Fear Laughing Demon (Part 2)

"Wait, but…"

Inside an apartment in Seaside City, a man in a pilot jacket was talking to himself. He paced around the room with his hands on his hips and said, "I know, I know. I know what my duty is, but…"

"Fine. If things really are as serious as you say, I’ll go take a look. But I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill."

"When I first joined the Green Lantern Corps, you told me it was the strongest of all the Lantern Corps, and I’ve felt that myself. I don’t really understand what has you so nervous…"

"…Fine. If you insist, I won’t object. Earth is my home too. Protecting it is my responsibility."

"Do you have the exact location where the Yellow Lantern appeared? I was asleep just now, so I didn’t sense anything unusual."

The man scratched at his hair. His brown hair was a little messy, and just as he had said, he had only just woken up and was still somewhat bleary-eyed.

"What? Gotham? Why would it be in that hellhole? Well… I guess that isn’t too strange. What did you say Yellow represented again? Oh, fear. That place is certainly frightening enough."

"I’ll teleport over and take a look. If things really are as serious as you say, I’ll deal with it as quickly as possible."

"Listen, right now, I, Hal, Hal Jordan, am the only Green Lantern on Earth. I can’t let my hometown lose face. If I ask for backup before the fight even starts, it’ll seriously damage my standing in the Corps, won’t it?"

"Oh, yes, I know. You mean well. I also know the Yellow Lantern you mentioned might be difficult to handle, but you have to trust me. Trust my willpower. I’ve done pretty well since becoming a Green Lantern, haven’t I?"

Hal, as he called himself, stood with his hands on his hips and said, "You have to understand, not every Earthling has adaptability and willpower like mine. I haven’t had the ring’s power for very long, but I think handling these troubles on Earth won’t be a problem…"

After a while, he sighed, then stroked the pet dog at his feet and said, "Sorry. Looks like I can only take you out for a walk later. I have something to deal with, but trust me, I’ll be back soon…"

As he spoke, a flash of green light passed by, and Hal vanished. But when he appeared again, he was not in Gotham. Instead, he stood on a highway in Bludhaven. He looked up at the sky and said in confusion, "…What happened? Did I get lost?"

Bludhaven had an excellent climate and clear weather, so even during the day, stars could be seen through the sky. Hal checked his bearings and found that he should not have gone the wrong way.

Under normal circumstances, when he teleported here, he should have arrived directly beneath the sign at Gotham’s entrance. Yet now, there was nothing here but a straight highway.

Where had such a huge city gone?

Hal turned in place twice, completely baffled. Perhaps the stars were in the wrong positions. That was not impossible; strange phenomena occurred whenever a ring descended. So he teleported back to Bludhaven and bought a tourist map of the area.

Hal did not find it troublesome to follow the tourist map on foot toward Gotham. He had inherited the Green Lantern ring and had no problems with stamina, and he walked quickly. Besides, Bludhaven and Gotham were not far apart.

But the farther he walked with the map, the more confused he became. Holding it close to his face, he said, "What the hell? Doesn’t it say right here? Once I get here, I just cross the pine woods on the right and I’ll see Gotham’s tallest building, Wayne Tower… Where the hell is the tower?!?"

Hal crossed the pine woods planted beside the highway on the right, but saw nothing. There was, however, a faint smell of alcohol in the air. Hal assumed it was leftover from someone’s camping party and paid it no attention.

He continued onward, walking for quite some time before finally seeing a road sign.

What struck Hal as strange was that someone stood beneath the sign, holding an umbrella. Hal walked over and asked, "Hello, I’m trying to get to Gotham. Do I just keep going straight down this road?"

The man shook his head and asked, "You’re Hal, aren’t you? Hal Jordan?"

"You know me?"

"Not only do I know you, I know your identity. You’re a pilot, and also the owner of a Green Lantern ring. A Green Lantern, correct?"

When Hal heard the first half, he was already puzzled. He was not some huge celebrity; no ordinary person should recognize him so casually. But after hearing the second half, he narrowed his eyes and looked at the man. "Who are you? Why do you know about the Green Lantern?"

"Do you remember that, shortly after obtaining your Green Lantern ring, you once made a post on a forum about aliens? Only one person replied to that post. That was me…"

"You’re that… Oh my God! I sent you so many messages! Why didn’t you reply?!"

Hal’s tone started out shocked, then turned into a complaint.

Schiller sighed and said, "I can explain that later, but right now, there’s a Big Trouble that may require you to deal with it."

"Big Trouble? What Big Trouble? Why are you here? What exactly is going on?"

Hal looked like he was drowning in question marks, but Schiller had no intention of answering that string of questions. Instead, he said to Hal, "Weren’t you heading to Gotham? I regret to inform you that even if you keep walking down this road, you’ll never reach Gotham."

"Impossible." Hal immediately rejected the claim.

"The map says that after seeing the road sign, if I keep going forward, I’ll reach Gotham…"

"You can try."

Hal raised a finger and waved it, then took a running stance. With a whoosh, he disappeared, then with another whoosh, shot back from the other end and stopped before the sign.

Looking at Schiller and the road sign in front of him once more, Hal was lost. Schiller said, "Yes, Earth is round, but I don’t think you’re fast enough to circle the planet in such a short time, are you?"

No matter how careless Hal was, he knew something had changed. His expression gradually turned serious as he asked Schiller, "What exactly is going on? You’d better give me a reasonable explanation."

"Abandon all your fantasies about what is ‘reasonable.’" Schiller stepped over the highway guardrail and walked to the sign at the roadside. He said to Hal, "Because you’re in a dream now."

The moment he finished speaking, Hal saw the pole supporting the road sign grow larger and larger before his eyes, until it became an incomparably massive Towering Babel standing upon scorched black earth. Hal raised his head, opened his mouth, and asked, "What is this?"

"Come with me first. I’ll explain everything." Schiller led Hal forward. Hal’s brown eyes were full of confusion as he followed after Schiller and asked, "Where is this? Did you create this illusion? Who are you? Do you have something to do with the Yellow Lantern?"

Schiller sighed. "I won’t explain what happened before. Let’s start with the Yellow Lantern’s arrival."

"You know the Yellow Lantern appeared? Oh, right, you aren’t an ordinary person either. But I’ve never heard of any Lantern ring being able to make an entire city disappear."

"Because it wasn’t the Lantern ring that made the city disappear. It was me."

"Don’t joke around." Hal’s voice was full of disbelief.

"That’s Gotham! One of the biggest cities on the East Coast! How could you make it disappear in an instant? Do you have any idea how much panic that would cause? Why haven’t I seen it on the news?"

"Gotham hasn’t disappeared from the real world. You can’t see it because the instant you stepped onto that highway, you entered a dream."

"As for why I did that, it’s because I bear some responsibility…"

Schiller sighed again. He had sighed more today than in the previous few months combined, because things had indeed gone somewhat beyond his expectations.

His original plan with Jack had been to delve into the edge of Batman’s consciousness, dig out the potentially dangerous thing lurking there, and destroy it. The process was extremely complicated, but the goal was clear: eliminate every possibility of The Batman Who Laughs appearing.

During this process, Schiller killed Jokers when he encountered Jokers and killed Batmen when he encountered Batmen. In short, as long as it could stop that utterly detestable The Batman Who Laughs from appearing in his life, he would resort to any means necessary.

In the two stories near the end, everything had gone very smoothly. They successfully reached the edge of Batman’s dreams, found the embryo that might hatch into the Laughing Man, and had nearly destroyed it.

But unexpectedly, that stimulation caused the dark tide deep within Batman’s heart to flood outward. It erupted from his soul with an unprecedented ferocity and surged toward the universe.

Such the purest power of fear in the entire universe would naturally attract the attention of one existence: the Yellow Lantern ring, or rather, the Yellow Lantern Beast Parallax, the representative of fear within the Emotional Spectrum.

The Entities of all the colored Lantern rings in this universe were immensely powerful, and Parallax was no exception.

But Parallax was also no stranger to great things. Ordinary fear was not enough to draw its attention. The problem was that the fear in Batman’s heart was nearly the purest fear originating from every DC universe. To Parallax, it was an irresistible temptation.

Thus, accompanying the arrival of the Yellow Lantern ring was a terrifying monster: the Yellow Lantern Beast, Parallax.

"Parallax?" Hal asked in confusion. "I once heard senior Corps members explain that every Lantern Corps has a Central Power Battery and an Entity. They mentioned that the Entities born from each emotion were extremely powerful, but likewise, they would not descend easily…"

"You’re saying that someone in this city possessed fear powerful enough to draw the Yellow Lantern Beast here? That really is troublesome…" Hal’s expression grew increasingly grave. Clearly, he realized the severity of the situation.

"I didn’t expect this either, because according to the timeline, it should have been impossible. You had only just…" Schiller turned to look at Hal.

The reason he had never worried about the Yellow Lantern ring was that, according to the normal timeline, Hal had only just become a Lantern. Sinestro, the founder of the Yellow Lantern Corps, should still have been a Green Lantern. The two had not fallen out, so Sinestro would not have betrayed the Green Lantern Corps or gone on to create the Yellow Lantern ring.

When that dark tide surged upward, Schiller had not considered the Emotional Spectrum at all. He had assumed that fear did not yet exist among the Lantern rings in the universe. Yet the Yellow Lantern ring had descended just like that.

Schiller reflected on it. This universe had changed enough already; the early appearance of the Yellow Lantern Corps was not impossible.

"But you still haven’t told me what happened to Gotham, or where this place is."

"Don’t rush. I’m getting to that…"

"The arrival of the Yellow Lantern ring and the Yellow Lantern Beast was not the greatest danger. The greatest danger was that inside the host they wanted to parasitize was an… egg desperately fleeing for its life after being pursued."

"An egg? What is that?"

"I’m not trying to scare you, but I have to tell you that if it hatches, every Lantern Corps in existence could join forces and still not be enough to fight it."

Hal was just about to object when Schiller continued, "Fortunately, it really is only an embryo right now, and its ability to act has been greatly weakened. It’s only a step away from death."

"But then the Yellow Lantern ring and its Entity descended. One desperately wanted to get out, while the other desperately tried to force its way in. Guess who won in the end?"

"Um… the Entity, probably?"

"No. They both lost, while Batman won twice. Now, he possesses both the Laughing Egg and the Yellow Lantern Beast."

Schiller explained again, "Originally, Batman could have rejected the Yellow Lantern ring through his willpower. But the nearly dying egg inside him saw its only path to survival."

"Thus, while Batman’s attention shifted to the Yellow Lantern Beast, it controlled his mental space and accepted the Yellow Lantern ring. Then the Yellow Lantern Beast followed the ring into Batman’s body. Now, they have become one."

As Schiller spoke, the two entered the Towering Babel. Then, amid shifting light and shadow, Hal found himself atop a skyscraper. Looking down, he saw all of Gotham City beneath his feet.

He had finally reached Gotham, but Hal felt no joy at all. When he looked up, an indescribable monster stood above Gotham.

It had a segmented, many-legged lower body like a yellow centipede, a pitch-black upper body marked with a bat symbol, and a head with no eyes or any other features, only a huge crimson mouth.

Then Schiller’s voice rang out:

"The Yellow Lantern ring, Parallax, Batman, and the Laughing Egg have fused together. I call it…"

"The Fear Laughing Demon."

The plot had come full circle—

We’re back around!