Leave it to Hal to break the universe when he dies. Fucking jerk. He goes out like that, dying in front of us. What are we going to tell Carol? Sorry, he got blown up so badly he left a crack in the universe? God Fucking Dammit. I'm going to hunt that thing down and scatter its pieces across the universe. Then I'm going to melt it down and make a statue in honor of Hal from it.
This was the lovely collection of thoughts I had when Hal disappeared. I was too distraught to do much more than sit while Tomar-Re flew us… wherever the hell he wanted to go. I didn't care, but Kilowogg kept arguing with him.
"Kilowogg, come in." Hal's voice announced from the radio set. There was no way… not even Hal…
"Shut your talk-hole Jordan I'm right in the middle of… Jordan? It's Jordan!" Kilowogg shouted to me as he shoved Tomar-Re out of his way.
Kilowogg laughed, relief breaking the tough guy schtick, "Told ya! Where are you kid? You okay?"
"Sensors are not reading his location. Green Lantern Hal Jordan is not registering in this sector at all." Aya explained, actively searching for our missing leader.
"I think Hal's calling us from Heaven." I darkly muttered. Not a big believer in hope. Optimism sure, but pure blind hope? Nada.
"That's because I'm not in your sector or universe. That thing we were fighting, it calls itself the Anti-Monitor. It comes from a parallel universe. When it hit me, I was knocked to where it came from." Hal explained, and we all shared a look. Nothing is ever simple for us. Nothing. At least I can be optimistic now that I have a clue as to what's going on.
"Well how do we bring you back?" Kilowogg asked, motioning for me to be ready to take down Tomar-Re if the other Green Lantern kicked up a fuss. Something we worked out back when Razer was still… acclimating to being part of the crew.
"There's a big rip in the sky here, just like the one over Biot. The Anti-Monitor used it to cross over, so maybe I can use it to get back." Hal answered. Always optimistic isn't he?
"Theoretically, perhaps. But the power to breach the barrier between the universes would need to be monumental." Tomar-Re answered. I guess we need a voice of reason considering Razer isn't here at the moment. Doesn't mean I liked it. What? I missed him. Men have emotions too.
"Well evidently a Green Lantern has been here before. If he can find a way back, so can we. Rendezvous in twelve hours. With both of us applying power from each side, hopefully we can make an opening to slip through." Hal finished, but he might have been cut off. Inter-universal reception is terrible like that.
"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" I jumped up, catching everyone's attention. We all got right back into it, running the ship and heading back to Biot. When we got there, we still had time to kill until Hal would try to get through with our help.
"So what do we do until then?" Kilowogg asked, clearly bored.
"You could help me keep working on parts for Aya. I'm not an engineer so I'm kind of self-taught. C'mon you two, it's time to get your hands electrocuted." I say, leading them back to the scrap pile.
"You mean get our hands dirty, right?" Kilowogg asked, following behind.
"Nope."
"Great."
So after some trial and error, we nearly had all the pieces together. Aya let us know it was time to rendezvous. So we got into position and waited for the signal.
When Hal started to open the rift from his side, Kilowogg took it upon himself to open the gateway from our side. Just going to point out, the view into the other universe looked kind of pretty. Then Hal decided not to cross and then we were stuck sitting there. Hal can't even follow his own plans.
"Do you think there's another version of me in that parallel universe?" I asked, trying to distract us from Hal's impulsiveness.
"I hope not. One of you is enough trouble for 10 universes." Kilowogg playfully bantered.
"What? There's probably another version of you over there. He has probably hair." Such a weak insult.
So Aya then directed our attention to a new space anomaly not far off and she was picking up signals from Hal's ring. On the flight over, we speculated about what had happened to Hal. My money was on him stealing a ship that was full of anti- Anti-Monitor weaponry. But we were shocked when it turned out that Hal had brought a whole planet with him. I'm not even questioning it. Hal, just Hal ladies and gentlemen. With Hal back, Tomar-Re left to take the reports to the Guardians and I went back to work building Aya's body parts. Never a dull moment.
