Subject: [OTL]: One Ring [Bat-Types] (9:11) Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 19:32:11 -0700 (PDT) From: D Benway One Ring [9:11] forged by Benway This story borrows some characters for not-for-profit use from DC Comics. This is not a happy story, and may be disturbing in parts for sensitive readers. Many thanks to Sevenall for proof-reading assistance. Warning: Contains language. _______________________________________________________________________________ It's called The End of The War. It's got guys in armour and elves in it. All the girls in it are elves. "It's similar to a Japanese manga called Record of the Lodoss War," says Batman. "Seen the anime." I say. "The one that's kind of like a cheapo version of Lord of the Rings?" "It draws elements from the last volume," he says. "I have it online if you need to see it." "I've read the book," I say. "I know what happens." Of course he wouldn't expect me to have read the book. Trash like me. Stop. Read the comic book. It kind of looks better without colour. Everyone's kind of beat up, after some big battle. The hero guy has a sword, and I think he's fuckin' the elf with the chain mail bra when he isn't chopping people up. All in the back, there's the bad guys. Looks like the sword is a big deal. Yep. Bad wizard wants it. Swirly thing with claws shows up. Does something really sick to the elf in the chain mail bra. Shit. There's no way they would've printed that. Then our hero takes care of the swirly thing. Fuck. It's even worse. There's another argument. Seems the good guy's tired of chopping up the mooks, looks like he wants to go after the bad wizard. He's got this friend, a fuckin' red shirt, who keeps telling him to go with the flow, to do the safe thing, but no, our hero, the Lord of the Light, wants to go right to the top. So he does, right after the red shirt buys it. He sets a trap. The bad guy, the lord of darkness, falls for it, and they hack each other- Shit. "When did he-," I say. "He sent it to his publisher three days before he lured Darkseid to Gotham and murdered him," he says. "You can't know-," I say. "I think you've come to the same conclusion," he says. "This is a suicide note." "I mean, it could be-", I say. "If you read the previous 24 issues, you'd see that there's a pattern," he says. "The hero becomes more agitated, and more depressed, as the series goes on. He picks fights with more and more powerful enemies, keeps taking risks, keeps winning, and it's never enough. Rayner behaved this way in his private life also." "He was into drugs?" I say. "No," he says. "But he had long discussions with West and with me that revealed a certain yearning for justice that put him in danger of crossing a line." "But Darkseid was evil," I say. "He was like Hitler and shit." "Yes, he was," he says. "Worse than that, even." "So Rayner may have been nuts but he did a good thing," I say. "Right?" "Darkseid was a being of almost unimaginable power," he says. "An alien being, linked at some deep level to the internal structure of the universe. We confirmed his death when we confirmed the destruction of his homeworld, and its twin. Over 100 billion sentient, alien beings died with him, including two of my former colleagues in the League." "Did Kyle know this was going to happen?" I say. "The ring could have told him, if he'd asked it," he says. "Do you understand?" "Yeah," I say. "What do you think the ring is?" he says. "It's something that makes my dreams come true," I say. "Not all dreams are good dreams," he says. "No," I say. "But-" "Look," he says. "Look in the mirror. See what it's done to you." I look. I knew I was taller, liked it. I don't look human any more. No-one human is that tall and that thin. "Like I was," I say. "The moment I found you." And I am. At least I'm still in black so the flab doesn't show. "A lantern could use the ring to trip a fleeing mugger and then secure him," he says. "It could also be used, in a moment of crisis, to lift a mountain into space. That was before they were all combined into the one on your finger. Do you know what happened to Coast City?" "Got blown up," I say. "The first human bearer of the ring lived there," he says. "His name was Hal Jordan. He was once a good man, one who had my respect. He was born and raised in Coast City, he lived there, knew dozens of people there, saved it from destruction a dozen times, but he wasn't there when it went up. He lost everything." "Except the ring," I say. "In its incarnation at that time, it needed to be recharged from a battery, and its effects lasted only 24 hours," he says. "When Jordan saw the ruins, he lost control, had a breakdown. He raised the entire city from the ashes, healed the dying, raised the dead. The entire city came back to life for 24 hours, and then came apart in front of him. He exhausted his battery, so he went to its central power source and tried to steal it. The guardians of that battery sent every other Lantern in the universe against him, and he killed over 3 million of them. Then he killed the Guardians, and incorporated all the other rings and the central power battery into the ring that's on your finger." It's so small. It's just a ring. "No one knows what it's capable of," he says. "I just want to do good," I say. "I know," he says. "So did they." "Stewart tried to kill me to get it back," I say. "He was a Lantern, once." "We were never meant to have a ring," he says. "It was designed for other forms of life, beings who minds are structured differently from ours. Humanoid species had a mixed record with the rings. A humanoid race on a planet called Korugar produced a Lantern almost as bad as Jordan. The ring only came to us by accident, when a dying Lantern made a judgment call. Stewart was chosen, but so were Gardner and Rayner." "It protects me," I say. "It wants to do good. I know it." "What is 'good'?" he says. "It's what we do," I say. "That's tautological," he says. "A definition that refers back to itself." "So what the fuck are we doing?" I say. "When I was nine, I learned what was bad," he says. "I knew it, with certainty, like any nine-year old knows things, and it made me into this. Since then, in every waking moment I know it's not so simple, that I make mistakes, that I can never do enough, that I can never bring them back, but I fight it, fight it by doing, always working, always thinking about what to do next, using the laws and my instinct to keep fighting, so that I never get the time to ask myself if it's the right thing to do." "Rob knows what's right," I say. "Tim uses instinct and rationalizes it better than anyone I know," he says. "Oracle thinks that way also, and rationalizes breaking the laws that safeguard the privacy of everyone. None of us truly know what's right." "You don't think I do," I say. "You never tell anyone what your father's up to unless you know that we're going to find out," he says. "I keep hoping-," I say. "I know," he says. "So what the fuck do I do?" I say. "You have to give up the ring, Stephanie," he says. "You don't think I'm good enough for it," I say. "I don't think any human is," he says. I take it off my finger. I hold it out to him. He doesn't reach out to take it. "Didn't you understand what I just said?" he says. "I trust you with it," I say. "If I were to take it, I know what I would do with it," he says. "I'd be worse than Jordan." "What happened to Jordan?" I say. "Killed himself while using it to light up the sun after the Sun-Eater crisis," he says. "I've heard he merged with a being that believes itself to be an avenging angel. Something called the Spectre." "The Spectre," I say. "Thought that was the guy with the hook out at Rock Point Park." "It was active in the '70s," he says. "It murdered murderers, viciously. Rocco Salese killed his wife and cut up her corpse with textile shears. The Spectre cut him to pieces, alive. I didn't know it existed, then. I found evidence implicating Salese's partner in the crime. He was convicted and almost gassed in Blackhaven before some college students established his innocence." "How could you have-" I say. "I failed to account for all the possibilities," he says. "A man spent 5 years on death row because of me." "But the killings stopped," I say. "They did," he says. "I don't know why." "And now this thing is Jordan?" I say. "Yes," he says. "Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?" I say. "I have 23 hours," he says. "There are beings who can safely store and neutralize the ring. I will ask them to come and take it." "Alien beings," I say. "Yes," he says. "You're not going to tell the League, are you?" I say. "No," he says. "They would try to stop you." I say. "I believe they would," he says. "I could stop you," I say. "Yes," he says. "If you thought that what I was doing was wrong." "What am I supposed to do until they come?" I say. "Go home," he says. "Tell no-one else about it. I'll send Tim to take you somewhere safe. Don't use the ring." "I won't let you down," I say. "I know," he says. I almost lose it, but I don't. He wouldn't. "How do I get home?" I say. "Transporter beam," he says. "It's set for your back yard." "Just like Star Trek," I say. "No sparkling light effect, though," he says. I don't think he's expecting it when I hug him. It's like hugging a tree that needs a shower. "I've got work to do," he says, but he puts his arms around me, too, just for a sec. Then, he sends me home. [end of part 9]