Blackest Night

Once upon a time, far out among the stars, a strange darkness began to spread. It did not come from any planet or any army. It came from something older and quieter than that: fear of the end of things. Black power rings appeared out of the dark, and wherever they went, they woke up strange glowing shapes called Black Lanterns — figures with hollow white eyes, drifting silently through space like shadow-puppets loosed from their strings. They were not the kind of monsters that roar. They were the quiet kind, the kind that simply glide closer, and closer, saying nothing at all, spooky the way a shadow is spooky when the lights go down low.

The Black Lanterns did not care about the color of anyone's ring. Not green. Not yellow. Not red or blue or any color at all. They wanted every ring in the whole universe, which meant every single Corps was in danger, all at once. The Green Lantern Corps was in danger. The Guardians of the Universe were in danger. And far away, on a cold world called Qward, Sinestro learned that his own Sinestro Corps was in danger too. One by one, Black Lanterns were finding his soldiers and snuffing out their yellow rings.

For a long time, Sinestro had believed that fear made him strong enough to face anything. But this was different. This threat did not feel fear, and it could not be frightened, and Sinestro's cleverest plans had no answer for it. He sat alone for a while, thinking, turning the problem over and over like a stone in his hand. And then, slowly, he thought of Oa. He thought of the Guardians. And most of all, he thought of Hal Jordan — the young pilot he had once trained so carefully, back before everything went wrong, and who was now his greatest rival.

So Sinestro did something that surprised absolutely everyone, including, perhaps, himself. He flew to Oa. His yellow ring blazed bright as he landed among the Green Lanterns, who all froze at the sight of him. Hal Jordan stepped forward, ready for a fight. But Sinestro raised a hand instead. "Our rings do not get along," he said quietly, "but the Black Lanterns hate us both the same." Hal studied his old rival for a long, careful moment. Then, slowly, he held out his hand, wrapped in green light. Sinestro took it, his hand glowing yellow. And just like that, two rivals became, for one single day, teammates.

Together they flew out to meet the Black Lanterns, green light and yellow light swirling side by side through the dark. Wherever the ghostly shapes gathered, Hal and Sinestro pushed them back together, their two different lights somehow working as one. In the middle of the fight, a Black Lantern crept up behind Hal without him noticing. But Sinestro saw it. His ring flashed just in time, and the danger passed. Hal turned, a little startled, and gave Sinestro a small nod of thanks. Sinestro gave a small nod back. It lasted only a moment — two old friends turned rivals, quietly respecting one another before returning to the fight — but it was real, and it mattered.

Little by little, the combined light of green and yellow pushed the Black Lanterns back into the shadows they had come from, until at last the darkness lifted, and the stars shone clear and bright again, the way they always had before.

When it was over, Hal Jordan looked at Sinestro and offered him something unexpected: a place among the Green Lantern Corps once more, the way things used to be, long ago. Sinestro considered it for a moment. Then he only smiled, the way he always did, turned his cape into the starlight, and flew back toward his own Corps and his own path. He still believed fear could make him strong. He was still Sinestro.

But that night, high above the quiet stars, everyone who had seen it remembered the same thing: that even the fiercest rivals in the whole galaxy had stood together, side by side, when something bigger than either of them was at stake. And somewhere out among the quiet, endless stars, that memory glowed on, soft and steady and warm, long after the darkness had gone.