Chapter 47: Factory Warranty and Game Night
The sky over Kyoto began to turn a deep violet, marking the end of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening. High above the tiled roofs and power lines, two emerald green comets ascended toward the stratosphere at supersonic speed.
Hal Jordan flew with his teeth gritted, fists clenched at his sides. Humiliation burned in his chest hotter than atmospheric friction. He had arrived as the supreme authority. As the sector sheriff. And he was leaving with a bag of free candy and a moral lesson taught by a man in wooden sandals.
"Damn shopkeeper," Hal muttered through his ring's communicator. "Who does he think he is? 'Approved External Consultant'? He's a civilian! A civilian with too much attitude!"
Beside him, Kilowog flew in silence, his massive bulk breaking the clouds like an icebreaker.
"Hal," the drill sergeant grunted. "Let it go. Ganthet gave the order. The guy has friends in high places. And his mint candy wasn't bad."
"It's not the candy, Kilowog! It's the principle!" Hal exclaimed, accelerating. "He told me my ring was broken. Me! The best Lantern in the Corps! I take better care of this ring than my own car."
He looked at the ring on his right hand. The green light pulsed steadily, strong and pure.
"Look at this. It's perfect. Not a scratch. That guy just wanted to be a smartass."
They reached low orbit. The black of space opened up before them, speckled with cold stars.
"Right," Hal said. "Let's go back to Oa. I have to file a report explaining why we didn't arrest the anomaly without looking like idiots."
He raised the ring.
"Ring. Open wormhole. Coordinates: Sector 0."
COMPLYING, the ring's voice replied.
Hal concentrated his will. He visualized the tunnel through subspace. The ring glowed. A beam of green light shot out into the void, beginning to weave the portal's structure. And then... the sound.
Crrr-ACK.
It wasn't an external sound. It was a sound inside the jewel. As if someone had stepped on a very expensive crystal. The green beam wavered. It flickered. And turned red.
"What...?" Hal started.
The micro-fissure in the focus lens, that invisible line Urahara had pointed out with such impertinence, couldn't withstand the strain of opening a spatial jump singularity. Under the pressure of Hal's will and the core's energy, the crack expanded.
It was a critical cascade. The ring let out a sharp screech of energy feedback.
CRITICAL ERROR. CONTAINMENT FAILURE. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED.
"Wait! No!" Hal shouted.
The green light died. The protective aura surrounding Hal, the one that gave him oxygen, heat, and most importantly, the ability to fly... disappeared. In the silent vacuum of space, Hal Jordan suddenly became a simple human falling.
Earth's gravity, that jealous mistress, grabbed him by the ankles and pulled him down.
"Kilowooog!" Hal screamed, but his voice was lost in the airless void before he could start falling toward the atmosphere.
Kilowog reacted fast.
"I gotcha, poozer!"
The alien dove, creating an energy net to catch his partner. But the feedback explosion from Hal's ring had created a static disruption shockwave. When Kilowog's net touched Hal, the static rebounded. Kilowog's ring flickered.
INTERFERENCE. FLIGHT SYSTEMS... REBOOTING.
"Oh, G'nort's crap!" Kilowog roared.
His thrusters cut out. Now they were two rocks falling from the sky. Re-entry was hot and terrifying. Kilowog managed to reboot his shields just in time to prevent them from burning alive, but he didn't have enough power to slow the descent completely.
They fell like a clumsy green meteorite. They punched through clouds. They saw the lights of Kyoto approaching at an alarming speed.
"Aim for water! Aim for water!" Hal shouted, free-falling inside Kilowog's flickering shield bubble.
"I can't steer! We're just falling!" Kilowog replied.
Fate, or perhaps cosmic irony, had a very specific sense of humor. They didn't fall into the Kamo River. They didn't fall into a park. They fell exactly at the coordinates of their last known position.
CRASH!
The impact shook the Gion neighborhood for the second time that week. They landed in the backyard of the Urahara Shop. Specifically, in the zen garden Urahara had spent the last hour repairing telekinetically after the battle with the Furies.
There was an explosion of dirt, decorative gravel, and innocent bonsai trees. A cloud of dust rose into the evening sky. They coughed. They groaned. Hal Jordan disentangled himself from the branches of a crushed azalea bush. His uniform was dirty. His perfect hair was full of dirt.
He looked at his right hand. The power ring, the most powerful weapon in the universe... was gray. Dead. An inert stone on his finger.
"No..." Hal whispered, horrified. "No, no, no."
"Are you alive?" Kilowog grunted, crawling out of an alien-shaped crater. He shook himself off, and a shower of stones fell from his armor.
"My ring... is dead," Hal said, his voice trembling. "Kilowog, it has no charge. No light. It's broken."
Before Kilowog could answer, a sound was heard. The sound of a wooden sliding door opening softly. Shhhk.
Hal and Kilowog looked up.
On the engawa, the wooden porch facing the garden (now crater), stood Urahara Kisuke. He was wearing his green kimono. His hat. And he held a steaming cup of tea in his hand. He looked at the hole in his garden. He looked at the destroyed bushes. He looked at the two space cops covered in dirt and shame.
He didn't look angry. He looked... disappointed. Like a father whose son just broke the window with a baseball for the second time in the same day. Urahara took a sip of tea.
"You know, Jordan-san," he said, his quiet voice floating over the disaster scene. "The warranty on my verbal repairs... only covers if you let me repair it."
He lowered the cup.
"By ignoring my professional advice and flying into the stratosphere with a cracked lens... I am afraid you have voided the manufacturer's warranty."
Hal Jordan, the man without fear, the test pilot, the hero... wanted to scream. He wanted to argue. But he looked at his gray ring. He looked at the shopkeeper who had warned him. And he realized he was trapped on Earth, powerless, in the backyard of the man he had tried to arrest ten minutes ago.
He swallowed his pride. It tasted like dirt.
"It broke," Hal admitted, raising his limp hand. "You were right. The micro-fissure. It exploded."
"I know," Urahara said. "I heard the pop from here. It was very distinctive."
"We need help," Kilowog said, taking a step forward, his large head hung low. "My ring is at 2% from the impact shield. And his is scrap. We can't get back to Oa. We can't even call a cab."
Urahara sighed.
"I suppose I cannot leave you here. You ruin the feng shui of the crater."
He turned and went into the house, gesturing with his hand for them to follow.
"Come in. To my office. And please, wipe your feet at the entrance. I just scrubbed the hallway and if I see a single alien mud footprint, I will charge you for the cleaning."
Hal and Kilowog looked at each other. Defeated. Humiliated. And desperate.
"Let's go," Hal said.
They stepped up onto the porch, shook off the mud as best they could, and followed the shopkeeper into the darkness of the shop. Urahara guided them through the noren, down the stairs into the basement. When the lab lights turned on, the two Lanterns dropped their jaws.
They expected a back room. They found a high-tech cavern that made Oa's science labs look like preschool classrooms. They saw the recovered Cadmus Matrix in a corner, glowing with amber light. They saw holographic maps of Tibet floating in the air. They saw artifacts that defied classification.
"By the Guardians..." Kilowog muttered. "What is this place?"
"My hobby workshop," Urahara said, walking toward a workbench covered in tools.
He put on his magnifying glasses, the ones with multiple rotating lenses that gave him the look of a mad scientist. He turned on a bright light over the table. He held out his hand to Hal, wiggling his fingers impatiently.
"Give it to me," he said.
Hal hesitated for a second. Handing over his ring was the ultimate taboo for a Lantern. But he looked at the gray, dead jewel. He took off the ring. It felt cold and heavy. He placed it in Urahara's palm.
Urahara held it up under the light, examining it through his lenses.
"Hmm," he murmured. "The will circuit is fried. The focus crystal is fractured in three places. And it smells like fear. How careless."
He placed the ring on the table.
"This is going to require invasive surgery," Urahara announced, picking up a very small screwdriver and a hammer.
"Surgery?" Hal asked, nervous.
"Open heart," Urahara smiled. "Sit down. Don't touch anything. And try not to faint. Lantern blood is very hard to get out of upholstery."
The lab workbench was bathed in clinical white light, so bright it made eyes ache. In the center, on a small ceramic pedestal, lay Hal Jordan's Power Ring. Gray. Cold. Inert.
It looked less like the most powerful weapon in the universe and more like a cheap piece of costume jewelry that had run out of batteries. Hal Jordan stood by the table, sweating. He felt naked without the green aura that had protected him for years. He felt... heavy. Human.
Kilowog was on the other side, arms crossed, watching the shopkeeper with a mix of skepticism and genuine fear for the equipment. Urahara Kisuke adjusted his multi-lens goggles. He spun the magnification dial. The eye behind the lens seemed to grow to the size of a tennis ball, giving him the look of a demented insect.
"Very well," Urahara murmured, his voice amplified by the cavern's acoustics. "Let's open the patient."
Hal leaned forward, expecting to see high-tech tools appear. Precision lasers. Force field manipulators. Repair nanobots. Instead, Urahara opened a wooden drawer that squeaked as it slid.
He rummaged inside. And pulled out a dented metal toolbox that looked like it had survived World War II. He opened it with a clatter. Inside was a set of watchmaker's screwdrivers, a small rubber-headed hammer, some rusty tweezers, and... was that a can opener?
"What is that?" Hal asked, his voice going up an octave.
"My precision tools," Urahara said, selecting a screwdriver that had a piece of electrical tape on the handle.
"Are you kidding?" Kilowog roared. "That is Level 9 Oan technology! You can't open it with a flathead screwdriver! The circuits are sealed at a subatomic level!"
"The subatomic level is just a suggestion if you know where to pry," Urahara replied calmly.
He leaned over the ring.
"Hold it, Kilowog-san. I do not want it to move when I break the warranty seal."
Kilowog looked at Hal. Hal nodded weakly, feeling like he was committing heresy. The huge alien put a finger on the ring, holding it steady. Urahara inserted the tip of the screwdriver into an invisible seam on the side of the ring.
Hal held his breath. Urahara frowned, sticking the tip of his tongue out. And he tapped the handle of the screwdriver with the rubber hammer.
CLINK!
Hal felt a sharp pain in his chest, as if someone had pinched his heart.
"Ouch!" he shouted, bringing a hand to his sternum.
"Sympathetic link," Urahara diagnosed without looking up. "It is normal. The ring is part of you. Try not to faint, I need you conscious to calibrate the Will."
Urahara pried. There was a horrible sound, like a bone breaking. CRAAAACK! The ring opened. It literally split in half, revealing its insides.
Hal felt dizzy. He had to grab the edge of the table so he wouldn't fall. Seeing his ring like that, disassembled, was like seeing his own internal organs exposed on an operating table.
"Fascinating," Urahara whispered, adjusting his lenses to look inside.
The inside of the ring wasn't machinery. It was light. Crystallized green light, arranged in complex geometric patterns that pulsed faintly, struggling to hold together. But something was wrong.
There were black lines running through the green light. Fractures. And a gray residue that smelled like stale fear.
"Just what I suspected," Urahara said, poking a light circuit with the tweezers. "The Guardians are brilliant engineers, but they are terrible paranoids."
"Watch what you say, shopkeeper!" Kilowog warned.
"It is the truth," Urahara said, extracting a damaged light filament with the tweezers. "Look at this. The energy flow. It is strangled."
He pointed to a node in the center of the ring.
"They have put safety limiters at every intersection. Control valves. Kill switches. The ring is designed to protect itself before the user."
Urahara looked at Hal.
"When you pushed your will to the limit to open that portal... the ring didn't fail because it was weak. It failed because its safety protocols panicked. It tried to throttle your power to prevent overheating, and the resulting pressure broke the lens."
Hal looked at the glowing components.
"Are you telling me that... my ring was holding me back?"
"It was protecting you from your own greatness," Urahara said with a cynical smile. "Typical of the blue immortals. They are afraid of infinite potential."
Urahara grabbed a small bottle from his table. It contained a glowing golden liquid. Condensed liquid Reiatsu.
"Let's fix that," he said. "And while we are here... let's make some upgrades."
"Upgrades?" Hal asked, nervous. "What kind of upgrades?"
"Let's just say I am going to take the training wheels off your bicycle," Urahara said.
He dipped a fine brush into the golden liquid. With a steady hand, he began to paint over the green light circuits of the open ring. Where the gold touched the green, a chemical and spiritual reaction occurred. The light hissed. It changed color momentarily.
Urahara wasn't just soldering. He was rewriting the energy architecture. He was injecting controlled chaos into a system of pure order.
"I am bridging the safety limiters," he murmured, working fast. "I am reinforcing the main lens with a spiritual alloy that hardens under pressure instead of breaking. And I am widening the input channel."
"That sounds dangerous," Kilowog said.
"It is," Urahara agreed. "If Hal-san does not have enough will to control it, the ring will burn his arm off up to the shoulder. But if he does..."
Urahara finished the last stroke. He put down the brush. With a quick movement, he closed the two halves of the ring. He squeezed with his hands. His palms glowed with an intense red light.
"Hado #99: Goryuutenmetsu... micro-scale."
He used an energy dragon spell to fuse the metal and light into a single seamless piece. There was a blinding flash. And then, smoke.
Urahara opened his hands. The ring was there. It was no longer gray. It glowed with a green light so intense, so pure, that it seemed to vibrate on the table. But there was something different. A subtle golden vein ran through the green metal band, pulsing like a living vein.
"It is ready," Urahara said, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Hal looked at the ring. He felt its call. A siren song of pure power. He reached out.
"Put it on," Urahara said. "But be careful. Now it has... a temper."
Hal slid the ring onto his middle finger.
BOOOOOOM!
There was no sound, but there was a shockwave. An explosion of green energy erupted from Hal Jordan, filling the lab, making screens flicker and blowing Urahara's hair back. Hal gasped. He felt... incredible.
He felt like he had plugged directly into the Central Power Battery on Oa. Power flowed through his veins, hot, fast, unrestricted. He floated in the air, his feet leaving the ground effortlessly. His uniform manifested instantly, brighter and more defined than ever.
"Wow!" Hal exclaimed, looking at his hand. "This is... this is 200%! No! 300%!"
He made a fist. The air crackled.
"It feels... wild. But strong."
Kilowog looked at his own ring, which suddenly looked like a camping lantern compared to the lighthouse Hal was.
"By the Guardians..." the instructor muttered.
"What did you do?" Hal asked, landing softly, a grin stretching from ear to ear. "It's amazing!"
Urahara wiped his hands on a dirty rag, smiling with satisfaction.
"Just a little optimization. Took off the brakes. Polished the engine. And added a little... extra."
"Extra?" Hal asked.
"Yes. A custom function. I thought it would be useful for you on long trips."
Urahara pointed at the ring.
"Try it. The voice command is 'Thirst'."
Hal frowned.
"Thirst?"
"Say it," Urahara insisted.
Hal shrugged. He raised the ring.
"Thirst," he said clearly.
The ring glowed. A beam of green light shot out. But it didn't form a shield. Nor a hammer. Nor a missile. The light swirled and solidified into a small, cylindrical shape floating next to Hal's hand.
It was a cup holder. A solid light cup holder, perfectly detailed. And inside the cup holder, materialized out of nowhere (or teleported from Urahara's fridge), was a can of cola, cold and covered in condensation.
The sound of the can opening itself was heard. Pshhh!
Hal stared at the floating soda. Kilowog stared at the soda. Urahara smiled.
"Tactical hydration," the shopkeeper said. "It is important to stay cool during combat."
Kilowog let out a laugh. A deep, rumbling laugh that shook his belly.
"HAHAHAHA! A cup holder! The most powerful weapon in the universe has a cup holder!"
Hal turned red. But then he looked at the can. He took it. He took a sip. It was cold. And it was delicious.
"You're an idiot, Urahara," Hal said, but he was smiling. "A genius idiot."
"It is my specialty," Urahara bowed. "Now, if you don't mind... I think you should leave. On foot. Until you are out of the Kyoto interference zone. I do not want another crater in my garden."
"On foot," Hal grumbled, descending to the floor.
"On foot," Kilowog confirmed, slapping Hal on the back so hard he almost fell over. "Come on, poozer. We have a long walk. And I want to see what else that ring does. Does it have a massage mode?"
The two Lanterns left the lab, arguing about the ring's new features. Urahara stood alone, putting his rusty tools back into the wooden box. He looked at the spot where they had been.
"Maintenance," he murmured to himself. "It is the key to everything."
He turned off the work light. Upstairs, in the house, the night had just begun. And Urahara had a date with a board game and a family waiting for him.
With the departure of the Green Lanterns (on foot, grumbling and probably looking for an interstellar taxi on the outskirts of Kyoto), calm returned to the Urahara Shop. But it wasn't the empty silence of an uninhabited house. It was the cozy hum of a full house.
Urahara closed the front door, threw the bolt, and turned off the lights in the physical shop. The smell of old wood and sugar settled around him like a comfortable cloak. He climbed the stairs toward the pocket dimension, humming an out-of-tune melody.
As he crossed the threshold into the living room, the scene that greeted him made him stop and smile. The room was warm, lit by the transmuted floor lamp and the soft glow of the floating television, which showed a virtual crackling fireplace background.
Kara was on the sofa, legs crossed, scratching the belly of Krypto, who was lying on his back in a state of absolute bliss. Scott Free sat on the floor, shuffling a deck of "Chance" cards with the dexterity of a Las Vegas magician.
Big Barda was on the other side of the low table, looking at the unfolded game board with the tactical intensity of a general planning the invasion of a star system.
"Did the green lightbulbs leave?" Kara asked, looking up.
"They left," Urahara confirmed, dropping into the free space on the sofa next to her. "And, for the record, they have transferred a considerable sum of galactic credits to my account at the Bank of Oa to cover the repair of the azaleas. Not a bad afternoon."
"Good," Barda said, moving a metal dog token (which she had clearly stolen from Krypto) across the board. "Now, sit down, shopkeeper. The war has just begun."
The game chosen for "Relaxation Night" was an Earth classic: Monopoly: Metropolis Edition. An innocent choice. Or so they thought. Because playing a game of ruthless capitalism with a god of escape, a goddess of war, a competitive Kryptonian, and a morally flexible shopkeeper was a recipe for absolute disaster.
"I am the banker," Urahara announced, pulling the tray with the colored paper bills toward him.
"Of course you are," Kara said, narrowing her eyes. "I'll be watching you, Kisuke. No diverting funds to spiritual Cayman Islands accounts."
"You offend me, Kara," Urahara said, while discreetly sliding two 500 bills under his sleeve with an invisible sleight of hand movement. "My integrity is absolute."
The game began. And the rules were broken immediately.
Scott Free rolled the dice. A three and a four. Seven.
"I move seven," Scott said.
His token, a small top hat, rose into the air, glowed with microscopic golden light, and teleported seven spaces forward. It landed on "Park Place." Blue property. The best.
"Cheater!" Kara shouted. "I saw that Boom Tube micro-loop! You didn't move the token, you teleported it!"
"It is movement efficiency," Scott defended himself, adjusting his glasses. "Besides, the dice fell that way. It is destiny."
"Destiny has an altered probability circuit on your wrist," Barda accused, but she was smiling.
It was Barda's turn. She threw the dice with so much force they bounced off the board, flew off the table, and knocked an action figure off the shelf.
"Ten," Barda declared without looking where the dice had landed.
She moved her token (the metal dog) with an aggressive slam. She landed on Kara's property.
"I have landed on your lands, Kryptonian," Barda said, crossing her arms.
"You owe me rent," Kara said, holding out her hand. "Two hundred dollars."
Barda looked at her with fire in her eyes.
"I do not pay tribute," the warrior growled. "I conquer."
"You can't conquer the Walk of Fame, Barda," Scott sighed. "You have to pay or mortgage."
"This game has no honor!" Barda complained, throwing two crumpled bills at Kara as if they were insults. "On Apokolips, if you want a street, you burn the ones living on it."
"Here we use compound interest," Urahara said cheerfully. "It is crueler in the long run."
The game continued for a brutal hour. Alliances were formed and broken. Kara and Urahara formed a non-aggression pact that lasted until Urahara charged Kara a "sidewalk maintenance fee" he just made up because she landed on his hotel.
Scott kept miraculously landing on "Free Parking" every time he was close to bankruptcy. And Krypto... Krypto was the element of chaos. The dog was under the table, but his head popped up occasionally.
When no one was looking, a pink tongue shot out and... slurp. A small green plastic house disappeared from the board.
"Hey," Scott said, counting his properties. "Where is my hotel on Place de la Concorde?"
Everyone looked under the table. Krypto looked at them, wagged his tail innocently, and burped. A small piece of green plastic flew out.
"The dog is eating the real estate market," Urahara observed. "That is a literal economic bubble."
The climax came when Barda, who had been accumulating low-value properties with a scorched-earth military strategy, landed on the "Go to Jail" space.
"No!" Barda roared, standing up. "No one locks up Big Barda! No one!"
"It's the rules, honey," Scott said, trying to calm her. "You just have to roll doubles or pay."
"I do not pay ransoms!" she shouted.
She raised her fist and punched the board.
CRACK!
The low table (the one Urahara had magically repaired after Lobo's visit) split in half. The cardboard board flew into the air. Monopoly bills rained down on the room like confetti from a failed economy. Tokens, houses, and hotels shot out in all directions.
There was a stunned silence. Barda looked at the mess. She took a deep breath. She smoothed her hair.
"I believe I have won," she declared. "I have destroyed the system from within."
Urahara looked at his broken table. He looked at the paper money scattered on the floor. He let out a laugh.
"Technically," he said, "that is a revolutionary checkmate. Barda wins."
Scott stood up, stretching.
"Well, I think that's a sign. Before Barda declares martial law in the kitchen, we retreat."
"It was a good battle," Barda said, slapping Kara on the shoulder so hard she almost knocked her off the sofa. "You have predatory instinct, girl. You should have been a Fury."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Kara said, smiling.
Scott and Barda gathered their things and headed to their room down the hall, arguing in low voices about whether Barda's demolition strategy was valid in official tournaments. Kara and Urahara were left alone in the devastated living room.
Krypto had already fallen asleep again, dreaming of eating the rest of the Bank.
"Sorry about the table," Kara said, starting to pick up bills from the floor.
"It doesn't matter," Urahara said, waving his hand. "I have spiritual glue. And cypress wood heals well."
He crouched beside her to help pick up the pieces. Their hands brushed as they tried to grab the same 500-dollar bill. They stopped. Kara looked up.
The light from the television cast soft shadows on Kisuke's face. He no longer had that salesman smile. He had a quiet, tired, and happy expression. They sat on the floor, leaning their backs against the sofa, surrounded by fake money and plastic pieces.
Kara rested her head on Urahara's shoulder. It was a natural movement. Automatic. Urahara put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. The smell of tea and his skin was better than any perfume.
"It's been a long day," Kara murmured, closing her eyes. "Space cops. Broken rings. Violent board games."
"But fun," Kisuke replied softly, resting his chin on her head. "At least Jordan's ring doesn't leak anymore. And Barda hasn't vaporized anyone."
"That is a success," she agreed.
They stayed in silence for a moment, listening to the hum of the fridge and the dog's breathing. It was an intimacy that needed no words. It wasn't the burning passion of movie romances.
It was the comfort of knowing that, at the end of the day, after saving the world or fixing a toaster, you had a place to land.
Kara lifted her head and looked at him.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?" he asked.
"For fixing everything. Always. Hal's ring. The toaster. My day."
Urahara smiled, that small, private smile he only gave her.
"I am just a shopkeeper, Kara. Fixing things is part of the service."
Kara leaned in and kissed him. Soft. Slow. Tasting of weariness and affection.
"You are much more than that," she whispered against his lips.
Kisuke kissed her back, briefly, before pulling away. He made a gesture with his hand, a silent snap of fingers. The room lights went out, leaving only the bluish glow of the aquarium and the artificial moonlight coming through the window.
"Rest, Kara," he said. "Tomorrow surely someone will try to destroy the world again. Or worse... Barda will try to cook."
Kara laughed, settling back onto his shoulder.
"Let them try," she said, closing her eyes. "We are ready."
And there, on the floor of a magic shop hidden in an alley in Japan, surrounded by broken toys and exiled friends, the two most powerful and lonely beings of their respective worlds fell asleep. Together. In peace.
- - - - - - - - - -
Hey everyone, how's it going? It's been a while since I updated this fic, right? Sorry about that -- I just wasn't feeling motivated to continue it for a while. But I've picked up some motivation again and I'm planning to finish it. Thanks for reading.
By the way, there's an open poll on my Patreon where you can vote on what my next fic will be. It's completely free to participate -- just pick the option that catches your attention the most.
That's all for now. Thanks for reading.
Mike