8th November 2012
11:59 GMT -5
Because-. How does he even know who I am?
Crystals continue exploding across the room, and the vines look more like vines rather than tendrils of eldritch evil.
"Green Lantern!"
Alan takes a moment to face Blackbriar Thorn. "
Stand down, Blackbriar."
Thorn
snarls, bringing his hands together in front of him, causing vines to leap from above and below, targetting Alan. Alan jinks and
lashes out with construct blade which… Bites in and appears to get stuck, cutting through only slowly.
I frown as I try to remember what Thorn's motivation is. Supposedly, he got hit by a curse that a group of druids were using to try and kill Roman soldiers, but that doesn't explain why he took part in Roanoke Island rather than singling out Italy for retribution. Can't negotiate based on his objectives, he's already in line for the harshest punishment for mass murder.
"FATE!"
The chamber trembles as he does
something with the vines threaded throughout the surrounding earth.
"FACE ME, COWARD!"
But if he's looking for revenge.
"We're not here to help Fate! We're here to stop him!
"
The dome of plant matter that he's impaled into undulates and shifts in a mildly disturbing fashion. This time his lightning hits a heavy construct palisade, and I idly note that the brownies have stopped trying to attack.
"I WILL KILL FATE!"
"The thing that made you his slave is called the Anti-Life! We'll happily help you destroy it!
"
"And YOU!"
Purple flowers I don't recognise sprout from nearby vines, rising towards me and releasing clouds of dangerous looking… Pollen? I generate a rotary fan construct and blow as much as I can away from me. Quick check, but I can't see any sign of The Demon Constantine.
"I'll kill YOU! Did you think I didn't recognise you?!"
He points his left hand at me, but nothing appears to happen. Okay, weed killer didn't work. Incendiary time. But I can be a little cleverer than Alan.
In the comics,
Lonnie Machin managed to use Jade Scott's ring to change the universe's Planck Length over a small area in order to defeat a physics anomaly. I don't want to do that as I don't understand physics well enough to know what that would
do, but I can alter the activation energy of particular chemical reactions in a similar way. Since I scanned the structure of the vines on the surface, a simple construct…
A wave of fire ripples through the vines, making them writhe in what
isn't pain, just a result of the water in them vaporising and expanding, then breaching their skin and collapsing.
Not pain at all, and the screaming noise is escaping water vapour.
Thorn's pulling a face, but I don't know if he's getting some sort of feedback or that's just what he does when he's fighting. Alan
fires energy pulses at him just as Thorn's vine pile undulates and
rises.
"You have no conception of what this place is!"
I mean… True, but who cares?
The fires I'm generating are consuming all of the cavern except his core at this point, and the fumes and heat would be a problem if it wasn't for my environmental shield. I
could open up with something a little heavier-.
"I'll crush ALL OF YOU!"
Does he sound a little orange-? I accidentally amplified his desire to destroy us, didn't I? Alright, I can fix that.
"What did you do with Constantine, Blackbriar?"
"Let me show you!"
Rock
surges, enveloping his vine mound and torso, cracks appearing on the ceiling as the chamber loses structural integrity. I fire a couple of mage slayers at him, but the rock isn't enchanted so the rounds don't achieve very much.
"Blue Lantern, I think we need to evacuate!
"
"What about Constantine?"
"I can't see him. Can you?
"
"You're better at that than me." He
scans anyway. "No."
"I can probably get it out of him.
"
The floor of the cavern cracks and crumbles as Thorn extracts more material and the ash of the roots that were embedded there crumble to dust.
"Alright, but-."
The rock pile in the middle of the cavern slumps, parts sliding free as the magic holding it together loses its grip.
It doesn't move.
Alan and I pause for a moment, weighing our options. Then we both generate pneumatic drill constructs and
fly towards it, jamming the picks into pre-existing cracks. And after the first couple of strikes we both
add construct earmuffs. Rock
explodes away, the large mass being reduced swiftly now that it's not growing and its master isn't repairing it. As we get closer to the core we switch over to giant
claws, draconic in my case and
mechanical in Alan's, tearing at the looser rock and-.
Sanderson finishes pulling Blackbriar Thorn out of his anchorage and pushes him out, letting him fall to the-.
Alan
catches him before he hits the ground and breaks his neck or something and forces us to wait until he gets reincarnated again. Of course, with no Anti-Life infection that wouldn't be a greater risk than there was before, but I think we're going to get permission to do something a little more permanent with him as well.
"Are you alright, Sandman?"
"Sure thing, Blue Lantern." He pulls himself out of the fallen colossus and lands on the broken ground. "I couldn't get through the vines, but the moment he pulled all that rock towards him it was real easy to sneak up on him."
"Good work.
" I give the chamber one last scan, but I don't find anything useful. I do however connect a filament to Thorn and drain out the excess of orange light because while he's not going to be
easy to deal with I doubt that he'll be harder than he would be in orange crazy mode. Add a suppression collar and he's ready for interrogation.
"We should get back to the surface.
"
I generate a platform and he gets on board, then the four of us fly
back up through the hole Alan dug. Thorn stirs weakly, so
Alan adds construct chains to my suppression chain, just in case. I don't think his physical strength has ever really been tested. We rise out of the hole and… Dr. Balewa is sitting across from a brownie with no arms, the stumps glowing as he regrows them.
"Good work, gentlemen. Urisk here has volunteered to explain what John Quinn has been doing with himself. I am sure that it will be an interesting tale.
"
