littleladylord:

A lot of explaining had been necessary. Some of it may have included. "So you see, Beautiful, the key is to use your resources to get as much territory as possible -- particularly strategically consolidated by color region -- and fortify it with these little structures."

But Cindy had finally gotten as many of the New Guardians as possible around this particular table. She was patient; she was gentle. She didn't rush anyone, and even gave little reminders. But within half an hour, she had houses on New York (always a good strategic investment. The orange was bonus), and Monopoly can be a long, long game.

littleladylord:

The team had been working on things. Cindy had meant it when she'd asked Gauntlet to leave and resolved that the team's period of complete incompetence and injuries-waiting-to-happen was over.

A lot of the security equipment she'd commissioned could double as obstacle course material, and there were several other workout options. And, for more direct combat-defense lessons, there was Saishu.

Cindy'd suspected that her own training sessions with Saishu had been, from a Bana perspective, the heavily toned-down version. And that had been extremely challenging for someone with nearly two year's training. So she'd tried to help rein things in a little, though Saishu was right. The bad guys wouldn't.

And there was improvement. There really was. But they had to keep working on it.

Andy's personal adjustment to learning to function hadn't gone well. Andy was now in a secure location. Andy would be safer and more comfortable there for now. That was all Cindy was going to say about that. But the six of them persisted.

She'd made sure everyone had a good chunk of their calendars cleared today. Now it was a matter of seeing who'd show up.

loveontherocks:

It was a pretty normal Sunday in Chicago, home of the New Guardians.  Fortunately, for the novice super-heroes and possibly future guardians of humanity and the emotional spectrum, it had been a fairly quiet period for them, giving them time to live their lives, do a little heroing here and there, and otherwise do what they could.

A lazy Sunday, the perfect time for a baseball game on the television.   Cubs vs. the Star City Rockets.  Current score, Cubs 2, Rockets 1.  Bottom of the fifth, two men on, two strikes, a long single and...

"SAFE?!  How is that  safe?!  That ball was there way ahead of him!"

loveontherocks:

The fact of the matter was...  Heather was changing.  Ever since she'd finished regrowing her legs from the last batch of injuries (and thank goodness no insane space people had tried to do anything in the time since), and maybe even going back to the start of her relationship with Lenny, she had begun to feel... different.

When she kissed him, she could feel it.  Feel it in a way she'd thought was impossible since her transformation, since her senses of smell and taste and touch had all been stripped away from her.  Felt different in her skin, a skin that she had thought was hard and immobile, but seemed more flexible and yielding than before.

She was still definitely made of crystal... but what kind of crystal seemed different than before. 

A couple of weeks ago, she had gotten her sense of smell back.

Last week, she had felt different, as though she was no longer solid crystal through and through.  But there had been nothing to test that.  Her sense of touch had begun to return with it.

Today, she had woken up starving.  She'd grown so used to powering herself off the feelings of love from people around her--and in a house with couples, that had not been hard--that she'd almost begun to forget what having to eat what like.

But today?  Today she was eating cereal.  It was plain cornflakes.

And it was the most wonderful thing ever.

loveontherocks:

By locking on to Saishu again, Heather had been able to lead Andy and Lenny to Cindy, Harry, Jess, and Saishu.  With the flying members carrying the non-fliers, they made their way back to the beach.  Because, in the face of all logic, Ganthet was still there and who knew what the Controllers were doing to him.

As they came in from the air, it turned out to be fairly bad.  Strung up by his arms and legs by Effigy flames, one of the Controllers--there were only two of them remaining now--blasted him with bolts of cosmic energy.  His red cloak was singed, his blue skin blackened in places.  And he was screaming.

"Uh... plan?" Heather asked.

lantern_corps:

The island was nice enough, a tropical climate.  Ganthet had brought them to the beach there, and began his instruction.

"Consider, if you will, the different emotional entities, how they are paired, and from where they arise," Ganthet began.

"Rage and Love, for example, are emotions that are directed towards something.  You feel love for your companion, or rage at those who have wronged you.  They sit the farthest from the center of Will that is at the core of the Emotional Spectrum, because they are emotions of passion, here in one moment, gone in the next, difficult to sustain and yet able to consume one if left to flicker and burn for too long by themselves.

"Greed and Compassion, move closer to the center, and act as more intrinsic emotions.  Greed is a desire for more, never satisfied with what you have, always seeking to possess and control more.  Compassion is the empathy for the suffering of others, the understanding of other viewpoints and situations, feeling for them and seeking to mend them.  These emotions exist more solidly, more states of being that flare-ups of passion.

"Fear and Hope just left and right of center, are different in that while those are emotions that may be felt, as the Emotional Spectrum understands them, they are emotions that can be caused in others.  The Fears that claw at us in the dark, the Hope that tomorrow will be better.  Those who wield the Lights of Fear and Hope are beacons of these emotions, fanning the flames of those emotions around them.  They know them, and how to wield them to best effect.

"Willpower stands at the center, and stands alone.  It is the ability to overcome fear, to turn hope into action.  It is the ability to fight to make compassion a reality and to resist greed's temptations.  It is the ability to temper the fires of rage and the passions of love with the need for clarity and reality.  Though my brothers are wrong in ignoring the other Lights, they were correct when we believed that the Light of Willpower has the potential to be the strongest of them all."

He looked them over.  "To know your Light is to know yourself.  Think, and search within you.  What about you drew your Light to you?"

lantern_corps:

Ganthet had, due to his dealings with the leaders of the various Corps, left the New Guardians alone for far longer than he would have preferred.  He had been there to offer the occasional piece of guidance and philosophy, but was well aware of how much had transpired in his absence.

He was, however, immensely proud of them all.  They had risen to the challenges before them like he knew they would, like the heroes he knew they could become.

Now, however, he had appeared in their home. 

"New Guardians," he said, using his power so that his voice would reach each of them.  "I would speak with you."

dc_misc:

Cain had been planning this for months. The Chicago art museum had in it's possession some artifacts that they knew little of worth of having only exhibited them once before placing them in storage. These artifacts had come from Enoch the scared city that Cain had founded and he would not let them rot in some museum backroom like that. Especially when they might hold the clues to him finding the city at long last.

He had dispatched Brother Phlegethon to Chicago with some of his best stealth teams to take care of all of this.

Soon after arriving in the city and casing the museum the city was rocked by a series of explosions set up of Phlegethon. It would be all over the news in no time. But the figured they could get in and out without any trouble.

ms_miracle:

Well, they'd managed to convince their parents (a little less hers, it was high time she moved out anyway, though she was keeping her basement workshop) that their moving in together was a good idea.  The age gap had come up, but they were in love and nothing much was going to stop them even if their parents didn't approve.    Checks had been signed, keys handed over, furniture purchased (Avia wasn't big on throwing around money, but she certainly did have it to throw when she needed it), things packed and later unpacked, the placement of furniture discussed and tweaked...

And they were finally moved in.

And, being finally settled, they were able to throw a housewarming party.  Avia's JLA teammates, Will's JSA teammates, Cindy and the New Guardians, Di and Ri and their Titans friends if they wanted to come... anybody who made their mutual association list.

Ought to be one swinging shindig.

loveontherocks:

Heather was sitting in the middle of the New Guardians' living room, idly watching the Cubs game on the television, but mostly focusing on the sketch pad in front of her.  She wasn't nearly as good with drawing as she had been with sculpting (even before sculpting got really easy), but she had a good enough eye for it, and had had plenty of color theory to back everything else up.

Carefully, she colored in the design in front of her, taking extra caution both because of her greater strength and simply because her sense of touch was not quite what it once was. 

Yeah...  Not too bad.

Considering she'd named them, putting her money a bit more where her mouth was was not necessarily a bad thing.  Even if they weren't really supposed to be super-heroes.

loveontherocks:

So, they had agreed to go the charity ball.  Heather recognized a few people, she thought.  The mayor, for one.  Maybe a couple local celebrities.  And sadly, a fair amount of media coverage inside, though the team had managed to escape at least some of the attention.

She was carrying  a drink.  Not because she could drink it, but because it at least gave her something to do with her hands.  She was a little uncomfortable, she had to admit, with this much of an overt display of wealth and power.

But it was good for them and good for the city and, more importantly, good for the people they'd helped.  She just had to keep telling herself that.

loveontherocks:

A few days later (after Heather had returned from Opal with Jess and Harry), mail arrived at the New Guardians headquarters (or their PO box, anyway).  They'd left a couple ways to get a hold of them after the fire rescue, though none that would disrupt their privacy, at least, not yet.

It was an invitation to appear at a charity ball that was being hosted to raise money for the victims of the fire.

This got a team meeting.  "So...." Heather asked.  "Do we go?"

loveontherocks:

Opal City

Okay, deep breaths, even if she didn't actually breathe anymore.  It was still a pretty good steadying action.  A quick teleport from Harry had brought Heather, Jess, and Harry himself to Opal City, and a relatively short flight had brought them to outside her parents' house.

It was a pretty decent sized townhouse.  Heather's father, she explained, was a doctor, and her mother a lawyer. 

She stared at her cellphone.  Call first, let them know she was outside.  She could knock, sure (hell, she had keys), but there was only so much surprise she wanted to dish out in one move.

Another breath.  "Thanks for coming with me, guys."

loveontherocks:

Heather absently flipped through the channels, and every time it hit on the news, it was about them. Footage of them in action at the fire and after, her--what had she been thinking--sudden naming of them, after Cindy had supplied their group name...

Heather had never really been used to people paying attention to her, especially not like this.

Somehow, fan sites had already gone up on the internet. Most of it was clean, fortunately, but some of it... well, she was going to need brain bleach to unsee some of that.

"So..." she said, mostly to herself, but anyone within earshot would hear. "Now what?"

loveontherocks:

"Okay!" Heather called into the rest of the complex. "DVD player's finally set up! We've got movie night!"

Things had been going rather well for her and her fellow Lights. The art show had made her more money than she'd ever had at one time in her life, her parents had somehow managed not to find out, she'd sold a piece to Ralph Dibny and his wife who'd happened to be in Chicago and had used to live in Opal, and had spent a portion of Valentine's Day faintly high off the love fumes.

Which really explained the charge she sometimes got around Cindy and Saishu or Harry and Jess.

Ganthet showed up on his own schedule, getting them to work with their powers or offering some kind of abstract philosophy.

And most of the time, she didn't feel like crying when she looked in the mirror. Pretty good.

dc_holiday:

Drink to me, only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine ;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst, that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine :
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not wither'd be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me :
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee. Ben Johnson

loveontherocks:

Heather still couldn't believe the article in the Tribune's Arts and Entertainment section. "Local artist Heather Collins... first gallery... works entirely in crystal... metahuman art scene... gallery opens tonight... guest list is expected to include Cynthia Lord, daughter of... famous escape artist and charity advocate Avia Free... local celebrity actor..."

She took a couple of deep breaths, despite the fact that the action did precious little other than to circulate some air through her crystaline body. She was definitely going to have to call her parents after this. Opal wasn't exactly in the same broadcast range as Chicago, but... well, it was a city with a pretty strong interest in the arts. Something like this might make it into the news cycle.

She couldn't blame Cindy for setting this up. The thought of people coming to see something she'd created had already done wonders for her self confidence. And Cindy, being the person that she was with the connections that she had, had been more than good at getting some publicity, and had been good for inviting those nice Justice League people, even if they were coming in their secret identities.

Another deep breath, and Heather left the back room, heading back out into the gallery itself. There were seven large statues in the show, representing the Entities. There were smaller statues too, of varying sizes, mostly of fantasy figures, though one marked "Raging Goddess" was a special commission that was already carrying a "sold" tag. Not her first paid project, but certainly the one she'd been paid the most for. Quite the satisfied customer there.

"Alright," she said, checking her watch. "Twenty minutes to open."

loveontherocks:

The New Guardians' home was big enough that Heather had been afforded a room to use for her art projects, something that she threw herself into whenever possible in order to distract herself from the mess that her life had become.

She liked her new friends, certainly. She hadn't had many before, being too introverted for her own good. And they were good people, but none of them had changed as drastically as she had. As supportive as they had been, they couldn't understand, not really.

The little moments that filled up a person's day, things like eating, brushing their teeth, using the toilet... She didn't do any of those little things anymore. Her sense of smell and taste was gone, or nearly so. Her sense of touch diminished, different. Everything that had been flesh replaced by sapphire crystal. Even her hair wasn't really hair, but some kind of finely spun crystal too. No internal organs, not if it had been believed when she'd been blasted on the Manhunter world. Crystal has slowly regrown itself, repairing what damage had been done. She didn't even breathe, though she somehow was able to still talk (how, she had no idea. She was an art major, no a biologist. Though what she probably really needed to be right now was a mineralogist.).

But the one thing she did enjoy... was her ability to spin crystal. She'd always poured her heart and soul into her art, made love to the clay, as they said, but now... now it was the purest extension of herself that it could possibly be. Every thought made into violet crystal, crystal which moved and responded to her very thoughts.

She moved her fingers slightly as she willed the crystal into being, one of a series of sculptures. The last of seven. A bull, a snake, a bug, a whale, a bird, a cephalopod, and now, some kind of predatory animal rounding out the set, each intertwined with a human figure in some fashion. A barbarian slaughtering the bull, a fat man grasping the snake, a skeleton with the bug on its head, a man like a green statue with the whale obscuring his manhood, a nun bowed in prayer under the bird's wingspan, a tribal looking woman cradling the cephalopod, and an amazonian woman fearful in the beast's grasp.

"...Face it, Heather," she said to herself, "you put these in that show Cindy's getting you, and people will call you one of those mad artists."

lantern_corps:

With their escape from the Manhunter world, the heroes and the new lights returned to the planet Oa.  There, for the benefit of Jess and Lenny, Ganther reiterated what he had told the others, about the origins of the entities and their powers.

"You have," he began, "the potential for much greatness, to usher in a new age for mankind.  The strength of your people, united fully with the emotional spectrum... 

"It is the first step to a glorious destiny.  My brothers have asked that I guide you."

A half truth.  Though they had no authority to, they had tasked him with watching over them.  It was the only way to keep them free.  He would do this, because it was right, not because they wanted him to.

"I will help you.  With your powers, with your place in this world.  With those who would come after you.  And I will seek to understand all that has happened to you, to help you however I can."

"What say you?"

ms_miracle:

Warrior's Bar and Grill was officially closed for the evening, and with good reason.  Avia and Petra had taken it over for the annual "Rate the Hunks" party, though that was in truth, only a small part of the evening.  The various women of the teams getting to socialize and have fun and get to know each other was far more important that drooling over the sweet, sweet eyecandy that was...

Wait.  What was she thinking about?

But invitations had gone out to all the super-women in Avia's Rolodex, including the JSA, the YJLA, the Titans, and the New Guardians, and anyone else anyone else knew.  There was food, alcohol for those old enough,  background music.

"Looks like we're all set, Petra, m'groovy gal pal."

Now, folks just had to show.

greenwillpower:

This had just sort of happened. She wasn't sure how exactly but Harry was a nice guy. A nice guy who liked football too apparently.

So she had figured out when a game would be on. She had then asked if he wanted to watch it with her. Then when he said yes she went and made a metric ton of Buffalo wings so they'd have something to pick at through out the game. It's slightly sad to her that she can make meat very well but pies and green beans turn into burnt bricks if she attempts them.

She also had some beer for the game. She wasn't sure she'd drink any of it but it was around just in case. She had no idea if Harry drank beer. She just knew that while she wasn't technically old enough to have beer legally she still managed to get it whenever she wanted it. If she got nervous during this date she might need it to settle her nerves a bit. Harry did after all seem like the kind of guy she would really like and that could make this go either really well or extra awkward.

loveontherocks:

So. Heather had woken up today and worked on some of her sculptures. In the time since, she'd been changed into rock candy by a purple light, been nearly captured by alien robots, rescued by a girl with magic powers, told by Papa Smurf that she was the host to something called the "Predator", hauled off to an alien planet to watch the Justice League fight a bunch of Green Lanterns alongside a guy who was yellow and had fangs and a crazy Amazonian woman, met two more people with light things inside them, been told that the evil alien robots had a couple people like them and that the alien robots were working for the guy who'd destroyed Coast City, and was now floating in a bubble generated by a Green Lantern with the others like her, with other Green Lanterns, the Justice League, and a handful of Blue Lanterns, which she didn't even know existed before today.

Yeah.

She was gonna need a lot of therapy to get over this one.

lantern_corps:

That only a fraction of the Young Justice Leaguers had returned with the Earthlings playing host to the shards of the Emotional Entities was worrying for Ganthet.  Worse, that some of them had been captured by the Manhunters.   Those taken by the Green Lanterns, well, he had to believe that his Brothers would treat them humanely, if not exactly in comfort.  Those that were there, and the Leaguers themselves, deserved an explanation.

"My name is Ganthet," he began, "and I am--or was--one of the Guardians of the Universe.  My people were among the first lifeforms to evolve in the universe and to make up for the failing of one of our own, we have been attempting to safeguard the universe ever since.  To do that, we learned to harness a power even greater and older than ourselves, the Lights of the Emotional Spectrum."

As he spoke, again, he illustrated his point with green power.  "In the beginning, there was nothing.  Darkness reigned.  And then there came the White Light, and this was the Light of Life.  Life reigned for a time... and then... something more.

There came the Will to live, and Ion, Green Avatar of Willpower, was born.  Simple creatures, living in the waters, but slowly, they came to know Fear, fear of being attacked and eaten, the 'flight or fight' response that all living beings hold.  From this Fear came Parallax and the Yellow Light.  But Life continued to endure.  The passion that was Love eventually ignited and the Predator and the Violet Light were born.  When the first creature ate what it did not need, Avarice and Ophidian of the Orange Light, arose.  The first murder, sparked from jealous Rage, gave birth to the Red Light and the Butcher.  Tragedy gave birth to prayer, which sparked the Blue Light of Hope and the creation of Adara.  And at last, Compassion, rarest of the Emotions and a Light still not fully understood, gave rise to the Indigo Entity called Proselyte.

Each of these Lights and Entities has been harnessed by factions within the universe, each using them to empower a Corps, wielding their power through Rings.

In more recent times, the Black, the color of lifelessness and death, took up arms against the other Entities and the White Entity of Light, which lies safely ensconced within this world.  When this happened for the second time, and the Entities were imprisoned.  They were freed, by the efforts of Lanterns and heroes from this planet. 

But the Entities were changed by their imprisonment, fragmented.  They recovered, but a piece of them was... missing.  Their pieces eventually made their way here, to this world, home of the White Light.  They found hosts here, you, and others like you. 

You are the future of humanity, the Lights of the Emotional Spectrum and humanity, unique throughout the cosmos, united into something that has never been seen before.  You have the potential to usher in a New Age. 

But not all are happy with this.  My Brothers, the Guardians of the Universe, seek to control Emotion with logic and reason alone.  The Manhunters wish to suppress emotion themselves, to kill it under cold, machine logic.  The others of you must be rescued.  Or this entire universe is doomed."

lantern_corps:

The headquarters of the YJLA

For a moment, all was quiet and dark in the headquarters of the YJLA.  Sophisticated monitoring equipment kept track of emergencies around the world and in near-space, all quietly humming away into the night.

The quiet was suddenly broken by a crackle of green light, briefly illuminating the entire meeting room in its verdant glow.  The glow subsided after a moment, coalescing into a single figure out a little blue man, the symbol of the Blue Lanterns glowing upon his chest.  His expression was far from unreadable; in fact, he looked rather worried, as though the weight of the universe was bearing down upon him.

There was little he liked about this.  He would have preferred to bring his Blue Lanterns into this, but without a Green to work with, their powers were limited.  And they could not work with the Green Lanterns on this.  Not until he had had time to persuade them that this course of action was the correct one.  They would act hastily.  And though they would not admit it, they would be acting from emotion.  Things rarely went well when his brothers acted upon their little understood emotions.

Instead, he reached out with the Green power that was still his birthright and rather unceremoniously brought each member of the Young Justice League to their headquarters.