E8: Green Lantern #3

[Spider-Man Beyond]

E8: Green Lantern #3
Emerald Dawn
Part 3:
A Toast To Those Who Might Have Been

Written by Russell Burlingame (Borntorun)
Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)

Hollywood, California

Charlie Vicker sat in his canvas chair, stage left of the destroyed Daily Planet building. Not far from where he sat, in his tattered cape and fake blood, the huge man in the rubber Doomsday suit loomed in the corner. The set was silent and the air electric—as if the accumulated awkwardness and raw nerves of this film had really taken on a physical presence of its own.

Between the Doomsday creature across the phony street from him and the recreation of the horrors of last November, Charlie was already on edge—and so, when the strange creature in the green and black armor appeared next to him and started clicking away in his head, he just about lost it. Trying to get up, Charlie tripped first over his cape, and then over the chair he had been sitting in, and splayed out on his stomach on the ground. He stared back, but by then the creature was already starting to disappear in a bright flash of yellow light. All Charlie could clearly hear before the creature was completely gone was, >>This one was not suitable after all. One with such fear could never bear the ring.<<

From the ground, he shook his head and looked up at Craig in the Doomsday suit. “Did you see that thing, too?” he asked.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Gotham City

High atop the GBS tower in Gotham City, the programming director of the network was staring into his monitor. His own network had broken the news that Jimmy Olsen, who played Turtle Boy on the network for years, had been stolen away by a competitor looking to cash in on Olsen's world-famous photos of the Doomsday battle that has taken the life of Superman in Metropolis. The GBS Saturday morning lineup had just gone up in smoke, along with all the advertising revenues that came from the new toy lines and kids' movies.

“We need another hit show for Saturday mornings,” Alan Scott is telling his assistant through the phone. “And we need it yesterday. Get on this, will you?” Scott sets down the phone and cradles his head in his hands for a moment before he gets the feeling that he's being watched. Looking up, he sees a creature in green and black armor. The creature fixates on Alan, and he can hear it in his head. >>You, Alan Scott, possess a strong will and courage like few others on this planet. Has the ring found you?<<

“I don't know what the hell it is you're talking about, monster, but I'd advise to you get out of here as fast as you can before I call down the kind of trouble you don't want.”

>>Hah. You've got spunk, Earthman. Be glad that I seek only the ring-bearer.<<

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Manhattan

John Stewart was concerned.

News had come in over the radio that a new metahuman has surfaced in California. Someone glowing green, making big green objects out of light and duking it out with an apparently-bad guy in armor. The “super villain” was calling himself Ohm, and while it wasn't a bad thing, necessarily, that a new hero was on the block, it made John uneasy to see a sudden surge of superpowered beings happening, especially so soon after Superman's death. There was a “new” robotic Superman, this Green guy, and persistent rumors that the Batman out in Gotham was getting more and more violent. John knew about the pressures and temptations of power—as a member of the Darkstar Legion, he had to constantly hold back so as not to hurt some of the small-time crooks he encountered here in the city. Still...

Before John could finish that thought, he turned in his office chair to face out the window and instead ended up face-to-face with an armored creature floating outside. John shouted, alarmed, and backed his chair up a bit, smacking his desk and knocking over a cup of coffee all over a blueprint on his desk. “What are you?” he said to it, standing up and holding his hand out to the window. Noting the green-and-black armor, he asked, “Are you the green guy?”

>>You, too, seek the ringbearer, John Stewart?<< the creature said, inside John's mind. >>I can taste your power—but you are not the one I seek.<<

“What are you--?” John started, but before he could finish, the creature was gone.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

California

At Warrior's, Guy Gardner was getting ready for the lunch rush to start. Wiping down the bar, he felt something more than he heard it, and looked up for a moment to see a creature in green and black armor. Before he could react to it, the creature grabbed Guy by the throat and slammed him against the bar.

>>Ring bearer!<< the voice of the creature screamed in Guy's mind. >>I can feel its power on you! Where is the ring?<<

Guy choked and stammered, “What ring? What the hell...?” He could feel himself starting to pass out.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Kyle's ring had been going crazy, dragging him in all directions for about an hour. He couldn't seem to get a handle over it, and the little “voice” that it had was screaming in his head, pointing him all over the country almost simultaneously. Finally, and in a way that convinced Kyle the ring had no real clue what it was doing, he found himself landing, tights and all, in front of Warriors. The bar was dark, in the middle of the day, which didn't seem unusual until Kyle heard a pop and a crash.

An explosion? he wondered, and charged in through the door. A moment later, a blast buzzed past his head and a fiery hole appeared in the door behind him.

“What the hell?” Kyle yelled, and looked behind the bar to see Guy, with no shirt and some kind of weird war paint or tattoos or something all over him, using some kind of strange red gun to duke it out with an armored monster of some kind. The monster turned when it heard Kyle yell.

>>Ring bearer!<< It screeched shrilly in his head. It dove at him, and caught a giant energy blast from Guy's gun to the back of its head. As the creature stood again to hiss at Warrior and grab toward Kyle, it was impossible for Kyle not to see that the gun was actually attached to Guy's arm.

“What the hell...?” Kyle muttered.

“Kyle?” Guy asked, squinting.

“Kyle?” a voice said from behind him. Kyle spun around to see Alex standing in the door. Before he could say a word, he felt something bang on the back of his head and everything went black.

Continued...