sum of their parts

[overcame_fear]

[After this.]
 
Hal is still partly stunned by what happened out on the streets, but inside the headquarters of the Doom Patrol, things are not getting much easier to digest. Whoever this Niles Caulder is, the tech he uses includes things Hal hasn't even seen on Oa. And considering how twisted a lot of it seems, GL is very glad of that.

And yet... as Hal watches Caulder grafting a bizarre metal arm to his shoulder, he wonders if they really have much choice but to depend on the man if they hope to make things right again. Even Caulder seems to think so:

"Cliff's spare Robotman parts are a poor substitute, but I'm making do."

When told he should be glad his sensory nerves aren't part of the graft, he figures Caulder is probably right. But at least operating the arm depends on willpower. Hal has plenty of experience with that. Provided he can keep the arm's energy blast from killing them all.

Comments

[overcame-fear.livejournal.com]

"Sure there's a limit on the ring's power," Hal is telling Flash and Negative Man. "But by the hour it runs out, the Brain will have realized its full potential, and we'll never be able to stop him."

Negative Man takes that in. "So you think we can nail him if we act fast enough?"

"Where there's a will, there's a way."

Negative Man stops dead in his tracks and stares at Green Lantern's back. "...Hal?"

GL spins around to look at him, but Negative Man is already talking: "Hal Jordan? You used to beat that corny phrase to death when we flew together in the USAF! I'd know you anywhere, you jet-jockey you! And now you're the famous Green Lantern! How about that!"

It takes a moment for Hal to close his mouth, and then say, "Was Green Lantern, Larry. Now I'm...I'm... What am I?"

Flash roars up beside them (Did Flash hear that?) "What are any of us? Good lord, I wasn't sure I felt human anymore even before this. Now...Now I don't know what I am."

"YOU'RE A PATHETIC WRETCH, FLASH!" a voice roars as an enormous robot bursts up from the ground, throwing the heroes on their backs. Whoever's operating the monstrosity keeps yelling, but even amplified, his voice is drowned out by the din of the machine.

"GL, your lasers!" Flash yells, but Hal is already trying to blast the thing without success. Try as he might, he just can't focus the unfamiliar arm. Hal can't do a thing to keep one of the robot's huge hands from closing around him.

The Flash had his doubts about the lightning creature Niles Caulder created for him, but that's the only option he's got in this fight, so he sends it out in a burst of sparks and crackles. Negative Man is on the move too, working at that hand in an attempt to free Hal, whose nonstop blasts finally manage to crack the the glass dome protecting its operator.

That's all Flash needs to slip inside and haul the man out, and with a mighty crash the robot collapses to the ground.

"Not bad for a trio of misfits, huh?" Hal asks Larry, but Negative Man can't take his eyes off the Emerald Fortress.

"Uh oh! Unless I miss my guess, Morden, you're lucky to be out here."

Flash barely has time to point as the Locus ships close in and batter the fortress until the massive structure suddenly gives way and collapses in tremendous crash.

"The Brain's losing his concentration!" Morden yells in frustration. "He hasn't yet mastered the power ring!"

"Oh, yeah?" Flash asks, as a fusillade of green blasts bursts from the wreckage. "Looks to me like he's getting the hang of it!"

The men barely have time to dive behind the robot before three blasts slam into it.

[raptorcanaria]

The rest of the two teams race to converge around Flash, GL and Neg-Man, as the fortress crumbles, leaving just the Brain and his huge amalgamated body standing tall, firing blasts of green energy at each of the Locus pilots, felling them left and right. They're enemies of the League, for certain, but Dinah neither wants the genecraft ray to remain with the Brain, nor for anyone to be subjected to this kind of violence. Negative Man has it right when he says,

"Locus is being massacred!"

"With our powers, no less," adds Green Lantern.

"Are we going to szzztand for that?" Dinah asks, a rhetorical question if ever there was.

"Not a chance!" Rita answers. "TAKE HIM!"

[overcame-fear.livejournal.com]

"Jealous are we?" the Brain sneers. "Feeling neglected?" He roars with laughter as his blasts scatter the heroes and then traps them within the bars of an green cage.

"Frankly, I couldn't wait for you to show. Why settle for Mallah when I can have eight monkeys to tinker with?"

"The ring creates any prison my prodigious mind can envision!" the Brain shrieks. "Blessed with an emerald scalpel, there's no end to the experiments I can conduct!"

The cage morphs into a sticky blob and then shifts to dozens of sharp-edged rods. "They called you freaks before? Wait until I'm done with you!"

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah, Flash and Aquaman, the back of the charge of superheros, had been thrown back violently by the first blast of green. Aquaman is soon at Flash's side so they can save their caged friends, but Dinah...

Dinah finds herself by a fallen Locus employee. His chest has been torn open by the fall from his plane and now....

She can see his lungs.

"Try not to move," she tells him. He might be a Locus goon, but he's still a person, who is going to die iof she can't get him to a hospital.

"Must retrieve ray," he managing, his face showing signs of sturggling hiis body just isn't responding to. "Plan must go forward?"

She can't help herself. Maybe later she'll rationalise it as keeping him talking to keep him conscious and alive. "Plan?"

"You can't stop us... using Alien DNA... to build host bodies for...ourselves and... one other."

"'Other'? Who?"

But he's not listening to her anymore. "...so we can survive... the coming... holocaust."

Everything else - her friends in Peril, Flash and Aquaman working out a rescue plot, worries about her mother's past - all of that falls away from Dinah's worldview.

Holocaust.

She has to find that ray.

[overcame-fear.livejournal.com]

Hal sees it happen with his own eyes, and he still can't believe it.

It starts with some kind of back-and-forth between Flash and Aquaman, and then suddenly the Speedster is using that weird yellow lightning projection to propel Aquaman right at the Brain. Several steps away, it stops, and Aquaman flies through the air, landing hard right on the Brain's back.

The monster is startled, and never has a chance to recover. Aquaman gets him into a wrestling hold Hal is glad hasn't got him pinned, and then there's a lot of shouting the Lantern can't make out.

And then... the Ring is glowing bright as the Brain keeps blasting away at them, but when Aquaman squints hard Hal can feel a struggle of wills going on.

Hal's been around enough telepathic aliens long enough to figure out what Aquaman is trying to do. It's a good try, and the guy's got guts, but--.

What the hell?

A brighter flash, and suddenly an emerald cutlass erupts into view, and slices clean through the fleshy head of the monster. The crystal case containing the Brain goes flying until it lands hard on the ground several yards away.

Moments later, Robotman is clapping Aquaman on the back. "Nice work, Blondie! You're gonna be right at home with the Doom Patrol!"

"With the--?" Hal starts. "Forget it, Robotman! He belongs to the JLA--and we're lucky to have him!"

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah, sadly, missed the battle of wills between Aquaman and the Brain - she patched up the Locus goon well enough to hope he'll survive into the clean up,m then high-tailed it into the remains of the Brotherhood's strong hold to retrieve the genecraft ray.

Sometimes it feels good to know you're still the best at kicking ninja goons in the head.

She returns to the battle scene to see Green Lantern cheerfully congratulate Aquaman on the rescue, and under her false voice box, she smiles. It's good to be a team.

"I found the genecraft ray intact. We've got to get to the townzzzpeople. Fix them up."

The Doom Patrol volunteer for Locus clear up, and that gives the Justice League permission to get their body parts back.

It'll be good to breathe fresh air again.

[overcame-fear.livejournal.com]

Caulder is glad to see everyone restored to 'normal.'

"General Immortus once used something very much like the genegrafter on us. I wonder if Locus hasn't been employing him as well."

It's hard to say, though, because the Locus agents fled at the first chance. Hal keeps up his game face, but it's frustrating to go through all of this and still lose that lead.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah remembers a conversation with X-23, and reflects that it might be an advantage if they had a mind reader on their team. The thought, however, makes her frown. She's definitely not comfortable with that idea, hands down.

She lifts her head to say godoby to the Doom Patrol, and finds J'Onn looking at her steady, his newly reattched red eyes unreadable. When she speaks, he breaks his stare.

"We can't take claims about a holocaust lightly. Locus stole one of the alien creatures that brought the JLA together. Their techonlogy may outstrip our powers, and that's trouble. Find out what you can on your end."

"Yeah, we find anything, we'll buzz ya," Robotman assures her.

As goodbyes are said, Dinah looks around to make sure they're all together, and discovers a member from each team is missing...

[overcame-fear.livejournal.com]

That would be Hal and Larry, who have taken a moment to look out over the city from the high balcony of the DP headquarters.

"What do you mean you don't know exactly who's financing the JLA?" Larry is exclaiming. "Don't you guys check things like that out? Isn't that super-villain plot number eighty-two?"

"You're right," Hal has to admit. "We're new at this. We'll look into it first thing in the morning."

The Lantern goes quiet for a moment, then sighs, "Larry, how do you handle it, man? The responsibility?"

Negative Man lifts his head in surprise to hear Hal Jordan ask such a thing. "You seem to be doing well enough, flyboy. Hey, you were an iceman as a jet jockey. Why so rattled all of a sudden?"

"I never really thought of the ring as a killing tool before today," Hal answers. "Kind of changes my perspective on what we're capable of."

"Yeah," Larry nods. "I can see that. Look, Hal, take it from someone slightly more experienced: never failing to use our abilities wisely. That's the real power. Don't forget that."

Hal takes a moment, then smiles, but only slightly. "I won't."

"Listen... Any time you want to crack the sky again, look me up. I can put you behind a stick for an afternoon."

"Sounds good," Larry says, taking Hal's hand in a firm shake. "Take care, Hal."

Hal intends to. And he has to admit, it's good to know Larry is part of this new world he's found himself in. Even a Green Lantern needs someone to talk to now and then.