The four little blue men ultimately weren't sent to be reincarnated. Their knowledge was a vast treasury—to waste it on a reset was criminal.
Thea read through the memories of Horuba's entire life. They contained countless cosmic secrets, but it wasn't all of it.
The Guardians hadn't been joined at the hip. They'd each handled a portfolio of affairs, and Horuba had only been responsible for a slice.
In the end, Thea spared them reincarnation and kept the four little blue men on as Advisors. Manufacturing temporary bodies was simple—Circe could manage it; for Thea it was trivial. And they couldn't leave the Underworld anyway.
The four little blue men were transformed—the Underworld's first batch of temp staff. Their official job was to offer advice. Thea's ragtag operation still had a mountain of rough edges. A few internal blind spots were the kind of thing insiders would automatically overlook, but outsiders with a fresh perspective could spot them immediately.
With bodies, the little blue men could fly again.
Walking on two legs, looking up at everyone, had been miserable.
The emotions they'd left in the ring were retrieved directly. To prove their loyalty, each of them offered up a portion of their memories. With the four of them pooling perspectives, Thea finally saw the complete forging process of the First Lantern's ring.
The Guardians in their prime had been absurdly strong—they'd captured the emotional Sources with almost embarrassing ease. But eternal life and boundless intellect had steered them off the New Gods path. Instead of walking it, they'd tried to crack and dissect its mysteries.
That was when the First Lantern arrived. He brought technology from billions of years in the future, and together they reforged the Source into a ring.
Reversing the process was not something she could do without the little blue men's help.
"I see your sincerity. But resurrection isn't possible. The Underworld—or rather, the world's own will—sets an exceedingly high bar for resurrecting immortal-class beings. You clearly don't meet it."
Thea wasn't lying. Immortals were creatures born in the early days of the universe. Times had changed. The cosmos no longer needed them. It needed passion, constant change—mortal lives that burned bright for a few short decades and then moved on. That was what helped the universe ascend to higher orders.
Stagnant immortals were a cancer by comparison. Look at Lady Styx, Atrocitus, these four right here—Lady Styx wouldn't advance any further in the next hundred million years without Thea's help, and the little blue men were leveling down daily. The universal will's rejection of them was barely concealed.
Horuba, the big-headed one at the head of the group, still spoke for all of them. The habit wasn't going anywhere soon.
"Your Majesty, we're comfortable here. We don't want to be resurrected."
"Mm." Thea didn't much care whether they meant it. As long as she could use them, it was fine.
She handed the ring-purification project off to them. Then she swung by the Blue Lantern home planet. Kyle Rayner was still in seclusion, training hard. She gave him a quick pointer or two and headed back to Earth.
The Third Army crisis hadn't been catastrophic for Earth, but it wasn't small either. One look at the stripped-bare planets the Third Army had savaged told the story. Without heavy hitters like Superman and Diana culling it early, an outbreak on Earth would have been apocalyptic.
With the fighting over, the Justice League was convening to plan the next steps. Worth noting: since Kyle had stayed behind on the Blue Lantern planet, Earth's Green Lantern representative had changed. Simon Baz—the Arab-American Green Lantern—now sat tensely in the GL chair.
Also: Thea's relative she couldn't publicly acknowledge, Black Canary, had formally joined the Justice League. Laurel Lance was a late bloomer. Something had lit a fire under her—her sonic attacks combined with years of hard-won combat skill had pushed her into the top tier of heroes. She'd made it into the Justice League ahead of Batgirl Barbara.
First, they welcomed the two new members. Then Superman opened the floor, asking what security measures Earth ought to put in place. That question usually came from Batman. Today was different. Superman had seen a dozen planets laid waste and couldn't stomach inaction.
Plenty of Earthlings had no idea what had just happened. He'd seen it himself. The Third Army had converted sentient beings into more of itself. The First Lantern had hurled entire planets like sandbags. Countless lives had screamed on the edge between survival and oblivion. What if that happened here—to his family?
The images haunted him. He hadn't slept. The moment the meeting began, he put the question out and hoped someone had answers.
"Will the universe see more disasters like this?" By unspoken convention, cosmic issues fell to the Green Lantern.
Every head swiveled toward Simon Baz. The Arab-American Lantern went wide-eyed. Why are you asking me? A day ago I was being chased across the city by federal agents for stealing a car. How the hell should I know what cosmic disasters are coming?
Thea cleared her throat to signal she had something to say. "Superman, that definition's too broad. Every disaster we just faced was triggered by specific individuals. These weren't earthquakes or hurricanes. It's hard to forecast them with any real precision."
"But Madame Xanadu can forecast. I'm not wrong about that. And you should be able to, too." Batman carefully avoided Malcolm's name.
"Forecasting comes at a cost. Time is a river. A forecaster is a fish that leaps from the current—leaps high enough to glimpse the path ahead. The cost is losing its original place in the stream, and hitting the water hard enough to come away bruised."
Thea danced around her own case. Madame Xanadu was another of those relatives she couldn't publicly acknowledge. After becoming mistress of the Underworld, she hadn't gone through Malcolm—she'd personally spent time helping Xanadu ease the burden on her timeline. Xanadu had now recovered forty or fifty percent of her old power.
She hadn't refused outright, but the implication was clear: don't sacrifice someone just to save the Earth.
On that, superheroes could broadly agree. Justice bought with the blood of innocents wasn't justice.
"So you're saying we can only play defense?" Superman asked.
Thea considered, then countered: "If someone hasn't committed a crime, would you arrest them for something they might do in the future?"
"No. At least I wouldn't…" Barry Allen spoke up immediately. Then he added that this was just his opinion.
"We wouldn't either." Batman nodded, though Thea suspected what he really meant was more like: I'd compile an exhaustive dossier first, take careful notes, and the second they crossed a line I'd haul them in.
"Good. We've reached consensus there. So I'll just share what I've seen and heard. You can take from it what you will. There's a group of them, and they are very evil—" Thea didn't get to finish.