Nothing Ever Happens In the Ghost Zone

Vina discovers Sinestro floating in the Ghost Zone.

"Enjoying the book?" She had left him with a Kindle loaded with Lord of the Rings.

"Sauron is allowing himself to be distracted by what he expects to see," says Sinestro dismissively. "Still, this allows his enemies a chance to prevail where their strength could not. It could be likened to the chances of the Guardians against Darkseid of Apokolips, or the heroes of the First Age against the Mageddon weapon."

"Yes, it could," she allows. "So, you no doubt have a plan to escape."

"Indeed. I believe the Ghost Zone to be subdimensional rather than superdimensional, so that all points in the universe correspond to the same point in the Ghost Zone. Thus, all separation is relative. Anything entering the Ghost Zone, or transiting through it, will encounter all other things within it, though not all at the same time."

"So we wait for someone else to come in ..."

"Overpower them, and steal the keys," says Sinestro. "Exactly. It is not an original plan."

"Well, then, we'd better make sure we're all in the same place, right?"

She hefts the Green Lantern Pig under one arm and puts her other side against Sinestro.

"So we all teleport at the same moment."

"Yes, ah, you do realize we are not on the same side," Sinestro demurs. "The Hawk Police have never cooperated well with the Yellow Lantern Corps. You don't fear, you see, and that inhibits our power."

"But you're not a Yellow Lantern any more, are you? And I'm not really a Hawk Police elf."

"Hmm, no. I am not. The Yellow Lantern Corps was fearful and fissiparous, each concerned with his own plans and projects. I am better apart from their ranks entirely."

Vina also has the bat full of stars. "And you know about this, too?"

"It is a glyph from New Genesis, the home of the New Gods. It embodies the essential spirit of a hero, probably an Earthman from its shape. Whoever "reads" the glyph adopts the essential energy of that hero, including his powers, aspect, nature, and destiny."

"But," he adds, "it has not melted yet, so you have not read it into yourself."

"I don't really know how."

"Nor do I. But someone does, or he would not have sent his minions to acquire them. The patron of the Injustice League no doubt knows how to read the glyphs, acquiring the powers of their subjects. Tell me, is there one for Superman? I have often thought I could accomplish far more than he has with those powers. Kryptonian underachiever."

Indeed, Vina recalls there was one for Superman, but none of the four fans chose it. And Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Plastic Man and Batman were unaccounted for. Someone with all those powers could be pretty dangerous ...

... but she's not at all sure she ought to admit that to Sinestro.

Iced Like a Cake

Quinn tries very hard to smile a greeting while encased in ice. He tends to think of Bizarro as a lovable scamp rather than a troublemaker. Also he's starstruck. Yes, even for Bizarro.

(Smiling while frozen is stiff and painful, but possible.)

Jimbob pulls his arms out of the ice like sleeves, and into his own body. Then he pushes forward on just the ice in front of his chest with both arms, trying to break through.

KRISSH! The ice falls down and breaks.

The Flash was already saying,

"Oh great. Bizzaro! Hey Bizzaro!

Me am no afraid of you! Me am never going to run away from you, because you am worst hero of all time! Me am going to stand right here and fight you and never use super-slowness to take what you hate and put it into middle of ocean"

Greg then zips off in a blaze of crackling red energy in a straight light, and then hides.

Bizarro smacks his head with his palm.

"Oh yes! Thing I love is gone?" He opens his fist, looking at the pulsating item therein. It looks like a golden capital A, but upside-down it would look a lot like a trident.

"THERE it am not! Me was told not to give it to Scarecrow, so me definitely not going to do that!"

Bizarro leaves the ground suddenly, scans around with visible waves of super-vision, and lands on the rooftop where the Batman villain, the Scarecrow, lies wrapped halfway around his own jaw.

"Hey, Scarecrow! Bizarro am no scared of you! Also, here, don't take the thing secret master whose name is Libra and whose address is 174 Estate Way in Flint, Michigan said not to give you!"

The Heroes Meet

JimBob scrambles to his feet and attempts to straighten his Chin-Su costume. "Wow, the real life Flash!" he gushes, walking over to Greg and holding out his hand. "It's a real honor to-..." He stops and squints. "Wait, you're not Flash! You're the guy from the hot dog line at the Con. What're you doin' out here?"

Glancing up, he sees the other arrivals. "Nevermind, we got company." He assumes what he hopes is some sort of fighting stance.

It's a really wobbly, as in oscillating Slinky, kind of fighting stance. Moving fast while stretchy is hard!

The figure in red and gold drops to the ground near Chin-Su and fat Flash. He tries to do it in a cool, "summoned from a bolt of lightning" pose, kneeling behind his shield and rising slowly like a badass.

"Hey guys!" he gushes, out of breath from excitement. "Oh man. This is so great!" He looks around. "Where's the bad guys?!"

JimBob points unsurely at the new arrival. "Not you? You missed the Octosaur, which I think I must have killed somehow. Maybe it breathed through it's tentacles, and I managed to smother it. Which... also disintegrated it..." He frowns for a moment, and then nods confidently. "Yeah, that must be it. Anyhow, the name's JimBob Dunkleman. Pleased to meet'cha!" He holds out a still stretched-out arm for a handshake the consistency of warm chewed gum.

"I'm Quinn!" says the warrior, unreservedly taking JimBob's hand and shaking it with enough vigor to make it wobble so fast it blurs. "But you can call me 'The Peltast'! I mean we're in costumes and all (and I love yours, by the way, though I prefer her alternate pink one) so it seems like hero names are the thing, right? I mean, the ring gave us powers, so it probably wants us to act accordingly? I think that's best." Quinn has the mildly unnerving habit of making excessive eye contact, and he's staring earnestly and maybe a little too personally at JimBob. "Oh man. OH MAN! I AM SO EXCITED RIGHT NOW."

JimBob's eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. Literally. It would be comical if it wasn't horrifying.

He seems to be having a little trouble with power-control at the moment.

"Cooool name! I hadn't really thought about it. I guess I'll stick with Chin-Su, for now. And yeah, her pink one is good, but it's not this slimming." JimBob stretches his torso until it's as thin as the ridiculously-proportioned video game character.

"Oh! Where are my manners? Over here is Flash. Or, New Flash? DadBod Flash? What're you going by, guy?"

For once, the Flash is unable to respond in time, because the other guy in the sky streaks down!

"Goodbye, Peltast! Goodbye, Chin-Su. Goodbye, New Flash or DadBod Flash! Me am Bizarro. Me am imperfect duplicate of Superman," he explains.

"And Superman get along REAL WELL with other heroes!" he says.

WHISSSH! His eyes glare blue and everyone freezes solid, covered in several inches of ice!

"Superman have heat vision!" Bizarro cries cheerfully.

Newcomers Overhead

Two new persons arrive overhead.

One is mostly in red, with a Greek-style helmet, a brilliant mirrored gold shield with a shining silver edge, red tunic, lace-up boots, and a spear. He's flying, rising and falling like a bird, or actually, more like a kite.

The other is mostly blue, with a red cape, chalky white skin, red boots, red trunks, and a weird symbol on his chest that looks like a crooked square with a red number 2 on it.

Neither of them sees Ian, of course, but both see Greg and Jimbob, the more so because they're the only ones in the street with the Octosaur gone.

Villain DOWN

"Target acquired," Ian murmurs, before turning himself invisible and leaping off the teetering rooftop towards the villain. A stiff punch to the head did wonders towards deterring Sinestro. Let's see how it works against this Wizard of Oz reject.

SMACK! The guy has absolutely no idea the invisible Martian Manhunter is falling towards him, buffed up with shapeshifted muscles, until he gets sledgehammered into slumberland!

He drops like a freaking rock.

Instantly the octosaur vanishes. This leaves Jimbob stretched out in a very complicated shape around nothing, and the Flash goggling at his hand, where the radioactive green glow spiders have also vanished into nothingness.

Ian could give the guys a thumbs up, but they can't see him.

Wait ... the guys, plural? Who's the stretchy dude in the Chin-Su costume?

Chin-Su ... there can't be TWO neckbeard truckers who dress like the belle of Battle Wizard Academy X, can there? In which case, they sort of know this guy ...

My God, It's Full of Stars

Vina absent-mindedly pats the pig on the shoulder while picking up the batwing.
"Sorry," she says as she gazes into it, "I -was- raised on a farm. We have rescue pigs. The folks are vegan." She's still fascinated.

The stars in the batwing seem to twinkle, then grow brighter ...

WHOOSH!

Everything turns white.

Vina, and the pig, are floating in an absolute void which is solid white in all directions. As far as the eye can see, whiteness.

It looks a lot like the Ghost Zone, actually ...

Shadow Thief No More

The Shadow-Thief dives for the Bat icon.

So does Vina, like a proper Hawk-er-Lady.

"Henh!" sneers the Shadow-Thief! "With but a twist of the dimensiometer in my other hand, I can become fully solid again, and pick up the icon before you!"

Which he does. A half a second later, Vina slams into him with her big metal wings curling over her head and knocks him cold.

The Shadow-Thief's hand falls open, and the Bat gleams on the black satin of his glove.

Circe, on the other hand, is not happy.

"GRUNTING ANIMAL THAT YOU ARE!" she rages, and points her stabbing forefingers at the Green Hog hovering outside. Actual bolts of lightning explode from her fingers, slapping Vina with painfully loud thunderclaps.

The swine ably parries the thunderbolts with catcher's mitts made of green energy.

Then one mitt folds into a gigantically oversized boxing glove, and punches Circe all the way back to the fellowship hall, knocking over a table of children's crafts.

The Swine of Space Justice drops to the floor and trots over, grunting, to see if she's all right.

The Tattooed Man groans and rolls over.

"S'a pretty tough Lantern y'got there ... " he mumbles, holding his jaw. "Bu' Libra gave us this gimcrack to try out if all was lost ... an' it looks like it's right about time!"

He holds a small cylindrical device, covered with orange radiating fins, and pushes the button on top of it.

ZZZRAKK! The Tattooed Man, Shadow-Thief, and Circe all turn into black outlines with white lines of force outlining their bones from within. Then the effect fades, and they go limp.

They're not dead, but weirdly, all the Tattooed Man's tattoos have faded to greenish-blue smudges, like pale imitations of themselves.

The pig with the ring comes over and nuzzles the gadget, now inert.