IV: The Rebel
"Insect."
Galactus's voice rolled across the void. Before Krynn could react, crimson energy erupted from the Devourer's eyes and crossed the distance between them almost instantly. Krynn twisted aside, pushing his ring to accelerate, but the beam curved just enough to catch him across the chest.
His shield shattered.
Krynn screamed as the energy tore through what remained of his defences and hurled him thousands of miles away from the planet. He struggled to rebuild the protective field around himself.
"Multiple fractures detected. Internal injuries present. Ring integrity stable."
Krynn barely heard the artificial intelligence. He forced his injured arm forward and created another construct, an enormous emerald spear forming in the darkness before him. It was one of the largest he had ever attempted, with layers of green energy reinforcing its point as he threw himself back toward Galactus.
He had not even crossed half the distance when Galactus turned. One hand moved, and a wave of cosmic power struck Krynn with such force that his construct disappeared before he even understood it had been hit. His body followed a moment later, thrown helplessly into deep space while the stars became streaks of light around him.
This time, Krynn did not try to return.
He could not. His ring eventually managed to stabilize him, slowing his uncontrolled flight enough for him to turn and look back toward the distant system.
Galactus had begun to feed.
His machines surrounded the world as vast quantities of energy were drawn from its surface. Oceans boiled beneath storms that spread across continents, great fractures opened through the planet's crust, and cities that had stood for thousands of years vanished beneath fire. Krynn watched until his ring could no longer detect any surviving population, then turned away because he could not bear to see the end.
The battle had been lost before it began.
No, Krynn thought bitterly. It had never been a battle.
As he drifted through space, the enormity of what he had done slowly settled over him. He had knowingly violated one of the oldest and clearest laws of the Green Lantern Corps.
A Lantern was not permitted to interfere with Galactus.
Every recruit learned the rule at the Academy, usually during their first year. If warning came early enough, Lanterns could assist in evacuating populations, provided Galactus allowed it and the evacuation did not interfere with his feeding. Even then, only part of the population could be saved, as Galactus required the life force of the planet and the life upon it.
Whatever happened, Galactus had to receive his due.
Krynn had always hated that law, as did some Lanterns he knew, but for five years he had accepted the reasoning behind it. Galactus was not simply another conqueror or murderer. He performed a function within the universe, one tied to forces far older than the Corps itself. The Devourer needed life-energy to survive, and his continued existence served a larger cosmic balance that no one fully understood.
The instructors at the Academy had been painfully clear about the consequences of ignoring such things. If the Green Lanterns began attacking cosmic entities whenever they disliked the role those beings played, eventually those entities would respond. The Corps could draw the anger of forces far beyond even its immense strength.
Krynn had believed that.
Part of him still did.
Today had been different because he knew the world Galactus had chosen. He knew its people, had helped stop a regional war before it spread across the planet, and had once spent nearly a week assisting after an earthquake destroyed several coastal cities. Its people admired the Lantern symbol and looked up to him. He was a hero here.
Then the warning came.
Galactus was approaching.
Krynn had been granted permission to begin the evacuation immediately. He arrived and began creating transport constructs, guiding civilian ships out of the system and moving as many people as possible to nearby colonies. Millions escaped because of him and the other rescue vessels that arrived to help.
Yet millions more remained, and there was no time.
That was the part Krynn could not accept. He listened to planetary leaders beg him to use his power against Galactus, and each time he repeated the same answer he had been taught at the Academy.
The Corps could not interfere.
Galactus must have his due.
Then the Devourer appeared in their sky.
Something inside Krynn snapped.
For one foolish moment, he looked at the ring on his finger and remembered what it was supposed to be. One of the most powerful weapons in the universe. A device capable of transforming will into reality, limited only by the strength and imagination of the person wearing it.
Krynn convinced himself that perhaps it would be enough.
Perhaps he could force Galactus away.
He had been a fool.
A warning tone pulled him from the memory.
"Flight stability deteriorating."
Krynn attempted to adjust his course, but pain shot through his side and his concentration collapsed. A planet appeared ahead, its atmosphere rapidly filling his vision as gravity caught him.
The ring began correcting his descent, yet Krynn could already feel consciousness slipping away.
"Emergency medical protocols initiated. Preparing impact protection."
Fire surrounded him as he entered the atmosphere.
=========
A part of Krynn understood what would happen next. Most Green Lanterns accumulated minor disciplinary violations during their careers. A sector boundary crossed without authorization, a questionable use of force, property destroyed during an arrest, or some local law ignored in the middle of an emergency. One or two such incidents over decades of service were hardly unusual.
Formal tribunals were different, though still not unheard of. Across the entire Corps, perhaps fifty cases in a decade became serious enough to require a full hearing before senior Lanterns and Oan officials.
Three years earlier, Krynn had pursued a pirate vessel into a sovereign system whose rulers had forbidden Green Lantern activity. The tribunal agreed that stopping the pirates had been necessary because civilians were in immediate danger, but Krynn received a formal reprimand for remaining in the system afterward instead of withdrawing as soon as the threat ended.
That had been serious.
This was worse.
Attacking Galactus meant deliberately violating a prohibition tied directly to cosmic law. Krynn knew enough about Corps procedure to understand that they would not simply send another sector Lantern to collect him.
An Alpha Lantern would be dispatched.
Only the most severe situations warranted that.
The thought stayed with him until consciousness returned.
Krynn opened his eyes slowly and found himself lying in a bed beneath a high white ceiling. His body felt surprisingly whole. The pain in his ribs had faded, his arm moved without difficulty, and even the burns from Galactus's attack were gone.
The symbol of the Guardian, the Green Lantern emblem, had been carved into the wall opposite him.
For several moments, Krynn assumed he had been taken back to Oa. Perhaps this was some holding facility beneath the tribunal chambers, though he found it strange that no restraints had been placed upon him and even stranger that his ring still remained on his finger.
The door opened before he could investigate further.
An Oan entered. The man looked older than almost any Oan Krynn had encountered before. Long white hair fell past his shoulders, deep lines marked his red skin, and he wore simple robes of green and white rather than the formal garments common among officials on Oa.
Oans could live for more than ten thousand years. Judging by the age visible upon this one, Krynn wondered whether the man had lived close to that long.
"You are awake. Good."
Krynn pushed himself upright. "When do I appear before the tribunal? I know what I did was wrong, so there is no reason to delay whatever judgment they intend to give me."
The old Oan studied him for a moment before answering.
"I see. That explains some things."
Krynn frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means, Green Lantern, that you appear to believe you are on Oa."
"Am I not?"
"You are very far from Oa."
Krynn stared at him.
That made little sense. Oans rarely left their home system despite having existed for more than a hundred million years. A few colonies had been established around neighbouring stars, but even those remained relatively close. Oans possessed a powerful cultural attachment to the world of their creation and, more importantly, to Ion himself.
"Then where am I?"
"My name is Aradan. I am a simple monk and the leader of the Order of Ion."
"The Order of Ion?"
Krynn immediately looked at his ring. "Search Corps databases for an organization called the Order of Ion."
The AI answered through his mind.
"No organization matching that designation exists within accessible Green Lantern Corps records."
Aradan laughed quietly. "You will find no record of us there. Come. There is little use remaining in bed when you are already healed."
Krynn checked himself once more before standing. Whatever treatment the monks had used had repaired nearly all the damage Galactus inflicted, which only gave him more questions as he followed Aradan through the doorway.
The answer waiting outside was stranger than anything he had expected.
A vast monastery covered the surrounding valley, its architecture unmistakably Oan despite differences in age and design. White towers rose among gardens and terraces, connected by open bridges and broad stairways lined with green crystalline lights. Much of it reminded Krynn of Ionith, though without the enormous crowds, traffic lanes, or constant movement that filled the capital.
This place felt like Ionith reduced to its oldest principles, beautiful white structures arranged around gardens, water, and the green light associated with their creator.
Hundreds of Oans moved throughout the compound wearing the same green and white robes as Aradan. Some tended plants or carried books between buildings, while others meditated beneath trees or sat together in silent circles.
Krynn stopped when he noticed several of them floating above the ground.
A pale emerald aura surrounded their bodies.
'Huh. No rings,' he thought as he watched them.
==========
Krynn remained at the monastery for two weeks, and the complete absence of any response from Oa worried him more than immediate arrest would have. He spent the first several days expecting emerald light to appear in the sky at any moment, but each day ended with the monastery carrying on exactly as it had before.
Most of the monks respected his privacy. A few younger Oans proved incapable of doing so because they were fascinated by having an active Green Lantern among them. They wanted to know what Oa looked like now, whether Krynn had ever met Ion, whether constructs truly felt like solid matter, whether a power ring could make food, and whether he had ever flown through a star.
After nearly an hour of questions during his second day, Krynn finally understood why Aradan kept appearing to apologize for them.
Otherwise, he spent most of his time alone, wandering through the gardens or sitting on the terraces while he wondered when the Corps would finally find him. He occasionally considered simply leaving. His ring worked perfectly, and the monks had never suggested that he was their prisoner.
His thoughts about what had happened continued to cloud his mind. One part of him insisted that what he had tried to do was right, that he had stood by his own beliefs when it mattered. Another warned that he might have endangered the entire Corps through his actions.
He was sitting beneath a tree overlooking the monastery one afternoon, slowly turning the ring around his finger, when Aradan approached.
"Lantern, you appear to be fighting a rather difficult battle."
Krynn looked up at him. "Something like that."
Aradan lowered himself beside him and spent a few moments simply watching the monks below before speaking again.
"I will not ask what you did. Whatever happened, I can sense that you acted because some part of you believed it was just."
Krynn nodded. "I did."
"Then perhaps your difficulty is deciding whether believing something was just gave you enough reason to act."
Krynn gave him a suspicious glance. "You sound like one of my instructors."
Aradan raised one hand. Green light slowly gathered around his fingers, not as bright or concentrated as the energy produced by a power ring, but unmistakably drawn from the same source.
"When I was younger, I discovered something about our people. Certain Oans can reach inward and touch the light Ion gifted us with, then wield it much as Lanterns do. We cannot use it as Lanterns do, of course, and what we produce is vastly weaker than even an inexperienced ring-bearer, but the power exists inside us."
Krynn watched the light move around his palm. "Then why have I never heard of this?"
"Because many Oans did not appreciate the discovery. They believed the green light of will should belong only to those selected by the rings, and that attempting to wield it without being chosen somehow diminished the meaning of becoming a Lantern. To become a Lantern is one of the greatest honours an Oan can receive. Out of billions of our people, only five are selected every millennium."
"What did you do?"
"I went to Ion."
Krynn blinked. "You went directly to the Guardian?"
"Everyone kept arguing about what Ion supposedly wanted, so asking him seemed the simplest solution."
"And what did he say?"
Aradan smiled at the memory. "He had no objection at all. In fact, he was quite excited and immediately wanted to know everything I had learned."
"My concern was never really Ion, however. It was the division growing among my own people. I knew he disliked forcing paths upon his creations, so I asked whether those of us who wished to study this ability could leave Oa and establish a community where we would not disturb those who considered the practice inappropriate."
"And he allowed it."
"He did more than allow it. He helped us find somewhere suitable, gave us what we needed to begin, and told us to discover what we could."
Aradan gestured toward the monastery surrounding them.
"We have been here ever since."
Krynn looked around with new interest. "Where exactly is here?"
"Near the border of the forbidden region within Sector 616."
For several seconds, Krynn thought he had misheard him.
"Wait. I am in Sector 616?"
"Yes."
"The restricted region in Sector 616?"
"Near its boundary, technically, but yes."
Every Lantern knew about Sector 616. It was already unusual because the Puff Collective patrolled it, making it statistically the safest sector under Corps protection. The unexplained restricted region within its borders was one of the Academy's favourite mysteries, and recruits had been warned repeatedly not to approach it.
Krynn considered questioning him further, but after two weeks of carrying his own secret, he suddenly felt more tired than curious.
"I attacked Galactus."
Aradan's smile disappeared. "Oh dear."
Krynn laughed bitterly. "That is more or less the appropriate reaction."
"You actually attacked the Devourer?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
Aradan stared at him for a moment before slowly shaking his head. "That was remarkably courageous."
"It was remarkably stupid."
"Courage and stupidity have always lived rather close together."
Krynn leaned back against the tree. "I helped those people. I knew some of them as well. I watched children grow up believing the Corps would protect them, and then one day I was expected to stand there and tell them there was nothing I could do."
He looked toward the green light moving through the monastery.
"If Ion is as powerful as everyone says, why does he allow Galactus to continue? Why not simply kill him?"
Aradan was silent for a moment. "Perhaps Ion could."
Krynn turned toward him sharply.
"I said perhaps. I am a monk, not an expert on how powerful cosmic beings are."
"But you think he could."
"I think there are very few beings in creation against whom I would confidently wager that Ion has no chance. That does not mean defeating someone is the same as being free to destroy them."
Aradan folded his hands in his lap.
"There are forces more powerful than Ion, Krynn, and even beings of his stature exist within certain boundaries. The Green Lantern Corps itself was created very carefully so that it could protect the universe without becoming something that attempted to rule it."
"Because others would stop him."
"Yes. Imagine Ion decided tomorrow that no death was acceptable, no war could ever be allowed, no civilization could be permitted to make choices that endangered itself, and every cosmic power whose purpose harmed ordinary life had to be destroyed. He would cease being a Guardian and become an omnipresent ruler attempting to force his definition of safety upon the entire universe."
"And the other cosmic powers would intervene."
"Eventually. Perhaps immediately."
Aradan looked toward the sky.
"Galactus, the Celestials, the Watchers, and beings you have never even heard named. The universe contains balances that even Ion cannot simply ignore because he dislikes their consequences."
Krynn looked down at his ring. "That sounds almost exactly like what they taught us at the Academy."
He sighed.
"An Alpha Lantern will come for me sooner or later."
Aradan's face unexpectedly brightened. "I hope they send Durin."
Krynn stared at him, then laughed. "You sounded like those younglings just now."
"Why should I not? Durin is Durin."
Aradan straightened with an enthusiasm that seemed almost ridiculous on someone his age.
"He was the first Oan Green Lantern, the oldest of us, and later the first Alpha Lantern. Many generations of Oans grew up hearing stories about him. Durin the Deathless is a hero to many."
Krynn shook his head. "Well, I doubt Durin himself is coming all this way just for me."
A green light appeared in the sky.
Both of them looked up.
Aradan rose so quickly that Krynn nearly laughed again.
The emerald point grew brighter as it descended through the atmosphere, crossing the valley in seconds before slowing above the monastery.
Aradan stared upward in open awe.
"It is him."
The figure descended.
Krynn had seen Alpha Lanterns before, but never Durin.
The Oan's eyes glowed permanently emerald, while bright green lines ran across his red skin and disappeared beneath the darker sections of his uniform. The ring on his hand was heavier and more elaborate than Krynn's.
Durin landed before them as monks gathered throughout the courtyard and along the surrounding balconies.
His glowing gaze settled upon Krynn.
"Krynn of Konrtia, Green Lantern assigned to Sector 615, you knowingly violated Corps Directive Seven by engaging the cosmic entity Galactus after receiving a direct non-interference order. Your actions endangered yourself and represented a deliberate rejection of Corps command."
Durin stepped closer.
"By authority of the Guardian and the Alpha Corps, you are ordered to surrender your ring and return with me to Oa, where you will stand before a formal tribunal and answer for your actions."
For two weeks, Krynn had wondered what he would do when this moment came. He had imagined arguing, fleeing, perhaps even attempting to fight.
Now, standing before Durin the Deathless, none of those choices seemed right.
Krynn removed his ring.
His uniform disappeared, replaced by his usual clothes beneath it.
He held the ring out.
"I surrender."
Durin accepted it.
Aradan stepped forward before the Alpha Lantern could leave.
"Great Durin, O Deathless One, this humble Oan has a request."
Durin turned toward him.
"I would like to accompany you to Oa and stand before the tribunal. I wish to speak on this Lantern's behalf."
Krynn looked at him in surprise.
Durin studied the old monk for several moments before giving a small nod.
"Very well."
Emerald energy expanded around them, enclosing Krynn and Aradan within Durin's flight field. A moment later, they rose from the monastery, crossed the sky, and disappeared into space.
.
.
.
V: The Scholar
"Oa is not real, you fool."
The Xyclonian standing across from Xavian said it loudly enough for half the transport terminal to hear, his mouth curling into a mocking smile as several nearby travellers turned toward them.
"It is a myth. Everyone knows the Green Lanterns are a secret Federation project. They invented the stories about Oa so no one would discover where the Lanterns actually come from."
A few people laughed.
Xavian felt his jaw tighten but refused to give them the satisfaction of another argument. He had already spent twenty minutes explaining the records he had uncovered, the references scattered across civilizations separated by thousands of light-years and tens of thousands of years, and the repeated appearance of the same names in cultures that had never known one another.
Oa.
The Green Lantern Corps.
The Guardian.
None of it mattered to people who had already decided what they believed.
"Of course," Xavian muttered as he gathered his bags. "A secret Federation project that apparently existed before the Federation itself."
That earned another round of laughter, though the Xyclonian did not bother responding again.
Xavian walked away.
He had become accustomed to ridicule over the years.
Most people within the Federation knew of the Green Lanterns, but they knew them in the same way they knew ancient heroes or half-remembered gods. There were stories of emerald warriors appearing during the darkest moments in a world's history, stopping invasions, redirecting asteroids, ending wars, or rescuing populations from disasters before disappearing again.
Some of those accounts dated back thousands of years. Others were older than the Federation itself.
Yet almost no one living had actually seen a Green Lantern.
The last confirmed appearance within Federation territory had occurred before Xavian was born, and that absence had allowed every government, historian, conspiracy theorist, and religious movement to invent its own explanation.
Xavian had spent most of his adult life looking for the truth.
He was a scholar by profession and obsessive by temperament, though his colleagues usually preferred less charitable descriptions. His research had begun with the Green Lanterns themselves, but over time, one question became more important than all the others.
Where did they come from?
Every serious trail eventually led to the same name.
Oa.
The mythical home of the Green Lantern Corps, supposedly ruled by a being known as the Guardian. According to scattered records, the Guardian was an Elder of the Universe, one of the primordial immortals who had survived from the earliest ages of creation. Some texts even claimed he was the eldest among them.
Then Xavian discovered the ruins of the Ashkalmth Empire.
That changed everything.
The Ashkalmth had ruled nearly a quarter of the known region more than sixty thousand years earlier before collapsing during a succession war. Most of their capital had been destroyed, but one sealed archive had survived beneath the ruins.
Inside it, Xavian found references to Oa.
Not legends.
Travel records.
One Ashkalmth scholar claimed to have visited the Oan system personally and returned with descriptions of wonders beyond anything in the empire. The account mentioned worlds dedicated entirely to training, preservation, refuge, defence, and knowledge.
One name seized Xavian's attention immediately.
Chronicle.
A planet said to contain records stretching back almost to the beginning of the universe itself.
From that moment, finding Oa stopped being an academic curiosity.
Xavian needed to see Chronicle.
He needed to know what was inside.
He joined the queue for the next intersystem transport and spent nearly an hour waiting behind merchants, workers, families, and one exhausted Xyclonian couple whose infant seemed determined to scream for the entire journey.
By the time Xavian purchased a ticket, he had already begun questioning several of his life choices.
Naturally, with his luck, the seat beside the family was his, and the crying continued even after departure.
Xavian spent most of the journey pretending to read while the Xyclonian infant produced sounds he had not previously believed possible from something so small. Its parents apologized repeatedly, and Xavian assured them each time that he understood, though by the third hour he was seriously considering ejecting himself into space.
The transport carried him into the neighbouring system, where reports claimed a Green Lantern had been seen several months earlier. It was a weak lead, but weak leads were most of what Xavian had followed for years.
He expected another disappointment.
Instead, as the transport approached the inner planets, the ship's observation windows darkened automatically.
Passengers began pointing.
Something enormous hung in orbit ahead.
Xavian stood.
The vessel was unlike anything he had ever seen. Its hull was almost perfectly round, shaped like an enormous disc. White material covered most of its exterior, while emerald lines pulsed across the surface in shifting patterns.
No engines were visible. There were no obvious weapon ports either. Yet it moved with a precision that made every Federation vessel nearby appear crude.
Xavian pressed closer to the window.
"That is not Federation construction," he whispered.
The transport suddenly lurched.
People screamed as the artificial gravity flickered.
Warning lights flashed red across the ceiling. The Xyclonian infant beside Xavian stopped crying for perhaps the first time during the entire journey.
Then the alarms began.
"Atmospheric containment failure."
The announcement repeated throughout the cabin.
Xavian felt pressure building behind his eyes.
Passengers began scrambling for emergency masks while crew members shouted instructions from the forward compartment. Somewhere beneath the floor, something ruptured with a violent metallic crack.
The air thinned rapidly.
Xavian tried to stand and immediately became dizzy.
His vision blurred.
A woman collapsed several seats away.
The transport rolled slowly toward the planet below as its engines failed one after another.
Then green light filled every window.
A broad emerald beam extended from the strange vessel and wrapped around the transport.
The violent shaking stopped. Xavian felt himself pressed gently back into his seat as the crippled ship was drawn upward.
Someone shouted that they were being captured. The larger vessel opened along its underside, revealing a brightly illuminated hangar, and the transport was pulled inside. The moment the doors closed behind them, machinery surrounded the damaged craft.
Air pressure returned.
Xavian dragged in a breath.
The transport doors opened several minutes later, and red-skinned figures were waiting outside.
Xavian stared.
They wore fitted garments of white and green. All carried medical equipment, and they immediately began helping the passengers.
Several medics moved through the cabin, scanning each person before directing the injured toward a different area. Others carried unconscious travellers from their seats.
One of the red-skinned women approached Xavian.
"Are you injured?"
"I don't think so."
She raised a small device toward him. A pale light passed over his body before several symbols appeared above her palm.
"No significant damage. Mild nitrogen deprivation, elevated stress response, slight dehydration."
Her eyes moved across the reading.
"Oh. You are Lygonian."
Xavian nodded.
"You are a long way from home."
"Yes. Yes, I am."
The woman smiled.
Xavian looked beyond her at the hangar. More of the red-skinned people moved around the transport, and the damaged section of its hull was already being dismantled and reconstructed.
His thoughts finally caught up with what he was seeing.
"Who are you... what are you?"
The woman looked surprised by the question.
"I am Oan."
Xavian stopped breathing.
She gestured casually around them.
"This is an Oan exploratory vessel."
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The woman's expression changed immediately.
"Are you certain you are unharmed?"
"You are Oan."
"Yes."
"From Oa?"
"Of course."
"Oa is real."
Now she laughed.
"Of course Oa is real."
Xavian stared at her.
Every argument, every mocking lecture, every colleague who had dismissed his research, every historian who had called the Ashkalmth account an allegory suddenly crowded into his mind.
"I knew it."
The woman blinked.
"I knew it!"
Several passengers looked toward him.
Xavian grabbed his bag before realizing that clutching his luggage while speaking to an Oan medic probably made him look unstable.
"Please take me with you."
The woman took half a step back.
"What?"
"To Oa. Or the Oan system. Wherever this ship is going."
"I have been searching for Oa for years. I am a scholar. I found records from the Ashkalmth Empire describing the system, including Chronicle. Is that real too?"
The woman's expression changed slightly at that.
"You know of Chronicle?"
"Yes. Your archive world. The records said it contains knowledge from near the beginning of the universe itself."
Xavian could hear himself speaking too quickly but no longer cared.
"I need to see it. I have spent years trying to prove Oa exists, and now I am standing inside an Oan ship. Please. If you are returning anywhere near the system, take me with you."
The medic studied him for several seconds.
"I will speak with the captain."
Relief nearly weakened Xavian's knees.
"Thank you."
She laughed again before directing him toward a recovery area.
The Oans spent the next several hours repairing the transport. What should have required days at a shipyard seemed to take them less than an afternoon. Entire damaged sections were removed and replaced while machines crawled across the hull like insects, sealing fractures and reconstructing systems that Xavian suspected the Oans considered primitive.
By the time the transport was ready to continue its journey, the medic returned.
"The captain has agreed."
Xavian stared at her.
"You may travel with us to Chronicle. We were already returning to the Oan system, and the captain sees no reason to refuse a legitimate scholar access to the public archives."
For once in his life, Xavian could think of nothing to say.
The woman smiled.
"I assume that means yes."
"Yes."
His assigned quarters aboard the vessel only deepened his fascination.
The chamber changed when he entered.
At first, it looked like a simple white room, but after the ship identified his species, the environment adjusted automatically. Gravity shifted toward Lygonian standards, humidity increased slightly, and the temperature moved into the range most comfortable for his biology. Furniture rose from the floor and reshaped itself to match Lygonian proportions, while the sleeping platform altered its structure after scanning the pressure preferences of his spine.
Xavian spent nearly ten minutes touching the walls.
If this was merely an exploratory vessel, he could scarcely imagine the technology waiting on Oa.
The greatest surprise came two days into the journey when he finally asked about their location.
The navigation display expanded around him.
Xavian stared at the map.
Then he looked at the Oan officer beside him.
"This cannot be correct."
"It is."
"Oa is there?"
"Yes."
"That is near the centre of the universe."
"It is at the centre of the universe."
Xavian laughed quietly.
Of course it was. For thousands of years, scholars had searched the edges of known civilization for the hidden home of the Green Lanterns, while Oa had apparently been sitting at the cosmic centre all along, in a place none of them could reach.
The journey lasted a week, mainly because of the several stops they had to make. This was an exploratory vessel, after all, and when it finally entered the Oan system, Xavian barely left the observation deck.
World after world appeared ahead, each more beautiful than the last. Even their placements seemed to defy everything he understood about astronomy.
Then he saw it.
Chronicle.
The Oan vessel entered orbit above a world covered in vast cities, oceans, and structures whose purpose Xavian could not begin to guess. Ships from dozens of civilizations moved around the planet, some so alien that Xavian would not have believed they could exist if he were not looking directly at them.
A shuttle carried him to the surface.
An Oan named Finwë met him at the landing platform.
"You are the scholar from Sector 4534?"
"Yes. Sector... umm... I am Lygonian. Yes."
"Excellent. Come with me."
Finwë moved quickly.
Xavian struggled to keep up while staring at everything around him. Towers rose miles into the sky, their pale blue surfaces covered in green lines. Floating platforms moved between buildings, while scholars of countless species crossed immense plazas.
"This is one of the smaller research districts."
Xavian nearly tripped.
"Smaller?"
Finwë either did not hear him or had heard that reaction too many times to care.
They entered a transport platform and crossed several hundred miles in moments. When they emerged, a structure dominated the horizon ahead.
"The Great Archives," Finwë said.
Xavian stopped walking.
The building seemed less constructed than carved out of the landscape itself. White towers surrounded an enormous central complex whose upper sections disappeared into the clouds. Rings of floating structures circled above it, each covered in millions of lights, while vast entrances opened into halls large enough to swallow Federation capital ships.
He was led inside.
Information displays moved through the air around them. Xavian caught fragments as they passed. Stellar records from nine billion years earlier. Civilizations extinct before his species had evolved. Maps of galaxies that no longer existed. A directory indicated that one archive wing contained observational records from before the formation of his home galaxy.
Xavian's knees weakened.
"Is that..."
He pointed toward another display.
"Yes," Finwë said.
"And that record dates from..."
"Yes."
"You actually have records from that period?"
"Of course."
Xavian looked through the great entrance.
Rows upon rows of archive chambers stretched farther than he could see.
Everything he had spent his life trying to discover was here.
Not merely answers about the Green Lanterns.
Everything.
His vision darkened.
Xavian fell forward.
The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was an irritated Oan voice somewhere nearby.
"By Ion's sacred balls, Finwë! I have told you at least ten times to call the medicos before bringing newcomers here. They always faint."
.
.
.
VI: What a Fucking View
"As you can see, Guardian, we believe the Elders' obsessions have only become more pronounced with time."
Max sat in a floating chair near the centre of the chamber while the senior Lanterns stood before him. There were six of them in total. The lead Lantern expanded a series of records above the table. Images of the Elders appeared one after another, accompanied by historical reports collected across millions of years.
"Our concern is not that every Elder becomes hostile, Guardian. It is that their defining obsession appears to dominate more and more of their existence."
A third continued where she had stopped. "You have described your own obsession as protection. You are the Guardian, and the Green Lantern Corps is the greatest expression of that purpose."
Max rested his chin upon one hand.
The lead Lantern drew a breath before finally reaching the part none of them appeared eager to say.
"We are concerned that, given enough time, the same nature that drives you to protect the universe might become extreme. Protection could become control. Preventing suffering could become preventing choice. Eventually, you might decide that the safest universe is one in which every civilization simply obeys you."
Another Lantern added quickly, "We are not accusing you of intending this."
"No," the first agreed. "We are discussing a potential consequence of Elder psychology over extremely long periods."
Max looked at them for several seconds.
Then he stood from the floating chair.
"Keep going."
The Lanterns hesitated, apparently surprised that he was not angry.
Max walked toward a tall mirror along the side of the chamber. His usual green and black uniform disappeared in a flash of light, replaced by a perfectly tailored black suit.
He examined himself.
The Lantern speaking behind him faltered for half a second before continuing.
"There is also the matter of the Power Primordial. Elder obsessions are connected to maintaining mental stability and continued existence. If that relationship strengthens over time, then your dependence upon the role of Guardian might become greater."
Max changed outfits again.
The suit became a long emerald robe with golden trim.
He frowned at the reflection.
"No."
The robe disappeared.
A plain T-shirt and comfortable trousers replaced it.
"Better."
The senior Lanterns exchanged looks.
Their leader continued anyway. "We believe safeguards should therefore exist independently of your personal authority. Not because we believe you are currently dangerous, but because the Corps must consider what you may become millions or billions of years from now."
Max changed back into his usual uniform, a cape appearing behind his shoulders as the Lantern symbol formed across his chest.
He turned toward them.
"Finished?"
The lead Lantern swallowed.
"Yes, Guardian."
"Good."
Max walked back toward the table.
"You have almost all of it wrong."
Six expressions changed at once.
Max held up a finger.
"First, yes, I am an Elder of the Universe. That part is correct. Second, yes, Elders possess obsessions that help maintain our sanity and contribute to our immortality. Also correct."
He raised another finger.
"But the idea that those obsessions continuously intensify until we inevitably become insane caricatures of ourselves is not how it works."
The Lanterns remained silent.
"Taneleer Tivan did not begin as a perfectly normal person who liked collecting stamps and then spend several billion years slowly transforming into the Collector. Taneleer was always Taneleer. The Grandmaster has always loved games. Ord has always cared about plants more than almost anything else in existence."
Max shrugged.
"They change because everyone changes. But simply being an Elder does not mean our obsession grows until it consumes every other part of our personality."
One of the Lanterns frowned. "Then the historical pattern we found?"
"Yeah, some of them are assholes. Can't do anything about that."
He paused.
"This actually reminds me of that movie."
The lead Lantern blinked. "Movie?"
"Yeah. From around fifty million years ago."
Every Lantern stared at him.
Max looked between them.
"What?"
He sighed.
"Right. There is a reason Corps historical databases generally prioritize the last million years unless you specifically request deeper archival access."
He gestured toward them.
"You guys already struggle to properly conceptualize what happened eight hundred thousand years ago. Even Oans, with their lifespans, usually do not casually browse events from tens of millions of years in the past unless they are historians."
"Jade?"
A holographic screen appeared in the chamber.
A movie poster filled it.
The title was written in enormous Oan lettering.
THE TYRANT
At the centre stood an Oan actor dressed as Max, though the resemblance was generous at best. His eyes burned green while fleets of Lanterns surrounded conquered planets behind him. One hand reached dramatically toward the viewer as worlds burned beneath the words:
HE SWORE TO PROTECT THEM ALL. HE NEVER SAID THEY WOULD REMAIN FREE.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Max pointed at it.
"That."
One Lantern looked from the poster to Max.
"They made a movie about you becoming a tyrant?"
"They made several. That was the famous one."
Max studied the poster again.
"Not a terrible actor, actually. I liked his movies."
He gestured toward the image.
"The plot is almost exactly what you just presented to me. I spend billions of years protecting people, my Elder obsession grows uncontrollably, and eventually I decide the only way to protect everyone is to conquer the universe."
"They allowed this to be released here? And this was made by an Oan?"
Max laughed. "Oh, those were different times."
"Some Oans wanted it banned for insulting me. Others argued that banning a film criticizing me would prove the film's point."
"There were riots," Max continued. "Small ones, but still riots. A theatre in Ionith got burned down. Feanor's descendants nearly started a political movement demanding laws against portraying me as evil."
He sighed fondly.
"I had to publicly tell everyone to calm down and let people make their movies. I mean, free will and all that."
The hologram disappeared.
"That entire controversy began from essentially the same misunderstanding you have now."
Max leaned against the table.
"I have had some version of this conversation every few million years since the Corps became old enough to start worrying about me. Different Lanterns, different evidence, same conclusion."
He looked between them.
"And I don't even know why you are bringing this to me now. I have barely had any say in the Corps for years. It basically runs itself, and I only step in when I am needed."
The lead Lantern looked embarrassed.
"So you believe our concerns are entirely unfounded?"
"I think questioning me is healthy, and I don't take offence to it."
Max looked over the group.
"But no, I am not slowly transforming into a cosmic tyrant because Elder biology demands it. Forget that part. In fact, questions about whether the Elders were becoming too dangerous actually stopped for several million years after one particular incident."
That caught their attention.
Max glanced upward.
"Jade, bring up the one hundred millionth edition of the Great Grandmaster Game."
A new hologram appeared above the table.
The senior Lanterns immediately recognized Durin.
He stood at the centre of an enormous artificial battlefield. Opposite him towered the Obliterator, surrounded by enough weapons to devastate a planet.
Max folded his arms.
"Let's just say the Obliterator and I had some issues to settle, and the Grandmaster turned it into a special contest. I was not allowed to fight personally, so I chose Durin."
The recording accelerated through portions of the battle. The Obliterator unleashed weapons capable of reducing mountains to ash, while Durin spent most of the contest evading him rather than attempting to overpower the Elder directly.
"The Obliterator was one of the greatest problems the Corps had among my brothers," Max continued. "His obsession was extermination. Hunting, killing, destroying species, particularly anything he considered worthy prey. We had clashed over him several times before this."
The image changed.
Durin lured the Obliterator through a portal and onto a barren planet.
There was nothing there.
No animals, plants, microorganisms, or even complex organic matter.
The planet was completely lifeless.
The Alpha Lantern attacked the Elder's weapons rather than the Elder himself. Emerald constructs tore them apart.
"He figured something out that most of us had overlooked," Max said. "The Obliterator's obsession required something to kill. Something to hunt. Something to destroy."
The recording showed the Elder standing alone upon the empty world as Durin removed the final functional weapon.
No life surrounded him.
No prey existed anywhere on the planet.
Nothing moved except Durin.
"And Durin refused to fight him."
The Obliterator screamed, demanding that the Alpha Lantern face him.
Durin simply left.
Within hours, the Elder stopped moving.
Days later, he remained in the same position.
Eventually, he became completely unresponsive.
"He entered a catatonic state," Max explained. "No prey, no weapons, nothing to satisfy the obsession sustaining his mind. Durin effectively switched him off without killing him."
Max dismissed the image.
"The Obliterator had been the single greatest Elder-related threat faced by the Corps at that point, and Durin dealt with him without breaking the Compact. More importantly, every other Elder agreed that the punishment was justified."
"The Compact does not mean protecting an Elder from consequences. It means there are rules governing how we deal with one another. The Obliterator crossed enough lines that even the Champion agreed with me that he had earned what happened to him."
He looked around the chamber.
"For several million years after that, nobody bothered asking whether I was secretly protecting dangerous Elders."
Max smiled faintly.
"Eventually, everyone forgot. People do."
The lead Lantern looked even more embarrassed than before.
Max turned toward the exit.
"Now, unless one of you has discovered something that actually suggests I am planning to conquer the universe, I have somewhere else to be."
No one answered.
"Excellent."
Green light surrounded Max, and he shot from the chamber.
The doors closed behind him.
Silence remained for several seconds.
Then one Lantern folded his arms and looked accusingly at the lead presenter.
"I knew you were wrong."
"You agreed with me!"
"I agreed that we should investigate."
Three other Lanterns immediately joined the argument.
=========
Max left Oa and crossed into Sector 616.
He had made this particular journey many times over the ages, usually separated by ten or twenty million years. Earth appeared ahead, green and blue beneath the light of the Sun. Vast forests covered continents whose shapes were becoming more and more familiar as the years went by.
The asteroid was already visible in the distance.
It moved toward Earth, a mountain of stone more than six miles across. Its course would take it toward the North American continent, and when it struck, the most dominant life on Earth would come to an end.
Something else moved around the planet.
Green spheres.
Thousands of them.
The Puff Collective were scattered across different regions of Earth, some carrying containment fields filled with dinosaurs toward ships waiting beyond the Moon. Several dozen spheres surrounded an enormous Tyrannosaurus that had been placed inside a green construct, the animal roaring furiously as it tried to bite through the glowing walls.
Max smiled.
The Puffs noticed him almost immediately.
Their scattered bodies stopped what they were doing before dozens accelerated toward him at once.
Within seconds, Max found himself surrounded.
Green spheres bounced through the air around his head and shoulders, emitting a rapid collection of whistles, chirps, trills, and little humming noises that his ring translated automatically.
"GUARDIAN IS HERE."
"GUARDIAN."
"HAPPY."
"MAX."
"MAX IS HERE."
"WE HAVE MISSED MAX."
Several bumped gently against his shoulders.
One landed on his head.
"Yes, yes." Max laughed as he removed it and held it between his hands. "I am happy to see you too."
The sphere emitted an especially pleased trill.
Durin might have been the first Green Lantern and had long since become the first Alpha Lantern, but Max had never denied the obvious truth. The Puffs were probably the most effective Lanterns ever, and they were almost as old as Durin.
How could anyone compete with a distributed consciousness capable of occupying thousands of places simultaneously? The Collective could investigate a crime, evacuate a city, negotiate a treaty, fight an interstellar fleet, and observe a collapsing star all at the same time.
Also, they were adorable.
Max released the Puff he had been holding and looked toward Earth.
"Is everything ready? You collected everything I asked for?"
A chorus of tonal sounds answered him.
His ring translated the overlapping response.
"YES."
"SELECTED SPECIES SECURED."
"GENETIC SAMPLES SECURED."
"EGGS SECURED."
"FLORA SECURED."
"MOST ARE ANGRY."
Max glanced toward the distant construct containing the enormous predators.
"They usually are."
A Puff made a questioning whistle.
"GUARDIAN, WHY ALLOW IMPACT?"
Several others crowded closer.
"CAN STOP."
"WE CAN MOVE ASTEROID."
"GUARDIAN CAN MOVE ASTEROID."
"PLANET LIFE WILL DIE."
Max looked toward the approaching rock.
"Some things need to happen, my dear Puffs."
The Collective became quiet.
"Take everything to Sanctuary," Max told them. "Make sure the environments are ready before releasing anything. I would rather not discover that someone put twenty Tyrannosaurs beside a peaceful herbivore preserve again."
A series of embarrassed whistles followed.
"COLLECTIVE ACKNOWLEDGES POSSIBLE ERROR."
"Possible?"
No answer.
Max pointed toward the edge of the system.
"Go."
The Puffs gathered their constructs and accelerated away, disappearing in streams of green light.
Max remained alone.
He looked at Earth.
Then at the asteroid.
"Well."
Emerald energy spread from his ring.
A broad platform formed in space. Max added a comfortable chair and a small table, then sat down.
He opened the bag he had brought with him and pulled out a bottle of Oan beer.
Max opened it and took a long drink.
Oans had taken brewing far more seriously than he had expected. Give a civilization millions of years and apparently someone eventually perfected alcohol.
The asteroid continued toward Earth.
Max raised the bottle toward the planet.
"Well, dinosaurs, you had your day."
He took another drink.
His eyes followed the world slowly turning beneath him.
Mammals already existed down there, small things hiding in burrows and beneath vegetation while gigantic reptiles dominated almost everything above them. Most would never grow beyond the size of rodents as long as the dinosaurs remained supreme.
That was about to change.
Max lifted his bottle slightly higher.
"Mammals, do your thing."
He drank.
For a while, he simply watched.
The asteroid grew brighter as it approached.
Max created another construct beside the platform.
Then another.
Musicians began appearing in rows.
Strings first, followed by brass, woodwinds, percussion, and finally an enormous choir standing upon tiered platforms behind them.
Max looked over his shoulder.
"Jade."
"Yes, Max?"
"Ode to Joy."
The orchestra began softly.
Max settled deeper into his chair.
There were moments, increasingly rare ones, when he could almost forget what he had become.
Not Ion.
Not the Guardian.
Just Max Vaughn. A man who had once lived on a small planet much like the one before him, in another universe.
For a moment, he remembered his father, the man from whom he had inherited his obsession with dinosaurs. As a child, Max had spent several years absolutely convinced that he would become a paleontologist too.
He had not. His mother had won that particular battle without ever actually fighting it. Archaeology eventually captured his attention instead, and Max followed her path into that field.
He smiled at the memory.
For just a moment, he wished his father could have been there.
The man would have completely lost his mind.
Max took another drink.
The thought of them hurt less than it once would have.
He was billions of years old now, but the memories of them had never disappeared completely.
The music continued building while the asteroid approached Earth.
Max watched for another minute before raising one finger.
"Jade."
"Yes?"
"Skip ahead."
"The ending."
The orchestra shifted.
Strings rose beneath the choir as the asteroid entered the final stretch of its approach.
Max sat forward.
Below him, Earth remained unaware.
Dinosaurs moved through forests. Herds crossed rivers. Predators followed them through the vegetation while flying reptiles ruled the skies.
"Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt
Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen."
The asteroid reached the upper atmosphere.
A brilliant point of light appeared over the planet.
Its outer surface began to burn as compressed air heated to unimaginable temperatures. A glowing sheath formed around the incoming rock, turning night into day across thousands of miles below.
The choir rose.
"Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muß er wohnen."
The atmosphere could not meaningfully slow something that large.
The asteroid tore downward.
Shock waves raced ahead of it while the sky over the impact region became brighter than the Sun. Living creatures hundreds of miles away lifted their heads, reacting to the impossible new light.
Max watched without blinking.
The orchestra surged.
"Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium!"
The asteroid struck.
For the briefest fraction of a second, stone met stone.
Then the world exploded.
The impact released energy on a scale beyond anything Earth had experienced for millions of years. The crust beneath the asteroid vanished almost instantly, vaporized alongside the incoming rock as an expanding sphere of incandescent material erupted upward.
Millions of tonnes of molten and vaporized material blasted into the atmosphere and beyond it, some fragments travelling high enough to briefly escape Earth altogether.
Max's emerald orchestra grew louder.
"Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!"
The shock wave spread outward.
Forests flattened.
Oceans recoiled from coastlines before returning as immense waves. The atmosphere itself became a weapon, a wall of pressure racing across the surface faster than any creature could flee.
"Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium!"
The sky began to burn.
The orchestra accelerated.
The choir thundered behind it.
"Freude! Freude!
Freude, schöner Götterfunken!"
The impact plume continued to expand.
The age of the dinosaurs had ended.
The final chord struck.
Max lifted the bottle toward Earth.
Then he laughed.
"What a fucking view."
.
.
.
Chapter 97
66 million years later.
"The moment that stupid sorcerer opened the way to Anti-Life, I felt something latch onto me."
"What?"
"I don't know. It felt similar to me, yet completely alien at the same time. Whatever the Black Light is, some of its principles are disturbingly close to mine, but…"
"I have tried looking into it, you know. I think it is better if some things stay buried."
"There is still him."
"I have all of Ion's memories now. I specifically remember him being beaten, and our battle literally causing the creation of this iteration of the multiverse."
"Well, the multiverse would have reformed anyway. You merely accelerated the process."
"Meh. Pretty sure that makes me the one true god of creation."
"Do not let the Living Tribunal hear you say that."
"Meh. What is he going to do? There is no cosmic law saying I can't insult the big guy. It's what he would have wanted."
=====
Max opened his eyes.
For several seconds, he remained motionless as the memory of his last conversation with Death faded back into the older layers of his mind. He had not intended to think about the Black Light or Anti-Life, yet memories had an annoying tendency to surface whenever he remained inside the Source for too long.
The endless realm of green stretched around him, filled with currents of willpower moving like rivers through an infinite sky. There was no true ground here, no horizon, and no ordinary sense of distance.
Adara sat nearby.
The Entity of Hope had her many wings folded around her while blue light mixed gently with the endless emerald surrounding them.
"You have been visiting more frequently," she said.
Max sat upright. "Yeah. I need the battery to be stronger. I have another ten thousand rings to make, remember?"
"That is not why."
Max looked at her.
Adara simply waited, staring at him.
He sighed. "Okay, fine... It's almost time."
Her wings shifted slightly.
"I'm getting close to the year when I fell into the..."
Max stopped.
The memories crashed into him.
Aurora in his arms as he played with her, and then it changed to Firehair standing before him. For an instant, he could hear their final parting words again.
She had gone to rescue Aurora.
Max had gone after the Maker.
Then the universe had taken him.
Billions of years followed, and now the endless wait was nearing its end.
Max forced himself back into the present.
Adara watched him carefully. "You are trying to reach that moment faster."
"You could say that." He laughed quietly, though there was little humour in it.
"You've probably noticed how quickly I leave lately."
"I have."
"I keep thinking I'll stay in here too long. Maybe I lose track of things, walk out, and Jade tells me another billion years have passed."
Max laughed again, then immediately grimaced. "Fuck... I don't even want to joke about that."
The difference in time between the Source and the physical universe had always required care. Max had learned to manage it long ago, but knowing the rules did nothing to quiet the increasingly irrational fear that one mistake could cost him everything after he had already waited so long.
"The Corps helped," he continued. "More than helped, really. Building it, watching it grow, all of that gave me something to do with the years. It kept me sane."
Max looked into the emerald distance.
"But this moment has always been there too. All these billions of years, I knew I was moving toward something. Every million years that passed meant I was a little closer..all of it is to get back to them."
His thoughts darkened.
"And sometimes I think, what if there's nobody waiting for me?"
Adara's expression changed.
Max stared at the currents of green beneath him.
"I've been thinking about that lately. More than I should."
"Max."
"What if Firehair failed?"
Saying it aloud made something twist painfully inside him.
"What if she couldn't save Aurora? What if something happened to the others? What if I've spent billions of years waiting and there is just..."
He could not finish.
"Do not allow Parallax to addle your mind, Max."
Max looked toward her.
"You know he can reach through fear even from imprisonment. Perhaps not enough to control you, but enough to encourage thoughts already within you."
"I know."
"You do not know that Firehair failed."
"You do not know that Aurora was lost."
Max shook his head.
"Then do not mourn an ending that has not happened."
Max exhaled.
His gaze drifted into the distance. Far beyond where they sat, two prisons floated within the Source. Max could barely see them from here, but he knew exactly where they were.
The Butcher remained contained within one.
Parallax occupied the other. Two beings of the Emotional Spectrum, sealed beneath layers of power that Max, Adara, and Predator had constructed together.
"Everything will be fine," Adara said.
Max looked at her.
"You're literally the Entity of Hope. You're obligated to say that."
Adara smiled.
Max stretched his arms and decided he had spent quite enough time contemplating the potential destruction of everything he loved.
"Okay. Different subject. Blue Lanterns."
Adara tilted her head.
"Why the wait?"
"I have not found my champion."
"I could help, Adara."
"Maybe we could make something like I did with the Oans."
Adara stared at him.
"What? It worked for me."
"The Oans were not created merely so that you could have Lanterns."
"Technically, no, but look how that turned out."
Max gestured broadly around them.
"I needed a little help from Death when it came to souls, afterlives, and all the complicated metaphysical nonsense, but I could probably convince her to help you too. Create a people naturally resonant with hope, let them develop for a while, and eventually one of them is bound to qualify."
"No. When the proper time comes, I will know what I must do."
Adara's gaze became distant for a moment.
"That time is approaching."
Max raised an eyebrow.
"Well, Proselyte is already doing something."
That immediately interested her.
"Oh?"
"There have been reports for years about a planet moving between sectors."
"A planet?"
"Apparently sentient too, if the stories are true. It appears in one system, stays for a while, then somehow ends up somewhere completely different. For the longest time, everyone assumed it was one of those stories Lanterns made up, but, you know, there have been too many sightings, and even some pictures. They were very blurry, though. The planet is like space Bigfoot." Max laughed.
"I even went looking for it recently."
"And?"
"Didn't find the planet."
Adara waited.
"But I felt Proselyte."
Her wings opened slightly.
"The Light of Compassion?"
"Definitely. Faint, but it was hers. Whatever that wandering planet is, she has something to do with it."
Adara smiled with genuine delight. "Amazing. I knew she was working toward something."
"How do you think she accomplished it?"
"No idea, but it is quite impressive."
Max had spent enough time around the Entities to know that guessing what Proselyte intended was usually pointless. Compassion could be remarkably secretive for an emotion supposedly centred on understanding everyone else.
He rose.
"I'm going."
Adara looked at him. "You could stay longer."
"I'll be back soon."
He smiled, but the expression did not last.
"I just need to make sure, you know, that not too much time has..."
Adara said nothing.
Max rubbed the back of his neck.
"It's stupid. I know exactly how much time is passing. Jade monitors it. I monitor it. We've done this more times than I can count."
A quiet laugh escaped him.
"But the closer it gets, the worse I become. Every time I come here, part of me starts counting the seconds. I keep thinking about how much time might be passing outside, and then I think about Firehair and Aurora and..."
He stopped.
Adara's expression softened.
"I understand."
Max looked at her for a moment before nodding.
"Yeah."
He closed his eyes.
The Source responded immediately.
Green light surrounded him, and the endless realm disappeared.
Max opened his eyes inside the deepest chamber of the Central Power Battery.
He flew upward through the Battery, passing enormous rings of machinery and energy conduits before emerging into the upper core chamber, where a broad platform overlooked the torrents of green light flowing below.
He landed and sat at the edge.
For a little while, Max simply watched the Battery.
Then he asked the question he had been asking with increasing frequency.
"Jade."
"Yes, Max?"
"How much longer?"
There was no hesitation.
"Seven hundred sixty-five thousand, six hundred and thirty-four years."
Max stood from the edge and stretched.
"Is Veridion here yet?"
Jade answered immediately. "Returning from his celestial duties. Current estimate places his arrival in approximately ten hours."
"Good. Then it's finally time to finish the rest of the rings."
Max looked down at the torrents of emerald energy moving through the Battery beneath him. Ten thousand additional rings remained to be made before the Corps reached the numbers he had wanted for so long. Once that was done, every sector could finally be maintained entirely by Green Lanterns.
"And then," Max added, "we can finally get rid of the Vigilants."
"I have been reconsidering the Vigilants."
Max frowned.
"They have operated successfully for more than two hundred and fifty million years, Max. At this point, they are almost as synonymous with the Green Lantern Corps as the Lanterns themselves."
Max sighed.
He knew she was right about that much. The Vigilants had been there even before the Corps formally existed. They had acted as the Corps until the first Green Lanterns were chosen, and by now they were seen as part of it almost as much as the Lanterns themselves. Generation after generation had grown up seeing Lanterns and Vigilants together. Entire worlds remembered ancient stories in which two emerald machines descended beside the Lantern who had saved their ancestors.
Jade continued. "Rather than replacing the Vigilants, we could assign five Lanterns and retain two Vigilants in each sector. Response times would improve significantly, particularly across sectors containing large numbers of inhabited systems."
"Come on, Jade. You know how I feel about them."
"I know how you feel about Manhunters."
"They are close enough."
"The comparison remains stupid."
Max looked offended. "You're calling my completely rational paranoia stupid?"
"Yes. They are extensions of Veridion's consciousness and are deliberately prevented from developing independent command structures. They are not Manhunters."
"You are supposed to be on my side."
"I am on your side. That does not require agreeing with you whenever you are irrational."
"Traitor."
Max shook his head and began flying toward the upper sections of the Battery.
"We'll talk about it later. Let me know when Veridion enters the system."
"Affirmative."
Max left the Central Power Battery and flew toward the Valley of Will.
He did not return immediately to the palace. Instead, he flew toward the quieter side of the valley, heading for the lake.
He landed at his favourite place overlooking the water.
For a while, he sat there thinking about how much had happened in the last two hundred and fifty million years. That was how long the Green Lantern Corps had been actively protecting the universe.
Max could admit that it worked. The universe was safer because the Corps existed.
Not completely safe. Max doubted anything could make the universe truly safe, and he was not arrogant enough to pretend otherwise. Empires still rose with dreams of conquest, civilizations still found new reasons to hate their neighbours, and every few million years some idiot discovered an ancient object bearing warnings in a million languages and decided that using it was a brilliant idea.
But fewer worlds died unnoticed. Wars that might once have consumed entire galaxies were stopped before spreading beyond a handful of systems. Asteroids were redirected, plagues contained, slave empires dismantled, refugees relocated, and countless people who would otherwise have vanished without anyone knowing had been given another chance.
The Corps had succeeded where the version Max remembered from the comics so often stumbled. There had been crises and scandals, certainly, and individual Lanterns occasionally failed spectacularly, but he had avoided the systemic catastrophes. No Guardians casually deciding emotions were inconvenient. No endless cycle of the Corps being destroyed and resurrected. No Manhunters massacring entire sectors.
The last thought reminded him of his argument with Jade.
Max grimaced.
"Still getting rid of them."
There had been periods when Max stepped away from the direct management of the Corps, sometimes for centuries and occasionally much longer. Veridion could oversee Oa in his absence, while Jade remained connected to the Battery and could run things as well. The institution no longer depended upon him personally supervising every decision, which had always been the goal.
Oa had grown alongside it. Nearly 200 billion Oans now lived throughout the Oan system, while more than 600 billion members of other species called one of its worlds home. Some had arrived as diplomats, merchants, or visitors and simply never left. Others were descendants of Lantern families from eons past. Entire communities traced their ancestry back to Green Lanterns who had died tens of millions of years ago.
Haven had changed the most. The paradise world Max remembered had gradually transformed into something he had anticipated. Cities expanded, joined one another, then spread across continents until eventually there was almost nowhere on the planet untouched by civilization.
It had become a city planet. More importantly, it had become perhaps the wealthiest world in existence, where millions of species lived together. That mixing of cultures had produced, in Max's opinion, some of the best food in the universe. There were probably other important achievements worth mentioning, but that was the one he cared about.
Sanctuary had become something else entirely. Max had once imagined it merely as a preserve, somewhere to keep species rescued from worlds that could not be saved. Over millions of years, it had grown into the greatest collection of living diversity in the universe.
Millions of species lived there. Forests from extinct planets stretched across entire continents. Creatures whose stars had burned out millions of years earlier continued to hunt, migrate, reproduce, and evolve. Entire ecosystems existed nowhere else in creation.
Gardener Ord practically worshipped the place, and Max was fairly certain the Collector was jealous of it.
Max looked across the lake and smiled as he watched several Oan children playing on the other side of the water.
A notification from Jade interrupted the thought.
"Max."
Jade's tone had changed.
"What?"
"There has been an incident at Vault I. Initial reports indicate a prison escape."
Max sat upright.
"How many?"
"Unclear. Security systems are currently attempting to isolate the affected levels."
"Send word to the Alpha Lanterns. I want all of them there immediately."
"Affirmative."
Vault I existed for beings normal prisons could not contain. Interstellar warlords, reality manipulators, and criminals whose names had once terrified entire civilizations were kept locked away there.
Vault II was even more restricted.
It did not primarily hold people.
It held things. Weapons, cursed objects, cosmic artifacts, fragments of dead gods, and countless other objects Max considered too dangerous to destroy and far too dangerous to leave somewhere accessible.
Two Alpha Lanterns guarded Vault II at all times. That alone told anyone with sufficient clearance how seriously Max regarded the place.
Jade spoke again before he could ask for more information.
"I am detecting unusual readings."
Max stood.
"From Vault I?"
"I cannot determine the origin."
His smile vanished.
"Explain."
"I am attempting to. The readings are appearing across multiple monitoring networks simultaneously, but there is no consistent source. It resembles spatial distortion, cosmic energy, and…"
She stopped.
"And what?"
"I don't know, Max."
Max's instincts began screaming. He looked around. The Oan children he had seen earlier were still playing on the opposite side of the lake, chasing one another across the grass while an older Oan watched from beneath a tree. Farther along the shoreline, couples and families walked peacefully through the Valley of Will.
Everything looked normal.
Max slowly raised his eyes toward Oa's colourful sky.
"What the hell is this?"
The feeling continued to grow, pressing against his senses until it became almost overwhelming.
Someone appeared in front of him. Max nearly attacked on instinct before recognizing her. Death stood several feet away.
"Death, I told you to stop appearing…"
"Max, listen to me."
Death looked afraid.
"It's him."
Max felt the world narrow.
"Who?"
"The King in Black."
A sound like creation itself splitting apart erupted above Oa.
The entire valley shook. Water surged from the lake in violent waves as people along the shore looked upward. Defensive systems activated instantly, emerald shields beginning to form around the planet while alarms echoed from Ionith and the other cities.
Max turned toward the sky.
Something enormous had appeared in orbit.
For the briefest instant, irritation overpowered everything else.
Veridion.
The Celestial had returned in his full form, his immense emerald and golden body dominating the heavens above Oa as he floated horizontally in space.
Max yelled looking at his friend. "How many fucking times have I told him not to jump into the system like that? He scares half the…"
A line of darkness crossed the sky.
Max stopped speaking.
The slash passed across Veridion's neck.
For a fraction of a second, nothing changed.
Then his head came free.
Veridion's immense head drifted away from his shoulders as green and golden cosmic energy erupted from the severed neck, spilling into space like a newborn star bleeding light.
Max froze.
"No."
The word barely escaped him.
His legs failed beneath him. He dropped to one knee on the grass, staring upward at Veridion's drifting body.
The young Celestial who had found him when creation itself was still young.
The scientist who had helped him build Oa.
The friend who had remained beside him for billions of years.
His oldest friend.
Dead.
"He's here," Death whispered.
Something stood upon Veridion's severed head.
A man.
Black armour covered his body, its surface shifting as though it were alive. Dark energy rolled from him in waves.
The Black Light.
It carried the same wrongness Max had felt when Moridun opened the path to Anti-Life.
A sword rested in the man's hand, its blade darker than the void surrounding him.
The figure looked down toward Oa, and his lips pulled apart into an enormous smile, every tooth visible.
"Ion."
Max's hands began shaking.
The man laughed.
"Ion. Ion. Ion."
"Knull," Death said.
For one more second, grief held Max in place.
Then it burned away.
Emerald light erupted from his body with enough force to flatten the ground around him and drive the lake backward from the shore. The sky above the Valley of Will turned green.
"AAAAARRRRGHHHH!"
Max launched from the ground.
A sword formed around his hand as he crossed Oa's atmosphere in seconds, emerald energy compressing around the blade until space distorted along its edge.
Knull laughed again.
Then he stepped from Veridion's severed head and fell toward Oa.
Max flew upward.
Knull fell downward.
They met between the planet and the dead Celestial.
Their swords collided.
The impact turned space white.
A violent shockwave erupted through the Oan system, striking planetary shields and sending energy rippling across the moons, stations, and ships. Oa trembled beneath them while the upper atmosphere split beneath the force of the collision.
Max and Knull remained locked together at its centre, their faces separated by barely a foot.
Knull's smile widened.
"Did you miss me?"
Max's eyes burned red.
Omega Beams erupted point-blank into Knull's face.
The beams tore him away from Max and sent him crashing into the moon citadel.
Max's gaze moved toward Veridion's drifting corpse.
He was gone.
Truly gone.
Max looked back toward Knull.
"You are going to die for that."
Knull emerged from the wreckage on the moon, laughing.
Max charged.
Knull met him halfway.
Emerald and black blades crashed together again, and the entire system shook beneath the violence of their second collision.
.
.
The corps have now existed for nearly 300 million years.
I know some of you might feel like Knull came out of nowhere, but he didn't. I've been mentioning him throughout the last few chapters, including how he and Ion fought and caused the Big Bang. So this is Knull finally coming for revenge.
You can read up to chapter 105 here.
p.a.t.r.eon.com/Illusiveone (check the chapter summary i have it there as well)
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Also here is Group Pic of Max and his biggest Opps.