My Words

Kara:

I can't believe what I'm seeing. The man is standing over Superman with his sword risen.

"It can't be," I tell myself, "No, it just can't be. The Man is going to impale Superman. This can't be right."

I don't know what I am thinking. I can't be sure of what is going on in my head, but for whatever reason, I can't let him do it. I jump and fly right into The Man, pushing him off Superman. We fall onto the Rusted's floor and keep on rolling over each other until The Man pins me down. I look at him as he pulls back his fist. He screams as he sends it forward.

"No," I scream, closing my eyes. As I close my eyes, I expect The Man to hit me. I keep waiting for it. I keep waiting for the moment when he punches me. Only, it never happens.

I slowly open my eyes to see The Man still in front of me, but it doesn't seem like The Man from before. His hand is shaking. He's breathing very heavily. The black glow on him is pulsing like crazy.

"Kara," he says before getting off of me. The second I can, I push myself back to my feet. As I get up, everyone else is completely frozen. They're all staring at me and The Man. I ignore the look and instead focus on The Man. For some reason, he's now stumbling around, his hands pushing against the sides of his head.

"Noo," he cries, dropping to his knees. "Noo! I need to stop! I need to stop!"

I drop to my own knees and place my hands on him.

"You need to stop what," I yell, grabbing onto him. "You need to stop what! What is going on? Tell me!"

The Man lowers his head. He starts to breathe even heavier. It sounds like he choking on something.

"Get the doctor," I yell, turning to the others.

Reverse-Flash and Dinah both nod their heads. They turn to leave but before they can take two steps, The Man shoots out his hand and stop them.

"No," The Man yells. "No. I am not important. Oa is. The green lanterns there are. They need our help! We're going to save them!"

"You can't be serious," Leonard says, "You still want to save those green bastards? After all they done to us? Why?"

"Because being a superhero sucks," The Man replies.

"Also, because whether or not they know it or want to admit it," Ganthet says as he and Atrocitus step out from the stairs. "The Green Lanterns Corps. require your aids. All of you."

"You're fighting with us," Oliver asks, "Can you even fight?"

Ganthet answers Oliver with a rise of his hand. He blasts the cannon Oliver is standing next to.

"Please don't do that again," The Man says walking up the stairs and to the Rusted's wheel. He grabs the wheel and turns us toward Oa. "Those cannons are not only over five hundred old years but have also been heavily modified."

"Where did you get five hundred years old cannons," Barry asks.

"Bottom of the Caribbean sea."

As the Rusted turns and flies toward Oa, I realize something

"Wait," I say, grabbing The Man's arm and looking around. "Where did Superman and the others go?"

Superman:

"Almost there you two," I say, looking down at Cyborg and Hawkgirl. Using my yellow ring, I shield the two in a bubble and fly with them beside Black Adam and Wonder Woman. Altogether the five of us all fly to Oa.

"I didn't give the order to attack," I say, looking at a yellow Oa. As we approach the planet, I see my ship hovering nearby. I stop and watch as one of the decks opens and out flies a dozen or some beta fliers. "Who gives the attack order?"

"I did," Wonder Woman says. "It seems like the wise choice. While the man with the sunglasses and the Insurgency were busy, we unleash a full-scale attack against the Green Lanterns Corps."

"We," I repeat. As I think about Wonder Woman's words, I also think about the man with the sunglasses.

"You lied to me," he yelled, "You lied to me! You gave me your words!"

As the man's words hit me over and over, I start to clench my hands. My fingernails are digging into my palm and my whole body is shaking.

"I'm ordering a full retreat," I say, looking right at Wonder Woman.

"What," she yells.

"I gave the man in the sunglasses my word that we would not attack Oa," I say. "And I intend to keep it."

"Yeah," Cyborg says, rising his fist from now below. "We gave our words. That means something."

"No," Wonder Woman replies. "You gave your words. The rest of us never did. Superman, think about it. Isn't this what we have been after? The end of the Green Lanterns? Once they are defeated, then we can replace them with Sinestro's yellow lanterns and ensure a new era of order."

Despite Wonder Woman's words, despite everything she said is true, despite this being the goal, I still couldn't get the man's word out of my head.

"I gave him my word," I think. "I gave him my word."

"It's all thanks to him," Kara said. "We're going to fight together."

I replay everything that happened back on Apokolips. It runs through my head. I see the man and me working together to free Kara from Darkseid's control.

I straighten myself and look away from Wonder Woman. I close my eyes and focus. Using Brainiac's technology, I begin to order everyone to fall back. I order all the beta fliers and troops to stop attacking. I order Sinestro to tell his yellow lanterns to fall back. Once I am done, I open my eyes.

"We're leaving," I say, flying toward my ship.

"What," Wonder Woman says, following after me.

"Superman," Black Adam says, he too chasing after me. "Wait. Superman, we can win this fight. The Green Lanterns are weak and vulnerable now, and we clearly have the advantage. All we have to do is push more and they will all fall."

I'm about to say something but before I can, I hear the sound of a green lantern shooting. I turn back to see Mogo, the living planet, fire off a single beam. With that single beam, he destroys countless fliers.

"If we push more," I say, turning back to Black Adam, "Then we are the ones that will fall. Mogo is too strong for any of us to face head-on. Even with the support of Sinestro's yellow lanterns."

"Do not worry," Wonder Woman says. "When our spies told us about the arrival of Mogo, I asked Bruce to prepare something for him. Thanks to him and Sinestro, we found our own Mogo."

"Our own Mogo," Cyborg repeats. We all look at my ship as it starts to shake. "Oh no. What did Batman and Sinestro find?"

The Man:

"Go, go, go," I shout as the Rusted enters a sky filled with raging green and yellow lanterns, all firing their rings. Putting the cannons on automatically, they start to fire at the yellow lanterns. They manage to knock a few yellow lanterns down but most of the yellow lanterns move faster than before.

They were able to fire yellow beams that shatter the cannonballs into dust. The same yellow lanterns that destroyed the cannonballs then shoot at us.

"Brace yourself," I yell, everyone once more gripping onto whatever is nearest to them. The Rusted's shield putting up a fight themselves, I look at the yellow lanterns and reach for the earpiece of my sunglasses.

"No," I say, stopping myself in time. "No. It's too dangerous."

I let go of my earpiece and reach for a handful of kunai from my jacket's inner pockets. Throwing every single one of them, they explode and unleash a mix of flashes, smoke clouds, and knock-out gases. Despite how many I manage to bring down, there are more yellow lanterns and even a few beta fliers to replace them.

As I reach for even more kunai, I stop when everything starts shaking. The ground, the sky, even the Rusted itself. They were all shaking.

"Oh, what now," I yell, dropping the kunai.

"No," Ganthet says from the main deck. "It can't be."

Laying on the ground, he pushes himself up and runs to the Rusted's railing. Looking up at the sky, we all copy him. As we look up, we see a massive black cloud covering the whole sky. The black cloud seems to be growing bigger by the second. As it grows, massive lines of yellow appear in it.

"I know this," Ganthet says.

"So do I," I say. "This is no cloud."

"Hold on," Kara says, looking at me. "If this isn't a cloud, then what is it?"

"His name is Parallax."