Where am I...?
Joey's eyes snapped open.
At first, all he could see were shadows looming above him.
"You're awake!"
As Joey abruptly sat up from where his head had been resting on Kara's lap, Kara—who had been kneeling beside him—finally let out a breath of relief.
She had once heard fragments of old stories from her father.
If the legends were correct, death itself could never truly catch up to her cousin.
Even so, watching him remain unconscious had filled her with a worry she couldn't suppress.
Especially now that the two of them were imprisoned inside a subterranean cavern completely isolated from all outside signals.
Thankfully, that concern could finally be set aside for the moment.
Now all they needed to do was find a way to transmit the tracker's signal again and wait for the right opportunity to escape.
After being imprisoned inside Mogo itself, Kara had finally calmed down enough to think carefully about how Joey had managed to appear before her so suddenly in the first place.
Once she discovered the tracker hidden beneath the lining of her clothing, she quietly concealed it again without saying a word.
At this point, their only hope of escaping might very well depend on that tiny device.
A dim green glow still covered the walls around them, illuminating the prison chamber.
Kara rose to her feet alongside Joey.
Tentatively, she threw a punch against the glowing barrier surrounding the cell.
Not even a ripple appeared.
"...Damn it."
Even a Kryptonian body wasn't invincible all the time.
"Don't even bother... what's your plan next, grab a spoon and start digging your way out of a living planet?"
Now that he fully understood their situation, Joey honestly felt a little numb inside.
His energy reserves were critically depleted right now.
At the moment, he genuinely couldn't think of any viable way to escape.
The prison holding them wasn't some lifeless structure.
Every movement, every disturbance, would be noticed instantly.
RUMBLE—
Suddenly, Joey felt the pressure around him sharply increase.
Apparently, the ground beneath their feet was rapidly rising under Mogo's control.
Moments later, the rocky ceiling above them split apart from the center, allowing sunlight to pour into the chamber once more.
Except the sunlight had changed color.
"Red sunlight."
Joey narrowed his eyes as he stared upward at the enormous crimson sun overhead.
Then he turned toward Kara, who looked equally confused.
"...How long was I unconscious?"
Had he been out for billions of years?
Long enough for the system's yellow dwarf star to expand and decay into a red giant?
"At a time like this, could you stop making stupid jokes already?!"
Seeing Joey energetic enough to joke around again made Kara instantly want to punch him after all the worrying she'd done.
"You were unconscious for thirty-seven minutes and twenty-six seconds!"
"And isn't it obvious? This damn planet can literally fly through space!"
In barely half an hour, the planet had somehow relocated itself into an entirely different star system illuminated by a red sun.
That realization forced Kara to reevaluate just how impossible escaping this place truly was.
Under red sunlight, she was still resilient.
But that alone wasn't going to let her punch her way through a living planet.
If this world truly intended to keep the two of them imprisoned here, then escape might genuinely be impossible.
Then—
A voice like rolling thunder exploded across the plains beneath their feet.
It echoed through distant forests and mountains, through the sky itself and the clouds above.
The entire planet seemed to speak at once as it called Joey's name.
"Kal-El of Sector 2813."
The ground beneath their feet suddenly rose upward into a massive platform and began moving at incredible speed.
Within moments, it carried them thousands of miles away to the edge of a remote mountain valley.
The moment Joey saw the valley entrance, he didn't hesitate.
He immediately started walking toward it.
Kara grabbed his arm.
"You're seriously going in there?"
"Why not?"
Joey glanced at her in confusion.
"Do we even have another option right now?"
Kara fell silent for a moment.
Then she suddenly yanked Joey behind her and stepped forward herself.
"Then I'll scout it out first."
The earth beneath their feet suddenly rose upward, forming a low wall barely a meter tall that blocked Kara's path.
"I'm sorry."
"This place does not welcome you."
Mogo's voice echoed once more through the land itself.
"Please allow me to speak with Kal-El alone."
"It is important."
"It concerns the life and death of the entire universe."
"You—forget it. This is your turf anyway."
Kara nearly snapped back instinctively, offended by being told she wasn't welcome.
But then she remembered that Mogo really had saved her life earlier.
Her anger immediately deflated.
In the end, she merely grabbed Joey's arm tightly and warned him again and again:
"Don't trust Green Lanterns too easily."
"They may be good people... but good people don't always do good things."
Joey nodded absentmindedly.
After calming Kara down, he walked straight into the valley alone.
Honestly, based on the Green Lanterns he'd encountered so far, his impression of this universe's Lantern Corps had already become pretty close to the normal version he was familiar with.
At this point, he could practically throw his hands up and say:
"Nobody understands Green Lanterns better than me."
And honestly, nobody would've been able to argue otherwise.
Then a one second later—
Joey immediately realized he didn't understand Green Lanterns at all.
The moment he stepped into the valley, he discovered that beyond the narrow path beneath his feet, there were corpses.
Endless corpses.
As far as the eye could see, bodies of every imaginable species and shape covered nearly every corner of the valley.
And among them were identical Green Lantern rings.
Everywhere.
Judging purely by the number of bodies, it would not be an exaggeration to say this valley was the graveyard of tens of thousands of Green Lanterns.
And if one counted the rings themselves, the number was likely several times higher.
Sensing Joey's shock, Mogo caused a small flower to sprout beside one of the nearby corpses.
The plant rapidly grew and bloomed.
Its flower slowly extended toward Joey's ear and whispered softly:
"Do not be afraid."
"This is the final resting place of every Green Lantern and every lost ring with nowhere left to go since the founding of the Corps."
"Most Green Lanterns die alone."
"When their mission ends, their rings do not always find worthy successors."
"And their bodies are not always buried."
"So—with another person's help—I gave them a temporary home."
That was how Mogo had become a sanctuary for the nameless dead of the Green Lantern Corps and for the countless lost rings drifting through space.
For ages, Mogo had tried to return every Lantern fortunate enough to leave behind a recoverable body back to their homeworld.
But as conflicts across the universe became increasingly violent,
Mogo eventually realized such a task was impossible.
Every time Mogo rested—entire civilizations vanished on a cosmic scale.
The reason Mogo had appeared in that star system earlier was no coincidence.
It had still been searching for the homeworlds of fallen Lanterns.
Only to discover that many of those worlds had already become lifeless ruins.
"First of all, yes, absolutely, I respect the hell out of these Lanterns, but—"
Joey had said it before: the average Green Lantern only served for about four years.
That didn't mean they retired with a pension and went home to farm somewhere peaceful.
It meant most Green Lanterns died before reaching their fifth year while trying to maintain peace across the universe.
But this valley didn't contain only corpses and Green Lantern rings.
"What the actual fuck are those, Mogo?!"
"Aren't you supposed to be a Green Lantern?!"
Joey pointed toward the very center of the valley.
Amid the endless sea of dead Lanterns and ownerless green rings,
two completely different rings floated silently in the air, radiating brilliant light.
The Blue of Hope.
And the Indigo of Compassion.