7527/The Nightmare Barrier: John Stewart

The Nightmare Barrier: John Stewart
Date of Scene:	25 August 2021
Location:	M'Kraan Crystal
Synopsis:	John faces the strange hallucinations of the Nightmare Barrier: first he believes himself under attack by the Brood, before his ring seems to kill them like the Malthusian tech tried to kill them earlier. A hologram tells him to leave, but Green Lanterns are notoriously stubborn. Ultimately, he flies back toward the light, whatever the cost or danger.
Cast of Characters:	Jean Grey, John Stewart

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Jean Grey has posed:
A moment ago, John and the X-Men had just 'entered' the strange crystal found at the center of the ancient science-city on M'Kraan. Even the journey to that point had been unusual and perhaps even disconcerting to the Lantern. Had his ring ever failed to have the information he needed on hand? Ever outright refused to give that information to him?

And what it had told him was just as strange. The crystal's similarity to the central battery on Oa. Its raw power. Its attunement to a 'White light' on the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum.

However, there's not much light in the situation now.

After entering the crystal, they'd found another strange city within. Yet quickly, the pathways through it had twisted themselves, and everyone, John included, was plunged into darkness. And to a Lantern, perhaps, darkness has the greatest meaning. A place absent light. While touching the crystal had first seeming started to charge the ring, entering the crystal had done the opposite. And while the ring continues to function, outlining his body in green, allowing him to float in the dark void, he can feel that power waning.

Even see, here and there, as the light around him flickers, like a lightbulb near the end of its life.

John Stewart has posed:
He looks down to the ring, then around himself. Floating in a void where the ring is giving him all kinds of 'what?' worthy readings.

John clearly can't consider his ring reliable in here... so he does the only sensible thing; he turns off the ring, setting it to standby mode, in the last resort hope the charge won't deplete and he can use it to escape this place with the last of the energy. Somehow.

With no ring to consult, no allies to call on, and only speculation on what's around him... the only thing John can do is press on towards the center and use his wits and knowledge to find answers.

Wherever the center is.

As the ring is forced into standby, his civilian clothing comes back, potentially. All black with a biker jacket on and combat boots... and a holstered Beretta under his armpit.

He walks on, fearless. Part of Green Lantern training is to control and conquer your fears... and this is no different from what his mentors put him through.

Jean Grey has posed:
For a moment, without the ring on... John falls.

But it's not a long drop, as it turns out. It's just hard to really make out anything of the terrain in the utter darkness that now surrounds him, let alone whatever else is in here.

And it seems like maybe something else -is- in here with him. For a moment, he sees it in the corner of his eye, something moving. And because of the utter darkness, the only thing that stands out is another light source. A pair of glowing eyes. As it turns out, they're green as well, although not exactly in the way of his Lantern light, which has a certain wholesome, darkness-defying property to it. These, on these other hand, seem sickly and malevolent. But fairly quickly, they vanish, leaving the man in the dark again.

The soldier's training he falls back on keeps him ready, keeps him calm, cool-headed and alert, even as these dark phantoms play at his nerves from the edges of his vision. The training puts his mind on the more mundane weapon. But is it of any use?

He marches on. Time passes, but it's hard to quantify. And then he hears it, rather than seeing the threat this time. Some kind of clicking, skittering sound. First on one side, then the other. Surrounding him. The military training says: ambush, encirclement, find a defensible position. But where is that, exactly, in this dark void?

John Stewart has posed:
Moving gives rise to the possibility of stepping in something that will do harm. Obviously, the thing is trying to rattle him... and in time, it might work with the way this place works... but for now, John steps still, gets into a defensive CQC stance, and keeps his senses open.

"Stop playing games. If you want to talk, talk. If you want to fight, FIGHT!" John delivers with a raised voice.

If it were hostile, it would have come at him already. It likely wants something... or is toying with him.

He's been all over the universe... but this is the first time he's dealt with this situation before.

Jean Grey has posed:
John HAS been all over the universe. And he's experienced a lot of the horrors it can provide.

Witness, the origin of the skittering: again, he hears it from one side first, but then gets rushed from the other, a massive insect-like creature bursting out of the darkness and coming at him with pointed, chitinous barbed limbs and an a maw of deadly-sharp teeth at the front of a head with an enlongated, wedge-like shape.

Brood.

He did ask for a fight. As soon as he reacts (one might expect violently) to the very first, he realizes several more are coming at him from the other side.

Is it possible? John had fought them mostly near Earth, one of his first missions as a Lantern. Yet one of the claims of the Shi'ar was that the woman they wanted, the woman they ultimately succeeded in killing, despite the best efforts of many around her, had wiped out the Brood in the first place.

Could they have survived? If so, perhaps they WOULD seek out the very same thing the Shi'ar seemed so interested in, to use a weapon that had once nearly destroyed them against their enemies.

John Stewart has posed:
Toying with him. He wasn't around for the aftermath of the war... but then, he never did check in on the database if any other Green Lanterns had reports of sightings. There was no point; either they survived, or they didn't.

He knows what they are though. He knows the only reason they'd care about other sentients is to infect them... so he pulls out his pistol and fires at the first ones weak points... before he starts dashing forward.

Then again, would the Guardians tell him? This planet was a giant mystery. Perhaps the Brood are using the blind spot put in by the Guardians to hide from the universe while they regrouped...

It doesn't matter. Survival is what matters. You can't effect change or improve your life and surroundings if you're dead.

He's in full military mode now. A Scout Sniper going from one sniper nest to another, having been discovered. Get to the next waypoint (in this case, the center) and hope you can find backup from overwatch (in this case, his allies) before they overrun him.

Playing or not, you don't take chances with Brood.

Jean Grey has posed:
John's a good soldier, a good shot. He puts a bullet inbetween the joints of the first Brood's armor, and there's a satisfying set of sounds, and the creature reels back, thrashing about and screeching in pain... before promptly collapsing and disintegrating into a sickening pool of its own fluids.

Fun stuff.

Unfortunately, one dead Brood doesn't exactly make much of a dent in things. Notoriously, they're creatures of a a swarm, hive, countless many operating under the utter control of their Queens. He jogs forward, but quickly the two that had lept out from the darkness on the opposite side of the first put in chase behind him. And Brood, despite their insectoid features and dangerous natural weaponry, are not primitive creatures. Some clearly carry weapons, and as he flees several shots prove near-misses, blasts of energy searing over his shoulder or past one side or another. He runs, and runs, pushing the limits of his intense military training, pushing his body to the maximum, but the question remains... where is he going? What is he running to? Where can he go, in all this darkness when that light no longer stands in the center of everything to guide him?

And then, suddenly, they're ahead of him as well. He sees the little bug-like eyes first, but then the rest of them slowly come into view. A handful, then a full squadron, and then seemingly... an army, until the point that they're totally surrounding him, coming ever closer.

There's a flicker of light, this time on him.

<<Hostiles detected. *CHRRKT* Reque-que-quest permission to en-en-engage broad-scale defenses.>> As the ring speaks, it breaks in and out with static, or repeats itself, as if suffering some kind of programming disruption or failure.

Another first.

John Stewart has posed:
He stops, the pistol idled at the ground, and looks at the ring. He's surrounded and has no ammo left. If he's going out, he should at least use all the tools he has.

The advanced intelligence in the ring could be sentient or not... he doesn't know, but regardless, it's a symbtiotic relationship. He can respect the ring for what it is.

Right now, what it is, is his last hope of getting out of this alive.

John brings up the ring, and with a silent mental command, launches a concussive wave around himself with it to knock back the army around him. Normally this would by default alter his clothing to his Green Lantern uniform as well.

"Engage." John concedes.

Jean Grey has posed:
The ring engages. And boy how.

'Broad scale defenses' turns out to indeed be a sort of circular blast, emanating outward from John. But it's not exactly what he wills it to be, as he gives the ring permission to act on whatever program is piping up, the defense more than a little concussive force. And it's.. not green.

There's a bright flash, and energy sweeps outward in every direction.

At closest proximity, where the Brood are almost upon him, lunging with their spiked limbs and teeth, they simply disintegrate, instantaneously reduced to their base particles and blasted apart by photon pressure. At slightly greater distances, where the Brood swarm has become dozens, maybe even hundreds, in a circle ever closing around him, they simply... collapse, like dolls with their strings cut.

Those on the very edge die with obvious pain, screeching and twisting and thrashing before they fall.

There's something familiar about it all, the intensity of the blast and its aftereffects, something he recently encountered. Moreover, as the flash fires, it gives John his first opportunity since this started to see his surroundings. Again, he's in a city. But it's not the warm, glowing one he was last in. There's no bright sun-like orb to guide him. Whether the physical location is identical or not, this place is cold and sterile.

Just like the planet they found.

Alone, he stands in a necropolis, a dead city.

<<Countermeasures suc-suc-successful.>>

John Stewart has posed:
This planet is all kinds of weird... and now his ring is using energy that isn't part of the central battery? Something to wonder about another time.

John wraps himself up in a shield and starts floating up... and setting his ring to emit a maximum lightsounds around himself, takes in his surroundings.

Jean Grey has posed:
The city around him looks similar to before, with his position... back (again? for the first time? it's hard to tell if this is someplace he's been before, or someone where) at the center.

Stadium-like seating of the EES facility is still visible around him in fact. But there's no crystal. There's no anything, really. It's a dreary, dead place.

The Brood bodies are still visible, at least, those far enough to have died properly, versus being instantly disintegrated, although those in the later category begin to disintegrate on their own, via their natural organic processes instead of whatever the ring did to the others.

No crystal. No allies. Alone.

And then, finally, there's a flicker at one of the pillars surrounding the central facility, the ones they had previously destroyed to gain entrance. A screen, on one side, half-powered, flickering, like his ring.

John Stewart has posed:
He's quick to float over and land, watching the flickering closely. He has no other references to check out... but something active in this place?

This place is basically a maze, without the physical aspect. John needs /some/ kind of reference, and this is as good as any as he sees if the flickering changes.

Jean Grey has posed:
As soon as he approaches, John gets his answer. An answer he'll be happy with? That's another matter.

Nearing the half-functioning screen, there's another weird flicker of energy from his ring, as if it was trying to communicate with whatever system they're looking at. Only this time, absent any Oan lockouts, it seems to work. Briefly, the ring emits a small beam of energy, somewhat like what it would use for a close-up scan, that trails along the surface of the tower until it hits a point beneath the screen with some darker, smoother material. A terminal access, an ancient high-tech wifi port.

Then the beam cuts out, and the screen emits a similar energy, the larger, human-width beam tracing up and down in an empty space in front of John.

And where it does, it produces the holographic image of a figure, one familiar and... not.

The man has blueish skin like an Oan, and other similarities. But his proportions are more human-like, tall and well-built, rather than dwarfish and large-headed.

John Stewart has posed:
John stares for a moment, then, he blinks as he stops and turns towards the hologram proper. "Hello? Can you understand me?" John asks.

Jean Grey has posed:
There's another little flicker of a beam between the ring and the terminal.

"Analysis complete." English downloaded? "You are in possession of derrivative technology. Scanning area. Complete. Your folly is like our own. You have interacted with the unknown source and inadvertently destroyed everything around you. Like we did. You have our sympathy. Our pity."

John Stewart has posed:
"I have no idea who you are, but you look like Oan Guardians." John points out. They're being civil, why should he? "Who are you? Is this the crystal, or outside of it? I'm stumbling around in ignorance here."

Jean Grey has posed:
The hologram does not remark on the reference to its similarity, although perhaps this reflects a nature of the programming. There is no question there. But it does answer what is posed to it:

"This is Maltus." A different name than the Shi'ar gave the planet. The hologram gestures sweepingly with its arm, as if to indicate the expanse beyond. "The crystal is the source. We did not understand it. But science is our purpose, and so we sought to do so. Its power is beyond comprehension, even ours, and none surpass us in knowledge. We erected the barriers to prevent others of our mistakes, warn them of the danger. You did not heed them."

Now, behind John, at the center of the stadium where the crystal used to be, there's a crackling of energy, and then a pinpoint of light. It starts to grow.

"Warning. Readings indicate that you have destabilized the source. Catastrophic event imminent. All life on this world will be annihilated, as it was before. Depart now if you can and warn none to disturb this place."

At the same time as the hologram advises him to flee, there's a hint of somethign at the back of his mind... a tickle of a presence reaching out to touch his mind.

John Stewart has posed:
WHAT IS GOING ON?!

He can't chance it. He floats up and beelines it flying right for the crystal, touching it where that pinpoint of light is.

If John can't get back inside, the thing itself said he'd be dead. He has nothing to lose at this point, because he's pretty sure he can't escape the blast with that barrier up.

Jean Grey has posed:
"Foolish!" declares the hologram behind him.

As John flies toward the pinpoint of light, it rapidly expands, becoming an increasingly larger sphere. There is clearly energy pouring off it, enough that the ring activates a defensive field automatically. But immediately, it begins to flicker too. <<ALERT. Battery near 0%. Battery near 0%. Power failing. ALERT. Lethal exposure imminent.>>

If one thing defines a Green Lantern, however, it is their force of Will. And even if the ring itself cannot truly command his fate inside... whatever this place is, the ring is not the man, the hero. It is only a tool through which his will acts upon the universe. Absent the ring? He's still John Stewart.

And John is set on his course.

In the final moments, things go from bizarre to outright insane. The energy explodes outward. He feels his skin burning away, as if he were disintegrated like the Brood before. And when even that doesn't stop his forward course, something seems to lunge out from the center of the energy, those green eyes from before glowing inside of it, but joined by a horrible fanged maw. It lunges at him, swallows him.

But nothing happens. He flies right through it.

<<- It is Xi'an, I am listening! ->> Not the ring, but that tingle in his head, becoming a voice.

He meets the light in the center, and everything goes white.