"Alright, heads up guys. Chief asshole incoming."
The other Green Lanterns turn away from the barrier, forming shield constructs.
Dang Lanterns, bullheaded as ever.
"Guy, he punched Jordan through a planet."
Guy and Apros form multi-layered construct armour around themselves while the other two spread out into flanking positions.
And it'll do as much good as for hunters with sticks did against a mammoth....
"You feel like helpin' out, that's great."
"I feel like slapping you upside the head, you… Dummy."
Which if you're from 'Baldamore', serves both as a term of endearment and an insult. Which from Guy's smile, he knows that I know.
Save it for after the fight, along with the 'I told you so's...
"Ayo, you do care."
"I'll try to make sure that you don't die if you agree to do the same."
If only so you can kill him later for being a twit.
"Hand on heart: I'll make sure I don't die to."
Which is actually want I want him to say.
Now, will he follow through on that promise in the heights of stubbornness the Green Light can produce? We'll see...
"Illustres out."
Another surge of green flame and the door is thrown open. Something… I can't quite make sense of the flash of… Something beyond the door, but I see it clearly when Lord Malvolio storms out, the green fire surrounding the door appearing to stick to him.
Hmm... A glimpse of
Will's
Realm, or merely a powerful wormhole? Given that Greediporting is
basically instantaneous, I'm leaning towards the latter... But OL
did take longer when he first started using it...
"What scurrilous yaldson dares to intrude upon mine domain?
Technically inaccurate, though I doubt that Guy would complain, true or false.
I'm not sure what it means, but clearly it's not a
pleasant term...
To arms!"
And I immediately detect the closest fleets turn in our direction, while those a little further away change direction-. They're getting in position to intercept if the local Green Lanterns flee.
Not bad. I assume that was some manner of comms call, as managed without the Ring VI.
I fly towards Malvolio-. Is he going to have ring communications? I remember that Alan did, but that it had all sorts of technical problems. Try it; it's not like I can shout from here.
"Illustres to Lord Malvolio. Please respond."
From the looks of it, he's not in a talking mood. This is going to need some fast talking.
I talked about it with Alan once, what it was like to try flying long distance in space without an AI. Apparently he and Doctor Knight went to the moon once, but when the two of them discussed the astrophysics of the system they both decided against trying to fly to Mars. No AI meant he'd have to rely on a construct telescope to see the object he was flying towards. No AI meant no speedometer. He could accelerate far harder than any rocket ship but FTL was a struggle requiring him to bend space manually with a full understanding of exactly what he was doing to spacetime. Essentially, he decided that it wasn't worth it.
Though I bet it was one
hell of a trip. Not like
many people before them had seen the Earth from space, nor the Moon up close...
Malvolio clearly has no such problem. Though I don't know where the door came from.
"Illustres to-."
He looks directly at me, and I raise my right hand in an awkward wave, slowing my travel as I do so.
Just in case he thinks you're coming at him with
intent. Good move.
"The manner of your leave-taking left a little to be desired."
"Sorry, but I felt that getting here ahead of you gave me the best chance of preventing bloodshed."
Unfortunately, you've been foiled by Guy's bullheadedness...
"And how fare you?"
"I haven't necessarily been entirely successful. But if you could give me a little more time-"
And I can see Malvolio giving him a 'Really?' look.
The door doesn't fade so much as get sucked into his flaming aura.
"-I'm reasonably hopeful that I can talk them down."
And the Look deepens. I really don't think he's in the
mood, OL.
"Have they made aught progress in their maleficent designs?"
"Not as far as I could see."
After all, they were probably trying to work out what sort of construct Malvolio had used... I doubt a Crumbler would have done much, no matter
how large.
"Then we shall see if my steel fares better than your honey."
The glow intensifies and he's gone, flying towards Guy at extremely fast sublight speed.
Well, at least he isn't travelling FTL
yet. Which is going to make him a very visible target for the Lanterns.
No. No. No…
"Illustres to Gardner. Look, you can probably get out before he reaches you if you make an effort."
Has Guy
ever backed down from a fight he thought he had a chance of winning, OL? Do you really expect him to start
now?
"He know how to block Crumbler shots?"
"Ah, I haven't told him, but I can't guarantee-."
For all you know, his aura will blow them away before they make contact with anything solid...
"This is th' job, Paul. Stand back and watch us kick his ass. Or you can always say-"
I watch him generate a minigun construct just big enough for crumbler ammunition.
"-you told me so."
Oh, he's gonna hold you to that, Guy. While he patches you up.
Guy strikes a pose and opens fire, my ring tracking the trajectory of his shots. Malvolio sends forth a gout of green flame, causing the sophisticated anti-construct rounds to be destroyed without activating.
"Ah, sh-."
I have the feeling the flame is working more like a tiny swarm of constructs. No crumbler will snuff more than a tiny bit of it...
The ring communication cuts out as the fight takes all of his attention.
Apros is hanging back a little, his preferred avenue of attack being telepathy. Neither Malvolio nor his constructs seem perturbed, but Apros is able to space swim around Malvolio's burning beams.
Someone never learnt to ignore natural reflexes while moving under Ring power, did he?
Oh, for goodness' sake.
I don't want to attack either party. I want this to stop, preferably before anyone-
Then do
something, OL. You're going to piss
someone off no matter what you do, so why not restrain
all of them?
Having trained with me, Guy's much better at dodging Lord Malvolio's punches than Jordan was. He's having trouble, though. He should really have disengaged by now: that's standard protocol for Lanterns fighting super strong opponents.
-dies. What should I do?
Problem with backing off is, Malvolio will simply
pursue. And making an FTL hop to open distance probably feels like
retreating...
Malvolio manages a glancing blow and Guy goes spinning through the void, construct armour exploding outward from where Malvolio's fist hit it. Ablative armour is great against crumblers, but not anything like as good for more simple attacks. Guy recreates his armour as I try and work out what he's doing. Is he intentionally tanking? That-.
Guy's a little slow recovering and this time takes a punch to the chest. He hurtles towards the barrier imprisoning Priest while Lord Malvolio goes in for a follow up attack.
I can see it. Unfortunately, his squad-mates' DPS leaves a
lot to be desired.
Apros intercepts him, his construct tentacles being incinerated almost as quickly as they're being made.
I need to stop-.
I fly towards the barrier as the two Lanterns I don't recognise pelt Lord Malvolio with green bolts of energy, which as far as I can tell doesn't even distract him as he stop burning the tentacles and starts pulling them towards himself.
Okay,
that's impressive. Subverting a Lantern's constructs with a Light other than Orange? I suspect a lot of Malvolio's strength is that he doesn't know it's
not possible...
Okay, barrier, barrier.
I unfocus, searching inside for-. Ah, it's not decontaminated. We can feel the desires of those who were one on the other side, and something of the patterns of their lives. We transubstantiate, flying along the corridors until we are where they were. And then we appear-.
"Oh dear. This really wasn't necessary."
Ah, going to haul Priest out of there and hope he can talk Malvolio down? At least we have confirmation that he
is Enlightened.
