ALL NOVEL Star 10
Star Burst
Chapter 10
By: BigToFu
Dominic Wolf
Leader of Green Lantern Corp.
Sitting inside my office, I ignored the sound of combat coming from one of my monitors as I read over reports from my Lanterns. Instead of being like the Guardians, I had implemented the buddy system and from what I was reading, having more than one Lantern showing up to solve a problem was doing a lot to spread my reach and influence. This was very appreciated since they were saying that they were now active in this sector of the Universe.
The Con was a good one, and with the size of the Universe, no one could call me on it. Asgard was far too happy with their little slice of the cosmic pie when they settled down on the cosmic layline what they named the Yggdrasil. There was so much to Marvel that not even the people who lived inside of it knew about. My only saving grace was being a massive fan of the comics when I was a kid.
With a chuckle, I stretched out as if I was a lazy cat, if those in power even had a fraction of my knowledge. Fury would spit blood, piss, and vinegar if he was aware of the other class one cosmic artifacts scattered around Earth. Hell, ole One-Eye himself would flay me for the location of the power stone since even that was lost to the annals of Asgards history.
Another chuckle escaped my lips as I finished another report and then waved away the planetary scan of Morag. After leaving Beta Ray Bill, I had sent Anya and Kilowag to check the planet out for me. They didn’t pick up the stone of course because, fuck that hot potato bullshit. With a shake of my head, I dismissed the report and brought up another.
I couldn’t lie and say that I didn’t grimace at the information that Tomar-Re had brought back. Planets long destroyed and dead, I really felt bad about sending him and Laira after the Destroyer of Worlds, but it had to be done. From what I could read in their reports, they had found something resembling a trail, death, and destruction. Galactus wasn’t anything you could face, and neither was he a force of nature. It was funny that he wielded the power cosmic because that is exactly what he was, cosmic judgment.
The both of them were extremely unsettled by the near-complete erasure of a planet, so I, of course, told them to follow the warp trail. They were also to stop pursuit if they felt that neither was up to the task of tracking him. With a grimace and shake of the head, I dismissed the report and turned towards the holo-screen. From what I could tell, Diana was putting Jess through her paces, and of course, Jess was losing.
Then again, that was only fair since she clearly didn’t have the same kind of training or power that Diana had. From what I could see, Diana had been using the same gladius-style sword construct from the startup until now. Jessica on the other hand has been hot-swapping between weapons on the fly. That would have been the smart thing to do usually, but as of now, she was starting to run low on power.
From what the monitoring system was telling me, Jessica was at forty percent and falling rapidly. It would seem that she still didn’t understand that with each destruction of her constructs, she was steadily losing charge. Diana was fighting smart while Jessica was not only fighting with guts but also high on what power the ring gave her.
Hmm, that would need fixing for sure, this wasn’t the type of job or life where being high on power would allow you to survive for long. Pushing my paperwork aside, I rotated the display and brought up more statistics. I had it all before me, breathing, fatigue, power, reaction times, nothing was hidden from the sensors within the training room.
Jessica jumped up and back to avoid a leg sweep from Diana, the sensors instantly pointed out that Jess wasn’t able to escape that without any damage. From what I was seeing, her right ankle and taking damage, and was the reason for her relocating to the air. Making my own notes on the battle, I watched as things shifted from a two-dimensional battle to three, and it really showed the difference inexperience.
It was clear that Diana had absorbed all of the training she went through in my own Matrix-style reality while she was in the pod. I continued to watch even as Diana made her sword shift into that of a lasso and caught Jess. Yeah, that fight was over, and I could already tell that it was a bitter pill for Jessica to swallow, but she would be alright. Jessica wanted to be a Lantern and this little speed bump during training was nothing.
My office phone buzzed, looking over to check the ID, I found that it was from the Parker residence, funny. I thought that Fury would have been the first one to call since he had a bee up his ass. I knew that Fury wanted something from me, and being the super spy that he was. He knew that I knew that he wanted something from me. That might be why he was holding out like a maiden for a wedding night. The stingy bastard was trying not to show his hand. I was also trying not to look into everything that was hacked from the SHEILD servers or from monitoring their communications.
Knowing that paranoid fucker, he would slip something into the conversation just to see if I had their networks tapped. Tsk, same shit I would do if I was pulling a big job and felt that tingle like the cops was onto my ass. Then again, I guess turnabout was only fair play since I would be the cop in this situation. Bullshit was what it was, but Fury was for a later time, Parker was for now.
Letting out a breath to relax a bit, I gave myself a little shake before picking up the line.
“Green Lantern Wolf, speaking,” I spoke even as I waved a hand to mute the training room.
“Hi, Mister Wolf, this is Ben, Ben Parker from the other night.” Spoke the voice, with a clearing of his throat, I leaned back into my seat. Steepling my fingers together, I then settled into a conversation that promised to be very interesting.
We spoke on numerous topics before things swung back around to him accepting the job as one of my Lanterns. The caveat was that his nephew was going to get training and checked by our advanced medical facilities. That of course was a given since I had no plans on letting Spider-man of all people escape my grasp. Hell, the scans alone of his biology had my avarice levels spiking.
That was fine though since I wasn’t interested in the Spider-man of now, I was looking to make my investments for the future since I knew that one thing in marvel was dominated above all else. No matter the future, Spider-man was always the world’s greatest hero, period with a bold capital P.
Things then progressed to talks about the type of service that he would be required to perform, but I pushed that down the road until after I saw how he performed during training. His wife May was of course going to get a nanny bot for when he was away working, I of course had plans to have it double as a guard bot.
By the time I was finished talking with Ben, Jessica was ready to head back to earth and it was already nearing the time I had set aside to go crash Fury’s little show with Stark. Getting up from my desk, I waved a hand to clear the holograms hovering over my desk before leaving my office. Ignoring the elevator at the end of the hall, I strolled into the open space that looked over the base. Then with a light hop, I was floating in free space, a green halo wrapped around my form like a protective blanket.
Allowing myself to hover and embrace the freedom that came with the ability to fly. A smile was allowed to spread across my face even as I tilted downwards and flew towards my destination. Humming a tune, I took in the sights that still amazed me even as I flew down from my mountain. Out in the front of that same mountain, the Celestial sat upon a stone throne, a king upon a barren world. That was alright since the Star Heart would make sure that the world wouldn’t be barren for long. Even now, I could pick up the beginnings of the world coming to life on my sensors.
Honestly, with the way things were going, I was certain that Mars would turn into Mogo and I was really alright with that. Talk about giving me a proper reason to relocate the planet, but that was for later. Well, not too much later with the rate things were going. Magic and the Green power of will was already pervading a very large portion of the planet.
The tunes kept thumping as I ran a hand lightly across the torso of the Celestial, pivoted to land on its leg, and then flipped my way over and down landing on an open-air balcony. As I landed with a light crouch, I turned and cast my gaze across the planet's surface, then looked upwards towards the sun. For a second there was a shimmer in the sky marking the presence of the planetary shields.
Smirking at the shimmer, I turned around and walked through the opening as I headed into the common room. All proper conmen knew that it was the setup that made or broke a con. And I had been a very busy bee the moment I had arrived and figured out my situation.
The tune for Rap God swapped over to Dirty Diana and I could only chuckle as the beat pumped through my veins. Thumping to the beat, I walked into the main common area to find Diana stretched out over one of the couches like a lazy cat. A check with my ring Athena told me that Jess was still in the shower. A ping thrown her way came back with a negative on her wanting to come to earth with us at the moment.
From her reply, she wanted access to the engineering wing with one of the stations VI’s to teach her. Seeing nothing wrong with it, I of course gave my permission since she was still in training and would be allowed training aid and materials. Training or not, I did make sure to note of her not getting any explosive-type materials without actual personnel around, Jess was far too explosion happy.
Diana got up and stretched like a lazy cat before hovering over to my side. “Do we have time to grab a slice?”
[Will 86%]
[Love 78%]
Trying not to take the clear bait laid out before me, I ignored her hovering form, “Maybe, I guess we could always ask Ben if he would like us to pick up a pie and bring it.”
Hovering up and back a little, I made sure to stay just out of arm’s reach. Diana had come out of her pod a full head taller than myself and that was no easy feat since I was already 6’5 of well-portioned sexy black stud. That put her easily at 7ft and it also didn’t help that with the way things were in the Matrix, Diana had come out with very high levels of love. And honestly, as of right now, I had no clue if it was obsessive or if it was just straight platonic type Love. And I really didn’t know which I even wanted since it would put a major damper on my plans to Captain Kirk my way across the universe.
“Then lets grab a pie and share it with the Parkers,” Diana spoke even as she slammed one fist into an open palm.
Before I could confirm or deny, Diana grabbed one of my hands, then broke speed records as she shot upwards. There were just no words as we broke the atmosphere on a parabolic trajectory towards the Earth. We were halfway there in a matter of sixty seconds before I realized that yes, there was in fact a sword and shield resting on Diana's back. Also yes, it wasn't made of metal by a crystal alloy type mix, and another yes I should be praying to all that was holy, of Diana not being a Yandere type.
With a sigh, I rolled my shoulders and then gave Diana a nudge before letting her hand go. Then with a flip, I dropped into the Earth’s atmosphere with a cannonball, then spread my arms and legs out to catch myself as we came down over the East coast of America. Diana performed a corkscrew as I blasted through the air space over Washington DC stealth mode active even as we left a blazing green trail behind us.
Diana followed me lower and lower until I was barely in arms reach from the water as we flew up the eastern seaboard. Sending a mental command to Athena my ring, a dragnet formed behind my flying form. Noticing what I was doing, Diana also created her own as we filtered out trash, oil and any other contaminants we came across as she flew.
Trying really hard not to think about it, we did a circle of the coast of New Jersey before doing a quick lap around Manhattan. It was appalling to know that just that one little action was able to dreg up tons of pollution and yet, that wasn’t even a percent of a percent of what was in my planet’s oceans. I would have to make this one of Ben’s jobs if he wanted to stay in the system, all signs were pointing to that after all.
Ignoring some of the helicopters that come out to get shots of us, Diana and I pulled up the massive net of garbage and then subspaced it for the world to see. The information that I was getting from breaking into their networks spoke of how surprised they were from the unexpected disappearance of whatever it was that we were hauling. Since I was more than a little bit of a dick, I shrugged and then shifted my flight to land off Lincoln in Brooklyn. If this was anything like my earth, the pizza shop owned by, ‘bingo.’ was there.
Old man Jorgenson still had his shop in the same spot, good, now I can have a taste of home even if I wasn’t home anymore. Diana and I landed so smoothly that we didn’t even crack the sidewalk. Ignoring everyone that was watching us, I held the door for the couple that was leaving and then went in after Diana. As I got in line with Diana, the tv that was wall-mounted in the corner drew my attention.
{That has been the third sighting of the elusive Green Lantern as he calls himself. }
[First he shows up in a little town in New Mexico and then he showed up to help at the Stark Expo. Now we find him doing something to our oceans.]
{We know nothing about his motives.}
With a snort, I turned away from the morons. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone because at the end of the day, actions spoke far louder than words. There was also the little fact that I had the power to ignore the talking shit heads. We got to the front of the line when the Patsy Walker show had a commercial and I made a mental note of that for later.
As we ordered four pies because I was going via my ring delivery, what I did find interesting while we were here was that Jorgenson wasn’t a gold man. In my reality, he had owned his shop for like fifty years and had been in my neighborhood even longer. In this reality, on the other hand, he didn’t even own the shop and had only been open for maybe five.
‘That will be 23.50 sir.” The young cashier at the counter spoke, interrupting my thoughts.
Smiling at the teen, I held up a hand, then with a roll of my fingers, a solid green card appeared. As I paid, Diana subspaced the pies. As we left I gave what was the equivalent of my childhood one last look before taking to the skies. As we flew over to Queen’s I had Diana transfer me two of the pies before sending them wormhole delivery to my Mars Station house.
Gliding a nice line across the sky’s of New York, I received thanks from Jess right as I touched down outside the Parkers. As we landed, I gave both the north and south sides of the street a little glance then walked up the pathway as if I didn’t notice the suits in blacked-out SUVs down the block. The moron was sitting directly across and at the corner at the end of the block as he could get a nice view with his camera. The other blacked-out SUV was stationed two houses down and in the driveway.
Normal people would have looked and dismissed them to never think about it but any two-bit cop worth their salt could tell that both vehicles were using illegal tints in the state of New York. Not only was the illegal tint going to pull attention, but it was easy for me to pick them out since they were both in black Ford Interceptors. Sigh, if they wanted to keep tabs without being seen, then they should have used minivans.
This was a neighborhood with plenty of families and parking another minivan on the block would have had them blend in, instead they automatically stuck out to me like sore thumbs. They should really count themselves lucky, because I wasn’t going to fuck with them today, instead, I had plans to see if I can give One-Eye a heart attack.
Ignoring the rapid photos being taken, I smiled at May as she opened the door. “Ohh, you guys didn’t have to bring anything, come inside.”
Before I knew it, introductions were shared since this would be the first time Ben met Diana. It would also be my first-time meeting May properly. Then once that ice was broken, we were seated at the dinner table and the pizza was halfway finished before Peter broke the chilled vibes we were all feeling at the moment.
“So, are you going to take my Uncle Ben away to be a Green Lantern?” Peter asked even as he tried to stuff another slice of pizza into that maw of his.
“Peter Benjamin Parker, you were raised with more manners than that.” Aunt May chided the kid.
My reply was to shrug, “Mehh, his job would be more like your after school activities but he would be getting paid for it.” I replied with a shrug. “Since he is in training, he won’t be leaving the solar system unless there is a major emergency and we need all hands-on deck, but that’s between your Uncle and Aunt”
“Yes, speaking of after-school activities,” Aunt May interjected with a smile and I could see the kid try and hide his flinch. “Mr. Wolf, is there any way you will be able to assist us in getting Peter a proper medical check-up?”
May shared a look with Ben even as Peter gaped at them from his seat. “Ben and I have spoken about it and we fear what would happen if his blood was discovered in the system. From our understanding, you deal with numerous alien races on a regular basis.”
Rubbing my chin, I gave the kid a look, then looked at Diana. I had to give it to her, May was hitting a lot of good points. Hell, the whole clone issue did happen because some moron in the comics found a sample of Spider-Man’s DNA on some of his costume scraps, damn mad scientist.
“Yeah, I don’t see any problems with it.” I replied smoothly then gave the kid a once over. “I can do an initial scan now and forward the data to the station house for review.”
“Ohh, is that alright with you Peter?” Ben asked as he turned to look at his nephew. The kid looked sullen for half a beat until I brought my ring up and made it glow. The look he carried vanished quickly and was replaced with one of clear excitement, because of course it would. Who wouldn't want to check out super alien tech that's not going to kill you.
Peter cleared his throat and then looked at me with an uneasy expression. “This isn't going to hurt, right?”
Snorting, I waved a hand at the kid, “You forget all the med work I did during the Expo already?”
He blinked twice before smiling, with that out of the way, I then asked Ben if he had his ring on him. Turns out he did, on his right dominant hand since he didn't trust himself to lose something so important if he took it off.
Now that made me chuckle, “Once you have been registered with a ring, you can call it to your position from the other side of the Galaxy if you have to.”
[HOPE 67%]
The look Ben gave me was one of shock while Peter put on that classic thinker face. With a wave of my hand, I motioned for Peter to stand back from the table so he could get scanned. With Peter putting himself on display, I started a scan while also motioning for Ben to join. Three half rings formed around Peter to project his data for all to see, but since this was a teenage boy. I made sure to have Athena keep out certain data points that might be a little too embarrassing.
Everything was going great until I realized that we had no original DNA to match it against, but that was fine since I was a world class bullshiter. Since this was Spider-man of all people, I instantly made up a few things with the scans I had, then Athena implemented them for me.
[Peter Benjamin Parker]
[Age 16, 3 months 15 days]
[Advanced Human Mutate]
[Minor Advanced Human Formula]
[Irradiated Spider bite, location nape of neck]
[Spider Physiology - Web of Life]
[Advanced Healing]
The list went on and on and I could tell that even Peter was surprised with the amount of data shown. Lucky for him, I was sharing a combination of what I knew he could deal with along with what the ring picked up. Then again, one of the things that really stood out to me was the web of life. I knew that there was a chance of him being a totem, but I didn't know that I would be able to pick up the connection with my ring.
“Well, from what the scans have shown, Peter is in pretty good health.” I commented before pointing to a part of his genetic structure and the information on what it does. “Pretty sure that, having a healing factor, helps in that regard.”
From what I could tell, that little piece of news alleviated a lot of the Parkers' fears if May's little deflated breath was a proper hint. Ben tried not to show any signs of weakness, but the uncurling of his hand said enough as he relaxed. Peter of course had no fear as he was right up against the scans reading off as much as he could.
“This is radiation levels right?”
“Hmm?” I questioned with a glance at the teen.
“Radiation levels, that's what this represents right?” Peter asked once more as he pointed at a yellow graph that had at least four more months till all was clear.
“Yeah,” I shrugged at him. “The spider was irradiated when it bit you, but your healing factor is taking care of it.”
“WHAT!” May yelled from her seat by Ben. From the way the man flinched, I felt sorry for his eardrums. When May got out of her seat, I felt that it was only proper that I vacate the area.
O.O.O.O
After witnessing the chewing of a lifetime, I could only shake my head as I watched them take off with Diana piloting the ship. Since Ben didn't wear a mask, it was pretty clear that his identity was out there. That I get, but I was also trying to at least help them live a normal life. Then again, it also didn't help that I landed out front of their house as if I was a light bright. Lucky for all of us, it was only SHIELD in the area doing surveillance.
With a shake of my head, I floated invisibly in the air to the world as I watched Diana fly off with the family. Diana knew what she was doing, for now, I had to go deal with Fury. From my tracking, he was inside some abandoned warehouse in LA, and of course, he was also talking with one Anthony Stark.
As I performed a lazy roll, I idly wondered if the Agents watching the Parkers even told him about me visiting. I could honestly chuckle at that because even if they decided not to tell him, it was a sure thing that Fury had his own way of knowing. Then again, it's the not telling him part that's not the issue; it's whoever else they passed the information along to that is the issue.
The fact of the matter was that I should really care, but I couldn't really bring myself to since I wasn’t going to be planet side once I give Ben some training. The job was really simple since all he had to do was help out around Earth and maybe keep that nephew of his out of trouble. Then again, I knew the history of Spider-man and he would bring great change. And with Ben to help him out, two great heroes will be created with minimal input from myself.
[Avarice levels rising, 72%]
Tch, with a force of will, I pushed those thoughts and plans to the back of my mind as I raced past Las Vegas. Shifting four degrees to the south, I flew through the air without even leaving a ripple or sound behind as I flew at Mach 12 and higher speeds.
The distance between myself and LA shrank fast and I had to start pumping the brakes since I didn't want to paste myself on arrival. With a thought, my invisibility dropped as my bright emerald green shone proudly for the world to see.
Fury had exactly sixty seconds to be alerted to my presence before I landed just outside the warehouse he was interrogating Stark inside of course. Lucky for me, it would seem that my timing was impeccable as I noticed that they were sharing a handshake. How did I know that? Because I was peering through the warehouse walls, of course, such an easy trick.
Allowing myself to settle into a hover, I ignored the guns pointed at me as Fury opened the door to allow Stark out.
“Yo!” I spoke with a wave of the hand. Tony flinched while raising a fist as if he was a kung-fu master. Ignoring him, I peered down at Fury even as he tried to glare up at me. We stared at each other until things were interrupted on my end by Diana sending me a message. For some reason, she felt that I wasn't going to play nice and would need to be more diplomatic.
“Well, if it isn't Chris Kringle.” Tony quipped.
“Stark,” I answered even as I landed and stuck my hand out for a shake. “I noticed that you didn't stick that reactor back into your chest.”
Tony grimaced at me, “Yeah, I never did thank you for that, Peps all kinds of happy that it's gone.”
With a shake of my head, I waved him off because he of course still didn't say thanks.
“Don’t worry about it, I only came to speak with Fury.” I answered, “I doubt he wants me showing up and hovering over his Heli-carrier.”
The man kept glaring at me, but Tony kept going and going until I decided that it was only best to interrupt him. Fury beat me to it.
“Sorry to interrupt Stark but Green Lantern Wolf and I have a prior engagement.” Fury interjected and I really couldn’t blame the man. Giving Fury a nod, I held out my hand for Stark.
“We will have to talk shop the next time I’m on Earth,” I stated before turning to follow Fury into the building.
[Avarice levels rising, 68%]
[Avarice levels rising, 57%]
Okay, neither of those came from me that time, Athena gave me the tags and I had to keep from shaking my head and giving things away. The Agents at the door kept Tony from following as I took the seat across from Fury and allowed silence to fill the space.
“Yes, I would like to talk to you about some comments of yours.” Fury opened after realizing that the silence could stretch on since I wasn't intimidated by him.
“What about it?” I asked back a bit of nonchalance to my voice.
Fury shifted a tablet my way as he spoke, “The United Nations would like you to partner with the Sentient World Observation and Response Department. With your pending partnership with NASA, they would also like to run joint missions.”
There were just no words at how big a pair of balls this man must have to actually try and push this shit.
“That's not going to happen,” I replied with a shake of the head.
Fury narrowed his one good eye at me, “And why is that?”
“Because I made very clear rules not to get caught up with any planets' politics, and I’m not about to set a bad example, NASA is at least about public and civilian exploration of space. They also run a proper international space program.” I replied with a shrug. “Hell, the fact that the acronym is SWORD already raises red flags.”
Fury kept his glare, “Naming conventions aside, this could do some good for Earth.”
My reply was to roll my eyes at the man for being so dense. “Spare me, I’m already turning a blind eye to the class one cosmic artifact SHIELD got their mitts on.” I grumbled then pointed a finger at him. “Don't act as if you do not have that tesseract in SHIELD custody. Bad enough I had to mask its signal my first night back.”
“What?”
Authors Notes:
Don Don DON!!!!
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