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thejusticelounge2014-09-13 05:13 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2014-09-13 05:13 pm
Entry tags:
plenipotentiary
txt> ok dont be mad but i think i just started a mini intergalactic war
[Ring Txt] WHAT DID YOU DO, RAY
[Ring Txt] mad, why would I be mad
[Ring Txt] que pasa chiquito
txt> so you know how you can stand near those big radio antennas and catch signals from other systems? or maybe thats just me
txt> i mightve caught one earlier and replied pretending be another alien they were talking smack about
txt> turns out theyre just really polite aliens and smack talk is equivalent to threatening actual war so theyre actually sending cruisers to blow his ship up
txt> and hes actually some kind of ambassador so
txt> my b
Kyle doesn’t answer the text. However five minutes after Jaime sent off his texts, the boy is summarily grabbed by the scruff of his collar, lifted off the ground by a big green construct hand and flung high up into the air. Kyle flies up beside Jaime; the Lantern is aimed skyward and quite trusting that Khaji Da would go all protection-mode and get Jaime all Blue Beetle’d so the kid would not plummet to the ground. It would…kinda suck explaining that to Mrs Reyes.
"You’re coming with me, not a negotiation!" Kyle shouts at Jaime as he flies higher (making sure the scarab’s survival instincts have, indeed, suited Jaime up in his Blue Beetle suit). "I’m not facing the Ambassador alone, and you owe jie an apology, Mister."
…did he really call the kid ‘Mister’? Ay yie yie. Kyle winces inwardly and awaits Jaime’s subsequent use of ‘sir’.
Jaime’s just glad he was actually outside for this and Kyle didn’t have to, like… talk to his mom and drag him out of the house by his ear or something. Which, for the record, he doesn’t put past him.
Getting grabbed by a giant hand and flung up all world’s most dangerous rollercoaster style is pretty freaking scary, for the record. Khaji did that thing where it sensed a threat on the ground, but Jaime blew it off only to — well. Get tossed up into the air like a tennis ball. Like, he’s pretty sure the undignified squeal he made was in a pitch only audible to himself and dogs. And Khaji, who he can just feel judging him as he armors up. It armors him up. Whatever, team effort.
It takes a second to right himself, but once he’s actually suited up and flying on his own accord, he buzzes up to Kyle and just gives him this apologetic smile.
"I— It was a total accident, dude. Sir. Dude sir. I didn’t mean to start anything — intergalactic saboteur is definitely not on my resume."
Kyle’s ring pinpoints the activity somewhere far above the North-Eastern seaboard of the US, and so he decides they will both overshoot it and investigate from above. He keeps flying up, looking over at Beetle and reflexively smiling back at the wide-eyed blue face. Just a little smile. Not too much - not until he finds out what happened.
'Dude sir'. That was a new one. His mouth quirks even more. ”If you're gonna insist on calling me 'sir' I'm gonna have to start treating you like a Green Lantern rookie, Beets,” Kyle says, using his own ridiculous nickname in return. ”And I doubt Khaji Da would like that. But then again…”
They reach the exosphere (Kyle informs Steel in the Watchtower monitor womb) - and hovering there is something that looks like a space-station. It’s just there, hanging in space and keeping perfect orbit with the Earth. A bright white-orange type of electric lightning crackles around its surface.
Kyle frowns, his fists balling into glowing green spheres of light. Any amusement is dropped now as Kyle observes the spaceship. “…that’s a Psion research station. Hovering about six-thousand miles above the Earth.” He turns to stare at Jaime - no, to stare over Jaime’s shoulder, around to his back. ”Did that bug of yours attract them here?” Kyle rounds on Beetle, mouth set in a hard line. ”What’s going on, kid?”
It takes a second and — no, no Khaji really isn’t a fan of this idea. Despite still being a little stressed over maybe partially kinda semi-causing an assassination (attempt), he laughs at Khaji’s reaction — which is to prickle and let Jaime know exactly how insulted it feels by that. “Sorry sir, I just — it’s a habit. And Khaji wants me to tell you — whoa, ese, when’d you even learn that word?!” A pause. “I’m not telling him that. It’s offended!”
As they get closer and closer to the ship, Jaime feels more and more uneasy. Khaji identifies it a split second before Kyle does — and has to give Jaime a tiny bit of backstory on exactly what this is.
He catches Kyle’s stare and blinks, eyes flicking backwards and head turning slightly so he can see the very edge of the scarab’s thorax. Is there something behind him? Is—
And then his eyes get a little wider, hands held up in front of his chest in surrender. Uh oh. “What? No,” he replies, surprised. Kyle gets closer and Jaime moves backwards, trying to keep a buffer between them. Oh, this isn’t good. “No, it didn’t — No sé. These weren’t what we were talking to. At least, it’s saying — it was a different signature, they weren’t Vegan.” A pause. “I don’t know why their diet is important, but that’s what it’s telling me.”
"Vegan, from the Vega System. Not one of those ‘I don’t eat anything from anything with faces’ healthnuts." Kyle looks from Jaime back to the ship. "Although at this moment, I’d prefer a bowl of kale ‘n quinoa salad over Psions."
For a moment, Kyle considers contacting Mar’i - but then figures she might have enough things to deal with at the moment. And, perhaps, she might not really want to know. Besides - the ship looks more like research than battle-equipped. Psions weren’t exactly peaceful in any variation, but in experiment-mode they might be easier to handle than weaponized.
He floats in space and turns again to look at Blue Beetle. Just a teenager, a Kate voice murmurs gravely in the back of his mind. Kyle tries not to hear her. “Okay. This is a Psion research satellite station. They know they shouldn’t be here - but they also know that they’re smart pendejos who consider themselves superior to humans. And they know the GLC - no, the Guardians - has a…fairly lax attitude towards them. Arrogant, sadistic bastards,” Kyle adds on with a frown.
"What we need to do is essentially, get rid of them. Ever shoo a fly out of your house? Something like that, except, y’know. With more force. They can’t stay in this sector, but we only attack if they attack first - which, if they’re doing research, they probably don’t wanna get it destroyed."
Kyle doesn’t want to think about what they have within the ship that they’re experimenting on. Psions are notorious for genetic experimentation; aka torture. He doesn’t tell this to Jaime - let the beetle fill him in if needed. Kyle plans to run a lifeform-scan across the ship, and make sure no humans (or aliens his ring can quickly detect) are captured inside. ”You got that, chico?”
He just blinks. “Oh.” Right. Star systems, that makes way more sense.
And Jaime catches that look — he looks right back at Kyle, uneasiness welling up in his ribs. He remembers what Dick said, something about Kyle not being sure Jaime was mature enough to make his own decisions about some things, and now… he’s not sure how he feels about being basically accused of causing this. Kyle seems to have dropped it, but he’s still just… unsure.
Maybe he’s just stressed out. That’s a definite possibility. Maybe he’s just bad at the whole temper thing and blames other people, that could be it.
Maybe.
And once Kyle explains, Khaji fills in the gaps. Jaime grimaces a little as he gets treated to some visuals — definitely didn’t need that. Thanks. Khaji starts up, something about knowing your enemy or whatever, but Jaime’s too busy trying to focus on what the Lantern’s saying — which is a little confusing. He nods at first, but then he pauses eyes drifting towards the ship in thought.
"Uh," he starts, biting as his lip out of habit. His eyes flick back over to Kyle, and he feels a little stupid for needing to ask this next part, especially when he has to ask someone that already apparently thinks he’s—
No, okay. Kyle’s a good guy. He’s just stressed. Chill.
"… How do you shoo a fly away when it has to shoo you first? What, am I — do I just have to bait them into attacking me?" A pause. "Okay, the armor’s durable but I think I’d actually fry if that thing shot me."
Kyle doesn’t answer immediately, pausing only because he’s processing Jaime’s question. Space-beetle or not, the kid is still a kid. And not one of those ward/sidekicks/partner, trained from a young age kind of kids either. He’s just a kid who got thrown into some pretty extraordinary circumstances. And Kyle is using strategies that would make sense to someone more experienced, of course. And so he smiles.
"So the armor doesn’t react unless you’re being threatened, huh? You can’t tell Khaji Da what to do unprovoked?" Kyle nods slowly and points at Jaime. "Well actually, you being the bait isn’t a half-bad idea. You could easily try and lure them away from Earth orbit, and I’ll provide the push out of the solar system. While you return to Earth." No point dragging the kid all the way to Pluto and back.
"Uh - but only if you’re up for it, Jaime. I can call for back-up if this is too risky. And I admit, I got no real idea how you and Khaji work in fighty-situations."
He pauses. “I mean, it — I can kind tell it what to do, but most of the time it just tells me that my strategies are bad and I should feel bad,” he replies, managing a weak, awkward smile and a shrug.
The smile kind of fades a little as Kyle confirms his suspicions about the bait thing. Only a little, though — mostly he just scrunches his mouth to the side in thought. Okay, so being baked alive in his suit doesn’t really sound like a great idea — but he kind of wants Kyle’s approval.
Aaaand he might want to show him that he’s not some baby that can’t make his own decisions or actually be useful. There’s also that. He hesitates a second before nodding.
"Yeah. Yeah, I got this. Panal,” he says, giving Kyle a little salute before taking off towards the ship.
He has no idea what he’s doing. First he has to get their attention, right? Waving in space and making no noise isn’t really going to do anything, so he opts to just… start knocking on windows. Maybe smooshes his face up against some of them to see if there’s anyone in the room. Master strategist.
Kyle flies around to the other side of the ship, and he does feel a small amount of relief to be apart from Jaime. No; he’s not feeling the relief; his ring is. And not relief regarding Jaime, but about the scarab on his back. Kyle hasn’t really mentioned his ring’s reactions to anyone yet mostly because he’s so surprised by it. But he does recall both Guy’s and John’s experiences with this Blue Beetle…neither experiences were particularly reassuring, Green Lantern-wise.
Something to mull over later.
Right now, all he can guess is that the Psions will take the bait. Kyle can only pick up a power surge in the engine core of the ship - maybe signalling that the Psions have noticed Jaime? He can’t see any of the Psions themselves in the ship, but quite frankly he’d be surprised if they didn’t take an interest in self-evolved Reach weapons of subtle conquering.
What Kyle hasn’t been counting on, however, is that the Psions are more interested in disabling than giving chase. When Jaime approaches the ship physically and starts - tapping on the windows? okay then - it’s only then that Kyle realized—
"That’s not the engines powering up," he murmurs to himself in alarm. He opens comms to Jaime. "Beetle - get ready, they’re gonna try to disable Khaji Da."
Kyle is at the ready to protect Jaime at all costs, should anything happen that the kid can’t handle; however, he doesn’t know how his ring will react to protecting Khaji Da.
Pressing his face to another window, he actually spots a Psion (maybe? They’re ugly.) — and waves. It doesn’t seem amused by this, though, so it just stares at him for a second before turning tail and running out of the room. Not very hospitable.
He hears Kyle’s warning — and around the same time, Khaji mentions something about the core powering up. Oh, okay. Yeah, that doesn’t sound good at all. …He’s pretty agile in the suit, maybe he can avoid the death rays. Or he can do that phase shifting thing again — that whole invisibility thing sounds pretty useful right here? …Other than not being able to actually do that, something to do with the ship’s energy field. Okay. That’s nice.
He should probably… y’know. Get away from the ship. Flying backwards with Khaji talking in his ear, he glances around — and doesn’t see Kyle. …Hopefully he’s nearby, because. Uh. “What kind of— how?” he asks, both to Kyle and the scarab — although the scarab answers than the Lantern. “…A pulse? So I can’t just avoid it?” he asks, maybe sounding a little more worried. “So I should—”
And then he notices this weird staticky feeling, like when someone leaves a TV on in a room and he can just feel it. Blue electricity crackles from little ports on the hull. “…I think I got their attention—”
He’s just gonna start backing away a little faster. How far does that thing even reach?
"If the scarab wants to protect you, don’t resist," Kyle instructs into the comms - because when it comes down to it, making sure Jaime is safe takes priority over getting the Psions safely away from Earth. If the despicable aliens take a hit from a defensive Khaji Da, then so be it. Kyle will deal with the consequences; he’s been taking a lot of flak from the Guardians lately, this will just be one more thing added to the list. As long as his trust in Khaji Da’s instinctive need to protect Jaime holds true.
And so on the opposite side of the ship’s berth, away from Jaime, Kyle waits. He doesn’t use his powers just yet apart from his energy signature, doesn’t draw the attention of the Psions at all - that would make this diversion tactic completely useless. The Blue Beetle needs to be the more attractive prey. And unfortunately for Jaime, Kyle doesn’t see the blue electric static amassing on Jaime’s side of the ship; and his ring only registers it as a power surge from within.
"Looks like they’re honing in on you," Kyle continues, remaining where he is. "Stay alert and start flying away. Once the ship starts moving to give you chase, that’s when I’ll take over - and then you get yourself outta here, you copy?"
"Yeah, I kinda noticed," he replies quickly, watching as the ship starts turning slowly, following his movement. Oh, this is fun. Why did he volunteer to be bait, again?
And then Khaji’s yelling in his head and taking over, jerking them to the side as a bluish white spear of light flies past them. Not fast enough, though, because it hit one of the pincers on his back — and it shut down. It didn’t get blasted away, the armor literally just retracted.
Oh, man. “Dude, they’ve got — whatever that beam is, it shuts the armor down,” he informs Kyle, trying not to sound too frantic as he (and Khaji) dodge a few more. He breathes a sigh of relief as the beams stop, briefly — but Khaji informs him that they’re changing their strategy, based on the energy flow in the ship.
They’re going for a massive surge, no more potshots. “…And that’s bad, right?” he asks, accidentally leaving the comm link on. Apparently it’s bad, and fast, because two seconds later little sparks erupt from holes in the hull, and a huge, wide curve of light starts shimmering towards him, and he starts booking.
"I think this counts as aggression! They’re shooting first, they’re definitely shooting first!"
Kyle frowns. No Psion research ship would have such finely calibrated machinery - never mind actual weaponry - to affect Khaji Da like that. Unless of course, this isn’t actually a research ship. Unless it’s something that very purposely alerted the scarab, making Blue Beetle investigate up here in the infinite vulnerability of outer space.
Unless this was actually meant to be a trap for Khaji Da.
When Kyle sees the shimmering curve of light extending out from the ship, headed towards Beetle like a scimitar on a downstroke, his blood runs cold. This is definitely not a Psion encounter.
Jaime is too far for Kyle to use any sort of protective construct shield for him - and besides, Kyle isn’t even sure if his ring would work to protect in such close proximity to Khaji Da. So he concentrates instead on the ship.
"Use your spatial dexterity and try to dodge it," Kyle yells back through the comms at Jaime. Hopefully this shimmering light doesn’t work the same way omega beams or heat-seeking missiles do. "Use your surroundings - head to the moon!" It sounds kind of absurd, even six years into Green Lanterning to mention the moon as a place you can just…go to. But it’s Jaime’s best bet for trying to get something between himself and that disabling beam.
"I’m attacking the ship, Beets. You just concentrate on keeping yourself safe, okay? Keep yourself safe, no matter what." He doesn’t really have time to think up anything creative - a jaeger robot constructs over Kyle (Diablo Intercept, complete with a construct Alex DeWitt as his partner) and he throws himself at the ship, creating a sword in the robot’s gigantic right arm.
"This research grant is over, assholes," Kyle says, wincing more at the bleh comeback than at the feeling of the giant construct sword shearing off the origin of the Psion light beam spear. Metal screeches and grinds loudly under his arm-sword. He really needs to consult Steph on some witty material.
"That’s one of their weapons down - you okay Blue?"
"…Head to the moon, why didn’t I think of that,” he replies in a tone that lets Kyle know he also thinks that’s a totally absurd idea. Absurd, but… you know, wholly possible. And probably the best plan of action, so there’s that.
He keeps gunning it, maybe he can circle around to the other side or something — he’d just go up or down, but the curve is moving, bending to follow him. Khaji reminds him that a straight line is faster, and that oscillating will make more distance, so he just heads straight for the horizon, chanting I hate space to himself (and Kyle if he’s listening), heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Craning his neck around, he sees Kyle wreck part of the hull (and grins, eat that, nerds), but the curve is still coming, closing in. It’s catching up and he literally can’t go any faster, his only real shot is hiding on the dark side of the moon.
Ridiculous. Ridiculous. He even laughs as he thinks it.
He passes over Mare Imbrium, and he’s about to fly by Plato when the arc catches up, white-blue static curling out towards the scarab — and he vaguely wonders how long it’ll take before the vacuum of space kills him, what his parents will say when Kyle has to tell them he’s dead, and why he passed on that third slice of pizza earlier. He really liked that pizza, why did he say no? — when the scarab fights back.
As soon as one of the hazy, white tendrils touches the armor, the — pincers? — on his shoulders spark, a thin arc of the same bluish-white electricity running between them and feeding back into the wave.
Energy manipulation, Khaji informs him as he whips around, looking at the Psion ship and Kyle’s jaeger (which, by the way, is so cool). What was once theirs is now its, and the wave shudders, bends around him, condensing into a brilliant sphere before turning and heading straight back to the ship’s broken hull. …Oddly enough, this reminds him of—
"…Pong," he says out loud, a mixture of confused, and so happy he’s not dead.
He’s going to eat that leftover pizza slice. He’s going to eat the entire pizza.
The ship shudders under the strain - Kyle has not just sheared off a part of the hull, but he’s new squeezing into it tightly, although he is making sure not to destroy anything that could harm life-support. He still wants to stick to the basics of the mission - get the Psions out of this region; and if push comes to shove, have them incarcerated…although the Guardians would probably not approve of that agreement breach.
But they started it first, Kyle reasoned. By attacking Blue Beetle. Which brought up another sticky issue - how far does Green Lanterning extend into protecting a creature of the Reach? In the end, does Kyle’s bottom line allegiance lie with the heroes of Earth, or with the GLC? It’s not often he has this conflict.
No time for introspective debates, though. Kyle looks up when he hears Jaime say “Pong” through the comms, watching the wave of thickened white-pulsing light heading back to the ship.
"Ay mierda—" Kyle does not want to be near the ship when that magnitude of energy hits - and he isn’t quite sure even why it’s returning. Did Khaji Da remanipulate the attack aimed against it? Or?
"Jaime - what did Kha—" But he doesn’t get to say much more, as the energy collides with the ship, creating a soundless explosion of sorts. Not something physical - the ship doesn’t look like it’s getting destroyed, thank goodness - but it’s more like a chemical collision on a gigantic magnitude.
Kyle is momentarily blinded by the flash and he shields his eyes, ready to attack should the ship still be in fighting form…except when the light flash is over, it seems like everything is just…gone. The energy surge, the ship…
"Beets, are you okay?" He asks first, and then, "Ring, report. What happened to the Psion ship?"
Okay, bright side: he’s glad Kyle heard him — feeling a little dumb for not saying, you know, ‘hey Kyle, get the hell out of dodge’ or something, but the point came across.
He opens his mouth to answer, but instead he just snaps it shut and watches as the ship just… vanishes. Well, sort of watches — the scarab can’t compensate for the light fast enough, so he has to squeeze his eyes shut to avoid like, melting his retinas or something. And when they open — boom. No ship. No nothing.
… Uh.
"…I’m fine," he replies, hesitating a second before flying towards Kyle. Mostly towards him anyway, he’s trying to avoid the patch where the ship was. He’s not picking up any energy signatures — nothing harmful, anyway, but still. Can’t be too sure. "Are you?"
And as Kyle asks his ring, Khaji starts offering an explanation. Or part of one, anyway. Drifting closer to the Lantern, he just kind of hovers, rubbing at the back of his neck a little. So… that was probably bad. He wouldn’t really be surprised if this added to the list of ‘Reasons Why Kyle Thinks Jaime’s Not Ready For This Stuff’.
"Sorry, I — my scarab, it redirected the attack. Energy manipulation, it overcharged the arc or something and sent it back towards them. It’s — que? It’s saying it didn’t kill them — they’re fine, just… later." A pause. "What do you mean, later?”
Kyle is visibly relieved when he spots Jaime flying back towards him, seemingly unhurt by the explosion. Or, maybe it was more of an implosion. In an absurd sort of way, it reminds Kyle of that silly red matter substance from the Star Trek movie (the first JJ Abrams one, not the old school stuff). But he dismisses that unrealistic concept as the ring coolly reports its assessment of the space and energy residue left by ship.
"Good job," Kyle says to Jaime, when the kid explains what tactic the scarab took. As much as Kyle really wants to try and care about the welfare of the Psions, he doesn’t, not really. Any concern is out of duty and not internal.
"Later?" The Lantern looks at Beetle and then flies away from him, towards the empty space where the ship once was. He holds his ringed hand out, the piece of green jewelry glowing for about a minute as he does a re-assessment; and finally, Kyle finally flies back.
"Not much we can do about that, then. If the Psions were working on something to do with temporal shifts, then - guess they got what they wanted." Kyle takes a breath, lets it out hard and nods with surety. He isn’t going to bring up the possibility of opening up a temporal rift for something else to get through. A possibility that Kyle is no stranger to…but Jaime wasn’t a part of that, and so the kid doesn’t need to fret. ”I’ll stay vigilant about this. I’ll inform Oa and keep the area covered on my patrols, just in case.”
So he smiles at Jaime and says again. ”Good job, Beets. Let’s head home.”
He’s a little surprised at the ‘good job’ (and so is the scarab. Even if it doesn’t say so, Jaime can tell by the pause in its grumbling). He distinctly remembers Kyle saying no fighting — but then again, they did try to fry him. Or space him. One of the two. So.
Yeah, he’s not worried about them either. Later, nerds.
Speaking of:
"…Yeah, later," he repeats, shrugging and sounding a little confused himself. "As in — what? Por favor, can you speak English —” a pause. “The scarab’s calling it a temporal anomaly. It wasn’t trying to send them later, but apparently Reach and Psion tech together is unpredictable,” he finishes, tacking on an awkward smile. “I have no idea, dude.”
He’s more than happy to let Kyle deal with the space-politics (although maybe he’ll bug him about it later, because he kind of wants to know how this stuff works now that he’s all spacephibious. It’s like amphibious, only with space), so he just nods — and then scoffs, grinning. Okay, so he’s a little eeee about the compliments, but—
"Oh, yeah — I make pretty good bait, ¿no?” he asks teasingly, drifting towards Earth. “Thanks for watching my butt, ese. I mean — not literally. You know what I mean. Having my back. Also not literal, because I need my spine.”
Yeeeah. Okay. Home sounds great. He’s just not going to talk for the ride.
[Ring Txt] WHAT DID YOU DO, RAY
[Ring Txt] mad, why would I be mad
[Ring Txt] que pasa chiquito
txt> so you know how you can stand near those big radio antennas and catch signals from other systems? or maybe thats just me
txt> i mightve caught one earlier and replied pretending be another alien they were talking smack about
txt> turns out theyre just really polite aliens and smack talk is equivalent to threatening actual war so theyre actually sending cruisers to blow his ship up
txt> and hes actually some kind of ambassador so
txt> my b
Kyle doesn’t answer the text. However five minutes after Jaime sent off his texts, the boy is summarily grabbed by the scruff of his collar, lifted off the ground by a big green construct hand and flung high up into the air. Kyle flies up beside Jaime; the Lantern is aimed skyward and quite trusting that Khaji Da would go all protection-mode and get Jaime all Blue Beetle’d so the kid would not plummet to the ground. It would…kinda suck explaining that to Mrs Reyes.
"You’re coming with me, not a negotiation!" Kyle shouts at Jaime as he flies higher (making sure the scarab’s survival instincts have, indeed, suited Jaime up in his Blue Beetle suit). "I’m not facing the Ambassador alone, and you owe jie an apology, Mister."
…did he really call the kid ‘Mister’? Ay yie yie. Kyle winces inwardly and awaits Jaime’s subsequent use of ‘sir’.
Jaime’s just glad he was actually outside for this and Kyle didn’t have to, like… talk to his mom and drag him out of the house by his ear or something. Which, for the record, he doesn’t put past him.
Getting grabbed by a giant hand and flung up all world’s most dangerous rollercoaster style is pretty freaking scary, for the record. Khaji did that thing where it sensed a threat on the ground, but Jaime blew it off only to — well. Get tossed up into the air like a tennis ball. Like, he’s pretty sure the undignified squeal he made was in a pitch only audible to himself and dogs. And Khaji, who he can just feel judging him as he armors up. It armors him up. Whatever, team effort.
It takes a second to right himself, but once he’s actually suited up and flying on his own accord, he buzzes up to Kyle and just gives him this apologetic smile.
"I— It was a total accident, dude. Sir. Dude sir. I didn’t mean to start anything — intergalactic saboteur is definitely not on my resume."
Kyle’s ring pinpoints the activity somewhere far above the North-Eastern seaboard of the US, and so he decides they will both overshoot it and investigate from above. He keeps flying up, looking over at Beetle and reflexively smiling back at the wide-eyed blue face. Just a little smile. Not too much - not until he finds out what happened.
'Dude sir'. That was a new one. His mouth quirks even more. ”If you're gonna insist on calling me 'sir' I'm gonna have to start treating you like a Green Lantern rookie, Beets,” Kyle says, using his own ridiculous nickname in return. ”And I doubt Khaji Da would like that. But then again…”
They reach the exosphere (Kyle informs Steel in the Watchtower monitor womb) - and hovering there is something that looks like a space-station. It’s just there, hanging in space and keeping perfect orbit with the Earth. A bright white-orange type of electric lightning crackles around its surface.
Kyle frowns, his fists balling into glowing green spheres of light. Any amusement is dropped now as Kyle observes the spaceship. “…that’s a Psion research station. Hovering about six-thousand miles above the Earth.” He turns to stare at Jaime - no, to stare over Jaime’s shoulder, around to his back. ”Did that bug of yours attract them here?” Kyle rounds on Beetle, mouth set in a hard line. ”What’s going on, kid?”
It takes a second and — no, no Khaji really isn’t a fan of this idea. Despite still being a little stressed over maybe partially kinda semi-causing an assassination (attempt), he laughs at Khaji’s reaction — which is to prickle and let Jaime know exactly how insulted it feels by that. “Sorry sir, I just — it’s a habit. And Khaji wants me to tell you — whoa, ese, when’d you even learn that word?!” A pause. “I’m not telling him that. It’s offended!”
As they get closer and closer to the ship, Jaime feels more and more uneasy. Khaji identifies it a split second before Kyle does — and has to give Jaime a tiny bit of backstory on exactly what this is.
He catches Kyle’s stare and blinks, eyes flicking backwards and head turning slightly so he can see the very edge of the scarab’s thorax. Is there something behind him? Is—
And then his eyes get a little wider, hands held up in front of his chest in surrender. Uh oh. “What? No,” he replies, surprised. Kyle gets closer and Jaime moves backwards, trying to keep a buffer between them. Oh, this isn’t good. “No, it didn’t — No sé. These weren’t what we were talking to. At least, it’s saying — it was a different signature, they weren’t Vegan.” A pause. “I don’t know why their diet is important, but that’s what it’s telling me.”
"Vegan, from the Vega System. Not one of those ‘I don’t eat anything from anything with faces’ healthnuts." Kyle looks from Jaime back to the ship. "Although at this moment, I’d prefer a bowl of kale ‘n quinoa salad over Psions."
For a moment, Kyle considers contacting Mar’i - but then figures she might have enough things to deal with at the moment. And, perhaps, she might not really want to know. Besides - the ship looks more like research than battle-equipped. Psions weren’t exactly peaceful in any variation, but in experiment-mode they might be easier to handle than weaponized.
He floats in space and turns again to look at Blue Beetle. Just a teenager, a Kate voice murmurs gravely in the back of his mind. Kyle tries not to hear her. “Okay. This is a Psion research satellite station. They know they shouldn’t be here - but they also know that they’re smart pendejos who consider themselves superior to humans. And they know the GLC - no, the Guardians - has a…fairly lax attitude towards them. Arrogant, sadistic bastards,” Kyle adds on with a frown.
"What we need to do is essentially, get rid of them. Ever shoo a fly out of your house? Something like that, except, y’know. With more force. They can’t stay in this sector, but we only attack if they attack first - which, if they’re doing research, they probably don’t wanna get it destroyed."
Kyle doesn’t want to think about what they have within the ship that they’re experimenting on. Psions are notorious for genetic experimentation; aka torture. He doesn’t tell this to Jaime - let the beetle fill him in if needed. Kyle plans to run a lifeform-scan across the ship, and make sure no humans (or aliens his ring can quickly detect) are captured inside. ”You got that, chico?”
He just blinks. “Oh.” Right. Star systems, that makes way more sense.
And Jaime catches that look — he looks right back at Kyle, uneasiness welling up in his ribs. He remembers what Dick said, something about Kyle not being sure Jaime was mature enough to make his own decisions about some things, and now… he’s not sure how he feels about being basically accused of causing this. Kyle seems to have dropped it, but he’s still just… unsure.
Maybe he’s just stressed out. That’s a definite possibility. Maybe he’s just bad at the whole temper thing and blames other people, that could be it.
Maybe.
And once Kyle explains, Khaji fills in the gaps. Jaime grimaces a little as he gets treated to some visuals — definitely didn’t need that. Thanks. Khaji starts up, something about knowing your enemy or whatever, but Jaime’s too busy trying to focus on what the Lantern’s saying — which is a little confusing. He nods at first, but then he pauses eyes drifting towards the ship in thought.
"Uh," he starts, biting as his lip out of habit. His eyes flick back over to Kyle, and he feels a little stupid for needing to ask this next part, especially when he has to ask someone that already apparently thinks he’s—
No, okay. Kyle’s a good guy. He’s just stressed. Chill.
"… How do you shoo a fly away when it has to shoo you first? What, am I — do I just have to bait them into attacking me?" A pause. "Okay, the armor’s durable but I think I’d actually fry if that thing shot me."
Kyle doesn’t answer immediately, pausing only because he’s processing Jaime’s question. Space-beetle or not, the kid is still a kid. And not one of those ward/sidekicks/partner, trained from a young age kind of kids either. He’s just a kid who got thrown into some pretty extraordinary circumstances. And Kyle is using strategies that would make sense to someone more experienced, of course. And so he smiles.
"So the armor doesn’t react unless you’re being threatened, huh? You can’t tell Khaji Da what to do unprovoked?" Kyle nods slowly and points at Jaime. "Well actually, you being the bait isn’t a half-bad idea. You could easily try and lure them away from Earth orbit, and I’ll provide the push out of the solar system. While you return to Earth." No point dragging the kid all the way to Pluto and back.
"Uh - but only if you’re up for it, Jaime. I can call for back-up if this is too risky. And I admit, I got no real idea how you and Khaji work in fighty-situations."
He pauses. “I mean, it — I can kind tell it what to do, but most of the time it just tells me that my strategies are bad and I should feel bad,” he replies, managing a weak, awkward smile and a shrug.
The smile kind of fades a little as Kyle confirms his suspicions about the bait thing. Only a little, though — mostly he just scrunches his mouth to the side in thought. Okay, so being baked alive in his suit doesn’t really sound like a great idea — but he kind of wants Kyle’s approval.
Aaaand he might want to show him that he’s not some baby that can’t make his own decisions or actually be useful. There’s also that. He hesitates a second before nodding.
"Yeah. Yeah, I got this. Panal,” he says, giving Kyle a little salute before taking off towards the ship.
He has no idea what he’s doing. First he has to get their attention, right? Waving in space and making no noise isn’t really going to do anything, so he opts to just… start knocking on windows. Maybe smooshes his face up against some of them to see if there’s anyone in the room. Master strategist.
Kyle flies around to the other side of the ship, and he does feel a small amount of relief to be apart from Jaime. No; he’s not feeling the relief; his ring is. And not relief regarding Jaime, but about the scarab on his back. Kyle hasn’t really mentioned his ring’s reactions to anyone yet mostly because he’s so surprised by it. But he does recall both Guy’s and John’s experiences with this Blue Beetle…neither experiences were particularly reassuring, Green Lantern-wise.
Something to mull over later.
Right now, all he can guess is that the Psions will take the bait. Kyle can only pick up a power surge in the engine core of the ship - maybe signalling that the Psions have noticed Jaime? He can’t see any of the Psions themselves in the ship, but quite frankly he’d be surprised if they didn’t take an interest in self-evolved Reach weapons of subtle conquering.
What Kyle hasn’t been counting on, however, is that the Psions are more interested in disabling than giving chase. When Jaime approaches the ship physically and starts - tapping on the windows? okay then - it’s only then that Kyle realized—
"That’s not the engines powering up," he murmurs to himself in alarm. He opens comms to Jaime. "Beetle - get ready, they’re gonna try to disable Khaji Da."
Kyle is at the ready to protect Jaime at all costs, should anything happen that the kid can’t handle; however, he doesn’t know how his ring will react to protecting Khaji Da.
Pressing his face to another window, he actually spots a Psion (maybe? They’re ugly.) — and waves. It doesn’t seem amused by this, though, so it just stares at him for a second before turning tail and running out of the room. Not very hospitable.
He hears Kyle’s warning — and around the same time, Khaji mentions something about the core powering up. Oh, okay. Yeah, that doesn’t sound good at all. …He’s pretty agile in the suit, maybe he can avoid the death rays. Or he can do that phase shifting thing again — that whole invisibility thing sounds pretty useful right here? …Other than not being able to actually do that, something to do with the ship’s energy field. Okay. That’s nice.
He should probably… y’know. Get away from the ship. Flying backwards with Khaji talking in his ear, he glances around — and doesn’t see Kyle. …Hopefully he’s nearby, because. Uh. “What kind of— how?” he asks, both to Kyle and the scarab — although the scarab answers than the Lantern. “…A pulse? So I can’t just avoid it?” he asks, maybe sounding a little more worried. “So I should—”
And then he notices this weird staticky feeling, like when someone leaves a TV on in a room and he can just feel it. Blue electricity crackles from little ports on the hull. “…I think I got their attention—”
He’s just gonna start backing away a little faster. How far does that thing even reach?
"If the scarab wants to protect you, don’t resist," Kyle instructs into the comms - because when it comes down to it, making sure Jaime is safe takes priority over getting the Psions safely away from Earth. If the despicable aliens take a hit from a defensive Khaji Da, then so be it. Kyle will deal with the consequences; he’s been taking a lot of flak from the Guardians lately, this will just be one more thing added to the list. As long as his trust in Khaji Da’s instinctive need to protect Jaime holds true.
And so on the opposite side of the ship’s berth, away from Jaime, Kyle waits. He doesn’t use his powers just yet apart from his energy signature, doesn’t draw the attention of the Psions at all - that would make this diversion tactic completely useless. The Blue Beetle needs to be the more attractive prey. And unfortunately for Jaime, Kyle doesn’t see the blue electric static amassing on Jaime’s side of the ship; and his ring only registers it as a power surge from within.
"Looks like they’re honing in on you," Kyle continues, remaining where he is. "Stay alert and start flying away. Once the ship starts moving to give you chase, that’s when I’ll take over - and then you get yourself outta here, you copy?"
"Yeah, I kinda noticed," he replies quickly, watching as the ship starts turning slowly, following his movement. Oh, this is fun. Why did he volunteer to be bait, again?
And then Khaji’s yelling in his head and taking over, jerking them to the side as a bluish white spear of light flies past them. Not fast enough, though, because it hit one of the pincers on his back — and it shut down. It didn’t get blasted away, the armor literally just retracted.
Oh, man. “Dude, they’ve got — whatever that beam is, it shuts the armor down,” he informs Kyle, trying not to sound too frantic as he (and Khaji) dodge a few more. He breathes a sigh of relief as the beams stop, briefly — but Khaji informs him that they’re changing their strategy, based on the energy flow in the ship.
They’re going for a massive surge, no more potshots. “…And that’s bad, right?” he asks, accidentally leaving the comm link on. Apparently it’s bad, and fast, because two seconds later little sparks erupt from holes in the hull, and a huge, wide curve of light starts shimmering towards him, and he starts booking.
"I think this counts as aggression! They’re shooting first, they’re definitely shooting first!"
Kyle frowns. No Psion research ship would have such finely calibrated machinery - never mind actual weaponry - to affect Khaji Da like that. Unless of course, this isn’t actually a research ship. Unless it’s something that very purposely alerted the scarab, making Blue Beetle investigate up here in the infinite vulnerability of outer space.
Unless this was actually meant to be a trap for Khaji Da.
When Kyle sees the shimmering curve of light extending out from the ship, headed towards Beetle like a scimitar on a downstroke, his blood runs cold. This is definitely not a Psion encounter.
Jaime is too far for Kyle to use any sort of protective construct shield for him - and besides, Kyle isn’t even sure if his ring would work to protect in such close proximity to Khaji Da. So he concentrates instead on the ship.
"Use your spatial dexterity and try to dodge it," Kyle yells back through the comms at Jaime. Hopefully this shimmering light doesn’t work the same way omega beams or heat-seeking missiles do. "Use your surroundings - head to the moon!" It sounds kind of absurd, even six years into Green Lanterning to mention the moon as a place you can just…go to. But it’s Jaime’s best bet for trying to get something between himself and that disabling beam.
"I’m attacking the ship, Beets. You just concentrate on keeping yourself safe, okay? Keep yourself safe, no matter what." He doesn’t really have time to think up anything creative - a jaeger robot constructs over Kyle (Diablo Intercept, complete with a construct Alex DeWitt as his partner) and he throws himself at the ship, creating a sword in the robot’s gigantic right arm.
"This research grant is over, assholes," Kyle says, wincing more at the bleh comeback than at the feeling of the giant construct sword shearing off the origin of the Psion light beam spear. Metal screeches and grinds loudly under his arm-sword. He really needs to consult Steph on some witty material.
"That’s one of their weapons down - you okay Blue?"
"…Head to the moon, why didn’t I think of that,” he replies in a tone that lets Kyle know he also thinks that’s a totally absurd idea. Absurd, but… you know, wholly possible. And probably the best plan of action, so there’s that.
He keeps gunning it, maybe he can circle around to the other side or something — he’d just go up or down, but the curve is moving, bending to follow him. Khaji reminds him that a straight line is faster, and that oscillating will make more distance, so he just heads straight for the horizon, chanting I hate space to himself (and Kyle if he’s listening), heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Craning his neck around, he sees Kyle wreck part of the hull (and grins, eat that, nerds), but the curve is still coming, closing in. It’s catching up and he literally can’t go any faster, his only real shot is hiding on the dark side of the moon.
Ridiculous. Ridiculous. He even laughs as he thinks it.
He passes over Mare Imbrium, and he’s about to fly by Plato when the arc catches up, white-blue static curling out towards the scarab — and he vaguely wonders how long it’ll take before the vacuum of space kills him, what his parents will say when Kyle has to tell them he’s dead, and why he passed on that third slice of pizza earlier. He really liked that pizza, why did he say no? — when the scarab fights back.
As soon as one of the hazy, white tendrils touches the armor, the — pincers? — on his shoulders spark, a thin arc of the same bluish-white electricity running between them and feeding back into the wave.
Energy manipulation, Khaji informs him as he whips around, looking at the Psion ship and Kyle’s jaeger (which, by the way, is so cool). What was once theirs is now its, and the wave shudders, bends around him, condensing into a brilliant sphere before turning and heading straight back to the ship’s broken hull. …Oddly enough, this reminds him of—
"…Pong," he says out loud, a mixture of confused, and so happy he’s not dead.
He’s going to eat that leftover pizza slice. He’s going to eat the entire pizza.
The ship shudders under the strain - Kyle has not just sheared off a part of the hull, but he’s new squeezing into it tightly, although he is making sure not to destroy anything that could harm life-support. He still wants to stick to the basics of the mission - get the Psions out of this region; and if push comes to shove, have them incarcerated…although the Guardians would probably not approve of that agreement breach.
But they started it first, Kyle reasoned. By attacking Blue Beetle. Which brought up another sticky issue - how far does Green Lanterning extend into protecting a creature of the Reach? In the end, does Kyle’s bottom line allegiance lie with the heroes of Earth, or with the GLC? It’s not often he has this conflict.
No time for introspective debates, though. Kyle looks up when he hears Jaime say “Pong” through the comms, watching the wave of thickened white-pulsing light heading back to the ship.
"Ay mierda—" Kyle does not want to be near the ship when that magnitude of energy hits - and he isn’t quite sure even why it’s returning. Did Khaji Da remanipulate the attack aimed against it? Or?
"Jaime - what did Kha—" But he doesn’t get to say much more, as the energy collides with the ship, creating a soundless explosion of sorts. Not something physical - the ship doesn’t look like it’s getting destroyed, thank goodness - but it’s more like a chemical collision on a gigantic magnitude.
Kyle is momentarily blinded by the flash and he shields his eyes, ready to attack should the ship still be in fighting form…except when the light flash is over, it seems like everything is just…gone. The energy surge, the ship…
"Beets, are you okay?" He asks first, and then, "Ring, report. What happened to the Psion ship?"
Okay, bright side: he’s glad Kyle heard him — feeling a little dumb for not saying, you know, ‘hey Kyle, get the hell out of dodge’ or something, but the point came across.
He opens his mouth to answer, but instead he just snaps it shut and watches as the ship just… vanishes. Well, sort of watches — the scarab can’t compensate for the light fast enough, so he has to squeeze his eyes shut to avoid like, melting his retinas or something. And when they open — boom. No ship. No nothing.
… Uh.
"…I’m fine," he replies, hesitating a second before flying towards Kyle. Mostly towards him anyway, he’s trying to avoid the patch where the ship was. He’s not picking up any energy signatures — nothing harmful, anyway, but still. Can’t be too sure. "Are you?"
And as Kyle asks his ring, Khaji starts offering an explanation. Or part of one, anyway. Drifting closer to the Lantern, he just kind of hovers, rubbing at the back of his neck a little. So… that was probably bad. He wouldn’t really be surprised if this added to the list of ‘Reasons Why Kyle Thinks Jaime’s Not Ready For This Stuff’.
"Sorry, I — my scarab, it redirected the attack. Energy manipulation, it overcharged the arc or something and sent it back towards them. It’s — que? It’s saying it didn’t kill them — they’re fine, just… later." A pause. "What do you mean, later?”
Kyle is visibly relieved when he spots Jaime flying back towards him, seemingly unhurt by the explosion. Or, maybe it was more of an implosion. In an absurd sort of way, it reminds Kyle of that silly red matter substance from the Star Trek movie (the first JJ Abrams one, not the old school stuff). But he dismisses that unrealistic concept as the ring coolly reports its assessment of the space and energy residue left by ship.
"Good job," Kyle says to Jaime, when the kid explains what tactic the scarab took. As much as Kyle really wants to try and care about the welfare of the Psions, he doesn’t, not really. Any concern is out of duty and not internal.
"Later?" The Lantern looks at Beetle and then flies away from him, towards the empty space where the ship once was. He holds his ringed hand out, the piece of green jewelry glowing for about a minute as he does a re-assessment; and finally, Kyle finally flies back.
"Not much we can do about that, then. If the Psions were working on something to do with temporal shifts, then - guess they got what they wanted." Kyle takes a breath, lets it out hard and nods with surety. He isn’t going to bring up the possibility of opening up a temporal rift for something else to get through. A possibility that Kyle is no stranger to…but Jaime wasn’t a part of that, and so the kid doesn’t need to fret. ”I’ll stay vigilant about this. I’ll inform Oa and keep the area covered on my patrols, just in case.”
So he smiles at Jaime and says again. ”Good job, Beets. Let’s head home.”
He’s a little surprised at the ‘good job’ (and so is the scarab. Even if it doesn’t say so, Jaime can tell by the pause in its grumbling). He distinctly remembers Kyle saying no fighting — but then again, they did try to fry him. Or space him. One of the two. So.
Yeah, he’s not worried about them either. Later, nerds.
Speaking of:
"…Yeah, later," he repeats, shrugging and sounding a little confused himself. "As in — what? Por favor, can you speak English —” a pause. “The scarab’s calling it a temporal anomaly. It wasn’t trying to send them later, but apparently Reach and Psion tech together is unpredictable,” he finishes, tacking on an awkward smile. “I have no idea, dude.”
He’s more than happy to let Kyle deal with the space-politics (although maybe he’ll bug him about it later, because he kind of wants to know how this stuff works now that he’s all spacephibious. It’s like amphibious, only with space), so he just nods — and then scoffs, grinning. Okay, so he’s a little eeee about the compliments, but—
"Oh, yeah — I make pretty good bait, ¿no?” he asks teasingly, drifting towards Earth. “Thanks for watching my butt, ese. I mean — not literally. You know what I mean. Having my back. Also not literal, because I need my spine.”
Yeeeah. Okay. Home sounds great. He’s just not going to talk for the ride.