The Lanterns
S.H.I.E.L.D. H.Q., New York
The Red Lantern ring sat in a reinforced jar on the table in between Hal, Sinestro and May. It seemed to constantly tap against the glass, as if an angry hornet, a low rumbling from within.
"Yup, that thing looks pissed." Hal stated the obvious.
"It is the Ring of Rage, i am no sure how you were expecting it to react to encarceration." Sinestro responded.
"Honestly, i was expecting it to... Well, lay on the table like a regular ring." Hal replied.
"These are sacred artifacts that channel the rawest emotions from all of the creatures across the galaxy. You should consider yourself lucky that my ring of Fear isn't on the loose or it would be forcing you to feel your deepest and most disturbing fears." He replied. Hal sat and thought for a second.
"We talkin' standing in front of the whole school wearing just my underwear or we talking existential horror like my old man stood over me telling me i'll never amount to nothing and that we live in a cold unfeeling universe where the most we can hope for is to make people remember us for a few generations before we rot in the ground and are inevitably forgotten and may as well have never existed to begin with?" Sinestro's eyebrow slowly raised.
"Look, i sit in a cockpit of a 15 ton death machine for several hours at a time with nothing but my own thoughts, i think about this crap." Sinestro gave that look of questioning how someone with so few braincells figured out how to breathe let alone use a power ring.
"In any case, we need to consider putting out feelers to figure out who the Champion of Rage is." He said
"Agent May, do you have any idea's?" May looked at the Ring.
"No." Sinestro stated, very matter-of-factly, before May's eyes darted to Sinestro.
"What?" Hal asked, looking confused.
"Agent May is under some misguided belief that she can simply choose to become our Champion of Rage." He replied.
"The Director has made his position on these rings very clear. At least one of our agents is to be given one of them." She replied.
"And as i told your mysterious Director when he made that demand, that is quite impossible to guarentee." He replied.
"Why are you humans incapable of understanding such a simple rule. THE RING CHOOSES THE BARER! IF I LET YOU PUT THAT RING ON, YOU WILL BE SUBSUMED LIKE THE MAN WE TOOK IT OFF OF!" Sinestro raised his voice a little, not into a shout, just reiterating his point louder and slower. May simply smiled at Sinestro
"Perhaps i have a lot more rage than you give me credit for." She said rather coldly, she put her hand on the glass and the Ring reacted, glowing brighter and brighter. Hal simply stared.
"Be it on your own head if you release that ring and uses your body to kill everyone in this building." Sinestro and May sat staring daggers at each other again. As they did, the Red Ring began to glow brighter and brighter. It suddenly shot out of the other side of the glass from May, rocketting out of the window and immediately zooming off East at what seemed like Lightspeed. Hal and Sinestro looked at each other, then seconds later, a flash of Green and Gold set off following the Ring at the same breakneck speed.
Coast City, California, 10 minutes ago.
Jessica Cruz had just gotten home from a fairly exhausting day. A protest against expansion of oil drilling, volunteering at the pet rescue center, a second protest against the expansion of non-replant logging, then finally tending to the community garden in her neighbourhood. Getting home to her small appartment, she slumped down on her sofa and let out a long, unadulterated exhale.
"Christ i need to curb it with the protests." She said, grabbing her face and trying to massage some of the aches away. She had college in the morning. Luckily, all her work was up to date, so that wasn't really much of a problem, but it was going in and sitting and listening for so long... Effort is hard... She then looked over to the framed newspaper clipping she had of Jadav Payeng, the man in India who had single handedly grown an entire forest... Effort was hard, but with enough effort, anyone could change the world. He did it, she'd do it. As she felt her strength returning to her, a second wind flowing through her branches, she heard it...
"Mrrrrow..." Turning to the kitchen area, she saw her angry little bundle of extra fluffy joy. Dexter, a long-haired Russian Blue sat there on the counter. She looked down to her hands all covered in his extra sharp and pointy "Shows of affection" let out a deep sigh before jumping back up.
"Dexxy! My super-duper-fluffy bundle of joy!" She exclaimed.
"And what are we so loud and proud about today?" She asked, daring to risk a hand stroking him down the back. One stroke from the top of his head to the small of his back. Any further and it was back to the rubbing alcohol. His fur was coarse and unkempt. Attempts at grooming were dangerous and any attempt to actually bath him was bordering on suicidal. But he needed someone to look after him. She had watched as he was brought into the rescue center, practically feral. Watched over him, tried her best to show him love and attempting to domesticate him, while hoping against hope that one day he may be adopted. Then the day came. After 1 year, if an animal hadn't been adopted, it was common practice to have them put down. It was a policy from the top, she had protested against it multiple times, but she had to be honest, she had never actually seen an animal stay at the rescue for more than a year, meaning she had never actually witnessed this. She knew a number of other shelters had this cutoff point as low as 6 weeks. She remembered the day, getting him into the carrier, tears pouring down her face as she prepared to take him to the vet clinic onsite... Walking through the doors... To the administration office and signing the paperwork to take him home with her. He was a living, breathing creature and one day, she would figure out how to turn him into one of those cats on the internet that wanted the cheeseburger and rolled over and did everything a cat should do.
"Mrrrrow..." The growl came again. She looked down to him sat on the counter next to his bowl. She then looked at the time, 8:03.
"DEXXY I'M SO SORRY!!!" She fake cried.
"3 MINUTES LATE FOR YOUR DINNER, YOU HAVE PRACTICALLY WASTED AWAY TO THE BONE." She twirled and slumped her back against the counter as she slapped her head as if fake-dying in a play.
"That's her, officer, that's the one, take her away for animal cruelty and attempted genocide of the feline race!" She looked at Dexter who was still very much waiting for his food.
"Alright killer, i'll get you your food now.""Mrrrrow..." The exact same growl every time. She knew once he reached 5 was when he stopped taking her shit and would just clawing the furniture in protest. She had had to put all of her porceline collection into storage the day he came home s she was somewhat incentivised to keep him happy. Walking over to the cupboard, she pulled out a small tin of tuna and the box of kibble. Jessica was Vegan and although she had tried to get Dexxy to go Vegan as well with some good vegan suppliment cat-food, she had quickly figured out that he was very much not reciprocative to her new idea's. Pouring the brine into the sink before putting tuna into his bowl along with the kibble at a 2/3 ratio, she finished it off with hiding his medication in a particularly fat piece of tuna. She put the tuna on the floor next to the counter and Dexter was immediately in there, his jaw working like a steam shovel, just scooping as much as could fit into this mouth, 3 chews and swallow, then onto the next bite. Jessica managed to get another stroke down his back, another angry growl escaping the cat as she turned and walked over to the sofa. As she sat down there was a knock a the door.
"Uuuuuuugh, dios mio..." She groaned as she got up and walked over to the door. She looked through the peep-hole. 3 Police Officers.
"Uuuuuugh!!! Look, for the last time-" She began, starting to unlock the door to give them a piece of her mind.
"My right to peaceful protest is protected my the Constitution and you facist bullyboys are not getting me to admit that i-" As the lock went click and she turned the handle, the door suddenly and very violently smashed into her face, sending her sprawling across the floor. Everything suddenly went very surreal for her. She heard the 3 men barge in and start rumagging through her stuff.
"30 seconds, in and out, grab whatever you can." One of them said. Jessica slowly started to try and crawl back to her feet, but there was a sharp pain in the back of her head as she realized she was swiftly stomped up as her face smashed into the wooden floorboards. "No, dumbass, the small stuff. People see cops carrying a TV, they're gonna remember it!" Jessica tried to get up again, but this time there was a debilitating pain in her side as her ears started ringing. "WHAT THE FUCK ASSHOLE!?!?!?" One of them yelled. Jessica felt her stomach suddenly feeling rather warm as she manged to look down and see a bullet hole having ripped straight through her gut from back to front. "GRAB AND RUN!" It was at this point that the shock set in and Jess could only lay there staring at the blood seeping through the cracks in her floorboards. This was sort of broken when she heard screams of agony, managing to look up, she saw Dexter was now latched onto one of the cops arms, clawing and biting. "GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!!!"
"What is going on in here?" A voice asked, Jessica looked up to see her neighbour, Mr Jenson stood there. An old retired maths teacher who lost his wife to Cancer 2 years ago. Jessica tried to reach up to warn him, but all she succeeded in doing was seeing Mr Jensons reunion with his wife as a bullet ripped straight through his forehead.
"H... Hel...p..." She tried to wheeze out, but her breaths were to shallow to really make any considerable noise. There was a third, fourth and fifth gunshot as she saw Dexter fall to the floor as well, covered in his own blood.
"D-EEXX!" She tried to wheeze out, before the guy with the gun took aim at Jessica's head and one final shot ended her involvement in the situation. As everything went black, she could see something glowing red...
Dexter floated through the void of space. He had no idea of concepts of heaven or hell or pergatory. He only understood violence and food and the tall cultist that provided him with comfort, but didn't understand her place as she kept touching him without his permission. As Dexter seemed to float towards a gaping maw of utter blackness, suddenly the void was engulfed in a red light.
"DEX-TER!!!" Dexter looked around, before finding himself sat on a rock, surrounded by a red, flowing river, intense heat as if lava, but viscous as blood.
"DEX-TER!!!" The voice came again. As Dexter looked up, he saw a pair of volcanoes erupting side by side and in the center, an immense red, demonic being wearing a strange symbol on his chest.
"DEX-TER, I SENSE IN YOU THE MOST UNHOLY AND POWERFUL OF RAGES!!! SPEAK THE OATH!!! YELL IT!!! DEMAND THE GODS KNOW YOUR RAGE AS YOU JOIN OUR RANKS!!!!" It roared as the volcano's unleashed their pyroclastic fury around him. The cat opened his mouth as a red ring slipped onto the end of his tail.
"With blood and rage of crimson red,
From the corpse of the innocent, so freshly dead,
Together with our Righteous hate,
We'll burn all evil--that is your fate!"The blood pooling around Dexter slowly started to rush back into his body, pulling it into the bullet-holes as they closed up, the bullets slowly pushing out and clattering to the floor. The robbers were currently running down the hallway to the lift to make their escape. As one of them pressed the call button furiously, the others looked at him. "What the fuck, man! That was supposed to be a smash and grab. Get in, get the goods, get gone, we could have tipped at least 3 more of these guys, but you just had to be the big man, just HAD to turn a simple burglary into a double homocide!!! Uuuuugh, we're getting the chair for this!!!"
"SHUT IT! We are not getting anything, because there were no witnesses and we are all wearing gloves and once this gun is in the sea, that's the end of any evidence." As the door opened, the 3 rushed in, before pressing the ground floor button. As they turned back, they saw it. A tidal wave of red energy rushing towards them. The 3 men screamed as they saw the cat they had just killed in the center of that red lava. The door closed... But not fast enough as Dexter slipped straight through the gap. The last thing that was heard from the 3 men was the utmost terror as the lift slowly descended, as if taking them to hell personally.
As Hal and Sinestro arrived, they followed the energy trail of the red ring in through the window to see the scene. Hal rushed over the girls body, putting fingers to her throat.
"I got a pulse. Gold, can we-" Sinestro grabbed Hals arm and pushed the Ring towards her body.
"Then there is time, will her to live, Green Lantern." The green energy from the ring surrounded Jessica's body.
"It will not guarentee her survival, but it will stabilize her long enough to get her to a medical center." He got up and jogged out the door, straight over the corpse of the math teacher.
"Too late for this one" He heard the screams from the elevator and looked at Hal.
"Green Lantern, the Red Ring has found a new host. and is heading down." He jogged back over to the window they had entered through.
"But what about her?" Hal asked. He then heard a scream from outside the door, one of the other neighbours checking on the commotion no-doubt. Hal ran out into the hallway and saw an old lady screaming.
"Ma'am. I need your help." He ran over to her, the old lady seemed shocked but looked at Hal as he asked for her help.
"Ma'am, i need you to call 911 RIGHT NOW. There is a girl in that appartment there fighting for her life and she needs an Ambulance ASAP." He said to her, the old lady nodded and Hal then ran back into the appartment and leapt out of the window, following Sinestro down to the lobby, rushing into the appartment block, they stood outside of the lift in a covered position, both holding their rings towards the door. As the door opened, they would see something out of a horror film. The lift entirely painted in the gore of 3 fairly large men, fragments of bone everywhere, bits of organ sticking to the ceiling of it, a rancid smell to be sure... But most prominently was a single cat, sitting in the middle of the utter carnage. adorned in a spandex outfit of red and black.
"Ummm... Sin-Gold..." Hal corrected himself in confusion.
"That's a cat..." Dexter started to lick himself.
"The Red ring has chosen a cat... Is it the champion or-" As Hal asked, the cat looked up, first at Hal, then at Sinestro.
"I kill..." The cat growled out.
"Monsters kill food-barer!" It said.
"And now it talks..." Hal, stood here in spandex pyjama's, next to an alien from space, in front of a talking cat in an elevator straight out of a horror film, every one of them weilding magical rings... He started to once again question reality or if he had finally had that psychotic break. Altitude madness they called it. Too much time up there causing bubbles in the blood stream damages the brain when they pass through. The technical, medical term for it was "Tutti-Fruity-coocoo-cachoo-pants-on-head-banana's" But Hal wasn't a doctor, so that was just a guess.
"She isn't dead." Sinestro spoke to Dexter. As he said that, Dexter Shot straight up through the ceiling of the lift. breaking the cables, the lift dropped and smashed on the floor as there wasn't enough time for the emergency brakes to kick in. Sinestro flew through the gap created by the lifts drop and followed Dexter. Hal finally snapped back to reality and followed the 2. As he landed outside of the appartment again, he saw several other tennants had come to look, Dexter was stood atop Jessica's body, his corse tongue licking her face.
"Awaken food-barer... Monsters dead..." He demanded. Sinestro stood looking at the scene as Hal joined him.
"So, verdict?" Hal asked.
"The Champion of Rage has been chosen..." Sinestro replied. He reached out with his ring and a yellow pet carrier formed around Dexter. Dex immediately lashed out, and a red claw smashed straight through the consruct, before the yellow repaired itself. At that point, the red costume around Dexter disappeared, that claw being the last reserves of his rings energy after he used all of the rest of it to butcher the monsters. He continued to scratch, lash out, scream and do all of that to the cage, but without his ring, there was no chance of him breaking it. Hal pulled out his phone and called May.
"Send a containment crew to my location and make sure they know not to go in the elevator... It's not a pretty sight." Hal said. The sounds of sirens could finally be heard as the first responders arrived. Hal and Sinestro floated up to the top of the building with Dexter to wait for the containment crew to arrive.