"Thank you, Saviour! Thank you!" One of the lifeforms in front of Vell yelled at the top of their lungs.

Vell stood there with her hands planted on her hips and eyes squinted in confusion. Several minutes ago, she used her power ring and a couple tonnes of rock to block a magma flow from consuming a small village on the planet of N'eltu in her home sector. Before long, more members of this strange community joined the stranger and bowed before her, chanting "All hail the Emerald Crusader, all hail the Verdant Saviour!"

Vell thinned her lips and said "Uh...please. Please don't do that."

The lead alien immediately leapt from his kneeling prayer. "The Saviour is displeased with us! Forgive us, almighty Saviour! We must cast ourselves into the lake of fire to atone!"

The townspeople then started towards the now blocked off magma flow.

"Stop!! Don't kill yourselves!" Vell called.

The N'eltuans froze, as if God himself had yelled at them.

"I'm...just going to leave now. Okay? I'm not a god or anything. So don't worship me. That would be stupid." Vell remarked as she kicked the thrust and tore through the planet's atmosphere and into space.

The N'eltuans were extremely superstitious, especially for an interstellar species. The Non-Intervention Protocol dictated that Green Lantern officers must not make contact with any race that has not established a means of interstellar travel; any species that was not ready for alien contact would surely be disrupted beyond repair if the meeting was forced. This also applied to the act of introducing advanced technology to a species not currently capable of understanding it. Vell recalled a log submitted by Lantern Peycurd of Sector 1701 who was discovered by locals of a tribal civilisation, then became worshipped as a God for the might of his power ring. Peycurd was penalised by being demoted several steps, and tasked with fixing his mistake, which he did by showing the divine prophet that he could bleed just as his worshippers could.

However, the N'eltuans had been capable of interstellar travel for centuries, but their primitive ways did not evolve with their technology. They were still obsessed with religion and would be terrified of anything they did not understand. Because of this, Vell was glad to be done with that predicament.

Right now, she was on her way to engage in a top secret briefing on Mogo. She was scheduled to meet a one-time foe on the sentient planet for a debriefing. Ever since the Gornian Encounter, Olengurr has voluntarily been acting as a double agent for the Green Lantern Corps. He's assisted in running reconnaissance on Sinestro's latest project, the construction and establishment of his own personal policing corps. So far, there were only four Yellow Lantern rings in circulation; those belonging to Olengurr and Mortess, one for Arkillo, and of course one for Sinestro himself. Sinestro was working on perfecting his design before he mass-produced the rings. Hopefully, once Olengurr attained enough information, the GL Corps could launch an incursion and exterminate Sinestro's Corps before it even began

After engaging in the usual translight jump and arriving in Mogo's current location, Vell zeroed in on the meeting coordinates and closed in on them.

"Greetings, Lantern nine twenty-one." A deep, booming voice said to Vell through her ring's comm channel. It was Mogo, the living planet and largest member of the GL Corps.

Vell responded with great respect "Sir!"

"At ease, Sentry. The informant you are here to debrief have already arrived. They appear...uneasy."

"Let's hope he has something useful this time."

In seconds, Vell came upon a tall rocky spire that extended into the air like one of the Citadel Towers of Bekkor. Atop this formation was a single lifeform, clad in the yellow uniform of the fledging Sinestro Corps. Vell landed beside them, prompting Olengurr to calmly command "You must attack now."

"What? What are you talking about?" Vell pressed as she crossed her arms.

"Sinestro's completed his Central Reactor."

"You said it would take another twenty-six cycles." She pressed.

Olengurr shook his head. "None apart from Sinestro himself knew the location of the construction site, ergo I was unable to gather a firsthand account of the progress; all my data was attained through logs and information sent from Sinestro to Arkillo. The construction was accelerated by the implementation of an unknown factor, perhaps a forced labour group."

"Slaves? Well...did you find out where he built the thing at least?"

"Korugar." Said Olengurr.

Vell scoffed. "That's impossible. We have an officer stationed in that sector. On top of that, this Lantern actually lives on that planet."

"After Sinestro's first seizure of power on his homeworld, the Green Lantern sigil became synonymous with tyranny. His replacement, Katma Tui, was promptly banished from Korugar after she was recruited. It was the only logical site, given the lack of Green Lantern presence." The gelatinous being explained.

Vell frowned. "Great. He's taken over his home planet again?"

"Apparently so. With the Central Reactor in the final stages of completion, Sinestro will move to finalise his power ring specifications for mass production. Any further delay will mean that our number of foes will grow from three, to several thousand. I suggest that Sentinel Jordan be present for the assault. He possesses the greatest understanding of Sinestro's tactics and will prove to be a useful asset in the battle."

Mogo promptly declared "I have sent a communique to Oa containing a record of your conversation. I believe, Sentry, that a reconnaissance survey is a good idea. The two of us shall conduct an observation immediately."

Olengurr glanced at the ground, which shook with each word uttered by the living world. "Ah. Of course. Mogo...where else would be safe from Sinestro's gaze?"

Vell cocked her head and nudged Olengurr with her elbow. "You should come with us. Assess the situation."

"To do so, you and your commanding officer will be voiding Green Lantern procedure on multiple articles." Olengurr explained. "However, I must also voice concern. Korugar is prepared for Green Lantern interference. Sinestro possesses inside knowledge on the mechanical workings of your energy weapons and has detection satellites in place to ensure that he would know of your presence well in advance."

Mogo replied "We are simply taking initiative. The Guardians would demand an intelligence flight; conducting one in advance is no serious offence."

"And you're smart, so you can tell us what the minimum safe distance from the scanners is." Vell said.

Olengurr continued massaging his chin in deep thought. "It would be illogical for me to accompany you. The risk to my personal safety is great."

Suddenly, it all began to make sense to Vell. She recalled the memory transfer that she, Hal, Olengurr and Mortess underwent on the planet Gorn. Olengurr's sole motivation in life was fear; it was fear that propelled him to learn all the variables of a given situation, it was fear that made him cautious of the unknown, and it was fear that led him to becoming an interplanetary slave trader. His people possessed a heightened sense of fear, a result of evolution. It had allowed them to survive impossible odds.

Olengurr's natural susceptibility to fear made him a fine recruit to the Sinestro Corps, since it was the feeling of fear and the instilment of it in others that allowed its power source, parallax, to double its conductivity.

"Right. You don't really want to beat Sinestro, do you? You're just helping us because we pose a threat to you."

"Every action I take is to prolong my own existence."

"You don't believe in anything?" Vell mused.

Olengurr glanced off into Mogo's horizon. "My people never developed any real belief system. The motivation to live was enough." The Myzekan dropped his arms to his sides. "If I assist you any further, my life will be placed in danger. I did not anticipate the completion of Sinestro's reactor this rapidly...I made a miscalculation in helping you." He said as he hovered upward into the sky. A glowing golden trail then burned its way up and into space, signalling Olengurr's departure from Mogo.

"An admirable attempt." Mogo remarked. "I'm surprised you tried at all."

"Yeah, me too." Vell shrugged. "Whatever. We're kind of at a dead end now, right? Without Olengurr to guide us through the proximity sensors, we'd get caught straight away."

Mogo voiced his agreement. "Correct. The only path available to us is to conduct a shallow scan from afar to verify Olengurr's report, then conduct an offensive without detailed intelligence. If Sinestro's actions are left unchecked, it would result in war. Two policing organisations with clashing ideologies cannot occupy the same space for long."

Vell thinned her lips. War? Usually it was bad enough, but here, the enemy had access to technology that mimicked GL power rings. Imagine an army of Green Lanterns fighting an army of Yellow Lanterns, soldiers who possessed all of their own abilities. Back on Hal and Vell's very first mission together, Hal fought Arkillo within the walls of the Arxis. From just those two in a scuffle, walls were busted through, rooms were blackened, and the entire prison was breached. In a full-scale conflict, trillions of people would die in the first cycle. Vell had seen war in the past and relished it, but she wasn't sure if she'd savour this kind, or be horrified by it.

"I might have a better way. I could get onto the planet undetected and snoop around." She suggested to her superior officer.

"Elaborate."

--------------------------------------------------------

Korugar opted out of Green Lantern protection once Sinestro's hold on the planet was ended by Hal Jordan. They were still a single-planet species at the time, much like humans, but were vaguely aware of alien life. When Sinestro returned with an alien weapon of mass destruction, Korugarian society erupted in fear. It was their first hard proof of alien life outside their solar system. And Sinestro, breaking the Non-Intervention Article, forced his will onto a planetary government.

After Sinestro was arrested, the Korugarians had enacted strict policies against unrestricted space travel. They opened their spaceports, but the word 'open' is used loosely here. A border security department was created to monitor any incoming alien persons, and access was rare. The spacedocks which orbited the planet were always rife with hundreds of people lining up to enter the system.

The customs process was intensive, took hours upon hours, and would more often than not result in a disapproval of entry. Korugar had become xenophobic, and it was their fear of the Green Lantern Corps that made them this way. Earth's first contact with alien life was through Kal-El, an entirely internal affair that made Hal's becoming a GL much easier. Since first contact had already been made, he didn't have to worry about hiding himself from the public too much. They wouldn't have been all that shocked by learning that a space cop lived amongst them, seeing as they already witnessed the emergence of Superman, Martian Manhunter, as well as an invasion by General Zod by the time Hal received his ring.

At the security check gates, a Korguarian officer waved a scanner over the body of a visiting alien. The scanner beeped idly, indicating that no dangerous materials were detected beneath the being's pressure suit.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to remove that pressure suit." The officer demanded.

The being, a native of the planet Dytarrex, huffed in response. Her voice was digitized by the helmet clasping her face. "Excuse me?"

With a frown, the Korugarian repeated. "Take the suit off."

She planted her hands on her hips. "I'm Dytarrexan."

"So what? Do you want me to put you in a cell?"

"If I take off this life support skin, the ambient bacteria and light sources in this station will infect, burn, and kill me in seconds." The woman's robotic-sounding voice snapped. "It's kind of my race's thing...our immune systems are hyper-sensitive. You should already know that. And secondly, we don't exactly wear underwear under these things. It interferes with the bio-monitors. And chafes."

The security officer ran a hand down his face as he shot a glance down at her identification credentials. "Listen, Miss...uh...Poltula...if you go wait over there, we'll get you lined up for a pressurized clean room where you can take it off, okay? Just calm down."

Potula snarled under her breath. "Hey, I'm not going to wait another grakking millicycle. I've got twenty tonnes of refracting crystal from Qward in my freighter. Do you have any idea how much that junk sells for on the black market? Pirates have been hounding me since I crossed the twelfth quadrant! The longer I'm here talking to you, the more time some deadbeats have to jump it."

"...Qwardian crystal?" The officer's stern expression dropped. He glanced over at a nearby terminal, tapping a few keys. He then looked back to Potula. "You're not on the manifest."

With a sigh, the alien said "That's not my problem. You wanna tell your boss you turned me away? I heard he needs more of this stuff."

"You think we want to work for that maniac?" The officer growled. "He's invincible. We're insects compared to him."

"Hey, buddy, I don't care. I just want to get paid. Is it a yes or no?" Potula replied as she threw her hands outward in disbelief.

The officer slammed a button on his terminal. "Five-hour license. You dawdle, and the police will escort you off-world personally."

Potula scoffed as she strutted through the checkpoint.

It took the alien woman another twenty Earth minutes to wade her way through the sea of immigrants to her docked ship. It had been scanned, scrubbed, and quarantined in her absence. When she sealed the hatch and detached her vessel from the docking umbilical, she instantly leapt into the pilot's chair. The small freight hauler hovered past the security blockade comprised of dozens of Korugarian warships, deflector screen projectors, and orbital defence platforms.

The surface of Korugar was peppered by enormous towers that stood hundreds of storeys high. The Citadel Towers on Bekkor weren't even a third of the size of these skyscrapers, 'Potula' thought to herself. Her space craft weaved in and out these colossal buildings, making sure to conform to local traffic law.

Before long, a dome-shaped structure dwarfed the towers around it. It was a reflective sphere, used to mark and protect undergoing construction. The woman flicked a switch on her control panel, opening a secure and encrypted channel directed off-world. Due to Korugar's significant security, she would have approximately thirty seconds before the signal would be detected by the police and targeted for a precision strike. Thus, she reported quickly. "I think I've found the Central Reactor."

"Investigate further, Vell. I have Lanterns twenty-eight fourteen and fourteen seventeen on standby awaiting confirmation." Answered the digitized voice of Mogo through the communications link.

As promptly as it began, the call was disconnected by the pilot, Vell disguised as a Dytarrexan smuggler. The Lanterns that Mogo mentioned were Hal and Katma Tui respectively, the two people most qualified to be dealing with a situation like this. Hal was the one who brought Sinestro down in the first place and had a decent amount of run-ins with him since. Katma, however, was a bit more personally involved. Korugar was her homeworld, and it booted her as soon as she became a Lantern. As always, the ring chose the bearer so she basically had no choice in the matter. The fact that the place was taken by Sinestro right under the Corps' noses wouldn't be an easy thing for anyone to face...let alone someone who hasn't seen her birthplace in years.

Vell kept her eyes pinned on her display as she scratched an itch through her pressure suit. Surprisingly, it didn't take her too long to get this cover ID set up. She called in a few favours with some old friends from her thieving days, one of them a Dytarrexan. From there, obtaining a spare life support suit, falsifying personnel records, finding a clean ship, and sharpening her newly adopted charisma was an easy feat.

This whole plan was awfully 'human' of her to consider, and of course, she realised this. Vell would never have wasted so much time and effort in the pursuit of avoiding a fight...hell, part of her was even still questioning the point of it all. Why not just fly in with guns blazing? Vell was always blunt and direct. So why was she lying her way through this mission right now? Well, Hal had rubbed off on her. Of course. When her thoughts drifted to the encounter on Gorn and she recalled learning to use mud for camouflage from him, she shook her head.

Hiding in plain sight. Months ago, she thought it was cowardly and weak...but after having a taste of it for herself, it had this kind of thrill to it. The thought of lying your way past people, proving that you were smarter than them, seemed to give her the excitement that bloodying her fists against someone's face used to. Obviously, this was because she learnt the value of ingenuity and wit in her still fresh tenure as a Green Lantern.

The reactor construction site was eerily empty. There were no guards on duty at the docking clamps when Vell disembarked, several crates of Qwardian minerals behind her on magnetically levitating trays. Her ring was stashed inside a lined pocket on the suit, meaning that security sensors would be unable to detect it. If she wore it, both the sight of the ring itself and the power discharge from the weapon being activated would've instantly blown her cover. She followed the narrow corridors of the docking hangar, and eventually emerged within the interior of the construction housing.

Vell's eyes narrowed as she gained confirmation of Olengurr's report. The Yellow Lantern Central Reactor was a colossal monolith that stood at least twenty storeys tall, just as large as the Green Lantern counterpart. Every Lantern Power Battery would be charged by this as it endlessly produced a steady flow of parallax energy. Vell hadn't really seen the GL Reactor; it was deep underground and essentially acted as Oa's core. It provided power to every facility on the planet, and GL officers only needed to go directly to it whenever their Batteries would run out, which happened once every year if you didn't get into any major scuffles. Ever since she started, Vell still didn't need to recharge her Lantern Battery, which was a testament to how efficiently the Guardians had made their power source.

Unlike the Green Lantern Reactor, Sinestro's one was on the surface of his planet. Probably because drilling down to the core and replacing it with a power generator was beyond the capabilities of most intelligent species, so it was understandable. Vell stared at the device, which was missing some exterior plating elements but more or less complete according to her quick visual scan. It had yet to be activated though, which was good news. This meant that she needed to transmit back to Mogo and tell him that the intel was on the money.

When she finally averted her eyes from the gigantic object, she noticed a construction foreman scrutinising plans on a handheld device. She called out to him "Hey. Where's Sinestro? I need to get paid for this stuff."

The foreman, a Korugarian as expected, sent his eyes to Vell and her line of crates. "What? More crystal? I don't have any more shipments scheduled."

Vell approached the man and snapped "Yeah, that's what the customs guy said. Listen, I saw the listings saying that you guys need Qwardian mineral matter so I went out there and mined the best stuff myself. This is the real deal. That big thing might be finished, but maybe he needs more for the other stuff, right? The rings and lanterns or whatever."

The man sighed and rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright... He's in the on-site lab, over there. I have actual things to deal with right now lady, go ahead." He said, pointing to a decently-sized and self-contained temporary structure hugging the wall of the construction site shell.

With a smirk on her obscured face, Vell followed the worker's directions.

Apart from the buzzing and sizzling of electrical systems being worked on, the on-site laboratory was as silent as space itself. When Vell stepped inside, she felt an overwhelming sense of anticipation as well as excitement. Maybe even just a little bit of fear, seeing as if she was called out by Sinestro, he could eviscerate her since she wasn't wearing her ring.

There were workbenches laden with microcircuitry, luminal filters, computational arrays, and other vital components for a power ring weapon. There were even prototype Power Batteries on one table, all inactive and uncharged.

As Vell rounded a corner, she spied a figure lurched over his own worktable, sparks flying as they utilised incredibly small tools to work on a power ring prototype before them. It should be mentioned that these tools were themselves energy constructs of the ring currently laced around the being's finger.

Like all Korugarians, this man had deep red skin and jet-black hair. Currently, Vell could only see his back. His arms were linked behind him, as his floating construct tools, small and precise enough to split an atom, worked their magic on the innards of the current model of a Yellow Lantern ring. He wore a black and blue bodysuit over his long yet muscular frame.

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" A smooth, calm voice called without any indication of anger in their tone.

Vell tensed her muscles. "I have some more crystal from Qward here."

"I have no need for additional minerals."

"Why don't you...have a look at it? I extracted it all myself, by hand." She pressed.

Seconds passed in silence as the man continued his work, and Vell stood in waiting. Finally, he unclasped his hands, dismissed his constructs, and turned around. Thaal Sinestro was a tall and proud individual. He had an air of unmatchable self-confidence in everything he did, and the charisma to make it so that this confidence was never questioned by others. A thin, immaculate moustache lined his upper lip, and the black hair on his head had been slicked back neatly.

He scoffed as he gazed up and down Vell's body. "You seem to be fairly athletic in stature for a Dytarrexan."

"Is that a compliment?" Vell deflected.

Sinestro slowly sauntered towards her as he said "In some cultures, yes. But your people are physiologically predisposed to thinner builds as a result of an inferior nervous system, correct?"

"Yeah. It's genetics. I got bullied for it a lot as a kid."

The man stopped several paces away from the alleged Dytarrexan. He raised his ring, and Vell's breathing hitched. Sinestro arched his brow as he initiated a biological scan of the lifeform before him. Vell was left in complete ignorance of what kind of data he was seeing...and if lining the interior of the pressure suit with Dyterraxan biological matter worked in throwing sensors off.

Suddenly, he lowered his ring and instead used it to pry one of Vell's crates open. The lid fell to the floor with a deafening bang, and a sample of crystal hovered out of the container, levitated by a thin and almost invisible bubble of parallax particles. "Beauty is a matter of culture, my dear. It is in the eye of the beholder." The chunk was pulled up to Sinestro's face, allowing him to closely inspect the material. "And in this case...I suppose what I see is beauty."

Vell leant onto the open crate. "Are you talking about me or the crystal?"

Sinestro averted his eyes from the mineral specimen, arching his brow once again. "Charming. These specimens seem to be incredibly pure and untainted. I will grant you twenty thousand credit units per container." He stated, placing the handful he was inspecting onto a nearby desk. As he walked back to his workstation, Sinestro asked "Tell me, are you not afraid of engaging in activity deemed illegal by the Green Lantern Corps? Your world is signed to their protection thus you are a subject of Guardian legality, liable to be tried for aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive."

"If the Guardians wanted to help everyone, they wouldn't ask for permission, right? They'd just...do what needs to be done."

"Correct. I see you are a fellow objector to their ideology." The Yellow Lantern leader surmised. He manifested his construct tools once again and began toiling.

Vell was ordered by Mogo to simply verify Olengurr's report, and to notify the officers on standby so that they can arrest Sinestro without incident...but there he was, the renegade Green Lantern Sinestro, back turned to her and occupied. A thought entered her mind...telling her that she could just kill him now and end it. Why arrest a maniacal despot like him? Why not just execute him?

"That's a complicated way of saying it, but yeah...I guess things could be better."

"They will be better. My Corps will not discriminate between those who want help or those who do not. We will acknowledge only those who need it. All the bureaucracy...the politics. That was what encumbered the Green Lantern Corps. The Guardians were too blind to see it. The only effective way to enforce law is to do so unilaterally, without limits. The policies of the lesser planet should bend to satisfy that of the greater universe, not the other way around."

The undercover GL reached into her pocket for her power ring. "Is it true that they don't let their men reveal themselves to primitive civilisations, even to help them?"

"It is. Article Sixteen, also called the Non-Intervention Protocol. It was established to avoid the contamination of culture, to disallow the outside influence of a greater species upon a lesser."

"I heard you broke it...that's why they kicked you out." Vell said.

"I wished to elevate my people by applying what the Guardians taught me, to my homeworld. I eradicated crime in days. Much like how I shall eradicate you, Green Lantern." Sinestro threatened. The man spun around and hurled a fully-charged ball of parallax at the unarmed GL officer.