Tuesday, April 19

end of line

The digital readout in Ash's helmet focused on the squadron of Recognizers hovering in the distance.

"Twenty. Closing quickly." He turned to face the exhausted warriors behind him. "Resistors! Rezz your cycles! This shall be our last..."

The column of light that pierced the sky and bore into the unformatted, broken ground interrupted them.

"The aperture! The Founder has heard us!"

The Resistors activated their batons, and the components of their vehicles formed around them, save for one.

Ash approached the sole User in their midst. His power suit gleamed with emerald circuitry and his breastplate was emblazoned with a symbol foreign to the Grid.

"Ryder. Please join us."

He shook his head.

"Your world isn't mine, Ash. I belong in the 21st century, not the 19th. Besides..."

Ryder lifted his hand and clenched his fist. His ring began to flicker.

"...if there's still even one ISO hiding somewhere in the Grid, I need to keep CLU-less from finding them. Also, someone needs to keep those Recognizers back before the aperture closes. You don't want a new digital menace in your quaint steampowered world would you?" He smirked.

"You have no battery to recharge your ring."

"I found a workaround. Now go."

"Ryder. I..."

He nodded slowly. "I know." He gestured towards the aperture.

Ash looked back once more as he stood at the head of the formation. With a flick of his wrist he powered up his baton, and crouched into the vehicle that now encased him.

"Resistors! To the Steamlands! Your second life awaits!"

Ribbons of color flashed like lighting towards the column, gradually fading behind them.

Ryder knelt and pressed his ring to the ground. Emerald cracks opened in the jagged surface in the shape of the symbol of his Corps as he drew raw power from the Grid itself.

"Through photon pulse of static night
defense against corrupted might
I purge now Evil's viral blight
by the power- GREEN LANTERN'S LIGHT!"




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