Butcher was completely stunned after seeing Dante successfully awaken the Ancestral Red Lantern Ring.
Sure, he was a newborn Lantern Beast—but still a Lantern Beast—bound in symbiosis with the Ancestral Lantern Furnace.
He could grow within the Furnace, tap into its power to possess Lantern Ring wielders, and even manipulate it to some extent. But influencing which Corps member the Ring chose? Yeah, that wasn't part of the package.
As a Lantern Beast born of Rage Red Light, he came with a preloaded wealth of knowledge and instinct. In his experience, Rage Red Light apostles were always in a state of unfiltered fury and hate.
Even if they started out controlling their minds and bodies, that tiny sliver of humanity would eventually get eroded by eternal rage, until only a rage-puppeted body remained.
Wasn't their default expression supposed to be "say one word and I'll rip your face off"?
Yet after Dante slipped on the Ancestral Red Lantern Ring, not only did he not fly into a berserker frenzy, he even... smiled gently?
At first, he'd assumed it was the Will Green Light resisting the Rage Red Light, keeping him sane.
But the little Ox quickly realized: because Ion Shark had forcibly merged during its juvenile stage, temporarily becoming Ion Man, the Ancestral Green Lantern Power Battery and Ring were both drained—and the Green Lantern transformation had already dissipated.
In other words…
This was all him?
No wonder the Lantern Beast archives all say, "Don't mess with lone Green Lanterns." The advantage Will Green Light has when facing other Emotional Spectrum colors alone is no joke.
"What are you muttering about?"
"I learned a lot today," Butcher blinked his giant, innocent-looking eyes at the man who had just shifted from Ion Man to Red Lantern Devil. "You're holding both a Green Lantern Ring and a Red Lantern Ring. What do you call that? A contradiction in terms?"
Dante looked at the "very dumb, very innocent"-looking Butcher and couldn't help but wonder if he was fated to collect all the newborn Lantern Beasts.
What was this, Emotional Spectrum Edition of the Sage of Six Paths?
Anyway, speaking of Lantern Beasts—Ion Shark, after disengaging from its Ion Man merge, had immediately scurried back into the Green Lantern Power Battery to nap.
Dante knew that activating Ion Man's ridiculous power-up had been way too much for the newborn Shark and the Ancestral Furnace.
For now, he'd have to bid Green Lantern power a temporary goodbye.
Seems like Ion Man's power was best reserved as an emergency trump card going forward...
After all, he couldn't just keep draining the little shark dry.
Thankfully, the Ancestral Red Lantern was more than enough to fill the void.
And when it came to raw destructive power and aggressiveness, Red Lantern was arguably better.
Plus, this Ancestral Red Lantern—created using Ion Man's power—didn't come with as many nasty side effects as the original version.
Sure, it still amplified rage, hate, and rebellion against injustice, and the risk of falling into Eternal Fury was real. But maybe because it was molded with Will Green Light and Ion Man's energy, the fury was more... containable.
After transforming, the searing red energy would still course through his veins like lava, but none of the usual horrors applied—no heart-replacement shenanigans, no dying the moment the Ring was removed.
In a way, the Red Lantern's "evil" traits had been heavily diluted.
Dante was genuinely pleased with that result.
He'd been afraid the Red Lantern Corps would end up being nothing but a psychotic demolition squad that would completely destroy his rep.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jack Bright—who'd watched the entire thing go down—was still frozen with his jaw dropped.
"Hey, Jack, you dead or just buffering?"
Jack's soul—which had definitely yeeted out of his body—snapped back into place with Dante's voice.
What the hell had he just witnessed!?
That was a Dimensional Devil God. No—a High Divinity—living in the Crimson Cosmos, crossing multiversal boundaries just to handle a human.
And then that human just casually morphed into another High Divinity—well, maybe a bootleg version, definitely not at peak form, but still...
What kind of FBI agent was this!?
Jack had always assumed the Foundation Universe was the weirdest one out there.
But now?
He had to admit: it was no longer "the weirdest." Just "one of many."
"Did you just... rewrite reality?"
Whether it was severing the High Divinity's connection to the real world or altering the Crimson Gem's core properties—it was all clearly permanent.
This wasn't some cheap parlor trick by those annoying "reality warpers."
Plus, ever since his soul had merged with SCP-963, no matter which Universe he visited, the Universal Will would always tag him as one of the "Constants."
Which meant that any instance of reality-warping near him would automatically ping his awareness.
"I guess?"
Dante scratched his head. Ion Man, being one of the Lantern Corps' ultimate endgame cards, had some seriously busted feats.
Time manipulation, reality rewriting.
Even going head-to-head with Superman-level glitch characters, blowing up several Universes in the process.
As for Butcher—judging purely by endgame potential—he was still a tier below the Lantern Beast big dogs, Ion Shark and Entity.
But compared to the rest of the pack, he was already in another league.
Of course, this was based on the assumption that the Lantern Corps and Lantern Beasts had been around and had matured for a long time.
Right now? These two baby Lantern Beasts under Dante's care could barely survive a fusion session without blacking out.
Honestly, it wasn't a Green Lantern Corps or Red Lantern Corps at this point—it was more like the Ion Shark Nursery and Butcher Daycare.
"Anyway, now that we've wrapped up the big problem—have you made up your mind?"
Dante summoned a blazing-hot pointer crafted from Rage Red Light and hooked it through the ruby pendant hanging around Jack's neck.
"You coming back to the FBI with me quietly?"
"Or are you gonna put up some pointless resistance... and get buried by me in an ocean trench that never sees sunlight?"
(To be continued.)