Bounce

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

@Master Bruce

Hope you start to feel better!

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

THE PLANET ODYM

^{10 YEARS EARLIER}

They met in secret.

A planet on the edge of Sector 2684. The Rann-Thanagar War raging on the other side of the sector kept Odym relatively untouched by either the Nova Corps or Green Lantern patrols, as their time and resources were invariably expended working to contain the crisis unfolding between Rann and Thanagar instead.

It felt like conspiracy. Salaak didn't like it. It felt like they were the criminals. Disabling the trackers inside their rings. Muffling the ability of the ring to record their actions.

"The only others who knew about that raid were the Guardians," Abin remarked, as the powerful Ungaran paced back and forth in abject frustration.

Ever the voice of reason, the Slyggian had tried to broker the opposing viewpoint. "We don't know that for certain. B'Shi could have been made when she visited the house..."

"That's precisely why we involved Kilowog and B'Shi in the first place," Abin blurted aloud, incredulous as he whirled around to face Salaak. "Their sector was all the way on the far side of the galaxy."

Salaak merely bowed his head with a sigh, as Abin walked up to place his hands on the Slyggian's shoulders. "I tell you this not lightly, but because you must hear me... we are betrayed."

"And what?" Salaak asked, peering up into the taller Ungaran's eyes. Reaching up with two of his arms, the Slyggian placed his hands over top of Abin's arms. "Are we supposed to go to the Council with, what, exactly? Suspicion? Naked accusation?"

Now it was Abin's turn to let go a heavy sight. Squeezing Salaak's shoulders, the Ungaran leaned forward so that his forehead rested against the Slyggian's own. They stayed that way in a shared moment, before the Ungaran let go, turned, and walked a few steps away. His back turned, Abin turned his head and said, "You will go to Oa."

Salaak opened his mouth to speak, but found he had no words.

Abin had made up his mind. They were going separate ways.

"Appa's wanted you to take over as Clarissi for some time. We can use that..."

"I'll be right under their eyes!"

"Exactly," Abin remarked flatly. "With you under the microscope, the traitor can't hurt you without risking exposing themselves. Meanwhile, my being absent is a loose-end. Let them focus their energy on trying to tie that up."

The Slyggian peered down at his hands, playing with the ring on his finger. "Ch'p is never going to understand... He'd never believe such a thing about one of the Guardians," Salaak uttered, before looking back up to ask, "Where will you go?"

"Earth." The answer had come faster than Salaak had anticipated. Abin Sur had already put thought into his plan. "It's a planet in Sector 2814. One I doubt that the Guardians have even heard of."

The two were silent after that. Seconds ticking by, before Salaak said, "As I recall, you once asked me to make sure your body was returned to Ungara."

"Superstition and religion," Abin uttered in reply. "Nothing more."

"Your people believe your soul passes to the next generation."

"Ever since we discovered space flight, the birth rate on my planet has declined," the Ungaran noted, a certain melancholy lingering on his voice as he'd said it. "For every one of us who leave and don't return, there are fewer and fewer in each generation."

"So if you die on Earth..."

The man at last turned to face the Slyggian again. One last time. With a shrug, Abin Sur said only, "Good luck, Green Lantern."

And, with that, he took flight.

Salaak never saw Abin Sur again.

Until that day when a human had appeared on Oa wearing Abin Sur's ring. And the moment that Salaak had seen him, he knew.

It was true.

---

---

G R E E N L A N T E R N

"Orphan's Lament" [ Part V ] [ Rise ]

---

---

The Slyggian awoke with a start.

Hovering before him, the Guardian known as Ganthet was weaving a brilliant construct of blue and violet light, in which a humanoid shape was starting to form. A large book, not unlike the Book of Oa, hovered before the Guardian, as the god-like alien seemed to be pulling the humanoid form together from the air and ash.

First the skeleton appeared. The toes and fingers at the extremities, as the arms and legs slowly formed toward the center mass of hips, ribs, and -- lastly -- the skull. Then the ligaments began to overlap and attach. Followed by layer upon layer on sinew and muscle, as the organs began to appear.

It was like waking up to find GOD creating Adam right in front of him. For a moment, Salaak just basked in the sheer awe of the power that the Guardian wielded. Rising up to his feet, as the Slyggian squinted and peered into the cocoon of light, he saw the skin beginning to form as the body was nearly complete.

The face of Kai-ro appeared, still and serene, as the physical form was re-made. "What changed your mind?" the Slyggian asked finally.

The Guardian merely gave a scoff. "You wanted me to read from the book. Well, I'm reading from it," the squat, blue dwarf uttered flatly. Then he looked downcast, and sighed as he said, "And you have no idea what a terrible weapon this is."

Ganthet's hands came down to rest upon the pages. After a moment, the Guardian closed the tome. "One of many things I wish we could go back and un-make," he said, as the book seemed to wink out of existence. Returned to whatever otherworldly vault that he had drawn it out of.

Stepping closer toward the cocoon of light, the Slyggian marveled at the sight. Within, Kai-ro was suspended nude. He seemed tranquil, as though merely sleeping. The chest would rise and fall in evidence that the organs were animated, yet, there seemed no life in him.

"Will he be all right?"

Ganthet produced a pipe from out of the air, bringing it to his lips as he began packing some material inside of it. Finally, after he'd lit the pipe and taken a slow puff, the Guardian pulled it from his mouth as he offered, "Healing the body is easy. The mind, the spirit... we can only wait and see if the light of hope and love can reach him."

The Guardian puffed on his pipe, lowering himself down to the ground as the yellow lab appeared and rub up against him. Easing himself down so that he was seated on a fallen log, the Guardian just watched the cocoon. And waited.

It was a long time before either spoke again.

"We must confront Scar."

The Slyggian would be lying if he said that he liked their chances. Showing up on Oa with Ganthet certainly improved them, but the evidence was hardly enough for an open-shut case. "It won't be easy," Salaak remarked.

What would Abin Sur do?

Did Kai-ro know? No. Even if they were the same person, they had two very different lives. Two very different outlooks. Abin Sur had been a warrior. Kai-ro was a monk. The Ungaran had reveled in passions that were sometimes barely restrained, and then through force of will alone. The human was reserved. Quiet. Shy.

Abin Sur wouldn't pick his fight on Oa. And neither would Salaak. "There's something I have to do first," the Slyggian said, turning toward the Guardian.

He was preparing to take his leave.

Taking a slow drag on the pipe, Ganthet kept his eyes on the cocoon. "You go to Scylla."

It hadn't been a question.

"How did you..."

"The boy's ring," the Guardian supplied in answer. It was there. All of it. Kai-ro's death. Ch'p's death. The sabotage by the scarred Guardian. The deletion of a Green Lantern from out of the Book of Oa, an act that only one of the Guardians could perform.

Ganthet had seen it all. So he simply said, "Good luck, Green Lantern."

The Slyggian merely gave a nod. "To us both, my Guardian."

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Shazam I'm on the fence about.

Aquaman looks fun. I'm worried they're cramming way too much in there, if he's fighting Orn and Black Manta whilst also doing his whole origin story. But the nice thing about Jason Momoa's acting style is it seems like its okay to not take it seriously.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

THE PLANET OA

^{20 YEARS EARLIER}

Say what you will about their cuisine, H'lven brandy was not for the faint of heart.

The tall, lanky form of the pink-hued Slyggian moved over to the cupboard. Four arms made the species impressive bartenders, as Salaak decanted an aged H'lven liquor into two tumblers over a few cubes of ice. Then, picking up the pair of glasses, made his way over to where an Ungaran house guest was staring out the window.

"Wupi for your thoughts," the Slyggian offered, extending the brandy out toward the violet-hued man. Taking a seat on the loveseat next to the stargazing Green Lantern, one of the Slyggian's hands ghosted across the space between the pair until his hand laid across Abin Sur's. Even as the Ungaran Lantern turned and accepted the offered brandy with the one hand, the fingers of his other interlocked with Salaak's three.

They'd just enjoyed a drink in silence for a moment. At the time, it had seemed so brief. Reflecting back on it now, Salaak felt as though it had been much longer. A moment he remembered. Just sitting there, without a world to save. Without a crisis. Without anything else, save each other.

"If something happens out there..." Abin said, breaching the quiet that had settled over the room. As the two looked at one another, the Ungaran continued. "...something to me that is, promise you'll take me back to Ungara."

For his part, Salaak wasn't certain that he understand the request. Was this a jest? Smiling, the Slyggian asked, "What brought this on?"

It was then that he realized that Abin Sur was serious. "You wouldn't understand," the man uttered softly, his hand tightening around Salaak's even as he looked down. "...just, say that you'll..."

A flash of emerald light sparked from Salaak's ring, as a green construct of a H'lven suddenly appeared in mid-air. "This is Green Lantern 1814.2 requesting assistance."

The Slyggian swirled the brandy around in the glass, before finally setting it down on the table and giving a sigh. Turning, the four-armed alien leaned his oblong head up against the Ungaran for a moment before he said, "I have to go."

---

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G R E E N L A N T E R N

"Orphan's Lament" [ Part IV ] [ Afterlife ]

---

---

The Slyggian sat on the ground, staring up at the night's sky.

Before him, the fire was burning brilliantly. A pyre constructed to hold the body of the human child as the flames reclaimed the body and released the spirit back to the beyond.

To be honest, Salaak had no idea what the human beliefs or funerary practices were. In a time before Slyggians had arrived at the Atomic Age, they had cast off their superstitions. Religion held no meaning for his people, yet the practice of burning their dead in order to release their memory continued. It wasn't superstition, it was just... Slyggian.

As he watched the embers and smoke ascending, Salaak's eyes were drawn upward to the stars and he thought about a time on Oa that would never come again. A tale of two people living their lives in between one crisis and the next. The prime of their life, spent chasing drug czars, or the slave traders, or the arms dealers who tried to live as gods of war among the criminal underworld.

The jade ring was played between the fingers of two of his hands. Outwardly, it was unremarkable. Visibly indistinct from the one on his own finger. Yet, he knew it was different. He knew it was unique.

He knew whose ring it was. The band was imprinted with their hopes. Their dreams.

...and their love.

Getting up, the Slyggian moved closer to the funerary pyre and dropped to his knees. He'd never prayed before. He didn't even know who he was praying to. He only knew that none of this had unfolded as any of them had wanted. He felt the weight of so many mistakes and wondered how people attained any sense of forgiveness late in life. Everything he had worked to achieve seemed undone by everything he'd done in effort to achieve it. So many friends now gone. B'Shi. Tomar-Re. Ch'p. Abin Sur.

The Slyggian had just sat there for hours.

He had fallen asleep as the pyre had died down. The remains of Green Lantern Kai-ro were now just bits of blackened bone, soot, and ash. Floating silently over the still form of the distraught Slyggian, Ganthet voyaged to the dying fire with a simple wooden box in one hand.

As he opened the lid, the bits and pieces that yet remained began to gather themselves in the air. "A child," the exiled Guardian uttered, as he watched the ashes begin to gather in the small box. Turning, the Guardian turned his attention toward where the Slyggian lay.

The ring that Salaak was clutching to his breast slid out from under his hands, to float over where Ganthet was closing the lid on Kai-ro's funerary urn. The ring landed atop the lid, the singular object of the Guardian's tranquil fury. "Why, damn you?"

Levitating up into the air, the jade ring seemed to come apart into a diffusion of emerald light. Within the fragmentary pieces of the device, he saw a small child. Innocent, wide-eyed, imaginative. "In brightest day..." He saw an Ungaran warrior. Brave and bold. "In darkest night..."

Wait.

The child and the Ungaran Green Lantern. The ring didn't seem to recognize them as being different people..? What kind of error in logic had...

No. Not an error. Why did a human have an Ungaran soul? Tapping his fingers atop the funerary urn, the Guardian found himself even more disturbed by the inner workings of this ring. "You've a defective matrix but that doesn't expla..."

The funerary urn fell from out of his grasp.

Her face. Her touch.

She had done it. She had reversed the power cycle. Kai-ro hadn't recharged his ring at the Central Battery, he'd depleted it. It was something only one of the Guardians would even know was possible. And there were only a few capable of that level of sabotage.

His feet hit the ground, as Ganthet dropped to his hands and knees. His chest was tight. Tears streamed down his face, falling down to the earth where they mingled with the child's ashes.

Was this what the Guardians of the Universe had reduced themselves to?

Reaching up a hand, the man pulled his long hair from out of his eyes as he raised his head up. Reaching down, he began to mix his tears into the ash and dirt until a muddy paste began to form. A spectrum of light surrounded the white-haired sage, as his hand plunged down into the muck.

And from that ash and tears, he drew out a book.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

...and Superman is kinda known for catching planes.

@Sep

Obligatory

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Time. The construct of a finite existence obsessed with its own mortality. Before your world was formed, before your star gave light, I fought as you do now. I was the First Lantern. And once, so very long ago, I thought that I could change the universe. But now, if I scream and if I shout, it is to keep the universe from changing me. My name is Ganthet. I forged the ring you bear.

G R E E N L A N T E R N

"Orphan's Lament" [ Part III ] [ Ganthet's Theme ]

---

---

The squat, dwarven figure sat on the edge of a rickety dock.

A large dog of some yellow Labrador breed lay stretched out behind where the man sat, it's tail occasionally twitching as it dozed. The man's trousers were rolled up so that his feet dangled in the cool waters. The brim of a wide, straw hat cast his face in shade, as the white haired figure sat under the light of two suns.

A simple fishing pole was propped up in his lap. It's line indicated in the water by a cork that listed lazily as it drifted across the surface of the lake.

He hadn't caught anything in more than a hundred years. And still he returned here. To this place, to this moment, to this plane of existence. For what purpose? He didn't know. It was merely where he belonged.

The yellow lab suddenly raised it's head. The tail moved back and forth a moment, as the canine's ears seemed to shift forward as the animal fixated on what had caught its' attention.

Then it barked.

The wizened figure frowned deeply. Setting aside the fishing pole, the squat figure gingerly picked himself up from off the dock. As he turned, the blue-skinned man raised a hand to the level of his eyes so that he could peer up into the sky.

There was a shadow descending from above.

The Slyggian appeared, donned in the uniform created by a ring of Oa. It had been some time since he had been exposed to one. The sudden proximity seemed to touch an old wound. The presence nipped at his senses like a limb that had gone numb and was now experiencing a phantom, pins-and-needles pain as sensation now returned.

...no, it wasn't just one ring.

Using the same hand that was shielding his eyes, the white-haired figure removed his hat so that he could better appraise the green construct that floated alongside the Slyggian that approached him from the air.

The Green Lantern landed just a few feet from where the short, white haired alien stood. Dropping to one knee, the Slyggian clutched his ring hand to his chest as he bowed his head and said, "Guardian, I am..."

An uncharacteristic streak of anger flashed through the man. "I know what you are," the fisherman uttered flatly, interrupting the Slyggian. With a dismissive wave, the man added, "I want no part of it."

The Slyggian's oblong head came up to look at the dwarven figure. Using one hand, the four-armed alien indicated the green capsule floating there. "No part in saving even one life?"

The man seemed to bristle at the implication. "Do you think us omnipotent?" the wizened figure snapped back in retort. "Go," the man uttered, as he started to turn back toward the lake. Reaching up to place the hat back on his head, the blue-skinned figure paused to add, "Mourn elsewhere. That child's life and death has naught to do with me."

As the man turned and walked away, Salaak seemed to be thinking a moment. Calculating. Finally, rising up from the earth, the Green Lantern said only, "I know about the book."

The old man stopped in his tracks.

It seemed that Salaak had gotten his attention. Extending out his ring hand, the Slyggian remarked, "I ask you to remember who you are."

The sky turned black. In an instant, in the blink of an eye, the world around them became a hellish storm. The yellow lab gave a yelp as lightning and thunder rolled across the skies. And from everywhere, a voice like that of GOD Almighty snapped.

YOU KNOW NOTHING OF WHO I AM.

The force of will staggered and disoriented the Slyggian. Taken aback, the Green Lantern needed a moment before he could continue. "I know that you've forgotten more about this universe than I will ever know," Salaak offered, as he again extended out his hand. "I know that you've saved this universe more times than anyone can count. Now the universe needs you to do it again."

The old man turned to look back at the Slyggian.

"Help me, Guardian."

The old man looked back toward the lake, as he said, "I am no Guardian..."

"Help me save the Lanterns," Salaak urged, interrupting the god-like being. "Help me to save the Guardians. Help me save the life of just one small child."

The old man remained quiet, even as his head was bowed.

When he finally looked back up, he turned his head toward the Slyggian and gave a heavy sigh. "You can..." he began, before trailing off for a moment. "...bury him here, if you like."

Salaak's hand fell back by his side.

The old man started walking back toward his dock, as the sunlight broke through the clouds that were now parting. Pausing his step a moment, the man spoke without looking back. "Your universe and what happens in it is no business of mine."

Placing his hands in his pockets, the old man just walked away.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I'm really not sure how I feel about this.

@Sep

What the FUCK did I just watch?

If DCAU merged Jason and Tim, is that supposed to be Dickian al Ghul Grayson?

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

The world always needs more Nic Cage.

@Sep

Terminator 2: The Nicholas Cage Special Edition

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I may support it just for the Green Lantern call out.

"There was a Green Lantern movie! But... but we don't talk about that."

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

No one actually likes TTG.

That's what makes it even more confusing that they're getting a theatrical release.