New York:
He hurtled through the sky, the light of the stars above reflecting on his strange ornate armor. Strange pistons wrapped themselves around his limbs, and on his chest was a glowing furnace, though only dying embers resided inside. He needed a charge, a boost, a battery to power his next journey. The sensors in his ancient armor had detected one inside this human city, and he was ready to take what he needed. No matter what.
In front of him, getting closer every moment, was a strange craft, long and white with bizarre flaps on each side. Small windows housed screaming people. He didn’t like the look of it. He raised his hand, and yellow energy crackled around his gauntlet.
Meanwhile, Hal Jordan shot through the air. But he wasn’t Hal Jordan anymore, no, he was Green Lantern. And that was all that mattered. He put aside all that had happened, the death of his mother, all the events from the past months, and he focused. He stretched out his hand in front of him, and his Power Battery, his link to Kyle Rayner, Ion, current embodiment of the Central Power Battery itself, materialized from the dimensional lock he kept it in between charges.
The words came easily. They always had done. “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power--” The strange visitor came into view, and he pulled back a fist… “--Green Lantern’s light!”
{Power levels at 125%} The Ring spoke to Hal, and he could almost feel it smiling.
Green Lantern multitasked. A baseball glove grabbed the glowing yellow power gauntlet of his attacker and smothered it, muffling the blast, and two rockets attached themselves to the back of the airplane, causing it to shoot out of range of the two people hanging in the air suspended by whatever their means. A boxing glove materialized in front of the man, and began to jump from one side of his face to another, causing him to become confused, and then it suddenly jerked forward, hitting him in the face. The individual’s armor shuddered, and then he slumped into the arms of quickly forming emerald angels.
Hal gritted his teeth. “I was fully prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. To not ASSUME you were here to cause trouble. But then you go and try and blow up a passenger jet?” He shook his ring finger. “No, sorry. Not going to take that. I’ve had enough of people like you ruining my day. Tell me why you’re here.”
“The… Battery…” muttered the alien, his tongue grasping the English language not with ease. “I am here…” His words became clearer. “I am here for the battery.”
“Battery?”
{Power levels at 87.2%}
The armor pulsated, and Hal could see what looked like fluid begin to pump through the pistons and into the man’s body. “But your little trinket will do!”
“Crap!” The creep was absorbing the ring’s charge! Hal pushed the man away, and aimed his weapon squarely at the man’s chest. “Who the hell are you?!”
“I am Kavorkian, last sentinel of the library of Avaracknos. I have so much to do, and so little time to do it. I have traveled the worlds beyond this one, and need more power to be on my way.”
“A librarian?!” Hal laughed at the man’s title, still trying to formulate a plan, “Why didn’t you just ask for a charge? I would have helped you as best I could!”
{Power levels at 68.9%}
“Your planet will make a suitable launching point for my next endeavor. So much in the cosmos to catalog. So much to learn.”
“Well now you’re just being mean!” Hal couldn’t make out the man’s body behind the armor. Glimpses of flesh were visible, but it was old, almost mummified. Black and gaunt, like the things you see lifted out of tombs in Egypt. Hal launched an emerald energy beam at the man, but it was easily swatted away.
“Nuisance! As I steal your power, I steal your words! I understand! I comprehend! You shall assist me in the cataloging of this place! Then you shall perish with your people.”
{Power levels at 56.7%}
“I don’t appreciate that sentiment!” howled Hal, launching a hundred separate beams of power at his attacker. They lashed over his armor, some swatted away by the villain’s energy gauntlets, tendrils grabbed and absorbed by the strange armor. But then others, just as Hal had planned, latched themselves onto the man’s exposed flesh, and dug in. The villain howled, and his skin ruptured, black ooze flickering out of the wounds.
{Anti-Matter build-up detected}
“WHAT?!” Hal upped the ante on his attack, and noted his ring’s charge still being drained away. This guy, whoever he was, had somehow hacked into his ring, and stolen energy, information, and, if he wasn’t careful, Hal would fall out of the sky. He didn’t need that right now.
{Alternate vibrational frequency detected}
“Scan his armor, I want weak points, I want Achilles’ heels, I want anything…” The ring enveloped Kavorkian, and the ring began to speak in between thoughts, so fast that no one else but Hal could hear.
{Avaraknos. Long thought dead race of genocidal procurers of knowledge. ‘Sentinels’ travel from world to world gathering information and then destroying the source of it. ‘Sentinels’ have been known to pierce holes, worm holes, through reality to travel from location to location--}
“That doesn’t sound good…”
“You will be educated.”
“Not by you.” Hal’s power ring slammed Kavorkian upwards, into the atmosphere, away from New York. “Not by anyone.”
{Alternate vibrational frequency building}
“What does that mean?!” shouted Hal at his ring, the words not making any sense.
“It means I will soon be on my way,” howled Kavorkian as he collided with Hal, causing the two to fall earthbound. The villain’s armor seemed to twist and contort, absorbing more and more power. Hal could feel it heat up, almost burning him through his ring aura. He thought words. And his ring replied.
{Armour is powered by outside energy sources, susceptible to overloading and overheating.}
Hal smiled. “So you want power?”
“Knowledge is all I crave, little Lantern, and through knowledge power!”
“THEN HAVE IT!” Hal tore his power battery from the dimensional lock and screamed his oath. Green power bathed into Kavorkian’s armor, and it shuddered and shook. He couldn’t withdraw any energy from inside the being, but if he could fill it so it could take no more, and to an extent where his power cells burst because of the overabundance of energy… “IN BRIGHTEST DAY!”
“What are you doing?” growled Karvorkian, his pistons burning against his cold dead flesh.
“IN BLACKEST NIGHT!”
{‘Sentinel’ armor cells at maximum}
{Power levels at 45%}
“NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT!” His flesh began to blister as his ring aura began to decay. He couldn’t falter. He had to push on.
Around them, the air shook. Around Karvorkian a white blur formed. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
He felt pain. He ignored it. “LET THOSE WHO WORSHIP EVIL’S MIGHT (That’s you, ya dirty creep!)”
“Can you not hear the sound!? Can you not hear the buzzing?!”
“BEWARE MY POWER!” Emerald light bathed both of them.
“SOMETHING IS WRONG!” screamed the villain, as he began to fade from sight, engulfed by the power charge.
“GREEN LANTERN’S LIGHT!” The sky exploded. Hal felt the burning cease, and the ring repaired the damaged cells in his body. He grimaced. It was healing him. His ring was healing him. It could have healed his mother, couldn‘t it? Damn. He looked around, and could see no more of the villain who attacked him above the skies. Where?
{Power levels at 7.4%} Yeah. His ring had channeled his charge through it and into the armor. Overloaded the systems. But if the armor had imploded, exploded, disintegrated, something, there would be energy signatures. Evidence.
He brought himself to a stop in midair, and spoke to his ring. “Where is he?”
{Subject is no longer on Earth}
“Are we okay then?”
{Subject is no longer inside Sector 2814}
“What?”
{Scanning--}
“Where is he?”
{Unable to locate in sectors 0-3600}
Hal scratched his head. “What happened? Wait… Those ‘sentinels’ can pierce reality?” he remembered what the ring had told him. “So he’s… Crap, he’s no longer on this plane of existence? Then…” he paused, and squinted out to the horizon. Something was approaching him. Something big. “What the hell is that?”
{Scanning}
It seemed to devour the sky. A wave of something… Something so loud he could hear it from where he hovered. He held his power battery in one hand, and pointed his ring at it. It seemed to lack any depth, and he couldn’t tell if it was solid or otherwise. And it was white. A white wall of something he could not identify.
{Warning, energy signature matches chronicled recordings of ‘anti-matter’}
“It’s coming in fast. Let’s contain it--”
{Unable to comply. Ring energy would have no effect}
Hal looked at his ring, the thundering sound from the wall getting louder and louder. “Then what does?”
{Unable to comply}
“Oh, God.” It wasn’t fear. It was awe. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. He had no time to call the Justice League or the Justice Society. There were no Corps, he couldn’t contact the Guardians. This was him. “What’s going to happen?”
{Antimatter wall overlaps section of reality it touches. Replaces all known organisms and entities}
“So there are people behind that?”
{Unable to comply}
“If it replaces… Then…” He concentrated.
{Power levels at 4.2%}
Above his ring formed a globe of glistening energy. A container of all the information on what had just happened. The Avaraknos. The sentinels. The anti-matter wave. All that had happened since he arrived. He pooled all his willpower, all his inner strength, and watched as the storm of anti-matter was mere meters away from him. The sound was deafening.
“GO! FIND--” The words didn’t leave his lips in time. But he knew what he wanted to say before the wave crashed into him. ‘GO! FIND SOMEONE WHO CAN STOP THIS! THE GREATEST HERO!’
Silence.
The wall engulfed him. He no longer felt… anything. He didn’t exist.
The globe hovered in midair. It contained everything. Information from another universe. Tendrils of energy whipped out, and scanned. The greatest hero. Who is the greatest hero? It scanned records, and hacked into something… Something familiar.
{Book of OA connection active}
How was it possible? The globe might theorize if it was sentient. But the Book of OA was connected to the Central Power Battery. Where the globe had come from, the CPB had been transformed into an Ion Battery. A living thing. The connection to the Book of OA was gone; all Hal Jordan had left was the information stored inside his ring.
{Greatest hero.}
It searched.
{Greatest Green Lantern.}
It flew through space. It jumped into sub-luminal pathways between space sectors. It flew as fast as it could. And then it arrived at its destination. In a far off space sector.
He reached out a thin emerald-ring-covered finger, and touched the globe. His own ring absorbed all the information, and his eyes widened.
“What brings you to Sector 1417?” Sinestro, wearing his green uniform, arched an eyebrow, and rubbed his chin. His own ring channeled all that was recorded inside the ring into his mind’s eye, and he projected the route the globe had come. “Who is Hal Jordan?”
Sinestro of Korugar, greatest Green Lantern known to the Guardians of the Universe, was confused. “And why did he have access to a power ring?”