Thea kept her head down, calculating and drawing simultaneously. "Relax. My portal can get everyone through—I just need a minute to unpick the spatial seams your Guardians wove into Oa."
"I don't want to go in..." The only person capable of producing that particular note of disharmony was Larfleeze. Thea didn't look up.
The Guardians' methods were an entirely different system from hers—closer to technology than sorcery. Fortunately, she was the genuine article when it came to high magic, and her sheer tier advantage let her find the weak point quickly.
A shimmering portal blazed into existence.
In the distance, the Black Lanterns had already spotted them. Dense as a cloud of flies, they surged forward.
"In! Everyone in, now!" Thea ordered her forces through. The Indigo Tribe moved first, the most cooperative of the lot. The Yellow Lanterns were less enthusiastic about fighting alongside Greens, but under her iron-fisted authority, they complied.
Violet, Blue, and Red filed through in turn. Larfleeze's eyes darted sideways—clearly calculating an escape route.
"You too. In." She grabbed him by the scruff and hurled him through the portal.
One hand up—a fire tornado and twin chain-lightning blasts drove back the oncoming Black Lanterns. She was the last one through, and she collapsed the portal behind her. Linking up with the Greens was the objective. The last thing she needed was enemies on both sides.
The other side of the portal was packed. Sayd and Ganthet were embracing. The remaining Green Lanterns just... stared at the six corps, expressions blank.
The combat intensity had dulled their reactions—that was part of it. But mostly, their thoughts all ran the same way: What in the universe—there are THIS many multicolored Lanterns?
"Arkillo! You killed my brother—I'll have your life!" Some nameless Lantern spotted Arkillo, a senior Yellow, and charged despite barely being able to stand, half-mad with grief.
"Sinestro! You traitor!" Several more hotheads began screaming in a mixture of Interlac and their homeworld dialects, demanding to settle old scores.
Sinestro's nerve was legendary. He'd walked up and thrown punches at Highfather himself. These nobodies didn't even register. His left hand came up, construct already forming—
Thea grabbed his arm just in time and simultaneously shoved aside the offending Green Lanterns with casual ease, the way you'd brush off a street hustler faking an injury. They hadn't even processed what was happening before trying to start a fight. How had they survived this long? Idiots.
"I know you don't believe it, but any Green Lantern light combined with any other color can take down a Black Lantern. But that's not the point. The point is: we need to break out of here. Now." There was no reasoning with Lanterns whose brains were running on fumes. Explaining the cosmic crisis threatening the universe was a non-starter—they simply wouldn't buy it.
Thea's position was simple: fight your way out first, talk later.
Ganthet responded immediately. As the most personable Guardian, he commanded significant respect among the Green Lanterns—especially now, with every other Guardian unaccounted for. Everyone fell in line.
But plenty of Greens still had shifty eyes, clearly terrified the Yellows would stab them in the back.
Worried about the wrong things and oblivious to the right ones. Thea assessed them silently.
"Yes—we break out first, sort everything else after!" A fish-headed, four-armed alien Green Lantern was the first to rally behind the plan. Thea recognized him: Salaak. The Green Lantern who managed Oa's day-to-day operations—a dispatcher, essentially, bridging the gap between the Guardians and the rank-and-file Lanterns.
"Break out! Let's go!" Several of Hal Jordan's friends had met Thea before and threw their voices behind the call.
Where there was harmony, there was also discord.
"Shut up! You betrayed the Green Lanterns—you're not my father—I have nothing to do with you!" A purple-skinned woman pointed her finger at Sinestro, looking as though she wanted to devour him whole.
Sinestro raised his arm to backhand her. Thea caught him again.
She recognized the woman too: Soranik Natu. Sinestro's daughter. Once, on Korugar, before the betrayal, the Sinestro family had been happy. That was a long time ago.
"Whatever grudge you two have, take it outside and settle it there. Kill each other for all I care. But right now—everyone shut up."
Divine pressure rolled outward in waves. Every sentient being within range felt a tremor that started in their souls. Larfleeze ducked behind Atrocitus.
"I don't care what bad blood exists between any of you. Shut your mouths. The last time I was on Oa, I showed mercy. Do you actually think I won't kill?"
It clicked. The Green Lanterns finally connected her to the woman from the last battle—the one who'd unleashed a massive soul-shockwave that had put them in recovery for months. They'd only just gotten back on their feet. In their defense, she'd been wearing different clothes. From an alien perspective, all humans looked the same—change your outfit and no one recognized you.
Regardless of their internal complaints, the strong ruled. That much was universal. The crowd quieted, tacitly accepting the alliance.
Thea looked at Saint Walker. Before pulling the first mob, you had to buff up.
Saint Walker understood. He raised his right hand high. The other three Blue Lanterns did the same, holding their rings aloft—symbols of hope.
Blue light blazed, brilliant and radiant. Gasps erupted from the Green and Red Lanterns alike. "My ring—it's charging on its own!"
"110%... 115%... the ring can break its limit?"
Apart from the handful of Greens who'd fought in the Darkseid War on Earth, most were experiencing over-cap ring power for the first time. The sensation was electrifying—every one of them suddenly felt invincible.
Better-quality rings hit 150%. Even the worst were above 120%.
Thea turned to Atrocitus. "Let's see the Red Lantern Corps' valor."
Atrocitus absolutely did not want to be the tip of the spear. The Reds were brutal, not stupid. There were hundreds of thousands of enemies out there. Whoever charged first would be in extreme danger.
But he couldn't refuse. Beneath the savage exterior, back when he'd still been called Atos, he'd been a psychologist. Becoming the Red Lantern leader hadn't drowned all his reason in rage—it had given him an ability: divination. Using his enemies' bones to read the future. In a sense, he was something of a mystic himself.
Sayd had found Larfleeze first, then reached out to the Red Lanterns on a whim. No one had expected Atrocitus to agree immediately. That was the real reason the Reds were here.
His divination had told him: come, and there would be reward. Don't come, and there would be death.
Thea watched him hesitate. Her patience was wearing thin. What was this—insubordination?
"I'm going!" He stood over seven feet tall (over 2 meters), towering above Thea, but he felt small. Her gaze grew colder by the second. He didn't dare wait another beat and led his forces out at a rush.
Thea flicked a glance at Indigo-1. The Indigo leader took over a hundred of her people and fell in directly behind the Red vanguard.
Atrocitus was an immortal, a survivor of the Sector 666 Massacre. He'd lived more than a hundred million years, and his combat experience could only be called staggering.
Ferocity tempered by precision—that was his fighting style. He materialized a blood-red greataxe and shield and carved through the Black Lantern horde, cutting left, smashing right.
His subordinates were less refined. Every last one fought like a berserker, latching onto a target and pounding it senseless with no regard for formation or coordination. Unlike the other six corps, rage-energy replaced the blood in their veins—in combat, they could expel that energy from their bodies, dealing devastating damage to their enemies.
Not that it mattered much against Black Lanterns. That kind of damage barely registered.
Indigo-1 remained serene in the midst of the battlefield, carrying herself with an otherworldly composure. The Indigo Tribe didn't use rings—they used staffs, and one of the staffs' most critical functions was the ability to temporarily "borrow" other colors of light.
Understanding exactly why Thea had sent her out, Indigo-1 and her hundred-plus tribespeople put on a demonstration, cycling through all seven colors one by one. Green light included.