The Trophy Room contains exhibits neatly labelled. The Black
Lantern, the Zeta Beam Mirror, the Gamma Gong of Kanjar Ro, Starro’s Pearl
Core, and other things that apparently everyone in the Justice League already
knows about and therefore need no explaining.
But I mean, really: what’s a Hyperclan Glider Ship? Who really
needs the Water of Hronmeer? What’s a Ring of Volthoom? To say nothing of
Superwoman’s Magic Lasso, which sounds like a classification error.
The Shaggy Man is a huge hairy humanoid, like a Bigfoot with
huge sharklike red eyes. The warning label says DO NOT EXPOSE TO OXYGEN. Good
to know.
The Infinity Horn? The Madbomb? Prometheus’ Anti-Utility
Belt? IF? The Hidden Wheel of Abnegazar, Rath, and Gast? What are all these
things?
The Monitor Room contains a huge viewscreen on which the
status of the Leaguers is listed. All the League members are listed as NEW GODS
MISSION – DEEP SPACE, while reserve members the Atom, Captain Marvel and
Firestorm are listed as INACTIVE.
Meanwhile, Sinestro’s eyes start to focus again. With a
willpower strong enough to make him among the best of the Green Lanterns, he
probably can break free of the Hawk Police’s mind-cuffs. Indeed, only the sock
on the jaw followed by the van over the head made him loopy enough for the
cuffs to last this long.
Roy hurries up.
“My ring can’t affect Sinestro or his power aura directly,
but the cuffs are outside his yellow ring’s protection,” he reasons. “So if I
amp up their power very gently, I can probably …”
Sinestro wobbles again, his dazed stupor returning.
“Huh!” says Roy. “That actually worked.”
Vina has detected four arcs of cosmic energy, spiraling down
from very deep space to land in Metropolis, Opal City, Central Africa and
Mega-Tokyo, the Tokyo-Osaka megacity.
And already the Mission Monitor Board has lit up with news
that a gigantic eight-armed dinosaur is running wild in Metropolis Central
Avenue, while Opal City battles an invasion of cackling ghost witches …
"I don't suppose there is any ghost-catching equipment
there?" Vina asks hopefully.
She adds, "This is not how I expected to get a guy on
my arm. If there's no really good holding cell for him here, I guess it will
need to be the Ghost Zone. Sorry, Sinestro..."
If no one volunteers having seen a holding cell, she will
steer him to the Ghost Zone entrance.
"Huh?" Ian says, finally diverting his attention
from the scene before him. "If there's anything useful against ghosts, we
may be able to look it up on the computers. It's a pity we don't have a Cyborg
with us.
"Or a Superman, come to think of it. Why do I get the
feeling we're really going to regret not having a Superman?" Ian walks
over to the monitor and sees the notices about the giant dinosaur.
"Oh, that's why. Do we want to head to Metropolis first
once we send Sinestro... where are we sending him again?"
Vina walks/flies Sinestro to the entrance to the Ghost Zone.
Puts him in. "I know you can get out of that mind-cuff
as soon as we stop powering it up."
Looks a little sad. Lets him go. Closes the door.
"Oookay. Any Ghost busting equipment? We really should
get going."
"I don't see any proton packs or ek-meters on
display," Ian says, looking through the hall. "Maybe we can get some
hints on how to fight the ghosts by dealing with the oversized dino
first."
"Yep, we'd better get on that. You guys coming?"
"Wait, what?" exclaims Roy. "We're not
splitting up? The Avengers always split up!"
"And there's four crises, and four of us ... hey, we
already have one arrest ..."
"...I guess we can try them solo..." says Vina
looking a bit unsure. "I'll do the ghost witches. I know a little about
that stuff from the SCA."
Ian: "We've also had about an hour to get used to our
powers, not to mention the Injustice League members likely heading to these
spots as well.
"What if we split the difference and send two groups of
two?"
"Fine by
me!"
Vina checks her gear and heads to the tube for Opal City.
Ian nods, and follows Greg down the tube to Metropolis to
try and deal with the dino.
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