#gl au

Learning to speak the Indigo Tribe’s language changes surprisingly little at first, though it is nice to not have that buzz of half-translated-only-not-quite words in his head. The casual use of ‘nok’ makes more sense, and he begins to say it more himself – it’s easier now that he knows what it means. While he still spends a fair bit of time with Janven, he’s also making friends, proper ones for once (because he’s always been a social creature at heart), and he begins to go out and hunt for water and do similar work more often. It’s strange how good it feels to spend so much time outside – he’s spent most of his life in space due to one thing or another, and he’s always found people who prefer to live planet-side a little incomprehensible. Or, at least, he’d claimed he had, ever since Vegetasei…

The point is, he likes it here. The jungle is an interesting place to explore, but, even more than that, the dusty barrens really suit him. Saiyans are a desertous species, and once he’s learned what’s safe and okay for him to eat in terms of native flora and fauna, he can stay out a long time without having to go back to the Tribe’s headquarters for food, especially if he takes a small kit of tools and bedding with him. This means he can travel farther into the barrens than most, though there’s a few other Indigos on-planet who can handle the terrain at about his level. Two of them he gets along with quite well, an iridescent reptilian with six limbs called Komda and a plant-like saiyanine called Saguari, and the three of them start working together as often as not. It’s a bit like being on a squad, the way he’d thought it would be when he was a brat – laughing, working together, triumphant returns and less triumphant ones, casual mockery and teasing…

He doesn’t recognize any of the stars at night, though. This… is less comfortable that he would have guessed. He’s used to rearranging the stars in his head, depending on where he is in space, but this planet is in such a different section that he flat-out can’t do it. He doesn’t recognize any of the stars or planets, and he can’t find the light ghost of Vegetasei…

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 His staff fighting has improved by leaps and bounds since he started (and a tiny, smug part of him preens that of course he’s good at this, he’s saiyan, saiyans are naturals at fighting), and his constructs apparently finally pass the muster in regards to more than just shields and armor (only took him a year and a third), and all this, in conjunction with his learning the Indigo Tribe’s language, does lead to a big change.

His first assignment off-planet.

It’s an unexpectedly nerve-wracking prospect – he hasn’t left the planet since he got here, hasn’t seen anyone other than fellow members of the Indigo Tribe. Regardless of his nerves, though, he will be accompanying Janven, and the job is simple enough, but still… it’s been a long time, and he’s changed so much since he arrived.

He’s not get sure how they’ll get off-planet.

It turns out the answer to the latter question is teleporting. Janven can call it translocation or talk about answering a cry for help or whatever, but the fact remains that the Tortellian uses their ring, an indigo disc of light forms, the two of them step through, and they’re on another godspat planet. …it’s one of those occasions where Raditz had been told what would happen, but hadn’t actually believed it. Janven laughs as he sputters and spins around in a circle and finally turns red when he realizes there’s been an audience for his discombobulation, meaning he will be hearing about it forever.

As mentioned, the job is simple – there has been a shift in the planet’s crust and some important waterways have changed their routes as a result, causing simultaneous droughts and flooding. Raditz and Janven are here to clear the blockages and get the water back where it’s supposed to go, a task fairly similar to what he’s been doing on the Indigo Tribe’s planet, really, which is why he was chosen to go. They complete the task over the course of a few days, then return to the Tribe.

More missions off-world follow this one. The Indigo Tribe often handles natural disasters like the flooding issue, but they also help pick up the pieces on worlds ravaged by war, or act as support for the other lantern corps. And with these new activities come new lessons – that teleporting trick for one (an ability meant to be used sparingly, as it uses a substantial amount of power), and how to channel the powers of other Lanterns nearby, to either benefit or thwart them. Absorbing a Red Lantern’s construct and sending the power back at them, switching his staff’s light from indigo to green so that a flagging Green Lantern can recharge their ring in the middle of a battle… it is their ability to comprehend and mimic that often makes the Indigo Tribe so useful as allies.

In spite of their usefulness, the greetings they get tend to be a mixed bag, their presence being met sometimes with gratitude, other times hostility. One instance that sticks clearly in Raditz’s mind is an encounter with a small, yellowish being from the Red Lantern Corps. It’s causing a lot of damage even before they arrive, but at the sight of Raditz it goes absolutely ballistic. Ironically this makes it easier to subdue, since it’s tossed all form of strategy to the wind in favour of using every last ounce of effort to try and kill Raditz, and they’re in even better luck that there’s a Blue Lantern on hand to get its ring off.

It’s not the first time Raditz has seen a red ring be removed, but that one had been grateful to be free of the endless rage. For this being, however, rage turns immediately to pain. The fury of the Red Lanterns is often fueled by loss, and this one makes no effort to hide what, exactly, they have lost, or what caused it.

“Saiyan!” it shrieks, “Planet Trader! Murderer!!!”

And Raditz swallows hard, because this is the first time he’s been truly confronted with his past since he was inducted, worse because he understands the pain in the other’s frame, not perfectly but much too well. He remembers hearing about the meteor, about Vegetasei and the fate of everyone he held dear… And whatever expression this brings to his face only makes the being shriek louder.

“Don’t look at me like that, how dare you look at me like you understand, like you care, saiyan saiyan SAIYAN!!!”

“Get out of here!” the Green Lantern working to hold the creature snaps at him, and the look she gives is like acid, burning and accusatory. Raditz gets.

He can’t leave, not yet, there’s still going to be clean-up to do, loose ends to be tied off, but he gets out of sight behind a building and waits. Janven will be able to find him with their ring, and they’d had to pool their energy to teleport this far and still be effective when they arrived. He can still hear the once-Red Lantern, though, their voice carries.

“Hope?! Ha! Here’s mine – I hope to live to see them all burn!”

And- he doesn’t quite remember moving, but he must have, because he’s back in front of the being again, who even without its ring is thrashing hard enough to give the Green Lantern some trouble, and it snarls again at the sight of Raditz.

“Hey! I told you to-!” the Green Lantern interrupts, but Raditz ignores her, instead kneeling in front of the furious, pain-laced being.

“The saiyan race has already burned,” he says with quiet intensity, “It burned over twenty years ago when our planet was destroyed, and now there’s less than a handful of us left.”

“So, what, you think that makes us even,” the being growls, though their movements still some.

Raditz shakes his head, “I’m saying if your one dream is to see us all dead, all you need to do is wait a few decades and we will be. You don’t need to do anything, and it doesn’t matter if you do. Either way, we’ll still be dead.” He stands again and glances at the Green Lantern apologetically. “I thought they’d want to know.” Then he walks away again, and this time he’s followed by silence.

Eventually Janven comes to find him, along with another Tribe member that had been working with them for this mission. Raditz is sitting against the shadowed side of a building, arms wrapped around his legs, a white-knuckled grip on his staff. They come to sit on either side of him without a sound, waiting for him to be ready to speak.

When he finally does, he doesn’t meet their eyes, just asks, “Does it ever get any easier?”

“Eh,” the Tribe member he’s less familiar with makes a ‘kinda-sorta’ gesture.

“I can only speak from my own experience,” Janven says, quietly, gaze also straight ahead, “Over time a certain… resilience grows, but the pain… that does not go away. You simply learn how to handle it better.”

“That Green sure wasn’t helping,” the Tribe member mutters, sending a dark look in the direction they’d come from, “Don’t know how the Tribe members who’re called stand it – not liking us is one thing, we were scum, but they haven’t done anything, and they’re still treated terrible.”

“They’re not all bad,” Janven says in a reproving tone, “The Green Lanterns are as varied as we in temperament, after all. They have their place in the universe as much as we do, and-”

“-and besides,” Raditz interrupts, “What do you expect to happen when you take the most stubborn people in the universe and put them in charge of law enforcement?”

There is a beat of silence while the other two gape at him. Then, as one, they all crack up, and when the laughter stops it is finally possible to rise and get on with their work. The Blue Lantern also stops by to see them and offer gratitude before she leaves to dispose of the red ring she had removed earlier.

…they may be idealistic, in Raditz’s opinion, but they’re a good bunch. This one thanks them sincerely for their help, both in the fight and in subduing the former Red Lantern. And she doesn’t do anything but talk to them, but Blue must be catching, because, by the time she leaves, Raditz can’t help but feel a little more hopeful about what the future holds.

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 The Indigo Lanterns are supposed to be able to mimic other lanterns’ rings and abilities to a certain extent, from what I know. Given that compassion is often based in comprehension, this is a power that makes a lot of sense to me, so this is my take on it, horribly inaccurate as it probably is. In this universe I see the Indigo Tribe as generally being a sort of support/clean-up crew. In simplified terms, the way I see it is that the Green Lanterns stop the criminals and are the front-line fighters, the Blue Lanterns stop/prevent the staggeringly huge stuff and are the healers/buffers, and the Indigos come along afterwards to pick up the pieces and act as support fighters/buffers if need be.