186 My SI Stash #86 - If The Ring Fits by aCameron (DCU/Hellblazer)

-More DCU SI fics~ Probably the first SI Black Lantern I've read, seems to be on a hiatus though but it still got quite the word count!

Sypnosis: ???

Rated: ???

Words: 170K

Posted on: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/if-the-ring-fits-young-justice-hellblazer-si.377687/#post-20942254 (aCameron)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1+2 (exceptional)

Down, Down, Down in a Burning Ring of Fire

My eyes snap open.

All the breath in me is sucked out of my body. Searing pain tears down my chest as my lungs try to turn themselves inside out.

I'm still dressed in my pyjamas.

I'm also about halfway to the moon.

And dying.

Earth turns underneath me. It's beautiful. It's bright. My eyes hurt. My eyelids are freezing to my eyeballs.

Wurlge? What?

I flail. There is nothing. No air, no ground. My toes curl as the monkey brain tries to grip desperately to the branch it's falling off of.

My vision starts to tunnel. As my hand goes past my face I see a flash of black.

"---- ------- of Sector 2814. You are not suitable."

Consciousness fading, I bring my hand up to my face.

It tries to fly off my finger. I spasm my hand shut.

My vision starts to tunnel as I roll into a ball about the ring. It almost seems to purr. Traces of gas hiss out from between my lips as the last of my air dissolves out of my blood.

... I want to go home.

I think I'm falling.

Cessation.

Everything hurts. Moving is pure agony. I cannot see. I Scream, and hear no sound. I feel air whipping past me.

"---- ------- of Sector 2814. You belong to the Black Lantern corps. Rise."

Ghhhhhhahaha. Consciousness goes out.

"Error. Residual soul traces not found. Fallback to emulation of soul attachment locus."

"Error. Physical traces do not correspond to soul attachment locus. Fallback to physical memory retrieval. Restart selfhood mesh infiltration. Initial scan and personality map complete. Alert! Impact event imminent."

Having your eyes grow back is a profoundly weird experience.

They grow back from the inside out. First comes the blur of colours, unfocused and mostly white as the retina's gross structure reforms. Then the world snaps into hazy reality, like something seen through a pinhole camera, as the macula - the pit of cells that the lens focuses incoming light onto - forms anew.

Vision clouds and blurs again as the Lens forms. Focusing takes time as the delicate band of muscles worms it's way out and connects to the lenses.

I fall to my knees on the bare stone and try and heave my guts onto the floor. It doesn't work. Then I catch sight of my arms and almost lose it.

I've had burns before. Nothing like this. The skin is simply gone from both my arms and hands. The delicate tracery of tendons and the muscles they support laid bare under skin which flakes and peels. Only that which is absolutely required for me to move my arms is there. Even as I watch a blood vessel snakes it's way through the muscles, connected here and there. Black, thick blood oozes through it.

The pain is almost as bad as the damage. It's everything and everywhere.

"Minimum functionality restored."

Right.

I'm dead. I'm naked. Apart from some threads of melted polyester clinging to my exposed muscles, I'm naked. In fact I'm super naked. I'm more naked than I've ever been before. I'm see my muscles bulge, oh wait, you've run off and gotten a shotgun for the zombie, naked.

In the snow.

Probably in a fictional universe I don't even like that much.

Everything hurts.

I do not scream. I do not beat the ground. I do not destroy the landscape in a corona of black telekinetic fury.

I have to preserve the ring charge I have left. I don't want to die, and running out of power would be a really embarrassing way to do that.

It still takes some time to get the thought together. Everything hurts. But thought controlled weapon/tool? Should be the ultimate point and think, right?

Ring ... restore my epidermis. Eliminate pain.

A vague sense of annoyance emanates from the ring.

"Request tinged with desire."

Are you saying my deadness is insufficient. That my corpse doesn't contain enough ... I don't know ... what do Black Rings run on? Apathy?

"Emotionlessness. Rationality. The certainty of the grave. The inevitability of the end of all things."

Wait - are you telling me that rational people want the end of all things?

"Ring has specified a list of traits. One trait does not imply another."

Oh. God. Pain. I must not want it to go away. It must simply BE gone.

I hear the crunching of footsteps from up above. Oh. This is not going to go well. For one thing I'm not sure I still have vocal cords.

"Hey, down there, are you alri...AHHHHHHHH."

My would-be rescuer flees over the snowscape.

Great. Now we're going to have to deal with the local police.

"The police are mortal."

For whom I probably shouldn't appear as a shambling abomination a la Attack on Titan. People with all their skin on tend to get better results out of people than otherwise. Calmly and rationally I beat down the pain and want my skin back.

The end of all things we can negotiate on later.

"Compliance."

Black light oozes through my ... muscles. Skin wells up and smooths.

And eyebrows. People love eyebrows. Hair too, while you're at it.

"Subcutaneous fat reserves not sufficient for full restore. Partial restore complete. Additional protein and fat required to complete repair."

My skin is corpse pale. At least it covers the muscles, which stand clearly defined through it. I've got no fat at all left on my body. Anywhere. I'm also down a fair amount of muslce. Welp. Could be worse.

How, though?

"The Life Entity could be aware of your existence."

Oh ..... shut up.

I'm in a pit in the middle of nowhere. I could probably do with breakfast. I quite like the sound of complete repair.

"Consumption of food is now irrelevant to the functionality of your physical husk."

... body. Add command. alias `physical husk` = `body`. Also looking like a famine victim is relevant.

"Black Lantern ring does not run on Linux. Command translated and accepted. Your form will remind people of the end of all."

So what do you run on?

"Death."

... you're enjoying this way too much, aren't you?

At least my feet have skin on them again. It's saying something that that isn't a given today. Unfortunately they don't have callouses or anything. So walking is going to be even more of a nightmare.

Oh. Good idea.

Ring - display my current charge status in the corner of my vision. And numb my feet.

I spend a few seconds chasing a small black number which has appeared in the corner of my eye round my visual field.

Let's go for a virtual, stabilized heads up display.

The display stabilizes in the corner of my vision. Falling from orbit (presumably with some protection to my mortal husk, or perhaps not. Depends how high I was as to if I'd have come through re-entry intact) and regenerating me back to where I was before? About seven percent total charge used.

I sigh. No real way around it. Even standing still I'm probably using power.

How long do I have?

"At current charge depletion rate ring will be unable to maintain bodily function in seven months, four days, twelve hours."

Restrict all ring functions as far as possible and notify me of the charge that will be used before you do anything.

I wish I'd read Blackest Night.

From what I recall the ring that's bonded to my finger and has, by now, grown filaments of itself through my body, runs on hearts. Human heart? Sophont hearts? Does the removal of the heart have to be lethal, or does there have to be a sophont death involved?

Presumably there needs to be some form of production of Black Light. Does that happen when anything dies?

Can I survive on cow hearts? How about cat (I think I remember something about cats being special in some way - that they used to rule the world, before being dreamed into their current form by their human slaves. But that might be a Gaiman thing)? How about pig? How close to sentience does the creature need to be? And if one is sufficiently close to sentience to count should I then not kill it?

Am I willing to kill to survive? Because it's probably going to come to that sooner rather than later.

Also what universe am I in? What are the ground rules? Am I the only superhuman here?

How do I get clothes in the middle of .... wherever in winter?

Ring, does your AI interface use an appreciable level of charge?

"No. Additionally maintaining A.I. functionality is necessary for continual bodily maintenance."

Does accessing your data banks cost appreciable charge?

"No."

Trudging through the snow, on a one man open sledge!

While bollock naked. In the middle of nowhere.

The snowscape stretches for miles around, bisected by a single road. I've follow the tracks from whoever it was that tried to rescue me back to it. Then it was really just a case of picking a direction. The surface is gritty and covered with slush, which makes it a literal pain to walk on, even through the ring induced numbing.

Three or four cars and a school bus have passed us... me. Being gawped at by a load of kids is not how I wanted to start my day. Not that I wanted to start my day with dying and falling out of orbit onto a (hopefully) parallel Earth.

Cause - on the one hand I have a power ring. If I'm still in (on? What's the terminology for interplanar transit I wonder! Gosh darn it I have to be Britishly pedantic! Stiff upper lip and all that) my home reality everything just went to easy mode. World hunger is days away from being solved. Education. Housing. Healthcare. I can give that to everyone on the planet. I can change the world, and it won't take a lifetime of hard graft to do it.

Downside? I'll stay dead.

On the other hand if I'm in a DC derivative universe (or, God... Artemis (do not want to draw the attention of the White, not when I'm a living avatar of the Black) forfend the ramshackled nightmare of the main continuity) then I might well be back to life in time for tea. And dead again a few hours later, as I'd then be a baseline in a world of super powered psychos.

What does it say about a universe that it might be a good idea to stay dead in it?

Ring, do you have an instruction manual.

"I am death given form. My only instruction is to kill."

So....no?

Chapter 2

So. You have no database. Except what little you pulled from my head. Which might just be completely wrong.

"Correct."

You have no idea how you came to be on my finger?

"None."

And you have no further desire to get off my finger and leave me dead by the side of this road?

"This ring does not feel desire. You are now suitable for the Black Lantern corps."

Blah. Blah. Hail Nekron.

"By your command."

Explain charge status?

"Ring initial charge one hundred percent. Extending selfhood mesh and self reconstruction consumed ten percent. Three percent total charge harvested during current bearer death."

You charged off my death!?

"Correct. Error during harvest. Soul not found. Fell back to physical emulation via selfhood mesh."

Confusing. I had no soul, and yet it managed to charge off my death? Is a soul not required for a charge? Also I don't think power rings should be this... colourful. Whatever happened to the dour, taciturn, basic A.I?

I guess it had to read my brain state in order to get me working again. Something must have leaked across.

Am I a human thinking I'm a corpse, or the simulation of a human running on a necro-tech supercomputer?

One for the philosophers, that.

The ring has certainly done a decent job rebuilding my body. My desire - calm, rational and focussed - to look such that I can advantageously interact with people, has produced a nice set of musculature, decent skin and a buzz cut. I also look like I'm starving to death, while, simultaneously, being perfectly healthy. Certainly could be worse.

I'm honestly a bit surprised I didn't turn out like a shambling zombie. Have to watch for that later.

I stick my thumb out as another SUV barrels past. The elderly woman in the driver's seat almost runs it off the road staring at my corpse pale physique, then hastily drives on.

Sodding perfectly sensible, neigh reasonable, Americans and their aversion to picking up a random naked starved-guy trudging down the side of the road.

Ah. Blue flashing lights. Promising.

The sheriff pulls his car up a good hundred yards from me, then gets out.

Contrary to my expectations he is not obese. She's thin and wiry, overtopping my height by about half a head, with a quizzical smile on her face. She's also got her hand on the butt of her gun.

"You always go for a walk like that, or you just want to feel the breeze?"

I shrug.

"You know, sometimes you just gotta get out and let it all hang free."

She smiles.

"That right. What brings you round these parts?"

"Honestly? Not sure. Kind of hoping there was a town round here somewhere, though I might have to fall back on that world renown midwestern hospitality for such trifles as clothes."

The smile is a definite smirk now.

"Reckon there might be a bit of a scene. What you doing out here?"

"Trying to get to town. Any chance of a lift?"

She hurrumphs.

"Much as I'd like, Kathy Carson phoned from out here. Said there was some kind of shambling abomination of science down in a crater over thataways."

I quirk an eyebrow.

"So you come out here by yourself, with just handgun, to look see if the shambling abomination is around?"

She pulls the largest gun I've ever seen off the seat next to her and rests it contemplatively on the roof of her squad car.

"Ain't got just a handgun. This here's an auto-shotgun. For duck hunting. And crack heads. Someone had to go see if it were safe. Called the national guard first, though."

I facepalm.

"Anyway, you could call them off?"

She shrugs again.

"Nope. I mean, you look sorta normal. Nice, well spoken boy like you. Normally I'd take you home to the folks and feed you right up. But you're wandering 'round Wisconsin in the middle of winter in your birthday suit. Just cause whatever was in that crater might have grown some skin and a British accent don't mean I gotta let it walk free. Specially cause of the British accent."

"Yeah. 'bout that. I don't particularly want to be dissected by the government anytime soon."

She looks down and away. Things go quiet for a time.

Ring - how much total charge for an FTL transition?

"Thirteen percent will be consumed. Ten percent will be reclaimed by harvesting elemental plane exit point. Warning. Transitioning low in a gravity well is not recommended"

Why?

"Data not found."

How much to hack local communications systems and order the national guard to stand down?

"Impossible to know without further scanning. Scanning will deplete ring charge an unknown amount depending on countermeasures."

Just for a second the world fades into utter blackness. White light runs under the Sheriff's skin, mixed with a touch of green, yellow and orange. It flows out from her heart with every beat of it and ....

Cut it out!

"Ring took no action. Emphatic vision is a consequence of your status as a member of the Black Lantern Corps."

Just for a second there is a flash of certainty. I must get under the ribcage, up through the intestines and into the heart.

The juicy, juicy heart.

Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope! Start the Nope train. I'm not digging her heart out of her chest.

The Sheriff sighs, and steadies the shotgun.

"I can understand that, stranger, but we can't have you just wandering around."

"What, me being British and all? I was just on an innocent stroll through the woods."

"Don't know 'bout you, but my strolls don't start with me in a crater with no skin on."

I sigh.

"Look - can you at least call the local superheroes as well. Is there a Justice League or something round this way?"

"The Justice League? Those guys who work with the U.N.?"

"Yeah ... probably."

"How would I get in touch with them then?"

I ... have no clue.

I mean, do they have a report and escalation chain? The national guard might have already called them.

I could just wait for the guys with guns to turn up, but I'm afraid of then being vanished by the Men in Black. Even if I just end up surrounded by twitchy soldiers with guns the whole thing just becomes a lot more problematic.

It also puts my first priority - recharging the damn ring so I don't just drop dead at some point - even further out of my reach than it currently is ....

Especially if the Justice League show up.

Ring - you run on Hearts?

"Correct. One fully ensouled heart with provide a single full ring charge."

Does it matter if the person in question gets back up afterwards?

There is a fraction of a seconds hesitation from the ring. When it speaks again it's voice almost sounds tinged with disgust.

"Such is irrelevant. The Black Light produced at the moment of death is what this ring harvests."

Right. I have a plan. First though, clothes.

"The officer could be slain. Clothes could be acquired from her corpse."

Yeah - no. Not going to start my stay on this world off by killing a police officer and stealing her stuff.

Estimated power consumption to scan the surrounding five hundred kilometres. I need an isolated location containing clothes that would fit me. And food. And no people.

"0.025% charge."

At least a few hundred dollars in cash.

"Parameters set."

Perform scan.

Results flicker through my mind. I pick a nice house in the middle of nowhere with at least a thousand dollars in cash in it. No power flows within it - so probably no security and no alarms. It's cold to ambient temperature and a few of the pipes have burst. Probably abandoned.

"Never mind - I'll see if I can get in touch with them direct. Toodles."

Ring. Transition.

She swings her gun up.

"What do you mean..."

The world goes away. All is the endless black of the void. For half a second I hear a sound like the rustling of great wings. Behind them, fainter, the sound of vast chains as something stirs in the deep. I am nothing. I am unmade.

And I came back together in a new, clean bright place - endlessly preferable to the black hollowness.

Ever had a fully body cramp? I have once before - had a high fever and lay in bed for three days sweating. I was so out of it I didn't even remember to take rehydration solution.

I woke up hurting everywhere.

This was kind of like that, but far worse.

So the first thing I do is keel over. Blood is leaking from a hundred cracks in my skin and soaking into the rather nice Persian rug underneath me.

My vision is blurred. I have a hell of a headache. There's blood everywhere.

What.

"Default transitional method involves transition through the elemental plane of death. Additionally attempting a transition this deep in a gravity well is not recommended. "

Yeah, you told me. So your database is missing? So how could you know how to perform an FTL hop?

"FTL capacity is part of this rings basic programming. It is needed for seeking new lantern candidates within the lifetimes of their civilizations."

Well. That makes sense.

What the hell happened to me?

"Dimensions of the elemental plane entry and exit volumes were not precisely aligned. This mapping was applied to all objects exiting the filament used for transit."

Wait. Mapping. I got STRETCHED!

"Stretched on the following axis and compressed on these others."

A three dimensional image of how, exactly, my body got folded and mutilated, appears in my mind. The ring has helpfully annotated it in a symbol system I can't understand.

"This compromised the integrity of your skin and internal organs. Leading to your loss of bodily fluids into the floor covering."

How much charge to repair the damage and stop the pain?

"One percent. This repair was included in the previously stated charge depletion for an FTL transfer."

So you knew this would happen and you said nothing?

I get a brief flash of contempt from the ring.

"You should have asked."