//------------------------------// // The Corps // Story: The Emerald Dragon // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// Celestia and Luna had come back to Ponyville to visit the Elements and to see how repairs to the town were going, so Twilight decided to take them around and treat them to lunch as well. Even though the town was still a bit ruined, the sun was shining and Celestia hoped that today was going to be a normal, good day. AB and Scootaloo had shown up along with AJ and Rarity, who was still looking for her sister in vain. Luna offered to help once they finished eating, so the four also sat down with them for story time. Celestia's sister had just gotten done telling Twilight a funny story about when the two of them were foals when ponies everywhere began to start screaming, causing the three princesses to immediately look around to see what was going on. They found out what the cause was when Twilight looked up at the sky and her eyes shrank back in her head. "Um, princesses? Do either of you have any idea what that thing is?" Twilight asked in a tiny voice. Celestia and Luna both looked to where she was looking and their jaws dropped as they saw the vessel that rested above them. It was a white craft but had no balloons to hold it up; instead it had a green ring in the main part and a glowing green core in the back area. Celestia and Luna didn't know what to expect as the ship landed in the center of the town and a hatch opened on the bottom of it. "Remember sister, do not open fire unless provoked," Celestia whispered to Luna. "We do not want to anger them if they are friendly." "I know that. Why do you always assume that I will fire on an alien without hesitation?" Luna whispered back as they heard footsteps coming down the ramp. The each prepared themselves for the first encounter...only to be amazed by what they were looking at. The creature was bipedal in nature and had a small patch of brown on its head, but that was completely forgotten when the ponies there saw what it was wearing. It had white gloves over a green suit, a suit that had a familiar symbol in the center of it. "Another Lantern?" Luna asked in disbelief. The creature looked around for a moment before its eyes rested on Celestia and Luna and it walked over to them, stopping in front of them with a smile on its face. "Hey there," it said to them with a smile, taking them a back a bit. They hadn't expected it to know their language, but it spoke it perfectly. "Judging from your attire and the fact that you have a regal air about you, I figure that you two are the...horses in charge around here?" it asked them. "Yes. I am princess Celestia and this is my sister, Luna," Celestia replied with a nod to her sister standing beside her. The creature frowned at that and Celestia took notice. "Does my introduction bother you?" "Huh? No, it's just that I would like to talk to the king and queen if I could," it replied while crossing its arms. "There is no king and queen. Only my sister and I, and Twilight over there," Celestia said as she nodded to Twilight, who was standing back a ways. "Now, may I ask, who or what are you?" "Oh sorry ma'am, I forgot to introduce myself," it said as it outstretched a hand. "Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of sector 2814. Pleased to meet you." Celestia's eyes widened a bit at the fact that he said he was a Green Lantern, but Spike had told her that the ring informed him that he was not the only lantern, that there were many across the stars. Plus, his suit was too similar to Spike's to be a coincidence. "Nice to meet you as well...Jordan. May I ask what you are doing on this planet?" Celestia asked before a banging sound was heard followed by an creature that looked feral in appearance came rolling down the walkway, with what looked like a toilet clutched in his claws. Hal sighed as he put a hand to his face before he looked at Celestia, slightly surprised to see that she was taking up an offensive stance, her sister and Twilight doing the same. "This is mine now and I want to go put it with my others," the creature growled. "I'll handle this one," Luna said with a growl as she began to advance towards the creature. "Whoa there," Hal said as he floated between the two of them, the orange creature looking up for the first time since it had rolled out of the ship. "There's no need to be alarmed. This is Larfleeze and he's...well, he's not exactly harmless, but I can more or less keep him under control. He won't..." "Hurt us?" Luna spat at Jordan before looking back to Larfleeze, who was eyeing her crown with interest. "He wears that orange ring, he's more than dangerous. I should put him down right now." "Ah," Jordan said with a smile. "So the other orange ring did come here and you've encountered it." Luna looked up at him for a moment before she confirmed his claim, causing Jordan to smile. "That is why we're here, Princess Celestia, to retrieve that ring. After a bad battle on my home planet, one of Larfleeze's orange rings shot off into space and we've been looking for it. And the trail ends at this planet so-" "Give me back what's mine!" Larfleeze yelled as he rushed at Luna, causing the princess to yelp as the creature came running towards her. Larfleeze ran into a green barrier and slid down it while Hal shook his head at the antics of his "friend." "Sorry about that, he doesn't like it when his stuff gets taken. So, where's the orange lantern who has the ring?" Celestia and Luna looked at each other for a moment before answering. "There is no orange lantern here," Celestia replied, causing Hal to raise an eyebrow. "The ring is entrapped in stone up in our castle on that mountain." "Wait a minute, so the ring didn't pick anyone?" Hal asked, confused. "No, it did, but the wielder of that ring was defeat by the Emerald Dragon." "The Green Lantern of our planet," Twilight said when Jordan gave Celestia a confused look. "He defeated the orange lantern and we used our magic to seal the ring away, so that it couldn't claim anypony else." "So, John was right when he thought he saw another Lantern here," Hal muttered to himself before looking back to the ponies. "Can you go get the ring for us? We'd like to take it far away from your planet if we could." "Very well, but it will take some time to do so," Celestia said. Hal said that he was fine with waiting for a bit and she turned to leave. "I'll bring both rings, just in case you want to take the other as well." She spread her wings and flew off as she said this, leaving a confused Hal to mutter, "Both?" IOI Spike wasn't sure whether to count the creature floating in front of him as friend or foe, so he kept his ring pointed at the lantern on its chest. Yes it wore the symbol of the Corps, but he knew that just because somepony wore a ring didn't mean they were immediately trustworthy. John saw the distrust in his eyes and raised both his hands over his head before gently floating to the ground in front of Spike. "Easy there little guy, I'm not here to start something," he said in a low, calming voice, not knowing what Spike would do. "Me and my friends just came here to get something that was lost and then we'll head on out. Since we're both Lanterns, how about we talk like team mates instead of fighting like enemies?" Spike narrowed his eyes at Stewart before he slowly lowered his ring, wanting to hear him out. "Alright, but I want first question. What are you?" Spike eventually asked, causing John to smile. "I'm a human from the planet Earth, which is really far away from here," John said as he lowered his arms. "I'm a Green Lantern there." "A lantern?" Spike asked suspiciously. "Meaning there's more than one of you?" "Yeah, our sector's kind of weird," John said with a dry chuckle. "We've had more Lanterns than any sector that I know of. But yeah, there are a bunch of us." "And why are you here?" Spike asked. "I appreciate the help, but I doubt that you flew all the way to...whatever my sector is to help me fix a dam." "You're right there, but you don't have a sector per say," Stewart said, causing Spike to raise an eyebrow. "You're planets in a part of space called the Frontier, which is too far away from Oa to be an official sector. So instead, the rings sent here have instructions on what the Lanterns are and how to use them inside, which they'll then repeat to their host. But to answer your question, I'm here looking for an orange ring, which from the way you've been eyeing my ring I figure you've ran into a ring wielder besides yourself." "Yeah, I ran into an orange ring," Spike said with a distasteful look. "And a red one. And yellow. So how many of those darn things made it to my world?" Spike noticed that John looked taken aback by this, telling Spike that he hadn't known about the other rings. "You've fought off an orange, yellow and red lantern on this planet by yourself?" John asked in disbelief. "How long have you had your ring?" "Couple of weeks," Spike replied, causing John's eyes to widen once again. "Man, you are one lucky little...dragon?" Stewart said with a shake of his head, causing Spike's eyes to narrow a bit. "What do you mean lucky? I defeated them with my will and skill," Spike replied with a scowl, John putting up his hands again in defense. "I didn't mean to insult you, I'm just saying that a rookie such as yourself being able to defeat three of the strongest lantern corps is rare and barely happens," he explained. "I never said that you weren't skilled, just that luck had to play a big part of it." "Oh really?" Spike asked with a smile as he pointed his ring at John. "How about I prove to you just how skilled I've become in such a short time?" John opened his mouth to say no, but then he closed it with a thin smile. Since Spike was in the Frontier, he hadn't gone to Oa to receive any official training and yet he managed to defeat three other Lanterns. John wanted to see just how the kid had done it and maybe teach him a thing or two in the process. "Alright, I'll play your game," John said as his suit began to glow and he floated over to a field in the forest below, Spike following him until the two of them rested just above the ground in the center of the field. "But this is a sparring match only, so I don't want either of us going full out. You haven't had official training yet." "Fine by me!" Spike yelled as he sent a giant dragon head towards Stewart, who flew to the side to avoid it as he began taking little shots at Spike. Spike countered by having the dragon head swallow him, protecting him from Stewart's attack. Stewart raised an eyebrow at the unorthodox style as Spike came bursting out of the head with both his fists covered in green boxing gloves. John created a shield in front of Spike and watched as the little dragon began to pound away at it. "If this is how you beat the other Lanterns, then you definitely had luck on your side," John taunted a bit, seeing Spike smile in response as he created a jackhammer and began to pound again on the shield. But much like anyone else who fought against Stewart, Spike quickly found out that his constructs were completely solid. "Now let me show you what a veteran can do!" His shield transformed into a minigun and he began shooting bolts into Spike, who was knocked across the field and into the forest, where Spike skidded to a stop on the ground and got up holding his head as Stewart floated over to him. "Not bad," Spike muttered with a smile. "But I'm not done yet." John wondered what he meant when he noticed Spike's ring fist pushed into the ground. He shot back just as a green fist burst from the ground, barely missing John. Stewart smiled at the little trick before he constructed a sniper rifle, firing a bullet right through the green hand and missed Spike's head by a few inches. "Do you see now why you're having such trouble against me?" he asked as Spike jumped to the side after the bullet had missed. "You sacrifice defense when you attack. I can tell what you're going to do just by looking at your body movements." Spike narrowed his eyes but thought a bit about what John had said before an idea came to him. "Alright, then let's see you deal with this," Spike said as he created a green sphere around himself as he threw himself at John, who simply moved out of the way to dodge the attack. But Spike's sphere hit a tree and he bounced off of it into another tree, where he continued to bounce until he came flying back at Stewart, who barely got up a barrier in time to deflect Spike's sphere. "Hah! Having troubling hitting me once I start bouncing around." "I'll give you points for randomness," John said as he thought of a way to deal with this. He created a solid bat and tapped it twice on the ground, calculating the bounces until he knew when Spike would come at him again. "But you're out of here!" he yelled as he slammed the bat into the sphere, sending the Spike sailing into the air. "I think I'm going to be sick!" Spike yelled as he spun around, ditching the sphere so he could stop his tumble. He staggered in the air and had to hold a hand to his mouth to keep from throwing up while Stewart floated up to him. "Ugh, that was not cool." "Not a bad idea, but you're not letting you imagination go all out," John said as he created the same sphere as Spike, but this one was much stronger looking and had rockets on the back of it. "You can do anything with this ring as long as you can will it." He then flew the sphere at Spike, who got out of the way and turned to see that the rockets had given john full control of the sphere, meaning it was already coming back at him. "Alright, you want all out?!" Spike yelled as his ring glowed with all of its power, causing John to stop in the air as he saw the ring consume Spike, covering him in its energy. John's construct vanished as he gazed in awe at the giant dragon that erupted from the energy, towering over him as it looked down with green energy in its maw. "Is this all out enough for you?" "That's fine," John said with a smile on his own face as his ring glowed with similar power, but instead of consuming him he created a giant mecha behind him, with turrets on its shoulders and missiles on its back. John floated into the cockpit and turned the machine toward the Emerald Dragon, the two giant's staring each other down as they floated above the forest. There they rested for a moment before John floated out of the cockpit and let the construct vanish, Spike doing the same after a moment. "Why'd you do that?" Spike asked as he floated over to John. "I was looking forward to a giant monster battle." "It would be cool, but I take it that dragon form of yours is your last resort," John said with an expert’s opinion, Spike nodding in answer. "This was just a match to test your skills and I have to admit, despite being a rookie you're pretty good at thinking on your feet. But that won't always be good enough to defeat some of the foes you come across. Sometimes you have to have a plan and think ahead. Got it?" Spike muttered something but nodded none the less. "Alright, what do you say we head back to town and go meet the other Lanterns?" "Sure," Spike said as he led the way, John watching for a moment before following. 'To think he could create such a fierce construct after only a few weeks of having the ring,' Stewart thought as he flew. 'Kid's got quite the will.' IOI John and Spike came to a stop over the town, where the both of them were looking down at an odd sight. The three princesses were standing in the square while another Green Lantern was using his ring to keep what Spike assumed was an Orange Lantern on a leash. As the two got closer, they could pick up bits and pieces of what was happening. "For the last time, calm down!" Hal yelled at Larfleeze as the Orange Lantern tried in desperation to get to Celestia. "She ruined the ring! It should not be in stone, it should be with me!" Larfleeze yelled. Celestia had returned with the two rings in a sealed box, which caused Jordan to be surprised and caused Larfleeze to become angry. Hal had thought that only the orange ring had come to Equestria, but after hearing the full story from the princesses it turned out that there were four rings. One was with the Green Lantern that he had yet to meet, but once Larfleeze saw that his ring was in stone he lashed out angrily. "Look, she already told us why she had to do that, so just calm down," Hal snarled as he tried to keep Larfleeze under control. "Having trouble with your friend there?" All of the ponies looked up and gasped when they saw the two Green Lanterns floating down towards them, John landing next to Hal and helping him restrain Larfleeze. "If we had just taken his ring off and locked him in the cell, we wouldn't be having this problem." "That would just turn him against us," Hal said as he and John reigned the Lantern in. Once Larfleeze had calmed down enough, Jordan then turned to Spike who was floating next to him. "It's nice to finally meet that Lantern of this planet. I'm still amazed that you managed to defeat so many Lanterns in such a short time." "Really tired of you guys looking down on me," Spike said with a growl before his eyes looked at the giant ship behind the Lanterns, causing him to gasp in awe. "What is that thing? It looks like so kind of ship but its way bigger!" "This is the Interceptor mark four," Hal said with a smile at the ship. "Flown by yours truly." "Mark four? What happen to the other versions?" Spike asked. "Jordan happened to them," John said with a smile as he placed a hand on Hal's shoulder. "He wrecked the first three all by himself. You should have seen the guardian’s faces after he crashed the third one. How did you do it again?" "Black hole," Hal said with a shrug before looking back to Celestia, who had been trying to take all of this in. "Sorry about all this and thank you for getting the ring. Larfleeze, do you want to the ring or not?" "Only if the evil pony makes it normal!" he yelled back before looking at the ponies, seeing the Applebloom and Scootaloo in the crowd, who screamed as he moved closer to them. "And I want them as well!" he yelled before looking at Luna. "And that crown she's wearing!" "Oh boy, this one is crazy," Applebloom muttered. "So there are more lanterns?" Sweetie Belle asked. Both Scootaloo and Applebloom looked to their sides to see Sweetie Belle standing next to them, Zecora standing behind her. "Sweetie! Where have you been?" Scootaloo whispered as Sweetie shrugged, noticing that she was wearing a cloak like Zecora was wearing. "And why are you wearing a cloak?" Sweetie shrugged again as Hal took the red ring from the box, but Spike flew over and took the orange one before he floated over to Larfleeze. "This belongs to you, right?" Spike asked him. Larfleeze narrowed his eyes at the dragon before reaching out for the ring "That's my ring! You just want to take it from me!" Larfleeze said, before Spike tossed the ring to him. "Trust me, the last thing I want is that ring," Spike said, causing Larfleeze to look up at Spike in confusion. "Go ahead, it's yours." "You're giving this to me? For free?" Larfleeze asked. "No deal? You won't take it?" "I'll pay you to take it." Larfleeze looked at the ring then back to Spike, thinking about what Spike had said. He wanted the ring desperately, he was hungry for it...but now that he thought about it, he wasn't so hungry after all. "It's boring now. You can keep it," Larfleeze said as he dropped the ring, Spike picking it up with a look. Jordan's eyes widened at these words, wondering what had come over Larfleeze before he looked down at the three fillies and felt a strange sensation course through him. He felt stronger, more full of will. And he also noticed that he was giving off a large amount of green energy, which could only mean one thing. A small light coming from one of the filly’s pockets confirmed his suspicions and he smiled slightly as he figured out what happened. "But I want her crown in exchange!" he said as he pointed at Luna, who blinked twice before a nod from Celestia told her to hoof it over. 'We have a spare," Celestia whispered to Luna as her crown was snatched away by the Orange Lantern, who ran up the ramp and into the ship. "Alright then, I guess we'll take the red ring then," Stewart said as he took the stone ring from the princesses, noticing how it seemed to be pulling towards the darker princess. He also wondered if he should take the orange ring, but then his ring beeped and his eyes went wide when he realized why he was being called away. John flew over to him and the two talked for a moment before John headed up the ramp. He waved to the ponies as he followed Larfleeze into the ship, leaving Hal to turn to Spike and wave him over. "Hey, John gave me a rundown of what the two of you talked about and I just wanted to tell you that if you ever need help, all you have to do is call." "Thanks, but I think I can handle anything thrown at me," Spike said with a smile, but his smile faded when Hal shook his head. "No, you can't. There are plenty of beings in this universe that you CANNOT defeat by yourself. You might be a Lantern, but you're still young and inexperienced," Hal said in a serious tone. "There is no shame in asking for help. Your part of a larger group now and we've always got each other’s backs. Cherish your allies." Spike wondered why he told him this as Hal floated back up the ramp, waving to the large number of ponies that had gathered around to see them. Then the ship's ramp closed behind him and the ship rose into the air, where it then shot out into space faster than any of the ponies thought possible. "So those were the other Green Lanterns," Spike muttered before floating back into the sky. 'They seem like nice guys, but I wonder why the one with the mask told me to cherish my allies?' He flew off as he thought this, leaving the princesses to disperse the crowd. In the crowd was a filly who had wanted to show off her new power, but thought better of it due to the other Lanterns. But she smiled to herself as she walked away, knowing that her chance would come soon enough. IOI "Are you sure you're fine with just giving the ring up?" Hal asked Larfleeze inside of the ship as it sped away from the planet. "I didn't give it up! I got the greatest deal of all! I got a free crown out of it," Larfleeze said with a smile from his corner, where he held his lantern close while looking at the crown. "And the ring will return to me. All the orange rings come back to me."