Showcase: Strobe

Rings of Ire

by Dan Swanson

Rings of Ire Prologue

Far from Earth, but no further than a mystical spell, Wotan, Lord of Chaos sat on his throne, orchestrating his Chaotic plots. Many were proceeding smoothly, others were meeting not-unexpected resistance but for the moment, there wasn’t anything his lieutenants couldn’t handle. Except for this new issue on Earth. Earth, which was always the most troublesome planet in his expanse! When everything was going smoothly, that is when he could always count on trouble on Earth.

Totally unexpectedly, a powerful ancient weapon had turned up in the hands of one who would use it in the cause of Order. According to older Lords of Chaos, the Galactic Patrol had been totally destroyed millennia ago, and along with the Patrol, all examples of the Patrol’s signature weapons, the Globe and Glove that selected Patrolman had used to control the power of the Glow. One of the older Lords of Chaos had found a way to subvert the Glow, so that each time a Patroller had used his weapon, his will was slowly diverted towards Chaos. Unfortunately for the cause of Chaos, the Patrol had discovered this evil malady while there was still time to stop it, but the good news was that in destroying the infection, it was thought that all of the Globes and Gloves had been destroyed. Certainly the Glow had not been seen in the Galaxy since that ancient time. But now, there seemed to be traces of the Glow on Earth, the very seat of Wotan’s chaotic domain.

Wotan used his mystical senses to closely examine the Earth, and indeed discovered a human wearing one of the fabled Gloves of the Galactic Patrol. A man named Jim Chisholm, who lived near Seaside City. Chisholm had only recently come into possession of the Glove and was still a novice at its use. Destroying Chisholm and his weapon would be trivial for Wotan. But he wanted some entertainment. Better to make a game of it! In fact, Earth itself would supply Wotan with the perfect pawns!

Wotan cast a few spells, then sat back to watch and see what would play out.

Rings of Ire Part 1

Alan Scott (Green Lantern) was in big trouble, but he didn’t know it yet. If Wotan’s spells worked out as planned, Scott would never actually realize his problems.

Alan was charging his ring. On about the third word of his oath, he realized that something wasn’t right. The flow of power into his ring was hurting him, and hurting him more each instant! He immediately tried to pull his hand away from the magic lantern, but some incredible force had his hand in its unbreakable grip. As more and more energy flowed from the lantern into his ring, the pain continued to increase. Alan tried to scream, but the same force that wouldn’t let him tear his hand away prevented him from screaming. Mercifully, the pain quickly reached an intolerable level, and Alan passed out. Only when the ring was fully charged did the mysterious force release him, and he slumped to the floor.

Observing this mystically from afar, Wotan allowed himself a good laugh. He had been almost stunned at the weakness of the defenses around Green Lantern’s magic lantern. He could have thwarted them easily even before he became a Lord of Chaos! With his current power level, it wasn’t even child’s play. Of course, no magic power in this universe could have made any changes to the magic of the Starheart, but it was a trivial matter to replace the lantern with a duplicate, charged with power of Wotan’s making! Apparently the local Lord of Order, Dr. Fate, had forgotten what had happened to that cursed Galactic Patrol so many centuries ago, to let his friend’s source of power remain so vulnerable. Well, he would never forget again!

Corona fell even more easily. Her power source was also formed from the Starheart, using just a small piece, broken off, and Corona was too new to her powers to have learned to defend her magic lantern. History repeated itself, as Corona’s yellow ring was charged with power provided by Wotan’s magic, and the conflict between Wotan’s evil power and Corona’s will battered her into unconsciousness.

In his faraway lair, Wotan smiled grimly. His pawns were now in place! The game could begin!

Rings of Ire Part 2

Jim Chisholm had a costume and he had power. But he hadn’t thought of an appropriate heroic name yet. While he didn’t let this wreck his day, his thoughts did wander from work occasionally. “How about ‘Power Glove? No, that just sounds stupid! Who would name himself after his weapon, anyway? What about Super Jim? No again, that’s already taken by that basketball player for the Newark Nets… Some volleyball term would be kind of neat. Six-Pack? Pancake? C’mon, Jim, be serious!”

Lucky for Jim, he was self-employed as the work-from-home president and chief architect of his own architecture firm – he probably would have fired any employee who paid so little attention to his job! “I never liked those names based on phony military rank like Captain Power or a phony profession like Dr. Light… Although Captain Power isn’t half bad!” He mused about Captain Power for awhile. “I can always come back to it later. Who would have thought that the hardest part about becoming a super hero would be picking a name?” Within seconds, Jim would remember that thought ruefully…

Without warning, the walls of Jim’s house collapsed, as two giant glowing hands slammed into opposite walls! One hand was green, the other was yellow. Jim could see little else, and suddenly the roof was collapsing on him as well!

Jim’s reflexes, while not superhuman, had been honed from years of playing world-class volleyball, and more recently from a week of training with various members of the Justice Society of America. And he had been daydreaming about using his new power, so his reaction was about as fast as it is possible for a normal human. He took some slight damage from flying debris, but before he received any major injuries, he was able to form a force shield around his body. Lucky Green Lantern had drilled him so hard on this one!

Jim grew very angry, very quickly, as he watched his home being demolished. The energy constructs that were destroying his home looked a lot like the work of Green Lantern and Corona! This had better not be a damn practical joke or more training. Jim had built the house himself, and some of the contents were irreplaceable, like his Olympic medal and some of his trophies – and all of his business records! Suddenly, his anger burst out of him, and the remains of the house literally exploded as Jim flew straight up through the falling debris, rocketing into the sky as if propelled by the force of the titanic explosion!

Jim did not really expect to see Green Lantern and Corona – even as angry as he was, he couldn’t believe that his friends could have any part of this horrible attack. Even so, he was relieved to see two figures he didn’t recognize. A lean, brown-haired white man, dressed in green and black, with a white symbol on his chest that sort of looked like an atom, and a tall, thin, red faced man with an overlarge head, dressed in what looked like a black and blue jester’s outfit. The man in green was wielding a green power ring, while the red man had a yellow power ring.

Jim was glad he lived well out in the country, where no neighbors could be harmed by this violence. Before his foes could react again, Jim grabbed each of them in giant glowing white fists, and dragged both of them at high speed into space, where their battle would harm no one.

Each ring wielder was totally enwrapped in one of Jim’s energy constructs. Jim wasn’t squeezing them hard enough to injure, but he damn well didn’t plan to let them go. He seemed to have got the drop on both of them, but did he have the power to hold them?

It seemed not. Each ring wielder exerted his will, put up a glowing force bubble around himself, and then willed that bubble to grow. Jim concentrated harder and harder as he felt his grips weakening. He might have been able to hold one enemy securely, but the combined will and power of both other men was too much for him. Almost simultaneously, both glowing white hands burst into shreds and his enemies were free!

Jim wasn’t all that worried just because he was facing two foes. As a master of Aikido, he knew how to handle two opponents at once, using his advantage of coordination to overcome their advantage in power. Unless the two had trained together until they knew each other’s combat actions instinctively, when one acted, there would always be just the smallest delay in the other’s actions, while each made sure the other was doing what was expected. What Jim was unsure about was if he could make use of this advantage when his opponents each had a power ring.

The blue and black-clad opponent quickly formed a gigantic yellow hammer and swung it towards Jim’s head. At the same time, his green opponent formed a heavy machine gun and shot a string of green bullets towards Jim. These actions quickly told Jim that his opponents were not trained to fight as a team. Jim decided to make use of his opponent’s power, and allowed the hammer blow to strike his force shield, driving him earthwards again. Jim saw that he was now over the Pacific Ocean, and he used his power to accelerate his dive. Just before he splashed down into the ocean, he saw both opponents diving after him.

As soon as he splashed into the ocean, Jim used his power to make himself invisible. He then moved slowly away from his splashdown point, remaining underwater. Neither opponent seemed interested in entering the water himself, although Jim could see energy constructs that looked like sonar, giant nets, and even a giant green shark, searching for him. Having temporarily evaded his foes, Jim realized that he needed to know more about them.

Rings of Ire Part 3

During his training with the JSA, Jim had willed his Glove to download a lot of information from the JSA computers. Included in this information were files on many super villains. Jim started his Glove’s AI on a background search to see what it could find about these two.

Apparently, the JSA data was well organized. Almost instantly, Jim was informed that the opponent in green was apparently an Earth-3 villain called Power Ring, and the red-skinned one was apparently Sinestro, a renegade Green Lantern from the Earth-1 universe. Both had ring weapons that were at least the equal of the Glove in power! The JSA data concluded by noting that the weaknesses, if any, of Power Ring’s mystic green ring were unknown, and that Sinestro’s yellow ring had no known weaknesses either, except that it used recycled Green Lantern ring energy.

“Well, they don’t know what my weakness is, either!” Jim thought. “I hope they don’t find out what it is before I do! This is going to be tough enough as it is, 2 against 1. I need to keep them off guard and continually do the unexpected…”

Rings of Ire Part 4

As Jim reviewed the JSA files on Power Ring and Sinestro, he came up with a bunch of questions. “3 questions, each more mysterious than the other. How did these two other-Earth villains get to Earth 2? Why are they working together? And why are they attacking me?

“No one has been able to move between universes since the Crisis. Dr. Fate thinks that with time and study, he and the Spectre might discover a way to cross over, but it would require tremendous power. Certainly Power Ring and Sinestro don’t possesses that kind of power…

“Power Ring seems to be nothing more than a super-powered thug, who uses his ring to terrorize innocent, mostly non-powered people. He has never been interested in teamwork, and never will be. All he is interested in is instant gratification, and he has always used his ring to satisfy his desires.

“Sinestro had years of experience in the Green Lantern Corps before becoming a would-be dictator. There is no organization more anti-team that the GLC, and to a dictator, teamwork is for lesser beings. There is no way these two would ever work together willingly, and in fact, when they are fighting together, these two will be less dangerous than either one alone.

“On the other hand, Sinestro’s years of experience against super-powered opponents makes him by far the more dangerous opponent. I’ll concentrate on him first.

“But why attack me? I’ve never used my new power in public. As far as I know, the only other people that know about me are Iredok Jur Dian and the JSA – and Iredok sure isn’t talking. But they must be after the Globe and Glove. Ordinary Jim Chisholm sure doesn’t have any super-powered enemies!”

Jim realized that he wouldn’t have much more time to think about these mysteries. He knew he had enough information to figure it out, and he hoped that his subconscious could come up with the answers, because his attention was going to be needed to subdue Power Ring and Sinestro. Since they hadn’t found him yet, he decided that a little advance planning and preparation might help him out in that area, too. He gave his Glove a couple of commands and smiled grimly. From what he knew of his opponents, he was confident that he would be able to defeat them, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a few surprises in place! The energy constructs he had just created were as nearly undetectable as it was possible to make them, and he planned to provide some major distractions of his own very shortly.

Rings of Ire Part 5

Anyone near to Power Ring and Sinestro would have probably have been amazed that they had not started attacking each other.

“That was a smooth move, ex-lax! Slamming him with that hammer sure helped him get away!” sneered Power Ring. “Are you sure you’re not on his side?”

“You intellectual cretin!” shouted Sinestro. “If you had cooperated as I suggested, I would have crushed him on an anvil created by your power ring. Instead, you feebly attacked with some kind of primitive projectile weapon? Where are your brains, in your ring?”

Both men added in their thoughts “If I didn’t need your help to crush Chisholm, I would crush you! And when we are done, I WILL crush you and take your ring. Adding your power to mine will make me invincible!” Neither man wondered why he was so sure he needed the other. Both usually operated alone. Further, neither man wondered why they had to destroy Jim Chisholm. These were just things they knew, and would never question.

“Your mother was a Martian!” shouted Power Ring. He wasn’t real good at exchanging insults with opponents. Very few of his opponents lived long enough to insult him more than once. Why exchange insults with someone when it was so much easier to kill him? Those few beings he couldn’t easily kill, Ring didn’t dare insult, or they might kill him.

During this exchange of insults, both men had been using their rings to probe the ocean below. Ring had created a giant green shark that circled the area, searching for Chisholm. And he had also created a sort of reverse periscope that extended from his eye down into the water. So far, he had had no results. Sinestro had created a giant power-ring net, deep below the surface, and ordered his ring to pull it up, trapping everything inside its radius. When the net didn’t contain Chisholm, he dissolved it, and tons of sea life fell back into the ocean.

“If you would stop your stupid yipping and let me concentrate, I might be able to find our target!’ whined Sinestro. He created what looked like a sonar screen, and shortly afterwards released a pleased shout. “There he is! My radar/sonar device has found him. Intellect will triumph, again and again…”

“Intellect THIS!” Ring yelled, as he quickly flew off to attack Jim Chisholm.

Rings of Ire Part 6

Power Ring flies off at top speed and spots Jim’s body floating on the ocean. He shoots a big missile with a very powerful warhead towards Jim. Sinestro warns Ring that it might be a trap, and in fact, just before the missile hits, Jim creates a large u-shaped pipe which turns the missile around and aims it back at Ring. Jim uses his power to speed it up and it flies back towards Power Ring about twice as fast as he launched it. Ring is just barely able to create a shield; the missile hits the shield, detonates with what seems to be a small nuclear explosion, and Ring is thrown wildly through the air, vanishing over the horizon!

“I’m probably better off without that bungling incompetent!” thinks Sinestro, as he streaks to the attack. Almost before Jim can think, he is being attacked by a monstrously large flying dragon, which is breathing glowing yellow fire. Just in time, Jim puts up a shield. The dragon closes in and starts attacking Jim with its front claws as well as the fire. Jim quickly retreats, and as he does, he forms a waterspout. The waterspout pours water into the dragon’s mouth, quenching the fire, and the whirling winds batter at Sinestro. While Sinestro is momentarily disoriented, Jim quickly freezes the dragon into an enormous block of ice. Sinestro wastes a few seconds trying to burst the dragon out of the ice, but quickly gives it up as a waste of time and power. Instead, he creates a cloud of thousands of softball-sized globes that seem to be attracted to Jim’s body. As they stream towards him, the first one to hit his shield explodes violently. Jim quickly surrounds himself with a thick layer of self-renewing ablative material that vaporizes when each of the globes explodes. Instantly Jim is surrounded by thousands of explosions that don’t hurt him, but do distract his concentration. But he’s not trying to do anything subtle…

Jim creates a gigantic floating magnifying glass that focuses the sun’s rays from several square miles directly on Sinestro. Sinestro quickly creates a floating mirror above his head, and the burning ray is reflected into space. This heat ray gives Sinestro an inspiration, and he creates a ring-duplicate of the most potent energy weapon he has ever seen, a blaster so big it takes two hands just to hold it, and with a barrel the size of a keg of beer. An energy blast pours out of the oversized barrel. Jim reacts instantly, creating a 10′x10′ square flat shield. When the beam hits the shield, it is spattered every which way, creating a flaming wall between Jim and Sinestro. Almost immediately, the edges of the shield break away and Jim quickly reforms it as a 6-foot diameter half sphere, so the energy beam strikes the shield and then streams around it.

Even with the smaller, denser shield, Jim is being battered backwards through the air. He is clearly starting to look worried. Then his face twists in added concentration, and his backwards motion stops, and then he starts creeping forward. Sinestro sneers at this, and directs a little more ring energy into the blaster, and once again, Jim is battered backwards. Cracks start to appear in his shield, and he starts to look desperate. He draws himself together for one final effort. The cracks in the shield heal, and once again, Jim begins to move forward against the force of Sinestro’s energy beam. Sinestro doesn’t have much additional energy to add to the beam, but he notices that as he gets closer, Jim is slowing down again, and once again the shield is starting to crack. Sinestro decides to gamble, and drops his own shield, and puts every erg of energy he has left into one final blast! Jim’s shield is instantly shattered and his body is totally vaporized!

Rings of Ire Part 7

When the missile exploded against Power Ring’s shield, it appeared to both Jim and Sinestro that his shield was destroyed and that his body was flung, helpless, over the horizon. However, Ring wasn’t in anywhere near the trouble that Jim and Sinestro thought.

“That red creepo thinks he’s so damn smart, but I got him fooled! Years ago, I commanded my ring so that none of my own ring constructs could every hurt me! Wonder if creepo has ever thought of a precaution like that?”

As he flew over the horizon, Ring used his power to stop his flight. He created a floating easy chair and a big-screen TV, a bowl of popcorn, extra butter, a bottle of tequila and a shot glass. “Let’s just see how Mr. Smart-guy Sinestro does without my help!” Ring settled into the easy chair, and the TV showed him a close-up of the aerial battle between Sinestro and Jim Chisholm. “When the fight is over, I’ll just bump off whichever one wins, and collect Sinestro’s ring and Chisholm’s Glove, and use them myself. Betcha I’ll be able to take Ultraman easy, with all that power! And after that, that witch Superwoman is mine!” Ring was having a good old time, watching a heavyweight fight and gloating about the future.

Finally, after a lot of back and forth, it appeared that Sinestro was winning. But Chisholm had given him a real beating, and Ring was sure he would be able to best Sinestro easily. Suddenly, he became aware that he was panting, and he ached all over, and his vision was blurring. “What the hell is going on?”

Unfortunately for Jim, Power Ring was quite familiar with using his ring to improve the comfort of his body. Nothing better than a little ring healing for even the worse hangover, and why suffer with bruises and sprains from beating up on people when just wishing on the ring made them go away instantly? Heck, the ring even helped his sexual performance! Ring quickly demanded of the ring “What’s wrong with me?”

The ring flashed briefly, and the answer came into Ring’s mind. “The oxygen content in your blood is very low, and the carbon dioxide content is very high. You will probably pass out due to asphyxiation in the next 5 minutes.”

“Well, damn it, fix me, and then find out why it happened!” Immediately Ring felt better, as the ring raised the oxygen content of his blood and removed the excess carbon dioxide. A green glow outlined an invisible mask over the bottom half of Ring’s face. “What the hell is that?” Ring directed the question to the ring, and then the command “Whatever it is, get rid of it!” The mask vanished.

The ring’s answer appeared in Ring’s mind. “‘That’ was an energy construct, invisible and almost intangible, which altered the air you were breathing. It didn’t totally cut off your oxygen, but cut it down to about half as much as you are used to. And it increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air you breathed. It was cleverly constructed in the hope that you would not notice it until it was too late. The energy used in this construct is the same as the energy Jim Chisholm is controlling.”

“It’s great having a magic ring” Power Ring thought with smug satisfaction. Suddenly he was struck with a horrible thought – if Chisholm had done this to him, might he have done the same thing to Sinestro? Ring was immediately rocketing through the air towards the battlefield. He used his ring to project his voice ahead of him. “Sinestro! Use your ring to check your body for invisible energy constructs! Get away from Chisholm immediately, leave him to me and make sure you haven’t been booby-trapped!” He rocketed into the fight zone seconds after his message. He was confronted by Jim Chisholm, who had trapped Sinestro, unconscious, in a glowing white spherical prison.

Rings of Ire Part 8

“Too bad, but you’re a little bit late, Power Ring! Sinestro never did figure out that I put a barrier around his ring that prevented it from absorbing green ring energy whenever you used your ring. I got him so angry he used up all the energy in his ring, and without his ring power, he wasn’t much. Come to think of it, he wasn’t much even when he was fully powered. I hope you are tougher than he was; I haven’t had much of a workout today!”

What Jim didn’t say was how surprised he had been to catch Sinestro with such an elementary trap. When Sinestro’s destruction beam had flared from Jim’s shield, and Sinestro’s vision had been momentarily blocked, Jim had used his power to make himself invisible, again, and created an illusionary Jim Chisholm behind the failing shield. Sinestro had wasted his power blasting at the illusion, and, when his ring had run out of power, it had been trivial to capture him. It was hard to believe that the legendary Sinestro, who had at one time been the most decorated Green Lantern in history, had fallen for the invisibility gimmick even once, but he had fallen for it twice. Jim sensed more to the mystery. He reminded his subconscious to keep working on it, and prepared to take out Power Ring.

“Good thing for me my ring don’t work the same way the creep’s ring did! You’ve go no chance of me running out of power before I cream you!” Ring began his attack.

Ring is not a very subtle guy. He immediately created two giant fists and started hammering away at Jim. Jim created two arms of his own, and used them to block or deflect Ring’s blows. No matter how hard he tries, Ring can’t lay a hand on Jim. He is starting to sweat and it’s obvious that Jim is hardly making any effort at all. Suddenly the green hands morph into a glowing sphere, around 20 feet across, with Jim in the center. Ring increases the thickness of the sphere to several inches, and then starts to contract it. Inside the sphere, Jim creates what looks like a child’s jack, but each leg is 5 feet long, and instead of being blunt and round, each leg looks like a giant sword blade. The green sphere contracts until it reaches the tips of the swords, and then as it gets smaller, the swords start to cut into the skin of the sphere. A little smaller, and the swords rip through the sphere. Jim constructs two hands that reach into one of the tears and totally rip apart the sphere.

Ring is getting angry and frustrated now. He creates a ring of giant floating cannons on the ocean surface, and they start blasting away at Jim. Jim calmly redirects the shells so that each shell misses him and hits another one of the cannons. Ring, perhaps taking a cue from one of Sinestro’s earlier attacks, changes all of the cannons into laser blasters. Jim surrounds himself with a mirrored shield with a complex shape, and each laser beam is reflected off of the mirrors back into the blaster that fired it. At this point, Ring’s fury overcomes him. Rather than do battle from a distance, he will beat the crap out of Chisholm with his own hands! He should have known better after watching Sinestro battle Chisholm – Sinestro was afraid to get his hands dirty and that’s why he lost. Even before he got the power ring, Ring had been a street fighter, and nobody had ever beat him!

Ring surrounded himself with a suit of glowing green armor, with spikes on all the joints, so that he looked a lot like a green Oakland Raiders fan. He then flew directly at Jim Chisholm, who probably wasn’t prepared for a direct attack. Ring bashed him in the head, sending him tumbling backwards through the air, head over heels. Jim had never fought a real aerial hand-to-hand battle before and hoped to move the battle to a more familiar venue. He instantly created a floating boxing ring, and landed in the middle of it. Ring lands next to him and starts swinging.

Jim surrounds himself with a thin shield. He is more interested in mobility than the protection armor can provide, but he does want to protect himself against the spikes on Ring’s armor. Ring swings a roundhouse right towards Jim’s head. Jim sweeps his arm up, helps Ring’s punch miss his head, and trips Ring as he stumbles by. “Did you learn to fight from Wildcat?” he asks with a grin. While Ring is down, Jim stomps on his green helmet, using his power to increase the force of the blow. Ring staggers to his feet, and lunges at Jim, attempting to wrap his arms around him. Jim sways to one side and Ring falls past him. As he passes, Jim drives the back of his elbow into the middle of Ring’s back, again using his power to increase the force of the blow. Ring is driven to the floor, and his head bounces. “That’s gotta hurt!” Jim says with a grin. “Good thing you have that armor on!”

Ring is starting to get a little groggy now, but he isn’t finished yet. He staggers to his feet and charges Jim, with his head down like a bull. He uses his ring to increase his speed. Just before he reaches him, Jim grabs Ring’s shoulders, sits down, and kicks Ring in the stomach with both legs. Ring collapses around his stomach, and then is thrown high into the air. He is going to land in the water, but instead Jim creates a pile of glowing white pseudo-rocks under the falling Power Ring. Ring lands flat on his stomach, and again his head bangs into the rocks underneath him. Even with the protection of his helmet and armor, this is just too much, and he passes out. His armor fades away. Jim encases him in a new spherical cell, gathers up the similar cell containing Sinestro, and flies off.

“JSA headquarters is the only place I know of where these guys will be safe.” As he flew off, Jim realized that his subconscious must have put all the facts together and come up with an answer.

Rings of Ire Part 9

When he arrived at the JSA Brownstone, Jim immediately contacted Dr. Fate, who appeared quickly.

“I need your help, Doc! I just captured these two, and I think they are Green Lantern and Corona, ensorcelled by Wotan!”

As Dr. Fate prepared to case a spell to investigate, both heroes were surprised to hear a deep voice, seemingly emanating from the air. “Although I am not totally pleased with the outcome of this little game, Jim Chisholm, it wasn’t totally unamusing. Since you have part of the answer, I give you the rest.” They heard a sound like fingers snapping. “There are other matters that now require my attention. Until another time…”

“Wow, Doc! You guys play with some weirdoes!” said Jim. He suddenly noticed a change in his prisoners. “Look! These guys aren’t GL and Corona after all!” Indeed, their costumes had changed to normal clothing, and their skin colors had changed. The former ‘Green Lantern’ was a dark-skinned man, and ‘Sinestro’ appeared to be a very dark skinned Asian, probably Korean. Other than skin and hair color, both men’s appearances were very similar to Rower Ring and Sinestro. “I wonder who these poor guys are?”

Fate cast a spell. “They are just normal men, and they retain no memories of their experience.” Somewhere Wotan smiled as he mystically sensed Fate’s words. “But they are still wearing power rings. Their rings are Green Lantern’s ring and Corona’s ring, which were also mystically disguised! Our comrades might be in danger!” Quickly, Fate removed the rings, and handed Corona’s ring to Jim. He cast a spell, and both disappeared.

Fate appeared in Green Lantern’s study, where he found his friend lying still unconscious on the floor. He quickly used magic to determine that GL had not suffered any serious injury, and then transported both GL and the magic lantern back to JSA headquarters. When he arrived he was contacted by Jim, who had found Corona in a similar condition. Fate brought Jim, Corona and her magic lantern back to headquarters.

Dr. Fate ministered to GL and Corona, bring them both back to consciousness. During this time, Red Robin and Wildcat came into headquarters. When they awoke, GL and Corona were given their rings back and they told the story about their attacks. Fate examined the magic lanterns and determined that both were magically created phonies. He cast of spell on both rings, and both lanterns appeared, drawn from wherever Wotan had secreted them by Fate’s spell. After some magical tests by Fate determined that these were indeed the real magic lanterns, and that there were no further boobytraps, Green Lantern and Corona both recharged their rings.

“While we are clearing up loose ends, what about these guys?” Jim asked about his prisoners.

“As they have no memories of this incident, we should return them to their own lives” said Fate, casting a spell to do so.

“Hey, Doc, speaking of return to our own lives, is there anything you can do about my house? Those two totally trashed it. There was a lot of stuff in the house that I’ll never be able to replace. And I’m not sure my insurance covers damage by super-villains!”

“Indeed, Jim, I do think I can help.” Jim blinked, and the two of them were standing in the ruins of his house. “A spell of contagion, coupled with a spell of attraction, and all of the shattered pieces should draw together nicely…” Fate cast his twin spells, and Jim watched in amazement as his house reassembled itself perfectly. It looked like a video of the destruction, run backwards! “This is in fact a primary example of the purpose of the magic of Order. Bringing Order from Chaos!”

“Doc, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know how I can ever pay you back…”

“I don’t expect you to, young Chisholm. Instead, ‘pay it forward’ – help others and they will help others in their turn, and I will be paid back with interest.” With that, Fate gestured again and they were back at JSA HQ.

“Now I must confer with our colleagues, Green Lantern, and Corona. We need to protect their lanterns of power so that no such disaster can ever happen again. Red Robin, you have great experience with security systems, I suspect we would appreciate your assistance as well.”

With that, GL, Fate, Corona and Red Robin left, leaving Jim and Wildcat alone. Rings of Fire Part 10

Jim hung out with Wildcat for a few hours. They both seemed a little embarrassed in each other’s company. “Hey, ‘Cat, want to see my first super-hero battle? I’m interested in your opinion of my techniques.” He used his power to create a big screen TV and he and ‘Cat watched the battle.

“Pretty cute line, that one about me training Power Ring!” Ted Grant laughed. “Even I’ve gotta admit that the mook’s move looked a lot like mine, the first (and only) time I took a swing at you! Similar results too! But I thought Aikido was supposed to be non-violent?”

“Sorry, Ted. My masters have taught me that Aikido is largely a defensive art, but there are some times when force is needed to combat force. If you study the action again, you will see that I never initiated any of the violent exchanges between myself and my opponents.”

‘Cat thought that was kind of funny. “What about stomping on that guy’s head? And what about that pile of rocks you created after you threw him inta the air! Looked like you initiated violence both times. What would your masters say about that?”

“I am shamed to admit that while my masters have told me that I have achieved an impressive level of mastery over the physical skills, they find me somewhat…deficient in my appreciation of the philosophy of Aikido. They despair that I will never master the finer points of the philosophy.” Jim said this in a very crestfallen voice. Ted was sure he caught a sly twinkle in Jim’s eye.

“Other than my philosophical shortcomings, what did you think of the fight?”

“I think,” said Ted carefully, “that you totally trashed those two jerks and made it look easy! Remind me not to tangle with you again! Say, what would you think of giving me a few lessons?”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather learn from someone with a more advanced mastery of the philosophy of Aikido?”

“Kid, after over 50 years of bustin’ heads, ain’t much gonna change my philosophy – hit the other guy harder, faster and more often than he hits you! But maybe if I could pick up some of them moves of yours, I could maybe make the other guys miss me a little bit more often. The way I see it, is, this old ‘Cat ain’t too old to pick up a few new tricks!”

With a grin, they shook hands and headed off into the gym.

Notes:

The Power Ring in this story differs in appearance from the Power Ring currently terrorizing Earth-3. But he is not really Power Ring – he is a magical construct, created from memories Wotan has of Power Ring. These memories obviously come from before the Crisis.

 

The End