Ultimate Green Lantern Corps #2

Coast City
Hal Jordan slowly approached the large, box-like building, looking around the grounds that left it apart from the other buildings in this industrial park. It was a newer construction, not yet five years old, and it showed that newness. He glanced at the scrap of paper in his hand, and frowned as he recalled the recent events.

His second supervisor since starting his Helios Project had killed himself, and according to the police, it was over the guilt of embezzling from the stalled defense contract. Jordan hadn’t liked Gil Watkins much, but he couldn’t see the family man as an embezzler. Before the police had arrived, Jordan had an impulse to check recent messages from Watkins’s cell phone, and found a couple of numbers that made no sense. He jotted them down, and gave his report to the police, and then started his own investigation.

It was all too pat, and Jordan didn’t like that. Something was nagging him, as he stared up at the sign, Nave Handling Company. Shippers and middle men for many of the industrial companies in the area, Jordan mused. Ferris Aviation had some connections, but nothing in their classified projects, so the question becomes, what was Gil Watkins with these people?

“For that matter, what am I doing with these people?” Hal muttered as he walked up to the building, and then turned off from the main doors. He couldn’t understand what was driving him at this point, but he paced the outer wall of the building and arriving at the loading docks in the back. “I’m no cop. I didn’t even like Watkins.” He crept toward the docks and observed the workers, loading, unloading and all the activity expected of such a location.

He took a moment to steady himself and then hefted a nearby box onto his shoulder. Face hidden, he marched into the building as if he belonged, waving to a couple of passing dockworkers with a broad and easy smile. He reached a set of doors out of the dock and into the rest of the building, set his burden down and quickly stepped through. He fumbled for the paper in his shirt pocket and read again the information, the office of Richard Henson. “Whoever that is,” Jordan muttered.

He made his way through the halls, ducking away from passing workers and trying to remain inconspicuous as he slowly headed toward his final goal. The door was labeled with Henson’s name, his position of shipper/receiver stenciled beneath him.

From outside the building, in one of the trucks now sitting idly near the rear of the shipping area, a man watched through closed circuit as Hal Jordan entered the empty room. Not completely empty, of course, just devoid of anyone other than the target. There were several file cabinets, also the reason for the man to be there.

He watched from the rear of the truck, clad in black, trimmed in silver, his eyes glancing at the heads-up display offered by the silver goggles. He smiled as he watched Jordan enter the room, the door swinging shut behind him, and then the figure shook his head in pity as he looked at the bomb trigger on his HUD.

“I almost feel like that dumb witch on that show,” he chuckled to himself as he blinked three times directly at the trigger symbol. “Not like the Detonator. Hope Javelin’s doing as good.”

Vilyuchinsk, Kamatchka
Russian Federation
Valentina Vostok marched up to the rundown building with eyes narrowed and lips thin with barely-repressed fury. Her blond hair was bound up in a single thick braid down her back, and she hunched against the bitter cold in the air, her thick, and heavy pea-green seaman’s jacket swallowing her frame. She stopped at the boarded up front door and shook her head. Like that simple ruse was going to fool a trained agent of the government, she mused silently.

She reached out with a gloved hand and found the hidden catch and secret hinges that swung the supposedly barred door open. She stepped inside quickly, icy eyes staring around in the gloom, noticing the signs of habitation. She’d been investigating this for a while now, and she was prepared, even anxious for this showdown.

Miserable military worms, selling out our homeland for money, she thought as she stepped further into the building. She quickly headed up the rickety wooden stairs, dust being knocked into the musty air. At the second floor, her eyes narrowed again when she caught sounds from behind another door. A grim, cruel smile peeked out on her face as she slipped the comforting cold metal of her gun into her hand. With a sharp kick, the door splintered and she charged into the room, gun out, eyes of coldest winter taking in her two targets.

<”Greetings, comrades,”> she said as she shouldered the table they sat at, forcing it into and on top of one of the men, while a brutal backhanded blow brought the gun down on the other, breaking open his mouth, the rattle of teeth on the wood floor an unnerving punctuation to the blow. <”You miserable bastards! Selling out your people, our secrets, because you don’t think you get paid enough!>” She kicked the one now on the floor, blood dripping from his mouth, flipping him over onto his back, gasping for air.

She spun her arm around and pointed the pistol at the other criminal, who had pulled himself from the table. <”You! Tell me who you are working for! Tell me now!”

He put his hands up, body trembling and eyes bugged out in fear. <”I…I can’t! It’s truth! We don’t know his name! We…we get money delivered to a drop, and we pick up our instructions! Whoever…whoever it is, he just knows if we’ve done what he wants!”>

<”How is that?”> she growled, her focus on this man, her pistol close to his forehead. Her leg shot out and caught the battered man in the sternum, forcing him back to the floor.

<”We…have no idea, we don’t, honestly! We…we had a partner, and he tried to scam our boss, and he…wound up…”> The man swallowed hard as his voice trailed off.

<”What were your last instructions?”> Valentina demanded to know. <”Quickly, I’m particularly low on patience right now!>”

<”Moving…moving material through out to Japan,”> the criminal stammered, <”to help….help quiet some nosy scientist. With…with Toyotoshi.”>

Val digested the information for a few moments. <”You still have the information on the premises?”> When the corrupted soldier nodded, she smiled and brought her gun down hard on the side of his head. <”Don’t need you anymore then.”> She quickly bound both criminals and pulled out her radio, reporting the location of the suspects and began to dig out their papers. She was damn well going to hunt down this material and its handlers, beat the information out of them, and find this person who believed he could buy out Mother Russia.

Quickstart Solutions,
New York City
“I got my own ring if I want one,” Guy Gardner snapped back, holding a fist up to demonstrate. His other weapon melted back into his arms, and a power ring slowly bubbled out into place on his middle finger. He respected the veteran super-hero, but he wasn’t going to back down one inch, no matter who Alan Scott was. After all, he was Warrior.

Alan Scott looked at the ring and replied, “Fine. But if you’re working with my Corps, you’re going to work at full power.” His own hand reached out and gripped Guy’s fist, green energy flaring out and then sinking into the new ring. “There.” As Guy stared at the glowing green ring in shock, Alan turned back to Jesse.

“No. I couldn’t,” Jesse answered as she stared at the ring he offered her. “I…I tried the super-hero thing once, and made a mess of it.” Her blue eyes had a haunted look, the events of her time as Jesse Quick racing through her mind.

“Jay didn’t’ think so, and I don’t think so, and if you don’t want to be Jesse Quick, then be a Green Lantern and try again,” Alan said. “Heroes aren’t perfect. Heroes are people who failed, then got up and gave it one more try.”

With trembling fingers, Jesse reached out and took the ring, sliding the cool, heavy jewelry onto her slim ring finger. As she did, Alan explained, “The rings will interfere somewhat with any inborn abilities. You may or may not retain them, but they won’t be nearly as effective. On the other hand…you now have power rings.”

“I’m not so sure about all this, Lantern,” Guy said as he noticed an inability to form different weapons while his self-generated ring, enhanced by Alan Scott, glowed on his finger. “But you say you need help right now, and Warrior don’t turn away from someone asking for help. What’s the problem?”

“I’ll tell you some of it,” Jesse said as she glared at the bound Javelin. “I’ve been having someone attacking my company lately. The last few weeks, I’ve been suffering all sorts of problems, and I don’t know why. Then, when I thought I had it pinned down, this guy comes out of nowhere and jumps me, tries to kill me. So I’m guessing I have something in my computers that I’m not supposed to find.” As she spoke, her voice grew more angry, more confident and defiant. At the same time, verdant flickering flames caressed her body, finding the tattered business suit she wore and remade it, reforming it into a coal-black body suit emblazoned with green gloves, boots and belt, a mask slowly forming over her eyes.

“What about that, Javelin?” Alan said as he returned his attentions to the criminal.

“Hey, I only know what I know, and that’s me and my buddy, Rich, we were given a chance to run with you super-types,” Javelin replied, feeling unnerved by the sudden attention. As he was confronted by the three heroes in the now-abandoned offices, and the sirens alerted everyone to the impending arrival of the police, he hoped being helpful would see him through his upcoming court appearances. “Rich Krendall, he got this suit that lets him amp up the electrical impulses in an area, make it explode. That was a bit too high-tech for me, I’m just the grunt of our team, so I grabbed up the neat javelins. I was sent here, to put a hurt on Chambers and wreck this place. Rich, he’s back at the Coast City warehouse we got our gear from, waiting to blow up some guy who’s sticking his nose in the boss’s business.”

“And who’s this boss, jerkface?” Gardner sneered as he stepped up close and cracked his knuckles. “Or does it look better if I beat the answers out of you first? I’d hate for your boss to think you weren’t a good investment.”

“I don’t know. We just got instructions, that’s all,” Javelin answered, trying to pull his head back while trapped in the green bonds. “Seriously. We don’t know how the boss knows how well we’ve done, we just know that he can, somehow.”

“The warehouse, where is it? Name, street, now!” Alan commanded, tugging lightly on the tendrils in his fiery grip.

“Nave Handling Company, Tandem Industrial Park, Broome Road,” Javelin spouted as police started to enter the area.

“Jesse, you’re still the fastest of us,” Alan said as he turned to the blond woman who looked like a deer caught in the headlights now. “Get out to Coast City and stop this Detonator! You can do it, go!”

Jesse looked terrified at the thought, but she also didn’t hesitate, the ring flaring to life and she was gone from sight before any of the men could blink.

“Damn! These rings fly us fast,” Guy said as he looked up at the hole Alan had made earlier.

“They can, yeah,” Green Lantern answered as he handed Javelin over to the uniformed officers securing the area. “He was very helpful, gentlemen. I’ll be by to talk to the DA about him after this is done,” he told the sergeant taking charge. He then turned back to Guy and added, “But in this case, it's Jesse. She’s still fast, and her ring will keep her from being as powerfully fast as a Flash, or her own Quick days, but it will still keep her faster than any of us. Just like it’s going to keep you from making weapons with your body, but I’m betting your ring will make some of the meanest, hardest weapons from the green flame.”

“Well…okay. Something to consider,” Warrior muttered to himself as he looked at the ring on his fist. “But what about us? We’re just hanging out here now?”

“No. Now we go talk to a friend of mine about what Javelin told us, and try to recruit another Lantern to the cause.” Alan Scott flew up into the sky, leading Warrior to their next destination.

Tokyo, Japan
Kimiyo Hoshi approached the testing facility of Toyotoshi Labs with a determined march. The building was stretched out over an artificial extension of the city into the waters of Tokyo Harbor, and indeed, some of the advanced complex was beneath the water’s surface, for their hydroelectric and similar researches. Not that any of that mattered to Kimiyo Hoshi. She was an astrophysicist, her concerns lay out in outer space, not inner space. She had nothing against this research, not at all. Not normally. But the foul look on her face betrayed that typical belief this time, because while exploring the ocean’s floor was as important as her own research into the depths of space, that was not cause for the discovery she had made.

She swiped her security card at the main entrance, and then stopped to look at the directory for the complex. She pulled out the business card an associate had passed her when she began her own amateur investigation. Her funds were being diverted from her own project, funds that were weakening worker safety, and eroding the experimental protocols that safeguarded her lab space. She refused to work over those standards, and even the rumors that there was such conduct occurring was starting to scandalize the company. Now she was seeking out Yushi Matsui, the person who seemed to be responsible for this diversion of her department’s moneys, a journey that brought her far afield from her own branch of Toyotoshi.

Her high heels clacked almost defiantly on the hard floors as she marched toward Yushi’s own lab space. She was determined to have this out, as she swept a stray black lock from her dark, angry eyes. To hurt her department was bad enough, but this conduct was hurting the company.

What could this maniac hope to gain from such reckless behavior? She mused, biting on the inside of her small mouth as she reached his door. <“Head of Oceanographic Adaptation,”*> she read out loud at the doorway. <“What sort of adaptation? What’s this idiot doing?”> She knocked firmly on the door, and then again a few moments later when there was no answer. She heard something from inside, shuffling feet she believed. And the sound of water? <“Does he have one of the sub-surface labs through here?”>

Even more irritated at his casual refusal to respond to her knocking, Kimiyo Hoshi (never one given to tact and extra courtesy to begin with) open the door and marched inside. <”Explain yourself, Dr. Yushi,”> she started to demand, and then stopped short.

A hulking shape turned to look at Kimiyo Hoshi. She heard the door click shut behind her as her blood froze and a scream stopped in her throat. She wasn’t one given to senseless fits of fright, so for her to be so frozen with shock and terror meant this was well beyond the pale.

The creature stood nearly seven feet in height, standing on two thick, trunk-like legs, two spindly, clawed arms gripping the remains of someone, as the brutal, perfect killing mouth swallowed a large chunk of the late Doctor Yushi Matsui. Cold, inhuman eyes stared at the direction of the new target, the humanoid shark (or shark-like humanoid, wondered Hoshi, her rational mind beating back the primal fear by trying to reduce this to a scientific question) letting out a low, foul belch and then a cruel roar that sent shivers down the scientist’s neck.

Hoshi backed up and desperately turned the handle of the door, finding it locked behind her as the monstrosity stepped closer to her, blood streaming from those wicked teeth, and wide mouth. It looked like the most cartoonish smile she’d ever witnessed, and thanks to her younger sister’s love of cartoons, she’d seen many. As it took another step toward her, she realized she’d never see another.

Queens, New York
Green Lantern and Warrior landed on the roof of a low, sprawling complex. It was inconspicuous, looking nothing more than a large mansion of the kind regarded fondly by the long-term, high-class residents of the area. Green Lantern led his companion to a roof access, and his finger pointed at the lock, an emerald key appearing and unlocking the door for them.

“Who are we seeing? What are we doing out here in Too-Much-Money-Land?” Gardner asked, feeling out of place, his own blue-collar roots clashing with the atmosphere of the elegant interior.

“This is a cover,” Alan said as he walked down the stairs and into a hallway. It was beautifully carpeted, and lovely art adorned the length, as Alan continued to move through the place, clearly comfortable with being here. “It’s actually a…” Alan paused and looked at Guy and considered for a moment what he should say next. “It’s a government building. Covert and I’m not telling you for whom. That’ll be up to our new recruit to tell you, if he takes the job.”

He stopped in front of a door and knocked in a distinct pattern. When he heard nothing in return after ten second, Alan opened the door and walked in, Guy continuing to follow.

The office was not overly large, but it was comfortable, if cluttered by papers, maps and all forms of communications gear. Rolls of blueprints were stacked along one wall, and Guy felt better in here. This was a person who worked for a living, that’s for sure.

“Alan Scott!” A booming, friendly voice came from another doorway. The tall man stepped in and strode over to his friend, the two men giving a hearty handshake. Tall, broad-shouldered, blue-haired and green-eyed Alan Scott provided a sharp contrast to the tall, broad-shouldered, black-haired, brown-eyed newcomer, dark skin stretched over a taut, athletic body in a rumpled business suit.

“Hey there, John,” Alan said in return. “John Stewart, this is Warrior. Warrior, this is John Stewart, secret agent. And a good, good man.”

“Nice to meet you, Warrior,” John said, offering a firm handshake that Guy accepted as the two men sized each other up. “I’ve heard of some of your recent activities. Rough but lots of promise.”

“Sort of like a government contact I might mention,” Green Lantern said with an easy smile. “He’s working with me on a case right now, and I’ve come for two reasons. One, I need to know if you’ve got anything on some nasty industrial activity, involving at least Quickstart Solutions and Nave Handling Company out in Coast City.”

“Hmm,” John replied as he walked over to a stack of files and began to sort through them. “I think Quickstart’s popped up in relation to some troubles a couple of their contractors have been having.” He pulled the file out and flipped quickly through the pages. “Ferris Aviation and Toyotoshi Labs. We can go into one of the conference rooms and look over what I’ve got. What’s your other reason, Alan?”

Alan Scott held his hand out, a glimmering, shimmering emerald ring in his palm. “I want you for the Corps, John.”

Nave Handling Company,
Coast City
As Detonator started the sequence of blinks, the truck rumbled and rattled and the side tore open as Jesse Chambers tore through, the green glowing field around her shaped like a drill. It tore through the metal truck with ease, and her arms snatched the black-and-silver mercenary with ease.

“Who are you trying to kill?” she barked at him as she flew up into the air with her foe.

“Too late, pretty lady,” Detonator replied with an easy grin, and then restarted the blinking sequence, the silver goggles hiding the reality from Jesse as she tried to figure out what to do.

Her ring buzzed and she focused on it, sensing a signal leaping out from the suit. She couldn’t think of what to do in time, but her body didn’t care. The ring propelled her at tremendous speed after the signal, and she tore through the wall barely ahead of the invisible signal. She saw a man in the room, unaware of his fate, trying to spin around in response to her sudden appearance, but she didn’t waste any time. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and covered him in her green shield, while commanding the ring to throw the deadly room from the building.

Hal Jordan’s couldn’t keep up with the sudden rush of activity. Before he could blink, the roar of the breaking wall still just reaching his ears, some lovely young woman had him in a warm embrace, a fiery embrace, and then the walls of the room started to erupt in flames. But as they remained in place, her arms continuing to hold him to her body, a green glow suffused the explosion, and tore the room from building and hurled it away into the distance, leaving the pair hovering in mid-air.

Finally, all of these visuals caught up with Hal’s brain, and he looked into Jesse’s face. “Hiya, beautiful. That has to be the single most wonderful save ever,” he said as a sweet, warm smile greeted those big blue eyes. He let a hand run through her hair as she held him in mid-air, and the rocking sounds of explosions came from the distance.

Then the screams made both of them look out at the gaping hole to the flames beyond. Jesse floated them both out of the building, Hal wrapping a strong and confident arm around her curved hips as they stared at the flames tearing through the wreckage, at the center, the silver-and-black form of Detonator screaming in pain. He staggered out of the blaze, the suit singed, the silver-trimmed metal looking softened and melted; his face torn up in agony as circuits fused into bone, muscle and nerves. Finally, it was too much and he collapsed unconscious as Jesse lowered them both to the ground.

Jesse looked horrified, and she let green energy flood out from her ring to put the man into a medical stasis, before turning her head away and burying it in Hal’s broad chest. Hal held her, and stroked her hair and looked at the results of the sudden bursts of activity, and wondered what he had gotten into.