"But how are you dead?" Amber practically shouted. She seemed to be the least shocked of the three girls, who were currently gathered in the room she shared with Janet, and certainly seemed to have little or no problem with questioning a guy who A) should not exist, and B) was apparently a ghost in a ring construct-despite haven been saved in the most recent issue of Blackest Night; the same one that Janet had bought just earlier.
Kyle also seemed to be strangely calm about the whole idea, though as he told them, "I did have time to get used to the situation before the ring picked its new bearer. And it isn't as if this hasn't happened to me before."
"Huh?" Brittany, slumped in Amber's beanbag chair, looked at the other two with a puzzled look on her face.
"JLA issues 68-75, The Obsidian Age," Janet rattled off absently. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the idea that she was wearing a green power ring and that its previous bearer-her favorite Green Lantern, no less-was sitting on the edge of her desk in energy construct form. "But how?" She indicated her comic, lying open on the bed beside her. "Miri's supposed to save you; you know, the whole love thing."
"Yeah...my guess? Parallel universe."
"Oh, God," Amber groaned. "It's getting worse."
"Huh?" Brittany repeated.
"The comic shows events on Earth-Zero. He's probably from a different universe. And..we're Earth-Prime, aren't we?" Amber asked. "We're- We've got Superboy-Prime running around!"
"One problem at a time," Janet reminded her. "And he's powerless right now. Or should be. Anyway. You're saying in your universe Miri didn't get to you in time?"
"Apparently," Kyle said. "I'm not entirely sure how my spirit ended up in the ring-again-or how it got pulled into your universe. I think there was a rift of some sort, but my perception was a bit muddled at that time. It took me this long to remember how to work the ring from the inside just to make a construct body."
"And now Janet's a Green Lantern," Amber began, then stopped short. "Holy cow, Janet, you're a Green Lantern!"
"And one severely in need of training," Janet pointed out. If she'd lost control of a construct from just one minute of shocked distraction, she needed some serious training.
Kyle seemed to be in agreement. "Lucky for you, you've got an experienced Lantern here to help you out." Janet nodded. She was still a little in shock.
Brittany sat up. "Hey, what about the zombies you were telling me about earlier? Are we going to have to deal with those? And what about the rest of your group?"
"They probably will become an issue, and sooner than I would like," Kyle told her. "I've been thinking, and it looks to me like time flows differently here than in my home universe, which would explain why the events of one night have been stretched across several months of comics so far."
"Comic book time," Amber said. "Like Narnian time, then?"
"Exactly," Kyle said with a short grin, but quickly grew serious again. "If I'm right, then we have about a month before things get too serious. It isn't much time, but it's better than nothing."
"And you think I have what it takes?" Janet asked. Being Green Lantern was a big responsibility, and a rather daunting one at that.
Kyle gave her an encouraging smile. "The ring picked you...which is considerably more than I got. Besides, being in the ring gives me a little access to your head-and I think you'll do fine. If you stay focused."
O-kay. The Torchbearer, training her, with access to her thoughts. On top of classwork. This was going to be one hard-core month.
