26th June 2012
18:47 GMT
"Do not lie to me, human scum!"
"Former test pilot Harold Jordan is older than me-" By roughly six years. "-and American. I'm of British origin. You can tell the difference by comparing our accents. What colour Lantern do you think Harold Jordan is?"
"Colour-? He's a Lantern."
"Until a little under two years ago the only Lanterns operating on Earth were green. I -obviously- am orange. If you believe Harold Jordan to be a Lantern then presumably you know which colour."
There's a very definite pause.
"Our records show that Harold Jordan is Earth's greatest Lantern during this era. You are this era's greatest Lantern, therefore-"
"Thank you."
"-you are Harold Jordan."
I let out a quiet chuck-
"Do not dare to laugh at me!"
-le.
"No, no… These things happen." I exhale quietly. "Do you want me to… Get another Lantern? I'd hate for you to have wasted your-"
There's a spear in my chest.
"-time..."
That looks bad. I extend filaments to assimilate it, only for it to vanish in a swirl of green.
The spear Aeres is holding hasn't left her hand. She didn't move to throw it or lunge with it. Another Sheeda under some sort of invisibility ward? Possible, but my ring is monitoring local air currents which should give me warning if someone tries that. My spell eater is still at zero usage. Not sure, but a small hole in my chest isn't much of a problem these days.
The only unfortunate thing is that I can't see any focused 'spear Orange Lantern' desire in the Honden. Or any duty-related impulse that appears to have that as an obvious consequence. Some members of the League of Shadows have desires that feel a little like that, but the spear wasn't their usual weapon of choice.
"Do you fear me now?"
"Six months ago an angel shoved a burning sword through my skull, while I was in hell and defended by an army of demons. I'm sorry, but no matter what you do you're not going to get the emotional reaction you're looking for."
"Through your skull?"
"I got better. Look, if you can't identify me correctly, does it not logically follow that you might-?"
I blink and she's lunging, forcing me to transition aside! Her weapon glows green for a moment and then vanishes as she raises her hands, runes flicking into being-.
I fire an energy pulse just to check-. Yes, immune to constructs, but my railgun construct has formed and I fire a mage slayer-.
Her spear reappears in a green flicker and she cuts my round in half-.
Temporal manipulation. She can stab backwards in time. The colour matches the goo Melmoth was using. Presumably she has a limited quantity with her, which means that any stab that doesn't kill me is a wasted shot. A hit to my brain might kill me, but I just told her that it didn't keep me dead. The only way for her to disable me would be to cut off all three of my rings and if she wanted to kill me then she'd have to follow up immediately.
Alright then.
I manipulate light without creating a laser construct, sending rays of orange light at her. Her spear blurs -darn, no green glow- as she turns them aside, the relatively weak rays heading towards the sky above or the ground below. I don't think she's actually moving at super speed, she's just got some sort of super-enhanced reflexes and accuracy. Fine. This time I create lasers, moving them to surround-.
Three of my filaments are severed by a green glowing spear while her weapon remains in her hands. I generate more lasers to replace them in an attempt to force her future self to leave it in the past for longer while I fire the ones she's not disrupting at her. She twists, spear turning aside some shots while she physically evades others, future-spear ensuring that she always has an escape.
Remove oxygen.
A wave of orange passes through the air, oxygen molecules vanishing as they pass. Aeres doesn't react to my action, instead lunging at me once again. No obvious supply of air in her armour, and I don't know Sheeda runes well enough to know which ones are doing the job. Alright, lack of air's clearly not a problem and there goes the spear.
I send out a wave of orange, transmuting nitrogen gas into phosphorus. With no oxygen present it doesn't ignite immediately, and she appears to ignore my effort in favour of manoeuvring to get into position to send her spear into the past. Is she only capable of sending it back for a limited amount of time? What happens if she doesn't? I'll monit-
Warning! Spell eater temperature increasing.
-or.
I throw out a network of orange strands and return the oxygen. Flame engulfs me to no effect: hot as burning phosphorus is, my construct armour and my power armour are designed to take much hotter attacks than this. I momentarily can't see what's happened to her, though-. That gives me an idea. It's a bit primitive, but given that my tattoos should be obscuring-
The spear hits me in the left thigh, and it's gone before I can grab it.
-me from her magic, just-. Heal, using hologram decoys might work.
I take three projector drones out of subspace as the phosphorus burns out, my outline shuddering as three of me go in different directions. Actual me goes invisible, the orange strands linking the three of them happening to pass through the volume of space containing me.
Aeres doesn't seem to have been unduly bothered by the heat, parrying a hopeful volley of laser beams before flying-. The spear disappears and she fades from view.
But I'm still watching the air currents in minute detail, and monitoring where she'll have to go to make her temporal thrusts. This time the construct laser is broad enough that she shouldn't be able to parry it. Not if her parry ability works like I think it does.
And there and fire!
A flash of green and-. I hit her while her spear was in the past. She flickers back into visibility, a few very slight signs of damage visible on her armour.
And electrolaser.
Lightning flashes and… Arcs around her as her spear reappears. Alright, I suppose that electricity is something she would probably be warded against.
Left hologram gets a time travelling spear through the head, and the decoy correctly displays what would happen if that happened to me. It stills in the air, and I stop projecting orange light to allow all four of us to play possum.
So that's a 'no' to electricity, heat, oxygen deprivation and light. Next are cold, kinetic damage and gravity.
Drone 2 goes into contingency mode, creating a hologram orange spear and charging while I remove a stealthed cold gun from my equipment harness. Aeres moves her spear to a 'guard' position while the distraction swipes at her head, the third drone switches to light-chaff generation and I take a shot-.
Which a spear appears from the future to parry.
Okay, next thing.
