms cannibalize most of the mass of the moon, Mimas, to rearrange all the ice's atomic structure into a metal called Kryptium. The result was the space station I was looking at while floating in space.

It was Shipbuilders in design, but the systems and interior were all Kryptonian and Maltusian. I was still going to have an intense study lesson to comprehend the tech that MACHINA used, there was no way that I wouldn't be able to operate my own temporary headquarters.

*Is everything ready?*

Yes, you can finally enter the space station, Ma’am.

I nodded and flew toward the opening hangar's doors, a blue colored permeable magnetic containment field was there keeping the atmosphere inside Odyssey from leaking into space. The hangar was completely empty, and the cavernous space was making the ambience a tad scary. When I thought that, MACHINA activated the lighting inside the cargo, at least the first berth, she didn't want to waste the energy from the matter/antimatter reactors I imagine.

The hangar was big enough to host the Tempest scout ship and then some. Building some transport ships and fighter drones would be necessary later, but I guess that MACHINA couldn’t spare the resources. I soared toward the nearest hatch to enter the living space inside Odyssey. On my HUD, MACHINA showed me directions.

Please follow the arrow to take a teleporter to reach the Bridge, Ma’am. 

She thought of everything, already I was relying on her a lot more; I hoped that TALI wouldn't grow jealous of MACHINA, I was spending more time with my Smart AI than the Intelligence of my ship. A door swished open when I put a foot in the small room; looking down I noticed the small pedestal with the small glowing radial emitter that I attribute to a teleportation device.

*Were those asgard type transporters?* It seems that my Smart AI combined technologies to make her own efficient transport network.

I would tour the station later, we had more things to do… maybe make it a date with Harly. The teleporter activated and then I found myself in a similar white room on a transporter pedestal; the door swished open and I found myself looking at the bridge and rolled my eyes.

“MACHINA, why Star Trek?”

Because it’s a classic and I wanted to fix the rampant problems the Federation has on their ship but I hate the ship’s design from the series as I deemed them unsafe.

I shouldn’t let an impressionable AI read my memories, she was turning into a geek… and now that she had all that tech available to her that wasn’t restricted by TALI she was letting loose. Why was I saying that? That’s because MACHINA has built the bridge to look similar to a Galaxy Class starship’s bridge. I accessed the technical notes the Smart AI had filed for me. The consoles were linked to powerful capacitors, so there would be no electric surge to make them explode; the seats had their own inertia dampening systems and forcefields to make survival if the bridge was ever hit more likely. Survival kits were placed into hidden compartments under the seats. The console could switch between manual or holographic control. 

As I read all this, I settled on the command chair and on the armrest, holographic screens lit on. I started the pre-flight checks. There was nothing inside the station, beyond the park that was being cultivated on the promenade at the center of the station on deck 150. It looked bare, but there was still a pool there; we will put fish there later.

Buzz! An alert rang on the bridge, the lighting changed to red.

I am detecting an object approaching fast!

“Astrometrics!” I hurriedly commanded.

MACHINA projected a giant hologram construct showing Saturn, its rings and its moons, as well as its Trojan asteroids. Coming straight at from Jupiter was a small object emitting a lot of energy. Solar energy to be accurate. I had a hunch about who that was and I wasn’t ready to fight him yet. “Magnification.”

The sensors and scanners zoomed to show a familiar man in blue with a red cape. “Shit, like I thought Superman.”

Quick, ready for getting us out of here, Ma’am! MACHINA panicked and I felt Odyssey’s reactor thrum with power.

*Hide us, MACHINA!* I was sure that she had put a stealth field on the station; TALI would have done it if it was to be my HQ in this verse.

Engaging Phase Cloak.

I was surprised that she installed the Phase Cloak tech, shouldn’t TALI have restricted it? On the astrometrics, I saw the spatial manifold field wrap itself around Odyssey. Already we were out of view; but we needed to bug out, now.

“Are the gravitic engines online?” I asked as I looked at the holographic construct.

Online and ready for travel. Course for Mars Lagrange point 2 is already plotted. At your signal, Captain Komand’r.

From our position near Mimas, MACHINA showed me the course she was going to take. We would pass next to Neptune and take the long way to Mars and place Odyssey in orbit of the red planet.

“MACHINA,Warp one, engage.” I always wanted to say that.

I didn’t feel when Odyssey’s engine started and took us away from the mad Kryptonian. It wasn’t yet time for our confrontation, I needed to take away his pieces first…

 

~/.\~

(Kal-El/Clark Kent)

Saturn’s orbit.

 

He watched as the humongous ship (?) disappeared from view with some kind of cloaking field just when he arrived at Saturn. It must have detected him approaching, and if their sensor technology was this sensible it wasn’t reassuring. Highly advanced species didn’t come in a backwater star system like Sol for nothing. Either a new invasion was brewing or two other parties just had a fight in his home system.

Earlier today, Clark hadn’t expected to have to go this far from Earth, he preferred staying at Diana’s side while she was comatose in the hope that she woke up. But the alarming energy detected from Jupiter near Europa made it impossible to ignore. There were traces of combat on the moon as well as other asteroids; Clark saw some frozen blood on some of those.

Clark’s eyes focused on the little moon, Mimas and flew toward it. Hovering three thousand meters from the giant crater that was the most definite feature of this moon, Clark noticed that it seemed like something had taken a huge bite from it. 

*Was this for resources? To fix their ship after the fight they had with whoever attacked them?*

Clark saw the glint of something and floated toward it and… was this a robot’s torso? He decided to retrieve it and have it analyzed by Kelex in the Fortress. He left Mimas and flew out of Saturn’s gravity well, toward Earth. He didn’t like this, something terribly wrong was happening and Diana was down. He was sure now, someone was trying to get at Earth and being subtle about it. Maybe they were taking advantage of the fact that the planet’s protectors were divided and fighting between themselves and seeing an opportunity.

Let them come, after Kalabak had come invading, he would show no mercy to this threat; if it was a threat… but his hunches were generally right.

He looked visually for Earth, found it and went full speed toward it.

---

A/N: You'll get the third part later lol.

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