Kyle stared down at him, his chest heaving as the cold, suffocating weight of fear clawed at his throat. He looked down at his right hand, where the green power rings he had gathered from his slaughtered comrades hummed with a fragile, unstable power.
"I could give a damn, Sinestro. I really could," Kyle rasped, his voice dripping with exhaustion. "But I don't want any doubt in your mind. I want you to know that I defeated you..."
One by one, Kyle began sliding the extra power rings off his fingers, letting them clatter carelessly onto the ground.
"...for all of my fellow Lanterns. So let's GO."
Sinestro slowly rose to his feet, a feral, predatory hunger igniting in his eyes. He raised his fist, his smile widening into a mask of confidence.
"Oh, by all means... LET'S! Do you know what it was like inside the battery, Rayner?" Sinestro roared.
He thrust his arm forward to unleash a volley of jagged, razor-sharp yellow energy constructs that tore through the air like harpoons.
"Reduced to less than a thought in that prison? It's like having a maddening itch you can never scratch... because there's nothing there. And all that because of Hal and the Guardians! Well, I'll deal with the Guardians today, and I have already prepared for Hal... but I'll kill you today."
Kyle created a heavy, layered green tower-shield construct to intercept the attack; the yellow spikes smashed against the green barrier with loud bangs.
"You deserve worse!" Kyle bellowed, swinging his shield forward to deflect the remaining shards before shifting his weight.
With a mighty heave, he materialised a massive, solid green battering ram, driving it straight into Sinestro's chest. He followed up with more battering rams, sending them forward one after another.
"HGNFF!" Sinestro gasped, the wind knocked completely out of him as he was launched backwards across the sky.
"The Guardians must be mad to have released you," Kyle panted, his construct dissolving as he advanced. "What were they thinking?!"
The two started a brutal fight that showed just how skilled Lanterns they truly were. Sinestro had long been considered the most powerful and skilled Green Lantern in the Universe, until his hubris was revealed and he had to face Hal. So he was immensely skilled and powerful, now that he had another ring of power and even the 'colour advantage' over Kyle.
However, Kyle had trained under Hal and, together with his innate talent, he was able to keep up with Sinestro and pull through, finally catching the leader of the Yellow Lanterns off guard and dealing major damage.
Sinestro dropped to one knee, clutching his ribs as a painful cough escaped his throat.
"Well... who can say who freed me, really? They're such enigmatic little hypocrites."
He looked up, a bloody smirk tracing his lips. There was a sinister light there, a plan that only he knew about and that Kyle couldn't figure out.
"Perhaps... perhaps they thought I was the lesser of two evils. Hehehe..."
Kyle adjusted his grip, his ring fluctuating wildly.
"You? What kind of--"
"Rayner, I think..." Sinestro cut him off, suddenly lunging forward with a massive, high-calibre amber rifle construct materialised over his arm.
"...it comes down to will, Rayner. It always comes down to will for you... and not only do I no longer need it, but I've got a lot more than you do!"
*FWOOM!*
A concentrated beam of blinding yellow light erupted from Sinestro's construct, tearing through Kyle's defences and clipping him hard across the shoulder.
"Maybe you did... once..." Kyle cried out through the pain, gritting his teeth as he manifested a matching, heavy-duty energy cannon right over his wrist. "...but not anymore! Nothing lasts forever, Sinestro!"
"AAGH!"
Kyle's retaliatory blast struck Sinestro dead-centre, tearing through his armour and sending him spinning through the air. But Sinestro quickly stabilised, flying right back into the fray. The two combatants locked eyes, screaming in fury as they flew directly toward one another, their glowing fists cocked back for a devastating double-lariat collision within a massive spherical aura of yellow versus green light.
*BOOOOMMM*
...
"Rayner, you have changed! All this rage," Sinestro taunted as their energy fields ground against one another. "Almost a new man, aren't you? I, of course, am relatively the same."
"You're not killing anyone...," Kyle spat, his knuckles grazing Sinestro's jaw. "EVER AGAIN!"
*CHBOOMFF!*
The final collision of their raw power triggered an absolute white-out explosion across the chamber floor, shattering the remaining pillars into gravel.
As the smoke slowly cleared, a giant, jagged crater was left in the centre of the room. Kyle was flat on his back, his breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches, his green uniform torn and fraying at the seams as his will was taking on too much weight.
Before he could even attempt to lift his arm, a heavy, yellow boot slammed onto his chest.
"PFF!" Kyle choked, coughing up a spray of blood.
Sinestro stood directly over him, his yellow ring pressing firmly against Kyle's temple, its power searing his skin.
"Come on, Rayner... at least put up... a decent fight... before I kill you..." Sinestro gasped heavily, his face twisting into a mask of pure triumph as he prepared to deliver the killing blow.
But he waited too long.
"RAGH!" Kyle screamed, his mind completely fracturing as the overwhelming terror of his impending death unlocked the deepest, most agonising vaults of his grief. Images of his love Alex flashed through his mind, mixing with the horrific sight of his dead comrades outside.
"NO!" Kyle shouted.
A green surge of desperate energy exploded from his ring, violently exploding on Sinestro's stomach as Kyle limped toward the base of the Central Power Battery.
He drove his ringed fist directly into the green furnace of flickering light and chanted the words.
"In brightest day... in blackest night... haaa... haaa... No evil shall escape my sight!..."
"...let each who worships evil's might..." Kyle screamed, a sob tearing from his throat.
The Central Battery didn't recharge him. It went through a peculiar change. The green light of the emotional spectrum representing willpower seemed to blink for a moment.
A large explosion of yellow energy blew outward, throwing Sinestro, who had been watching with a bloody grin, back. The yellow light enveloped Kyle and filled him.
From the ruptured core of the battery, the hidden, parasitic terror of the universe finally broke the chains the Guardians of the Universe had placed on it long ago...
Parallax
The ancient entity which had been imprisoned inside the Green Lantern Central Power Battery, the living embodiment of Fear, roared in delight as it was finally freed.
It didn't attack Kyle. It recognised him. It felt the massive amounts of fear and grief inside the man's heart. Like a parasite seeing a flesh wound, the entity rushed forward, pouring itself down Kyle's throat and into his body.
He screamed and changed.
The most striking feature of this metamorphosis was a green mask that almost completely covered his face, exposing a row of white teeth in a skeletal grin. Sweeping green shoulder guards extended outward, giving him a powerful silhouette.
A dark green cape fluttered behind him, with a modified, corrupted version of the lantern insignia placed squarely over his heart.
The cosmic parasite had found its host.
Kyle Rayner was gone, and in its place now stood Parallax.
.
In S.T.A.R. Labs, Superman had called upon many of the Justice League's heroes to stop the Sun-Eater from destroying the sun.
"Thank you all for coming so quickly. I know even more are on their way," Superman announced, his deep voice carrying over the low hum of tech, "but time is one thing we're not gaining. This is Dr Faulkner of S.T.A.R. Labs. She'll tell you what we know so far."
Dr Faulkner, adjusting her glasses, stepped up to a console.
"Dusk's story does explain an odd astronomical event the Mauna Kea Observatory recorded at about the time of her arrival. If you watch the monitors around the room."
The screen illuminated a haunting, satellite-captured visual of the deep cosmos. A colossal, swirling vortex of absolute pitch-blackness slowly drifted through a field of distant stars, drawing closer.
"The dark shape moving across the star-field is estimated to be over one million miles across," Dr Faulkner narrated, her voice dropping as the true scale of the crisis settled over the room. "It absorbs all light and energy, and its trajectory sets it on a direct path for the sun. While this doesn't confirm Dusk's story, it certainly lends it chilling credibility. We didn't think we should wait to find out if she's right or not... although we'll know for sure in less than six hours."
Brainiac 5 stepped forward, his green-skinned features tight with characteristic irritation as he examined his handheld sensors.
"If I may add-- I doubt we'll get any further data. Dusk's ship never recorded information about the Sun-Eater... and your world's technology is so crude, I was lucky to be able to construct a basic U-Tran device for her!"
"Thanks, Brainy--very reassuring!" Supergirl muttered dryly.
Wonder Woman bypassed the technical complaints, her warrior's instinct driving straight to the crux of the matter. She had been with her mother when the emergency signal called her back. And when she arrived, she was bothered to not find Hal anywhere. She couldn't think about it now; he would surely arrive soon.
"We only need to know one thing: how to defend against it! It must be able to be repelled or dispersed!"
Standing quietly among them, the alien visitor Dusk shook her head, her expression hollowed by a history of tragedy and failure.
"I have witnessed thousands of different attempts... every one of which failed... every world reduced to a sphere of ice. The Sun-Eater is unstoppable!"
That was when Big Barda spoke up for the first time.
"Clearly those worlds were not protected by the Gods of New Genesis!" she declared, as she rested a hand on her Mister Miracle's shoulder.
"Mr Miracle will create a Boom Tube and teleport this thing to the edge of the Source! The ultimate escape from the ultimate death trap!"
Mr Miracle was startled for a second and then nodded calmly. He was used to getting out of sticky situations, and, as a fellow New God like Barda, he had access to technology beyond Earth's.
"Hmm... Barda's right, theoretically, but I'll need some help funnelling the Sun-Eater..."
"Choose your team, Miracle! Captain Atom and the Justice League are at your service!" Captain Atom said.
"Good, but let's not put all our eggs in one basket," Superman interjected, thinking logically. "We need a backup plan... some sort of decoy... Ultra-Boy, Ray, Firestorm, Fire, anyone else who can generate heat and light. It would have been good to have the Green Lanterns here as well. Diana or Barda, do you know where Hal is?"
"I actually also wonder where he is," Diana said.
"I am just as clueless," Big Barda said.
As she said that, Mister Miracle looked as if he were in pain, but he caught himself very quickly.
Superman turned his gaze toward a golden-armoured figure.
"Alpha Centurion, we could use your spaceship..."
"Granted, gladly!" the warrior replied without hesitation.
"Shouldn't someone talk to the Spectre? Surely he could help?" Wonder Woman suggested.
Away from the main group, Batman stood in the shadows, his cape wrapped tightly around him as his dark eyes scanned the logistics arrays. He was planning what to do, but despite never giving up, he was genuinely worried right now. He had tried calling Hal earlier, but hadn't gotten through.
"We have to be ready to deal with panic... if it comes to that. Let's be prepared for the worst."
...
Outside the military installations, the civilian world was already beginning to fracture. On a flickering television monitor, a red-headed reporter stood before a broadcast camera as crowds began to gather in the streets behind him.
"...Jimmy Olsen for WGBS. The world is still in the dark as to why this super-summit was convened so quickly and has lasted so long! We can only hope that new light will be shed on the subject by the time the sun rises, in a little over three hours..."
*BOOOOM!*
A boom-tube opened up, and several of the Justice League Heroes emerged from it. Led by Mr Miracle hovering on his aero-discs, the strike team flew directly into the upper stratosphere and into space, charting a direct course into the cold void.
"Atom to Superman-- Alpha Company at intersection point!" Captain Atom's voice crackled over the secure subspace frequency.
[Backup team's in place, too, Captain! Let's hope the last few hours of preparation pay off! Good luck!]