The crystals inside the Fortress of Solitude could compress and store massive amounts of information within an extremely small volume. Kryptonians only needed the right kind of touch to read them.
Kara was wiping away tears as she handed Joey crystal after crystal, each one decompressing its stored data. When she had set out for Earth, she had only been slightly younger than Joey was now. Everything about Krypton was already deeply familiar to her.
Even though she knew that going through them again would only bring more pain, she still couldn't help but glance through each one before reluctantly passing it to Joey.
All Joey had to do was grip a crystal lightly and focus his mind, and instantly, a stream of Kryptonian knowledge and memories would surface in his consciousness—so vivid it felt like firsthand experience.
Kryptonian poetry, songs, myths, and other literary works—Joey didn't know why he could communicate with Kara in the Kryptonian language, but at his core he was still illiterate in it. Only after going through this material did he realize that the name Kal-El, in certain contexts, seemed to mean child of the stars.
Krypton's social structure—Joey gained a general understanding of their Science Council, Warrior Guild, and the ancient Kryptonian faith in their sun god Rao, along with dozens of other administrative factions and family structures.
Krypton's geography and biosphere—he skimmed through most of it, but one detail caught his interest: a chain of islands that produced a plant called Roni. Kryptonians would dry its leaves and brew them into drinks or roll them into cigarettes. It felt strangely familiar.
Krypton's records of extraterrestrial contact included many things Joey recognized—Thanagar, whose inhabitants were hawk-headed and winged, with a rough and warlike culture; the distant world of Tamaran; the dangerous Apokolips; and the extremely dangerous Brainiac...
"Hey! Joey, snap out of it!"
Kara, who had been reviewing other memory crystals nearby, stopped and gently tugged at the small curl on Joey's forehead, pulling him out of the immersive state:
"A word of advice—going through too many memory crystals will make your brain slower!"
Only then did Joey pull himself out of that intensely addictive immersion. But he clearly wasn't in the mood to worry about something like 'watching too many short videos will rot your brain.'
"Do you have anything on technology?"
"Most of these are."
Kara dumped a large armful of red crystal clusters into Joey's hands.
"Didn't you notice? Those smaller crystals you just read already took over ten minutes. If you go through all of these, it might be morning by the time you're done."
"Doesn't matter. There's nothing else to do tonight anyway."
Joey needed to dig through Kryptonian technology to find a solution for Themyscira's climate problem. The Amazons were already complaining to Diana, using their inability to adapt to the Arctic environment as an excuse to refuse evacuating the British Isles.
Sharp-eyed, Joey noticed that among the pile Kara had given him, two crystals no longer emitted any glow. He picked them out.
"Are these two broken?"
Kara snatched them back and tried the universally accepted 45-degree-angle tapping repair method—but it didn't work. She floated up and placed them back into the data console.
"Maybe there was an error when the data was written. Give it a moment—the central processor will check their integrity first."
Joey nodded and turned his focus back to the pile, searching for anything that could help solve the problem with his space-time wrist device, as well as potential solutions for the Amazons.
Meanwhile, Kara watched Joey immerse himself in Kryptonian technology, showing little interest in Kryptonian culture or customs. She let out a faint sigh, barely noticeable, and quietly flew out of the Fortress.
---
Abin Sur, piloting his ship, could now see with the naked eye the faint glow of the yellow star belonging to the solar system in the distant void. It wouldn't be long before he crossed the Kuiper Belt and entered Neptune's orbital range.
The greatest Green Lantern prepared to reconnect with Cyborg. He intended to be completely honest this time—telling him his true purpose and seeking cooperation without abandoning Earth.
Speak of the devil—Cyborg contacted him first and sent over several high-resolution images.
"By the way, Green Lantern, since you're basically a space cop, do you recognize an alien species that looks human but can fly, has immense strength, is invulnerable, and can shoot high-energy beams from their eyes?"
Abin Sur hadn't even looked at the images yet. Just hearing the description made cold sweat break out across his skin. When he finally glanced at the picture and saw the large 'S' emblem on the figure's chest, the usually composed Lantern cursed for the second time:
"Fuck! Cyborg, why is there a Kryptonian from the House of El in your—"
Boom!
The attack from afar arrived in an instant, completely destroying the Green Lantern's ship.
His ring activated automatically, forming a glowing green energy field around his body, allowing him to survive in the vacuum of space.
He conjured a massive shield to block the second impact, then created a reflective construct to redirect the incoming heat vision. After that, he formed a green kryptonite-like net, attempting to restrain the attacking Kryptonian.
The Green Lantern ring drew its power from the wearer's will and imagination—and Abin Sur was among the greatest of the Corps. His will was unbreakable, his imagination limitless. He was confident he could subdue this Kryptonian.
Just as the oath declared—evil shall beware his light.
But in the next instant, he saw only a red blur flash past him.
Then he felt the air in his lungs being violently forced into the vacuum, the cold of space seeping deep into his bones.
With his last bit of strength, he looked at his hand—only to find that his Green Lantern ring was gone.
In another universe, he would have crashed on Earth and passed his ring on to the next 'greatest Green Lantern'—a human named Hal Jordan.
But in this universe, although Abin Sur had escaped his initial crash, he could not escape death in the end.
In the dark void of space, the red-caped figure casually crushed the Green Lantern ring, leaving behind words no one would ever hear:
"A piece of advice—when you can't think fast enough, don't rely on weapons powered by thought against a Kryptonian whose speed surpasses your thinking by a hundredfold."