WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - Mod Plot [Mission Log Post]

[letsgolegion]

Who| Everyone!
What| Fighting all the threats that Galactus' presence has caused
Where| Mostly on and around Braal, except for Spectre team who will be on Earth
When| After Galactus' appearance and after Nova was put in Medbay
Warnings/Notes| N/A for now

There were a lot of fires for the Legion to put out all at once. While the Legionnaires native to the universe constructed the sun cannon near Braal's sun and prepared to fend off an attack from Galactus, the other teams had to get into place in the many places they were needed.

So far Galactus' siphons hadn't been sunk into the planet yet but it was only a matter of time.

Comments

[ringslinging]

Hal was never going to be able to reject the guilt. Even when he'd first learned that Parallax existed as a separate entity, that it wasn't all him all along, that didn't change the fact that he felt responsible. He'd let it get a foothold. He hadn't questioned the ways he'd been changing.

He'd still acted; Parallax had simply taken off his emergency brake.

"I'll never make up for what I've done. I know that." He exhaled slowly, spreading his hands. "But all I can do about that is keep trying. Be the Lantern I was, not the villain I let myself be. I can't undo what I've done to you, but I can keep it from happening to anyone else."

[sir_vancelot]

Who would have thought the biggest gut punch would be seeing Robbie, the Robbie he knew and had left back home in that suit?

Still, Vance shook his head and turned toward Hal, half primed and waiting for something to go wrong.

[letsgolegion]

There were many ways to deal with guilt and regret. For some, they needed to reject it. Sometimes the guilt wasn't fair, wasn't a reflection of what really was. Sometimes people felt it despite not really being at fault, and it needed to be cast off as falsehood.

Sometimes it was real, and sometimes it was supposed to be there. Sometimes the only way to deal with it was to repent, move on, and try to become something better.

The spell apparently felt both ways of dealing with it were valid.

Laira's appearance shifted and changed and she was a Green Lantern once more, with clear eyes and no blood on her lips.

"You had better hold to it, Jordan," she said imperiously, and then her gaze softened. "Let no one else become lost."

There were people he needed to look after now, people he was fighting side by side with. People that needed his help.

"And let the lost become found."

They were out there. Lost ones. Waiting for someone to finally come for them. Waiting to finally come home.

"If you want to do what's right, guide their way with Green Lantern's light."

Laira faded away, and the light over their heads finally blinked out completely, leaving a strange dim twilight around them that didn't seem to come from any light source in particular. The mirrors reformed on the walls like a liquid but this time, Hal and Vance would see nothing strange, only their dusty reflections staring back.

There was the sound of stone sliding against stone and a door finally opened at the end of the long hallway.

[ringslinging]

That was the Laira he remembered - the Laira he wanted to remember, not the Red Lantern she'd become.

Until now, the last memory he'd had of her had been of the latter. This was better. This was the image of her he wanted to hold onto. If nothing else came of this entire venture, at least there was that.

(Except something else had better come of this venture, or he wouldn't have long to hold onto that memory before they were all Galactus food.)

He gave himself a few seconds, but only a few. No matter how many gut punches this place had to throw at them, they didn't have the time to indulge themselves for any more than that, and so he glanced over to Vance, then to the door down the hall. "Looks like that's our invitation."

[sir_vancelot]

"Would seem to be." Vance rolled his shoulders, shaking his head slightly as he looked to Hal. "Once this is done, if you need to talk? We can get a beer or something." He paused, then asked, "Uh. They do still have beer, don't they?"

Vance didn't drink much, but a beer wouldn't be a bad idea after all of this.

[letsgolegion]

Once they were past the doors, the hallway made a steep drop into a chasm. There was an open tunnel across the way, making it look as if there'd perhaps been a bridge once that had fallen.

If they tried to fly with their flight rings or powers they would find it impossible. Magic.

There was a relief on the wall in front of the chasm with a carving of a lamb. Aramaic words were there. They shifted and rearranged to become English.

ONLY IN THE LEAP FROM THE LAMB'S HEAD WILL HE PROVE HIS FAITH.

If they tried to tiptoe out to see if there was an invisible bridge, they would fall. The only way to make the bridge appear was for one of them to take a leap of faith and will it into place.

[ringslinging]

"They still have beer," Hal confirmed. "Once we're out of this, I'll introduce you to the good ones."

Because they would get out of this. Weaponized optimism was a Green Lantern's specialty.

They passed through the doors, stopping at the chasm. That much ought to be easy, between flight rings and Hal's ability to just make a bridge or whatever else might get them across -

Ought to be, but nothing seemed to be happening as he focused his will, and after a moment, he frowned and looked up at the words.

"Hey. I think I saw this movie once."

[sir_vancelot]

"Just going to warn you now, I'm a light-weight. Usually was the designated driver, back in the day." Back when he and his teammates went out. Once they were all old enough to drink, at least.

Mostly, it had been because of his father that he didn't drink much. He figured there were others that would understand that.

Then the chasm appeared and Vance was hit by one hell of a feeling of déjà vu. "Pretty sure it was a lion's head in the movie," he agreed, taking a moment to try to bring up his TK. And wasn't entirely surprised when he couldn't. "Wanna bet it's not going to be as easy as Indy had it?"

[letsgolegion]

It wasn't.

It had to be a real leap of faith. Only one of them had to do it to make the bridge appear, but it definitely wasn't there to start with.

[ringslinging]

"If it's easy, it probably wasn't worth doing in the first place."

Hal had a knack for finding the hardest way to do just about anything, really.

He stepped close to the edge, looking down into the chasm. Long way down. Nothing to catch, nothing to break the fall. But wasn't that how these things were supposed to go? Having a safety net didn't prove anything.

For a moment, he considered warning Vance - but there hardly seemed to be a point, when their powers weren't working and there was nothing he could do if it didn't work anyway. There was exactly one way this could end well, and that was something neither of them could do much about.

All they could do was believe.

So without preamble, Hal jumped.

[sir_vancelot]

Vance had been thinking about the best way to handle things and wasn't coming up with much. There didn't seem to be a good way to get across the chasm without their powers.

He was about to say as much to Hal when Hal...jumped. Vance's heart leaped up into his throat, too shocked to do anything more than shout, too slow to reach out and catch the other man.

[letsgolegion]

Hal landed on what seemed like nothing, and then the shimmering glass-like form of a bridge appeared there, for Vance to walk on as well.

It wasn't that it was there all along. Hal made it appear.

[ringslinging]

Hal's knees bent a bit to take the shock as he landed, before he straightened up and folded his arms across his chest, looking over the bridge that had appeared.

"Well. I'm glad I haven't disqualified myself by not having been to church or temple in years."

[sir_vancelot]

"If going to temple was a requirement, we'd both be shit out of luck." Vance did remember seeing Hal mention, somewhere, that he'd been raised Catholic and Jewish. So the mention was hardly surprising. "So it's just as well that it's not."

He took a moment to put his foot out and test the bridge before walking out onto it and toward Hal. "Which does make me wonder what their requirements are for going through this."

lemme know if this doesn't work for Vance

[letsgolegion]

After they reached the open tunnel on the other side of the bridge, down the tunnel a bit, there was a massive wall blocking it off, filled with the Hebrew alphabet repeated several times over on what looked like stone buttons.

On one of the walls were the words:

WHAT IS THE TRUE NAME OF ONE THAT WALKS THE PATH OF RETURN?

It was something that probably would have made no sense to many.

Unless they knew that, in Judaism, someone who was penitent for their sins was called baal teshuva in Hebrew, a "master of return."

[ringslinging]

Oh.

Hal winced. "Okay, maybe here's the part where we screwed ourselves over by not going to temple."

[sir_vancelot]

Vance looked at the words, frowning deeply in thought. He examined the letters before he began pressing the right buttons. "I'm not exactly observant," he said after a moment, working through the words "But, given everything, this is something I have a bit of experience with."

Not in the same way that a lot of Jews meant, maybe, but that didn't mean that he wasn't walking the path himself.

[letsgolegion]

After he hit the last letter, there were clinking sounds and then the wall blocking them slid away into the side of the tunnel, revealing a long walk in the dark.

[ringslinging]

Hal stepped forward, eyeing the path ahead of them.

"Let's see if I'm allowed to play flashlight again." He lifted his hand, trying to pull some energy together and light up the path for them to see.

If powers still weren't working, of course, a little thing like the dark wasn't going to stop him from pressing forward, regardless.

[sir_vancelot]

"I hope so. I always hate not being able to see where I'm going." Doubly so this time because, if Hal's powers weren't working, Vance wouldn't be able to use his own powers to locate obstacles in front of them.