PoNK: Of Magics & Will [invited]

[Hal Jordan]

Players: Hal Jordan, Zatanna, Traci 13
Location(s): Star City
Plot Summary: Larfleeze's Orange construct forces have invaded Earth and are targeting Star City.


A bright trail of green light streaked across the clear blue sky as Hal Jordan departed Coast City for Star. His ring seemed to be alerting him every second of invading forces funneling into the Earth's stratosphere. "Everyone be on high alert, the Earth is currently under attack. The enemy are constructs of the Orange Lantern corps. They are constructs but they are highly dangerous, be careful." Hal instructed his ring to filter that message into every commlink across the planet, be it JLA, JSA, TT, or anything else; everyone needed to know what was happening and what they needed to be prepared for. Hal didn't have much time to tell them any more but hopefully the basics was enough for the moment, the nearest location to him where the constructs were appearing was Star City and he was just moments from arriving at the city.

The band of orange constructs descended into Star City like a swirling cyclone, their numbers crashing into the streets below and overtaking everything in their path in waves of orange. Nothing stood a chance against the orange lanterns, the very few civilians that tried standing up against them found that out rather quickly and were either killed or horribly maimed for their troubles. The orange beasts picked cars from the highway and hurled them into homes and buildings, and generally anything the orange lanterns could see.

As a woman hurriedly tried getting inside with her child a large orange construct with a mouth of razor sharp teeth gave chase after her, just inches away from sinking its saber teeth into her back. Just before that bite could be taken green chains latched onto the orange construct and coiled around it tightly, trapping the monster in place.

"Get inside, lock all the doors, and hide." Hal commented to the woman and her child before flying straight up into the sky, the chained orange construct in tow. Flying up behind another orange construct Hal used his green chains to whip the tangled orange lantern into the other. Hal realized that he was vastly outnumbered but his advantage over the swarm of constructs was his ability to think and adjust, whereas the opposing lanterns were just an extension of Larfleeze and had no real combat qualities of their own other than to attack whatever they saw.

{OOC: You guys know the deal by now; first round of posting determines order and everyone gets to NPC *nods*}

[Zatanna]

For Zatanna it began with a sense of foreboding.

Earlier that very same day she'd been crystal ball gazing, if simply for the fear of becoming rusty with disuse at the practice. Then the premonition had hit her. Zatanna saw the sky boiling orange, and simply knew that the earth was in the balance. She'd been shaken - having never witnessed many doomsday prophecies as the vessel that experienced the ordeal - but, as ever, the Mistress of Magic was resilient. Once she had gathered her wits about her, Zatanna vanished on the spot in search of the only person who could shed further insight on the matter. Madame Xanadu...

"Now... for the first card..." Zatanna sat on the ground opposite Xanadu at a table in the eastern style being several inches from the floor. The room could have been a closet or a cathedral where they sat, but the darkness that shrouded them, availing only in the pool of light that a single candle at the Madame's elbow cast, made it a guess. Xanadu had been very calm throughout Zatanna's retelling of her vision, but that didn't help to assuage the tremor that continued to prattle the brunette's spine. The older, blind woman seemed grave, and that was cause for alarm in itself.

"The shining knight." Madame Xanadu pressed one card face-up on the small table's surface before them. Zatanna saw a beautiful mural depicted on the front of the large rectangle of paper showing an armored man valiantly holding his sword aloft, rimmed in white as he was lit by the sun. Then Xanadu withdrew her hand, and the colors of the painting bubbled and smeared together before pooling into another image. Much the same as the one before, only now Zatanna was looking at Hal Jordan, still wearing the knight's armor, but this time it was green. His sword was the shining light from his ring, and the backdrop was Star City, undeniably.

"The tyrant." Just as before, the Madame placed a card down that showed a dark-looking man enthroned with fire at his back and malnourished, pitiful servants thrown at his feet. Xanadu removed her hand and the colors rearranged, showing some kind of orange creature squatting on a pile of bones as tall as a mountain. Madame Xanadu's tone wavered as she placed the last card on the table. "Doom." Zatanna's breath became labored. The image - at first a desolate field of waste littered with fire, bones and the remains of a battle - turned into a picture of earth from space. Only it's atmosphere was coated in orange, and the cries of humanity personified through the paper made the table shake.

"Madame Xanadu, what does this mean?" The blind woman looked directly at her, seeing or no, and grasped her hands across the condemning triad of cards. "It means, my dear, that you are needed." Zatanna had so many more questions. She could guess at the meaning of this terrible prophecy, but Xanadu was the most experienced seer on the planet. Surly she could elaborate more? Zatanna opened her mouth to protest, but the Madame took her deck of cards and hurled them into the air. They were caught by an intangible wind and began roaring in a funnel around Zatanna. "May the fates guide you."

And Zatanna was gone.

No. Not gone, she was... "Star City?" Zatanna looked up at the sound of erupting screams through the downtown street where she was deposited by Xanadu's trick. The sky was beginning to turn orange. Just like the vision. The Mistress of Magic's draw dropped, and for a split second she wavered. Then stubbornness and a kind of righteous fury were ignited inside her. Zee was not going to shiver in some alley corner while this - as yet unknown to her - threat assailed the earth. The first creature that detached from the wave of orange that began descending on Star City came her way. "Cigam tlob!" Multicolored lightning in a thick, jagged spear broke through the chest of the octopus-like figure, shattering it into oblivion.

[Traci Thirteen]

Where... why.. The world was ending.. the world was ending and no one had bothered to tell her. She didn't know how she had gotten here.. she had no idea how she had gotten anywhere.. The last thing she remembered.. The purple haired amazonian had.. An explosion somewhere drove her out of her curious musings. It was muffled.. blocked and filtered by yards and yards of concrete and metal. She was in a city... she was back from Aeaea. She was.. under attack? Jumping up from her seat, she knocked over the chair she had been sitting in and made a dash towards the nearest door. It took her a moment to adjust to the light, it took her even longer to find her way out of this strange building.. and when she did find reality, she almost wished that she had stayed in her fugue. Everything was on fire.. everything was burning, the sky was dancing between flames and sunlight and it was raining demons.

Glowing.. orange demons. This was not good.. she wasn't even aware of what city she was in.. but she'd do her best to help. She moved on from the building, summoning her staff and herding civilians into the building she had just exited from. Come on! Come on! We don't have time to save all of you... just get inside! We? She would muse on that later.. What was a hundred times more important was the clashes of energy all over the city. There was resistance everywhere. Cops fighting and dying... a few low level supers trying their best to help. A serious spike of willpower towards the north and a damned familiar scent a few blocks away from her. The Magician... Where Traci should've been filled with joy or even relief that her teacher was nearby, she felt nothing but distaste.. bordering on hatred. She definitely wanted to meditate on that.. and she would have, if two orange blades hadn't ripped through her soft skull.

A large creature landed behind her, brandishing a sword in each of it's six arms as it sliced her body apart, at the behest of his ring wielder. It would've been curtains for her.. if her mangled body didn't explode into confetti, bewildering the beast and giving Traci ample time to climb it's back and place her staff upside his head. “Tell your boss that I'm coming for him. If he wants my planet, he had better ask me first.“ The staff caught a brilliant shade of magenta before unleashing a dark bolt of energy through the constructs head, sending orange shards of light into the wind. She landed on the ground, pausing only for a moment before breaking off into a heavy sprint. This world was hers, in time. No orange alien with a penchant for panache was going to steal it from her.

She hung a right onto a major street, the shadow of Queen's tower covering her approach as she summoned all of her energies into this attack. Her eyes washed over in a vibrant shade of red as she slammed her staff into the ground unleashing her energies through the street, tearing up the concrete and raising the gas pipelines onto the block. Luckily, it also attracted the ravenous constructs that were baring down on her. She stabbed the non-channeling end of her staff into the ground, staring down the advancing beasts as she rubbed her palms together. There is no force that can stand before her... because I swear to my goddess, I'll put the fear of her.. and the dread of her on all the land that you walk on. As she has promised you.. She crouched, tapping her palms to the pipe beneath her, causing ruptures along it and igniting the natural gas inside, causing a blaze on main street. She scooped her staff out of the ground, twirled it in her fingers and walked to the next encounter, wondering almost morbidly how high the others kill counts were.

[Hal Jordan]

The waves of orange lanterns seemed to be unending, which caused a tight grimace to form onto Hal's face. He couldn't understand it, he knew Larfleeze had the power of an entire corps at his beckoning but the man had no reason to attack Earth, but immediately Hal realized how foolish it was to attempt making since of avarice; Larfleeze would never be satisfied until everything fell under his control. A green jackhammer whipped itself into existence before Hal and the Lantern plowed his way through the midsection of a much larger construct. Putting down one construct at a time was no way to work and Hal knew his power levels wouldn't be able to deal with it for an extended time, what he needed to focus on was removing as many opposing lanterns from the field at once as possible.

The green power ring on Hal's finger glowed brightly as his imagination and willpower began weaving new constructs, images of as many superheroes Hal could thing of began appearing throughout the sky. Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Power Girl, Wildcat, Superman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Star Girl, Vixen, Donna Troy, and more all appeared before Hal in green shades and only took a split second for them to charge forward and begin an assault on the Orange Lanterns. Hal himself decided to pull back, having noticed the sudden blaze that had overtaken Main street. His ring announced it to be a gas fire and that was not good, from the pipes under main street the fires could spread and reach out to other sections of the city and put as many lives in danger as the orange lanterns themselves.

Just as Hal turned to descend toward main street he felt a burning sting him from down his right shoulder to his forearm. Instinct drove the Lantern to quickly float backward, his concentration shutting out the pain his his arm and focusing on the burly construct that now hovered before him. An orange ape creature with saber teeth narrowed its orange eyes at him while flicking its spiked whip about; the weapon that caused Hal his injury.

With blinding speed the ape struck again with its whip, this time Hal was a bit quicker and managed to get off a shot of green energy that knocked the whip off its path for him. Making the best of his opportunity Hal drove forward and punched the construct in the face, drew back, created a spike jutting from his ring, and punched the beast again; shattering the ape's head. Impressively the construct's body continued to flail and lashed Hal once again with its whip. Gritting his teeth through the stinging pain that burned his face Hal manipulated his small spike into a large battle axe and wasted no time in hacking the construct in two.

Watching as the orange pieces broke up and faded away Hal sighed for the moment of relief. He quickly checked to see how his hero constructs were doing; Star Girl and Ollie weren't fairing too well but they all mostly had things under control. Turning back toward the raging fires Hal floated down to ground level, his green aura keeping him safe from the intense heat. "What do we have? A fire? No problem. I got it, Hal." The red streak that circled him was unmistakably Barry Allen. "You really don't know what retirement means do you?" Hal asked with a smirk, though all too happy to see a speedster on the field now.

"Notmuchtoretiretoiftheworld'sgone." The Flash's voice slurred through Hal's ears like one long drawn out word just before the racing speedster broke off from him and went after the flames. "Try calling in Aquaman for back up or something." They both laughed. And then Hal was back in the air laying out another assault against the never ending wave of orange light.

[Zatanna]

Zatanna's first attack might have been picturesque, but it was rendered nearly obsolete. She'd destroyed one creature, but to replace it came a throng of thousands. The magician jumped back as a hammer-like orange appendage from one of the constructs lashed out to attempt and pummel her. It slammed into the ground where Zatanna had just been standing, pulverizing a perfect ring in the pavement. "Dleihs!" Zee was immediately enclosed in a bubble of wavering colors, much in appearance like the bolt she'd just sent out.

The hammer came down on her barrier, but the magic did not waver. Zatanna had an advantage in this crisis due to it's nature. The previous tragedy that had plagued the earth was magical in origin, which gave Zatanna expertise in combating it, but made things infinitely more complicated. This threat was scientific, or meta at it's basis. Which gave the Mistress of Magic the upper hand. Her eyes flashed, and Zee hissed a backwards command. The construct shivered, bubbled, and then broke into a flock of doves.

Zatanna raised both hands in implore and the doves swirled in a perfect circle above her. Another mystic phrase and the birds ignited, metamorphosing into orbs of energy that Zee then loosed in a volley at more opponents. It was then that the Mistress of Magic caught a brief glimpse of Hal forming a whole Justice League to help with the offensive. I can help there, Zatanna thought purposefully. She cast one hand toward the ground and a complicated diagram etched in light occupied the earth within her force field.

"Srewop taht eb, nward morf nihtiw em." Zatanna's eyes shone with light, and then a great multitude of mist in varying shades whirled up from around her. The vapor struck out in hissing comets, and each hit one of the constructs that Hal had engineered, swirling fluidly for a moment before they settled. In the aftermath it really did look as if the Justice League had been emptied onto the scene. Zatanna used magic to weld her will and power with the Green Lantern's, lessening the burden on each of them while also empowering the makeshift heroes that much more.