Max watched the screen construct in front of him as it displayed the plaza outside Rama-Tut's grand pyramid-palace. The feed from his drone hovered just above the crowd, showing throngs of men, women, and even children gathering. It was a spectacle meant to intimidate, to inspire loyalty, or perhaps simply to prove that the pharaoh's grip on his empire was absolute.
The execution was happening on a raised section of the plaza leading to the pyramid's entrance. Gilded banners fluttered along the sides, and guards in golden armor lined the perimeter, unmoving, like statues. At the center, just before the massive stone entryway, stood a grim headstone the site of the execution.
A man draped in ceremonial robes addressed the crowd, his voice booming with fervor as he praised the wisdom of Pharaoh Rama-Tut and condemned the accused. Max narrowed his eyes, watching as the priest's rhetoric grew darker. He called Khenmet a traitor, a heretic, a murderer claiming she had sacrificed innocents to the old gods.
Max's gaze shifted to the figures standing directly behind the speaker.
"There," he said to Johnny and Ben, who stood just behind him, watching the feed.
The camera focused on three individuals each one distinct from the guards and far more dangerous.
"The Kheru-Sekhem," Max muttered. "Tut's elite enforcers. Those are the ones we have to take out."
Ben cracked his knuckles. "No problem."
Johnny's eyes widened as he pointed. "Holy shit, look at the size of that guy!"
The camera panned to the hulking figure over eight feet tall, shirtless, his torso a grotesque blend of flesh and metal. His muscles bulged unnaturally, and metallic grafts along his arms glowed faintly. Hieroglyphic-like markings were seared into his skin like brands.
Max had seen him when he first arrived in Thebes, just before he escaped with Khenmet.
"Jade, give me a scan," Max ordered quietly.
Jade's voice replied in his mind, "All three Kheru-Sekhem identified. Information cross-referenced with what we gathered from Khonshu."
Max zoomed the display to center on the one at the front of the trio.
"That's the leader," he said. "Merutef."
Merutef stood tall and poised, cloaked in obsidian-black armor etched with golden circuitry. His helmet resembled a stylized pharaoh's headdress and in the center, embedded above his brow, pulsed a crystal that glowed faintly violet. In his hands he held a long staff, the bottom end floating just above the ground as if gravity bent to it.
"His staff," Jade said, "based on readings, I believe it can manipulate localized gravity fields."
"So his power is that he can manipulate gravity," Max repeated.
"We have a guy back home who can do that," Johnny commented.
Max eyed the giant. "This one is Tefnakht."
Ben squinted at the screen. "Let me guess super-strength?"
"Affirmative," Jade replied.
"And the third, as you already know, is Hesi-Ra."
Johnny growled under his breath. "Oh, I remember her. She chased us out of the city got inside my head. Felt like I was burning from the inside."
Ben clenched his rocky fists. "She almost hurt Sue, too."
On-screen, Hesi-Ra paced along the raised dais, calm and predatory.
They waited and watched, and soon the moment arrived.
Khenmet was dragged forward wrists bound, face bruised, posture slumped in pain. The crowd hushed. Some jeered; others looked heart-broken.
Maybe Rama-Tut isn't as popular in his own city after all, Max thought, noting the mixed reactions.
"There she is…" Johnny muttered, voice taut with fury. He stepped closer to the screen. "They tortured her." Flames flickered around his fists.
Two faint markers lit up near the edges of the plaza Reed and Sue, in position.
"Alright," Max said. "Reed and Sue are set. Still no sign of Rama-Tut. We should—"
"Don't care!" Johnny roared. "We're going!"
Before Max could finish, Johnny flared bright and rocketed into the sky like a comet.
"Dammit," Max cursed. He whipped out his hand, forming a glowing green sling of energy that looped around Ben.
"Whoa...hey!" Ben shouted as Max yanked him airborne. "Warn a guy, will ya?"
They streaked toward the plaza.
"Drop me on the big guy!" Ben yelled, pointing at Tefnakht, who was already moving to intercept Johnny.
"You sure?"
"Yeah!" Ben grinned.
Max adjusted their trajectory. "Alright, big guy."
Below, Johnny reached the plaza first. He fired twin blasts at Hesi-Ra but before they could land, a shimmering field caught them mid-air and hurled them back.
"Oh, hell," Johnny muttered, twisting to dodge his own attack.
Merutef stood calmly at the edge of the dais, gravity staff raised. He swept it sideways and Johnny was wrenched from the air, pulled toward him by an invisible force.
"That staff is gonna be a problem," Max growled.
He focused on Tefnakht and released Ben.
Ben plummeted like a meteor, spinning once before extending his arms.
"IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!" he roared, crashing fist-first onto the massive man.
BA-A-AM!
The plaza trembled from the force of Ben's strike as Tefnakht was hurled backward like a boulder out of control.
Max quickly formed a shield of green around the battlefield, encasing the plaza beneath a shimmering dome. Sunlight danced across its surface as it sealed off the combat zone and protected the fleeing civilians.
"Combat zone isolated. You may escalate force as needed," Jade informed him in his ear.
"Perfect," Max muttered.
He twisted mid-air, forming construct after construct twenty in all. Sleek, humanoid mechs shimmered into existence across the field, their blades and blasters already primed.
"Engage," Max commanded, and the mechs surged forward like a tide, slamming into the pharaoh's soldiers with coordinated precision. Green light flooded the square as the constructs overwhelmed the outer ring of defenses.
Then Max spotted Johnny spiraling in the air, flames flickering erratically while Merutef's gravity staff slammed him against invisible walls. Johnny's body contorted unnaturally, pinned like an insect.
Max rocketed forward and blasted Merutef with a pulse of emerald energy. The bolt struck square in the chest, sending the elite skidding backward across the plaza. Johnny's invisible bonds vanished, and the Human Torch steadied himself before diving at Hesi-Ra.
Hovering high above the fray, Max scanned the battlefield.
Ben and Tefnakht traded brutal blows, the ground beneath them cratered by their raw strength.
His mechs held off wave after wave of soldiers, but damage was mounting.
Reed was slipping through the chaos, stretching from shadow to shadow as he made his way toward the Sphinx.
Then Max saw it.
Khenmet had been freed from her shackles. Sue had done her part.
Max exhaled in relief until Merutef's staff swung again. A crushing field of gravity surged toward the two women.
Khenmet braced but the force slammed into an invisible wall and rippled harmlessly away. Sue shimmered back to visibility and glared at Merutef, arm outstretched, a force-field bubble pulsing around them.
"Lantern!" she shouted over the chaos. "She's free! Get her out of here!"
Max raised his ring, preparing to encase Khenmet in a construct but she was already moving.
"What are you doing, woman?" Max shouted as Khenmet sprinted toward Hesi-Ra, who was being driven back by Johnny's relentless fire.
"Oh, right...revenge," Max muttered.
Khenmet pulled a crescent-bladed dagger from her robes, teeth clenched, rage blazing in her eyes. She tackled Hesi-Ra to the ground; both women crashed in a heap. Straddling her nemesis, Khenmet raised the blade high and drove it straight through Hesi-Ra's heart.
The elite screamed as Khenmet struck again and again.
It was over.
Seeing that Hesi-Ra was dead, Max quickly formed a plane-like construct around Khenmet and fired it into the sky. The emerald craft streaked far from the city, well clear of the battlefield Khenmet was secure.
He joined Johnny in mid-air, the two of them blasting apart Rama-Tut's robot guards while Max's mechs cleaned up the stragglers.
Together, they raced toward Sue and Ben.
Sue stood at the center of the chaos, arms outstretched, force-fields projecting like battering rams. With a flick of her wrist, one shimmering wall slammed into Merutef's chest with a resounding crack, sending the elite staggering unable even to go on the offensive.
Ben was trading blows with Tefnakht; their stalemate broke when Ben hammered him into the pavement with a colossal punch.
"Damn," Max muttered as he streaked past. "We're really overpowered."
He raised his ring and loosed a pulse of emerald energy that caught Merutef in the back, hurling him into the steps of the dais.
Max landed beside Sue. "Sue, Johnny, Ben get to the Sphinx! Help Reed. I'll handle the big guy."
Ben bruised but grinning cracked his knuckles. "You sure you want all the fun to yourself?"
"Go," Max insisted.
Ben threw one last haymaker at Tefnakht, then sprinted across the plaza. Sue fell in behind him, raising a moving shield as they ran. Johnny shot skyward, a trail of flame pointing straight toward the Sphinx's stone visage.
Max felt the ground tremble as he turned to see Tefnakht hauling himself out of the crater, eyes blazing. Then the giant's gaze shifted past Max to Hesi-Ra's lifeless body which lay blood pooling beneath her. A low rumble of grief rolled from his chest and burst into a roar of fury.
"My love… nooooo!" he bellowed, the air vibrating with the sound.
Max narrowed his eyes. "Oh, great."
Tefnakht's face twisted with madness he even seemed to swell a few inches taller. "I will rip you apart!" he thundered, then screamed something in a tongue even Jade couldn't translate.
Max shot upward, but Tefnakht moved faster than he thought possible. With a tremendous leap the giant snatched him mid-air, locking him in a crushing bear hug.
"Got you!" Tefnakht growled.
Max gasped. "You've got to be kidding me—"
The grip tightened; Max felt his ribs straining, pressure mounting from every side.
"I'm going to crush you into paste," Tefnakht snarled.
"Fuck you," Max growled through clenched teeth.
Summoning every ounce of willpower, he manifested a massive emerald war-hammer above Tefnakht's head. With a thought, it slammed down.
WHAM!
Tefnakht's head jerked back—but he still didn't let go. Instead, he squeezed harder.
"Garaaaaaaah!" Max screamed as pain shot through his chest. "Jade… anything?"
"Tefnakht is exerting concentrated pressure on your core. Internal damage imminent," Jade warned.
Max roared in defiance. "All mechs...converge on me!"
The constructs turned and charged, swords, spears, and cannon arms leveled at the giant. But it wasn't enough.
Laughing like a monster, Tefnakht barreled through them, shattering the emerald mechs like glass. One by one, Max's creations burst into green shards.
The giant didn't flinch. Max's vision blurred; his strength was fading and Tefnakht kept laughing.
What is this guy? Max thought, struggling to breathe.
Then an idea struck.
"Alright you fuck… let's go for a ride."
With a surge of willpower, Max rocketed straight up—Tefnakht still clamped around him. Wind howled as they climbed through clouds into the upper atmosphere.
"I will crush you!" Tefnakht growled, tightening his grip. "I will grind you to bone and dust!"
They rose higher the air thinning, the stars coming into view.
"No… no!" Tefnakht snarled. "What are you doing?!"
"You said you'd crush me," Max rasped. "Try doing it in space."
The cold bit deep; Tefnakht's enhanced lungs faltered in the near-vacuum. His grip loosened.
An emerald flash split the darkness as Max blasted free. He seized Tefnakht by the chest. "Come here."
He cocked his arm and punched upward.
BAAM!
Tefnakht reeled.
Another punch BAAM! Green energy cracked around Max's fist.
BAAM.
BAAM.
BAAM.
Blow after blow, Max hammered the giant beyond the stratosphere into the black.
With a final roar, he shaped a colossal battering ram of will and drove it into Tefnakht's chest.
BOOM!
The impact hurled Tefnakht into space, his massive body spinning away until the void swallowed his silent roar.
Max hovered for a moment, chest heaving. His ribs throbbed, but the ring was already healing any damages.
He turned toward Earth and rocketed downward. Wind screamed past as he fell like a meteor. Below, the Sphinx came into view Rama-Tut's guards were swarming over it, reinforcements pouring in from every street.
"Where the hell is Rama-Tut?" Max muttered.
The city blurred beneath him as he slowed his descent and then—
BOOM!
He hit in a classic superhero landing, one knee to the ground, his whole body glowing brighter than before. The shockwave hurled the nearest soldiers away like twigs in a gale.
Dazed guards barely had time to raise their weapons before Max surged forward. In less than a minute he cut through them all until he stood at the entrance to the sphinx.
=======
Max entered the Sphinx.
Inside, the aftermath of Reed and the others' handiwork was obvious guards lay crumpled on the floor, circuitry sparking and crackling. He hurried through the corridors to the central chamber.
Reed stood at a console, manipulating holographic controls that scrolled with columns of numbers and calculations. Nearby, Susan, Ben, and Johnny looked up as Max stepped in.
"Lantern," Sue greeted warmly, offering a relieved smile.
"Hey," Ben added with a grin. "Reed's just about done. We're ready to blow this sandpit."
Reed glanced up and nodded. "I've finished calibrating the time matrix. This should return us to the exact moment we left."
"Nice," Max said. "Then I guess… this is goodbye."
Reed extended his hand. "Thank you for everything."
Sue stepped forward and nodded gently. "Take care of Khenmet and of yourself."
Ben tapped Max on the shoulder with a friendly, rock-solid punch. "Maybe we'll ask our Green Lantern to look you up."
Johnny smirked. "Maybe then we'll finally learn your name."
Max chuckled. "It's Max."
"Max?" they echoed, surprised by the familiar, unassuming name.
He winked. "Safe travels, Fantastic Four."
Reed smiled and activated the device. Brilliant blue light enveloped the four heroes; their outlines shimmered as the time-displacement field took hold.
Then—
Max, Jade warned inside his mind, her voice urgent. Cloaking tech detected.
Before he could turn he saw Susan's eyes widen in horror at something behind him.
He spun finding a tall, imposing figure in regal robes and a pharaonic headdress. In the man's hands gleamed a golden spear whose tip pulsed with a sickly yellow light.
A blast of yellow energy erupted from the spear before Max could raise a proper defense. He threw up a shield instinctively, but the beam tore through it and struck him square in the chest.
Pain white-hot agony.
It was more than pain; it was terror. Every trauma, every fear, every hidden doubt in Max's soul rose screaming to the surface.
Max screamed, a raw, broken cry that echoed through the chamber.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Another spectrum detected," Jade warned. "Yellow light of fear."
Fear… Max thought as his vision dimmed. Oh, fuck.
He collapsed to one knee.
Rama-Tut stepped forward, smiling, triumph etched across his calm expression. The tip of the golden spear lowered toward Max's face.
"Easier than I thought," Rama-Tut murmured.
The spear pulsed again. Yellow light flooded Max's vision.
And then blackness.
========
Max opened his eyes slowly.
Pain throbbed through his chest it hurt badly, but he was alive. His arms were shackled above him, wrists bound in glowing restraints. He dangled from the wall of a dark stone cell, every breath a struggle. But it wasn't the physical agony that weighed on him most.
It was the fear.
The same oppressive dread that had stabbed through him when Rama-Tut's spear struck cold, sickly, and deep, as if his very soul had been sliced open still lingered. It coiled through his thoughts like a serpent, whispering doubt and despair.
He tried to summon his ring's power a blade, a shield, anything.
Green sparks flickered… then fizzled into nothing.
"Jade," he rasped, "talk to me. What happened? Where are we?"
Her voice flickered in his mind, calm yet subdued. "You are stable. Wounds are healing. Internal damage is regenerating. But we are… imprisoned."
Max grimaced, yanking at the shackles. "Yeah, I noticed."
Again he focused his will. Again nothing.
"Why can't I use the ring?"
"You were struck and are still surrounded by concentrated yellow-spectrum energy. The cell is laced with it. The longer we stay, the more your emotions are clouded. Your willpower is being drowned by fear."
"Fucking perfect," Max muttered, letting his head hang. The fear wasn't a shrieking panic; it was a slow, crushing hopelessness feeding on uncertainty and failure.
He shut his eyes and tried to block it out. Nothing.
Time passed minutes, maybe hours; he couldn't tell. Cold stone pressed into his back, and the silence felt suffocating.
Then he sensed something else a presence. Another prisoner sat in the shadows across from him.
Max lifted his head, blinking through the dim light. "Hey," he croaked. "You alive?"
The figure stirred, pausing before answering with a dry voice, "I am. I thought I would give you time to yourself."
"Appreciated," Max replied dryly.
Silence followed.
Max sighed. "All right… looks like we'll be here a while. Who are you?"
The figure leaned forward, stepping into the faint yellow glow that seeped from his own cell.
A boy perhaps sixteen or seventeen. His skin was a stony gray, etched with swirling lines and glyphs. His eyes were sharp and piercing, and there was something undeniably regal in his posture.
"My name is En Sabah Nur," he said with a slight smile. "And what is yours, Green One?"
.
.
.
New York
2009
Reed Richards strode through the brightly lit corridors of the Baxter Building. It had been a week since their return from Egypt one week since they escaped Rama-Tut, and one week since they'd watched the Green Lantern who helped them get struck down just before their departure.
Reed still felt guilty. Maybe he could have done more secured the chamber before they left but he hadn't, and the Lantern had paid the price.
Entering the living room, he found Johnny reclining on the couch, TV blaring. "Will these heros pay for the damages they caused..."
Reed's gaze slid past the screen to Susan and Ben, seated at the dining table speaking in hushed tones. Sue had barely slept, weighed down by the same guilt that haunted them all. She'd even tried to contact their Green Lantern to learn the fate of this ancient lantern and get some closure for all.
Reed was about to call out to her when a flash of emerald outside the window froze him in place.
Hovering amid the city skyline was a glowing figure the Green Lantern himself.
Ben leapt to his feet and hurried to the balcony, flinging the door open. The Lantern stepped inside, emerald aura dimming. His sleek uniform bore the glowing Green Lantern insignia at the chest; a stylized mask with two upward-tapering horns covered his upper face.
"Welcome to the Baxter Building, Green Lantern," Reed said, stepping forward.
Sue rose quickly. "We've been trying to reach you for days."
"You have?" the Lantern asked, brow creasing. "Is there trouble?"
"No," Reed assured him. "Nothing like that. Something… different."
The Lantern clasped his hands behind his back. "First let me get to why I'm here." He paused, meeting each of their eyes. "I bring an invitation."
"An invitation?" Ben echoed, frowning.
"Yes. You're hearby invited to Oa the headquarters and homeworld of the Green Lantern Corps."
Silence settled over the room. Reed glanced at Sue, Ben, and Johnny.
"We accept," he said at last.