Nearly seven feet tall, the enhanced bruiser moved like a human locomotive, his massive frame corded with inhuman muscle. The concrete cracked beneath his bulk as he launched himself at his target, rage and the promise of victory warring across his scarred face.
Cole didn't flinch. His apathy was intentional—and noticed.
His attention was locked on the richly dressed mutant, Gorgon. Under the guise of a government agent, Cole's gaze held a sharp, unmasked weight—one that made even the suited mutant falter. Gorgon met his stare, the same way he had during whispered conversations with the Snakeroot master.
They exchanged words in a tongue Cole knew too well—his mother's language. It needled the wounds that never healed. Rage festered beneath the calm, stoked by the Lazarus Pit's unnatural venom.
A realization struck him: that fury from the grave wasn't a problem anymore. It was his. There was no line between him and Jeremy. The personas weren't separate. Each mask twisted him, added something to the whole. He was becoming something new—something complete.
The Snakeroot ninja, whose name Cole hadn't bothered to remember, gave a subtle hand signal. His soldiers moved in, forming a circle. A man-to-man arena.
'Fitting,' Cole thought.
The Snakeroot leader sat cross-legged, weapon before him, watching intently. Cole hadn't asked his name. It didn't matter. Like The Hand, they would all die—for what they did to his parents.
He shifted his focus back to the bruiser—El Uno. The man lumbered forward, arms out, trying to grapple.
"Stupid," Cole muttered.
Once, El Uno may have been a match. Now? Not even close. Cole scanned him in an instant, identifying a hundred openings.
[+10] Criminology: Deception. Stealth. Infiltration. Demolition. Enhanced Investigation.
His very first persona his most complete form—Jason Todd aka Red Hood hardened mind and even harsher earned skill, one he embodied from his teacher Batman-Bruce Wayne.
He picked one.
A sharp duck. A sidestep. One jab—measured. His fist landed in the man's side. El Uno exhaled sharply, stumbling, pain blooming across his face.
"You've taken from me," Cole said under the guise as Kilgore.
Kilgore advanced. El Uno raised a guard, but Cole's next blow snapped his forearms like dry twigs. The big man roared, his limbs useless at his sides.
"You talk of honor—but what honor is there in slaughtering a man, forcing him to watch his wife die, leaving a son to grow up alone?"
Power crackled from Cole's form, like a snake shedding its skin. His aura peeled back, something deeper bleeding through.
Gorgon stood, removing his shades, his katana glinting in the light. He recognized it now—what stood before him was no longer just the man, this was Jason Todd.
Two small blades materialized in his hands. He spun them effortlessly, eyes locked on El Uno's wide-eyed expression.
"You remember now?" he asked. "Pain has a way of waking the mind."
El Uno looked to Gorgon, desperate.
"Help me—"
"Coward," Jeremy hissed, his rage boiling over.
"You're not just the suit anymore," Gorgon noted quietly.
"And you're not the genius you pretend to be," Cole shot back. "We're all just fragments—less than we thought."
His words caused a stir as Gorgon growled under his breath and stepped toward him. Cole wanted this, too. But the ninja master extended his sheathed blade to block him.
"Control yourself or be controlled by others." Lectured the ninja in Japanese.
"Commendable words from murderous demon-worshiping cultists that prey on women and the innocent," Cole said, unfurling a sliver of what he kept hidden beneath.
Anger spiked at his words as the atmosphere grew tense. Ninjas reached for their blades. The master scowled, not at Cole but at the strange, undisciplined elites he had brought with him.
Cole smiled as the master looked at him, his eyes squinting.
'Smart. He just might be more of a challenge than he assumed.'
El Uno hadn't been idle; his efforts had just been futile and elementary, and Cole hadn't considered the man a threat.
There was no illusion that he had almost ended the man before.
"I'm going to tear you limb from limb." He shouted, throwing a straight jab at him.
Cole moved, the sizable ham-fisted blow passing an inch from his face, the wind jostling his brown, shaggy hair.
He stepped into the man's space and delivered a blow to his midsection. The brute gasped and folded over the more petite man, his considerable bulk being held up by Cole. He shouldered the man, and he tumbled to the ground.
"You can take pain and turn it into strength and durability and increased healing, but that's it. You cannot take debilitating blows.
Cole Stephens—under the alias Special Agent Kurt Kilgore—smirked. His peppered beard stretched over a face carved from granite.
The master readied himself.
"You lack honor. You—"
He gestured lazily.
Three ninjas blurred forward.
Snap.
A red alchemic sigil lit up Cole's glove.
[+5] Pyrokinesis: Create and control fire. Manipulate heat in your immediate vicinity.
Force Multiplier: Roy Mustang Glove
A burst of flame erupted. The heat forced the ninjas back. Three screamed, ignited by the conflagration.
"He's a mutant," someone whispered.
Cole barely heard them. His vision blurred. His knees buckled.
"You're out of stamina. That attack drained you," someone mocked.
They were wrong.
An unfamiliar sensation crashed over him—like a system reboot. His daggers fell as he stumbled. El Uno struck, sending him skidding across the floor and into a support beam.
Cole didn't move.
"Weakling," El Uno sneered, grabbing him and hurling him again. Cole's body slammed into debris, breaking wood and steel.
He groaned. "What the fuck…"
Another punch. Blood filled his mouth. Jeremy stirred within.
He snapped his nose back into place, spat blood, and grinned through crimson teeth.
This time, when El Uno moved, Cole met him. He blocked, countered, and hit back—hard.
A prompt blinked into view.
System Message: Snakeroot Black Ops Immolated.
Snakeroot Relationship: Curious.
Reward(s): $200,000.
Force Sensitivity – Power Gained: Push
He dodged.
Then came pain—sudden and absolute.
He hadn't sensed the master. But he felt the blade. It pierced through his back and exited his chest.
Cole screamed, the sound tearing from his soul. The Force exploded outward. Ninjas were thrown like rag dolls.
"Such power, wasted on you," the master sneered.
Cole wavered, sluggish and wounded. He spun and was punched again—but didn't fall.
"Cowards!" he spat.
"Stop El Uno," ordered the master. "But before you die, know this—your charge is being claimed. Elektra should have him by now."
'Elektra?' His mind reeled. The ring on his finger burned hot.
"What?" he croaked.
The master smirked, cleaning the katana.
"Muramasa. Cancels healing. You're not invincible."
Cole staggered. His depth perception was shot.
"Who is my charge?"
The master chuckled. "Jeremy York. Didn't you ever wonder why we targeted you? You dared interfere with what belongs to us."
Cole's heart thundered.
"Yours?"
"Jeremy's insignificant. A candidate. But not the vessel. That honor may fall to Elektra. You tried to stop us. You failed. Just like the others."
"Why did you kill them?" Cole asked, clutching his chest.
"Kill who?"
"My parents…" His voice was a growl.
"Inconsequential."
The ring blazed. His heart slowed. Jeremy surged.
"I wanted to…" He coughed, blood trailing down his chin. "Doesn't matter."
The lantern ring burned on his finger, and his heart beating slowed to almost nothing. His healing factor hadn't been turned off, but the wounded heart was directly made useless.
Jeremy had heard enough. His anger spiked, and heat poured from him. Cole groaned, trying to ground the rage, but the damn blade had made his transformation into a lantern Inevitable.
"I wanted to…" He coughed, blood splattering against the ground, "It doesn't matter…"
Sweltering heat scoured the surrounding men as they took tentative steps back from the down enemy.
"Kill him," shouted Gorgon, taking steps away from the heat.
The master ignored the man but continued to speak to his defeated opponent.
"You're powerful, but it's useless. Nobody survives Muramasa's blade."
"I'm angry." He muttered.
"What did you say?"
Cole removed his hand. He began to tilt but caught himself and pushed himself from the ground, standing on wobbly legs."
The snakeroot ninjas drew blades. The master looked on unbothered.
"You're able to stand in that condition. Truly an amazing feat." He praised, genuinely surprised.
"Let me end him." Shouted El Uno, pushing his way through the encirclement.
The master nodded, agreeing that he was also sensing something strange occurring; no mutant nor man could survive such a wound.
El Uno took one step before he came to a halt.
"With blood and Rage of crimson Red, ripped from a corpse so freely dead, together with our hellish hate, I'll burn you all. That is your fate!"
He had chanted the oath that he accepted what seemed like years ago for the second time.
When a Red Lantern gets a ring, their heart explodes, and their blood spoils, turning the run into their life force and turning their blood into one of the deadliest weapons in their arsenal.
Cole was different. He had held the ring and barely been affected. His blood was unique but not spoiled, as he still had his heart, but that powerful weapon had changed that.
His ring gave glowed menacingly as the red light spiraled around viciously. he screamed as his heart grew more prominent and blacker, his blood spoiling, but the Lazarus Pitt energy he inherited from his persona also had toxic but life-saving effects.
The wound scarred over, leaving a glaring scar over his heart, a first for him—red energy warped and spooled around Cole as he transformed.
His uniform shifted, taking on the colors and appearance of the red lanterns.
In the outside everyone sensitive had felt the his abrupt transformation into the lantern. He was suffused with so much power he begun to hover off the ground as the energy was finally released.
Atrocious Ring had finally been realized, Jeremy anger simply vanished but he had changed his mind just as quick as he thought it.
It wasn't gone, his beyond-the-grave rage was infusing him. Refocusing on his surrounding the first and only force sensitive teenager. Red rimmed eyes looked around and the madness grew by what he saw.
"No," he said, his posture rising to full height, shoulders square despite the blood leaking from his wounds.
"Justice will be served today for everyone you've broken. Everyone you've buried."
El Uno charged again, fists cocked back. "You're dying and bluffing—"
Jeremy caught his punch mid-air—one-handed.
The room froze.
"I wasn't talking to you."
His first act as a lantern was the utter annihilation of El Uno. The man had no chance, he was simply erased as a beam iridescent red energy slammed into him.
The lantern beam carved its away across the ground, leaving a car size groove before exploding an entire side of the building.
System message: Human-mutate Bruiser Vanquished. Tarantula Organization Relationship: Enraged. Reward(s): +Hero alignment. $2,000,000. Batmobile: Knightcrawler
The Snakeroot black ops picked themselves up all staring at the transformed teen before them but the most confounding issue was they were looking at someone else.
"You! You're Jeremy York."
Cole ignored him. He was familiarizing himself with the significance of his transformation.
'Is this what Ka'L feels? Its amazing.' He thought to himself.
He floated transformed.
The remaining ninjas hesitated. Even Gorgon faltered.
Jeremy turned, eyes burning like coals. His blood sizzled where it hit the floor.
"You thought killing my parents would break me. You thought taking Jeremy York would scare me. You thought bringing Elektra into this would make me hesitate?"
He walked forward. Not ran. Walked. And the ninjas parted around him like waves around a ship.
"I am the hesitation," he whispered.
The snakeroot noble cursed in old Japanese, drawing the cursed blade Muramasa. "This is no longer about you. There are greater forces at play."
"Yeah?" Jeremy grinned, revealing bloodstained teeth. "Let me guess—Hand prophecy? Black Sky reborn? Sacred vessel?"
He stopped just short of the Chunin his amulet warming against his chest.
"You picked the wrong vessel to orphan."
Suddenly, the air shuddered. His heart beat in his chest more stronger then before his spoiled blood thrumming through his veins intermingling with the vicious Lazarus substances invigorating him.
—>[+17] Inhuman Enriched Healing Factor: Do to your physical makeup you can heal from extreme mental and physical trauma in minutes. Your healing can further augmented by your still-growing chi core.
Spoiled Heart: Lanterns need not a heart long as their ring remains. Yet yours still pumps. Your heart has evolved. Itnow pumps an Ectoplasmic substance directly tied to the Lazarus pit.
Red Lantern Mantle: The first Lantern has been chosen; the Host now bears the responsibility of holding the Mantle of the Red Lantern Corps.
The First Ring- Atrocious: You wield the first Red Lantern Ring ever created. The boundless Rage of Atrocious fuels your powers. Furthermore, unlike the more scientific Green Lantern Ring, the Red Lantern Ring uses vast amounts of magic in its construction.
A Red Lantern's ring is one of the most potent weapons in the known Universe. Red Lantern's ring can affect and use fundamental forces of the known Universe, including electromagnetic energies such as gravity, radiation, heat, light, and powerful blasts of concussive force.
The ring can also create fields of power formed from a red energy spectrum. However, such use is limited by the user's skill, knowledge, and imagination.
—>[+19] Rage Suppression: Said to be a rarity among Red lanterns, holders of this power need not the baptism of the blood ocean. You can control all the Red Lantern ring's degrees of intensity; lanterns under you have limited access to your passive suppression.
—>Rage Empowerment: Your new mutant ability, Raging Strength, synergies with your plasmoid blood. Under the influence of the Ring[Activated], Rage itself becomes your strength.