I stared at the mirror in my new bathroom.
The silver hair was new.
Back on Earth, I was just a guy with messy brown hair that I never cut enough.
Now?
I looked like a high-end anime protagonist who had a mid-life crisis at nineteen.
My eyes were the scariest part.
They werent just purple.
They were... glowing.
Like two neon embers sitting in my skull.
"Absolute Joker DNA," I muttered, touching my cheek.
The skin felt like silk, but I knew if I focused, it would turn into granite.
I needed to go out.
Not to eat.
(Actually, my stomach was growling again, but I was ignoring it.)
I needed clothes that actually fit.
The "Donation Bin" hoodie was starting to smell like a wet dog.
And I had a duffel bag full of "Grimm-Coins" that were burning a hole in my floorboards.
I pulled the hood up anyway.
I walked out of my apartment, locking the three rusted deadbolts.
The hallway smelled like cabbage and electricity.
Guts, my landlord, was sitting in a lawn chair near the elevator.
He was cleaning a shotgun that looked like it belonged in a museum.
"Heading out, kid?" Guts grunted.
His bionic eye whirred as it scanned me.
"Dont get shot. I dont like cleaning blood out of the carpet."
"I'll try," I said.
I walked past him and into the elevator.
It groaned like a dying animal as it plummeted to the lobby.
I stepped out onto the street.
The Absolute Gotham was in "Daylight" mode.
Which meant the sky was a sickly grey-purple instead of black.
I found a tailor in the "Vane District."
It was a shop called Iron & Silk.
The windows were barred with heavy steel.
Inside, it smelled like expensive cologne and gunpowder.
An old man with a tape measure around his neck looked up.
He had scars all over his face.
Most people in this universe did.
"You have money, boy?" he asked.
I didn't say anything.
I just opened the duffel bag.
His eyes widened.
"A Grimm-Coin stash," he whispered.
"Where did a brat like you get this?"
"I'm a good saver," I lied.
The "Absolute" Joker part of my brain wanted to laugh.
It wanted to tell him I ate the guys who owned the bag.
I pushed that thought down.
"I want something durable," I said.
"Black. High collar. Something that wont rip when I... move."
The tailor nodded, his hands shaking slightly.
He spent three hours measuring me.
He didn't ask why my body temperature was ten degrees lower than a normal human.
He didn't ask why my skin felt like it was buzzing.
In Gotham, asking questions was how you ended up as a bridge pillar.
When he was done, I looked in the three-way mirror.
The coat was heavy.
It was made of a synthetic weave that could apparently stop a knife.
It had silver chains draped across the chest.
"It's the style of the Inner Circle," the tailor said.
"People will think you work for a High Boss. It might keep the street rats away."
"Or it'll make them want to kill me more," I muttered.
I paid him double.
I didn't want him remembering my face too well.
I walked out of the shop, feeling the weight of the new leather.
I felt... different.
The "Otaku" part of me was geeking out over the outfit.
The "Monster" part of me liked the way the black fabric hid the blood.
I was walking back toward my district when I felt it.
A tingle at the back of my neck.
The Black Hand energy in my right arm started to pulse.
It was like a Geiger counter for "Absolute" energy.
I turned a corner into a wide plaza.
And that's when I saw him.
He was standing in the middle of a pile of scrap metal.
He was huge.
Not 15-feet huge, but wide.
He was wearing a tattered green flight suit.
He didn't have a Ring.
His skin was glowing with a sickly, neon-green radiation.
[SYSTEM ALERT: Entity Detected.]
[Name: Hal Jordan (Absolute Fragment).]
[Status: Fallen Lantern / Radioactive Hazard.]
My heart stopped.
This wasn't the "Main" Hal Jordan.
This was the Absolute version.
The one who had been corrupted by the very energy he tried to control.
He looked at me.
His eyes were just two pits of green fire.
"I smell... my own power," the Absolute Hal growled.
His voice sounded like grinding glass.
"Who are you, boy? Why do you carry the Black Hand?"
I took a step back.
I wasn't ready for a Hero.
Even a "Fallen" one.
"I'm just a guy," I said, my hand drifting toward the chains on my coat.
"A guy who's trying to have a quiet day. and you are in the way of that"
The Absolute Hal laughed.
It was a sound of pure madness.
"There are no quiet days in this universe."
He raised his hand.
A construct started to form.
It wasn't a boxing glove or a jet plane.
It was a massive, jagged spear made of solidified radiation.
"Give me the Hand, boy. Or I'll take your arm with it."
The "Hunger" roared in my gut.
It wasn't just hungry for meat this time.
It was hungry for willpower.
My silver hair whipped in the wind as the purple aura flared around me.
"You want the Hand?" I asked, my voice dropping an octave.
My jaw started to click.
"Come and get it, Lantern."