Yue

 24th January

20:48 GMT

How did he even get-?

Telekinetically-excited flame-flesh leaps for Devlos, who fires a purple bubble-beam at it. The purple energy blasts through with no visible effort and Mr van Wyck is forced to frantically dart aside.

"Come to die, stranger?"

No, no, this location was on charts. It got destroyed once. There are other places he could have found out about it. Interesting that he was able to bypass the interdiction fields, but hardly astonishing. There are so few faster than light telekines that there is a proportionate dearth of countermeasures. In fact, all of the ones on file involve getting more telekines on the other side to work against it.

Mr van Wyck flits around to try and evade the purple beams. Devlos doesn't appear to be putting all that much effort into it, firing just enough to keep his foe in motion. Mr van Wyck attempts to block a shot with a flaming barrier, but that doesn't resist the purple bubbles of doom any better than his attack construct did.

"Are you-? Are you a pirate?"

And Mr van Wyck doesn't know what he's blundered into. Though I suppose that I should take it as a compliment that he attacked the other fellow rather than me. With the air drifting out of the station my attempt at a disease attack is now doomed to fail. Some diseases can cope with a vacuum but none of those are likely to be highly lethal to Devlos. And it looks like his armour is airtight anyway. Would a phasing-based attack work better? Phase through the armour and release the disease before he can trigger an anti-phasing defence?

"I am Devlos Ungol the Traitor! Murderer of billions!"

No, he said that he lived this long because of his armour. There are plenty of ways to integrate medical functions into armour, and most of them would neutralise it before it could kill him. It's sub-Ebola in terms of time-to-kill anyway, I just wanted to put him on a clock. Something that might kill him where the constructs of two veteran Green Lanterns clearly failed.

"But are you a pirate?"

Assuming there's a man in there, and it isn't just an AI patterned after him. Or a remote-controlled drone. The second would be out of character, but the first is a little more likely. And then there's whatever this force field is made of. In theory I should be able to FEED on it, but cocking about with the Bleed is one of those things I've been trying to avoid. Assuming that's even what is going on here.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Effigy."

Devlos fires two more blasts, then turns his helmet my way. "Is this some sort of joke?"

Beam singularities didn't work. But I can clearly see him. I generate a laser construct and fire it directly at his faceplate, but again there's no sign that any energy is actually being conveyed. I switch weapon, but the positron beam doesn't do any better.

"I'm-"

Vertigo inducers? Nothing. Sonic weapon? Nothing.

"-undecided."

Devlos negligently raises his left hand to destroy my gun construct. "What is this? A man already on fire and a Lantern who can barely make constructs? Has this region forgotten me?"

Barely.. make..?

I suppose he was beaten by people using the standard Green Lantern style. Maybe giant construct boxing gloves are the way to go?

A ring of hydraulic ram constructs surrounds him as he traps Mr van Wyck against a wall, construct columns ramming inwards. He jerks a little, then spins his entirely unencumbered arms around and slashes my constructs to orange vapour.

Hm. Did his armour just fail to absorb kinetic force? Or was he not paying attention, or..? Can it only absorb one form of energy at a time?

My one surviving ram hammers down on him again and he raises his hands to destroy it, apparently ignoring the psi-shock grenade I deposit next to him. It detonates and I replace it with another, rapidly creating additional rams with which to strike him and dismissing the ones he blasts at before he can destroy them. His movements are… Slightly less coordinated, but I'm still not really getting the impression that I'm doing him significant harm.

Mr van Wyck takes the opportunity to disengage, flying around the force field and the few remaining robotic arms to join me.

"Who is this?"

"Devlos Ungol."

"I thought he was dead."

"You and lots of other people. How did you find this place?"

"I went to the old Green Lantern's homeworld. Research, like you said. It's public knowledge that he came here so I thought I'd check it out."

Devlos glows purple, and all of my constructs around him fade.

"Is he a pirate?"

"He was the commander of the genocidal fleet the survivors of which became the pirates after he was apparently killed. I don't know what he's been doing since."

"Close enough. How about we try hitting him together?"

"His armour is absorbing everything and his blasts destroy any construct either of us send at him. Are you telepathic?"

"No?"

"Sometimes 'hit them really hard' isn't the solution. Can you make a hydraulic ram?"

"I prefer spears."

"Ragh!"

Devlos unleashes another surge of purple energy, then points our way. Purple arcs shit! I press myself as close to the force field as I can without quite touching it, and Mr van Wyck's flame constructs flare as he tries to dart after me. The shots Devlos sent my way either expend themselves on the force field as they can't quite follow the curve of its surface, or fly past and punch more holes in the hull. Mr van Wyck-

"Aagh!"

-takes a couple of glancing hits, flaming wounds appearing on his right arm and the right side of his mask. Devlos takes the opportunity to try flying up around the force field to get a clear shot at us, the glow around his hands slowly building up again. A recharge time?

"Effigy, move."

I fly down, forming railguns loaded with crumbler rounds and sending a filament in the other direction to try and drop off a psi-shock grenade. Small jet constructs form on the sides of my railguns as he tries to curve shots around to shoot them and I have to thrust them out of the way, but I get a clear shot-

"That fucking hurt!"

Mr van Wyck flies backwards after me, sending sheets of flame around to strike at Devlos. Devlos waves his left hand in their direction to shred them, but that does make it harder for him to shoot my railguns. Filament in place…

I detonate the grenade and begin cycling in replacements even as I move my railguns into line of sight and fire! Crumbler rounds slam-.

Right into a purple energy field.

"A telepathic attack! I wondered what that was!"

He turns his left hand towards my covert filament and destroys it with another purple beam.

"I've adapted. My mind is stronger than your weak weapons! Now die!"

I switch one of my railguns for a larger psi-shock grenade and detonate that.