FINDING THE WAYA Lesson in Heroism
by Jay Menapace -- XFiles9000@aol.com
A blast of green energy ripped through the training robot, who was torn apart like a ragdoll caught in a maelstrom. "Ooooooh, yeah!" howled Green Lantern. "That's the last one! These robots don't want NONE! That was too easy." Kyle Rayner surveyed the robotic carnage around him with a look of the utmost satisfaction. The oversized blaster mounted on his shoulder, reminiscent of a weapon from RoboTech, smoked with blue energy.
Materializing from invisibility in mid-air, and floating effotlessly down to meet GL was J'onn J'onnz, or, as his friends in the Justice League, and the adoring public at large, called him, the Martian Manhunter. As the green blaster faded from Kyle's shoulder, he grinned at the large Martian. "Well, chief, how'd I do??"
"You adequately neutralized the threats."
"Adequately?! Are you on crack, J'onn?! I totally trashed their tin asses!"
"Indeed you did, Kyle, but there is more to a battle than 'trashing.' You wear on your finger the most powerful weapon in the universe, and yet, throughout the battle, you relied on it solely to create a 'manga-gun,' as you called it. You need to realize that the power you have been entrusted with has uses far beyond creating loud weapons of destruction."
"Of course it is, J'onn! But it was the quickest way to get rid of the robots!"
Martian Manhunter sighed. "Here, Kyle, let me tell you a story. It is about Hal Jordan and I, before you had become last of the Green Lanterns. In fact, it was before many of our current teammates had joined...you were probably still a young teenager at the time..."
The voice of Barry Allen, the Flash, blared over the Justice League's monitors. "The Guardians of the Universe just contacted me mentally from Oa! A massive invasion of the Earth is making its way toward us from Qward! J'onn! Green Lantern! You're on the case! It's go-time, boys!"
Moments later, in space above the Earth's atmosphere, Hal Jordan, first Green lanter of Earth, and the Martian Manhunter, were tearing through a massive ship. As launch-pods jettisoned from the mother-craft, deadly, yellow Qwa-bolts rained down on the two heroes.
"You will not succeed this time, Green Lantern! The Earth will fall before the crippling might of the Qwardian Empire!" blared a voice that seemed to come from all around them. If Green Lantern had been anything short of fearless, the words which his Power Ring translated into soundwaves in his ears due to the vaccuum of space would have filled him with dread. The Qwardians were ruthless, and they had the firepower to back up their typical-supervillain threats.
Green Lantern created a huge emerald megaphone, which split so that a speaker was outside the windshield of each yellow Qwardian launch-pod. "Not in this lifetime!" The ampified soundwaves of Hal Jordan's voice shattered the clear windshields of the launch-pods. The Qwardians abandoned ship, but regrouped. They wore highly powerful yellow spacesuits, complete with jetpacks to maneuver in space. Reaching back, the Qwardians threw Qwa-bolt after Qwa-bolt at their enemies. "If they hit me," thought the Emerald Warrior grimly, "my emerald shield-bubble will do me little good! Because of a necessary impurity within the Power Ring, I am vulnerable to yellow!" Maneuvering around the hail of Qwa-bolts coming from all directions, GL became separated from J'onn. He looked over to see his friend in great distress. The Qwa-bolts had set the Martian's cape aflame, thus exploiting the one vulnerability J'onn J'onnz had.
"Goodbye, heroes!" mocked the Qwardian commander, as the invasion force bore down on the Earth below at dizzying speed. "You are defeated, Green Lantern! You cannot save your friend and pursue us at once!"
The Emerald Warrior did not offer a response. With a wave of his hand, he sent a fire extinguisher held by a green hand across space, to extinguish the flames which imperiled the Manhunter from Mars. All that remained of the fire was the yellow light, unable to be extinguished by the Power Ring. Jordan acted quickly, however, creating a battery to store white light coming from the sun, and filtering it through directly above J'onn J'onnz in concentrated form. It stored and re-channeled the red, orange, green, blue, indigo, and violet rays...all except the yellow light...as the altered light passed over Martian Manhunter, the yellow light of the fire joined the other colors of the spectrum, and in a burst of white light, the Martian hero was no worse for the wear. Without missing a beat, Hal Jordan reached across deep space with a green solid light arm. "Power Ring, find the nearest asteroid belt, and create an energy trail to transport them here!" A few moments later, several asteroids were floating next to the wielder of the Power Ring in space. Gripping an asteroid with claw-like porjections from the Power Ring, Jordan created a device that crushed the asteroids and scattered their fragments at the escaping Qwardians.
"ARRRRGH!!!" screamed the Qwardian commander as his suit was schredded by a fragment of rock. "How can this be?! The Power Ring should have no effect on our yellow suits!"
"The Power Ring merely hurls the rock at you! Your suits are perfectly vulnerable to the rocks, you fool!" laughed the Green Lantern as he and J'onn flew to catch the Qwardians as they fell to the Earth. Those still with jetpacks swirled around in the air, and Martian Manhunter flew up to do battle with them, taking on a good half of the invasion force by himself.
Meanwhile, Hal Jordan lowered himself to a landing, staring without fear into the eyes of the Qwardain commander, who was smiling maliciously. "What do you have to be so happy about, villain?" demanded Jordan. "Your invasion is foiled!"
"Not quite, Green Lantern!" cackled the Qwardian commander. "I know something you don't!" Learing angrily, he thre a switch on a keypad strapped to his battle armor. Qwa-bolts flew toawrd Jordan and circled around him, faster and faster, creating, as they had been programmed, a highly powerful field akin to an elctromagentic field, though this field was highly sophisticated and set to attract scrap metal from the wreckage of the Qwardian's equipment. Soon, Hal Jordan was encased in a yellow prison which he could not use the Power Ring to cut himself out of. "What now, Green Lantern??" maligned the Qwardian commander.
Extending his arm within his suffocating prison, Jordan created a green field around him to produce oxygen for his body from green tendrils which seeped through the cracks in the yellow prison. He closed his eyes and created giant eyeballs and optic never systems which provided his mind's eyes with a hazy green view of the world outside of him. Sighting the Qwardian commander, he sent an emerald hand out to grab a nearby stone with which he bashed the protective helmet of the would-be conqueror. Quickly, the hand became a helmet of sorts, enveloping the head of the Qwardian and sending confusing flashes of green light in all shades and hues, and emitting a cacophony of sounds, scrambling the Qwardian's senses, rendering him into a fit of convulsions on the ground. Once again the ring projection became a hand, and, using the Power Ring to scan its workings, the hand pressed the correct sequnce to de-activate the Qwa-bolts creating the prison which held Jordan.
In the air, the Qwardians cuaght sight of their leader falling, and those who had not already been taken down by the Martian Manhunter retreated, calling for an emergency envoy to pick them up. Seizing sand from around him, the Green Lantern applied pressure and heat unheard of to normal human methods, and fired crude diamonds at the escaping villain's jetpacks. As they fell to Earth, they were either caught by the Martian Manhunter, or by the Jordan himself, seizing the brown sections of their suits. Once on solid ground, they were secured, and prepared to be sent to the Slab, the Earth's prison for metahuman and extraterrestrial threats. As they flew back to the Secret Sanctuary, the headquarters of the JLA in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, the Manhunter from Mars and the Emerald Warrior exchanged smiles. They had successfully warded off an invasion of the Earth. Not bad for a day's work...
"Wow!" excalimed Kyle Rayner. "What a cool story! But, uhhh, J'onn, it's great that Hal was so skilled with the ring, but how does that affect my ring? It doesn't have that yellow impurity, so half of those pickles Hal got into, I don't even have to worry about!"
"True, Kyle, but let the story be a reminder that there will be situations you will encounter that require thought before action, and you will need to do more with the power at your disposal than fire a blaster. The energy contained in your ring is of the same nature as Jordan's, as well as the solid yellow light constructs Guy Gardner controlled while he carried the Sinestro ring. In fact, Guy was once a Green Lantern, as you know, before he internalized the Vuldarian Warrior power now at his command. He and Hal were once great rivals...but that is a story for another day. Suffice it to say that you should follow their example and learn to master your altered Green Lantern energy. Never forget that even the most vast and great power means little if you do not think of ways to utilize it to its full potential."
"I think I see, now J'onn! Thank you!" exclaimed GL. His sentence was all but cut off by the sound of the AOLert. Batman's voice came booming over the loudspeakers.
"We have an outbreak of metahuman violence on a grand scale in the town of Kennebunkport, Maine!"
"Set the teleporters, Batman!" shouted J'onn.
"I can't, Manhunter! Somehow, these villains have remotely jammed all of our systems. Does anyone know where this town is so we can get there?! I can locate it on the map, but I can't get the directions! None of us have ever been to the town! We know where the trouble is, but we can't find the way!"
In a flash of green energy, Green Lantern was standing beside the Dark Knight. He snatched the map from his hands, and, enclosing Batman and the other occupants of the room: Princess Diana of the Amazons, Wonder Woman, Wally West, the Flash, Dick Grayson, Nightwing, and Clak Kent, Superman, as well as the quickly following Martian Manhuner in a green energy bubble, he began to acend into the skies. He held the map to his face, and using his ring, he etched the map's details into his mask, superimposing the map onto his field of vision. He flew higher and higher into the heavens until the map's scale was the same as his vision of the Earth. Aiming the ring, he created a telescopic beam that became a green-light trail right to the town of Kennebunk. Flying at top speed, his fellow Leaguers behind him in the bubble, he brought the League to a triumphant landing, facing off against the surprised supervillains.
"What is this? Heroes?! How?"
"We're the Justice League, punk," responded Green Lantern, powering up to lead the charge. "And you are out of luck!"
The End.
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