Toneri floated silently forward, his gaze fixed ahead, listening to the idle chatter between Green Lantern and Batman. The glow of his Tenseigan lit the tunnel slightly as he watched over the situation.
"Green Lanterns can do anything," Lantern said smugly, his green aura flaring around him.
"Except shut up, apparently," Batman retorted dryly.
Toneri smirked inwardly, thinking to himself, 'Well, at least he's not Kid Flash.'He recalled Kid Flash's never-ending stream of chatter from his time in the previous world. 'That one never stopped talking.'
"Do you even have any powers, Bats? Super strength? Maybe… drink blood?" Lantern teased as they reached another intersection.
"I am not a vampire," Batman replied curtly.
The two heroes paused at the fork, scanning the tunnel ahead, assessing the layout. Lantern glanced sideways at Batman. "Wait… you're not just a guy in a bat costume, are you?"
Batman turned his head slightly, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
Toneri, watching from above, noted the subtle exchange and thought, 'Oh, he is. Apart from his mental fortitude and discipline, comparable to the shinobi back home... he's also disgustingly rich.'
His mind wandered back to the files he had sifted through, revealing how the Justice League's technology and resources were funded. All of it—impressive, yet absurd.
Green Lantern's face shifted from curiosity to disbelief. "You're kidding me!" He moved closer to Batman. 'Careless,'Toneri thought, glancing back at them.
"Nobody asked you to prom, so now you dress like a bat?" Lantern quipped, still incredulous.
Batman ignored him, holding up Green Lantern's power ring in his hand. "What's this do?" Batman asked coolly, inspecting it.
"How'd you—?" Lantern started, stunned. "How's it work, exactly? I don't see a button, so I assume it works on concentration."
"Exactly," Batman replied, tossing the ring back. "You weren't concentrating."
Lantern grumbled, catching the ring mid-air and placing it back on his finger. "You won't do that again." He narrowed his eyes, half-jokingly adding, "Unless I want you to."
Green Lantern then slapped Batman on the shoulder. "That's it! Let's go, spooky—" Batman shoved him hard into a wall before he could finish.
Toneri, now hovering closer to the Parademon at the end of the tunnel, watched in silence. 'How did he manage to pin him like that? Lantern could have done a dozen things to be untouchable.'
Toneri refocused as the Parademon shifted at the far end, a small box emerging from its chest before attaching to the wall. 'So that's how it's transported,' he mused. 'I've been wondering.'
Green Lantern moved closer, eyeing the box and readying his ring. "Let me handle this," he said confidently, trying to diffuse what he thought might be a bomb.
A low, guttural voice hissed from the Parademon: "For Darkseid..."
Toneri's eyes narrowed. "Not this time," he muttered under his breath. Instantly, the Parademon froze, along with both Green Lantern and Batman.
'Hyakkaisenyo.'
Toneri floated down to the Parademon, green energy glowing from his hand as he reached into the creature's chest. His fingers pierced the being's flesh, not physically but spiritually, delving into its mind. He saw the fragmented memories of the creature's past—a once-living being, whose world had been devastated and consumed by Darkseid's forces. Only shattered images remained of its life before, now nothing but a hollow soldier of Apokolips.
Toneri frowned, sensing something missing. His Tenseigan sharpened, peering deeper into the Parademon's essence. 'Its soul... it's gone.'
He withdrew his hand, shaking his head. 'Crude and cruel, but effective for war.'
Time resumed its natural flow as an explosion rocked the tunnel. Green Lantern's emerald shield enveloped them, protecting the group as flames engulfed the area. When the dust settled, they stood safe within the green construct.
Green Lantern dusted himself off, his expression more serious now. "Darkseid? What the hell is that? Some kind of band?"
"It's a war cry," Batman answered, grim as ever. "It was trying to take us out to protect this." He gestured toward the box now embedded in the wall.
"I'm on it." Lantern's ring hummed as he commanded it, "Ring, scan."
Toneri hovered a few feet behind, invisible to the two heroes, watching intently. 'Will the ring be able to learn more?'he wondered, curious if it might provide insight into the mysterious boxes.
"Unable to identify," the ring's AI responded.
"What? That's impossible!" Lantern exclaimed, frustrated. "The ring knows what the Guardians know, and the Guardians know *everything*!"
Batman activated his own scanner, running it over the box. "It doesn't scan like a bomb. More like a computer... an alien computer."
Lantern glanced at him. "Like the guy in Metropolis?"
"Superman," Batman said flatly. "His power levels are—"
"—not gonna be a problem," Lantern interrupted, cutting him off. He sounded confident, but Toneri almost chuckled, knowing just how dangerous Superman could be.
"We'll see," Batman said, his tone signaling that the conversation wasn't over.
Toneri teleported himself silently into space, the vast void surrounding him as he drifted just above the planet. His Tenseigan glowed softly, scanning the Earth below. From up here, the planet appeared peaceful—an illusion he knew better than to trust.
He extended his senses, looking for the telltale signs of Parademons or any other disturbances. For a long moment, there was nothing—just the usual hum of the world beneath him. But as his gaze swept across the planet, his sharp eyes picked up something alarming. The number of alien boxes scattered across Earth had increased, and not by a small margin. There were far more now than there had been the previous week.
'So, Darkseid has sped up his plans,' Toneri thought, his frown deepening. 'Just as I suspected.'
He hovered in the quiet of space, scanning one continent at a time, carefully searching for anything out of the ordinary. When he reached the east coast of North America, something unusual caught his attention in Washington D.C. Below, a protest had gathered outside the Capitol, and from the look of it, they were against Wonder Woman.
Toneri sighed, floating closer to observe the scene. 'You can never satisfy humans, can you?' he mused. 'No matter what you do, they always have something to complain about.'
Down below, he saw Wonder Woman standing amidst the chaos, her golden lasso wrapped around a man who stood at the top of a car with a figurine of a hanged Wonder Woman. The man, caught in the lasso's grip, confessed to cross-dressing to feel powerful.
Toneri blinked, his thoughts interrupted. 'Ooooook... I didn't need that image in my head,' he thought, shaking it off.
His gaze drifted from D.C. and landed on New York. As he scanned the bustling city, he spotted a woman walking down the street, earbuds in—or what were they called again? Ear pods?—a smile on her face as she walked, seemingly unaware of anything happening around her.
'She seems to be doing better,' Toneri thought, his eyes locking onto the invisible seal he had placed on the back of her neck some time ago. 'Just in case.'
With that reassurance, he let his gaze continue scanning. His attention shifted westward, toward Metropolis, where the situation was far from peaceful. Superman was tackling a Parademon mid-air, grappling with the creature as they hurtled toward the city. Below them, Toneri could see Batman and Green Lantern entering the fray. Green Lantern's plane construct faded as they reached a rooftop, dropping both heroes down with a soft thud.
Toneri watched quietly, observing from above.