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She woke with a start, leaping to her feet, expecting the broken concrete of Coast City, but instead she was greeted with the smooth, cool metal of the Watchtower's medbay and the calming voice of her brother.
"Woah, easy there," Peter said, sounding a little surprised at the way she'd gotten up.
She looked at him and opened her mouth, only to find that her throat hurt too much to talk. She put a hand to it, remembering getting choked just before she blacked out. She looked around the room and saw Black Canary still unconscious in a bed and Megan and Wonder Woman sitting in others getting treatment. "What happened?" she asked in a strained whisper.
Wonder Woman narrowed her eyes angrily. "We lost," she said.
Mallory's eyes flew open and she looked at Megan, who linked them so she wouldn't have to talk. "The Green Lantern Corps arrived right after the fight," the Martian explained.
Mallory nodded. "I thought so, but I wasn't sure."
"They managed to drive him back out to space, but it won't last for long. We need a plan."
"Yeah, a good one this time," Peter added.
"Is everyone else all right?" Mallory asked.
Diana nodded. "The space squad was retrieved as soon as we left for the city, and Dina is the only one who suffered critical injury. She will recover, thank Hera, but she will not be joining us in ending this fight."
"So the Greens are here?" Mallory clarified. Megan nodded. "Let's go," she said, pushing off the bed on her way to the door.
"Mallory!" Megan said stopping her. "You're done. You could have died if the Corps hadn't shown up when they did. You need to recover before you go out in another fight."
"Why? I don't need to talk to throw a fireball," she argued.
"Hey, Miss M's right," Peter said, putting a hand on her arm. "Take five, we'll be fine."
Mallory shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Can I at least go out there and see what's going on, or would that be too strenuous for me?" she asked sarcastically.
Her brother rolled his eyes. "If you think you're up for that kind of excitement."
The four heroes left medbay and went to the bridge, where the majority of the League and team were gathered, along with a few dozen Green Lanterns, including some recognizable faces. Her eyes were drawn to Razor, however, because while she''d thought her vision was going red before she blacked out, the lantern still looked red instead of blue.
"Um, what…?" she started to ask, but he shook his head.
"It is a long story, and one for another time," he said firmly.
She nodded once and turned her attention to where John, Guy, and Kilowog were at the front of the large group, explaining what had happened.
"It all started when we were investigating the disturbance after the Valtor rescue. We received news that some of the fleet were to report back to Oa so it wouldn't be short handed, and Hal was among those numbers. From there, all we know is that there was an incident with the central power battery, then he went missing for a full day, and then he returned to our mission without warning and just started attacking. At that point he was already too far gone, and too powerful. We were a skeleton crew, and our rings were already drained quite a bit," John said.
"So, he really killed them."
It was a statement, there had been no question as to how he got the extra rings, but John gave a single nod, and Kilowog hung his head. "I don't know what happened to him during the time he was AWOL, but I do know that that creature out there ain't our Jordan. There's no way he would do anything remotely close to turning on a fellow Lantern."
"Not to mention how amped up he is," Flash agreed.
Green Arrow was rubbing a hand over his beard, and he glanced over at Mallory and Razor before saying, "so, uh, this missing day, when exactly was that?"
"Two days ago," Tomar Re answered.
Oliver nodded slowly. "Yeah, well, I think I can fill in at least part of the blank there. He came here, to Earth."
John's eyes widened. "What?!"
Mallory nodded and opened her mouth, then closed it, remembering she couldn't talk. Razor answered for her, "He was in the Watchtower when we returned from the hospital, he had just come back from Coast City, I believe."
"He–" Mallory's voice barely came out at all, so she looked at Razor and Oliver and made the sign for 'off'. Oliver looked at her blankly, but Razor nodded and said, "Yes, he was not himself when he was here. Though he was not this far gone."
Zatanna tilted her head when she heard her friend speak, asking if she was ok, and Mallory nodded slightly.
"Well, at least we know about when he was affected, sometime between Oa and Earth."
"But why would he come back to Earth from Oa?" Shayera asked. "That doesn't make sense."
John shook his head. "I don't know. He didn't try to attack anyone then."
"He said he was here to get something, didn't he?" Oliver asked, looking to Mallory and Razor for confirmation. Mallory shrugged, not remembering if he said that or not, but Razor nodded.
"He said he was here to collect some things, but he did not have anything in his hands when he left."
"Well, what would he…"
All of the Lanterns seemed to think of it at the same time. "His power battery!" several of them said in unison.
"So that means he's had plenty of time and opportunity to charge every single one of those rings since he got them," Killowog reasoned. "No wonder he's so powerful."
"Ok, so what can we do to stop him?" Captain Marvel asked eagerly.
The Lanterns went silent, none of them having a good answer to this, which made the other heroes more uneasy. The silence in the room stretched on, until a sharp bang on the window made the entire group jump and look out the window, where a bright yellow hand was raised, about to knock again. The whole group stared at it in surprise, not so much because of the hand, which was strange enough, but because of the person wearing the ring that had created it. Sinestro let the construct fade away and motioned towards the group, asking to come in. The League looked at Superman and Batman for the answer, and after a moment of hesitation, the Man of Steel nodded.
"Let him in," he decided. "Let's see what he has to say."
"I've come to offer help with your Green Lantern problem," the man said once he'd come in through the airlock and been escorted by twenty Greens to the bridge.
"Oh, yeah?" Flash asked dubiously. "What kind of help?"
"This," he replied, holding up a single yellow ring. When his offer was met with stunned silence, he explained, "I believe it is common knowledge to your community that the light emitted from a Yellow Lantern's ring can have adverse effects on a Green Lantern. If enough radiation is in play, it can even render the Green ring useless while in its presence. Of course, with the level of power he seems to have, I doubt that it will completely incapacitate him. I could not track down more than this one ring in such a short amount of time, so let us hope that it will be enough." Still, no one said anything, and the villain scoffed in annoyance. "What, have you all gone mute? This is not the time to hesitate."
"Why?" Batman asked, his voice low enough to make some of the newer members of the team look at the Dark Knight nervously.
"Why?" Sinestro repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Why are you here? What is your angle?"
He clasped his hands behind his back calmly. "I need this planet intact for my own plans, so it would not be in my best interest to allow Jordan to destroy it as he seems to be on the way to doing. Are you going to accept it, or would you like to continue the strategy you seem to have developed of letting yourselves be beaten in the hopes of eventually tiring him out?"
Batman narrowed his eyes and the others looked at each other, not sure how to react to that, or to the offer. Superman stepped forward and tilted his head, staring at the ring. "What's the catch?" he asked.
John shook his head. "I don't think there is one," he said.
"Of course not. The wearer will have the power to remove the ring whenever they choose, and I will oversee training the recruit."
Superman and Wonder Woman looked at John, looking for his take on the situation. He thought about it or a moment, then shrugged. "There's no real danger in the ring itself, at least not for a short time."
Superman nodded to Sinestro. "All right, I'll do it. How does it work?"
Sinestro scoffed. "You don't decide to put it on," he said. "The ring has to choose you."
He dropped the yellow ring, and it started to fly around the room, hesitating in front of people as it searched for a wearer. It stopped short in front of Batman, but the Dark Knight merely narrowed his eyes and said a firm, "no." Sinestro sent it on, and it flew straight up, over the group, did two circles, and shot through the crowd, hovering in front of Mallory.
Her eyes widened and she shook her head vigorously, cursing Hal in her head for making her lose her voice. "No," she rasped, but it didn't sound nearly as definitive as Batman's had. "I don't." she swallowed hard, fighting through the pain to get through the rest of the sentence, " need it, I have–"
"Fire. Yes, I know. Tell me, how did that ability help you in your last fight with him? Oh, wait, those bruises on your neck say it all."
She bit her lip, staring at the ring in front of her. "I'm not even in the League," she protested.
"But yet you insisted upon going down to fight Jordan the first time," Sinestro pointed out.
She winced and wracked her brain. "I don't have time to learn to use it, anyway," she said.
The villain strode over to her and snatched the ring from the air, holding it out to her. "I am not going to argue with you," he said. His voice was calm, but something about his demeaner still sent a shiver down her spine. "As I recall, you still owe me a favor. You do this, wear the ring and defeat Jordan, and we can call it even. You refuse, and I will be forced to call my yellow lanterns to your planet, and trust me when I say getting them to leave the rest of the world untouched will be easier said than done. Do we have an understanding?"
She twisted her lips and looked to the side, where Zatanna had a sympathetic look on her face and Razor had an angry one. "You won't be alone in this," he assured her, and John nodded in agreement. "We'll all help you learn to control and focus the ring," he told her.
She glanced at Clark, who gave her a small nod, and she sighed and opened her hand. Finally, she nodded reluctantly.
"Good," Sinestro said, letting the ring go. It slid onto her finger, and she gasped as the power surged through her body, intensifying her fear and compacting it in her mind. Her uniform was changed to a yellow bodysuit identical to her usual one, just without the jacket, and the lantern on her chest was encased in a triangle.
Sinestro nodded with satisfaction and added, "Let's begin. We have a lot to do."
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