Making this decision hadn't been easy for Kyle Rayner. Those who could truly face death with equanimity were always few. The modern mind was complicated—people who could commit to a cause, who could look death squarely in the face, were vanishingly rare.
He had no idea whether he had a future. As he understood it, he'd slam into the wall, merge with it, and the Entities would enter on their own. That was how it was supposed to work.
The universe would be saved. And he would remain on the wall forever, frozen in his final posture.
At least I get to choose when I die. He slapped his cheeks, forcing his facial muscles to relax. When those who came after saw his remains, they'd at least know he'd died smiling. Kyle Rayner kept telling himself that.
Two deep breaths. He didn't turn around.
"Saint Walker, you're my best friend. Don't try to stop me. This is my mission. And tell Soranik... I'll love her forever."
He talked Saint Walker out of following him to his death, then turned to face the Source Wall. Would this be where it ended? Almost certainly. An ordinary Earthling, an ordinary artist, pinned to the wall alongside cosmic titans for future generations to admire. Silver lining, maybe?
His thoughts were scattering. He shook his head, purging every stray notion. If he was going to die, he'd die with glory.
He pushed his speed to maximum and launched himself at the Source Wall—a streak of light, hurtling forward without a backward glance.
Several kilometers vanished in a heartbeat. Under the watchful eyes of the Guardians, Kyle Rayner hurtled toward the Source Wall. The expected image—his body stripped of life, flattened into a bas-relief—never came. The wall offered no resistance at all. As if it simply didn't exist, Kyle shot straight through.
"What in the...?" The bearded Guardian's jaw dropped. He'd been absent from normal reality too long to trust what he was seeing.
Sayd looked to Ganthet. As the eldest, most learned Guardian present—a contemporary of Krona himself—he should have the knowledge to explain this.
She was disappointed. Ganthet couldn't explain it either. Kyle hadn't just survived; he'd passed through the wall as if it weren't there. Where was the wall's legendary barrier? The power said to ensnare every intelligent being who touched it?
"Lord Ganthet, is Kyle...?" Saint Walker asked, his voice heavy with grief.
"We wait here. Kyle will be fine." It was all Ganthet could say. What had just happened was beyond anything he'd anticipated. Good or bad, only time would tell.
Time continued its indifferent march. One hour. Two hours. Four hours.
An entire day passed. Kyle Rayner hadn't reappeared. The good news they'd hoped for never came. Bad news, on the other hand, arrived in abundance.
As the longest-serving, most storied Lantern Corps in existence, the Green Lanterns' rings finally went offline—drained by the universe's depleted emotional energy.
Hal Jordan had been fighting criminals on Earth when his ring cut out without warning. He dropped out of the sky like a stone. If Superman hadn't caught him, he'd have been paying the underworld another visit.
One minute after Earth's rings went dark, the Central Power Battery on Oa ceased operations.
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power—Green Lantern's light!
The oath still echoed, but the green light had gone out for good.
Yellow went next, followed by violet, indigo, and red.
Saint Walker stared at the feeble blue glow on his ring—a candle guttering in the wind. Uncertainty gnawed at him. He didn't know if his friend was safe. Didn't know if he'd ever fly again. Didn't know if this universe still had any hope.
"Your Divine Majesty, I beseech you, guide my path. Help me reaffirm the faith in my heart..." Under Ganthet's thoroughly unamused gaze, Saint Walker slipped away to a corner and began praying in a low voice.
Thea was still in her playing-dead phase, so she certainly wasn't going to pop up with words of encouragement. But she hadn't given up on her most devoted follower. She transmitted a vague impression—something that roughly translated to: Everything's going to be fine.
Saint Walker's spirits soared. Her Divine Majesty was alive. The universe still had hope. A powerful sense of duty surged through him.
No longer worried about the future, he resolved to do what he could.
The Blue Lantern Corps had been founded most recently, and their rings operated at a baseline charge of a hundred and fifty percent rather than the standard hundred. They still had residual energy.
Saint Walker rallied the Blue Lanterns and set out across the star systems, rescuing Lanterns who'd been left stranded or worse when their rings went dark.
Besides the Blue Lanterns, Larfleeze also had power to spare. His ring maxed out at a hundred thousand percent. Even diminished, that was still an enormous reserve, and with avarice's defining trait being hoarding, Larfleeze's ring had always been at full charge. By proportional depletion, he still had around three to four hundred percent charge left.
The sudden energy loss had terrified him, though. Alone with no one to consult, all he could do was huddle somewhere and tremble. Remarkably, Thea could hear his desperate calls too. She didn't know whether to laugh or sigh—the ridiculous creature had apparently developed a degree of faith in her. Nothing approaching Saint Walker's devotion, but enough to qualify as a casual worshipper.
New Gods didn't need worship, but a direct plea was hard to ignore.
As with Saint Walker, Thea feared Larfleeze might literally scare himself to death, so she sent a similar message: Don't worry. Nothing to lose sleep over.
His underlings had long since stopped relying on their rings, so the sudden blackout barely affected them.
The Yellow Lanterns and Indigo Tribe stayed put on their respective turf. No need to fly around fighting monsters—aside from a few unlucky souls, the losses were minimal.
The Red Lanterns and Star Sapphires were much the same, content on their homeworlds. Worried about the future, certainly, but no major casualties.
The Green Lanterns bore the brunt.
Those stationed on Oa were lucky. Even without innate racial abilities, as long as they were still breathing, Oa's advanced technology could save them.
Those who'd been on patrol—playing space cop, matching wits with cosmic criminals when their rings suddenly died—could only pray.
And the truly unfortunate? Crossing a black hole or drifting through deep space when their rings went dark? Their deaths were utterly pointless.
Already depleted after the Blackest Night and Third Army crises, the Green Lantern Corps had never recovered its numbers. Now they'd suffered another devastating blow. Even with Saint Walker's rescue efforts, over five hundred were confirmed dead, with a similar number missing.
"What happened?"
"Was Oa attacked?"
"Do the Guardians have any directives?"
Facing the rescued Lanterns, Saint Walker fell back on his trademark line: "All will be well!"
Whether anyone else believed it, he didn't know. But he believed it with every fiber of his being.