Second Chances: Green Lantern

Chapter 19

After spending several weeks searching all of Metropolis, James and his team had reluctantly accepted that Savage had left the city after he'd figured out that Carter and Cheryl weren't the people he thought they were. So they all went back to their daily lives.

Right now, Winn was doing some work in one of the most secure labs at Kord Industries when he heard the sound of someone entering his lab and he was surprised to find it was his boss Ted Kord.

"Mr. Kord, what brings you here?" Winn asked, surprised to see the CEO of Kord Industries standing in this lab.

"Mr. Schott, I need to speak with you about something in private." Ted said as he led Winn out of the lab and up to his private office.

"What's going on?" Winn asked.

"I need you to get me in touch with your friend the Green Lantern." Ted said, shocking Winn.

"What are you talking about?" Winn asked.

"Oh, would you prefer I use his real name, James Olsen?" Ted asked, shocking Winn even more.

"What makes you think that James Olsen is the Green Lantern?" Winn asked.

"Because, once upon a time, I was the Blue Beetle, though I'm not sure if you've ever heard of him." Ted said.

"Vaguely. Reports of sightings about a guy in a blue bug suit from back before Superman showed up 20 years ago." Winn asked and Ted nodded.

"That was me. Long story, but here's proof." Ted said as he tapped a button on his special edition Kord Industries smart watch to reveal a hidden wall containing proof that he was Blue Beetle.

"Wow, this tech is incredible. Especially considering how old it is. But why did you hang it up?" Winn asked.

"Well for starters, after Superman showed up, there was no real need for Blue Beetle anymore and second, I'm not a young man anymore." Ted said.

"I don't know, you look pretty young." Winn said.

"I appreciate it, but cosmetic surgery can only do so much." Ted said.

"How did you even develop this tech?" Winn asked, since there was no way any tech from 20 years ago could possibly be this advanced.

"The tech was inspired by this." Ted said as he showed Winn the schematics for some kind of alien bug.

"What is that thing?" Winn asked.

"It's called the scarab and like your friend James's ring, it's not from this world. It's an alien bug that's a very complex piece of bio technology that seeks out worthy hosts and forms a symbiotic bond with them. It bonded to an old friend of mine, Dan Garrett, who was the first Blue Beetle and after he died, he passed it on to me, but I could never get the scarab to bond to me, so instead, I spent years studying it, trying to reverse engineer it's tech so I could carry on the Blue Beetle legacy myself." Ted said.

"Okay, why don't we get back to what asked you to bring me here?" Winn asked, getting them back on track.

"Right, sorry. Anyways, as I'm sure you're aware, when my father founded this company, he built it up as a weapons manufacturer." Ted said.

"Yeah and I know that when you took it over, you stopped weapons production to focus on other avenues, why?" Winn asked.

"Well, my sister wasn't very happy about that and I recently discovered that she's somehow accessed my private servers to get data from the Scarab and she's using it to build these." Ted said as he showed Winn a file on his computer titled OMAC.

"One Man Army Corps." Winn read as he saw what it was.

"Yeah, it looks like Victoria has been double dealing behind my back, but I need you and your friend James to find me more proof. Well James. I want you to see if you can find any other uses for this technology besides weapons, since while I hate that Victoria created it, it is impressive and I'd hate for the time and resources that went into building it to go to waste." Ted said.

"I'll see what I can do." Winn said, knowing that James would love to expose a corporate conspiracy, he already had a few ideas about what to do with the tech.

"Just out of curiosity, where is the Scarab now? Just in case Victoria is searching for it?" Winn asked.

"In a secure vault that's hidden on the other side of the world, I had decoy vaults built all over the planet to keep Victoria searching. Though if the Scarab does awaken, we'll be alerted so we can intercept it before Victoria finds it." Ted said and Winn nodded.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I recently saw Blue Beetle and I loved it, best movie DC has put out in a while. Blue Beetle will be a character in this story, but not the way you think and he and Green Lantern will not be enemies, but I won't give too much away, since I am aware of the connection between the two in the comics, but I'm rewriting it to serve my liking. And finally, the actor who plays Ted Kord is none other than John Stamos. Have mercy on us all.