The Sinestro Corps

It had taken Zatanna several hours of travel to reach her next planet… Qward.

Qward was the home world of the yellow lantern battery and of the yellow lantern corps, the corps of fear. Finding the desolate world and slowing down to take in the view, she could already feel a sense of dread fill her as she looked down at the planet in sight. A black, scorched ball in orbit devoid of any life, water, or air. A dead world where the only proof that anyone lived there were the tiny specks of yellow light, she found zipping across its surface. Yellow lanterns she reasons that were on patrol.

Bringing herself closer to the surface, Zatanna hugged herself as she made her way to the only yellow light that remained stationary on the planet. The brightest light she could see. Hover over the surface of the planet and looking around the stark, crag of black stone and stalagmites dotted the barren surface where a stark wind howled against the cliffsides, Zatanna thought she had entered the cave of some terrible monster… She was not wrong. When she found the core, a cold chill ran down her spine when she found herself in its light. Staring into the eye of the core, she was mesmerized by it, horrified by it as the cold creeping up her limbs made her numb.

“Beautiful isn’t it?”

Blinking and pulling her attention away from the core, Zatanna found she was no longer alone. There floating overhead with an entourage of other yellow lanterns was the leader of the corps; Sinestro. With his hands folded behind him, the man smirked with a raised eyebrow at Zatanna hugging herself and moving away from the core.

“Y-you’re Sinestro.”

“That I am Miss… Zatanna was it?” He asked, floating down until he was face to face with her, still giving off a smug and imposing grin before his attention fell to one of her hands and the two rings present there. “What do we have here? Been visiting Nok and Zamora have we?”

Clutching her hand to hide her indigo and violet rings, Zatanna looked to the others surrounding her and shivered. “I came here, to get a yellow ring.”

Tilting his head in curiosity, Sinestro looked to the others and gauged their reactions. “And why pray tell would you want to join our corps?”

“I… I want to undo my sins.”

The chorus of cruel laughter from the other lanterns made Zatanna hug herself tighter, but she steeled herself despite the sense of dread filling her being.

“Daw… The puny human feels ashamed… What did you do? Kill someone’s pet?” Hissed the massive brute with four eyes sneering back at her with a fanged grin, licking its lipless teeth with a forked tongue.

“No! Thisssss little girl’s fears run deeper, such delicious fear in her…” Skittered another yellow lantern, its mandibles clicking and drooling as if it could taste the fear coming off Zatanna. Coiling around her with its serpentine body, the creature continued to sniff at Zatanna’s presence until she floated away from it, the creature laughing as she did so. “So MANY ruined lives, so many trapped in terror before their deaths… So artful you are.”

“No! That wasn’t me!” Zatanna whimpered, clutching at her two rings like they would save her from the creatures circling her.

“Even I can feel her terror, she might actually be worthy, wouldn’t you agree Sinestro?” Asked a winged and withered looking female creature, its hair streaking down its scarred face in clumps and her back hunched to a frail looking body, yet her voice was smooth, and her eyes like those of the others glowing an intense yellow.

“Indeed!” With his hand outstretched towards the core, the battery blinked and conjured a yellow ring, the tiny object floating towards his hand before he plucked it in the air with his fingers and brought it to Zatanna to dangle in front of her nose. “If you wish to join us, to have a ring, then you must understand the nature of fear, and fear… Is power!” Dropping it in mid-air, Zatanna managed to catch it and look down at the yellow ring with the Sinestro Corps emblem on it. Trembling, she outstretched her finger, and put it on.

Backing away, Sinestro and his bodyguards watched as Zatanna’s clothes began to swirled and mix with yellow to blend with the violet and indigo she already possessed, creating an almost psychedelic effect as the colours would shift and move around over her show girl jacket and top hat. The lantern glyphs on her top hat changed to include the yellow lantern emblem and her bone and yew staff conjured into her hand. The pommel now sporting three gems at its epicenter with an indigo, violet and now yellow crystal merged. Opening her eyes, they gave off an intense yellow light.

“In blackest day, in brightest night, beware your fear made into light. Burn like my power, Sinestro’s might.”

Apparently overwhelmed, Zatanna slumped down, still levitating in the air with her arms slack and still clutching her staff. She remained this way for several seconds, numb and listless.

Floating closer and giving off another cruel smirk with his teeth, the massive green scaled brute chuckled as he wiggled a clawed finger under her slack chin. “Well, well, looks like someone didn’t make the cut.” He chuckled, hearing the others laugh with him as he looked over his shoulder to see them laugh at the young woman’s reaction to the ring. But when he looked back, what he found sent his blood curdling. Staring back at him with yellow glowing eyes and a fanged grin better seen on him, was Zatanna… Just before she bit down on his neck.

Reeling back and watching horror, even Sinestro was taken back at one of his most powerful lanterns screaming out in panic from a small human woman biting down on his neck and draining his life blood out of him. His body twitching before everyone’s eyes he shriveled and withered into an emaciated husk and tossed aside. Breathing hard and wiping blood off her lips with her thumb, Zatanna smiled back at the yellow lanterns. “Such an exotic taste he had, rich and seasoned with fear.”

Looking down at the yellow ring on her finger, Zatanna finally understood what Sinestro had said. She could FEEL their fear, each and every one of their darkest fears were laid bare to her, and she was FEEDING off of it. It was intoxicating; she wanted to experience more.

“What the hell are you?” Asked one of the lanterns, blinking its eight eyes and shaking in her presence like a leaf.

“I… Am a vampire; a creature of death that feeds off life, your blood is what sustains and empowers me, and now I have the power of your fear coursing through me as well… So delicious…” Like a blur, she disappeared with a blink of violet light before she appeared again in front of the blue skinned creature blinking its cluster of eyes in fright to the cruel smiling face of Zatanna. “I want MORE!”

Seeing another of his lanterns scream as they were bitten into like ripe fruit, Sinestro called out to the rest of his lanterns on Qward. Finishing her meal and tossing the drained, mummified corpse across the barren landscape, Zatanna found herself surrounded by hundreds of yellow lanterns, all of them looking down at her in disgust and horror. The sight of a beautiful woman twisted into the embodiment of pure terror. “You’re scared, ALL of you… Good.”

“You’re dealing with the Sinestro Corps girl!” Snarled one of the lanterns raising his tentacled limb where a ring was coiled over. “For US, fear is a weapon!”

“Is that so?” She asked, mimicking Sinestro’s behaviour by straightening her stance and folding her arm behind her while casually resting her staff at the toe of her foot. Shivering from the sensation of so much fear in the area, Zatanna closed her eyes and basked in it all, she felt incredible, invincible, and yet she craved more. “Well then, I thank you Sinestro for giving me the most powerful weapon in the universe. Now let me show you what a MASTER of fear can do to a band of the cowardly.”

“Watch your tongue girl… You might get it cut off!” Threatened one of the lanterns, a cyclopean creature with a beak pointing a thin finger back at her.

Focusing her attention on him, Zatanna raised her hand with her yellow ring, the object glowing brightly off her finger and burning the cloth to her gloved hand. “Your name is Shaz’mal, on your homeworld you killed dozens for amusement and left their corpses on the street to evoke terror in your future victims.”

Stunned, the yellow lantern snapped his attention to the others, confused that she would know him. Seeing her raise her other hand, the one holding her staff, she revealed her other two rings. “The indigo lantern ring grants me the power of compassion, to understand the pain of those around me, coupled with the power of fear, I now know EVERY little secret you harbour… But I have OTHER tricks the rings do not grant. You must have several skeletons in your closest Shaz’mal… They would like a word with you.”

Caught off guard, he screamed when a ghost of his former victims appeared and gripped at his shoulders, a look of terror and suffering in its slack beaked face and vacant eyes. Then others appeared, clawing at him as he screamed, begging for them to get off of him and even used his ring to cut and slash at them with beams of yellow light to no success, his face now seared in scars left behind by their boney fingers. “They ALL have some words to share with all of you!”

At that moment, the entire yellow lantern corps were forced to face their victims, necromantic powers conjuring the disembodied ghosts of those they tortured and killed over the years appeared before their eyes and attacked. Watching it all unfold all around her, Zatanna’s yellow eyes fluttered from the power of it all, to hear their screams of terror echo off the barren wasteland was almost as nourishing as blood itself. Hugging herself, she shivered at the sensation, the power of it all to evoke such fear into the living.

“MONSTER!” Yelled out Sinestro, free of the ghosts that haunted him and aiming his ring straight at her. “I was a fool to even humour giving you a ring, you will be the doom of us all!” Before he could strike, the women teleported again with a haze of violet light, disappearing and suddenly in front of him, grabbing his arm with such strength he feared she could snap his wrist like frail twigs while her other let go of her staff to clutch at his throat. The same manic fanged grin still on her blackened lips as she stared into his scared eyes. “And I THANK you for it Sinestro, with this… I will have the power to turn death itself, imagine what the fears of seven billion people would grant me.”

He could see it in her eyes, so drunk with the power of fear, she could no longer be reasoned with. Darting his eyes and thinking on anything that could stop her, Sinestro focused on the core and came up with a plan. “You would not need the population of Earth to achieve your goals.”

“Oh?” She asked, raising her eyebrow in curiosity, still mimicking his smug behaviour from earlier.

“The battery, it is comprised of the fears felt by every living creature in existence, trillions upon trillions worth of intelligent life, their fears focused on one spot.” Turning his head to gesture towards the battery, she did the same and her fanged smile threatened to split her face.

“Such power!” Dropping Sinestro like a stone, she floated towards the battery of the yellow lantern core, before she feared it, but now she realised for what it truly was, unlimited power. “It shall be mine, all of it!” Staring deep into the abyss of the yellow battery. Zatanna’s smile faded, her eyes blinked… Then she screamed.