End Post:

Hal kept to himself on the warp-flight back to Oa. He closed himself off so that the others couldn't see or hear him, just so he could have some time to himself. He said he needed the rest and they left it at that, but he saw the look in Arisia's eyes - eyes he could still recognize despite her inexplicable physical maturation. It was a look that said she was afraid of why he might want to be alone.

He'd been running on empty for a long time, so rest did legitimately seem like a good idea, but really he needed time with his thoughts. His ring was working again, whatever the red power was that had taken him over, it was gone now… or seemed to be, anyway. But he didn't feel himself, exactly. Maybe it was all the time spent wandering that bleak desert, or the fight with that Atrocitous creature. Maybe it was some lingering effects of being possessed by that red energy. Whatever it was, it was like a haze in his mind that wouldn't lift. He was questioning himself, and that wasn't like him at all. He didn't like this change.

Every part of his body ached. It had felt good to fight those mercenary mooks and put them in their place, but the elation was dulled. He tried to get excited, tried to get into the action, but his emotions were harder to reach; like trying to grab a fistful of water - the harder he tried to hold on, the more he lost. He couldn't work up the energy to be angry at them, and he couldn't manage to feel vindicated when he beat them. He just felt… empty.

Here he was, back with his friends after so long spent alone in the dark--after so long wishing he had any company at all, and all he wanted was to be alone. And now that he was alone, he couldn't stop feeling like dirt scraped off an old leather boot. He could barely keep his eyes open, and though it was perfectly safe to sleep through a warp-jump once the ring had locked onto the destination, he didn't want to try. When he closed his eyes, he saw her face.

Arisia. Good god, what had he done? How had he let himself kiss her? Well, no, he knew how - he had been delirious. He was in so much pain and was so completely out of it, he didn't even realize it was her. And how could he? Even if he was more in his right mind, she looked like she'd aged more than half a decade since the last time he saw her. Her face was still cute, but had matured into a more adult, frankly more sexual kind of cuteness. And her body… Jesus, he couldn't let himself think about it. This was the kind of thing that got guys arrested. And he'd kissed her! And not some sweet, first-crush kind of kiss, it was a serious kiss. With intent. What might have happened if John and the guys hadn't shown up when they did? Thank god he didn't have to wrestle with that one.

His brain was torn between justifications about why it wasn't really his fault at all and the rational understanding that, regardless, the kids head was bound to be a tangle of emotions after that. He'd just barely talked her out of her crush before this - what was gonna happen now?

So yes, he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. And he didn't want to have to talk to her until he knew how to explain this whole disaster in a way that wouldn't completely crush her. And he had to figure out how he was going to look at the woman she'd somehow transformed into and force his brain to remember that underneath that body she was still less than half his age.
_______________________________________

The quintet of Hal, John, Tomar, Arisia and G'nort touched down at the Honor Guard plaza on Oa and were immediately met by Katma and Jenny. Kat walked toward them with a smile, opening her arms. Hal smiled back, but turned as she walked right past him and embraced John with a long, lingering hug.

"I'm so glad you're safe," she said, holding him close and letting her temple rest against his. "Jennifer was getting these feelings and… I'm just glad to see you back."

"Glad to see you too, Kat," he smiled, letting his arms enjoy the feeling of wrapping around Katma's body and pulling her tight. "But you didn't need to worry. It's been a while since I wore the ring, but it's just like riding a bike - once you've learned how, you never really forget."

"Oh, God, Hal," Jenny said, wiping tears from her eyes as she hugged her former instructor. "I didn't know if we'd ever see you again. They said you'd died."

"Takes more than that to get rid of this guy," Hal smirked. He looked at her like he hadn't seen her in years and nodded. "I hear you and Kat went and got yourselves in some trouble on my account."

"Helped wage a rebellion against a despot," she smiled proudly. "No biggie. Nothing I haven't done before, really…"

"I'm proud of you, kid," he said, scruffing her hair. "You did good."

“Thank you for your assistance. It is good to know that…” Katma reached a hand out to greet Arisia, but her words caught in her throat as she recognized her. Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened and closed in confusion.

“Hey, Kat,” Arisia smiled weakly, embarrassed and not sure what to say. She turned one toe on the ground back and forth, waving hello for lack of anything else to do.

“What… What happened to you?!” Katma gasped. Others noticed the exchange happening, and Jade almost screamed.

“Oh, god! Who—how did this happen? Oh, god, Reesh!” Jade shouted, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and looking her up and down.

“It’s not a big deal, guys. I just—got older,” Arisia tried to say, but they wouldn’t hear it.

“This is a huge deal, Reesh,” Jade spattered. “Did somebody do this to you? Are you still aging? We need to get you to medical and find out if you’re okay.”

“We don’t have time for this right now,” Hal said. “We have to go to the citadel. The blue men are calling my ring hard, demanding a debrief immediately.”

“I’m getting pinged, too,” Arisia said, looking at her ring. “I’m gonna hold off, though. At least until you guys are done, I mean. I don’t… I’m expecting much poking with prods and needles and stuff, and I don’t wanna--”

“Don’t wait, Arisia,” Katma said sternly. “You don’t know what’s happening with your body, right now; the sooner you go in, the sooner we can know that you’re safe.”

“This is not as big a thing as you guys are making it,” she frowned with a pout.

“It absolutely is, Reesh,” Jade said, trying to be consoling and giving it her big-sister-best. “We just want to make sure you’re okay. This could be really, really bad…”

“Well… well… Hal doesn’t think it’s a bad thing,” she said, latching onto Hal as her savior. “He likes grown-up me.”

“No, Arisia, I don’t,” he said, not looking at her. “I think the whole damn thing’s a disaster.”

Arisia gave a look like she wanted to fight or cry or scream, but held it back. Everybody else was already taking off for the Citadel and the Guardians’ audience chamber and there wasn’t time to argue who did what to whom and whether or not it was really all that bad. That could wait for later.
_______________________________________

While John and Hal delivered their report to the Guardians, the rest waited in an antechamber attached to the audience hall. They were still grilling Arisia with questions over her sudden growth.

“I’m fine! Okay? I’m fine,” she insisted. “I don’t know how it happened-- I didn't realize I was, you kow, like this until I suited up to help Hal. I was in disguise for so long, buried under about fifty pounds of rags and dirt and yuck… I didn't really notice that the reason I felt so weird was my body was literally being changed by my ring."

“So, wait, hold on, are you saying you did this to yourself?”

“I don’t know! I’m saying ‘I don’t know.’ I know I wanted to be older, I guess… I don’t know, alright? I didn’t make it happen, it just… All I can guess is that my ring reacted to my need and did this for me. So why is that such a big deal? I’m grown up, is all.”

“No, Arisia, you aren’t,” Katma shook her head, a look of deep sadness and pity on her face as she held the girl’s shoulder. “You’re still the same you that you were when you left. Your ring stole what looks to be five or six years from your life, but it didn’t give you five or six years of life experience or maturity.”

“You lost some of the most important years in a person’s life,” Jade agreed. “You lost your ‘becoming you’ years.”

“I’m afraid the change may have a more sinister source,” Tomar said, shaking his head. “Our rings rely on willpower and intent. If you didn’t actively choose to undergo this change, then there is no intent. Even if we accept that subconscious desires, if strong enough, could create a kind of intent of their own, the subconscious has no will of its own. You must have been poisoned or infected with some--”

“Yeah, well, we’ll find out after I run through medical,” Arisia crossed her arms, still adjusting to her matured chest and how exactly to fold her arms around its new shape. Breasts were much more awkward than she had anticipated.

“Could her ring have responded to her need for a more adult disguise?” Jade asked.

“That goes against everything we know about the science behind the power rings themselves,” Katma said. “They can do nearly anything we can imagine, if our will is strong enough, but they do have limits.”

“Yeah, but what if they didn’t?” Jade pressed. “What if we’re the ones with the limits? I mean, I can tell you - before my dad helped me learn to control my powers? They absolutely did make things happen without me intentionally doing anything.”

“Be that as it may, we Lanterns are still limited by the interface of our rings,” Tomar insisted. “Arisia is not the Starheart.”

“Yeah, but you guys tap the same power I do. Maybe the rings can do more than you think they can, if you’d just stop thinking in terms of what is and isn’t possible.”

“Yeah,” Arisia agreed, pleased that somebody was sticking up for her side of the story.

"Even if that was possible, and I’m not saying it is, she would be the first person ever to do so,” Katma said. “It seems… unlikely. No offense, Arisia."

"Maybe she isn't the first, though," Jenny said. "Maybe it's happened before in lots of big and little ways, but nobody said anything about it. Or it just got covered up or ignored or denied because nobody believed it could happen."

“That is a terrifying thought,” Tomar said, sitting back in his chair. “Imagine the Corps – 7200 beings – all able to bring their subconscious desires into reality without even intentionally wanting to do so. It could be… ‘catastrophe’ doesn’t even begin to describe the potential harm.”

“Or it could be wonderful,” Arisia spoke up again. “Imagine 7200 beings directly in touch with the power that makes us what we are. Imagine how much more good we could do in the universe if we could kick the training wheels off and see how far we could really go.”

“This is just spinning our wheels until we know what happened to you,” Katma sighed. “I just hope you’re going to be okay.”
_______________________________________

They were sitting in silence when Hal and John came back out. They all stood to greet them and see what had happened, and froze when they saw Hal out of uniform and wearing his normal clothing.

"This isn't gonna stand," John stormed past angrily, pointing a finger back at the closing doors. "They don't have any right to--"

"It's done, John," Hal said. "It's done. We can't change it, it's just… it's over."

"You aren't even gonna fight this?! How can you be so calm?"

"What happened," Katma asked. "What's going on?"

"Where's your uniform, Hal?" Arisia asked, wanting to rush to his side but suddenly feeling like she couldn’t.

"I don't have one," he said.

"The Guardians…" John started, struggling a bit to calm himself and put the words together. "They said he was tainted by that red power--that it's in him now and won't come out or some garbage. Even when it was proven that there weren't any traces left, they still said just having had it once was enough…"

"What are you saying, John?" Katma asked, already pretty sure she knew.

"They threw me out," Hal said. "I'm not a Green Lantern anymore. I have a couple hours to get my stuff together, then they're sending me back to Earth."

He put a hand on her shoulder briefly, but didn’t look her in the eye. He just kept walking right past them all and down the hallway.

"It's over."

The End