"The last know location of the Red Lanterns' battleship was in the Delta quadrant of frontier space, someplace that any ship slower than this one would take days to get to," John explained to Sweetie Belle and to a spider-like Yellow Lantern named Se'rokal that Sinestro had sent along with them to aid in their fight. "You probably already know this, but the Red Lanterns are a nasty crew who generally have a vendetta against every Corps in the galaxy."
"The Red Lanterns are no allies of ours," Se growled as his fangs clicked while he scurried around the ceiling of the Interceptor and freaked Sweetie the hell out. "And neither are the Green Lanterns," he clarified as he leapt down onto the control panel in front of Stewart, but the senior Lantern never flinched at the eight-eyed Lantern who glared at him. "The only reason I dared to go with you is because Sinestro demanded it! So do not think you are the boss of me!"
"Yeah? Well, I'll make sure to tell Sinestro that--when you get your ass killed because you tackled something you have no idea how to fight," John snarled right back at him, casting a glance over at Sweetie to find that she was keeping her distance from the Lantern.
"What's the matter girl, afraid of spiders?" Se'rokal asked with a venomous chuckle while he started to scurry over, but a blast of red to the head sent him sprawling across the floor.
"No, I'm just keeping my distance because if you come over here, we'll be scrubbing you off the windshield," Sweetie snarled back as she spat plasma at Se's legs, getting the spider to growl while he started to advance on her.
"Alright, that's enough of that!" John decided as he constructed a shield in between the two. "Sweetie, stop antagonizing him. You...try to avoid becoming a splatter on the windshield. I need to see where I'm going." The Yellow Lantern made a strange clicking sound that John didn't understand, but as the Lantern chose the chair farthest away from the Red Lantern, John figured that he wouldn't cause trouble.
"You seem to be in better control of yourself," John observed as Sweetie sat down next to him, her eyes still burning, but she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair.
"When I first put the ring on, it brought all of my hatred and pain to the surface in an instant," Sweetie explained as she wiped some of the plasma dripping from her jaw away. "Because of that, I just lashed out at everyone that was around me, even if they were my friends. Sorry John, I was just so...angry."
"Don't sweat it, you're not the first Red Lantern to try and take my life, and I'm glad to see that you weren't the last. But still, when you accused me of abandoning Spike and leaving him to die while we fled...was any of that true?" John didn't like the fact that she went silent for a moment after that, hints of pain seeming to mingle with the wrath that all Red Lanterns held in their souls.
"I know that you didn't have a choice and that Spike was right, but...I still wondered, if we had continued to fight, if I hadn't been knocked out...could we have all gotten out of there?" Sweetie asked with pain. "So I guess in a way, I'm just as guilty for abandoning him when he needed us."
"Well, we'll be sure to make Brainiac pay for what he did. If you want, you can bring him in when this is all said and done," John offered, but Sweetie shook her head with murder flashing in her eyes in response.
"No John, I'm not going to stop until Brainiac's head is thoroughly severed from his spine," Sweetie promised as she constructed a serrated knife and began to balance it in her hoof. "Only then will I finally find peace for Spike's death." John opened his mouth to try and change her mind, but at that moment Se'rokal let out a growl and moved to a window.
"What's the matter, spot a space fly?" John called over to him.
"There is something out there, something that is messing with my ring," the Yellow Lantern snarled as he started to scan the stars. John was about to join him when sirens began to blare in the cockpit, right before a blast of light slammed into the ship from behind.
"Dammit, we're under attack!" John roared as he turned on the scanners to discover that a large spacecraft, about the same size as the Interceptor, had appeared behind them and was opening fire. All John needed was a glance at the skull on the front of the ship to know what was going on. "Brainiac has sent this ship so we can't aid the Red Lanterns! We need to take care of this quickly and continue on!" he ordered as he flew out of the ship, Sweetie and Se'rokal following him a moment later.
"Finally, I get to tear some more Manhunters apart," Sweetie cried with fury. She and the Yellow Lantern came to a stop outside of the ship next to John, who had already created a barrier to protect the Interceptor from the shots of the skull-headed ship that had tendrils dangling below it. Se'rokal and Sweetie added their own shields alongside John's, reinforcing it to the point that the space lasers failed to even dent the construct. Once the ship realized this, it ceased to fire and instead the skull split in two.
"Alright, here come the Manhunters. Remember, since they cannot truly tap into the Lantern's power, we should be able to overwhelm them if..." But John's words died a horrible death, while he and the other two Lanterns gasped in shock and terror at what floated out of the ship. Numerous beings all radiating with green light floated forward, but their bodies were covered in mechanical wires and Brainiac's own technology, yet even the Yellow Lantern was able to tell who most of them were.
"These are...were Green Lanterns," he snarled with surprise before one of the mechanical Lanterns lunged forward and shot past Sweetie and John to grab Se by his neck. Before the Lantern could try anything a blade of green sliced his hand, yet the armor he wore was too strong and the blade only nicked him. Yet John's strike was enough to get the former Lantern to release his grip, where Se blasted a cannon ball of yellow light into his face and hurled him back over to his allies. "What are these things?"
"This is what Brainiac has done to the corpses of the Lanterns that he has experimented on," John clarified as the six machines regrouped and began to select their targets, two of them lunging at Sweetie while the remaining four tackled John and Se. "Sorry to do this to you," John apologized to the spirit of his former teammate, before he fired a quick succession of blasts right in between the Lantern that was once made of stone. But the armor that covered his whole body managed to absorb most of the shots, allowing the machine to grab hold of John's neck and hurl him into the roof of the Interceptor.
"Alright, a tough guy eh?" John asked before constructing two cords lined with serrated blades that dangled down to the ship, which he cracked once as the two emerald machines lunged at him. John sidestepped the first attack and whipped it in the back as it flew by, but with a growl of frustration he found that the alien armor was barely even nicked by the blades. He quickly turned to slash across the face of the second machine, yet once again the machinery that Brainiac had infused into their bodies held strong, and John was forced to dive to the side to avoid a fatal blow.
"What manner of armor is this?! Despite their energy belonging to weak-minded Guardians, their bodies do not yield!" Se'rokal roared as he drove a buzz saw into the gut of one of his foes, but the saw construct shattered against the alien armor and left him open to a punch to the fangs that hurtled him upwards.
"Whatever it is, it's insanely tough!" John called out to the Lanterns while he switched over to a mace which he brought down dead center onto the skull of one of the mechanical Lanterns, yet as the machine slammed into the roof of the ship John was able to see that the damage was minimal at best. 'Dammit, it feels like I'm fighting Brainiac himself,' John analyzed as he drove the end of his mace into the other machine, one that used to be a humanoid, and flipped the robot over his head and into the roof of the ship. John swung the mace over his shoulder while constructing rockets for the weapon, allowing him to swing it down with far more force than before.
Yet, in a moment the machine reached up and grabbed hold of the spikey end of the weapon, stopping it in its tracks, despite the added force behind it. John stared down in disbelief before a blast of green struck him in the chest and sent him hurtling from his own ship and into the bow of the Brainiac vessel. He grunted with pain before snapping his head to the side in an effort to avoid a hammer-like punch that just barely missed his face.
"Open wide!" John roared as he pointed his ring right at the stone machine's face and poured as much of his will as he could into the blast, snapping the machine's head back and sending it flying across space. He was just starting to push himself off of the ship when the other machine he was fighting rammed into his gut and drove the both of them off of the ship.
"When will you machines learn your lesson and stay...DOWN!" he yelled with fury as he slammed his right fist into the machine's gut before unleashing all of his green light into the stomach of his foe. The emerald light shone brightly and would have blasted the foe away, had he not reached out and grabbed hold of John's arm, keeping him right next to the Lantern until the attack ceased. "You piece of-"
The machine slammed its fist into the side of John's head, sending him hurtling back down into the side of the Brainiac ship. Stewart growled with rage before turning his ring upon the ship itself, thus covering it in a green light which he reinforced, before taking aim at one of the machines and hurling the ship at it with all of his might. The machine wasn't fast enough to dodge the incoming space craft, and John couldn't help but smile at the sound of metal bouncing off of metal as one of the machines went sailing into the unknown.
"Alright, one down, one to..." John began as he turned around, but to his horror he found that his number of foes had increased from two to three when he looked behind him. When he glanced passed the three mechanical Lanterns that floated towards him, he gritted his teeth because he also discovered that his allies had gone from three to two. With a roar of rage, John constructed a massive minigun that he attached to his left arm with a piercing drill covered his right. "Alright you bastards! You want to go?! Then let's go!"
|)O(|
"All of you will fall!" Sweetie bellowed while she drove her horn right into the chest of one of the mechanical Lanterns, managing to knock him back with a combination of magic and her rage-fueled strength. A crimson blast of magic ricocheted off of the machine's chest, getting a snarl out of the belle before a sinister smile crossed her face. "That's some really nice armor you have there. It would be a shame if somepony spilled acid on it!" she roared before spitting red plasma across the chest of the Lantern.
With a laugh, she watched as her acid began to eat away through the incredibly strong armor, revealing the more flesh-like bits that was all that remained of the body. That laugh turned to a snarl as rage overtook her again, and she lunged her hoof right into the hole that she had made, grabbing hold of whatever she could before she began to tear out the machine's insides. Wires, structural support and an assortment of other items flew past Sweetie while she took out the machine's insides and put them on the outside.
"Don't worry, machine. This ends now!" Sweetie bellowed before unleashing all of her crimson might into the hole with fury, causing the green energy within the former Lantern to shine with an unholy red before her wrath overloaded the machine's sensors, and it exploded in a flash of green and crimson. "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Sweetie snarled before turning to glare at the other machine, which was keeping its distance from her.
"I see. You must have been the smarter of the two," Sweetie sneered as she slowly turned upon her foe, who took aim at her with one of its laser cannons and opened fire on her. She didn't even bother to dodge as multiple blasts struck her body, yet she kept moving forward without her face ever changing from its snarl of rage. "You think those pathetic blasts of yours can hurt me? I've already had my heart torn from my chest. I no longer feel pain. All I feel...is hatred!"
She lunged at the machine and slammed her shoulder into it, knocking it over and leaving it open for her plasma. Yet, before she could spew the acid on the Lantern's armor, it reached out with a hand and gripped its fingers around her mouth. Despite her incredible strength, the mechanical monster that Brainiac had constructed was stronger still. While still holding her by her mouth, the machine began to wail away on her with its other hand, striking her again and again in the side of the head.
The machine wound up for a much stronger strike, yet when it swung at Sweetie Belle, the unicorn vanished in a flash of light. The machine was stunned for a brief moment before it felt the burning plasma burn along its back, causing it to turn around to see Sweetie smiling down at it.
"What's the matter, tin man? Didn't know that I could teleport?" Sweetie menacingly asked before constructing a spiked fist that she slammed into the machine's face, sending it flying backwards. Her red light shined brightly as she constructed a pair of whips that she drenched with the plasma, before whipping them towards the machine. Despite the machine's incredible armor, the plasma that coated the whips tore clean through one of the machine Lantern's arms and severed it completely.
"Aw, did that hurt?" Sweetie teased as the machine looked down at its missing limb before taking aim at Sweetie with the other one. Her whips flashed again and slashed the arm clean off at the elbow, leaving the machine with nothing. "Don't worry, this will all be over in a moment." She roared before hurling the whip forward, driving it clean through the robot's chest. She then drove the other one into the other side of the armored chest and channeled her red energy into the robot, causing it to burn with a crimson light.
"Wish you could stay longer, but I understand if you've got to split," Sweetie taunted before roaring while she hurled her whips to the side and carved the machine clean in two. She then switched from whips to two giant cannons that she filled with plasma quickly, before unloading the salvo into the two halves of the robot, burning it away within a matter of seconds.
"Is that all you've got, Brainiac?!" she bellowed into the emptiness of space, glaring in defiance as she expected the mechanical monster to appear at any given moment. She then heard the sounds of fighting and turned to see John struggling to hold off the three remaining machines. "Great, guess I've got to help him," she growled as she prepared to fly to his side.
"No, Sweetie Belle. That is nowhere close to all I've got."
Sweetie spun in a frenzy, preparing to rip the head off the silver and purple-clad monster that she loathed with every fiber of her being. But that fire went cold as realization struck her, realization that while Brainiac may have spoken, the being behind her was not Brainiac.
Instead, it was slightly taller than she was and wore the same armor and weaponry of the machines that she had just torn apart. But neither the green ensemble on its chest, nor its cold eyes, is what tore her apart. Instead, it was the green fins that extended from his head, the purple scales that could be glimpsed at from beneath the armor, and the smile on its face that she knew all too well.
"It can't be..." she whispered with horror as the machine floated closer.
"What is the matter, Sweetie Belle? Do you not recognize who this is?" Brainiac asked with what almost sounded like enjoyment in his voice. And the belle knew all too well who was floating towards her.
"Spike."