Part 1 - Ring Around the Rosie

[wieldtherainbow]

The briefing was, well, brief, given the complicated situation they were being thrust into. Stacy tried to give them as much as she could but apparently her intel on this universe was rather limited.

For this reason, they were dumped rather unceremoniously on a vast planet, with grassy green fields, the dropship that dropped them off retreating on autopilot and disappearing back into the transdimensional ether. It was a lovely planet at the very least, with vast deep blue skies, teeming with vegetation, but oddly, they all would likely find themselves dealing with the unnerving inkling feeling that they were somehow being watched. There were no sentients or even animals in site, however.

The only thing they could do right now was wait. They had been told that they would be found, that they would be offered rings, taken into these different Corps of people, and they they needed to make sure the war ended in a way that didn't devastate life in this universe.

That was something of a tall order.

[ooc: Go!]

Comments

[nerves_of_steel]

"You won't," John replied, squaring up to Sherlock in preparation for their fist-fight. "I'm going to have it put in our lease. 'Sherlock is not allowed to put any of his extremities into any orifices without a note from his doctor'. And," he grinned. "It is entirely a matter of letting you win."

[on_your_nerves]

"Are you sure you'd want to word it that way?" Sherlock asked, nose twitching in amusement. Then he took a swing at John with some yellow ring energy behind it.

"And it is isn't. In the least."

[nerves_of_steel]

"Why, got any--" John didn't get to finish his mock-taunt, rolling with the punch and falling onto a hastily-created blob of green energy. He sprang back to his feet and returned the favour with a wild swing supported by green energy. John also protected his knuckles with a construct not unlike a boxing glove. His surgery days might be behind him now, but he still didn't want to ruin his hands.

"Is so," he retorted. Then, more loudly so that everyone who cared to could hear, as he launched himself at Sherlock, "YOU TOLD ME YOU GOT THAT SKULL FROM SOMEONE WHO'D WILLED THEIR BODY TO SCIENCE!"

[wieldtherainbow]

"Easy there, Johnny-boy," Guy said, peeling John off of Sherlock and flicking the prone Yellow Lantern away with another giant green hand. "You don't know what you're doing with that thing yet, you could hurt yourself."

He wasn't even bothering to hide his grin, but it was toothy enough to pass as almost-malicious glee over the Green-Yellow enmity returning to normal levels.

[on_your_nerves]

"You were always so blind! That's what made you useful to me--and that's all you were. Useful. You don't understand power--not real power, like this!"

As usual, his theatrics were on the melodramatic side but actually fairly convincing.

"I was saving you for last," he said in a strange tone that didn't sound natural coming from a human throat.

[nerves_of_steel]

John lunged against John and Kyle's restraining constructs, face twisted in a snarl.

"I hope your bloody ring has a map in it!" he shouted back. "So you don't get lost out there in the solar system!"

[on_your_nerves]

Sherlock's face immediately took on a look of genuine annoyance, but he managed to segue it into one of fake anger and condescension.

"You would say something like that when you're the type that thinks the green is more effective than the yellow," he snarled in a low and dangerous voice.

(One of the ongoing arguments in the flat had been over which colour dish soap was most effective. Not which brand--which colour.)

"You just couldn't handle it all, could you. You couldn't handle what I did to Miss Scarlet. In the library. With the spanner. You couldn't handle what I did to you that night, winding you up until you actually picked up a knife and stabbed away. Do you know how thrilling that was?"

[nerves_of_steel]

John struggled to maintain his wrathful expression in the face of Sherlock bringing up their arguments about Cluedo and dish soap, of all things. (Though he was going to remind Sherlock that he'd admitted that the yellow was more effective if they ever got back to Baker Street proper to argue about dish soap again.) Hopefully whatever changes flashed across his features would read as guilt over the stabbing instead of repressed giggling.

"You'd better survive your training, Sherlock!" he said once he could speak without risking laughter. "Because I want to kill you myself! I'm the only one allowed to kill you, do you hear me? The only one! I've earned that!"

[on_your_nerves]

"You and me then, John. That's how all of this will end; you and me, together, fighting to the death!"

The two of them together, fighting back to back, fighting everyone else to the death.

"Watch your back!" he said as a parting shot.

Sherlock really hoped he would, at least until the two of them were reunited so they could watch each other's backs.

[nerves_of_steel]

"You watch yours!" John shouted back, torn between the urge to turn away -- it seemed appropriate -- and being unable to actually do so. Sherlock was about to go off with a crowd of vicious psychopaths, and John had to let him for the good of the bloody mission. He set his jaw to keep from making any expressions that would give away his thoughts, scowling at the rest of the Yellow Lanterns who had been watching with a more sinister approval than displayed by the Green Lanterns surrounding him.

This was the first time he and Sherlock were going to be separated for any significant length of time since they'd woken up in the Pod Caverns. John wasn't looking forward to it.