The Stone King held a chunk of quartz the size of a tennis ball in the palm of his hand. Slowly, his
fingers dosed around it, squeezing, exerting more and more pressure until—
Tiny pinpricks of light leaped from the quartz. First a dozen, then a hundred, snaking this way and that
in the air, never colliding with each other as they whirled around at incalculable speed.
A practical demonstration of piezoelectricity!
Somewhere far away, Peter Glaston felt impressed. It looked like his theories weren't so far off the
mark after all. That'd be one in the eye for the high and mighty Professor Robert Mills!
The quartz lights came together as if magnetized, coalescing into a larger, ovoid ball of plasma. Its
internal shape shifted constantly, like the flames of a log fire. Peter gaped at it like a child seeing his
first cartoon show. He fancied he saw pictures—of himself and Jenny, of heroes fighting to the bitter
end, of distant cities burning.
The plasmoid ball dropped suddenly onto Green Lantern, playing around his head like the auras seen
in medieval religious masterpieces. A tendril lanced out around Wonder Woman, then others to
Superman and the Flash. None of the heroes reacted.
The light seemed to be performing its own crazed, intricate dance, shooting up in starbursts, rolling
and twisting like a dervish in the Persian desert. Without warning it reared up, coiled itself like a
living spring, then dove into the ground in a flash of cobalt blue.
The chamber lit up like the inside of a furnace, but the temperature didn't change.
Peter heard laughter issue from deep within himself, rumbling up through his diaphragm, bursting out
to echo throughout the chamber. Laughter that might have come from the pits of hell.