With Another Ring 3

"I thought you wanted to race," John said with a grin as they both flew at a little over a hundred miles an hour, following the highway towards Gotham easily outpacing the cars on the road below them.

Alan grinned. "I did, but since we're only about fifty miles away it'd take barely any time at all and I need to get used to my new ring."

"Fair enough," John said, following Alan through dips and curves as he got used to how his new ring handled.

"Man, you kids have it easy," he said, falling back to fly by John's side, "it takes barely any effort."

"That's because it's a power ring, created by the oldest race in the universe with science that might as well be magic, not a ring you personally forged out of magic. You built a Model-T from scratch, and it's a Ferrari," John explained.

"True enough," Alan agreed, "but it took me time to master my ring which I'm pretty sure your rings don't require."

"Without a doubt," John readily agreed. "Your willpower and focus are probably leagues above mine and most Green Lanterns. That's another reason the Guardians put you on the 'do not recruit' list, they are control freaks and you could overwhelm any restrictions they put on your ring through will alone."

"For being one of their corpsmen you don't seem all that fond of them," Alan pointed out, a question clear in his voice.

"I dug up too many of their secrets," John said. "Everyone has skeletons in their closets and the more powerful you are the bigger they are. Consider their power level and how old they are…" John sighed. "It may be a bit unfair on my part, but I just can't look at them the same way a fresh recruit should."

"How bad could they be?" Alan asked without thinking about it, figuring anything truly awful would have been found out already.

"An entire sector of space was wiped of all life," John said solemnly. "See, the Guardians created the Manhunters to patrol the universe and one of them screwed with the programming causing the Manhunters to wipe out all life in the sector except for a handful of sentients, less than you'd need to play a decent game of volleyball, those unlucky bastards were crucified and left in place."

"Okay, I can see why you don't trust them," Alan admitted, wondering if the same thing had happened here.

"It all comes from their being massive control freaks," John explained. "They created the Manhunters because they didn't trust other sentients with the power of the emotional spectrum. Now, to be fair, they did learn from their mistake and they probably have saved enough lives to make up for it, but we also have to look at the creation of the Starheart."

"What's wrong with them creating my lantern?" Alan asked.

"They created it by sweeping up all the loose Green magic in the universe," John explained. "Meaning a whole shit ton of planets didn't develop life because of their actions. For all we know there should be dozens of intelligent races in every solar system, but they never developed because the Guardians prevented life from springing up on those worlds."

"Okay, now that is horrifying," Alan agreed.

"They've buried the slaughter they caused to sector 666, but they haven't even acknowledged what they did when they created the Starheart," John complained.

"666?" Alan asked. "Seriously?"

"That much death leaves its mark on the universe, that's why it's known as The Mark of the Beast on Earth," John told him, "psychic resonance."

"Makes sense," Alan agreed. "If you felt this way about them why work for them?"

"Because I could help a lot of people with a power ring and being self-righteous doesn't help anyone," John replied. "As long as their goals aligned with my own I had no problem working for them and as far as I knew they rarely intentionally fuck things up. Of course, now I can help people without working for them, thanks to you, so I feel a lot better about being a lantern. Provided they don't see me as an anomaly and stuff me in a Sciencell for the rest of my life because they're all control freaks." Maybe he was laying it on a bit thick, but the Guardians were that bad in a number of realities.

"Hopefully that's a difference between our two universes," Alan said. "At any rate, the Green Lanterns in our universe can't simply snatch people up unless they are criminals and even then, they have to obey local laws."

"Does that apply to visitors from another universe who don't have a legal identity?" John asked hopefully.

"Probably, but just in case I'll contact some friends and see about making you a US citizen," Alan said. "Unless you have any objections of course."

"I love the US," John assured him, "we have a form of government that mostly works, which beats out all the other countries who have governments who only kinda work."

"We're here," Alan noted as they reached the outskirts of Gotham and their rings flashed.

"What was the flash for?" John asked.

"Updating our database, sir," James said aloud. "Every four hours unless told otherwise, we'll update the information we have available."

"That's handy," Alan said as they hovered in place. "What kind of records do you have?" He tilted his head and chuckled as his ring telepathically gave him a brief summary. "Looks like we've got every movie and song ever created."

"That would have been included in publicly available data," John realized. "I was thinking more of news and maps when I requested it, but I certainly don't mind having a large media library."

"At least you'll be able to listen to some of the classics if you're ever on a stake out," Alan told him. "I used to have a miniature police scanner that I could tune into the local radio stations that I used."

"Our rings can do that too," John said. "James, scan the local frequencies and bring up the local police frequencies."

"-we're getting shot to shit out here!" came a panicked voice over the channel. "Bane has his men loaded up with armor piercing rounds!"

"Give me a map to the source of the transmission," John ordered.

A 3-D map of the city appeared in between the two hovering lanterns with a big arrow pointed to a section of the docks on the other side of town.

The two shot up above the city and crossed the distance to the bay in seconds, leaving a blazing trail of green right behind them. Hovering over the docks they took in the scene at a glance. There were several police cars filled with bullet holes that had half a dozen police officers behind them, several of them wounded, while a dozen gangsters fired on them with Uzis and a large man dressed like a Mexican wrestler stood behind them directing their fire.

"I'll take out the crooks, you help the officers," Alan ordered as he created a massive brick wall out of green light between the two forces, every brick sharply defined, mortar visible between each brick.

John immediately dropped down to the street, ignoring the two bullets that pinged off his environmental shield from the panicking police officers.

"A Green Lantern," a heavyset detective said in relief. "Wish you'd been here a few seconds ago, you could have saved Johnson." He gestured to an officer who was lying on the ground with his eyes open, staring at nothing, blood spreading in a pool under him, his right leg twitching.

John knelt down and placed a hand over the dead officer's heart. "Keep the blood circulating and his brain oxygenated," John ordered, his hand glowing bright green. "Give me a display of the damage."

A 3D model of the officer's chest appeared showing massive amounts of damage, a quarter of the heart all but missing and a large hole in the back the size of a large man's fist, displaced tissue and blood splatter being added as the ring continued to scan the area.

"You can't fix dead, kid," the detective said, shaking his head.

"You can if you get there fast enough," John replied as he focused his will and green light poured from his hand, so bright it hurt to look at, collecting all the blood and gore from nearby and moving them back into their original positions, forcing the cells to align and reconnect, "it takes five minutes before the brain starts to degrade from lack of oxygen."

"Holy shit," one of the uniformed officers said softly as he kept pressure on the bullet wound in his partner's leg so he wouldn't bleed out.

"You really think he can do it?" one of the officers asked the detective.

"I've seen stranger," the detective admitted.

John could feel sweat beading on his forehead as he concentrated on the data being fed to him by his ring, like a jigsaw puzzle of near infinite size where you had to not only put the pieces together in the right way, but also in the right order, all the while removing pieces from other puzzles that had been tossed in just to make things difficult. He couldn't hold all of it in mind, having to share the load with his ring who was keeping up a steady commentary on what order to do things in and how he should focus on them, guiding his will.

Gunfire and cursing could be heard over the wall, but it quickly petered out.

John finally finished his repair work with a relieved sigh. "Okay, tap his adrenal gland to get his heart started."

"Yes, sir," the ring replied, "doing so now."

Johnson gasped and sat up like someone waking from a nightmare, looking around wildly as the other officers stared in disbelief. "What happened?"

"Small case of lead poisoning," John said, "You're fine now. Who else needs healing?"

"Small case of lead poisoning," the detective repeated with a chuckle, a grin on his face. "Stop sleeping on the job Sam, we got perps to bag."

"Sorry detective, won't happen again," he promised, confused as the rest of the officers laughed.

"Now let's fix that leg," John said turning and laying a hand on the wounded officer's leg, a 3D display of the damage appearing in front of his face.

The bright green wall separating them from the rest of the docks vanished.

"When you said you were best in a support role, you weren't kidding," Alan said as he flew over, the unconscious mobsters in a pile inside a floating green cage, Bane chained to the top of it.

"It's easier for me to help people than to hurt them," John agreed as he moved onto his next patient who simply had light lacerations from shattered glass, "because I'm always trying to figure out why they do what they do and how to help them find a better path."

"You gotta balance empathy and anger," the detective said. "Too nice and they walk all over ya. Too angry and they clam up and don't listen."

"That sounds about right," John agreed as he scanned Detective Bullock.

"I'm good, didn't get more than bruises," Bullock assured him.

"Who's the unlicensed doctor here, you or me?" John said getting a laugh. "I'm removing a bit of old shrapnel and fixing one of your heart valves."

"It's been like that for years," Bullock said, "it ain't a fresh injury."

"Well I wasn't here years ago so I'll just take care of it now," John said. "Done."

"Done?" Bullock asked in disbelief and looked down at his knee. "I didn't feel anything."

"I'm not going to pull shrapnel through your skin," John said. "I slipped it into a dimensional pocket." There was a flash of green and several small slivers of metal appeared in his hand. "Here."

Bullock looked at them for a second before throwing them over his shoulder. "I think I carried them around long enough. Thanks, kid. You ain't a half bad saw bones. Okay everyone, let's get to work! Cuff em and take statements while I time how long it takes for our reinforcements to arrive!"

Alan released the criminals to the police and shot up into the air, a pair of costumed vigilantes watching them from the shadows.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The pair of lanterns appeared in Alan's kitchen in a flash of green light.

"Did you catch it that time?" Alan asked, letting go of John's hand.

The younger lantern shook his head. "James, did you get it?"

"Yes, sir," the ring replied, "however I have no idea how to go about teaching it as it's not a standard Green Lantern technique."

"How do Green Lanterns normally teleport?" Alan asked as he checked the coffee pot and poured out the coffee in it.

"FTL transfer," James replied, "which takes a noticeably greater amount of energy."

"Heh, looks like this old dog can teach you some new tricks after all," Alan said, pleased at the thought of training a new hero.

"Of that I have no doubt," John agreed. "So, what did you think of your new ring?"

"It's handy," Alan said, "I was able to handle multiple constructs easier and tapping into the police frequencies saved lives. And speaking of saving lives, can you teach me the technique you used to bring that officer back from the brink?"

"It takes at least five minutes before brain damage begins to set in from lack of oxygen and the ring can keep the brain oxygenated and blood flowing for as long as you have power. You just have to hold everything in place while stimulating tissue regeneration to connect everything together again, then tap the adrenal gland to restart the system. The ring's AI may be able to handle it without our input, but it takes less power the more you can do yourself. All the files needed to do it are on your ring," John assured him.

"And all the other Green Lanterns can do this?" Alan asked.

"No idea," John said with a shrug. "I'm finding more and more gaps in my memories and I'm missing all the scars I should have."

"If you can put a heart back together, I'm pretty sure removing scars would be a snap," Alan pointed out, "not sure about the memory loss."

"True," John agreed. "I'm guessing, almost positive in fact, that I'm a paradox clone."

"A paradox clone?" Alan asked.

"It's what happens when you have imperfect protection from a change to the timeline," John explained. "I'm still me but all of the evidence that made up my life has been wiped away. It's theoretically possible, but impossible to prove."

"Is there any way to fix it?" Alan asked.

"Find the incident that changed the timeline and you can restore the original timeline, but that's morally… dubious," John said, shaking his head. "There's no one true timeline and making changes is incredibly dangerous and unwise."

"You've suspected this since you appeared, haven't you?" Alan asked. "That's why you haven't talked about finding a way home."

"Not the moment I appeared," John said, "but yeah I had my suspicions."

"What would be morally dubious about restoring the previous timeline?" Alan asked.

"Other than endangering the fabric of the universe and existence itself?"

Alan chuckled. "Yes, other than that."

"This timeline has as much right to exist as any other," John replied, "as I said there is no one true timeline."

"And most of the people in existence would never know anything was any different," Alan said. "That's gotta mess with your mind if you think too much about it."

"Probably enough to look into using your ring to protect you against alterations to the timeline," John agreed. "James, do you have a paradox protection technique in your files?"

"Yes, sir," the ring replied, "but it's only theoretical as it has never been tested."

"Somehow I think it was," Alan said.

"Looks like it," John agreed. "Oh well, it happens." He yawned. "I think it's about time for bed, I've had a busy day."

"You're just going to accept it?" Alan asked in disbelief.

"What's the alternative?" John asked. "Cackle madly and endanger all of existence trying to restore a timeline I no longer remember? I'll pass. I'd rather get busy building myself a new life rather than cling to an old one I no longer really remember."

"Most people would probably angst about it for a while first," Alan pointed out.

"Not a big fan of angst," John said, shaking his head. "My body is in perfect condition, practically brand new, and I have a power ring. I have little to complain about."

"Can't argue with you there," Alan agreed. "Let me show you to the guest room."

John followed him to the guest room which was a bit dusty from lack of use.

"Sorry, I haven't had call to use it in a couple of years," Alan said.

"James, subspace all the dust," John said, causing his ring to light up and send a wave of green light through the room removing all the dust.

"I'd comment how lazy you young folk are if I didn't plan on using my ring to do the exact same thing," Alan said with a grin.

"Power rings make household chores a snap," John said. "Night, Alan," he said, his costume changing back into a bathrobe.

"Night, John," Alan replied. "Tomorrow we'll pick you up some clothes, my treat."

"Thanks, I appreciate it," he said as the door closed and he took off the robe. "James, clean me please."

"Yes, sir," the ring replied, a line of green energy running over his skin and removing excess oils and dirt.

John climbed into bed. "Duplicate," he ordered his ring, causing it to split into two once more.

"36 percent charge," the rings chorused.

"Okay, now since shape is optional, where would be the best place to store you inside my body?' he asked.

"Unless you plan on performing surgery on yourself, I would suggest using a natural bodily cavity, preferably close to the brain for efficiency's sake," the ring replied. "The sinus cavity should provide more than enough room without interfering with any normal biological functions."

John took off the second ring and moved it to his nose. "Alright, reshape and insert."

The green ring flowed like liquid up his nose, making his eyes water and feel like he had to sneeze until it had settled into place.

"And that's my backup and additional power storage taken care of," John said, reaching up and rubbing his nose, "but man that feels weird. I'm going to have a hard time falling asleep until I get used to it. James put me to sleep."

John instantly fell asleep as his ring touched the sleep center of his brain.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"I'm surprised Green Lantern has come out of retirement and that he's taken an apprentice," Batgirl said as they returned to the Batcave.

"I'm not sure he has," Batman said thoughtfully.

"It looked pretty obvious to me," Batgirl said as she sat down and Batman took a seat in front of the mainframe, calling up all the data available on the incident they just witnessed.

"Younger guy, same symbols, did the support work while Green Lantern handled the perps," Batgirl listed off.

"Something was off," Batman disagreed as he brought up the body cam from the officers involved and the pair watched as John brought an officer back to life and healed several others.

"Whoa, I didn't know Green Lanterns could do that," Batgirl said, impressed.

"They can't," Batman replied, "at least not as far as I know. Green Lantern's ring has several notable differences from the standard ring used by the Green Lantern Corps, but healing, especially on that scale, is unheard of."

"Maybe he's a specialist," Batgirl suggested. "He could also be using the ring to enhance abilities he already has."

"That is possible," Batman conceded as he brought up pictures of Alan Scott as he appeared in battle versus how he looked on a visit to the USA a few years before.

"He's gotten younger," Batgirl noted, "not only is his hair darker, his wrinkles have lessened, and he looks in better physical shape."

"Maybe he's taken on an apprentice or partner or maybe something else is going on," Batman decided. "I'll have to investigate matters and see if he's a threat."

Batgirl rolled her eyes. "Like that's a surprise."

Typing By: Abyssal Angel

TN: I wonder what a non paranoid Batman would be like…

AN: In case anyone is curious Abyssal Angel has been working on a self insert of his own. It's a zombie apocalypse with a twist called "Minecraft VS Reality: The End Has Come". You may want to take a look at it.