[i]Fourteen thirty hours, Oa standard time. I've spent the last ten years trying to find some credible shred of evidence that one or more of the Guardians involvement in organized crime that would enable me to bring down these criminals. At least three Green Lanterns are dead for my efforts, and a fourth is in danger. That makes it my problem. My name is Salaak. I carry a ring.[/i]
[center][h1][color=lime]G R E E N   L A N T E R N[/color][/h1][b]"Orphan's Lament" [ Part II ] [ [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-BeEIoIQcs]Terrible Fate[/url] ][/b][/center][hr][hr]

It was strange how [i]irregular[/i] it felt now.

Enshrouding himself in emerald light, the Slyggian Green Lantern lifted off for the atmosphere of Oa the very moment that he had exited from out of the main administrative structure. It was a movement he had made countless times in the forty years that he'd spent as a Green Lantern. Except, he'd been on Oa for the last decade. In that time, had he ever once used his ring for something other than a simple construct?

The answer was no.

So now, lifting off into the upper atmosphere, Salaak found himself shaking off the cobwebs of atrophied skills even as he straddled the line between earth and space. 

3,600 sectors of space. 100 billion stars. Approximately 7.6 billion inhabited planets. And a lot of vagrant space, the depths of interstellar void in which nothing existed. Hundreds, even thousands of lightyears of emptiness that was as cold as it was unending. Somewhere in all of that was one small human child that he would need to find before the boy succumbed to a terrible fate.

No doubt the scarred Guardian had timed her request to see him just to create this moment. The overwhelming sense of powerlessness. Any of the Guardians could know in an instant where one of their rings were. Instead, Salaak was left with a cosmic needle-in-a-haystack.

...except Salaak had the benefit of knowing something that the scarred Guardian did not.

A proverbial ace up the sleeve. Though, he'd never expected that the scheme would work to this benefit now. Extending out his hand, the Slyggian closed his eyes and allowed his mind to dwell on the bond between him and his ring.

It was not enough to merely don the ring. The wearer had to be [i]chosen[/i]. Opening his eyes, the Slyggian vanished in a swell of green light, as the Green Lantern made the jump to lightspeed.

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The Slyggian slid back into normal space-time, gliding up in time to see the jade ring starting to pull away from the child's hand.

He was too late.

A green construct formed around Kai-ro's small form, sealing the boy into a stasis pod. Craning his head down, the Slyggian Green Lantern examined the two rings. The ring in his palm. The ring on his finger. There was history there. So much of the last ten years was so much sleight of hand. Nothing was right anymore.

Nothing had been, since those rings had parted ways.

Raising his head up, the Slyggian started calculating his next move. He was too late. But that was not the same as being out of time.

Maybe there was still time to try and make this right again.