As the Green Lanterns approached the picturesque planet, Varn and the rest of the Lanterns were unaware as an asteroid literally reared its ugly head. Luckily, one of the Lanterns, the four-armed Pravaek, had arrived late, spoiling the rock-head’s ambush.

At the sound of a cosmic collision, Varn turned to see the orange construct and the newest arrival. "Pravaek Tura, Homeworld of Da', Sector 1423. A pleasure to meet more of the core," the newcomer said, introducing himself.

“The real question is, who the heck is that?!” Varn exclaimed, as the craggy enemy recovered from the blow. It was a rhetorical question, but Varn’s ring decided to respond anyway. “It appears that this creature resembles the one the Guardians know as ‘Blume,’” the mustachioed face answered. “A construct of the Orange Lantern.”

Blume turned his massive head to direct another attack on the Lanterns. As the orange beam raced towards the small crew, it was met by a massive, elephantine construct. Varn gritted his teeth, trying to maintain his focus, as his construct shook its shaggy head, squaring its massive shoulders, and bucking at the orange beam with its ridge tusks.

“Come on you piece of shtako,” Varn shouted. “Show me what you got!”

Unfortunately, Blume had more than Varn. The orange beam pierced the mammoth, sending green splinters spiraling out into space.

Sector 1861...

Aurik Warlo phased into his intangible self and b-lined to the surface of the planet Euphoi right behind the groups' leader, the robotic intelligence from the planet Grenda, Stel. The veteran fought past dozens of Orange Lantern constructs that in turn made constructs themselves or simply ate and consumed every bit of energy thrown at them while screaming 'mine!' The Orange Lanterns kind of played it like Aurik himself, phasing in and out, however the Orange Lanterns basically teleport at random to catch their prey off guard. Aurik was still in one place and could still be seen though slightly lighter like in a dream and translucent. The young Lantern manged to play defense for the squad leader and kept a few of the more persistent construct OL's off his tail. The stink of rotting veggies and fruits filled Aurik's nostrils and made him gag for a moment.

"Why doesn't turning intangible effect my sense of smell, this is horrible..." he said out loud to nobody at all while sporting a mecha suit making him the size of Stel.

"We're not far from Larfleeze, Lantern Warlo! Keep moving forward!" Stel screamed over the chaos on the surface of the planet.

Back in the asteroid field, orbiting the planet...

Several Orange Lantern constructs blinked in and out while trying to defend the planet against the majority of the Green Lanterns. The asteroid field just made it all the more easy. Crux was surprised by the crabmask wearing Kyle Rayner orange construct with a devilish grin.

"New Genesis in the houssse! That visssor will be.... MINE!" he screamed attacking the New God with mecha fists.

Somewhere in the jungles of Euphoi...

A dark figure with a cape floats ominously.

"The current drill instructor of the Green Lantern Corps and Larfleeze in one place? This will be too easy..."

~KL~

Orange Lantern constructs teleported in and out of reach from Kav, some attacking him, others focusing on his fellow Corpsmen. The Venan could do nothing but dodge the Orange Lanterns’ assaults, his pacifistic mindset not allowing him to take action. Glowing green splinters floated past Kav’s head. The remnants of a construct. Turning to face the direction of which the splinters were coming from, he saw a yellow-skinned Green Lantern facing off against a giant rock-like Orange Lantern.

“Nadhol ad Ven," gasped Kav in Venan, astonished at the sight of the huge living rock that was once known as Blume. He sped towards his teammate, remembering his name as Tharas, not caring to ask if he wanted help or not. Extending his ring-arm, Kav constructed his signature construct, which he preferred to use only in defensive manners. He called it the Hand of God.

The colossal green hand formed a barrier between Tharas and Blume, blocking a beam of orange energy fired from the Orange Lantern’s ring. Gaining the greedy rock’s attention, Kav brought his construct in front of himself, slowly mending the many large cracks that had formed as a result of Blume’s powerful attack.

“Blume of the Orange Lantern Corps!” exclaimed Kav, momentarily forgetting that his opponent was a construct, “Please do not fight back. The quicker you surrender, the easier it will be to take you in painlessly.”

“Your ring… Is MINE! MINE! MINE!” shrieked Blume in return, firing off yet another powerful blast of orange energy. Before Kav knew it, the Hand of God was shattered, and he barely got out of the way in time. The right forearm of his suit had been seared off, and was melding itself back together.

“What a khadhouk…”

"Come and taste your death!" Pravæk said swinging large construct war hammers around, one for each arm. He saw some kind of orange construct with tentacles fly toward him and combined the hammers of each set of arms together and flattened it between them. He smiled as it disintegrated, he continued onward and sped toward the large asteroid monster. He stopped behind it and made a construct of a large space cannon, he clutched his top finger and fired at it, he held his finger and the cannon shot continuous bursts of large shells that hammered the beast's skull. He smiled broadly as the creature's focus turned towards him, he let his cannon construct fade.

"Come now you ugly cur," He said constructing short swords in his left arms and a two handed shield in his right, "COME!"

As he let out his final shout the beast sped toward Pravæk generating constructs left and right, Pravæk cut through them making his way to the beast. He found the gap closing rapidly and thickened his Lantern Suit aura, when Pravæk reached striking distance he spun backwards and brought his feet together into the open mouth of the orange lantern. He sailed inside deconstructing his shield and replacing it with more swords, he raised his top two swords connecting them above his head and extending the blades so that they stabbed out of the beasts innards and held in place, he generated repeated this with his bottom hands as he generated new swords in his top hands. He continued until he had gone through the entire creature. He formed a green ball of will energy and communicated to his fellow lanterns through his ring to theirs.

"Brothers," He said through the rings "I can only hold these constructs for so long, while I can hold these I will do my best to keep him immobilized but you must take action now. Do what you can, I do not fear my death here today, I trust in the core."

With that he focused and concentrated his will on holding his protective barrier as well as the restraints he had set into place through the beasts body. He felt orange energy attacking the outside of his aura, he blocked it out and sat in wait. He crossed his legs and brought his arms together, his top two arms connecting with the bottom two arms by holding the thumbs and forefingers in interlocking positions.

"Alright then looks like it's a real party now....evil orange space constructs. Another day in the lantern corps...." Hapalo said with a chuckle to himself as he decided to play a support role by standing back and forming a machine gun construct to open fire on the orange constructs with as many shots as he could get off. Of course most the of the shots were wide, trying to shoot something in the vacuum of space wasn't the bright idea because of all the openness around them. He may not be the best lantern but he'd give them as much as he could before he had to let the others take over. "I may not be flashy but I get the job done to an extent. I won't let these bastard take out this planet if I can help it!" Hapalo muttered in annoyance as he flew backward and saw what was happening over by the guy called Prevæk Tura. "Damn it we don't leave lanterns behind if we can help it someone help him!" Hapalo said as he continued to play his support role. In truth he would do something to help the man but he was not confident in his ability to actually help him without making things worse. While his experience was at his side the problems in his sector were few and far between in truth. What he could do may not be enough and he'd not risk that man's life on a mistake like that.

Crux couldn’t believe the sight before his eyes. Kyle Rayner, an orange construct belonging to Larfleeze, was flying right at him. It wasn’t possible—er, wasn’t probably, Kyle Rayner was far from immortal, but Crux had learned all he could about Larfleeze in the transit time between Oa and Euphoi. It was recorded that Larfleeze could only create and manipulate constructs of those he had killed, stealing their identity for his own repurposing. There was no report of Kyle Rayner meeting his demise, at least none that Crux had seen last time he checked.

And yet, here he finds himself, a construct version of fellow New God Orion’s hover harness slowly growing over his body, construct Kyle armed with exaggerated mechanical fists gleefully charging forward, and not a whole lot of choice left for Crux.

“Begone.” Crux unloads on the construct, energy coalescing and then unleashing from the center point of the harness, braced against Crux’s chest. The construct, the affront of Corpsman Kyle, is blasted away bit by bit. It does what it can to compensate, consuming some of the energy being hurled at him, but it ultimately proves to be too overwhelming of an offensive. The construct disappears with a wisp of orange smoke, scattered among the dust and debris of the asteroid field, and Crux dissipates the hover harness construct, breathing a sigh of relief.

Given a free moment, Crux looks around him; his allies are all being confronted by construct adversaries of their own. Meanwhile, Stel and Aurik have rushed on ahead, leaving a majority of the squad to deal with Larfleeze’s minion.

They were running out of time. They have to end this now, regroup on the planet. They needed to—

“Hey, pal!” Crux’s grabbed from behind, construct Kyle back and hissing in his ear, “You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?” Construct Kyle laughs sickeningly, “I’m the Torchbearer, kid! I’m more powerful than you or any one of your rookie flunkies assembled here! I even outclass Stel!”

“Get—nggh, get off me!” Crux tries to wrest Kyle’s arm from around his neck, but for something with such a strong grip, Crux’s hands pass right through like vapor.

“Not so fast, godling. You have something I want…” Kyle runs the pointer finger of his free hand along the rim of Crux’s visual apparatus.

Something was wrong, Crux knew that, but even more than being ambushed, this Kyle construct… it has a personality beyond mindlessly shouting and demanding that things be his. It’s trying to intimidate Crux. It’s playing games with him, disappearing and then reappearing, targeting an object sensitive to Crux’s being and threatening to take it. It’s toying with him instead of just tearing him apart, and Crux doesn’t like it.

“I like your visor. I think I’ll take it!”

He tries to yank the visor from Crux’s face, but though Crus may not be able to break free from construct Kyle’s grip, he could struggle to keep his visor on.

“No, you won’t!” Crux groans, his anger masking his fading strength. Construct Kyle did have him in a chokehold, and if Crux should lose his concentration, even for a moment…

“Oh yes, I will! This trinket is mine, Mine, MINE!” Kyle cackles, very nearly being able to pull it from Crux’s face.

Finally, the New God loses his composure, “Back up, Rayner!” The visor glows, and construct Kyle’s head is blasted away by a solid stream of emerald energy. Crux can feels construct Kyle’s touch slacken, and he uses the opportunity to break free. Crux breaks off from firing, turns to face his decapitated opponent, though his head seems to be re-growing, and lays it on thicker than before. He doesn’t just pelt construct Kyle with repeating fire; he completely immerses the construct in searing green energy. By the time Crux lets the blast die, not even a wisp is left of Rayner. Nothing is left.

The scientist straightens his visor, returning his attention to his adversaries, still entrenched in combat.

“We don’t have time for this…” Crux groans, his rink sparking like he was kindling a fire with it. From the smallest spark, the fire grows out of his ring and into a gigantic, fully-formed being, complete with a stoic face and energy pouring out of the figure as if it were the fire itself. Anyone from New Genesis would know the being to be Takion, living avatar of the Source energy, but for Crux’s purposes, however, he was merely a really big flamethrower.

Crux juts his arms out, the Takion construct mirroring his actions. From the construct’s fingertips to the star-shaped hole carved out in his chest, the construct envelops the area in blinding, scorching energy that pours out in waves.

A wayward orange construct, likely one trying to make a move against Crux, gets caught up in the energy, and is obliterated by the pulsating energy, like a wave crashing against the rocks. The wave travels outward, undeterred, eviscerating every other Orange Lantern construct in the vicinity.

Their enemies defeated, at least for the time being, Crux lets the Takion construct fade away into the vacuum or space, exhausted from the endeavor. He knew that the constructs would be back eventually, he doubts anyone could truly permanently destroy an Orange Lantern construct, save Larfleeze himself although why would a being consumed by greed ever give anything up? They’d probably run into them once they reached the surface of Euphoi, but at least then they’d have made it that far.

Crux flies toward the center where his fellow Green Lanterns are reassembling, his ring creating a construct of the planet Euphoi with two dots flying at high speeds to a large, orange speck.

“Listen here, Lanterns Stel and Warlo have gone on ahead in pursuit of Larfleeze, but as you’ve just witnessed these constructs are more than a match for any one of us. We must rejoin our comrades immediately and help them to end this—by taking out Larfleeze, the source of these constructs and all our problems, we make this pocket of the universe a bit safer. …Then we can all go home and drink.”

There’s a small chorus of chuckles at that, “Take a moment to collect yourselves, recharge... we move out in ninety seconds.”

The squad breaks and speeds off toward the planet, together, in only sixty.

Varn grit his teeth. His performance in combat would not have made his father proud. He wouldn't admit it, but he was feeling overwhelmed. These Orange Lanterns were unlike anything he'd fought before. Sure, he'd done some ring slinging, but never against so many enemies, and enemies of such power.

Despite the planetary annimocity Varn felt towards his fellow sector lantern, he found himself wishing Isamot Kol was here, just to see a familiar face. Sure, they were almost polar opposites when it came to politics in their sector, but they always had each other's backs anyway.

Praevek was different. His teammate seemed ready to sacrifice himself for nothing. Varn still wasn't sure was Praevek was thinking.

As Varn rode his trihorned mega lizard construct, following Crux in formation through the sky and jungle of Euphoi, he decided to talk to the teammate in question. "Hey Praevek, right? What's with the martyr act? Are you so ready to die that you would literally enter the mouth of the beast? We need all the Lanterns we can get, but we also need all the Lantern we can get back to their homes."

Pravæk Tura followed close behind his fellow lanterns, he heard the one called Varn to his left speaking.

"I acted on instinct, I trusted my will to do what was needed of me." Pravæk said looking towards his comrade, "Death is of no concern to me, I will die in service to The Guardians and fear not death nor what comes after it. I am concerned only with the safety of others, my own is nothing to be worried about."

With that Pravæk turned forward and continued to follow behind the one called Crux.