-- and into that shadow comes Light.

She is surprised, by the sudden change in her circumstances.

She is not going to let that stop her from saving lives, conducting streams of Indigo light that wash away shadows with her staff like it is a conductor's baton, plucking lives out of the necrotic constructs' grasp with her Ring hand upon the strings, darting into the air just enough to see and sense -

What the fuck is that.  What is it spewing out like a flood of Anti-Life.  Why is it doing that.  How can she make it stop.

She pauses.  Thinks.  Makes a decision.

She levels her Staff at the Rift, two-handed, opens her mouth, and shines.

"Darkness falls in dead of night,

but together, we shine bright -

We banish ills, end hopeless plight,

with this power: Indigo Light!"

"Come on then!  With me, against the falling night!  None of us will succeed alone, but together we are strong!"  Her voice carries, even before the technological augmentation she does with her built-in equipment - and with it spreads a wave of sweeping Indigo and Blue, belief and compassion, understanding of their desperate labor and all the support she can offer in this Sisyphean task distilled into the sort of energy that can bolster - or smite.

(It is around now that the Blue Ring would normally turn up.  Unfortunately, she is in entirely the wrong universe for that!)

This, naturally, gets the attention of everyone and everything on the battlefield. A cheer rises up from the living soldiers. 

Some of the weaker shadows fizzle out into nothingness when hit with beams of light, but most of them seem to be made of stronger shadow-stuff. Nevertheless, the smarter ones start moving away from Diana. In the light of her lantern, she can see that many of the shadowy beings have human features. 

A vaguely humanoid cloud of black smoke with glowing eyes swoops towards Diana, shrieking. It swipes at her with intangible claws that leave a bone-deep chill wherever they pass through her. 

...She dodges just a bit back, down, and to the left, hovering like a hummingbird with Lantern flight-powers, and pirouettes into a responding blow with her staff!

(This also has the benefit of injecting concentrated Compassion directly into the core of the creature!)

Really, you need at least a dozen foes like these to properly give her trouble; Lantern flight is very good at its job.

...If any of the beings out there, the swarming shadows, if any of those are sophonts, showing complexity of thought to her empathic vision, no matter whether she sees their emotions, she radiates the following statement, pushing it out through raw empathy - I know not what you are nor where you come from, but your lives I value too, as much as those of the sophonts sheltering beneath my aegis.  Please don't make me snuff yours out, because - if I must, if it is a choice between your lives and so many others, then I will make it, and it will not fall in your favor.  But there is hope, still.  There is help for you, if you will take it.  I can shelter you, if you can trust me.  You do not have to die today -- 

-- and she unleashes her capacitor's store of healing Hope, accumulated from her actions here and many others besides, hand outstretched in simulated blessing and welcome both.  Any minds that still remain to feel it - those that can feel anything at all - have a choice to make.

Will they accept this gift, or reject it?  Will they take the chance she's offering, or face the threat she poses?

And it is that choice they make, interpreted by the sparks of Empathy carried along the wave, that determines the form her healing takes.  Whether it is cleansing - or restorative.

A lot—maybe half—of the swarming shadows are not people. They're simple black shapes, almost like what you might get if a person's shadow pried itself off the ground and started walking about on its own. Their minds are simple, too, pure envy and hatred of the living. Her light tears through these weaker shadows, burning them away to nothing as light tends to do. The skeletons and zombies fall along with them, wisps of the same shadow draining from the corpses. 

The dense clouds of black smoke, like the one that attacked Diana, are rare, scattered here and there throughout the horde. There's intelligence there, but it's fractured and twisted into a shape that's held together by the very malevolence she's asking them to renounce. They come apart in tattered layers, like pulling petals off a daisy if the daisy was made of smoke and malice, but with enough concentrated light—and there is more than enough—they, too, fade and disappear. One of them, which had managed to breach the soldiers' front lines, was surrounded by four or five spirits made of crackling green energy. They dissipate along with it. 

The remainder of the undead horde is made up of wispy, greyish shades, with the most humanlike features of any of the shadows and minds that are more like those of living people. Not all of them are willing to let hope in, but some are. 

Those that accept her gift—perhaps a few dozen, out of the hundreds of shadows—are enveloped entirely in Hope's blue light for a second. When it fades, they are transformed: no longer grey and wispy, but simply...people, their bodies made of that same blue light, standing there on the suddenly much emptier battlefield. 

She is not going to let her mask slip!  Is anyone or anything else going to try and kill her?

...And if not, then...she should maybe land?  And figure out what is happening here.  That, or - press forwards, towards the source.  Does what she can see in the distance, staff still held high, bright and shining, indicate that's necessary?

Well, there's a person in plate armour flying in her direction on the back of a winged horse, but she isn't sensing any hostile intent from them. Also, according to her empathic senses, the winged horse isn't quite real. 

There are still more shadows coming from the north, but now the ones that were out of Diana's range are fleeing back in that direction and creating massive confusion. They'll be a while sorting that out, by the look of things; she's got some breathing room. 

Then she'll zip over to the winged horse guy - she's faster, it's only polite - and give a respectful nod.  "I imagine you're probably wondering what just happened?"

...Oh, excuse her (she pantomimes), you don't speak English, Mr. Flying Horse Guy, and the Ring translator doesn't know your language yet, one moment, she needs to just - ask for a bit of help in understanding, annnd -- there.

"Sorry about that, I didn't realize my translation was running off of Light instead of Ringslinging; as I was saying, I imagine you're wondering what just happened?  I'm - guessing that I'm very far from home, but if knowing you are speaking to, at present, the Indigo Lantern of Sector 2184 - not that I think that 3,600 is in any way enough of us to fix the myriad worlds' ills, really - and also a human from Earth, helps, any, then - hopefully that helps somewhat.  I wield the Indigo Light of the Emotional Spectrum as my primary focus; it is an instrument of understanding, empathy, and compassion.  I also carry a focus for the Blue Light of Hope, which is about - belief, empowerment, inspiration, and healing.  There are other colors, and part of my facility with Indigo allows me to replicate their feats, but I imagine that to be less relevant than the spatial rift over there.  And, uh, all the zombies.  So what's going on, there?"

The flying horse guy stares at her, eyebrows steadily climbing as she speaks, but doesn't interrupt. He's dressed in plate armour, and the symbol of a flaming torch is picked out in gold thread on the front of his blue tabard. His ears are noticeably pointed at the top. 

"...I think you must be very far from home," he says when she's done, frowning slightly. "I've never heard of the places or artifacts you name, and I would expect to have heard of something as powerful as your Indigo Lantern. So, if I assume you have as little context about us..." He pauses for a second, marshalling his thoughts.

"The spatial rift you mentioned is known as the Shadowmouth. It's a tear between the Prime Material Plane and the Plane of Shadow, and it's been spewing out shades for over a thousand years. We're a mile or two from the Prime Material side of the rift, which is situated at the north pole of a planet called Corth." With a hint of irony, he adds, "Does any of that help?" 

"I think it actually might, come to think of it.  It confirms, at the least, that I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore," which comes across as clearly-an-idiom-for-radical-displacements, somehow, "though there's a remote possibility that you're just not on the surveys yet or the Guardians classified you, and implies that I'm probably going to be best served by digging into the wizards' grimoires I've archived rather than the Oan or Maltusian-issue Ring manuals about spatial warping.  Speaking of which, how are you doing what you're doing?"

"...do you mean the horse? I conjured it with a fourth-circle spell; I'm a fifth-circle paladin."

He says this last with a careful matter-of-fact humility that almost screams louder than any boast. A fifth-circle paladin is clearly impressive in the local context. 

"I meant the Light-work in general, but that does answer the question and simultaneously ask several more.  If we're going to be sealing that rift - what capabilities do paladins have, in general?"

Half a dozen of the black smoke clouds arrow towards them in a V formation, screeching. 

"If you want a full accounting of our work here and our resources, that might be a conversation better had behind our fortifications," the paladin suggests as he calmly unhooks the lance from his back.

"Give me the tactical notes," she replies, waving her staff as she summons a net, and then, if that doesn't work, a bottle - to catch, and not kill, because that's the more compassionate thing to do.

The smoke clouds can be caught just fine by a net made of indigo light. They are shocked and outraged about this fact and would like to scream at her about it. 

"Paladins have divine magic, the main relevant uses of which are healing, empowering our weapon strikes so we can hit incorporeal beings, calling down the divine flame to burn the shades, detecting undead and other evil creatures, protection from the same including protection from possession—I can get someone to cast that one on you if you need—" 

"I've got some of my own defenses, but I won't turn down redundancy."

And she will reel in the net and inspect the shades, from a good standoff distance.  Do they...have minds?  That are not solely constituted of hatred?

...they have minds!

They're, uh. Kind of like what you might get if you took a human mind, tore it into screaming pieces, let your dog chew on some of those pieces, dragged them through the mud, and then gave the result to a blind man and told him to stick it back together with spite, malice, and a deep conviction that all life in the cosmos should be wiped out. 

...oh no...

"...the poor dears.  Whoever did this to these creatures...

"Well.  I'm going to have no trouble rendering that agent unable to harm anyone ever again by means of point-blank annihilation."

...Can she fix it.

She believes she can, and thinks that they too deserve this chance, and knows that the harmonics of two colors of light united as one can overwhelm even something like Anti-Life from previous practical experience...

"Now," she breathes, "let's see if I can fix this."

She can easily identify and clear out the oily black malice that is so similar to Anti-Life, burning it away with mingled indigo and blue light. But without that glue, the tattered fragments of souls have nothing to hold themselves together, and they start to dissipate into nothingness. 

Worse, even if she can find something new to hold them together, the souls are incomplete, pieces missing and damaged. 

Then she will do something stupidly heroic, and love each and every fragment of a soul in her care, that they may love themselves in turn and be by their own side always, no matter how much she fears the consequences of tapping the outer forces, because she wants to succeed in her self-appointed task, and she's not going to give up just because it's difficult.

Something is missing, though, from the halo of symbols orbiting her staff as she frowns in concentration.  And she thinks she knows where it is.  It is in the part of herself that she keeps locked up, chained under lock and key and fire suppression system.  It is the rage that would burn her alive, if she let it - consuming whole her beating, compassionate heart.

And yet, tap this rage she must - the spectrum is incomplete, and time, however slowly it passes in these adrenaline-fueled moments, is still ticking.

::This will be dangerous to somebody no matter what happens as a result of what I do.  Maintain a safe distance.::

And then - she flies, shadows-wards.  Because - you know what, she is angry.  At the inherent senseless violence, at the forces behind the broken souls she carries with her, at the billions of deaths, re-deaths --

There is only time for a single incantation to steer the storm of light swirling about the lantern-head of her staff.  Whatever she's doing right now, it isn't in the manual, it isn't in the Ring, it is the weight of her soul upon the universe - she'd best choose wisely how she says it.

"A spectrum long divided, within me I unite;

From rage's bloody fire, to love's bright violet light;

Compassion binds together, against a sund'ring night -

For hope, want, fear, and will I: These souls, returned to life!"

The six captured wraiths within her net are engulfed in brilliant, blinding white light. 

When it fades, the ominous clouds of black smoke are gone, replaced with a group of six people who look very much alive, and incredibly confused. Also, they can't fly anymore, so it's a good thing the net is there to hold them up. 

Does anyone else want to get resurrected?  Come get some!

Her previous victims patients can go back to the paladins, a somatic gesture smoothing the net into a bubble with seats and a flick of her hand ready to send them on their way.  "Sorry about the disorientation, you kind of got chewed up in the soul and fixing that fast rather than gentle was a priority otherwise you'd be extra dead - should be easier to do next time but that wouldn't reassure me if I heard it now so the best I can do is offer apologies.  On the plus side, you're alive!  Please keep me informed about what you're experiencing over the next while; while I strongly believe you'll be okay, what I just did is something I only now devised."

Anyway she is busy and there are people to save.  And it's good work.

How many, she wonders, can she bring back, a nimbus of white light wrapped around her Lanternstaff and her Ring, as she tries to push her newfound power to its limits?  And who or what will try to stop her as she does?

(There always is some asshole.  Sometimes they even have reasons.)

Actually, most of the undead left in this valley are running (or flying) as fast as they can away from the powerful stranger and her bright light! Diana can outfly even the fastest of them, so she can chase them all the way back to the Shadowmouth a few miles north if she wants.

The exceptions are the shades she already transformed earlier, which are now softly glowing blue instead of grey and wispy. They're sort of standing around looking confused. 

...Yeah, she's going to chase them back to the Shadowmouth, you don't just scare off the entire enemy army and not pursue your advantage.

Though, once she has - by grabbing and resurrecting every wraith, ghost, and ghoul she can, leaving the almost-impossibly single-note shadows to flee - made her point, and plugged the hole in the world with a giant cork, as a temporary measure (though the way it twists eyewateringly as it goes into place, and looks like it's always pointing at you, suggests that this is not, actually, a standard cork slash forcefield construct so much as a 4D hypercork aligned along whatever axis this is; she played so many physics sims to get a good enough intuition for that that with a bit of Ring-work she could stabilize an effect to jam these sorts of things, given how often people tried to escape through teleporting and wormholes) - to give herself at least some precious time and warning, should a giant monster or evil god show up...

She'd best tend to those whose lives she's touched.

::Hello, everyone.::  A simple megaphone construct alloyed with Will and Want boosts her telempathic range, because that big a 'cork' actually takes quite a bit of power to hold, even with her raw channeling capacity and closeness to the device that actually taps the source of her powers, compared to most Lanterns' focus on their Rings.  ::I imagine that you are all very confused.  I cannot claim to be a source of answers for all but the most subsequently bemusing parts of what is likely to be confusing you, but as I am responsible for most of it regardless, I shall try.  First, though, an announcement: If you are blue and glowy, and you would rather be flesh and blood, I believe I can make that happen.::

She doesn't promise more than she's confident she can deliver.  It's a good idea to be careful of that.  You don't want to be someone's origin story.

::Now as for the answers I mentioned, the whats and whys and wherefores: I am an Indigo Lantern, a person chosen to wield and embody certain facets of emotion, from somewhere very far from here.  I wield the Indigo Light of understanding, compassion, and empathy.  It is by this means that I speak to you.  I am also gifted with a certain facility for other colors of Light - the Blue of hope, belief, optimism, tomorrow-being-better-than-today, primarily, though I also possess that certain stubbornness that allows one to effectively wield the Green of determination, decisive action, and commitment - and I will not wilfully mislead you as to whether seeing people suffer like you have has not led me to tap the depths of the Red light of - anger, rage, revulsion, rejection - in the past, to bring the force it carries to bear upon those who have made people suffer so.  That said, it is my understanding that the Emotional Spectrum is unknown here, so how useful that information is...may vary.::

::Regardless, whether or not you have heard of people like me before, or if I am the only such person - I am still here, and for what I presume are complicated metaphysical interaction reasons, I am super-effective against wraiths and shadows, and intend to use my capabilities, and power draw, to hold this line as firmly as the paladins.  I am not a being of infinite power, but this much I can do.::

Although, now that she thinks of it...

She can't just leave refugees from the Shadow Dimension locked up in there, and those grey spirits...They need help.

They need Hope.

So by the time someone catches up to her, they'll see her, almost lighthouse-lamp-bright Lanternstaff in one hand, crafts-tools in the other, starting on a ritual circle in Hope Blue with indigo accents, in the hopes that she will finish drawing that same restorative Hope-Empathy she used earlier, into a membrane over the spatial distortion she's observing in the now.

It won't solve the problem, but it will be a better patch.  She thinks.  She hopes.

And maybe this time it won't be interrupted by demons!