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.
