Lantern Volume 1: Last Light

Lantern #2
Last Light Pt 2
My Power

Sector 2814, Earth
Coast City

The scream was something primal. Something animalistic. Guy’s ears barely recognized it as human. His brain certainly didn’t. It filled the bar with its terror, reaching inside him and shaking him to his core. It shouldn’t have been unexpected. Bringing out that shotgun, firing it… That was quite possibly the worst thing he could do in this situation. What could he say, he was rusty. His life was in danger and he had reacted. Just as he’d been trained to do. It had kept him from a shallow grave – more likely, reduced to atoms or ending up in something’s stomach – for years. It probably saved him this time too but, unfortunately, there were some things worse than death.

He could feel it. That mind numbing fear.

He leaped over the bar counter like a man five years younger, dashing past the fallen Manhunter. No, she wasn’t the screamer. She was in no state to scream after taking that shot to the face. The screamer was someone – something – else entirely. That could possibly justify why he didn’t first perceive it as human. But once he started thinking that then he’d be going down a road he could never, never return from. One thing to abandon your own humanity, it was worse when you took it away from another.

“Jessica! Jessica,” he shouted over her screams, “I need you to calm down. I need you to calm down now!”

Jessica Cruz looked smaller, like a child, curled up in her booth with her plate upturned and cup knocked over, water spilling onto the floor. Her fingers twisted in her dark hair. They threatened to rip clumps out from her scalp. Heaving sobs interrupted the screams. Hiccups. It almost seemed to be over, her body no longer able to cry that loud, until she locked eyes on him. They glowed with brilliant light. Blinding light. Her lungs had more left in them.

The fear washed over his skin. A cold, familiar horror. She saw him as a monster.

There was a third light radiating out from her. A light that seemed to be so bright that it was surprising it didn’t burn through the strands of hair covering it. Guy glanced over his shoulder towards the Manhunter. Still unmoving. He didn’t have much time. It would stay like that for long.

He took a deep, calming breath. He wasn’t exactly known for his bedside manner. Sure, he was better than his old partner except that didn’t say all that much. But… but… there were some things he had picked up as a barman. They provided a much needed service beyond the mere purveyors of alcoholic beverages. They offered an ear. He’d learned that, the ability to listen, to hear the unsaid, to read the situation and keep the drinks coming or know when to stop them.

It was what he could do.

Her hand jerked away from him as he reached out to her. She shook her head no. Her whole body shook. She crawled under the table trying to escape him. This was a terrible idea.

“Jessica, tell me what you see.” An even voice. Or as best as he could manage.

The shadows beneath the table vanished in the light of her eyes.

“Tell me…”

“The woods…my friends… t-t-them. The body.”

“Okay, okay,” slowly, he had to go slowly, “what else?”

“The… the… gun!”

“What kind of gun?” He asked, aware of the answer.

“A shotgun.”

“Ah. I can see it too.” His hand closed atop her own. A yellow aura slipped between his fingers, sliding over him like a second skin. An intoxicatingly familiar feel. He had caused this outburst. And as the sensation crawled across his face, he truly could see the woods that night. He saw the whole thing and he felt Jessica’s fear. Fear she lived with every day. A survivor.

It made him angry. The golden light darkened for an instant, cloaking him in crimson.

“What do you hear?”

“The s-screams…”

He listened and heard. He heard the gunshot, the screams. Almost he could feel the pain in Jessica’s legs as she ran through the night, scraping skin and branches slapping her in the face. The terror radiated out from her. Terror could be dealt with.

Guy could use his anger. He knew it like he knew every single drink he stocked. Maybe better. That wouldn’t be the way though. It wasn’t that he had survived great fear. He overcame it. All his willpower, all that he could muster, a lifetime worth of doing what needed to be done and throwing himself into danger to save someone else. Bravery. Because he had been terrified many of those times. He didn’t want to die. Still, he had acted. It was the only thing he could do.

The emotion surged through the layers of fear. Indigo light flared before yellow turned to green. It flowed through him and into the young woman. The sobs stopped. Emerald eyes met his own. Instead of him holding her hand, she reached for his. For him to help pull her to her feet.

Jessica stood, shorter than him, but now every inch as courageous. Her finger glowed green as they slipped between his. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it on her own, that she couldn’t handle the waking nightmare. Some things were better done with help. Especially when it was more fear than imaginable that needed to be squashed.

“Thank you.”

“You need to go,” Guy glanced back at the Manhunter once more, “Go and find… Kyle.” Why the hell had he said Kyle? The thought just sprang to the tip of his tongue. It came from somewhere within, from the glow. “You remember what his emotions feel like?”

A nod.

A sound. Stirring. Not long now.

“I’ll come for you after I handle this.”

She stopped at the door leading to the back. Guy held up his hand. It shined like an emerald torch still. His smile was reassuring. She kept going. From the corner of his mouth, scarlet blood trickled out.

Something scratched the back of Kyle’s neck. He looked up, feeling like he was being watched. His fingers clenched his tablet tight. So tight that it threatened to crack the screen. No one was there. Well, obviously there were people around. He was in a comfortable little nook at his favorite Barnes & Noble. Not many people out shopping at this hour but there were others like him enjoying their afternoon coffee and making use of the free Wi-Fi. A few college students, some old ladies walking about, one particular saleswoman with iron-gray hair who gave him the stink eye… Nobody was near enough to touch his neck. Not with his back to a window.

The iron saleswoman turned her nose up at him. Fair enough. She read the Coast City Chronicle. Wasn’t that big a fan of his work. Not after that cartoon had been published of her. Really, she was overreacting. It was quite surprising she recognized the caricature of the time she caught some kids trying to steal a DVD. . . She didn’t have devil horns and moonlight in hell. As far as he knew that is.

Kyle looked out the window, out towards Oasis a couple blocks away. There was an itch of fear bubbling to the surface from the depths of his brain. Weird. He was getting paranoid.

Guy poured himself a shot of his strongest as the Manhunter stumbled to her feet. Because he was a gentleman, he poured her one too. It wasn’t his hourly sip. This was something special. Something he had to have a taste of to wash away the burning blood. It had been a long time since he ever felt the need to have an ounce of liquid courage. There’d been a woman involved back then too. He downed it in one go and had another.

He was about to go down the rabbit hole once more but this time there’d be no escape. After all, she had said it. No man escapes the Manhunters. Even if he survived, they would know the power he still possessed. The woman used the counter to finish pulling herself up. She fixed him with a stony glare. Not bad. The only signs she’d been shot in the face was a blackened eye already on the mend. A shaky hand reached for her glass. She drank.

She coughed and choked.

“What the hell is that?”

“Special batch of moonshine,” Guy answered, now on his third shot.

“And you sell this to people?” she was still coughing. Her face was screwed up into a grimace, the black eye a memory.

“God no. This is for me whenever the Sharks have a bad game.”

The grimace transformed into a beautiful smile. She filled the bar with her laughter. It was strangely impressive. It was a big laugh. One that came all the way from the stomach. In a different situation, Guy might have joined in. Instead, he emptied out the bottle for the both of them.

“You must have really needed it last year when the Wildcats kicked your ass.”

And she knew her football. Goddamn the universe.

They shared an intense “woo” as they finished off the last two shots. The Manhunter worked her jaw and cracked her neck, checking that everything still worked. Guy heard her mutter something about nanites as he put the glasses up. An even wager what exactly she was complaining about given how long it had taken her to recover. That could be to his advantage. Hopefully. Not his fault if she came in his place of business, his home, and underestimated him. Should have come at him at full capacity.

He chuckled, wiping the shot glasses clean. A part of him remembered doing that once or twice in the past. He concentrated. His clenched fist glowed green. Not as bright as he’d like but still shining. Okay, maybe he was making that mistake now. Not his fault. Out of his hands. He was trying. And gambling. He could feel that moonshine taking effect.

“What I don’t get,” Guy called back to her, “is why now? I’ve been here for a couple years. Hell, you Manhunters probably had me under observation. So why now?”

“We need proof. Something the Manhunters tend to look for before going off halfcocked like you former Green Lanterns.”

“Proof?”

“A confession was given that the last power ring was sent to Earth.” The two of them just having a conversation. A tad surreal. “Upon my arrival, I confirmed our Agents’ previous readings that energy originating from the Emotional Spectrum seems to be localized to Coast City. You were my first suspect and based on what my sensors are picking up from you right now, I don’t think my guess was all that far off.”

Guy listened and nodded but not really. His brain was focused on the word confession. His brain added things up. He put that together with things that he could barely catch rumors of without attracting more notice from these bastards than he wanted. Not that that helped in the long run given his current predicament, he admitted. Still, it was enough to get him exceedingly angry. It got the emotions bubbling to the surface.

He figured out why a Terran Manhunter had been sent here. There’d been a forced confession He was lucky that was the case. That just made him more pissed. He couldn’t afford to be taken captive. Not with Jessica out there.

“If you live,” a shining jade force field expanded over his body, “tell the Martian that I’m coming for him.”

“Where’s the last ring? You’re not… you’re not wearing it.”

“A squirrel has it,” Guy answered right before launching himself across the bar at her.

It had turned into a strange page. Kyle was supposed to be working on one focusing on the Sentinel of Golden Gate City. Instead, he had scribbled away on his tablet until he had the Scarlet Sentinel facing off against a cyborg with the signature rabbit-ear sensors on the side of its head. Scarlet was a new character in his series. Guy had inspired him. The character had started out as a next generation hero who was no nonsense and butted heads with the classic to the point he was nearly villain material. Not many of his followers liked Scarlet but he’d gained a rabid fanbase that preferred the “tough guy” over the original.

Kyle wondered what the barman would think if he knew.

He began shading it in. Scarlet had just jumped at the robot. His mind filled in the story that he hadn’t thought of before drawing. Rage filled the sentinel. Blind rage or righteous? Maybe both. He’d fight like an animal. Wild, unpredictable. The cyborg wouldn’t be able to get a read on him. Scarlet would do the unexpected. He wouldn’t fight like the original. Dirty tactics. That was the way to do it. The kind of guy that would give you a low blow then give you another when you writhed on the ground.

The shotgun was colored. He put touches on half the cyborg’s face as it melted away from intense heat brought on by a Molotov Scarlet had formed out of his imagination. The foe stumbled back in the next panel. Stumbled right into the –

“Kyle!”

Shock was one way to put it. Kyle had never really heard Jessica speak in person let alone expect that first proper word to be his name. For whatever reason, he didn’t feel any shivers. He did feel goosebumps though. Her disheveled, sweaty appearance as if she had run all the way here from Oasis should have interested him. The wild golden eyes with some inner light had the opposite effect. It made him wary. A cornered animal.

And he was literally in a corner… Damn. He’d have to push past her if she went all fullblown crazy.

“You talk!” He joked, that paranoia he had been feeling made him want to pack his tablet away and grab his bag.

She stopped him. Her hand closed around his wrist with strength a small woman shouldn’t have. “Guy needs help.”

“Oooookay.”

A frown crossed Kyle’s lips. He hadn’t meant to say that. Or rather, he hadn’t meant to say it like that… like he didn’t believe her. He forced the dark feelings away and focused on what was in front of him. There was a young woman in obvious trouble. She said someone he considered to be a good-acquaintance bordering on friend material needed his help. This wasn’t Gotham and even if it was, he doubted Guy would need help because some thug was trying to extort him for protection money in the middle of day. Yet something had happened. He believed it. He knew it.

Simplified. Simple thoughts. People in need. No damn clue what he could do to help but he’d try. He had to. The man kept him fed.

“Lead the way.”

Jessica’s emerald eyes shined as she grabbed his hand.

It wasn’t the most conventional construct to make after all this time but Guy could work with it. The bottle was his favorite brew, copied down to the label he memorized back when he was sixteen. He had even filled it with beer. The liquid moved back and forth as he swung with his considerably increased might for the Manhunter’s skull. It smashed against the side of her head, breaking with a splashing crash. The imaginary beer spilled everywhere. As she stumbled, he pulled back his free fist to place a punch in her gut.

Her haymaker hit his head before he could land that blow. Guy slammed to the ground, cracking the floor. Concentrating, he formed a match out of green light and dropped it on the puddle dripping from the Manhunter. Green flames erupted along the path, traveling up her pant leg, leaving her shocked. He took that moment of distraction to propel himself forward and tackle her with incredible force. They crashed through brick, its dust covering them, and flew across the street.

Damn. His aim had been off. He could have picked the window. Or the door. Instead he broke his goddamn wall. Guy let the anger over how much that would cost build up with all the other rage he was storing up.

The Manhunter backhanded him off her. He flew straight into a moving car, sending it skidding sideways. Thankfully, his aura protected him from both. The screams started then. Screams and screeching of breaks. Civilains. Guy pulled himself out of the wreckage. A glance over his shoulder confirmed the driver was okay. Shocked but okay.

An emerald hand stretched out from his and lifted up a parked truck nearby. The Manhunter charged with superhuman speed. He dropped the truck on her before diving behind the wreckage to hide from the explosion and the flying tires. While he was there, he ripped the passenger door off the car he had ruined and helped the driver on his way with a few choice words exchanged between them.

A giant slingshot. An old one but a classic. He constructed two poles out of the hard green light a reasonable distance apart. A rubberlike band connected them. He pulled it back behind the wrecked car and released it to fire forward into the truck.

The appearance of bubble shield barely had time to protect him as the car was cut in half by a massive blade of light and knocked back. They flew harmlessly to the side of him, slamming into the building behind. He craned his head back and groaned when he saw Oasis.

The Manhunter stood unharmed amidst the fire and flames. Gone was the beautiful woman. In her place was a fearsome armored foe holding a power staff he guessed she could use a lot more effectively than anything he was currently throwing at her. It was a strange getup that didn’t look like any Manhunter he had seen before – excluding the staff. Her colors were lighter than them though still with the same reddish orange tint to it. There was a battle-skirt hanging past her knees that was extremely unexpected.

“The Manhunters I remember had dome heads,” Guy joked, waiting… watching.

“They are obsolete.” She twirled her staff. The force of it cleared the rapidly emptying road of anything he could use against her.

“What’s the deal with the ears?”

“You don’t want to find out.” She pointed the vibrating blade that formed out of the staff’s tip at him. “Give yourself up. Tell me where the ring is. Do this I will ensure that your sentence is short.”

Guy chuckled and spat out blood, the concrete hissing as it hit. “I didn’t do anything worth arresting.”

“You shot me.”

“You started it.”

“Power rings are outlawed across the universe.”

“Not on Earth,” he held out both hands, “and do you see any ring on these fingers? Not even a wedding band.”

“Earth’s laws do not matter when intergalactic criminals hide here. You should remember that as an ex-Green Lantern.”

“I do.” Guy’s green aura began to crack. He could feel his reservoirs running out.

The Manhunter lowered her spear. “Please, Gardner. Just tell me where the last ring is.”

“I told you.” His shield fell apart. “A squirrel has it.”

“Stop jo –“

A shadow fell across the street. Manhunter and Lantern looked up. A giant acorn the size of a two-story building filled the sky. It cast a strange green tint over them as the midday-sun shined through. While the Manhunter raised her staff to defend herself, Guy took the second option and dove into the ruins of his bar. Duck and cover seemed to be the more prudent decision…

The acorn dropped.

Lantern #4
Last Light Pt 4
Lantern('s)

Sector 2814, Earth
Coast City

A drunken bartender passed out on his couch in the middle of the afternoon was not exactly on the list of things Kyle expected to ever experience. It was, however, farther down the list than gaining superpowers. If this was the price he had to pay to fly and create physical constructs made of light from his imagination then he would gladly pay it. He just hoped Guy didn’t accidently belch and a burn a hole through the cushion, the springs, the floor and his neighbors below. A reasonable fear all things considered.

The Squirrel – Ch’p – sat on the edge of his coffee table watching some movie with alot of old school music in it while munching away on a bowl of popcorn that he had made without so much as asking. Or maybe he did. His magic ring had been put over Guy’s finger and after that, he became impossible to understand. Jessica could still understand his words and he seemed to understand English but to Kyle, it was all a bunch of squirrel-speak.

Nobody seemed to be in the mood to talk. Kyle kinda wanted answers like why the hell a Terminator was after Guy, how the man could puke lava, why there was a Squirrel more intelligent than some of the people he had met, how Kyle could… Okay, he had a lot of questions. That was the point. Guy was the only who could give them to him. Or most likely the only one. Ch’p couldn’t. And Jessica…

Jessica…

Now Kyle had a rather large apartment for his moderate income. Studio. At the top of the building complex. He liked the wide open spaces and the natural light from the high windows to sketch under. Never had to worry about roommates in the past. His work space, entertainment and gaming systems, curtained bedroom... never once did he feel crowded. Hell, he could jog all around it if he wanted and only have to be careful of the sunken kitchen. Yet Jessica acted like she couldn’t get far enough away from the others, from him. He would have offered her his bedroom if that didn’t feel entirely inappropriate.

She sat crouched in a corner, hugging her knees, not looking at anyone. No words had been uttered from her mouth after Ch’p and Guy settled in. She didn’t make him feel queasy or confident or anything now. Just worried. The ring on her finger was a ring like any other. Not shining. Not elaborate like the one Guy and Ch’p exchanged. A simple band.

That confidence, the bravery in the face of monster and machine, Kyle remembered it. He remembered it and decided that giving the woman her space was no longer an option considering everything. She got him involved. There, that was a justifiable excuse to bother someone who had an obvious case of extreme social anxiety.

“Y’know, most people familiar with me and my work ask why I don’t speak with a Jersey accent,” Kyle picked an easy subject. She did know of him. She’d mentioned his comic. “Thing is, I was born there but never really lived there. Mom was a bit of a wandering spirit. Didn’t stay in one place for too long. Coast City is probably the first city I can even come close to calling home.”

Nothing.

“Would you prefer if I speak Spanish? It’s a bit rusty but I can.”

She fixed him with an exasperated stare, “I’m from Portland.”

“Did not know that.” He clicked his tongue and crouched beside her. She didn’t slide away like usual. “Need to use my computer or anything? Check on your uploads?”

“The first one went up… the second…” She shrugged.

“Your fans are going to wonder if Miss Voltadoom is okay. Is she?”

“…no.”

Admission. That was a bit unexpected. She did feel livelier though. Instead of empty, he could sense… interest? It was confusing and he wasn’t all too sure if the empathic ability was hers or his or both of theirs.

“You can use one of my computers if you want. It’s at your disposal if the two…three of you stay here for a couple of days. Got a pretty crappy webcam though. I tried that whole Twitch thing myself but I just didn’t really care to have people watch me sketch.”

“I can make the cam…” her ring finger twitched. “I –“

“Rayner!” a scratchy voice yelled from the couch. “You got any food in this dump?”

Finally, some answers.

After school, Barnes & Noble, sitting with a girl he spoke to for the first proper time today. Wally could handle this. It was nothing. He was brave enough to pick up a glowing green squirrel after all. A teenage – a very cute – girl was nothing compared to that. Spaces rabies could be a real thing too. Brave. Yep. Brave.

Linda Park. Lin she asked him to call her. Moved to Coast City about a year before he did. Major fangirl for everything supernatural after a life lived in Central City. Obsessed put it lightly. She sat next to him, elbow and arm brushing against him every so often. His side twitched in remembered pain. She had a really bony elbow. Her only flaw that he had found so far.

“Gas main exploding, riiiight.” She had the Coast City Chronicle brought up on her laptop. She was showing off to Wally. That’s why they were so close. “No mention of the magic squirrel or our school. I’m surprised the men in black didn’t quarantine all of us. No news footage either but we saw the choppers… Lets see.”

It took a couple minutes for Lin to find. Long enough that a hawk-nosed, steel gray haired salesperson gave the couple a stink eye from across a few aisles. It wasn’t like they were doing anything wrong or inappropriate. All they were doing was sharing a computer screen. And sitting close. Completely harmless in the grand scheme of things.

“Ha. A submission already.”

Wally focused back on the screen. His eyes widened in surprise. He was familiar with the site. He checked it sometimes.

“Watchtower?”

“Yeah, I run it.” There wasn’t any pride in her voice. Simple statement of fact. “I started it up when the weird stuff started happening back home.”

“So –“

“Yes, I did actually meet with Vicki Vale. She worked with my mom on The Scene for a couple of months. The two despise each other.”

“Wait… Your mom is that Linda Park? Why are you in public school?”

“Why not?” Lin shrugged and brought up a video. “Here we go.”

It was captured on a cell. Pretty good quality of a picture to it Wally admitted. The video showed a crater in the middle of the road, cars and rubble piling into the center. Two people fought there. He assumed they were people. One looked like a robot with bunny ears. The other was just light; a brilliant crimson light. If you looked hard enough, you could just barely make out a body within the glow.

It started to get gruesome. The light-being was like a dragon that shot acid instead of fireballs. It melted bits of the armor and as they fell away, skin – human skin – was revealed. Teeth, a jaw… The two teens were forced to turn their heads away for a moment until the flare-man blocked the view. Everything went green a few moments later and the recording stopped.

“Huh.”

Wally kept doing his best to hold in his lunch and remained very happy he didn’t order anything to drink or snack on. That could have ruined everything. Lin seemed okay though. Elbows of steel and an iron stomach. What a girl.

“What?”

“Check this out… Ferris Airfield just outside the city a few years ago.” She brought up another video. “See… Just like that glowing guy.”

This time there were two glowing figures of light and they were both green. They looked like they were doing aerial maneuvers, chasing each other, making elaborate figures in the sky as they left emerald streaks in their wake. Then things got weird. Or weirder. They both suddenly had giant tennis rackets floating over their heads. One of them created a ball and threw it up. It was a game between them.

The ball went back and forth. The two men never moved but the rackets could be extended in any direction they wanted. Whenever a figure missed, the ball vanished. Of the pair, the one that glowed a little less brilliantly so you could almost make out the man beneath missed more. The footage here too ended with a green flare that ruined the lens.

“So the Sentinels are real,” Wally remarked, a smile stretching his cheeks, “and somebody decided to copy the Scarlet Sentinel too.”

“Huh?”

Wally was slightly happy that he wasn’t the confused one for once. “It’s a comic. About an elite order of guardians chosen to wield hard light and shape it into whatever they imagine. Scarlet was introduced a couple months ago and except for the puking, that’s just how he’d fight.”

“That’s a bit of a coincidence.”

“I… know.” Wally hesitated, distracted from what he was about to say. Walking across the street and heading towards the street with the sinkhole … He’d swear it was his dad.

“You want answers, huh?” Guy managed to say between mouthfuls of dry cereal. “Sure about that?”

Kyle blinked. That was the dumbest question he had ever heard. Of course he wanted to know! There was a crazy cyborg lady who might be back, who had seen him with superpowers he never knew he had. The man before him could practically breathe liquid fire. And there was a damn squirrel on his second bowl of popcorn using the artist’s Netflix account to watch dumb action flicks starring the sexiest men alive in tight spandex.

“Fine… Fine.” Chew, chew. Wow. His chomping was annoying. It was like a horse. He ate with his mouth open too. Every time Kyle looked in it, he could see that red glow in his mind’s eye. “I’ll give them to you.”

He raised his fist, showing off the ring on his finger, showing the symbol; a circle between two parallel lines. Something in Kyle recognized it. He was familiar with the design. It was so remarkably similar to the one he had imagined when he “suited up” to stop Guy from dying or killing that cyborg or both. He’d been seeing it since he was a boy, sketching it on the margins of notes, tests, and anything else during all those years in school.

“I am Guy Gardner of Earth. I possess the ability to overcome great fear. I once was an elite member of the Green Lantern Corps. Using this ring or rather one that looked like it, I patrolled this Sector of space and protected it from interstellar threats.”

There was the expected silence of one who thought there would be questions or disbelief expressed. Kyle just nodded his head for Guy to continue.

“Same for Ch’p,” the squirrel waved a hand before stuffing his cheeks full of popcorn. “He was technically a rookie though before we disbanded.” Kyle was pretty sure the alien flipped Guy off but he didn’t have enough fingers on his paw to be sure. “These rings allowed us to focus our willpower to channel Green energy from the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum to create whatever we imagine. It could be as complicated as you can comprehend or as simple as a nut. Ch’p specializes in animals seeing how he was a zookeeper back home. Me, I’m pretty handy with sports equipment. Simple gets the job done often enough.”

“So… the hypothesis about an energy field which connects the collective subconscious and maybe even the unconscious mind is correct?”

“…”

“What?” Kyle found three pairs of eyes staring at him in utter surprise. “I draw and write a comic based on protectors of the planet who do exactly what you're describing. I did some research on some of the more out there theories involving light and energy.”

“Well… it’s kinda right. A field does exist. Green is the most stable and at the center, the Lantern Corps utilized it. Requires mostly focus and willpower with a pinch of bravery thrown in. Easy to control, easy to use if you have the right stuff.”

The look Guy gave Kyle left the words unsaid on whether he believed the artist had the right stuff.

“The farther you go from Green, the more erratic it gets… the more dangerous it is to use. You… you saw the results with Red. Rage. Anger. It consumes you. Eats you up from the inside,” the Lantern unconsciously grabbed his stomach. “Very powerful. Eats up the other colors too for the most part.

“The opposite end of the Spectrum is Violet. Love.”

He waited for the snort of laughter or disbelief. None came.

“Love makes you do crazy things,” Kyle voiced to fill the silence. “I can buy it. What about Yellow?” He glanced over his shoulder at the still huddled Jessica. “Fear?”

“…yes.” Guy was clearly off put. “Blue is opposite of it. Hope. Hope can get you through fear just as much as pure stubbornness. Both nearly as stable as Green but a bit more difficult to call on. Then there’s Orange for greed opposing compassion and Indigo.

“Seven colors. Seven emotions. What the Corps never knew was our rings opened us up to the entire Spectrum even as it allowed us to focus our Willpower. We used it for Green. We trained to channel the Green. If our hue was off, we were told it was because we weren’t concentrating hard enough… not that we were allowing other Emotions to dictate our actions. We paid the price for that ignorance.”

“And that’s why reasonable cyborg lady was here to arrest you former galactic police?” asked Kyle.

A nod.

“What went wrong?”

Ch’p paused his movie. The look he gave the human didn’t need words. It didn’t need translation. It said to tread carefully.

“The lie evolved,” Guy answered very slowly. “The Guardians, our superiors, told us something dark was coming. The blackest night would stretch across the universe, star by star would blink out of existence, leaving it in eternal darkness. The Corps would need more power to confront it. The Central Battery… a reactor which charged our rings and allowed us to rely on them instead of our internal emotions… it had to be cleansed of an Impurity. A Yellow impurity…

“It was right there in our acceptance into the Corps. Overcome great fear. That’s what we used our willpower to do. But willpower can be used to overcome, ignore, any emotion. To let a loved one go… to forget our anger… to give up on hope or compassion to do what needs to be done… remove greed from the equation… Great will puts a stop to all of them.

“The Corps needed that Impurity. We needed that fear that was built into our rings and code. When we released it, many of us weren’t prepared for the blowback. Ch’p and I were okay. We were relatively new to the Corps but some had been there for decades, centuries. We knew our emotions. However, fighting fear was ingrained into their very being. They were corrupted by the emo—“

“Wait,” interrupted Kyle. He was following along reasonably well all things considered but there was one thing that didn’t quite make sense. “You said… released it. The Impurity? It sounds alive.”

Whatever Ch’p replied was definitely along the lines of keeping his nose out of things he had no business of knowing.

“It was something of a living entity of fear and paranoia. We fought it. We meant to kill it. I don’t even know if it could be killed but we sure as hell tried. I can’t begin to describe the battle. The greatest of the Corps, swimming in the source of our power fighting the one thing we’d been trained to challenge more than anything. I did things with the ring I had never imagined I could. I thought we won. My partner, Hal, he stood triumphant at the end.”

Kyle pictured it. That figure that shined with a green glow brighter than all others amidst a viridian sea. It was glorious. And it was a lie.

“Reports soon came in that our fellow Corpsmen were utilizing the other colors in the Spectrum instead of overcoming them. Their emotions began to rule them. None greater than fear. It had infected most of those who led the attack. I survived it by feeding off my anger. Ch’p, he…” the chitter told the human to shut up. “My partner thought we weren’t doing enough with our newfound abilities. We should embrace it. The Guardians tried to stop him. Most of them are dead. Others imprisoned by the Manhunters. He led attacks on planet after planet, citing that their fear made them dangerous, they would commit atrocities in the name of that fear… we didn’t realize until too late he was causing the emotion himself.

"That's why the Manhunters, that cyborg, hunt us down for our rings or worse."

Story time was over based on Guy’s tone however Kyle still had questions.

“What about me? I don’t use a ring but I channeled the Green. And you, you did it too with Red.”

“Ah, well that’s simple evolution or so I’ve been told.” Guy flexed his hand and removed the ring, tossing it to Ch’p. “Races all across the universe evolved naturally to utilize aspects of the Emotional Spectrum. The Guardians, Oans, they could use Green but I’m not sure they count. I think genetic manipulation was involved with them. Then you have Tamaraneans,” his face took on a momentary look of bliss, “no other race knows more about Love. Some greedy, capitalist bastards in the Spider Guild and Palindrordnilap practically breathe Orange. Martians when they were alive had a mix of Fear and Compassion. And then you have the Vuldarians, so full of Rage they fought themselves to extinction.

“Humans?” Kyle tabled the question he was dying to ask about Martians for later.

“We seem to have evolved to channel all seven colors though obviously some more than others. You were probably born with it. Jess gave you a brief charge of energy to help you awaken to the Green glow. Me?” Guy scratched his beard and nose. “Me… You use a ring long enough, you find you don’t need it for the basic stuff. It’s hard to do anything complicated or durable unless I’m in a situation where my life is truly in danger. I just don’t have that major a connection to the conduit without an outside source helping me along.”

Kyle settled back into his chair. He could tell when he was being lied to except he wasn’t sure about what. The colors and emotions, those were probably facts. Guy presented them that way. When he got more personal though… A nagging voice in his head told him he was missing something obvious. Something in the room that screamed for an answer.

Damned if he knew what.

Jessica shifted in the corner.

Sector 2814, Earth
Gotham

Kate was helping her son with his homework. She didn’t need to and he didn’t want her to but she helped anyway. Besides, word problems on math-sheets counted as reading to him too. It was the small things in life. The smell of his hair, the melody of his laughter, she hunted down the worst of the worst in galaxy so that he could grow up in a world without fear of an alien invasion or a renegade force imposing their emotions on every soul in their vicinity.

There was a contradiction there considering they lived in Gotham and every time she vanished on assignment, she left him with his grandfather in one of America’s most dangerous and corrupt cities. That very corruption and her fight for justice no matter the cost had attracted the Manhunters’ notice. They recruited her to be their main operative in this Sector, to replace Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan in protecting Earth and the other planets within her jurisdiction.

Mother and son were enjoying the moment though he scrunched up his nose every time she ruffled his hair. She watched him scratch away on the paper. These past couple of months had made her miss so m –

<2814. Report.>

Ramsey sensed her tense. The young boy looked up from his homework, frowning, big brown eyes narrowed in suspicion. He was too smart for his own good sometimes. She gave him her most reassuring smile, ruffled his mop of shaggy hair, and told him she’d be right back.

The door to her room closed behind her.

“You could have warned me that Gardner could use the Red so powerfully,” she told the voice in her head. The memory of her face melting off was still very fresh.

<…ah. He is descended from Vuldarians after all.>

“What?!” She shouted loud enough for Ramsey to ask if she was okay. Concentrating, she formed a hologram of Gardner’s official Corps’ dossier in the palm of her hand. She scrolled through it quickly. “It’s not in his file.”

<The Guardians would be unlikely to publicly acknowledge they had one born to the Butchers of Sector 666 in their ranks. >

“Considering the fact not even our previous incarnation could stop them,” Kate closed her hand into a fist, the page vanishing, “that would have been helpful to know before I lost half my face.” She brought Guy’s remark about the Martian to the forefront of her brain as payback.

<He is welcome to try and I understand why he would feel the need.>

“How very compassionate of you.”

Kate sighed. 2261 had a way of making you feel bad even when you knew you did nothing wrong. She wandered over to her window, aware that any who saw her would mistake her for a crazy woman talking to herself. Par for the course here in Gotham. It was dark outside, cloudy and looking like it might rain any moment. In the distance sirens sang. Somewhere gunshots probably rang out.

“I’m out of commission for a few days.” She’d already uploaded the experience to the Manhunter central database but she opened up her mind more for her fellow hunter to see for himself all that had happened. Perhaps he would notice something she had not. “My nanites were completely drained and the resupply is working overtime to keep me from feeling excruciating pain. Sorry.”

<They have not escaped yet. I will activate our Agent in the area and give him permission to use the Beasts. He will need them if he is to confront three Spectrum users.>

Shivers ran down her spine. The Beasts spooked Kate. They more than anything carried on the legacy of No Man Escapes the Manhunters brought on by the previous fully automated organization. Once they caught scent of their prey, nothing stopped them… people, buildings, other Manhunters. Nothing stood in their way. If she wanted, she could tell him no. It was her Sector. She had authority on whether or not to unleash those monsters and she doubted the Agent could rein them in any better than she could.

Her cheek burned. She felt the skin sag.

“Understood. No Man Escapes the Manhunters.”

A light shined in the distance, highlighting a symbol in the sky. Kate felt something in the air. A yellow filter flashed over her vision. A wave of fear picked up by her internal sensors rolled over the city as that symbol flickered over shifting clouds… yet here and there burned beacons of hope as they too looked up and instead saw signs of a hero ready to act. Kate felt a moment of indecision fill her.

She could help. She had enough power even depleted of resources as she was.

<No man escapes him either.> She sensed the alien mind smiling. <At least not for long.>

Sector 2814, Earth
Coast City
The car was being pulled out of Oasis as Guy watched. He was lucky it never exploded and completely ruined the bathrooms. A bit less luck he cursed as a part of the ceiling collapsed. That’d be his room. Crew workers went through the wreckage, cleaning debris and searching. They weren’t who they pretended to be. He knew that much.

“I’m guessing I won’t be catching the fight here on Sunday,” a voice said at Guy’s shoulder. He glanced over to see a man roughly his own age wearing an unbuttoned plaid shirt and jeans. His slightly dark-skinned cheeks glistened with the sweat of someone unaccustomed to Coast City’s early evening heat. It beaded in his goatee. “Looks like the construction crew is working hard.”

“Eh, they’re the men in black. They only look like they’re working.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. This was an alien invasion. Better go before you get contam…inated,” Guy paused and gave the man another look. “Rudy, how the hell did you get past the cordon?”

“Ask the man in black.”

Another man – younger, blonder, in a suit – approached the pair. In his hand was a flask. In his suit’s pocket hung the expected sunglasses. He stopped before the pair.

“Agent West,” he inclined his head to Rudy. “Mr. Gardner. Was this what you wanted?” He held out the flask.

Guy left it hanging. He stared in open disbelief. Rudy West, one of his regulars, an Agent for the D.E.O.. Did anyone normal come into his bar for a drink and a bite? “I thought you were a security guard.”

“I am,” Rudy took the flask for him, “it just so happens that the security I guard happens to be a little more extranormal than the night shift at Ferris Air.”

Anger started to rise in Guy. The other man slapped the drink against his chest before it could reach a boiling point, reminding him of the pain inside. He gave a hacking cough and accepted it, quickly downing one gulp. The drink kept him alive. It was a special blend from out of this world that encouraged healing. Unfortunately if taken too much too quickly, it got one plastered incredibly fast. Admittedly… the dual properties had been helpful in the fight against Spencer.

“I can’t believe you spied on me.” Guy mumbled into his drink.

“We’re not exactly exclusive. I’m observing others too. Now you had Zolomon’s sole attention and my how often he reported you visiting the park to feed the birds and the squirrels for such a rough looking guy.”

The other agent offered a phantom of a smile. “The Deputy-Director would like to speak to you about that, Mr. Gardner. He’s very keen on your interest in mother nature.”

A wannabe Lantern, an attractive Manhunter, a patron who doubled as a spy and now bureaucracy... that was a lot to throw at any sane man in a single day. Guy sighed and took another drink. He wanted to be reasonably prepared to fight his way out just in case.