章 14: ISSUE 13 NEAR AND FAR
Tuesday Evening September 19th, 2024. Northern-Hollywood, California.
"I wasn't." Ganthet replied to Kyle's previous question with the same level of care one held when they told you the weather on a Wednesday.
Callous. Detached. Alien. So distant from humanity.
"You are a hypocritical bastard." Kyle said as they flew to his apartment.
"How so?"
"You butter me up with all this nonsense about the ring never making a mistake and how it chose me. The ring makes mistakes, look at Hal! And the ring didn't choose me, I'm a back-up dancer."
Ganthet slowed down his flight to hover beside Kyle— who refused to look at the blue alien.
"You misunderstand— which is natural. You're new. The ring doesn't make mistakes. I'll stand by that until I join my people in the afterlife. The ring NEVER makes a mistake. We do. Hal Jordan didn't fail the Lanterns,... I …. did. And you are no…. What did you call it? A backup dancer. The world changed. Coast-City's destruction altered the course of many lives. Yours included. When Alex died, the ring awaiting her went elsewhere. Yours was made and you were chosen much later. You aren't Alex's backup. You are a product of her bravery and imaginative mind— her vision for the world and its people. You both made eachother Lanterns. I believe the humans of this world would call that romantic."
Kyle flew in silence then. He didn't have much to say to that. Well, that wasn't true. He had so much to say, he just chose not to. The day had enough melodrama. Plus, Ganthet's words felt good. They filled him with something. Light. He glowed like a verdant beacon as they flew home.
When he finally flipped through the window of his studio apartment, Guy was asleep with his shoes on the couch and a half eaten hot dog in hand. John was cleaning the kitchen meticulously.
Of course, Ganthet was no longer present.
"Guy, wake up. And get your shoes off my couch."
"Eat a frank, pretty boy." Guy grumbled as he rolled over and spilled hotdog juice and ketchup on the back cushion.
Kyle aimed his ring at Guy. Suddenly a million constructs of fire ants were crawling all over the sleeping lantern, biting him instantly in too many ways to comprehend.
"OUCH OUCH AHHHHHHHH!!!!" Guy was on his feet immediately, jumping around like hot coals rested beneath him.
The constructs vanished, leaving Guy huffing in a disoriented rage.
John leaned against the doorway into the kitchen, watching them with poorly contained laughter.
"You're gonna pay for that, rookie." Guy growled.
"Put it on my tab, we have work to do."
"What's the mission?" John suited up in a burst of light.
"Your brother." Kyle faced Guy.
"What's up with Mace now?" Guy's demeanor changed. He itched the back of his neck and chewed his lip.
"Nightwing got a lead on some fabrics. Said it's from a manufacturing plant your brother and his team guarded. Oh and the fabrics were made to clothe a Kryptonian science experiment with telekinetic super strength. Oh and he was brought in to kill us by a psychic alien guy with a seethrough skull. He was also after my ring. Oh yea AND the place we met them at was trying to remake green lanterns through nanotechnology and light refraction mechanisms….."
Guy looked down at his watch, "That's a lot for a day."
"That's a lot for a lifetime." Kyle agreed. "I also met another Lantern."
"There are no others." John said firmly.
"He's not exactly a Lantern. His name is Alan Scott."
"Grampa Green is still kickin?! Great news, I'm sure he's as sour as ever." Guy said.
"He's always been like that?"
"To a degree. He didn't have a team like us. He had to face space alone. He saw the injustices and failings of the guardians before anyone else— after he was raised to experience the same on earth. His power was born from it. From the guardians greed and overconfidence. Now I'm sure he's even worse. Jaded. Be careful around him. He's a hero who's been given many reasons to take a different— darker, brand of Justice into his own hands." John said.
"Got that feeling." Kyle agreed, discomforted even more so by the fact that he had to see him again by nightfall.
"Now back to Mace." Guy said. "He hasn't been working as Militia since bloodpack disbanded. That was decades ago. Back when I was still a rook."
"Well, it looks like he's back in action. Do you know where we could find him?"
Guy groaned, "Unfortunately yes, but we'll need somebody else to help."
John side eyed him as if he knew what was coming next.
Guy pulled out his phone and typed up a number. As he put the device to his ear it rang until finally picking up.
A woman spoke on the other end with an accent Kyle couldn't place.
"Tora, how you doin, baby? I saw your recent photo shoot, lookin sharp as a blade I wouldn't mind cutting myself with." Guy said.
Immediately the woman on the other end began calling him every name in the book, so loud Guy had to pull the phone from his ear until finally it hung up.
"For a woman with Romani ice magic, you think she'd be less fiery." Guy mused before putting his phone away.
"I don't know, infidelity tends to bring out the worst in people." John commented.
Kyle ignored the sting he felt. "So, what now?"
"Well, I know Mace liked Tora, but since we can't bring here we'll have to hope he likes you. He doesn't like me." Guy said.
"Or me." John added.
"Everyone likes me. I mean… everyone except Kryptonians, psychics, hot chicks in Godslayer armor and army generals with energy manipulation powers." Kyle supported.
"I fear that list will only grow as time goes on, Kyle." John said.
"Don't remind me." Kyle slouched.
"Guys, it's fine. We've got the universal equalizer. Speaking of, let's re-up before we hit the streets." Guy held his ring-hand to them.
They all nodded and bumped knuckles. All while repeating the lantern oath.
And from the windows of their apartment, blackest night was far from a possibility. And brightest days were yet to come.
***
Kyle expected another journey into a rundown comically villainous hideout where dark experiments ran freely with red eyes and mutant overlords domineered as they pleased.
He was wrong.
Surprised even.
Guy led them east. Across the United States until they found themselves flying low over the ghettos of Baltimore, Maryland.
There were no superstar monuments like Hollywood or streets full of almost unreal looking humans.
Baltimore was very real.
Almost too real.
Entire blocks of buildings lacking architectural integrity and differentiating design made entire city blocks look like prisons. Greenery and plant-life flowed from the cracks in the sidewalks, making the place look abandoned even as people walked the streets and played with friends.
Three different times they had to stop and intercept a mugging, carjacking and fist fight between brothers.
It was dark at times. Sad. Lonely. Insanely violent.
"Welcome to my home!" Guy said as they flew low. "Mi casa is your casa."
"That's not how that saying g—"
"I don't give a damn." Guy interrupted, "Now let's swing by the old stomping ground."
They hovered to the grounds, still in lantern uniform as they entered the east Baltimore police station.
A number of officers recognized him by name and welcomed the rest of them with stiff militaristic nods and fist bumps.
"Isn't this a conflict of interest?" Kyle whispered to John.
John nodded, "With Guy it always is."
Guy stopped at the front desk, "Where's Mace at? It's an emergency."
The front desk lady coughed anxiously. Kyle's ring involuntarily read off her diagnostics. Elevated heart rate. Perspiration building around hot zones. All signs of discomfort.
"Mr. Lantern sir…. He uh…. He doesn't work here anymore."
"He transferred? That disloyal bag of sh—"
"No, sir. He's off the force."
Guy went silent for a moment, tapping the desk as he leaned over it before backing away. "Alright…."
John and Kyle watched him turn and leave.
They followed soon after. Still, in silence, all the way to some backwater edge of the city where there were more trailers in abandoned parking lots than buildings on cracked streets.
It was well into the afternoon. The sky was going orange. The cars were growing faint.
They walked now on a crappy parkinglot behind a superstore. Or at least that's what it used to be. Maybe twenty years prior.
The trailer fit the aesthetic of the area. Decrepit. Dirty towels smelling like engine oil and gun powder hung from line connected to the trailer and a nearby stop sign like laundry. Bottles of alcohol and bolts littered the concrete.
Guy sighed as he walked up to the dented door and opened it, casually walking inside.
"Mace you fuc—"
The trailer exploded.
The three lanterns flew backward in response to the blast.
Kyle felt his skull shake as he tried to stop himself from rolling across the pavement. Eventually he made a construct of a matress and slumped into its softness. Then he was back on his feet, surveying the battleground.
Guy was kneedeep in a fist fight with a cyborg. The metal-man was six and half feet tall with a blaster fit over his arm, a steel lower jaw and balding red hair. He looked like Guy twelve years into a dystopian future.
"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME, CHUMP!"
"Make me, LOSER! I heard you got fired! If you can't handle being a cop then you can't touch my tush, buddy." Guy replied and punched the cyborg— his brother, in the face so hard he crashed into the rubble of his trailer.
"I didn't get fired— I quit." Mace replied as he dug through the rubble and pulled out a bottle of beer that somehow survived.
He went to drink it only for the bottle to explode from a sniper shot.
Kyle looked behind himself and found John in the prone. As usual. Reracking the chamber of his sniper construct.
"We just need some answers, Mace." John yelled.
"And I need more booze, jarhead!" Mace charged in on jet propelled boosters in his unstrapped boots.
Midway through his charge, a construct of a old school circus cannon swallowed him hole.
Immediately after, the cannon shot him back into Guy.
More accurately, it shot him into the wheel in front of Guy, strapping him down immediately after.
"Really…? A circus sequence?" John questioned.
"What? It just…. This place needs more fun."
Guy turned around and looked at Kyle with his dark green eyes squinted hard, "Torturing my alcoholic cyborg brother on a spinning wheel for top secret information is fun to you?"
Kyle cringed.
Guy smiled, "I'm the proudest father alive right now, rook."
"Oh."
"LET ME GO!" Mace raged.
"What happened to you, man?" Guy questioned. "
"Mind your business before I break your legs."
"Speaking of business, we heard about your new gig….. Militia." John yelled from his sniper position in the distance.
"Gotta get paid."
"By who?" Kyle asked.
"I don't ask questions. Or else I'd have answers to why the glow light boys started accepting Abercrombie and fitch models." Mace replied.
Guy spit up the beer he was drinking beside Mace as he laughed hysterically. "S-sorry, rookie. I've just thought the same thing HAHAHAH!"
"Allllright." Kyle raised his ring hand and Mace began to spin on the wheel.
"IF I LOSE MY LAST BOTTLE IM GONNA SCORCH YOU!!!" Mace yelled as he spun.
"I'll get you six more if you talk." Kyle said.
"Alright six is excessiv—"
"Twelve." Kyle yelled over John. "You're part of an organization trying to get me and everyone I care about killed. And all you care about is supporting your illness. I wish I could be more sympathetic but I don't have the time, and you don't have a care in the world. Keep that same energy."
"If not we can go visit the new Batman in Gotham. I hear he's quite a bit more violent….. if that's possible." Guy commented.
"Alright! Alright! Hold on!" Mace yelled.
The wheel finally stopped spinning, placing the cyborg upright as he gagged. "We work odd jobs. We play guard shifts for multiple organizations— sometimes we crash their enterprise if we're told to. We don't get the details. I've worked for Cadmus…. Basilisk, some cult about blood, Court of Owls, and Intergang."
"What connects them all?" Kyle asked aloud.
"Money. Compared to my old jobs, I was making three times what I usually pull for a gig…. And I'm at the bottom of the foodchain. There's somebody out there with enough money and power to absorb all the criminal enterprises and trash the ones that don't fall in line. And for whatever reason he wants you."
"He doesn't just want me. He wants his own justice league." Kyle realized before adding. "Who the hell has that type of money? And isn't known?"
"No one. But most of our biggest shipments came out of metropolis. I think that answers all of your questions. If not, intergangs even easier to find than me. They practically run that city now. If I cared I would've put the pieces together earlier but I'll leave that to you. I'm not feeling so good."
Mace projectile vomited immediately.
Kyle let the construct dissipate.
"Thanks, Mace. Find a new line of work— or at least try. Once I'm not being hunted by evil billionaires maybe I could help you out." Kyle flew off.
His fellow lanterns followed, now chasing a new trail. One that would bring them to metropolis.
To a rich overlord with ambitions as high as the cloudless night sky.
Wonder who that could be.
He'd have to save it for the morning, as crazy as that sounded. He had a meeting with the founding lantern. Weilder of the star heart power force.
Alan Scott.
And John's warning words were fresh on his mind the whole time…..
クリエイターの想い 
_Avatar0FFury_
_Avatar0FFury_ Militia is kinda before most of our time here so I decided to take some creative liberties. Anyway I hope you can enjoy this chapter, alcoholism is a serious topic, which made the comedy in this chapter difficult to balance. some of it feels in poor taste but it’s all up to framing. when I go through and edit it all maybe I’ll make adjustments but I think Guy’s older brother being Guy but worse explains why Guy is…. well, Guy. let me know what you think and thanks for reading. ALSO! heads up, once I finish my og novel first volume I’ll be back to uploading more. I’m gonna go update my x men fic now with the same message! thanks
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