The Rage Of A Child

How Fast Things Change

"Mary?" Vera coughed out as the older woman held her throat.

For an instant, a flash of unreadable thoughts and emotions passed Mary's face--Granny Goodness hadn't broken her completly--then molded back into the emotionless face of her new self.

"I am Black Mary, child." She spat out.

"Really? I prefer bloody." Vera used her ring to form a hand to punch Mary in the face.

The ex-hero released her, and Vera flew a few feet away.

"What happened to you?" Vera asked, her natural curiosity overtaking her will for escape.

Mary looked up, an evil, greedy look in her eyes. "I have become who I was always meant to be."

"Atrocitus? Vandal Savage? Queen Bee?" Vera started guessing. She'd heard of the last time Mary was seen, years ago, when her dad first became a hybrid lantern. But she wouldn't turn on her home, people, and family because of a stupid toxic magic helmet right?

Right?

"Darkseid." Mary smiled, a voice behind Vera answering in unison with her.

Vera straightened, understanding who awaited behind her. Curiosity skinned the cat, she chastised herself.

She leveled her ring as she turned around, wrapping herself in a shielded sphere, caught between Black Mary and Atrocitus.

Vera eyed Atrocitus. But he didn't even fire. Instead, she heard a familiar chime come from behind her. And a yellow glow.

Only two civilizations in the universe used boomtubes, the New Gods and...

Vera screamed.

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Kilowog followed the echoing of the scream, even as it was abruptly cut short.

He found himself alone, staring at a surprisingly smooth asteroid, which was charred, as if burned by red lantern energy. In it was the outline of a young girl...

His planet, his people, his family, his wife, his kids, Aya, Tomar-Re...

"NO!"

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We get a floor view or Vera's home. All that is visible are people's feet, and Dex-Starr and Dog.

Nonnie, Edgar, and Kyra come running into the kitchen, wearing funny socks with pictures of stars, faires, and muppets, where Razer swears as he tries to make a bag of popcorn, wearing his lantern boots.

"Dad, when is Vera coming home?"

They have asked this many times, but instead of being annoyed Razer finds joy in tbe love the siblings have for one another.

"In a few days."

"Stop asking!!" Jeannie orders from the living room, where he watches TV with his Mom and Oliver, sitting on the couch so their feet are off the floor.

"See Mom," Oliver explains. "Cringer is the Tiger and..."

A little notification comes from Aya's ring (not an official GL ring but a piece of tech able to do many things. Like a spy ring). Aya excuses herself upstairs to take the call, green and white metal feet banging against the floor.

"Why couldn't we go to Oa?" Kyra groaned.

"Because you have school snd Vera is the only one besides Oliver who can easily catch up on their work." Razer responded.

"Haha!" The young boy laughed.

Dex-Starr padded into the kitchen.

"I hope you urchins are aware Vera will be busy with me when she returns. Torturing me with her books."

"Oh, you like them Dex-Starr. Just like you like us." Nonnie said as he reached down to pet Dex-Starr.

The Red Lantern Cat did not disagree.

Dog sat at the bottom of the stairs. Suddenly, he runs up them and stops before the door of Aya and Razer's room, which is opened just a crack.

With a wag of his tail he walks in, and freezes.

Aya's crumpled on the floor. Dog runs to her a butts bis head against her knees.

"Aya? Aya, what's wrong."

Dog is lifted off the ground, cuddled in Aya's arms.

It makes him so happy, and hurts him so much to be here in these moments. To help. To be hurt in turn.

A howl fills the house.

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Quin stared straight ahead. It was easy to ignore other people's emotions. Or at least it should be. But she couldn't ignore how Mal had to keep pulling herself together.

"Sure you wanna do this?" She questioned gently.

They were to carry Vera's empty coffin--no body, not even a ring to place in it--in the yard of the Red Lanterns of Shard 2.

"We were both her friends--though I didn't know Vera half as well as you do--but I can do it myself. Or ask Bleez or--"

"I can do it Quin, thank you." Mal sighed. "You are such an odd Red La tern Quin."

"With pride." She stared ahead at the red hallways before them, which would open to Shard 2's square, where all the red lanterns, and Vera's family and friends would be waiting.

"She was the youngest." Quin sighed, thinking of the girl she'd only been able to meet a few times. "And so loved. If we had died so soon after we got our rings, we wouldn't have so many people to mourn us.

Of course, only hero friends were on Shard 2 (on Earth the story was that Vera died in a car crash) but there was still so many; Hal, John Stewert, Miss Martian, Superboy, Danny Chase, Anissa Pierce, Black Lightning, Halo, Beast Boy, Tara, Harley Quin (how Vera knew and befriended her is a while other story)...

For a red lantern, that girl had touched a lot of people.

"I'd have no one." Mal sighed quietly.

"I'd have my brother. And Mogo. But Vera...she has so many people. With so many stories about her. I think that would be her favorite part. Her stories. They're about her now."

A single tear dripped down Mal's face. "It's not fear."

Quin gritted her teeth. They were Red Lantern's. They understood that statement to their very hearts. It didn't make it any easier.

"It's not."

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Vera sat haunched over in a small cell. Her ring glowed in her palm, her only source of light. They couldn't take it off. Its power didn't die.

Darkseid couldn't take her rage from her.

And if Vera knew anything, rage could be used as a weapon of change, of justice, of freedom.

But for now, it only gleamed in the pools of her own blood, allowing the young girl to stare at her beaten body and to ponder over what the ruler of Apokolips wanted from her.

A weapon, a soldier, a servant, a fury.

But Darkseid, Granny Goodness, and Black Mary didn't underestimated the true power of her hope that she got from her father and her will from her mother.

And the rage that was all her own.