Chapter 186 - My SI Stash #86 - If The Ring Fits by aCameron (DCU/Hellblazer) (1/2)

-More DCU SI fics~ Probably the first SI Black Lantern I've read, seems to be on a hiatus though but it still got quite the word count!

Sypnosis: ???

Rated: ???

Words: 170K

Posted on: forums.spacebattles.com/threads/if-the-ring-fits-young-justice-hellblazer-si.377687/#post-20942254 (aCameron)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1+2 (exceptional)

Down, Down, Down in a Burning Ring of Fire

My eyes snap open.

All the breath in me is s_u_c_k_e_d out of my body. Searing pain tears down my c_h_e_s_t as my lungs try to turn themselves inside out.

I'm still dressed in my pyjamas.

I'm also about halfway to the moon.

And dying.

Earth turns underneath me. It's beautiful. It's bright. My eyes hurt. My eyelids are freezing to my eyeballs.

Wurlge? What?

I flail. There is nothing. No air, no ground. My toes curl as the monkey brain tries to grip desperately to the branch it's falling off of.

My vision starts to tunnel. As my hand goes past my face I see a flash of black.

”---- ------- of Sector 2814. You are not suitable.”

Consciousness fading, I bring my hand up to my face.

It tries to fly off my finger. I spasm my hand shut.

My vision starts to tunnel as I roll into a ball about the ring. It almost seems to purr. Traces of gas hiss out from between my lips as the last of my air dissolves out of my blood.

I think I'm falling.

Cessation.

Everything hurts. Moving is pure agony. I cannot see. I Scream, and hear no sound. I feel air whipping past me.

”---- ------- of Sector 2814. You belong to the Black Lantern corps. Rise.”

Ghhhhhhahaha. Consciousness goes out.

”Error. Residual soul traces not found. Fallback to emulation of soul attachment locus.”

”Error. Physical traces do not correspond to soul attachment locus. Fallback to physical memory retrieval. Restart selfhood mesh infiltration. Initial scan and personality map complete. Alert! Impact event imminent.”

Having your eyes grow back is a profoundly weird experience.

They grow back from the inside out. First comes the blur of colours, unfocused and mostly white as the retina's gross structure reforms. Then the world snaps into hazy reality, like something seen through a pinhole camera, as the macula - the pit of cells that the lens focuses incoming light onto - forms anew.

Vision clouds and blurs again as the Lens forms. Focusing takes time as the delicate band of muscles worms it's way out and connects to the lenses.

I fall to my knees on the b_a_r_e stone and try and heave my guts onto the floor. It doesn't work. Then I catch sight of my arms and almost lose it.

I've had burns before. Nothing like this. The skin is simply gone from both my arms and hands. The delicate tracery of tendons and the muscles they support laid b_a_r_e under skin which flakes and peels. Only that which is absolutely required for me to move my arms is there. Even as I watch a blood vessel snakes it's way through the muscles, connected here and there. Black, thick blood oozes through it.

The pain is almost as bad as the damage. It's everything and everywhere.

”Minimum functionality restored.”

Right.

I'm dead. I'm n_a_k_e_d. Apart from some threads of melted polyester clinging to my exposed muscles, I'm n_a_k_e_d. In fact I'm super n_a_k_e_d. I'm more n_a_k_e_d than I've ever been before. I'm see my muscles bulge, oh wait, you've run off and gotten a shotgun for the zombie, n_a_k_e_d.

In the snow.

Probably in a fictional universe I don't even like that much.

Everything hurts.

I have to preserve the ring charge I have left. I don't want to die, and running out of power would be a really embarrassing way to do that.

It still takes some time to get the thought together. Everything hurts. But thought controlled weapon/tool? Should be the ultimate point and think, right?

Ring ... restore my epidermis. Eliminate pain.

A vague sense of annoyance emanates from the ring.

”Request tinged with d_e_s_i_r_e.”

Are you saying my deadness is insufficient. That my corpse doesn't contain enough ... I don't know ... what do Black Rings run on? Apathy?

”Emotionlessness. Rationality. The certainty of the grave. The inevitability of the end of all things.”

Wait - are you telling me that rational people want the end of all things?

”Ring has specified a list of traits. One trait does not imply another.”

I hear the crunching of footsteps from up above. Oh. This is not going to go well. For one thing I'm not sure I still have vocal cords.

”Hey, down there, are you alri...AHHHHHHHH.”

My would-be rescuer flees over the snowscape.

Great. Now we're going to have to deal with the local police.

”The police are mortal.”

For whom I probably shouldn't appear as a shambling abomination a la Attack on Titan. People with all their skin on tend to get better results out of people than otherwise. Calmly and rationally I beat down the pain and want my skin back.

The end of all things we can negotiate on later.

”Compliance.”

Black light oozes through my ... muscles. Skin wells up and smooths.

And eyebrows. People love eyebrows. Hair too, while you're at it.

”Subcutaneous fat reserves not sufficient for full restore. Partial restore complete. Additional protein and fat required to complete repair.”

My skin is corpse pale. At least it covers the muscles, which stand clearly defined through it. I've got no fat at all left on my body. Anywhere. I'm also down a fair amount of muslce. Welp. Could be worse.

How, though?

”The Life Entity could be aware of your existence.”

Oh ..... shut up.

I'm in a pit in the middle of nowhere. I could probably do with breakfast. I quite like the sound of complete repair.

”Consumption of food is now irrelevant to the functionality of your physical husk.”

... body. Add command. alias `physical husk` = `body`. Also looking like a famine victim is relevant.

”Black Lantern ring does not run on Linux. Command translated and accepted. Your form will remind people of the end of all.”

So what do you run on?

”Death.”

... you're enjoying this way too much, aren't you?

At least my feet have skin on them again. It's saying something that that isn't a given today. Unfortunately they don't have callouses or anything. So walking is going to be even more of a nightmare.

Oh. Good idea.

Ring - display my current charge status in the corner of my vision. And numb my feet.

I spend a few seconds chasing a small black number which has appeared in the corner of my eye round my visual field.

Let's go for a virtual, stabilized heads up display.

The display stabilizes in the corner of my vision. Falling from orbit (presumably with some protection to my mortal husk, or perhaps not. Depends how high I was as to if I'd have come through re-entry intact) and regenerating me back to where I was before? About seven percent total charge used.

I sigh. No real way around it. Even standing still I'm probably using power.

How long do I have?

”At current charge depletion rate ring will be unable to maintain bodily function in seven months, four days, twelve hours.”

Restrict all ring functions as far as possible and notify me of the charge that will be used before you do anything.

I wish I'd read Blackest Night.

From what I recall the ring that's bonded to my finger and has, by now, grown filaments of itself through my body, runs on hearts. Human heart? Sophont hearts? Does the removal of the heart have to be lethal, or does there have to be a sophont death involved?

Presumably there needs to be some form of production of Black Light. Does that happen when anything dies?

Can I survive on cow hearts? How about cat (I think I remember something about cats being special in some way - that they used to rule the world, before being dreamed into their current form by their human slaves. But that might be a Gaiman thing)? How about pig? How close to sentience does the creature need to be? And if one is sufficiently close to sentience to count should I then not kill it?

Am I willing to kill to survive? Because it's probably going to come to that sooner rather than later.

Also what universe am I in? What are the ground rules? Am I the only superhuman here?

How do I get clothes in the middle of .... wherever in winter?

Ring, does your AI interface use an appreciable level of charge?

”No. Additionally maintaining A.I. functionality is necessary for continual bodily maintenance.”

Does accessing your data banks cost appreciable charge?

”No.”

Trudging through the snow, on a one man open sledge!

While bollock n_a_k_e_d. In the middle of nowhere.

The snowscape stretches for miles around, bisected by a single road. I've follow the tracks from whoever it was that tried to rescue me back to it. Then it was really just a case of picking a direction. The surface is gritty and covered with slush, which makes it a literal pain to walk on, even through the ring induced numbing.

Three or four cars and a school bus have passed us... me. Being gawped at by a load of kids is not how I wanted to start my day. Not that I wanted to start my day with dying and falling out of orbit onto a (hopefully) parallel Earth.

Cause - on the one hand I have a power ring. If I'm still in (on? What's the terminology for interplanar transit I wonder! Gosh darn it I have to be Britishly pedantic! Stiff upper lip and all that) my home reality everything just went to easy mode. World hunger is days away from being solved. Education. Housing. Healthcare. I can give that to everyone on the planet. I can change the world, and it won't take a lifetime of hard graft to do it.

Downside? I'll stay dead.

On the other hand if I'm in a DC derivative universe (or, God... Artemis (do not want to draw the attention of the White, not when I'm a living avatar of the Black) forfend the ramshackled nightmare of the main continuity) then I might well be back to life in time for tea. And dead again a few hours later, as I'd then be a baseline in a world of super powered psychos.

What does it say about a universe that it might be a good idea to stay dead in it?

Ring, do you have an instruction manual.

”I am death given form. My only instruction is to kill.”

So....no?

Chapter 2

So. You have no database. Except what little you pulled from my head. Which might just be completely wrong.

”Correct.”

You have no idea how you came to be on my finger?