28th June 2007
04:00 GMT
"
You're out of uniform, recruit!"
Locating Lantern Kilowog's class was easy. Hardly any of Oa was inhabited, so it was just a matter of scanning for Lanterns anywhere other than the Citadel or its immediate surroundings. Gardner's description of him hadn't ever really conveyed his
bulk.
She raises her eyebrows slightly.
"I assumed that the uniform
selection was a training exercise. With sufficient willpower power rings will generate just about anything."
Or
not generate something, because you're perfectly happy with the clothes you're wearing. Though she realised after reviewing Kilowog's students that their various uniforms are all lacking an actual Lantern Corps insignia, each having some variation on a white circle where one
should be. She's just copied Alan and used a picture of a carriage lantern.
Kilowog regards her for a moment.
"You figure that out all by yourself,
recruit?"
"No, I've had two years' training from a man who's been a Green Lantern for over sixty years. The only reason I came to Oa at all was so that my ring would stop nagging me about it."
"
What Sector-? Two Eight One Four? That's Jordan and Gardner. They're not
veterans."
"No, but
Green Lantern Alan Scott-" The construct of her mentor appears in front of him. "-is."
Kilowog's eyes
glow faintly, his ring presumably updating him on the situation on Earth.
"No one called 'Alan Scott' has ever been part of the Green Lantern Corps."
"If you don't bother keeping track of who gets your rings, you shouldn't be surprised when their names aren't in your database. I've worked hard to impress him."
"If you wanna pass my class, poozer, you should work on impressing
me."
"But if I don't want to pass your class -and I
don't- then I don't have to impress you."
Kilowog shrugs. "Sure, you can quit. All you gotta do is hand in your ring."
She shakes her head. "I know perfectly well this class isn't compulsory."
"Ah…" One of the other recruits, an alien from a species
who resemble naga, nervously raises his upper right arm. "This isn't compulsory?"
Kilowog's jaw tenses in obvious irritation. "Not if you don't mind dyin' real early."
Jade senses weakness. Kilowog
must have access to her logs and reports, which means that he already knows that she's competent at the very least. He can't have his authority undermined in front of his class, but has no way to know
precisely how capable she is. Her ring has already told her that he's a veteran. Beating him might be
difficult, but the Green Lantern Corps wouldn't expect a Sector Lantern to be able to reliably beat a member of their Honour Guard anyway.
On the
other hand, if they don't know what Earth is like…
She smiles, challengingly. "No. The closest thing Jordan got to lessons was a few months following Sinestro around after he'd already had his ring for over a year. I honestly thought that Gardner got singled out for special treatment."
Gardner hasn't woken up from his coma yet, though the rest of his injuries are well on their way to mending. She remembers that he told her that he'd been trained by Lantern Kilowog, and appeared to genuinely respect him. Mocking him-.
There's a slight movement in Kilowog's jaw which her ring's body language analysis program tells her is a sign of irritation amongst his species. Excellent.
"Hal took part in some of
my lessons but frankly
I wasn't impressed."
"Not impressed, huh?"
"Only a fraction of the inhabited worlds in my Sector have faster than light communications. I spent most of the last month transporting panic buttons to planetary capitals, something which he'd never bothered to do. There aren't any extraplanetary extradition agreements, no agreements on what legal power Green Lanterns actually
have while on any particular world and he hadn't even introduced himself to more than half of them. Not that Gardner did any better."
Kilowog leans back, cracking his neck first to the left and then to the right.
"All right
Green Lantern. You trying to convince me that you're ready?"
"If I
have to."
"One test for you. You ready?"
She doesn't nod. She keeps staring him in the eyes,
her ring analysing his features and microexpressions for a clue as to what he's about to do.
He
floats back slightly, then raises his right arm and
generates a fortified wall construct. It's
huge, easily a mile tall and three wide, the construct designed to look like solid metal emblazoned with the Green Lantern Corps' symbol.
"
Break my wall, rookie."
She doesn't believe that she can power through a construct created by a member of the Honour Guard. On the
other hand, she's always found it easier to focus on active constructs than passive ones. If this is the whole of the test-.
Much as she hated him, her time with her father left her instinctively suspicious. And unlike Alan, she doesn't know Lantern Kilowog well enough to suspend that instinct.
Something is going to happen. But
the wall still needs to come down.
She doesn't move her hands, but a
giant drill construct forms in front of her,
rotates at steadily increasing speed until it's a conical blur and then
slams into the wall.
Kilowog regards the attack with apparent disinterest as his construct shakes very slightly, tiny flecks of green flaking off the impact point and evaporating. But she's watching closely. Closely enough to spot the iridescent green line dropping down to ground level and creeping towards her. Splitting concentration like that is hard for a Green Lantern; she can
do it, but it generally results in unacceptably weak constructs. Multipurpose constructs are generally superior, but she understands why he's doing this. It demonstrates a level skill most of the recent recruits can't hope to duplicate, while simultaneously putting her in her place. And
then she'd be ordered to fall in line.
Unless she actually
did break through the wall, but while she's making
some progress it isn't going to fall to a construct-attack any time soon.
And then the
green strand leaps up from below, wrapping around her as Kilowog grins-.
And then the holographic projection fails in a shimmer of grey-blue. Kilowog starts, his grappling construct fading as he loses focus. Her ring floats free in the air for a moment and then
flies back towards her actual body. Her armour's stealth system disengages as she flies forward, letting the ring
land on her right ring finger as she
slams the crumbler gauntlet mounted on her right arm into Kilowog's wall!
It doesn't fall apart, not completely. That by itself makes her
momentarily consider applying for some sort of advanced class, because
she's never been able to hold a construct together against a crumbler attack. If they even
offer advanced classes. But a hole about ten feet in diameter has evaporated into green vapour, and she's
easily able to fly through it.
And then she folds her arms across her cuirass and waits silently in front of Lantern Kilowog.
"Huhm."
He flexes the fingers of his right hand, dismissing the great wall construct. She suspects that he wants to call that cheating, but sour grapes now would destroy his credibility. Grudgingly, he nods.
"You thought I was going to try something before you got here."
"I had an interesting childhood."
"I know your species; at sixteen you're still a child-."
"
Are we done here?"
"You got through, you pass the cla-."
The universe
cracks, the sky turns red and for a brief moment she sees a vast tuning fork, a red crystal floating between the tines, a hundred copies of her bound to one and a hundred copies of a man she's never met bound to the other.
She
raises a shield-.
"Acquisition successful."
And then she sees nothing.
