Eye of The Storm

[Thaal Sinestro]

The town was quiet, for now. It always got quiet when Roland sent out one of his deputies to investigate something outside the border of the town. Everyone already knew they’d be in for it if they started any trouble; he was already in a shit mood and making it any worse was dangerous. For as much as the man pretended he didn’t care, he sure seemed to get worried about his officers of the “law.”

He sat just across the saloon on the porch of the gunsmith, leaned back in a wooden chair with his feet up on the railing. He figured if anyone was going to forget themselves, it was going to be a bunch of drunks, burning up their omni on shit whiskey and cigarettes. He wasn’t wrong.

A bright green creature with huge black eyes and a human with glowing blue ones burst through the thin glass of the window and into the street, gripping each other’s shirts and rolling back and forth. The human gained a dominant position just long enough to fire down a heavy punch, an irritating squeaking noise honking from the green one’s snout-like mouth. A crowd of strange onlookers gathered around the tussling drunks, peering out from the hole where the window once was and opening the wooden shades of their windows.

Sighing, Roland kicked his feet back to the ground, pushed his hat back on his head and stood up. Clearing his throat, it seemed the man took a moment to remember the words he wished to speak. “Alright, quit rubbernecking,” he said in a firm, practiced command that could somehow still be heard a block away. He sauntered towards them, the ringing of the spurs adding emphasis to every step. The two men froze in place and twisted their necks up to see him, caught in a still-frame of their transgressions. “Get your shit,” he spat, “You two are coming with me.”

The brawlers bolted to their feet, standing straight and tense. “I apologize, my lord, for our altercation. This one,” he gestured at the green creature, “wished to steal from me my mélange, which I had purchased fairly from a local Prime. I will not allow my spice to be taken so easily.”

“Somebody shut this fuckin’ fremen up so I can fix my God damned window,” the barkeep shouted from inside. “Nobody gives a fuck about your damn spices, boy!”

Roland waved to the barkeep to silence him and looked to the other combatant expectantly. The cones on the top of its head trembled as it spat out, “Boochico uuna tantiko puuda fremen yoko bana poor’chillo!”

“I most certainly did not shoot first!” the man gasped, his blue-in-blue eyes blinking incredulously.

“Let the man talk,” Roland snapped.

“Piincha tomo dar sella,” it replied.

Roland tipped his hat to the creature, “Sorry, ma’am. Let this lady talk.”

Weaving its green hands around, the creature angrily continued, “Beena toor’walla temnock orta cho bo nook cher bornah!” It lifted one of the flaps of its jacket, a large crystalline needle still protruding from its amor. “Te china, fremen? Te china?”

The sheriff planted a hand on his hip and rubbed his eyes in frustration. “Listen, both of you. You can’t steal things, and you can’t kill people, especially not secondaries. You folks only got one chance at this, and you can’t be blowing it over some magic spices. It ain’t worth it.”

“The spice must flow!” the blue-eyed man shouted, as if it was a rebuttal to his statement.

Pointing his finger at the man, Roland shook his head. “No. It doesn’t.” Pushing his way between them, he held his hand up and a shimmering beam of prismatic energy filled to window pane, then hardened into glass. “Now both of you get your shit; you’re coming with me.”

---

The war truck gurgled and coughed as the heavy gears shifted and the bandit brought it to a stop. She squinted at the carnage, wary of any sign that her target had returned. She was sure that the person that had created such chaos in her camp was not as easily defeated as her comrades had insisted; she knew that they were still out here in the wasteland.

The steep, red, stone cliff appeared quiet and safe at first glance, but the Dunes were not forgiving of carelessness. Her wary brown eyes crawled over the contours of the rock, every depression and every peak, searching for even the faintest hint of life. There was no real way to know what was lurking just on the other side of any given stone. More than once she had been the sniper in the shadows, just waiting for her target to get out of their vehicle.

Priming her las-rifle, she hung it out the window let loose a couple of blasts into the cliff, spacing them generously. Incoming fire, even if it didn’t hit its target, had a way of spooking candy-ass ambushers into exposing themselves too soon.

A single stone rolled down the cliff, bouncing once, twice, and finally landing with a thump in the sand. The echo of the laser pulses anxiously hung, rebounding off of mesas miles away, until the sound was finally devoured by the sky. There was silence. Stillness gripped the cliff side with anxious fingers, even the wind frightened to blow. Nobody returned fire.

Her heart pounded in her chest, the thrill of danger bringing a dark excitement to the forefront of her mind. Her hand slipped into one of the many pockets on her dark tan cargo pants and removed a small, flat tin. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, opened the container, and plunged her fingers into the grease paint. Broad, messy strokes laid ragged white over her ebony skin, fingers moving deliberately but without precision. The thick paint made a circle around each eye, three streaks over the lips and chin, and she filled in her forehead and cheekbones.

She tilted the rear view mirror down and looked herself in the eyes, the skull-painted warrior confiding in the only friend she’d ever known. Cold, dark eyes looked back at her with hateful resolution, the fire and chrome gleaming from the spirit within.

With one last scan of the cliffs, she slapped another energy cell into her laser rifle and flung the door open. Leaping down from the war truck she landed in a squat, the scrap-metal armor she wore clanking on impact, her thick dreads swaying as her head swiveled. Her weapon was pressed into her shoulder firmly, the reticle bouncing from point to point, sweeping through every possible cover location, her twitching finger just waiting for some fool to try their luck.

Stalking across the wind-blasted sands, she warily approached the scene of the fight, if you could call it a fight, where her and the other members of Sledge’s gang mowed down the over-eager posse of gunmen. Her gang had been looking for whoever had blown up their guzzaline, and the now lead-ridden interlopers had interrupted their search.

What remained of her opponents still lay where they had died, their blood drunk up by the parched earth below. She knew where they were from; she’d seen this deputy before. Jessie, if she remembered the girl’s last words correctly. She was always reckless, bringing her brigade of half-cocked heroes to every fire fight that popped off within ten miles of the Town With No Name. Even if the deputy was aggressive, she had always been smarter than this, or at least less suicidally reckless. Everyone made mistakes, the bandit surmised, nudging the scorched remains of the lawman with the tip of her steel-toed boot.

The wasteland survivor looked back over Jessie’s limp form, already drying in the heat. The first to shots, the ones that killed her, had been fired by the laser rifle that the bandit carried with her now. The laser had blasted untidy burrows straight through her chest and out her back, the heat cooking her insides as they went. Two good shots, center mass. Her third had missed, but that’s because the corpse was already falling when it came down the line.

She had remembered the crew stripping the deputy and the posse she’d brought along, so it wasn’t shocking to see that all food, water and Omnilium was missing. Even the badge was missing, ripped right off the shirt. Perhaps somebody wanted a prize, even though it was her kill. She didn’t want it anyways. Trophies were for people that had something to prove.

The wagon the posse of lawmen rode in on was just as devoid of information as the bodies and had been, for some reason, filled with just as many bullet holes. She supposed that supermutants weren’t too discerning in their selection of targets. After surveying the bloody ordeal once again, she surmised the late deputy and her rag-tag team of dead people were not the founts of insight she was looking for.

She stood up and broadened her search. The swirling sand had just enough form left to it to get the impression of tracks. Tire tracks and footprints were pretty easy to figure out; they came from the search party. They went in two directions: up the cliff and then back down it, with the descent on top of the ascent. They came down the cliff after they had gone up it, so that made sense. She already knew that though, she had seen it. But over top of those, there was a new set.

They didn’t go up or down the cliffs, they just appeared in front of a large, flat stone and went out to the carriage. Maybe one of the men had jumped from the cliffs? But the prints were too shallow for a jump; there was no impact. A set broad trench of sand had been pushed around the same point that the footprints vanished, as if something very large had been dragged from a few feet away. Some of the men that gone to the carriage after they had all shot it up, but then they diverted back to the vehicles. These went back up to the cliff, and disappeared again.

It was as though there was somebody that had entered the cliff itself, dragging something, and then exited back out of it, inspected the carriage and went back to where they had been in the first place. A large, flat stone stood in front of her, the same stone she had thought looked out of place when she had arrived with the hunting party.

Taking a few steps back, the woman lifted her laser rifle and fired a few pulses into the smooth stone in front of her. Slinging the weapon, she stepped a few paced and threw herself forward into a heavy kick, her heel impacting the area between her loose shot group with a loud crack. The sandstone split from bottom to top and folded in on itself, falling back into the small alcove that lay hidden behind it.

There were boot prints in the sand. There had been a person hiding inside, and the entire search party looked right past them. Bigger prints too, looked like a camel. Probably the thing that had been dragged in. The beast’s prints plod off into the sand, mixed in with the rest of the leaving prints, making them easy to miss at first glance.

Frantically, she followed the large animal’s trail out of the alcove and into the desert. They wound around the cliff, diverging from the search party’s, and bolted towards The Town With No Name.
---

“I hear you are in need of a new deputy,” the tall, red-skinned man said curtly and tossed the charred remains of the badge onto Roland’s desk.

The sheriff froze for a moment, staring at the blackened chunk of gold. “Oh, Jessie…” he said mournfully, “I blame you not.” A faint trace of an old dialect found its way into his words, in the way an immigrant might slip into their native tongue in a moment of shock. He snatched it off of the desk and held it up to the light. His eyes betrayed a deeper sense of loss than his old face was willing to expose.

Shaking his head he tucked the badge into his pocket, and the clatter of gold on gold could be heard. He looked back to the alien that stood before him and folded his fingers over each other. “What happened?”

“She attempted to stop a force much larger than her own,” Sinestro said disdainfully, a single hazel eye glaring out from under his wide-brimmed hat. “She lost.”

Roland leaned back, his left hand idly drumming as he lost himself in thought. “The explosion. She went to investigate.”

“Yes, it would seem,” Thaal concurred. “I don’t think that she had seen Sledge’s gang in those numbers before their altercation. Up until now, I have only noticed them sending out members in twos or threes.”

Roland’s head snapped to attention, “You know who leads the gang? Who’d you say? Sledge?”

Scowling, the korugaran tilted his hat back and revealed the full effect of his utter disapproval. “You don’t even know who their leader is?” He shook his head, “I have only been in this sun-blasted hellhole for a week and I’ve already made two attacks on their men.”

“So it was you that caused the explosion?” the sheriff pressed.

“Yes,” Thaal spat bluntly. “It is my intention to help bring order to this desolation. I have been making moves against their forces ever since I arrived.”

Pushing himself forward and leaning on his desk, Roland spat, “Listen, I don’t need any outlaws out there stirring the shitpot more than it’s already stirred, you got me? Things are bad enough without some a-hole starting wars in our back yard.”

Sinestro folded his arms, his long woolen poncho giving a faint dusting of sand as his rough hands pressed into his chest. He turned his chin up at the man, “So you intend to let your people wallow in this pit?”

“No, I intend to keep the damn peace.” Falling back into his seat with exasperation, Roland looked away from the red man and tilted his head towards the door. “Thanks for the news, now get the hell out of my office.”

The korugaran slammed his fist down into the desk and hissed, “I am the only one here that can bring an end to this. I am the only person you’ve met that’s willing to do what must be done to re-forge this barren into a place worth being alive in.”

Throwing himself from his chair and sending it flying backwards, Roland jabbed a finger in Sinestro’s direction, “Listen! I don’t need another guy that can shoot other guys. We got plenty of that around here! You fucks are a dime a dozen! I’m not looking for another trigger happy nutbag for a deputy!”

“Your grief is showing, sheriff.” The masterful manipulator quipped, twisting the knife of grief and doubt into the sheriff’s recent wound. His hands slipping behind his back as he paced, his words cool and and matter-of-fact as he spoke, “What you need is somebody who can control the dunes. Somebody that can crush them down to be built up into something greater.”

“Oh yeah, and what exactly can you do that nobody else can?” the sheriff asked, biting firmly onto the baited promise.

A snide smirk spread on Sinestro’s lips. “I can make them afraid.”

[Thaal Sinestro]

“Fear isn’t always the best law live by, friend.” Roland stood beside the lithe red man, the dusty wind whipping through the streets of the city. He casually pulled on the brim of his hat, shielding his eyes from the sand as it blasted across them. “Sometimes it’s better to be loved than feared.”

“It is better to be both loved and feared,” Sinestro said calmly, his arms crossing in front of him, back arched and nose high, “but if you must choose one? Choose fear.”

“Heh,” the sheriff said and turned around. “I guess you might be right.” He tilted his head down and slowly walked towards his office, the spurs on his ankles ringing as he went. “But for now, let’s focus on both.” He gestured towards the road out of town, “They’re already on their way. Remember that everything moves at the same pace out here so you’ll have to cut ‘em off with smarts, not speed.” His baleful eyes narrowed once again, “And you’d better do right by my kin.”

Nodding, Sinestro tugged firmly on his filthy poncho, pulling it back into place. “Of course,” he said snidely, the sheriff already walking back to his office, “I will be a paragon of the people, as I was in another life.”

The old lawman paused mid-step, the words catching his heart like a bear trap. The two men stood, trapped in memories of another world, another destiny. Day and night seemed to turn; lives that might have been flashed before them. The things they had, they things they were, the things they could never pursue again. Finally Roland’s foot hit the ground and the two men were painfully torn back to reality. They each covered wounds of longing with the lie of necessity, hugging a cause to their bleeding chests as a bandage.

The Gunslinger once again became a sheriff of a deserted city, and the Greatest Lantern once again became a stranger with something to prove.

---

With her feet kicked up on the dash, the woman watched over the plains of sand from the driver’s seat of the massive war truck. Light distorted into waving lines as the air bent under extreme heat, the cammo netting that was draped over the vehicle offering no relief from the sun. She snatched a bottle of hot water and sprayed it over her face and hair, chugging down what remained.

She was no stranger to heat and it was no stranger to her. They had formed a powerful bond in their time together; the sweltering sun and relentless, endless desert ensured it. Long days had been spent under the burning sky, sweat flowing from every pore like a fountain. She was born in this desert, and there were no secrets between them.

Tearing a bite from her jerky, she lazily lifted her binoculars and watched as a trio of travellers exited the town. They were going at a good clip, probably max speed for a vehicle. They were riding horses, or at least two of them were. The third was riding a speeder bike, probably dreamt up by some scum from Tatooine.

They sure as hell weren’t concerned with being noticed, and they couldn’t have been headed far if they were willing to push their rides that hard. Fuel came from omni, and omni didn’t grow on trees. Not that there were any trees around here anyways. Definitely horse thieves. She didn’t recognize any of them. Probably goons from another gang. Maybe some of Humungus’ fuck heads. Maybe they were free-lancers. Either way she didn’t like people encroaching on Sledge’s turf.

Snatching her laser rifle, she kicked open the door, jumped outside, and threaded the barrel through the open window. Tracking the goon at the back of the line, she knew she could take him off his bike from here. If it was any other day she would have, but slowly she caved to better judgment. She needed to keep her head low. She couldn’t just go off popping rival gangs, not unless they were the ones that came after her compound and fragged their guzzoline.

With a sigh she withdrew her rifle and tossed it back into the truck despondently. They would have been good kills, and she hadn’t had any since she took Jessie. Just as she had plopped back down in her seat and slammed the door, a fourth figure came out of the city. They were tall, wearing a big hat with a long-rifle. Most importantly though, they were riding a camel.

She slung her feet down onto the pedals, cranked the key to the engine, and slammed on the gas.

---

The horse thieves had been in town before but the recently-deceased deputy had always failed to catch them. Sinestro supposed it was due to the over-excitability he had seen in her last moments. It takes more than just getting on a horse and chasing after your opponents to really run them down.

Every vehicle in the Omniverse travelled at the same speed, regardless of its origins, make, model, or relative technological advancement. This made it difficult to chase mounted criminals down, which incentivized a hit-and-run style of crime that had become the primary technique used by thieves in the area.

Roland told him to catch these three men. Sinestro would take horse theft off of the map.

“You ain’t gon’ catch us you red-assed idiot!” one of the buck-toothed criminals screamed back, several hundred feet ahead of Sinestro and his hump-backed mount.

A metallic member of the crew chirped out a rhythmic series of beeps and squeaks, oddly sounding like swearing before leveling his pistol backwards and letting off a few shots.

Without even a flinch, Sinestro rode heedlessly through the hail of bullets, none fired with enough patience or care to hit their mark. “Pathetic,” he growled and snatched the plain oak stock of his rifle, pulling it free from its long leather holster that rode low beside the saddle. Resting the barrel in the crook of his elbow, he placed his cheek down and looked down the sights. The reticle bounced with every step the camel made, jerking wildly as he focused in on the thief in the lead.

Breathe, focus, squeeze, he reminded himself.

Three quick shots popped off, followed by a fourth. One went wide, one sank into the horse’s rear limb, and one through the leg of the rider. The final shot split the creature’s skull but didn’t penetrate, a crack of the bone audible even from this far back.The mount and the buck-toothed bandit went down together in a tangled mess of kicking legs and sand. Their fellows drove on, rubbernecking unsympathetically as they passed.

“Hut!” Sinestro commanded, willing the animal to go faster despite its literal incapability. The thief saw the oncoming rider and writhed beneath her dead horse, struggling to reach her gun. Her dirty hands clawed at the ground until blood began to run from her fingertips, a look of insane desperation unveiling itself as her eyes bulged and veins popped up on her bloodied forehead.

Finally she pulled her injured leg free and she scrambled up to the half-buried revolver, reclaiming it from the sand. The camel galloped up within a few feet of her, its heavy feet casting earth and dust in every direction. Sinestro stared down upon his prey, his brow covered in sweat, his thin mustache curled into a snarl. Groaning, the thief lifted the weapon, her shaking hand aiming it only roughly at his chest. Their silhouettes stood against the sun behind them, the desert sky’s angry red eye glaring at their standoff as it sank below the dunes.

“Where are they taking them,” Sinestro demanded calmly.

The injured criminal screamed furiously and squeezed the trigger, her trembling hand missing by a mile. As the chamber rotated, the grit that had been packed into the gun seized the cylinder, and the hammer fell with a defeated sounding click. “No!” she swore and slapped the jammed weapon furiously. “NO!”

Sinestro quickly withdrew his long gun with one hand and leveled it at her face. “Where did they go, and who do you work for?”

A look of hatred and woe flashed over her face, her long blonde hair dragging on the ground. “It’s jus’ th’ three a’ us. There’s a stable up th’ road that we put up. We take th’ rides there to clean up and re-brand. “

“Good.” Without passion, the rifle coughed and a hole opened up in her forehead, just over her left eyebrow. Her body tremored once and went still, a trickle of blood sliding down the ground as it drained from her body.

Scanning the horizon with squinted eyes, he located the most likely location for the structure. “Hut!” he shouted and spurred his beast, leaving the dead behind him.

[Thaal Sinestro]

The bandit’s gloved hand tapped the door’s paneling to the aggressive guitar that blasted from inside the cab, her arm hanging out into the breeze, her head bobbing to the hit of the snare. The warpath always needed a good soundtrack, and this was her favorite cassette. She didn’t know the name of the band or what verse they hailed from, and she didn’t care. It made her excited to blow things up.

The man on the camel had made some headway on her, but she could see where he was headed. There were only so many ways that a person could go out in the dunes, most paths forced to conform to the big-ass rock formations that were too steep to scale. There were some pretty big rocks up ahead with a neat little path cut right between them.

Even with her resources as low as they were, she figured that she had enough to last her the trip out there and back. Sure, she’d be down a few tanks of fuel and a couple barrels of water, but that was nothing compared to Sledge’s reputation. If you let one fuck-o slip past you, everyone in town thinks they can walk all over your territory. After she took care of the guy on the camel, she’d blast the horse thieves for good measure.

It didn’t matter if this asshole was a Prime or just some other wannabe with a pea-shooter, there were only so many hits a person could take from a laser rifle. She’d have him buried by morning.

---

In some cases, robots cannot feel fear. They are just machines without enough of a soul to provide emotion, no light to feed into the spectrum. He would take down the metal man first, and then move on to the other.

The stables were barely deserving of their name; it was mostly just sheet metal drilling onto an off-kilter wooden frame. Street signs lazily patched the gaps of the sheets, and a small quantum-vibration generator was mounted upon its side. Incandescent lights were strung anachronistically from the advanced power source, fed by bright-orange power cables that were threaded through J-hooks in the ceiling. A small wood-heated, brick-constructed forge was nestled into one corner of the structure, the dull natural light of it illuminating what the bulbs did not.

Sinestro lay flat on one of the tall red mesas that surrounded the enclave where the stables were hidden, watching his bounties as the day turned to dusk. The camel lay and rest a few meters behind him, quietly waiting for the moment when it might be needed once again. The long rifle the korugaran had taken from the driver he had ambushed lay beside him, one of his few companions in this arid waste.

The horse thieves had stored their spoils in their ramshackle shelter and argued for a while before separating to cool off. The man had started a fire on a nearby ridge and cooked a small meal while the android had begun to heat the brands and grind the identifying paint from the speeder.

Slinking backwards, Sinestro grabbed his weapon and moved away from the edge of the cliff, out of sight. Sliding down the back of the mesa he landed softly on the ground, hidden in the shadow of the dying light. Creeping in the darkness, he made his way to the edge of the stone wall, peering out into the stable. The android carefully held a brand in the fire, turning it gently before lifting it out to check for its temperature. Slowly Sinestro crouched and snuck towards the metal man, its attention entirely commanded by the red-hot chunk of iron.

The android turned just in time to see the butt of the rifle as it hit the side of its head, a loud CLANG echoing as Sinestro followed through with his wide-arcing swing. Staggering, the robot beeped and chimed a string of gibberish, wildly thrusting the searing brand. Parrying the iron with the rifle, Thaal kicked the android’s arm and hit it again with a baseball-swing to the face. Bolts and bits of metal spilled from the corner of its mouth and it fell to its hands and knees. It turned its gaze up to its attacker, black oil dribbling from its face.

A vicious look of merciless sadism filled Sinestro’s eyes as he brought the butt of the rifle down on his fallen opponent again and again and again, metal flying from the broken machine’s body. The glow of the furnace reflected in the madman’s eyes, making them appear to glint bright amber with each blow.

Down came the stock of the rifle, and with each blow the thief’s body sang like steel under a blacksmith’s hammer. Finally, the android was still.

[Thaal Sinestro]

The horse bucked and whinnied as Nelson McDowell ambled into the stable, holding his cowboy hat on his head. “What in the hell are you doing in here, HK-“ his thickly accented voice was cut short when he saw what remained of his partner.

Oil dripped down in thick streams, a puddle of black with collecting below it. Battered fragments of the hunter-killer machine’s dangled limply from its eviscerated casing, a tangle of gutted wires and circuitry suspending it from one of the J-hooks in the roof. Its arms had been posed with its palms outward, almost apologetic. The word “THIEF” was burned into its chassis in bold, accusatory letters. “Oh my god…” he whispered, fear saturating the old rustler’s voice as he pulled his hat from his head and clutched it to his chest.

A deafening crack filled the space and a bullet ripped through Nelson’s thigh. His wide-eyed reverence was suddenly snatched from him and he screamed, grasping his leg. He stumbled and fell to the ground, his blood leaking from between his fingers.

“If you’ll wait just a moment,” Sinestro said calmly and put his rifle down, “I’m almost done.”

He picked up the tongs and hammer, banging down on the tip of a long, red-hot brand. He lifted up his work, appraising it before setting it back on the anvil and making a few adjustments. “Ah, that’s good enough,” he said, tipping his wide-brimmed hat back with a smile.

He donned a thick leather glove and took the brand by the handle, discarding his other tools. Sauntering over to the immobilized McDowell, he knelt down and held the bright iron in his face. “Do you know what this symbol means?” the red man asked. In response, the thief turned and began to crawl away. With his free hand, Sinestro grabbed the injured leg and buried his thumb into the bullet hole. As the man screamed, Sinestro dragged him back. “No?” he asked incredulously, “Well let me tell you. It means Fear. It is my symbol.”

Bringing the brand close enough that the man could smell the smoldering iron and feel its heat, Sinestro released his hold on the wound. “With that said, I have just one more question. Do you think you can answer it for me?”

Gasping, Nelson nodded, sweat pouring down from his hairline. “Y-yeah,” he stammered, “I-I kin try.”

“Who do you work for?” Sinestro growled, the embers of the yellow iron glinting in his eye.

The horse thief shook his head, “Nobody! Nobody! We jus’ got our own thing goin’.”

Sinestro’s eyes narrowed, “I’ll ask you one more time.”

“Honest!” Nelson shouted, terror overtaking him, “We don’t work for anyone! It was jus’ us! I swear!”

“I don’t believe you!” Sinestro snapped, standing up. He pushed the brand down into the thief’s chest, a hideous sizzle accompanying a sudden burst of steam. “TELL ME!” he screamed.

“I SWEAR!” Nelson yowled, writhing under the heat of the brand, blood sliding down his ribs, “I SWEAR, I SWEAR!” The moments hung in the air as the wound cauterized. “PLEASE,” he begged, “PLEASE STOP!”

Sinestro pulled the iron from the man’s chest and threw it across the room with disdain. He snatched his collar with both hands and lifted him up over his head. “Either you’re telling the truth, or I’ll find out that you’re lying.” His face contorted into an angry sneer, “You want to be telling the truth.”

Nelson swallowed hard and nodded, shaking violently as the piss leaked down his pant leg.

“Good.” Flinging the man down into the dirt, he adjusted the saddle on the stolen horse and removed a rope from its saddlebag.

“What ya gonna do with that?” Nelson groaned from the floor.

Securing the rope to the horse, he replied, “Ensuring you get a fair trial.”

Scooping the aging man off the ground, Sinestro dropped him on the saddle and lashed him down like a sack full of potatoes. His branded chest stretched and cracked as he was bent backwards, his limbs pulled taught in every direction. Groans turned to yells as the leg with a bullet in it was roughly bent and manipulated to accommodate a hookup to the speeder bike.

Double checking his knots, Sinestro nodded in satisfaction. Walking out into the final moments of daylight, he held his fingers up to his mouth and blew, the whistle signaling his faithful mount down from the mesa to join him.

He lashed the stolen horse’s lead to his camel and climbed up. He cracked the reigns and commanded, “Hut!” As the beast slowly moved forward, the horse followed it and brought the hovering speeder in tow.

Looking back at the stable, Sinestro withdraw a small box from his pocket. Using one match to light the others, he made a crackling fire and tossed it behind him into the stables. The matches landed on a large patch of dry hay which went up almost explosively. As the daylight sank, Nelson watched as the remnants of his operation went up in flame.

[Thaal Sinestro]

The caravan of trophies solemnly sauntered over the desert sands, the furious rage of the boiling sky slowly cooling to a more tolerable heat. The clouds on the horizon painted in bold colors as the sunset came to a head. Indigo and violet mixed with vibrant blues, red and orange smeared into yellow. Sinestro admired their beauty, searching for green as the warring lights faded away into darkness. Soon the stars began to poke through the veil of black, and light was born once again from the void.

He recalled his time amid the stars, wishing to once again glide upon the stellar winds of his home sector. He longed to feel the power of the universe surging through him once again, in all of its glory, and to be an agent of the ultimate order.

He opened his dry, beaten, dirty, hand and looked down upon it. The memories of what that hand had once held were powerful: a ring, a hand, a future. All that he was, all that he held, had slipped through his fingers.

Once, hope ran blue through his heart. Before he was a lantern, before he was anything, he was a man of history. He had unearthed the vast cities of Korugar’s past, and laid to rest the mysteries of the ages. He had not been the greatest archaeologist, but he had been a good one.

It was in a desert, not unlike this one, that he made his first true discovery. It was a small idol from a civilization thought to be completely lost. It had taken him years of planning, charting out the weather patterns of a plain that stopped existing four thousand years ago, mapping the trade routes made on foot by peasant farmers, analyzing, researching, understanding, before he even picked up a shovel or brush. Within the first month of digging, he found the relic and reopened the entire field of study.

What treasures awaited him underneath these shifting desert sands, he wondered. Surely marvels beyond comprehension hid just below the surface, pleading to be unearthed. The madness of the Omniverse offered nothing less than the possibility of the infinite.

---

The bandit’s M809 war truck slid to a stop in front of the still-burning ruins of the stable, the flames casting a gruesome silhouette of the android’s metallic carcass dangling from the rafters by his own chords. Perhaps this man was somebody she should worry about after all.

She hopped down, rifle already up and scanning. It didn’t appear that there were any survivors, blood and oil everywhere. The horses, speeder and thieves all seemed to be missing though. Growling in frustration, the bandit scanned again for tracks, this time quickly identifying their path of egress.

She must have taken a route just parallel to theirs, passing them on her way to the stable. He seemed to be headed back to town, reinforcing her ideas that he was a law keeper from the Town With No Name. That or maybe a bounty hunter.

Leaping back into the vehicle, she once again picked up the trail.

---

The freshly-broken dawn woke Nelson from his slumber, and all he knew was pain. His leg ached mercilessly, a heavy, pounding ache that throbbed from the sole of his foot through his hip bones. His chest had bled all over him, the ridged, messy angles of Sinestro’s poor blacksmithing burning like the brand was still hot. None of this was to mention his back which screamed out even over his traumatic injuries from having been bend backwards on a moving horse for at least six hours.

He attempted to groan, but his parched throat only managed a helpless gasp. He was dehydrated, and his naked chest had been at the mercy of the elements. He was honestly shocked he was still alive. The only part of his body that he seemed to have any control over was his head, which he allowed to roll to the side. Somewhere out there, he thought he heard something. Something like… a song?

The distant sound of music bled into the air, its enthusiastic rhythm growing louder as a dust trail grew larger on the horizon.

“What in is that?” Sinestro asked aloud, turning to face the noise as he stopped his camel.

The churning diesel roar of the war truck peaked as it careened over a dune, flying into the air like a steel-born Valkyrie. The suspension creaked as the five ton goliath hit the ground, its olive-drab body rocking from side to side as the driver recovered from wild fish-tailing. With all four wheels pointed in the same direction, the smoke stack spewed another cloud of black fumes and the engine barreled onward.

“Holy fuck!” Nelson managed to choke out, straining against the ropes that held him.

With her black dreads flapping in the wind, the woman leaned out of the window and leveled her laser rifle at Sinestro. With a gasp of surprise, he leapt from his saddle and rolled, a beam hissing by and narrowly missing his head. Two more shots turned the red sand to black glass as he scrambled to avoid her attacks. The korugaran franticly withdrew his rifle from its holster on his mount, slapped the animal’s hind leg and yelled, “Hut!” The camel moaned and ran off at a frantic pace, dragging the horse and speeder behind it.

Dropping down on one knee, Sinestro cracked off a shot into the windshield of the oncoming war truck, a web of cracks spreading. The driver accelerated as two more bullets fractured the glass, charging heedlessly towards her opponent.

Sinestro sprang to the side as the five ton ploughed through, the monster of metal and grease streaking close enough that he could taste the exhaust. The woman dove from the open door of the truck as it passed, tucking and rolling when she hit the ground. She toppled head over heel before she landed on her feet, weapon raised and ready, sand pouring from her armor like water.

Red snaps of energy seared the earth as Sinestro tumbled forward fired his long gun again, her armor twanging as the force threw her off balance. Throwing his weapon aside and charging forward, Sinestro tackled his attacker at the waist, slamming her into the ground mercilessly. Winding her arm back, the bandit warrior gifted him with an iron-clad backhand and he flopped to the side.

Tossing a leg over his chest, the woman entered full-mount and pushed her las-rifle into his forehead, the wind corkscrewing ominously overhead. He slapped the gun aside just as it fired, atomizing a swath of the terrain beside his face. Driving his knee between her legs, Sinestro kicked the woman to the side and grabbed the barrel of the rifle. As she attempted to pull the trigger he jerked it up and slammed the butt back down on her face, an audible crack signaling a broken nose. Another hit came as she fumbled for the trigger, the errant shot singeing Thaal’s ear.

The ex-Lantern reeled backwards, holding his scorched face in agony. A firm, steel-toed kick to the injury whipped Thaal’s head to the side, a follow up heel shove to the shoulder laying him down flat. Standing swiftly, she lifted her weapon. “This is for Sledge!” she spat and looked down the sights.

His face twisted into a horrible scream, Sinestro removed his hat and flung it at her. The bewildering combination threw her off just long enough for him to sweep her leg and jump up. Stomping her hand, he punched her squarely in the jaw and retrieved his headwear. “Sledge is going to die. Accept your fate or become one of the fallen,” he snarled, baring his teeth. He twisted his heel into her palm as he slid his fingers across his brim and then tugged it down. “You’re facing something you can’t understand.”

“Fuck yourself,” she grunted defiantly. A buckle snapped free, and her free hand slowly lifted up a heavy, metallic orb.

Her thumb depressed a button its exterior and it began to beep. Lifting his foot, Sinestro sprinted away, whistling for his camel to return to him. The woman sprang to her feet and angrily hurled the grenade in his direction before turning and running herself.

A massive shockwave rolled out as the thermal detonator ripped the desert apart, a thick cloud of smoke and dust consuming everything. The morning sun choked on the black, and the shadowy depths of the blast zone were a mystery.

[Thaal Sinestro]

Angels sang in Sinestro’s ears as he lay in the darkened crater, charred and black. Deep grooves ran from his chin to his brow, blood running thick and free from his face. The fringes of his long, woolen poncho were burned, and the strands of his shirt curled around large seared holes. His hat wore a new puncture, just above the right eye, where shrapnel had narrowly avoiding burying itself into his forehead. Perhaps the only part of him that was left unscathed was his thick leather boots, too low to take the brunt of the explosion.

Groggy, he pried his eyes open, willing his body to move despite every inch of his form demanding his stillness. He drug his hands below him, already-aching bones protesting, and pushed himself up to see what lurked in the swirling fallout that surrounded him. For a moment, he saw nothing. Then, the shadow was pierced by the angry red of a charging laser rifle.

She strode forward through the smoke, wispy tendrils grasping at every angle. Gashes deeper than the would-be deputy’s were traced all over her body, the red of her blood barely detectable on her dark skin. Her ill-assorted armor rattled with every step, broken straps and chain rings left flapping as chunks of metal dangled from her muscular frame, unused and unnoticed. Her thickly rolled dreadlocks tumbled down around the scowling white skull of her face paint, her burning eyes glaring even more brightly than her weapon.

A steel-plated heel sunk a few feet in front of her target and she lifted the rifle. Sneering, she closed her eye and looked down the scope.

“No last words?” Sinestro quipped, his voice just as charred as his flesh.

“I got some last words for you,” she spat, “stay the fuck out of my dunes.”

A gunshot rang out, the zing of a bullet on steel calling out as her weapon was forced to the side. “You have forgotten the face of your father,” Roland said, his true voice twisted with an accent unknown to either who listened.

The bandit’s teeth grit together as the sheriff slowly pulled back the hammer of his weapon. He shot faster than she ever could, and he wouldn’t miss. Still, she held her ground. “I don’t have a father,” she retorted and turned her weapon on the lawman. The laser gently brushed his jacket’s shoulder as he swayed to the side, the sound of his gun almost drowned by the crackling discharge.

She fell unceremoniously to the ground, and the sheriff’s gun slipped back into its holster.

The wind whipped over the scene, tossing Roland’s coattails into the air as he looked upon the two broken combatants. “Fear…” he scoffed, the aura of death removing the shroud of patient compassion he wore within the limits of his city. “Ye have not the skill to curse a man with fear,” he completed his thought, hat-shaded face glowering at the wounded korugaran. Out here in the desert, amid the sun and desperation, his mind returned to his ka, his destiny. His features grew hard, his voice firm and severe. He was a man with no patience for the tussles and squabbles of Omni’s children. “You still shoot with your hand.”

Growling, Sinestro slid to his knees, red blood drooling down into the yellow earth from every feature of his body. “You know nothing of fear, Roland,” his burned voice rasped. Heaving, he managed to plant a single boot. “I have built empires. I have destroyed them.” His leg pushed him back up, limply standing as ash and grit tumbled from his clothing. “I bred fear in the heart of Will itself, and gave the most powerful force in the galaxy something to dread.” Rolling his shoulders back, his hazel eyes locked with the Gunslinger’s. “I am the herald of the Blackest Night, and I am the one who brought it to its end. I was the first to wear the white symbol of Life, and I am the Greatest Lantern that ever was, and ever shall be.”

“What ye were is not what ye be now,” Roland said softly, turning his attention to the camel that towed the horse thief and what he stole. He sauntered to the broken man that was bent over the horse’s back, glaring down at the massive burns that covered his chest. The emblem of the Corps, emblazoned upon his flesh, stared back at him. “Mayhaps ye might be something akin to it, given time.”

Roland unfastened the connection between the camel and the other mounts, beckoning his own black mare over. He rigged his mount to the train and stepped up into his saddle. “For now, you will continue your work, and I shall continue to watch.”

Sinestro’s fists balled at his sides, ambition coiling in his chest like a viper. “And what horrors you will see,” he uttered beneath his breath.

---

Cool water ran down the bandit’s sweating brow, her face hot and aching. A labored sound came from her lips, not quite a word. Her knuckles dug into the clean sheets that lie underneath her, the bandages that wrapped around her fingers catching the fabric strangely. Swirling, oppressive light slowly dimmed to a bearable gloom and she opened her eyes.

“You sure are a fighter, aren’t you?” a warm, older voice said calmly. “I was surprised you even made it back to the house, let alone recover.” The blurry human form moved away, taking the wet cloth with it.

She lifted a hand, wiping it over her cheeks. Her paint was gone. Groaning, she rolled her head to its side and looked upon him. He was tall, skin a little lighter than hers, with grey cornrows rolling from his hairline straight back to the nape of his neck. His eyes looked at once soft and sharp. “Would have been better off leaving me in the sand, old man,” she spat.

“Oh, is that so?” he chuckled, lifting a tea pot by the handle and poured its contents into a ceramic cup. He smoothed his hand over the long grey shirt he wore, the collar high upon his neck. “I’ll consult the book again about that situation.” He placed the tea on a small wooden table beside her, the swirling steam offering the scent of lavender and honey. “But I’m fairly sure that it talks about helping people in need.”

“Sounds like your book is trying to get you killed.” Tentatively she tried to turn her body, but a sharp pain radiated from her chest into her neck and abdomen.

“Oh, be careful!” he said, a look of true concern furrowing his brows. “I’m not much of a surgeon, so try not to move too much. I don’t want you to start bleeding again.” He shook his head, “You’d better be glad we heal fast here, you’d be down for a lot longer.”

She ran her hand over her body, the old tatters she had known stolen away and replaced with clean, fresh linen. Still, her body knew where she had been shot. The pads of her fingers found the gauze that covered the wound, just beside her heart, the bullet still caught in her shattered rib. “Why am I alive?” she asked herself, pushing down onto the wound, exploring the pain in disbelief.

“People are strong here, girl,” he smiled, fiddling with something on the underside of the bedding. He pulled free a pin and gently lifted the upper half of the bed, putting her to a more seated position. He took the tea in his hand and offered it to her slowly. “And it seems like bullets can be mighty weak.”

“Not for us they aren’t,” the bandit said, a sadness in her voice. She ignored the cup and looked around the small, quaint room a moment. Wood panels, only a few scattered pieces of simple furniture. The windows were covered with heavy blankets, thin beams of sunlight only piercing them through their moth-eaten holes.

The man put the cup back on the table. “It seems like most folks have a background of eating bullets in these parts. It’s nice to meet a person that reacts as aversely as I do.” He pulled a seat which sat close by to the edge of the bed. “I’m from a place called Persephone, a planet in a system far, far from Earth. In my ‘verse, there was nothing that would have saved a man from a bullet to the heart, save God.”

Taking a deep, pained breath she sighed, “There is no ‘God’ here, only Omni.”

A faint smirk crossed his lips, “Believe whatever you want to believe, just believe it.” He gathered the cloth and dipped it in the cool water once again. “So where are you from?”

A deep frown covered her face, creases folding in a well-practiced expression, “Nowhere.”

“What do you mean ‘nowhere’?” he asked. “Everyone in this place is from somewhere.”

Her body tensed in pain as she lifted herself from the cot, her dark eyes locked with his. “Not me.”

Eyebrows perked in confusion, “Do you not remember? I’ve met a few souls that got knocked on the head and forgot.”

“No. I’m not from anywhere. I just am.” Her gaze moved away, and she held a hand to her chest with a wince.

“Alright,” he said, not wishing to escalate the woman’s anger any further. “Well I’ll have something made for dinner soon. You lay and rest for a while.”

She allowed her body to fall back into the propped bedframe, looking away from the man. “Where are my things?” she asked, a shortness in her voice.

He opened a cabinet and removed a large pot, probably his only cooking vessel. Ignoring her question for a minute longer, he poured rice into the bottom and used a pitcher to fill water over it. “Hm? Oh, your gun?” his voice was chipper, but a clever person would see through his enthusiasm.

“And my armor,” she said slow, “and my clothes.”

The man slowly gathered a collection of strange, twisted vegetables on the counter and carefully began to chop them. “I’ve got them safe. I didn’t want you worrying about that until you had a chance to heal up, though. If you leave in the condition you’re in, you’ll find yourself at the fountain before you can spit.”

Gritting her teeth, the bandit tossed the blanket away, desperately trying to sit up. “I’ll risk it,” she snarled, eyes wild with anger.

The man rushed over, holding his hands up, “Alright, alright! I’ll get them for you. Just please lay back down.” He stooped down and opened a cabinet, retrieving her torched pile of personal gear, gently placing it on the floor next to her sleeping area. “There, can we please sit a spell and have some food?”

Swallowing her rage, she collapsed back, relishing in her agony. It quieted the discourse in her mind, it stilled her shaking hands. The pain was all she had to rely on to distract her from the frustrations of reality. She had no more words for him, and so she said nothing.