Chapter 10: Jealousy/The Past Comes Calling

It was a few days after the fiesta with Adonis that Beast Boy started to vent a bit of animosity at Keith. It started with moving Keith's hammock from the broom closet to the bathroom. But it escalated.

Before long, Beast Boy had started to make snide remarks, but they were subtle. The only people of the team that caught on were Keith, Rachel, and Dick. Keith ignored it, he had better things to do with his time. Rachel was distressed, and althought Keith ignored the remarks in regards to his own feelings, he knew and acknowledged how all this made her feel. Dick just hoped it would stop and shit would return to normal.

It came to a sort of head when it was a small training session, which Dick purposely scheduled so this jealousy thing could resolve itself, and Keith ended up knocking Beast Boy out, even though Keith was barely trying. Turns out, a flying kick to the temple from a Red Lantern/Organic Cyborg can knock out a gorilla. Who knew?

Keith, Raven, and Beast Boy ended up having a talk to cut this shit out. Raven started. "Gar, we talked about this a week ago. And the jealousy isn't helping. I get that's how you feel, but the team will suffer for it." She was still a relative introvert, but ever since Trigon had been severed from her soul, her emotions no longer negatively affected her powers. She could express emotions normally now.

Gar just sat with his arms crossed. "Yeah, but how can you go for him instead of me when you've known him for barely a month? You've known me for years!"

This was where Keith piped in. "Lad, she's literally been to the depths of my soul. My soul was the template used to cleanse Trigon out of hers. This isn't necessarily supposed to make sense. We live in a world where we have magic, and we have people from around the universe, and people biologically mutated to be something other than human. What's supposed to make sense here?"

After a lot of back and forth here for a bit, Beast Boy reluctantly got the hint and went to sulk for awhile. But this was only the beginning of today's conflicts.

It was late at night, and very rainy outside. Keith and Rachel were both very asleep on the couch at the Tower. They had been watching a movie and just kinda passed out in the middle. Keith woke up with a start suddenly. He shook Raven awake. "Get the others. Now!" Not even 10 seconds after, a yellow figure smashed through the Tower's window, yanking Keith by the collar of his bodysuit and into open air out another window.

Keith cursed that he'd left his staff in the living room, before he froze.

(A/N: I can't play music through Webnovel, but if I could, Trials by Starset would be played during this part of the chapter)

...'This heartbeat...no...' Looking him dead in the face was Patrick Kelvin, Keith's father, in full Yellow Lantern garb, ring and all.

Patrick broke out in a sinister grin. "Hello, my boy. My little bad egg." He gave the most condescending cheek pinch he possibly could. "Have you been good? Doing everything you were told?" Not even half a second after he spoke this sentence, Keith's face erupted in rage, his eyes glowing and burning red plasma. Keith's suit began to erupt in red before Patrick created a knife out of yellow light. "Let me see how well my work has held up, shall we?" He ripped through Keith's upper half of this suit, in one swipe, and triggered a large flashbang effect that blinded Patrick.

Keith was now barechested, his back and front of his torso exposed. The lower half of his suit was still intact, and when Patrick was blinded, he let go of Keith. Almost on instinct, a red platform of light hardened under Keith's feet, and a redlight staff manifested in his hand. His vocabulary was gone, awash in a red haze in his mind. All he wanted to was torture this man until he screamed just as much as Keith had as a child.

Patrick blinked a few times, his short red hair soaked by the rain. "Wow, handy little sui-" He was cut off by a series of heavy slams by Keith's staff. Keith planted his staff on a redlight platform and did his signature pole-vault kick, but instead of kicking, he sent double-knees into Patrick's face, using a slight aspect of flight to hover while Patrick recoiled, and then straightened his legs painfully into a double-kick to Patrick's chest. Patrick went somersaulting in the air for about 30 feet before he righted himself in mid-air.

Keith's shoulder-length silver hair was matted to his shoulders and neck from the rain, while the red streaks of rage glowed from behind the matted silver. "You...will...SUFFER!" His Irish accent rang out in a deep, gutteral growl, before he sprinted at superhuman speeds across his redlight platforms, before he chucked a heavy right hook, a redlight gauntlet around it momentarily. He spun with the momentum of his punch, grabbing his staff in both hands as he did, and thrusted the butt-end of his redlight staff into Patrick's gut.

Patrick reoriented himself, his lip split and a few ribs probably broken. He grinned and laughed evilly. "Oh? Looks like the little boy has some power on his hands now. And a little fight, too?" His sinister smile faded, and he manifested a long, studded belt, the edges of the studs sharp and serrated. "Looks like I'll have to beat it out of you." He rushed forward, ducking under a staff swing from Keith, and lashed his yellowlight belt across Keith's back, new cuts created by the serrated studs.

Keith's rage flared, and he spun, his heavy left leg flying into Patrick's arm, dissipating the belt, and swung his staff up and under Patrick's chin. The Yellow Lantern's head whipped back before he snarled and slammed a yellowlight dresser into Keith. Keith was sent flying into the ground below, bouncing once or twice before he put his feet under himself.

Meanwhile, from a half a mile away at Titan Tower, Hal Jordan was holding back the Titans from intervening on Keith's behalf. "This is a fight he must handle alone. If it looks like he's not going to win, we'll intervene. But he needs the chance to overcome his past." Raven was borderline in tears, and her cloak was cycling through red (anger), a deep purple (sadness), and a more grey color (anxiety). Dick stood with itchy fingers to help, and Starfire was on standby with her eyes glowing green. Cyborg was already geared up to nuke Patrick with an arm cannon. And as much as Beast Boy didn't much like Keith right now, he was a member of the team, and seeing the scars that littered Keith's body prompted him to turn into a tiger, and an obvuously enraged one at that.

On the rooftop of a separate building, Batman, Batgirl, and the new Robin watched the situation. Bruce obviously made no outward expression upon seeing Keith's scars, but internally he was finally able to place Keith's entire M.O. and he had an even healthier respect for Keith as a person. Barbara had a mental buffering upon seeing Keith's scars. She was a staunch believer in Blindside being just a killer. But seeing the scars on his back and the relation with the Yellow Lantern, she now understood why Blindside worked the way he did. He was in a brighter light in her eyes now.

Back with Keith, he slowly went up a redlight staircase up to Patrick, his glowing eyes twitching in rage. A power began to build within him, a burning sensation traveling up his body until red-hot plasma burst forth from his eyes and into Patrick. The Red Lantern energy and Keith's trauma has paired up, replicating the Red Lantern blood plasma, but without destroying the heart to do so. Red plasma tears streamed and burned down Keith's face, before he made the Sign Language for "Crush". A redlight wall appeared on either side of Patrick, slowly closing in.

Patrick, laughing at Keith's slow move, simply flew upwards out of it, only for Keith to kick his redlight staff at Patrick's face. Patrick fell back in between the walls, which now crushed Patrick between them. "You will never haunt my dreams again. I have found hope. I have found happiness." The glow in his eyes faded, but the redlight remained. "You have no more fear to hold over me." It was at this moment that a snap was mentally heard in Keith's mind.

"In fearful day, in painful night,

With strong hearts full, my soul ignites,

When all seems lost in a darkness' blight,

Look to me and my company-- For our hope burns bright!"

As the oath came to Keith's mind, he said it in a quiet, expressive voice. The walls trapping Patrick changed to a blue color, and the highlights in Keith's hair turned to glow a bright blue. By now, Keith's facepaint was just red streaks across his face. Keith manifested now a blue staff and reeled it back as far as he possibly could before he slammed it into his father's head, knocking him out. He dismissed the walls and caught Patrick's hand, the energy of his Blue Lantern entering the Yellow Lantern ring and depowering it entirely.

Hal came down to congratulate Keith, only to have to catch the emotionally, physically, and mentally drained 25 year-old. As the Titans crowded around them, a shot was heard in the midst of the rainy night. At the same time as the shot, a hole was put through Patrick's head by a distant rifle. Batman snapped in that direction. "Not Deadshot. Then who could it be?" Batman, Batgirl, and the new Robin chased after the shooter only to lose him in the rain-obscured alleys of Jump City and the streets of Gotham's outskirts.

The Titans and Hal took Keith back to the Tower and laid him down in the medbay. Dick ran basic physical evaluations, with Bruce's help since he was close by and could help, and shrugged when all came up fine. Just a bandage on Keith's back, and some anti-burn salve on Keith's cheeks from his plasma tears.

Raven grabbed herself a chair and a pillow and slept in the medbay, watching over him.