#4 - REVOLUTION

By Dale Glaser

Appa Ali Apsa considered the destructive technology before him in a darkened sub-chamber of the Central Battery Citadel on Oa.

A gigantic missile, capable of wreaking destruction on a planetary scale, was shackled to the floor like some huge metal slug held prisoner by the Guardians of the Universe. The missile's payload, if detonated, would unleash fusion-driven firestorms that would render any world's biosphere not only lifeless, but forever uninhabitable.

The colossal weapon was one of many that had been confiscated from an artificially constructed techno-planet called Warworld. It had lain chained and dormant in the Citadel ever since, anathema to everything the Guardians of the Universe strove to accomplish. The missile was an implement of pure, mindless destruction. Its purpose served no end except entropy and chaos. The Guardians, their Manhunters, and their Green Lanterns, on the other hand, directed all of their efforts and energies toward imposing order on the universe. The universe itself trended towards disorder, from the most basic of physical processes to the warped sentient minds that had devised Warworld and brought it into being. Order, however necessary, would never occur on its own; it needed to be imposed. The Guardians and their servants imposed order by subjugating chaotic worlds. They did not do so with wanton destruction.

And yet, there remained the problem of the planet called Earth. A small, unassuming globe of water and rock, circling its small, unassuming yellow star Sol. Earth had circled Sol thirty-one times since the first Green Lanterns had arrived to establish the control of the Guardians. The planet was more orderly, but not perfectly so. Resistance continued, and rumors of things hidden from the Green Lanterns persisted. The subjugation of Earth had been unlike any other experience Appa Ali Apsa had ever known. As an immortal, Appa Ali Apsa was no longer accustomed to new experiences. The Guardian found them slightly unnerving.

Thus he found himself in the sub-chamber of the Central Battery Citadel, looking over the massive armor-plated obscenity that contained the power of global holocaust. It could be loosed from its fetters, flown through space, and fired at Earth. It could end the problematic question of Earth's subjugation permanently. One moment of utter, ruinous chaos and death could restore the perfection of a universe living under the strength of the Guardians' order. It would be so simple, so complete. Even a Kryptonian could no survive such an assault – if in fact the last Kryptonian were still on Earth.

Appa Ali Apsa waved a wizened blue hand across the surface of the missile, and the weapon crumbled to dust. The Guardian had already learned all that could be known about the missile, and thus could reconstruct it at any time, but the gesture was symbolic. He rejected the idea of destroying the Earth. The chaos on that small, unassuming planet would be driven out, but only in the same way it had been on innumerable other worlds.

In the blink of an eye, Appa Ali Apsa was no longer in the sub-chamber, but rather striding across on of the Citadel's uppermost rooms, with a million stars shining in from the heavens above. The Guardian reached out mentally to communicate with General Yrra Cynril.

"Yes, Master?" the Green Lantern of Xanshi responded, her face floating in green light before the diminutive being in the Citadel.

"You are to dispatch the eldest Green Lantern to Earth immediately," Appa Ali Apsa said.

"The ... the Eldest?" Yrra Cynril repeated hesitantly. "But, Master ..."

"The time has come to put an end to all resistance on that world," Appa Ali Apsa said calmly. "It must be done."

"As you wish," Yrra Cynril acquiesced.

It was going to end where it began, Wally West realized, as the small plane approached New York City and the battered skyline came into view.

He had been only five years old when the Green Lanterns had attacked the city's bicentennial celebration, announced their invasion of Earth, and slaughtered the Justice Society of America. He had been nowhere near New York, at the time, of course; he barely remembered seeing the horrific images on the family television as a child in Blue Valley, Nebraska. Yet the occupation of Earth had its origins in New York City, and in a way Wally West's inheritance of the Flash legacy had its origins there as well. Jay Garrick's death had inspired Barry Allen, and he in turn had inspired his young nephew. Wally West had no one left to inspire. One way or the other, there would be an ending in New York: the end of the Green Lanterns, or the end of the Flash.

New York City was no longer the proud jewel it had once been. After the fall of the Justice Society, the U.S. Army had attempted a counter-attack against the aliens in the city, achieving only more collateral damage. In order to subdue the millions of people living in New York City, the Green lanterns had taken drastic measures, razing some parts of the city to eliminate hiding places for resistance, depriving other neighborhoods of power and water in retaliation for disobedience. The city was dirty and damaged, its buildings no longer gleaming and, in all but a few cases, no longer whole.

Wally West looked at his traveling companion, Arthur Curry, and the hook that now took the place of his left hand. After the debacle at the Green lantern command center, Wally West had fully expected to never see Arthur Curry again, and for several years that had been true. Then the mysterious prisoner of the Green Lanterns had reappeared in Wally West's life, his missing hand replaced with a weapon, his blond hair and beard even longer than they had been in the sciencell.

"You really think the reinforcements will show?" the young speedster asked the grizzled man across the aisle.

"We have no reason to doubt them, but we also have no reason to trust them," Arthur Curry answered somberly. "Still, in my heart of hearts, I believe they will not abandon us."

"I hope you're right," Wally West shrugged. "If it's just the two of us, this'll be the shortest uprising yet."

"You mean just the three of us," the pilot of the small aircraft interjected brashly.

Wally West considered the pilot, who seemed to be about the same age that Barry Allen would have been had he not been killed by Green Lanterns. There, however, the resemblance ended. The pilot was cocksure, relaxed and grinning, even after including himself amongst those who would oppose the ring-wielding aliens. He had wavy, light brown hair and matinee-idol good looks. "I'm sorry, Mr. ... what did you say your name was?" Wally West asked.

"Jordan," the pilot replied. "Hal Jordan."

"Yeah, well, the thing is, Mr. Jordan, we've seen enough people get killed by these glowing goons over the years, and we don't want to add you to the list," Wally West explained.

"I'm not planning on getting killed," Hal Jordan answered. "And your friend hired me not just to get you both to New York City, but to stick with you once we got there. So it's the three of us."

"Yeah, but --" the heir to the Flash legacy began to object.

"This is my fight, too," the pilot stated, switching from light-hearted to deadly serious in an instant. "You might end up needing me."

"He's right," Arthur Curry said firmly to his young ally. Wally West rolled his eyes and kept his silence, as the small plane began its descent towards the edge of the island of Manhattan.

"I despise this planet," the Green Lantern of Luth sneered.

. He took a deep, labored breath which caused his black and green uniform, already taut against his torso's bulbous girth, to stretch even further. The Green Lantern appeared human, albeit grotesque, from the waist up, but the crab-like mechanical limbs that replaced his legs marked his unearthliness all too clearly. "I despise its soil and its atmosphere and most of all its filthy inhabitants," he concluded.

"As do we all," the Ophidian Green Lantern flying beside him replied, disdainfully blinking the large black-irised eye in the middle of its bare chest. The Green Lantern's uniform had been modified to consist only of belt, leggings and boots, with the symbol of the Green lantern Army emblazoned at the waist. Above the belt, the alien was stripped to its pale orange skin, save for the glowing green ring on one slender finger. Growths resembling a nest of pale orange snakes crowned the Ophidian's noseless nead.

"If only the Bloodworms of the neighboring red globe could have bridged a space gap of a mere fifty million kilometers, and wiped out these Earthlings as utterly as they did the Martians," the Green Lantern of Luth lamented. "Then they would not be our problem"

"Yet the Earthlings are our problem," the blue-skinned Green Lantern of Okaara rejoined. "We must establish order, despite the Earthlings' every effort to the contrary."

"Including the pointless demonstration we are about to forcibly disperse," the Green Lantern of Alstair pointed out, shaking her head and causing the purple fronds that grew from her scalp to bounce lightly.

"We will be met there by the eldest Green Lantern," the Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan broadcast telepathically to the other ring-wielders. "And his mere presence should end the insubordination of the Earthlings once and for all." The flying formation of Green Lanterns, led through the air by the worm-like alien in the fluid-filled glass sphere, was silenced by the Gil'Dishpan's announcement, and nothing further was spoken until the quintet arrived at the rubble-strewn ghetto once known as Times Square.

In the square, a makeshift rostrum had been erected, and three male Earthlings stood on the rickety scaffolding: Arthur Curry, Wally West and Hal Jordan. Jordan wore a leather bomber jacket and weathered blue jeans; the other two were clad in matching gray jumpsuits. A sizable but ragged crowd of New York denizens had gathered around the improvised stage, listening to Arthur Curry's impassioned speech: "No force ... no creature ... no being but yourself can tell you how you may live! You may choose blighted servitude ... or you may choose to oppose the Green Lanterns! Even if such opposition leads to your death, it will be your choice ... your liberation!"

"It is NOT your choice!" the Green Lantern of Okaara bellowed in response, as he and the other four aliens came to a hovering halt opposite the rostrum. "The Guardians of the Universe will bring order to this world, and such benevolence will not be refused! This gathering will disperse immediately, while I am still capable of believing that you know not what you are doing in your ignorance!"

"Oh, we know what we're doing," Wally West retorted. A low rumbling of agreement rippled through the crowd, all of whom eyed the Green Lanterns with naked hate. "We know exactly what we're doing, and we know exactly what we want!" the young speedster cried out. The crowd cheered, echoing him.

"We want justice!" a woman in the throng shouted.

"Liberation!" a man added passionately.

"Justice? Liberation?" the Green Lantern of Luth repeated in disbelief, his eyes narrowing cruelly. "Who are you to make such presumptuous demands, and to expect them to be met? Can you not have learned the folly of resisting our army?"

"We're an army, too," Arthur Curry informed the Green Lantern. "The Justice Liberation Army." With that, he shed his gray jumpsuit, revealing scaly armor of orange and green beneath. Wally West similarly divested, his body sheathed in skintight scarlet.

The Green Lanterns were momentarily stunned by the audacity of the Earthlings, and remained motionless long enough for three of their number to be blindsided. The Green Lantern of Ophidia was slammed into the cracked asphalt by a divebombing blur of royal blue; after the thunderous impact the blue-clad figure standing over the alien was clearly Clark Kent. Hyathis, the Green Lantern of Alstair, was cut down from the air by a sun-bright streak that moved almost as fast as Clark Kent: the golden armored figure of Diana, princess of the Amazons. The Green Lantern of Luth was hauled to the ground by a woven-steel grapple line fired by Bruce Wayne, who was dressed in black as if emulating the swordsman Zorro and had been hidden in the shadows of a collapsed building.

As Clark Kent, Diana and Bruce Wayne attacked the Green Lanterns, Arthur Curry, Wally West and Hal Jordan jumped from the stage and ran to assist them. The crowd of onlookers was energized as well, raising their voices in a collective roar and swarming towards the ring-wielding aliens. The Green Lanterns of Okaara and Gil'Dishpan reacted quickly, their power rings projecting barricades of solid light, but the mob swarmed over the photonic walls, led by Arthur Curry. The bearded revolutionary pointed his hook toward the Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan, and the appendage shot through the air like the tip of a harpoon. It struck the Gil'Dishpan's globe and cracked its surface; fluid began to leak out of the Green Lantern's environmental containment.

Wally West sprinted across the square toward the Green Lantern of Blah blah blah and peppered the cyborg alien with punches from all sides, refusing the Green Lantern the opportunity to slip free of his bonds. Bruce Wayne closed on the Luthian as well, kicking the alien savagely in its double-chin. The Green Lantern of Luth cried out in pain, then swatted Bruce Wayne away with a green energy projection in the shape of a mechanical arm. Wally West bolted to catch his black-clad ally.

Clark Kent and Diana traded blows with their respective Green Lantern opponents, Diana slashing with a golden sword at the Alstairian, and Clark Kent battering the Ophidian with his fists. The personal forcefields of the Green Lanterns protected them from the onslaught, but the sheer force of the attacks kept the aliens reeling.

Suddenly, a massive shape overhead blotted out the sun, casting the entire square in shadow. The shape descended as all those gathered, Green Lanterns and Earthlings alike, looked up. In moments the giant mass had alighted on the devastated urban ground.

The eldest of the Green Lanterns stood a towering twenty-five feet tall. It was a radially symmetrical alien, with five undulating tentacles of pale purple surrounding a central eye of red and black. The emblematic green of the Guardians' army enwrapped the base of each arm, and the topmost tentacle was tipped with a power ring. The ring pointed down at the crowd and exploded with emerald potency, blasting bodies across the asphalt like leaves before a storm.

The air filled with the sounds of voices screaming, some in pain, far more in terror. The eldest Green Lantern's weapon-bearing tentacle thrashed angrily and a whip of viridian energy snapped into a derelict building, bringing it down in a thunderous collapse of masonry. Plumes of dust fanned across the square and men and women stumbled and fell chaotically. Clark Kent flew through their midst, lending aid where he could.

Diana and Arthur Curry charged the eldest of the Green Lanterns, undaunted. They came no closer than a dozen yards before a pair of titanic alien birds sprang out of the five-armed creature's power ring. The glowing green constructs resembled mutated sea gulls with jagged shark fins, diving toward the heroes with cruel talons and oversized beaks full of fangs. Arthur Curry and Diana abandoned their attacks to defend themselves.

Under the cover provided by the eldest of their intergalactic ranks, the other Green Lanterns fired volleys of their own into the crowd. The gathering was rapidly, painfully disintegrating. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Arthur Curry, Wally West, Hal Jordan and Diana regrouped a safe distance away from the gigantic, tentacled Green Lantern. "We were warned this might happen," Diana said calmly.

"Yes," Bruce Wayne agreed. "And we were told what to do if it did. If we can take out this one ... in just the right fashion ... "

"I'm ready," Clark Kent nodded.

"Let's hope this works," Arthur Curry added.

The six raced toward the star-shaped giant. Wally West took the lead, drawing the fire of the Green Lantern and staying one step ahead of the sizzling viridian bolts. Hal Jordan grabbed a two-foot length of bent pipe from the ground, as he, Arthur Curry and Bruce Wayne followed as quickly as they could on foot, while Diana and Clark Kent flew through the air. The crowd of humans watched cautiously from all sides, praying for miracles, ready to scatter like frightened rats if the alien newcomer laid waste to their so-called Justice Liberation Army.

Wally West veered to the left, just as Clark Kent came to a stop in mid-air and appeared to take a deep, steadying breath. The huge tentacle followed Wally West and unleashed a laser-array of deadly green in his path. At the same instant, Clark Kent expelled all of the air in his lungs in a gust that was super-cooled to the point of misting in a near-liquid state. The freezing blast struck the gargantuan alien in a paralyzing wall of air. Crystalline lattices of ice glinted all along the purple tentacles.

Arthur Curry and Bruce Wayne helped Hal Jordan up onto one of the Green Lantern's lower appendages. Hal Jordan scrambled up the frozen alien's body and braced himself between the tentacle equipped with the power ring and the tentacle beside it. He raised his section of pipe over his head and brought it down, swinging as hard as he could at the base of the ring-wielding tentacle.

A taut silence fell over Times Square for a long moment, finally broken by a sharp crack. The eldest Green Lantern's tentacle separated along a fissure at its base. The appendage and its power ring toppled to the uneven asphalt, clattering as dead, frozen weight.

The crowd of humans in the square raised a jubilant cry and were immediately on their feet, inspired by the unpowered human brandishing a damaged piece of refuse. The humans swarmed the Green Lanterns, swinging lumber, rocks and anything else close at hand.

"Stand your ground!" the Green Lantern of Okaara barked to his fellows. But the energy projections from their power rings suddenly seemed insubstantial and ineffective, as if the light were losing its solidity. An emerald lance fired by the Green Lantern of Ophidia splashed harmlessly across the chest of an elderly man swinging his cane. A green barricade erected by the Green Lantern of Alstair melted under the stampeding feet of several enraged men and women.

"JUSTICE! LIBERATION!" the mob howled.

The Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan's globe was once again leaking its life-sustaining fluids; the alien's power ring was no longer capable of plugging the hole where it had been pierced by Arthur Curry's hook. The sphere itself was slowly lowering to the ground like a balloon, bereft of the energy needed to stay aloft. Soon it was lost beneath a knot of men and women all too eager to see to its destruction.

One by one, the Green Lanterns' power rings failed them. They had seen the eldest Green Lantern fall to the Earthlings. They had seen their most powerful and most awe-inspiring brought low, and the sight filled them with fear. Crippling, demoralizing fear, the likes of which the Green Lantern Army had never known in millions of years, and which was anathema to the workings of the power rings.

Several dozen Green Lanterns were stationed on Earth, and the defeat of six was not enough to liberate the planet at once. But word of the victory would spread, and the dual effect would be the same again and again: hope for humanity, fear for the Green Lanterns. The Justice Liberation Army would lead the way to overthrowing the Green Lanterns, and men and women would gladly follow. The days of Earth's subjugation were numbered.

Appa Ali Apsa shook his head almost imperceptibly, as if he could negate the events on the gamma-level world through sheer disbelief.

For the briefest of moments he regretted destroying the Warworld missile. But as the moment passed he reminded himself that chaos could not negate chaos. The planet Earth pled for order. And Appa Ali Apsa would impose order upon it if he were forced to traverse the light years and set foot on the insignificant mote of cosmic dust himself.

The Guardian abruptly realized that he was not alone in the observatory of the Central Battery Citadel on Oa. A figure had materialized from nothingness, dressed in a regal shade of blue girded with gold, including a flowing golden cape and a golden helm. The helm obscured the figure's face completely, and was featureless except for two small eyeholes, but the overall shape and size of the figure were human.

"I do not expect visitors," Appa Ali Apsa said evenly.

"You should," Doctor Fate replied, in a voice echoing with ancient gravity.

Appa Ali Apsa sniffed, affecting an air of indifference. "So you are the reason that one speck in that spiral galaxy proves to be so ... frustrating."

"Yes ... and no," Doctor Fate answered. "I gathered a team of champions of the planet Earth. I supplied them with the knowledge of a vulnerability to cold they would need to defeat your most renowned warrior. I advised them that fear would disable the other Green Lanterns. But I allowed other events to take their own course. The Star City incident, the attack on the arctic command center, most of all the deeply-ingrained resistance in every native of Earth ... those things were not my doing."

"Your doing or not," Appa Ali Apsa spoke up sharply, "do you believe for a moment that any of it makes a difference? Green Lanterns roam the universe, as numerous as the stars. Earth will be brought to order."

"No," Doctor Fate said simply.

"There is no choice!" Appa Ali Apsa insisted.

"No," Doctor Fate said again. "It is you who have no choice. You have dedicated your very existence to a false kind of order, an ironclad tyranny. Spiritless. Lifeless. Meaningless."

"It is the only alternative to chaos!" Appa Ali Apsa protested.

"It is chaos in disguise," Doctor Fate countered. "It limits growth and as a result can only bring about death. True Order, the Order of lords such as my master Nabu the Wise, would only affirm life, never choke and constrict it and render it inert."

Appa Ali Apsa stared at Doctor Fate for several long moments, as the universe in all its glories spun around their heads. "I do as I must," the Guardian said finally.

"As do I," the servant of Order responded.

Coronas of primal green energy began to burn around the small blue hands of Appa Ali Apsa. At the same time, dazzling light in the shape of ankhs formed around the golden gauntlets of Doctor Fate. The two immortals faced one another. The heavens waited to be sundered.

THE END