Arc 1 - Inception
Everything hurt. Everything. Dying… dying sucks. I'm just minding my own business, living my life, trying not to be murdered by the physical gods constantly flying around this place, and it seems my luck has finally ran out. I always knew I would probably die like this. I live in Coast City, so not exactly the safest of environments. I'd figured one day I'd be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some super villain would take me hostage or hit me with an ice beam and that would be it. Despite the so called super heroes running around, civilian casualties still happen. Just my luck that I'd die right in the middle of the fracking-super zombie apocalypse. Better get used to munching brains and eating hearts, am I right?
I coughed up blood as I tried to chuckle. I didn't even know what was injured, because literally everything was still hurting, though it was a bit dimmer now. Everything was dimmer. It wouldn't hurt too much longer than. I idly noticed that those black rings that seemed to be the source of the latest apocalypse were frantically flitting around, latching on to whatever dead body they could find.
The light bright brigade seemed to have figured out how to kill the blasted things, too late for me though. Maybe I wouldn't end up cannibalizing too many of my fellow humans before they brought my corpse down. I cringed again as I felt my body spasm, and I felt my heart stop. Huh… That's not… so… bad.
I stopped feeling.
I didn't feel anything for a while. It was like sleeping.
Then I felt a spark.
SPENCER ERICSON OF EARTH
My eyes snapped open, and I frantically looked around. I was alive. I felt numb all over, but I was very clearly alive. I looked down, and saw a wound in my stomach stitching itself back together. I'd been conscious for half a second before a piercing scream slammed into my brain. It came from nowhere, and everywhere, and it would not shut up! Intellectually, I knew it should hurt… but it didn't. Nothing hurt. And then the scream just… cut off.
RISE
I stood. My legs completely yet unexpectedly stable. I looked around, and the chaos that had been present not two minutes ago had grown into a sort of quiet stillness. No more rings flitting around, no more flashes of rainbow light coming from in the sky or from behind buildings. Just stillness.
I went to release the breath I'd been holding, only to realize I hadn't been holding my breath. I hadn't been breathing at all. I expanded my lungs, and I felt nothing. I didn't feel air entering or exiting my mouth. I didn't feel the pleasure of respiration or the burn that comes from not performing such a necessary function. I frantically patted myself down, only to realize I was numb everywhere. No feeling whatsoever. I pinched myself. Nothing.
Was I dead? Was this some kind of afterlife waiting stage before I shuffle off to the hereafter? Was I a ghost? One thing I did know was that I was scared. When I'm scared there's a nervous habit I perform. I ball up my right hand into a fist and bite my index finger. If I hadn't surrendered to that habit I might never have noticed the ring on my right middle finger. The black ring.
Oh. Oh hell.
Okay, don't panic. You are dead, but you aren't just some mindless zombie. I let my mind go blank for a minute, trying to see if there was some latent desire for brains, but I didn't feel anything of the sort. I also noted that I seemed to be feeling my emotions just fine. I was still me, just a little deader than I used to be.
I looked my body over, and from what I could see, while I was a lot paler, I didn't actually look like a desiccated corpse. I still looked mostly okay. I wandered over to the nearest window I could find, and looked at my reflection. My hair was motley, and a little thinner, but it seemed fine. My cheekbones were more visible, and my features in general had gauntness to them. My eyes, I couldn't quite tell from the window reflections, but my eyes seem to have lost their previous brown color and faded to a dull gray.
I idly noticed that my clothes were no longer the colors they had been. I now wore an entirely black outfit. My jeans, my boots, my t-shirt were all a deep shadowy black, with the sigil present on the ring slapped onto the center of my shirt in white. Yeah, inconspicuous thy name is spencer.
I of course knew about the green lanterns, hell, who hadn't heard of them? But this whole rainbow corps thing was new to me. Apparently the entire rainbow got a representative on the ring team, and black was apparently death. Did that mean there was a white lantern for life too? Maybe if I could find a white lantern they could fix me. I really didn't want to be undead. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather be undead than dead-dead, I'm not looking a gift ring in the signet, but still, I kind of miss… feeling. And breathing.
I'd sigh, but it just isn't the same when you can't actually feel it. In fact, a lot of my old habits seemed kind of pointless now. I stared at the ring on my finger, wondering what could have gone wrong with it that I was still me.
"What the hell are you?" I asked to no one in particular.
Designation: Black Lantern Power Ring
"Oh holy crackers the ring talks!" I shrieked, jumping back and waving my right hand around before realizing how utterly stupid I must look. I'm dead. Not exactly at risk here from anything other than the rainbow squad or a shotgun to the head, and I couldn't see any of the former nearby and was pretty dubious about the whether the latter would even actually work.
I finally got myself under control, and decided to interrogate the piece of jewelry… and I realized how stupid that sounded as soon as I thought it.
"Um… uh… ring thing? What are your… uh… functions?"
Full list of specifications would take 96 hours, 47 minutes, and 22 seconds to recite. Do you wish to proceed?
"Um… no, what are your most commonly used functions by… by other black lanterns?"
This ring is capable of mimicking the powers and abilities the host body held in life. If no abilities were present, this ring is capable of mimicking the abilities of other power rings through use of power from the Central Power Battery. Addendum: cannot connect to Central Power Battery. 99.98% power remaining.
That's not good. "So what happens if the ring runs out of power?"
Black lantern necromantic construct will cease to function.
"So, I'll die? Like completely?"
Black lantern necromantic construct will cease to function.
"Okay, if I can't connect to a power battery, how do I recharge you?"
Black Lantern Power Rings can be alternatively recharged from the hearts of sophonts who produce high levels of emotional spectrum energy. Each heart provides a .01% charge to the Central Power Battery. Addendum: cannot connect to Central Power Battery. Each heart can provide a local ring charge of 12%.
"So I'd have to… kill?"
Affirmative.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. That's just asking for the Justice League to come down and re-kill me.
"I'm on the clock then. I either have to recharge the ring some other way, or find a theoretical and probably non-existent white lantern who will either resurrect or perma-kill me, or just use this second chance I've been given in the time I have left."
I sighed again, and it really was not at all as cathartic as it used to be. I really missed breathing.
Okay, so I know Green Lantern can fly, and if this ring is telling the truth, I should be able to mimic that. I focused my will, and focused on flying.
Nothing happened.
"Ring, why can't I fly like Green Lantern?"
Black Lantern Power Ring only mimics effects, not modality.
Huh. So the ring only mimics the effects, but not how they're activated. I might as well learn what my potential powers are before asking how to use them.
"Explain what the emotional spectrum is, and what the powers of the different rings are."
The emotional spectrum is the physical and energetic embodiment of emotions created by free-thinking beings throughout the universe. First harvested by the Guardians, all seven colors have since been utilized to create a respective lantern corps.
The parts of the spectrum are Red/Rage, Orange/Avarice, Yellow/Fear, Green/Will, Blue/Hope, Indigo/Compassion, and Violet/Love.
Red specializes in weaponizing the blood of the host and use of a corrosive emotional aura.
Orange specializes in stealing energy from rival lanterns and creating constructs of slain foes.
Yellow specializes in creating constructs of fear, and becomes more effective in environments high in ambient fear energy.
Green specializes in creating constructs fueled and limited only by the host's will and imagination. It is the most emotionally neutral color. WARNING: Combining green with any other color of the emotional spectrum can destroy Black Lantern Power Rings. Yikes.
Blue specializes in healing, is symbiotic with green rings through power generation, and is only capable of higher functions in the presence of Will.
Indigo specializes in channeling other emotional spectrums when present, and is also capable of point to point teleportation.
Violet specializes in converting the hearts of enemies to its own cause, and locating and protecting endangered love.
"Okay, I think I got it. So how do I copy those effects?"
Ring operation requires the intent to cause an emotional response.
"What. Wait. You're telling me... that I have to intentionally try to get a rise out of someone in order to use my ring!?" Oh god. The ring was a troll. And the people nearby who were most likely respond to me on an emotional level were the god damned super heroes!
Affirmative.
"I'm dead, not suicidal!"