Source of Power
Batman was surrounded by Green Lanterns, who were no less diverse than the blues, even if there were a few humans among them. One, introducing himself as Guy Gardner, came over and shook his hand. He squinted.
“Did you get a new suit or something?” He must not interact with other humans that often. Well, if he does, he doesn’t have a seat on the Justice League. He had an idea.
“Yeah; it’s got a bunch of cool gadgets. You can try one out if you like.”
He knew that getting a green ring would not be so simple, but he was without another idea. As the human Lantern looked at the electronic disruptor, he decided that a ring was still his only hope, and getting on the good side of some wielder was probably the best way of going about it. Can I even use one, though? Do I have the will?
“You know, Batman, you’re a lot nicer than Hal made you sound,” Guy observed as he looked over one of the grapnel guns mounted on his gauntlet. “This is also really neat. If I didn’t have one of these rings, I’d be all over this kind of thing.”
“Well, I’m glad that there’s someone in the Corps who isn’t so tightly wound,” he said. “Say, how do those rings work, anyways?”
“Well, you might’ve heard this, but you need imagination and willpower, basically. I know it’s not like the technology that you know, but...”
“It’s alien stuff, I get it.”
“Yeah, basically. They run out of power and you have to come back to the battery to get it recharged, so no one ever goes rogue, pretty much, but they last for a good while and you can do almost anything with them. You just have to imagine it.”
“I’ve always wanted to see if I could get one of those to work,” he said. At the moment, though, he was not overflowing with confidence in the requisite traits. Is there a ring that runs on guilt? That might be more up my alley. He observed a guarded look.
“Oh, well, it’s pretty easy for me, but I’m not supposed to let just anyone have a ring, even for a minute. The Guardians of Oa entrusted us with these rings and they’re really picky about who gets them.” He shook his head. “I know that you’re a trusted hero where you live, but here you’re more like a guest on joint-ex. I actually came over here to see if you wanted to go down to the planet. You might not know how to recognize them, but people have been giving you some odd looks.”
“Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot. To think, I just helped the Blue Lanterns to solve a mystery of one of their own getting killed.”
“Oh, wow, that’s pretty impressive; you must be out of your element.”
It felt like he was talking to a relatively normal person for the first time. It took a certain type to fight injustice in Gotham, and certain personality traits were literally part of the job description for the Corps, but within that it seemed there was variation. He felt relieved. The entire time, it felt like he was hardly even competent and just relying on cheat codes to even get by. The real Batman would be making use of what he had, and here I am looking for some kind of edge against the reds. Every time I say ‘the reds’, it sounds like I’m in a Cold War movie; I just can’t shake it.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said after a moment. ”Do you have a policy for reporting rogue lanterns?” he asked. He could try to say that it was predicated by the aside about the power battery, but he had just heard that going rogue was basically untenable. The ones who’ve gone rogue are the reds who kidnapped Zatanna, but they really only went against the other Corps- they had to have the approval of their own leader. He had another idea. “Who’s the leader of the reds?”
“Atrocitus. Last I heard, he was the sole survivor of his planet being destroyed- don't remember who destroyed it, but I don’t think it matters to him; he’s been fueled by rage ever since.”
“We know where he is right now, right?”
“Yeah, he’s the one ‘negotiating’ with us. Most of the time, he’s threatening us with the damage that ‘Larfleeze’ is going to do to this sector if he isn’t allowed to search for the power battery or the monster lugging it around.”
He picked up that Guy was theorizing that if and when the reds were allowed to search, they would probably blow up a few random things and then allege that the Orange Lantern had done it earlier. Certainly, he did not have any nice things to say about either, though it looked like there was some reservation.
“What’s the ‘but’?” he asked.
“It’s not that, it’s that I’m not even sure we should be destroying the orange battery. What if we need it down the road? The Guardians made it just like the rest of the batteries- and- and I don’t really like it, but if we keep on saying that anger is a legitimate part of the emotional spectrum, what’s desire? What’s selfishness?”
“I would say it’s a matter of whether they’re just things you feel or whether you allow them to control you,” Peter said, strangely grateful that the subject was something else, anything else. “I mean, you’d kind of have to be completely neutral and not care about anything to not get angry. I can’t see how that’s a good thing. At the same time, if your anger controls you, then you’re basically guaranteed to be doing something awful. I can’t help but wonder if they’d be better if someone else took control of them, someone who was really good at controlling anger.”
“Maybe. Maybe. You’ve got some interesting ideas, Batman,” Guy observed. “I don’t know that the Guardians would like you, but that’s another question for another day. Have you ever seen the Power Battery?”
“No, I didn’t see the blue one either,” he said, getting yet another idea. I can’t just pick up a ring and run off with it. Even if I could use it, they’ve got to have a bunch of ways to counter their own technology. He followed the Lantern to a specific room in the space station, where there was a glowing green lantern-shaped battery. “I don’t get it, why didn’t you call this the lantern? It actually looks like a lantern.”
“I’m not sure; I wasn’t there for it when they came up with the terms for things. Maybe it’s because this isn’t the main battery.”
“This isn’t it?”
“No, the central power battery for us greens is on Oa, the homeworld of the Guardians. This one is a minor battery that can power about seven point two thousand rings, if all the units are the same number.”
“So this one is just an extension of the main one that you can lug around? That means Larfleeze is carrying one of these all the time?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t have anyone to share the power-”
“So if someone broke this thing, like the reds want, then you’d have to go back to the central battery?”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t be able to reach as far from it until we made another small one or something. I don’t actually know if there’s a big central orange battery, but if we made Larfleeze go back there, then we would know where it is, and we’d be able to restrict his movements. I’m not sure we should do that, though, because I’m not sure there is a bigger one somewhere.”
“What if it just went missing?”
“Like, what if we separated him from the power battery he carries around? No one’s managed to do it so far. The problem is that he’s probably superglued it to his hand, and all it does is charge him up whenever he needs it, so if we took it from him, he would still be at maximum power until he retrieved it, and he’d do anything to get it back.”
Peter knew he could propose a strategy like running off with it or throwing it into a black hole, but not only was he sure the greens had thought of it at some point, that was not his real purpose. He needed to ask the right questions, but in such a matter that Guy would not suspect what he was trying to accomplish.
“So, it works the same way of the reds, right? If they got past us and went to earth, they would all be on limited power until they got back to their battery.”
“That’s right, unless they brought one with them. That would be a risky move. I’m not sure even Atrocitus would sign off on it.”
“You know what would be really clever is to just accuse them of getting past us in some way and then making them prove they haven’t by sending their battery back home,” he suggested. “Though, I’m sure they’d argue that they still need it around even if they were behaving-”
“They really do. If their rings run all the way out of power, they die. It’s the same as trying to take the ring off.” As if on cue, his own ring beeped.
The situation was even worse than he had initially realized. Not only was Zatanna at the mercy of the reds, she was on a time limit. Even with her insane power, she could not do anything about the ring she had on, or she would have done it already, and as long as she did not know where the red power battery was, there was no going there to recharge. Though he was not sure what the limits of her power were, from their conversation it seemed that she could not simply make something happen without even properly knowing what it was- the reds could threaten to simply move the battery further away from her, to another place she did not know, even if she did find out through some trick, and she would not be permitted to just fly around looking for it, because she would be seen by others in the red costume. Lastly, as with any hostage situation, they could kill her at any time and he would have no idea; he would have to keep acting as though she were still alive.
If one thing was certain, it was that there was no time to lose. Furtively hitting the green battery with a disruptor while Guy was looking in another direction, he grabbed it as the light went off. Basically, since he had never seen any other power source on the ship, he went ahead and assumed that the battery was at least responsible for keeping the lights on, because it would naturally be the most efficient at putting out light. Running with the lantern-shaped batter, he held it over his head so that he would not be within its glow as he looked for the teleporter with it.
Though Bruce was supremely smart, he doubted that his counterpart had created teleportation technology all by himself, or he would be making more regular use of it, and yet, the Justice League, on a base for which he paid, had teleporters called ‘boom tubes’. Though the human greens had no way to get straight from their base to the Watchtower, it would make sense for them to have a quick way to get to Earth, because the space station was mobile and not necessarily anywhere near their home planet. Most likely, the League had repurposed what had already been invented.
Jumping over a light-lasso in the dark, he guessed some of the lanterns probably realized that he was running off with the battery, seeing an irregularity with the fact that his green light source was much larger than theirs, though they would not know exactly what was happening; if anything, they would probably assume the reds were behind it in some way. Right when he found the teleporter and set it to Earth, grateful that it worked by showing pictures of the planets.
Just as he entered the teleporter, Guy caught up with him and jumped in along with him, and the next thing he knew, they were on Earth again.
“You’re not going to get away with this, Batman,” the lantern threatened. His fist was enveloped in a green spike ball.
“It wasn’t wise to keep the light source so close to the teleporters,” he said. “The test that I was asked to perform on your security was a failure.”
“Hal put you up to this?”
“I wouldn’t reveal any more details even if you were right,” he said. “It’s simple. I want the ring. You act like you don’t know who did the crime.”
“I can’t go along with that, Batman,” he said. “I don’t even think you’re a bad guy, but I’m going to have to bring you in. I don’t even know what you want- hey, wait a minute- yeah, never mind, you can have the ring.” Landing, he took off the ring and tossed it.
“Thanks. In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night, beware my power, Green Lantern’s light,” he said, holding the ring up to the battery. “I get what you were trying to do. You didn’t know that you’d have enough power to bring me in, and you figured I wouldn’t be able to recharge your ring, so it would become useless to me.”
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it. Where did you learn the oath? Was it Hal?”
“I can’t say.” Well, I can’t say because I don’t know if Hal is Jordan’s first name. If I did, I wouldn’t mind saying it; they’d both be embarrassed by this. He had mentioned something about it on the way to the Blue Lantern space station. “Look, I’ll give both of these back. You’ll get to be the hero who recovered them both, I just need you to work with me, and not say anything no one needs to know.”
“You’re holding me hostage?”
“I’m dealing with a hostage situation. I’m not threatening your life, though, but you’ll definitely get canned if anyone finds out about this. I learned from the blues that generally, lanterns think they’re the professionals and everyone else doesn’t really know what they’re doing.”
“We don’t really think that; that’s just a stereotype.”
“I mean, I don’t think all of you think that, but enough of you would to where there would be no excuse for you to lose the power batter and the ring to a guy dressed up in a bat costume. You’re not decorated like Jordan is, right?”
“Way to rub it in, pal,” he muttered, annoyed. “What’s it to you? He’s the official Green Lantern of Earth, and I’m just kind of the backup.”
“I can tell you don’t like living in his shadow. What would you say to this, though- I'll give you your ring back if you misrepresent this situation to your superiors.”
Guy groaned. Going against his superiors was a massive risk, and the rest of the greens definitely already thought that the humans of earth were bordering on more trouble than they were worth. At the same time, the situation was already pretty much irredeemable. He sighed and decided to go along with it.
“Just let me take the power battery back and then I’ll be back here straight away. You’ve been recording this, haven’t you?” He nodded. “Hal warned me about how clever you were.”
Taking back the ring and the power battery, he disappeared and Batman took stock of his surroundings. They were on a rooftop in some city he did not recognize, but being on a rooftop anywhere had a familiar feeling for him. When his strange ally returned, he wanted to clarify something.
“Listen, I’m only going along with this because I think you really need help with something, and you could’ve just run off with the ring and the power battery.” I don’t really know that I’d be able to use the ring.
“What did you tell them?” he asked. “It sems you convinced them pretty quickly.”
“I said a man in a silver suit ran off with the battery and you and I chased him. We got him to drop it, and you agreed to go after him while I returned the battery so that the base wouldn’t be thrown into a panic.”
“Then they sent you to go and help me,” he said, smirking. They’d never trust a member of the ‘local crimefighting club’ to catch the bad guy all by himself. He was getting a signal on his communicator.
“Batgirl,” he said, remembering her alias.
“I found the signal you described,” she said. “Nightwing doesn’t have an update about Zalmoxis at the moment; he’s out of his element-”
“I know; if there were any other way, I’d have already done it. I need you to send me the location so I can get on to-”
“I know; it’s on your hard drive. Look, I know what everyone else is thinking-”
“You just don’t trust me. When have I not been honest with you?” he asked, suddenly remembering that he had not exactly told any of them why he was looking for Red Lanterns, though he figured they already knew that it was a concern.
“It’s not that you haven’t been honest, it’s the opposite. I don’t know if you can keep a secret. Sooner or later, you’re going to trustingly lead a regular Green Lantern right into our operations-”
“What’s that? I think I missed the last twenty seconds or so. You’re breaking up-”
He disconnected. That should at least stall her for a bit. I’ll go over the information she sent soon. I keep forgetting that this dimension has a few cities that are different.
“Where are we now?” he asked, turning to Guy again.
“We’re in my hometown; Baltimore. If you’ve been looking for the Red Lanterns on Earth, though, I’m pretty sure I know where they are.”
“Yeah, and Jordan would know just as well and even if he didn’t turn that little detail over to the Corps, he’d turn it over to the League, and then I’d have people with no idea of what they’re doing messing around in my city,” he said. He had not told the lantern that he was a temp, and he was not sure there was any need. In either case, he was not going to ruin what Bruce had set up. He trusted that even if he disagreed with the real Batman sometimes, the man had no shortage of compassion for the city and for the cause of justice, and everything he had done so far had been at least mostly the right moves.
In truth, he could also sympathize with Jordan; the League had reason to think he could only act as a servant of some massive intergalactic organization, and that organization probably did not appreciate the emphasis he placed on earth or its ‘local crimefighting club’. Peter found that he hated the phrase more with the passing minute. If I ever needed a lesson on why we need city authorities on city business, state authorities on state business and all the way on up to universal authorities, which exist, apparently, on universal business...
They were off. The fastest method of getting to Gotham at the moment was flying there with the ring, just as they had flown through space, and the green one had a full charge on it. In transit, Guy explained that for the most part, they held a charge well and he was not aware of a ring losing power as long as it was sitting there unused, so if it lost any power, it was insignificant. He explained the situation as well as he could, and the man swore a few times, but listened all the same.
“Honestly, Batman, you’d probably be in way more trouble than I am if someone found out about all this, but frankly, I don’t know what you could have done. Even if the Red Lanterns chose your city because they heard about you, they heard about this Zatanna broad, once they sprung that trap on you-”
“I know,” he said. Well, it’s what I try and tell myself. I don’t think I really believe it. ”If this is going to work, you’ll need to be pretty inconspicuous once we get to Gotham. I don’t want the League to know I let a lantern in; if I tried to explain it to them, the whole thing would fall apart.”
“Wouldn’t worry about it; I don’t intend to be using the ring’s power until we find the reds. I can be inconspicuous when I want to be.”
Peter found that hard to take on credit, but he did not say anything. Presently, he was preoccupied with the strange monster right in front of them; he seemed to be made entirely out of earth. His radio was beeping lightly.
“Clayface has resurfaced,” Alfred said.
“He wasn’t in prison somewhere? I’m actually looking at him right now, so I’ll deal with him. This is actually kind of refreshing; I’m used to having to fight enemies that show up out of nowhere.”
As much as he could put on a brave face, however, he was sure that Guy would find out he was not the regular Batman if he had greater difficulty dealing with the monster, who was something of a recurring enemy if he understood correctly. At the moment, he was enraged and on the back foot fighting against a unit of police officers.
“Uh, about how we were supposed to not use the ring,” the lantern started.
“I’ve got another idea; one second.” Getting out the technology that they had repurposed from Mr. Freeze, he was grateful that the butler had explained to him what they did, because he would otherwise have no idea what to do about a giant mud monster other than to try washing him down a drain somewhere and have him be Killer Croc’s problem. “We’ll just give the police these freeze grenades and be on our way,” he said, remembering that they were on the clock and Bruce generally worked with the law enforcement rather than against it.
“Is that normal for you?” Guy asked. “Do you normally hand weapons to the police?”
“Where would you get the impression that I didn’t?” he asked, quickly making his way over there. “I didn’t think Jordan took much interest in my crusade against injustice. The cops normally have the weapons to deal with criminals around here because almost all of them are normal people; they really only leave things to me when that’s not the case.”
Dodging a fire hydrant that Clayface threw in a random direction, he made it to one of the cops trying to keep civilians from getting involved. Well, this civilian is getting involved whether you like it or not. He extended the collection of freeze grenades on a belt.
“I can’t deal with this now; I’ve got somewhere else to be,” he said, remembering he was supposed to be curt. The officer was surprised by the offer, but took them.
“Thanks, Batman, did you make these yourself?”
“Look forward to some new products coming out of Wayne Enterprises,” he said. “My backers agreed that the police in the city were not always equipped to deal with these kinds of threats.”
“Well, it’s about time,” the cop said. “We’ll make sure not to misuse these.”
“See that you do,” Peter said, his eyes narrowing as he left with the Green Lantern, presently undercover. I hope Bruce doesn’t get mad at me for that. Well, that’ll probably be the least of his worries.