Yue

 12th January

00:06 GMT +1

"I will burn-"

Karfang flaps, desperately trying to gain height as we head for the exit. She might be capable of moving at a decent speed, but it looks like there's only so much that magic can do as far as acceleration goes.

"-everything your wretched-"

Why isn't her ring helping her? Flying is a fairly basic function. Even if she didn't know that rings did that before she saw me-. She saw me. She now has a better idea of what rings can do. Unless it's already out of power, which would be nice.

"-kind has ever-"

Pride. The same reason why I still look basically like myself, rather than the most handsome male model ever. And why my penis is entirely unaltered. A dragon would be proud of its ability to fly and its magic, it would probably hesitate to-.

"get back here!"

An orange construct chain wraps itself around my legs. My continued flight pulls it taut a second later, Zatanna gasping quietly as she feels the sudden deceleration and spots the cause. I keep pulling, forming a railgun construct and loading a crumbler round as I do so. Fire, and flare my environmental shield to increase the power my rings are putting into flight-

Beneath us, a section of vertiginously suspended bridge explodes upwards, shattering over Karfang's head and shoulders as she flaps after us!

-aura as the construct chain shatters. I begin rising again immediately, the burst of fire Karfang throws my way lapping at my heels.

"Orange Lantern to Superboy."

"Superboy here."

"We have a dragon with a power ring. Also, some sort of airborne environmental contaminant. Environmental shields and spell eaters all around."

"Got it. How big is the dragon?"

"About one hundred and fifty metres total. She also ignored everything I threw-" We come to the uppermost platform and I change direction, heading for the entrance tunnel. "-at her, so there's something else going on as well."

Into the tunnel, and I generate a construct vault door to cover our retreat. She won't be able to fit through here-. I haven't seen any sign of her being able to change her size, the tunnel isn't big enough to fit her and however strong she is this is a lot of rock-.

There's a tremendous crash, and a moment later my construct door fails as magic-enhanced draconic fire races up the passageway behind me!

"Erif Pots!"

The fire freeze-frames behind us as I fly through the illusory barrier and into the open air. Bio-ship over there, Kaldur… Kaldur in a meditative posture on the ground, eyes closed and hands clasped together in front of him, but I can see the orange light surging within him, held in check by his intense concentration.

Karfang doesn't appear to be flying through the side of the mountain, so I descend, Kaldur's eyes unsteadily blinking at me as I set Zatanna on the ground.

"Zatanna, can you remove the effect-" I take an environmental shield out of subspace and attach it to Kaldur's armour. It's a basic, fragile, limited battery life thing but it should filter out toxic gasses. "-of whatever Karfang was breathing on us?"

"I should be able to…"

A violet aura surrounds Kaldur's head for a moment and he gasps, his violet-glowing eyes snapping open.

"Aqualad." I regard him cautiously. "You back with us?"

He takes a couple of breaths, then nods. "Yes. I believe that I am."

"What were you experiencing?"

"It was… As if the world existed purely to give me what I wanted, and that nothing but satisfying my own desires mattered." I get a momentary look at exactly what it was he wanted. "It was all I could do to resist." He glances up as the Bio-Ship descends, then looks back to me. "I believe that I have gained a better understanding of what it means to be an Orange Lantern."

"Maybe. But Orange Lanterns learn to stay functional when they feel like that. If you're interested in training-" The Bio-Ship comes in to land, Wallace dashing out immediately. "-to do so, I'd be happy to make time for it."

"You.. saw." I nod. "I would not have acted-."

"You didn't act. But ignoring your desires indefinitely isn't a good idea."

He nods-.

"Hey, Zatanna." Wallace comes to a stop just in front of her. "You ran into a drag-." He blinks. "Are you okay?"

"Perfectly." She comes over and wraps her left arm around my right. Just as Artemis steps out of the Bio-Ship. "I'm exactly where I want to be."

"O…" Wallace gives me a puzzled frown. "Kay..?"

"Something Karfang did altered people's behaviour. I wasn't affected but the rest of our team were."

"You can't fix-."

"I don't need fixing. I don't want anything I didn't want before."

He hesitates for a moment as the rest of the team leave the Bio-Ship. Robert's with them, but he hasn't been studying metamagic. Doctor Balewa is a far better choice for undoing this. And I'm pretty sure that she'd violently resist efforts to change her back now.

"I'm sure that we can talk about it after dealing with the dragon."

Wallace doesn't look happy, but he decides not to push it. Artemis gives me a pointed look, but stands at ease to wait for instruction. Empathic vision shows Beryl still in the Bio-Ship while Richard, Kon, Raquel and Robert form a semicircle around us. I blink as I realise that the Sphere has accompanied them, and it shifts into its flying bike mode. And all of them have environmental shields and spell eaters, good.

Richard smiles. "You found a dragon, Oh El? Thought you said it wasn't gunna be a dragon?"

"I may possibly have been slightly wrong. One dragon, one hundred and fifty metres in length and in possession of an orange power ring with at least a partial charge. The dragon is intelligent and invulnerable to anything I threw at it."

"Okay, that's-."

"In addition, it has an army of mutant gnomes, and Canis and Osiris were caught in the mind altering gas and haven't reappeared. I'm not that worried about-."

Kon's head suddenly turns towards the mountain. "Does the dragon have a way out of the mountain?"

"I didn't see any tunnels big enough."

"Because that rock's getting-"

The side of the mountain explodes!