V2 #7 (47): Stars Fall (HoM / Vasquez)

PREVIOUSLY IN GREEN LANTERN...

The mysterious cosmic terrorist Atrocitus has vowed to slaughter every Green Lantern the Red Lantern Corps come across until Hal Jordan is dead.

Evil Star stands revealed, and is running riot in a Manhattan hospital. No one knows he's there, apart from his victims.

Guy Gardner is undergoing a strange, violent metamorphosis. So far only Red Lanterns have been killed in relation to it, but he's been sent back to Earth to ensure Hal Jordan's safety. The Green Lantern Corps' luck cannot last.

Hal Jordan, aka Parallax from twenty years into the future and the true enemy of Atrocitus, has travelled back in time to the present day. He has been confronted by John Stewart, and before a punch could be thrown, Jordan simply deactivated Stewart's ring.

Above Coast City.

Oh, shit.

But that's not the worst thing.

Something awful is about to happen.

The death of one Green Lantern is nothing compared to when the lights go out across the universe...



"Here's what we know about the Red Lantern Corps," said Arisia, hurriedly. "Their very presence scrambles our ring-to-ring communication. The effect lingers for a time, even after you're out of range of their ring. If that wasn't the case I'd be with Guy right now, but he sent me back here, and like an idiot, I listened."

"We've been struggling to track Gardner's movements," said Salaak. "The intelligence you have provided corroborates that."

The two of them were in the Oan Citadel, inside the large, looming chamber the Guardians of the Universe used to hold their own, secretive meetings before they journeyed beyond this reality with the Zamorans.

"What's happening now?" asked Arisia.

"Boodika is with Isamot and Vath, they're headed to Earth to rendezvous with Gardner. They're to return Jordan to Oa, for his own protection."

"Red Lanterns roaming the universe, killing whatever they find..."

"I've recalled every member of the Corps to Oa," said Salaak. "The Green Lantern Corps are a target. Ensuring justice in the universe is making our Sector's potential collateral damage. I will not have that."

"You want to draw the Red Lantern Corps here?"

"Yes," said Salaak. "Sector 0 is uninhabited. If we bring Hal Jordan here, lure Atrocitus to Oa, we have the planetary defences, we have the upper hand."

"A good plan," said Kelso Noss, current leader of the Star Sapphire Corps. She had been standing in the imposing doorway of the Citadel chamber, awaiting an appropriate time to make herself known. "And your Corps' might will be joined by our own. You have my word on that."

"Arisia, this is Kelso Noss," Salaak motioned to the Sapphire. "Kelso, this is Arisia Rrab, one of our brightest lights."

Noss bowed slightly, and Arisia nodded. "An honour. Lantern Rrab, may I have a few moments of your time?"

Arisia looked at Salaak, who agreed with a nod. "Of course."

Arisia walked quickly through the halls of the Citadel with Kelso Noss, who smiled comfortingly as she detected the unease the Green Lantern was feeling. "There's nothing to be worried about, Lantern Rrab."

"It's just weird," said Arisia, "having you all here, like we weren't at each other's throats a year ago."

"We make our own destinies," said Noss. "But the questions I am about to ask are not of the future, but of the present. Guy Gardner... he's not himself recently, is he?"

Arisia swallowed hard. "He's really not."

Noss nodded hard. "Then we don't have much time. Come with me!"

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

<They will attempt to lure us into a trap,> said Atrocitus, addressing his Corps in front of a burning, red Sun. <But I have spent a decade fighting this war, eluding Parallax's forces, sabotaging the Anti-Matter Engine he was constructing across Sectors. They think they can trick us? Force us into a confrontation we are not prepared for? No, I say we shall take Oa! We shall gut, burn it, scorch it like they did our homeworlds! Our home Sectors!>

The Red Lantern Corps roared. Hundreds, thousands of Red Lanterns, all damaged, all willing to travel across time itself to prevent their future from coming to pass.

Atrocitus breathed in deeply, his life-giving power ring simulating the sensation of oxygen entering his hollowed, ashen lungs.

The war would end before it even had a chance to begin.

End with the death of Hal Jordan, at Atrocitus' hands.


"I never like pushing my luck," said Evil Star, settling back in his underground laboratory. He glanced over to the cages on the far side of his lair, and laughed. "And your face was causing me so much discomfort, Senator."

Bradley Roth wheezed, his old, artificially aged lungs struggling to keep him alive. "Y-you'll never get a-away with this, you b-bastard..."

"I already have!" chuckled Evil Star. "I wore your face, I took your youth to fuel my own, and with your face on my face, I stole the youth of every single man, woman and child in that insipid hospital John Stewart took me to. How wonderful. You're the monster, Roth. You're the villain."

"J-John?" whispered Roth.

"Yes, your old friend! Did you know he's now a Green Lantern?"

"H-he'll stop you," stuttered Roth.

"Maybe, but first," Evil Star stood, spun around, and then threw himself at the machine he had been constructing. "My own universal viewing array." He motioned up at the giant screen. "Capable of pulling back the curtain of reality and answering all the questions I ever had, or could ever have!"

"W-whhh?"

"Krona did it first, you see. It's the stuff of legend! A great scientist wanting to view the secrets of the beginning of time and reality itself. Something went wrong though. His calculations were flawed, but mine? Mine are exact. This device--" He beckoned at the array behind it. "Built with ancient Oan technology, enhanced with Apokoliptikan science, all in the name of discovery! But you don't understand. Your human brain is too small and too addled to contemplate the concepts I'm spouting. No matter! I'll show you! Starlings! Begin activation!"

"what ar-are y-you doing?" whispered Roth.

"I will make stars fall, Senator. I will turn the lights of the universe out."

"H-how?"

"Questions!" boomed Evil Star. "But questions are what drew me here, human. I murdered by homeworld on a whim, I have slaughtered whole civilisations, and it means nothing to me! Like the great Krona before me, I want to see the beginning of creation. I want to know why I'm here!"

"M-murderer..."

"That's nothing compared to what I'm about to do," snarled Evil Star.


"Kyle? Kyle, can you hear me?" Katma had taken Kyle into her aura, and was now trying to stir him from unconsciousness. "It's important you wake up, Kyle. Please."

"Hhrrrmmm?" Kyle blinked, swallowed his exhaustion and looked up with tired, half closed eyes. "K-Katma?"

"Thank the Guardians," she whispered. "Where did you send my sister, Kyle?" She cursed herself. "Where did you send Sinestro? The baby?"

"Safety, had to get them to--" Kyle coughed and then a look of concern flashed across his face. "Something's wrong."

"The Red Lanterns--?" offered Stel.

"I can feel," Kyle was awake now, alert. He looked at his hands and at the glowing light that was emitted from them. "Something is wrong with the universe. We need to land! We need to get to atmosphere!"

"What's he saying?" asked Miri.

"Do as he says! Quickly!"

Katma, Kyle, Miri and Stel dived for the nearest planet. As they hit the surface, Kyle fell to his knees, his legs still weak, but he looked up to Katma desperately. "Something terrible is about to happen! We have to warn the Corps!"

"What is it, Kyle?"

There was a wet popping sound and the Lanterns' ring exploded upward with light, like something had triggered in their connection with the Central Power Battery. Kyle vomited white light, and then reeled back, all the while Katma, Miri and Stel tried to rein their power rings in as energy poured out of them with wild abaddon.

Sector TTTTTKSKSSSSSKKKKKKK ##distortion##recalculating##:

The hand reached out. Energy flowed across the universe. The hand began to form. It began to take shape. It began to clench, fingers folding in to one another, until the fist was whole, and the hand, the giant, impossible hand... it began to move...

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

"What is this?" asked Miri, trying desperately to reclaim the energy that was spewing forth from her power ring. "What's happening?"

<My internal sensors detect a massive discharge of energy, unlike anything I have ever experienced /// seen recorded.>

"You think, Stel?" snapped Katma. "Ring, status!"

<Ring charge at 333333333333##########>

"They're draining of power," said Kyle, his every pore shining with light, "every Lantern ring is expelling it's charge." He looked around this planet. "Every Sapphire, every Lantern, every ring."

"What?!" said Katma. "But that means--"

<If what Kyle Rayner is saying is correct-->

"The death toll..." whispered Miri. "Oh, lords, lords and heavens..."

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

"It's happening!" screamed Evil Star. The screen in front of him was fuzzy at first, but energy was being drawn into it impossibly, emerald energy, violet energy, amber energy, cerulean energy-- the basic components of the universe, the energy that kept reality together-- the screen became clear, and Evil Star laughed. "This is it. This is what I have sought for my entire lifespans."

The hand was a clenched fist across the universe. It was made up of every colour across the known spectrum, as well as impossible colours, nonexistent colours, colours that never made it into the real world. These were devils and demons, angels and gods, the colour of creation and the light of life--

Roth gasped and crumbled to dust behind him.

--The hand grew closer, and Evil Star realised, before everything went dark, that the monitor in front of him wasn't absorbing the energy, but the hand itself, this was just a minor view of a massive event, an event that would shatter the universe.

"This isn't the beginning," said Evil Star. "This is... this is right now."

Evil Star didn't notice the pile of ash that was previously Roth begin to flow away on winds that came from nowhere. Evil Star was laughing, staring at the screen, ignoring the fact that his own eyes were now liquefying and dribbling down his cheeks.

"I see it," he whispered, "I see the universe, and he sees me. I... I could cry..."

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

Atrocitus looked down at his ring as it spluttered. Charge was being depleted from it. This made no sense to the leader of the Red Lantern Corps, but it didn't faze him. <It is time to bring forth the battery,> his ring said on his behalf.

The Red Lanterns, their rings reacting the same way as Atrocitus', lit up, even as beads of energy began to draw out of them. They pointed their rings at the red Sun that the planet they had landed on orbited around, and began to chant.

<With blood and rage of crimson red--
We fill men's souls with darkest dread--
We twist your minds with pain and hate--
We'll burn you all, that is your fate--!>

The red Sun split open, and from a black space inside it another shade of red began to become visible. Sleek. Crimson. Shining like gun metal. From the red Sun emerged a massive power battery.

The Red Lantern Central Power Battery, dragged through time, through space, to this moment.

It descended toward the Corps, just as the red Sun behind it... went out.

<The stars fall,> said Atrocitus, <and our number shall not be reduced. The Green Lantern Corps will be broken, dashed, all thanks to this cosmic event.>

<Is it time for the next phase?> asked a beautiful Red Lantern, her wings bones and her skin a faded blue.

<Soon, Bleez,> said Atrocitus. <Night falls, morning comes soon after. We wait until the dust settles. And while the Green Lantern Corps lick their wounds, we drive a stake through their black, shrivelled hearts! And The Red Lantern Corps Will Emerge Victorious! We Will SAVE THE UNIVERSE!>

While the Red Lantern Corps thrust their rings into the sky, billowing crimson energy out to the dead, dark stars, Atrocitus faced his Central Power Battery, and floated up toward the smooth, flat surface that reflected his horrifically scarred face back to him.

<We will release you across the surface of our gravest enemies. The Corps that first imprisoned you, the enemies of our Red Lanterns, they shall suffer immensely at your hands. You have my vow.>

BABUM

The Red Lantern Central Power Battery throbbed like a devil's heart beat, and Atrocitus's ring bubbled up with promise.

BABUM

"Good."

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

"Aaaaah, shit," growled Guy Gardner. His instincts had kicked into overdrive and he had landed hard. His ring was spurting out energy like a fire hydrant. His costume recededuntil he was back in his civilian clothes, his ring screamed, and then there was silence, and he was in a crater, smoke rising up to the sky above. "W-what was that?"

His ring was silent.

"C'mon," he growled. "What's going on? Oa? Oa can you hear me? Salaak?"

There was no response.

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

The bar was half empty. Men stuck to their tables, their cliques, and didn't bother anyone else. There was a bearded man at the bar, ignorant to the goings on in the world. He lived in one of the abandoned apartment buildings back in Coast City. He walked to this bar most nights to drown his sorrows and try and feel some connection to the human race.

It hadn't worked so far.

Hal Jordan's cell phone buzzed. A name and a face-- a beautiful face, two, counting the woman and the baby girl in her arms-- that he didn't want to see right now. He ignored the call.

A heavy boot landed on the wooden floor. Some men turned, shocked at what they saw. The bartender glanced over at the door, his brow furrowed, and he looked at Hal. He looked back at the newcomer, and back at Hal.

"H-hey," mumbled the bartender.

Hal didn't look up. "Whuh?"

"I-I think your b-brother's here?"

Hal looked up and saw a figure that resembled him. More grey hair, but cut short. The grey had spread from his temples to his fringe, and back. The man in the doorway didn't have the beard that Hal had carelessly cultivated over the past year. If anything, the man looked like Hal's dad, and that memory hurt Hal like the memory of the loss of his daughter. The armour was foreign to him. Completely unknown.

Or was it?

"Hal," said the man. "We need to talk."

"M'busy," said Hal.

"Jesus Christ," said the man, spitting emerald fire. There was a flash, a blinding explosion, and Hal was now outside. He held onto his beer bottle, confused somewhat by the change of scenery.

Hal sipped his beer.

"This happened to me too, but I did something about it," said the man.

"Look, man, go about your business, I don't care who you are, ghost of Christmas yet to come or whatever, just leave me alone."

The man grabbed Hal by the throat and lifted him up. "I'm here to save our daughter, Hal!"

Jordan dropped the beer bottle.

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

The barriers erected in front of their cells disappeared.

Hank Henshaw looked up, the chains evaporating from his wrists. He stood, and laughed, and then took a step forward.

Mongul pulled himself from his cot, rubbing his hands together. "What's happened?"

"Hell if I know," said Henshaw, looking down the infinite walkway that was lined with cells. Some empty. Some full. Others held the bodies of prisoners-- no, what did the Guardians call them? Inversions?-- long dead.

And now they were all free.

"This isn't right," said Henshaw. He backed away from Mongul. "Something isn't right here."

"I'm going to kill you, Henshaw," said Mongul, trudging forward. "I'm going to wear your skin and ravage your woman, if there was one. I'm going to wear you as a cloak as I murder the world."

"Get back into your cell," said Henshaw, taking a seat back in his own.

"Or what?" asked Mongul, on the perimeter of Henshaw's own.

<NO.> The mechanical voice emerged from the shadows that caressed the walls. <NO INVERSION. ESCAPES.>

Mongul's eyes opened wide moments before he was blasted back into his cell.

A Manhunter unit emerged from the dark, his energy staff buzzing. Dozens more Manhunters flooded the halls. Hank could hear their mantra echoing throughout the dank recesses of the prison. He could hear energy blasts. He could hear an uprising being quelled.

<NO INVERSION ESCAPES. THE MANHUNTERS.>

"I'm not an Inversion," whispered Hank. "And I will." He closed his eyes, and tried to get some sleep, the voices of his jailers ringing in his ears.

Hank didn't notice the cadre of Weaponeers from the Anti-Matter world of Qward flock together in a cell near him. He didn't notice the damaged Manhunter unit they had managed to overtake without anyone noticing. He didn't notice them go to work...

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

"I can feel the pulse of the universe," said Kyle, swaying slightly. "It's fast, so fast... struggling..." He was caught up in whatever was happening in the universe around him, his pupils dilated and his skin clammy and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. To any onlooker, he might appear high, but it was something else-- something much deeper.

"We need to get off this rock," said Katma.

Stel had taken a seat close by, his body slowly seizing up as the parts he had grafted to himself after the savage attack of the Red Lanterns on Korugar began to fall away. <K-K-Katma,> he buzzed.

"Stel!" gasped Katma. "Stel, what's happening!" She rushed over to his side, and tried to stop his arm from falling away from the shoulder socket. The metal crumpled against her touch, like it was made of paper.

<N-N-No time for repair,> stuttered Stel, <T-T-Too much damage.>

"Stel, hold on, we can, we can do something, anything," said Katma. "You can't die!"

<T-T-There is no concept of 'die' for my people, only--> The emerald light behind Stel's eyes began to fade. <Only the end. K-K-Katma-->

"Kyle!" screamed Katma, tears falling down her cheeks. "Do something!"

Kyle blinked out of his confusion, shook his head violently to get rid of the cobwebs covering his thoughts, and approached Stel. He held out his hand and took Stel's in his own. "Hold on."

The light behind Stel's eyes went dark. The cybernetic Lantern's head fell from his shoulders and landed on the dusty ground with a thud.

"O-oh no," whispered Miri.

"Hold on," repeated Kyle. And he closed his eyes, and more light began to pour out of him. It bled into Stel's damaged parts, and lines of white light began to knit them back together. He squeezed Stel's hard, metal hand and then the fallen head buzzed, and was pulled back onto Stel's shoulders.

"How is he doing that?" asked Miri.

"He's the Torchbearer," answered Katma, wiping away tears. "He held the Green Lantern Corps on his shoulders during a time of great Crisis. And now..."

<What is happening,> buzzed Stel, the emerald light igniting behind his lenses. <What has been done?>

"Good," whispered Kyle. He stood and Katma rushed back over to embrace Stel. He turned to face her and Miri. "Something has changed."

"Your uniform," said Miri, "your uniform, for one--?"

Kyle looked down at himself, and saw that he was wearing a white version of his Ion flight suit. "This is new."

"We need to recharge our rings, we need to get to Oa," said Katma. "I can't retrieve my battery, I've tried, but I'm cut off, I don't even--"

Kyle reached through reality with one hand and pulled out Katma's Power Battery. "The stars have gone out," he said, pointing up, "but they'll come back. I... I have to make sure of that. But the damage... will be... devastating."

"The stars...?" said Miri.

"Someone did the unthinkable. Did something only one before him has done. And in doing that, he may have awakened forces beyond understanding."

"Where?" asked Katma.

"Earth," said Kyle. "Your charge was removed from the ring by force. They will recharge if your oath is true. But our priority... before Oa... before rejoining our Corps... we must ignite the Suns... but how? There are millions... billions of stars and suns... and we have to reignite them all."

Miri leaned over to Katma. "Why is he speaking like that?"

"I don't know," said Katma. She looked at the Star Sapphire and then was confused. "Your ring, it's recharged! How?"

Miri smiled, and held up her violet power ring. "Love powers me," she said, "for now, at least."

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

Evil Star fell to his knees, the liquefied remains of his eyes congealing with blood. He was laughing, and his gremlins were unsure of what they should do.

A hand reached down and patted Evil Star on the shoulder. "You have done well, star child."

"I can see the universe," said Evil Star, looking down at the ground, the machinery in front of him a smouldering wreck. Fragments of shrapnel from the silent explosion were embedded in his skin, his uniform, but he didn't care. With blind eyes he looked up at where the man behind him was stood. "I can see you"

"I am the universe," said the man. "And I have great plans indeed."

"Can I come with you?" asked Evil Star.

The man laughed, and shook his head. "Your destiny is here, star child. Soon we shall be reunited as equals. You shall be elevated. But right now?"

"P-please?" asked Evil Star.

"Right now you are but a worm."

The man vanished, and Evil Star wept for a moment, before he couldn't help but find the funny side of the situation, and he laughed once more.

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

Guy felt the thing in his chest throb, demanding to be let out.

"N-no," he growled. "Where the hell am I?" He looked around and then laughed at his luck.

The sign read FERRIS AIR.

Guy hopped the fence and made a beeline toward the locker rooms. Hal and Hank had gone on and on about this place for god knows how long that it was like he himself had once been a test pilot here. No such luck on that front, of course. He'd been strictly military, never taken the civilian plunge like Highball had.

The night guard spotted him a split second too late and was knocked out with a hard right. He stole the keys off his belt and then unlocked the door to the lockers.

There was a shrine to Hank Henshaw, even after all he had done. A shrine.

"You have got to be shitting me," he spat. He tore the photos and the memories from the locker and smashed the lock open with his elbow. His ring flared as it detected something. He closed his hand around the air in the locker and found what he was looking for. He gripped hard, pulled, and withdrew a cloaked Power Battery from the recesses of the locker. "Never change, Henshaw, you dead sonofabitch. In Brightest Day..."

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

Carol Ferris watched Guy Gardner's break-in from her office, the CCTV operating just fine. The ring on her finger had nearly blinded her as it expelled all it's charge earlier on, and she had feared that she'd never fly again under it's power, but Guy's act sealed the deal for her. The Green Lantern was fully charged, his uniform was as it should have been, and he was gone, blasting out of the Ferris Air premises like he'd never been there.

Carol kicked her bottom drawer twice and the secret panel fell open. She pulled out her own Power Battery, crystalline, organic, grown by Hank Henshaw for her especially, and began to recharge, the violent ring flaring as she went.

Sector ##distortion##recalculating##:

"Our daughter was taken from us, and the Guardians did nothing, so I vowed I would get her back, and I'm so close now," said the man, who had lowered Hal back down to the ground.

"I'm done," said Hal. "I'm done with the Green Lantern Corps. There's no way to get her back."

"There is," said the man, "we can change reality. We can get her back, but I can't do it alone, there's so much to do, and I realised," the man's eyes got wide, eager, "the only man I trust in this is you."

Hal shook his head. "What about Gardner? Salaak? Any of those guys, they'd go above and beyond, why does it have to be? Why couldn't you do this yourself?"

"They're dead in my time. To get where I needed to be, they died."

"What?" asked Hal.

"You think gaining this power was easy? That they just gave it to me?" The man laughed. "I reached into the Central Power Battery itself and took the power as my own. I became the Torchbearer. I am the Green Lantern Corps."

"You... you have it all?" said Hal incredulously.

"Yes, an infinite amount of power, controlled by my willpower. I was building a machine, an Anti-Matter wave generator, capable of overwriting reality. Do you remember? A few years ago your time, you faced a madman who collected data across realities and left for the next by destroying the previous? I have those schematics! I have everything I need! But by the time the machine was complete, the universe had moved on, to bring her back to that... it would be... it wouldn't be right... Chloe's dead, and... there's no point in saving her if there's nothing that she'd remember, nothing she'd know..."

"You can bring her back?" said Hal, slowly.

"Yes, yes I can," said the man. He flexed under the armour. "I can do anything."

"I need a power ring," said Hal, "I'll help you. I need her, dammit, you know how much, I need her and if you can bring her back, I'll die for it."

"There are no Green Lantern power rings left," said the man, "but there's this--" He held a hand out, and a sphere of emerald energy rotated. "A fragment of my infinite power. Take it. Wield it. And we'll begin our work."

Hal took the sphere in his hand and felt the power wash over him. His old flight suit began to form over his body but he wished the central insignia of the Corps away. No.

"Come on," said the man, motioning to the sky.

Hal paused. "Where's... where's John Stewart?"

"He was getting in my way," said the man, shaking his head as if to dismiss the question. "He's gone now. Come on."

"'Getting in your way'?"

"There's no time," said the man, straining to induce Hal to follow him.. "Come on."

Hal pointed a finger at the man, and made a shooting sound out the corner of his mouth. "Pe-ow."

"Whaauuugh--?"

The man fell awkwardly as all the energy he wielded left him. Blood dribbled from his nostril and ears. It was easy enough. A simple construct in his brain, instant brain damage, rendering him unable to do anything when you can't form a thought.

"I'm not a monster," said Hal, sitting in the dirt. "And I can't sacrifice a reality for her. I can't. I..."

Hal drew the power of the Central Power Battery out of his brain damaged future doppelgänger and held it out in front of him. He then let it all go, drifting out across the universe.

"Oh, Jess," he whispered, "I'm so sorry."

"You will be sorry, you sick bastard," growled Guy Gardner, floating above the body of the future Hal Jordan. "You're a monster. We all know it. And I'm sick of it. I'm sick of you."

"Guy?" said Hal, wiping the tears from his eyes. "What the hell are you on about now?"

Emerald flames drifted off Guy's body. "A terrorist is tearing the universe apart because you did something so irrevocably awful, and it's always the same. It always comes down to you."

"The bad guy is at your feet, Guy, it's not me."

Guy glanced down at the prone body of the future Hal Jordan and sent a deluge of emerald fire to engulf him. The man died instantly, reduced to ash in seconds.

"It's always you," said Guy. "So if I kill you now, I end it. I end every future war and every future genocide you're behind. And I'll be the hero. I'll be the one they all flock to."

Hal shook his head, stood, and pointed a finger at Guy. "You're gone in the head, Gardner. I'm sorry to say it, but you're not there anymore. So do what you gotta do," he opened his arms up, bared his chest to the man. "Kill me, you sonofabitch."

Gardner grinned sinisterly. "I've wanted this for so long."

"Then you're going to have to wait a moment longer, Guy Gardner!"

Gardner spun around and his jaw dropped. Hal stumbled back.

Sinestro was wearing a Green Lantern costume. Wielding a power ring. Behind him was John Stewart, banged up but alive.

"Sinestro, wow," said Guy. "I feel like I know you like I know my brother, you know that, right?"

Guy grinned, and vicious constructs began to form at his fists. Emerald energy intertwined with... violet?

"From the taint of the Legion ring, I presume?" said Sinestro, his arms crossed.

"Yeah, that little bastard did a number on me, but it did a number on you too, didn't it?"

"That it did, human," said Sinestro. "Power down your ring. Hal Jordan is not the enemy."

"I don't take orders from enemies of the Corps. You're still most wanted, you know that? You're a terrorist, just like him," he said, motioning back to Hal. "So if I kill you, no one's gonna' ask any questions. Besides, I killed you once before, didn't I? Bullet in the ol brain pan, nice and smooth." He put a finger to his head and grinned. "Bang bang."

"Enough then," said Sinestro, "if you're not going to remove your ring, then I'll remove it for you."

Guy pounded his fist into his open palm, grinning maniacally. "Two against one? I love those odds! Bring it then, you alien bastard!"

Sinestro glanced down at his ring. He had barely had a chance to use it. Barely had a chance to work out the kinks. He smiled. Now was as good a time as any--!

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT TIME IN GREEN LANTERN: "LOVE BURNS"

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