The Emerald Torch

by Onomonopia

War on Will

"FIRE!"

A volley of green fire erupted in the sky from the construct cannons that had been placed across the main city, blasting a handful of Manhunters that were flying down to the planet to smithereens. But as thousands more descended into the streets and began to unleash hell with their laser rods, John knew that it would take more than a handful destroyed to stop this war.

"Alright, first division with me! Second and third, covering fire!" John ordered as he willed a giant mecha suit to construct, bringing it down right on top of a pair of Manhunters before flying into the cockpit of the mecha suit. The moment he was in, he spun the miniguns on the robot's shoulders so that they sprayed green death into the hordes of Manhunters, who retaliated in kind with volleys of lasers the colors of the rainbow.

Hundreds of Green, Yellow and Blue Lanterns hurled themselves into the fray, unleashing their strongest constructs to fight against the hordes of Manhunters. Despite the overwhelming numbers of Manhunters, the courage and strength of the ring wielders kept the fighting even.

"Don't let them break through the lines! They get to the Guardians and we'll all be in real trouble!" John ordered into his ring before a pair of Manhunters leapt onto his machine's back and began to tear at the construct. John spun the cockpit around one hundred eighty degrees and drove twin swords right between the red Manhunters eyes before blasting the pair off. "Stop scratching up my ride."

His moment of reprieve was interrupted when another hail of laser fire struck the back of his machine, causing him to turn the giant mecha suit towards a whole platoon of Manhunters that lunged at him in a multitude of colors. John spit onto the ground before constructing a helmet around his body, and then he charged into the laser fire, grabbing one Manhunter's body with his large claws and slamming it into the emerald streets.

"Time for a tune up!" John growled while he reached back with his other arm and snatched a Manhunter out of the sky, slamming it into its brethren before extending the piston arm back. He then drove the green fist into the machines before the piston slammed into the end of his arm, driving the fist through the machines with an even greater force. "There! Now you're perfect!" John growled before grabbing hold of the ruined robots and hurling their remains into the other Manhunters. He next unleashed a salvo of gunfire and missiles into the remaining ones that floated there.

John barely had time to watch the machines explode before his attention was drawn away by a cry for help. His eyes quickly locked onto a Green Lantern that was being overpowered by three Yellow Manhunters, who all took aim at her with their laser rods. In a moment, John ejected himself from the cockpit of his mecha suit, which he sent into the sky to explode on another Manhunter, before constructing a pair of knives that he plunged into the backs of one of the Manhunters before ripping the knife out and driving it into the skull of the other Manhunter.

The two Manhunters turned on him and raised their laser rods to fire, but the younger Lantern regained enough of her composure to construct a strange weapon that she swung into the leg of one of the Manhunters. When that Manhunter staggered, John deflected the first shot before hurling his knife right between its eyes, slamming his boot into the hilt of the knife to impale the machine clean through its skull.

"Look out!" John had just enough time to register the cry, before a blast of yellow struck him in the back and hurled him off of the fallen machine. He growled in pain as agony raced up his spine, yet he forced himself back up and turned to find the Manhunter aiming its weapon right between his eyes.

"No man escapes from Brainiac," it said coldly before firing. The shielding around John barely held up as the bolt of yellow struck him dead in the face, dropping him to his back while more pain flooded through his senses. Aware of the danger he was in, John had barely hit the ground before he had rolled to his side, his ears informing him that he had narrowly avoided a second shot. Glaring through the pain John constructed a jet engine, which he spun towards the Manhunter and let it fly. It rammed into the center of the machine and hurled it backwards, where it was a prime target for a shot to the skull from a newly constructed sniper rifle.

"Are you...alright?" John panted in pain to the younger Lantern, who nodded weakly before looking up at the war raging in the skies. "Hey, look at me," John demanded, gaining him the younger Lantern's attention once again. "It's okay to be afraid. True Lanterns aren't fearless. Being a Lantern means that you can overcome those fears. Remember, we're the last line of defense for not only here, but all of the cosmos. So face your fears and fight!"

The moment John said this, the ground shook with terror as a massive, half-Manhunter, half-Brainiac machine landed in the square in front of them. Its red eyes scanned the entire area around it before the sensors came to a stop on John, where they narrowed and directed the rest of the massive monster towards him.

"And that?" the Lantern asked John with a shaky voice.

"Alright kid, I'll give it to you. That monster is something to be afraid of," John smirked before growling while he constructed a plasma cannon on his shoulder. "So let me handle this one and you link up with the rest of your squad! Now go!" he ordered while firing blasts of concentrated will right into the face of the machine. The giant machine fired blasts of red energy down at John, who took to the skies to avoid the fire. He circled around the back of the robot, unleashing all of his will into his foe with little to no effect.

"Come on, you overgrown scrap heap! Take a hint and go down already!" Instead of taking the hint, the machine spun around and grasped towards John with one of its gigantic arms, barely giving the Lantern enough time to construct a shield before that shield was shattered by the enormous blow from the machine. John felt himself slam into the side of a structure, wincing in pain as he started to pull himself out of the indentation he had made with his body, before the machine grabbed hold of him again.

"No man escapes from Brainiac," the machine said to him as it opened its maw, allowing John to look right into the laser cannon that was aimed right at his face.

"Yeah...heard you the first time," John growled in annoyance before he constructed a shield around himself and braced himself for the worst. Yet, before the monster could fire a blast of divine blue light erupted from the center of the machine's chest, causing it to roar as it staggered back and released John, while another blast tore through its shoulder. As John fell he constructed a pillow on which to land before remembering that constructs were hard, not soft. He then felt that as he slammed onto the pillow back first, getting him to curse with pain while he pushed himself back up.

"Heh, nice of you to lend a hand, Saint Walker," John muttered as one last blast of blue tore the machine's head clean off, causing the giant machine to fall to the ground with a shudder. Saint Walker then phased out of the machine's chest, a sigh escaping his lips before he floated over to John. "Though I could have taken him if you hadn't interfered."

"I have no doubt about that, Lantern Stewart, I just wanted to hurry the defeat along a little so that your skills could be used elsewhere," Saint Walker agreed while holding out a hand for John, who gritted his teeth in pain as Saint Walker helped him up. "Wait a moment and my ring will soothe your wounds," Saint Walker advised John before placing a hand on his shoulder and allowing the blue light to wash over the Lantern, who sighed as the pain started to fade away.

"Glad you guys are here. I'd hate to think how badly this fight might be going if we didn't have the Blue Lanterns here to give us a boost," John muttered as he felt the tension in his shoulder vanish, but he could still slightly feel pain.

"We are glad that we are here. We have learned a lot about the Green Lantern Corps while here, and we are also glad for the extra forces, as it seems you were right about Brainiac," Saint Walker agreed.

"Do you think that they're doing alright up there?" John asked the leader of the Blue Lanterns while he looked up at the massive moon floating above the planet.

"All we can do is believe in them, John. And hope that they will overcome," Saint Walker said with a nod before turning back to the battle. "Come John, they need us down here more than they need us up there." John knew he was right, but as the pair flew back into battle he glanced up at the space fortress one last time, wondering if he had made the right decision.

|)O(|

"Alright, I think that's the last of them," Spike muttered to the small group when it seemed like the Manhunters had finally stopped pouring out of the ship to wage war on the planet below. "But keep the invisibility up just to be safe, Sweetie. We don't want Brainiac to know that we're on his ship until it's too late for him."

"Trying...my...hardest..." she grunted from beside him, though he wasn't able to see her or any of the other Lanterns due to the blue ring's power, but he had kept a claw on her shoulder to know where she was.

"Time to get to work team, so let's put an end to this once and for all!" The other Lanterns cheered with him as they all started to fly forward in formation as best they could, with Spike helping Sweetie along since she was the only Blue Lantern with them to cast the invisibility on the group. As swiftly as they could without revealing themselves, the group flew towards the space station, where they waited until one of the hangar doors opened to unleash a strange looking machine. They seized the chance and slipped inside before the doors closed shut behind them, allowing the team to look around at the empty hangar cautiously.

"That's it. I'm done," Sweetie panted out before the invisibility field fell around the Lanterns, Sweetie falling into Spike's side with exhaustion. Spike turned around to look at the three Green and two Yellow Lanterns that he had brought with him, nodding to them before motioning for them to move up.

"You going to be able to do this?" Spike asked Sweetie when she pushed herself off of Spike and took in a couple of deep breaths.

"Oh, don't you even think about sending me back. The last time I left you here, we thought you died and then it turned out you were a robot. I leave you here again and you might be an entirely different species," she joked with a smile before panting even harder and wiping sweat out of her eyes. "Come on, let's go save the cosmos!" The pair floated to the exit of the room where the other Lanterns had already checked, catching up to them in the hallway.

"Seems like there's nothing here," one of the Green Lanterns said to Spike. "No Manhunters, no tentacles that we were warned of...nothing."

"Ha, wonder why this fool sent away all his security? Must not be as smart as I thought," a massive bat in Yellow garb cackled as he started to fly forward.

"Yeah, that's because Brainiac doesn't need security to keep him safe. Come on, let's move," Spike ordered while he lead the way, floating ahead as the other six kept up with him. He held up a hand when they came to a large room before placing his back to the wall, motioning for the others to do the same. The moment they did so a patrol of Manhunters passed by, yet they didn't seem to notice the group.

"There were only three of them. We could have taken them," the other Yellow Lantern snarled at Spike, but Spike turned on the Lantern with crimson eyes that forced him back.

"I'm not taking any chances. I already died in here once, I don't want to do it again," Spike growled before looking out into the room again, motioning for the group to follow him while he floated up. As they flew the other Lanterns noticed the thousands of pods all Manhunter-sized and empty, causing their faces to fall further and further while they ascended.

"This is where Brainiac made the Manhunters that are fueled with your comrades' powers," Sweetie informed the group from the rear, keeping up with them despite being tired from her cloaking. "And those Manhunters come in every color, shape and size."

"Does that mean we'll get a prize for destroying them all?" Spike joked to her before coming to a door that was barred shut. He signaled for the others to stop before he plunged his hands into the metal, slicing through it in one strike before pulling the door open with all of his might. "Go," he growled to the others as he struggled to keep the doors open. The other Lanterns sailed past him as he instructed, with only Sweetie stopping on the other side to lasso Spike and pull him through right as the doors slammed shut again.

"Alright team, we should be close. Now we need to..." Spike stopped talking when he found that none of the Lanterns were listening anymore and instead were far more focused on the seven massive containers that held a Lantern from each Corps within, each of the Lanterns within looking like they were on the verge of death.

Spike was the only Lantern to look around the room instead of staring at the containers, and found that the room was far more spherical than the other ones, with the roof being a sickly green color as opposed to the cold steel of the rest of the fortress. Hundreds of screens were spread around the upper half of the room on a levitating platform, where the back of a large chair faced him. Something in his mechanical structure felt cold, being so close to the throne, so he was immediately on guard.

"Hey, where are all these tubes going?" one of the Green Lanterns asked, turning Spike's attention away from the chair and to the tubes that extended from each of the Lantern's containers. He followed each of them and found that all of them came to the end at a large pod, all seven of them connected to the pod in a different way, but they connected all the same.

"Forget about the tubes and focus on the mission," Spike ordered while he floated up to the container with Larfleeze in it, constructing a massive hammer that he aimed at what he hoped was a weak spot. "Focus on freeing the Lanterns in captivity and then start trashing the place as best you can. We need to free the Lanterns, but we'll also destroy the computers here just to be safe. Hurry!"

Spike then swung with all of his might, but right before the hammer struck glass his limbs halted suddenly, almost as if his entire body was paralyzed. He gritted with rage as he tried to move, but his body refused to listen to him because at the same time he felt a presence, a presence that made his mechanical side very afraid.

"Spike, what's the matter?" Sweetie asked before a blast went off behind her. She and the other Lanterns turned just in time to see one of the Yellow Lanterns that had been standing to close to the pod drop to the ground dead, while the door to the pod opened.

"He is unable to move, Sweetie. That is what happens when a machine tries to fight against me," a cold and calculated voice that she knew well said menacingly. Through the mist given off by the pod, Brainiac slowly pulled himself out, yet it was a Brainiac the likes of which the two had never seen. His entire body was made of silver armor, except for his hands which were now a dark green. But his face was where all eyes were drawn, a face that was barely changed...except that the three circles were now replaced with seven, multicolored symbols. Sweetie took up a fighting stance as Brainiac began to float towards them, a sinister smile crossing the machine's face as he approached.

"And for the first and last time, I finally feel something. I feel...angry."

Comments

[VampDash]

Well shit.

[Silver Starfall]

The power of Brainiac added with the Lantern spectrum and fueled by actual emotion. Eeyup, they're boned.

[Simple]

Good luck with getting out of this one!!

[Uzume Tennouboshi]

Two words: OH, SNAP!

[badninja]

Can we show him true anger? The Hulk would show him how to do anger correctly! Plus I would love a good Hulk smash about now for all Brainiac has done here!

[Awesometacular]

Wait, so is Brainiac now powered by the entire lantern spectrum all in one?!

[Autistic Retard]

Too bad Brainiac didn’t become a Phantom Lantern