Jane and the Guardians: Sword of the Lady

Chapter 12

The Lady's white radiance fills the room and her energy is melting paint and singeing everything. The room is an oven and only John remains, who with the Sword of Justice on his wrist, adds to the heat with his own golden radiance. The two are staring each other down, waiting for the other to make a move like an old fashion gunfight.

Jane is sweating, but not because of the temperature. All that big talk got everyone out of danger, for the moment. But what am I suppose to do now? Mrs. Smith never taught me how to fight. I've never been in a fight before. How am I supposed to beat a Guardian Captain who has the same amount of power as I do but with years of training? Not only does this Lady have no plan, she doesn't even know what to do... Well, here goes nothing.

Jane gets into an Arrow stance and makes a forceful punch towards John. A torrent of white energy shoots from her fist and engulfs John. The energy melts a trench in the solid marble floor between her and the far wall, where there is now a large opening. John remains within his golden dome-shaped shield unharmed with a smile on his face. "Like I was telling you, you cannot defeat me."

Jane starts circling John and continues to shoot energy blasts at him from different angles. After a few blasts, John has to turn with Jane to reinforce the shield where Jane's blasts are striking. Clever girl, trying to test if there is a weakness in my shield. Cracks are forming in the shield but John quickly repairs them and maintains the integrity of the shield with ease. Jane increases her speed and John pivots like a top and keeps up his defenses. A ring of white radiance surrounds the golden dome and both Jane and John have become blurs of light.

Without changing speed, Jane shoots all her blasts toward one point above the dome, merged them, and brings it down as one huge blast on the dome. John squats down into a Horse stance and pushes up with his hands against the blast. The dome shatters and John sinks knee deep into the floor. John focuses his energy into his legs and starts the Wraith Steps. How the heck did she become such a good fighter?

Jane projects into John's mind, You taught me, remember? You were in my head, which meant I was also in yours. You might have learned mind control from the man in black, but the mind is the domain of the Lady.

"Underestimating you might be the end of me."

"Nah, at most I would just hurt you a little. Ending is not my style."

"My Lady has a style now," amused, John comments in his irresistibly charming smile.

"Get used to it, I'm figuring all kinds of things out."

"Enlighten me, my Lady."

"You're stalling because your arms are numb from that last attack. And the next step to the Wraith Steps is here." Jane steps in front of John and punches him in the face.

John falls to the ground and skids all the way to the far wall from the blow. While much of the force from the punch was deflected by the Sword's protective shield, he slowly gets to his feet, as he is stunned at the sudden turn of events. "Very well, let's see how much you have learned." He raises both arms, forming wide arcs of golden light with his palms, and brought his hands together above his head. A large blade of golden illumination extends from his hands and John brings it down on top of Jane's head. The entire mansion is severed by a wide crevice and titters on the brink of falling in on itself.

Jane steps gracefully to her right to avoid the earth shaking attack and forms a slender sword of white radiance in her right hand. In comparison, her normal length sword looks minuscule. She swings the sword around her twice and pulls it back above her head parallel to the ground pointing at John to an elegant Opening Pose.

"The Lady's Sword fighting style, very impressive," John compliments in a tone that hardly contains his surprise.

"Straight A student," Jane smiles with the innocence of a teenage girl.

John separates his hands and the blade becomes two. He swings them downward from different angles at Jane's head. She turns her sword and steps forward to parry the strikes. John continues with a sequence of dual blade attacks from different directions but each time Jane easily sweeps them away. John starts to increase his pace and adds the Wraith Steps to increase the unpredictability of his attacks. Without changing the expression on her face, Jane continues to simply parry away John's attacks. She only defends and does not counter.

How can this little girl be this good? I disintegrated Margaret and she didn't even put up a fight... John changes his steps and focuses all the energy of the Sword to make each attack faster and more powerful.

"Reverse Wraith Steps, you were saving that one for Mrs. Smith. And you've maxed out the Sword's power. How much longer do you intend to continue?" Jane asks as if she's bored playing a childish game with a little kid.

"To the end," John says with steely conviction, incredulous that his best attacks, developed from years of regimented training, have been rendered insignificant by the casual waves of an unassuming weapon in the hand of a little girl.

"Okay, so let's end this," the little girl replies in a singsong manner that belies the fact that millions of lives are in the balance.

Jane steps towards John and starts drawing circles in the air with her sword. John brings the two blades together in front of him and charges at her. As he gets closer to Jane, John's sword starts to swirl, following the circular motion of Jane's sword. By the time the swords touched, John has completely lost control and is being spun around by Jane. Trying to escape, John sidesteps and backs away from Jane but can't pull himself from the vortex. Jane's little circles are like tornadoes and John a kite without a string, who is now completely off of his feet and spinning at Jane's will.

Jane reaches out with her left hand and pulls the bracelet and the ring off of John's hand. Now, that the outcome has been decided, she steps back and powers down. John stands frozen, looking at same teenage girl who was so innocently infatuated with him just a few days ago. In the span of a few minutes, his fortunes turned from the brink of controlling humanity to being humiliated by an untrained Lady. His world is about to end. At least I believed in something and I tried my best.

"No John, it doesn't end for you here. You believed in something but that's not what Guardians are supposed to do. You are supposed to believe in me. Do you think you can do that?" Jane holds out her hand to John as if to a child with a kind, sweet smile.

"I don't know. It all depends on what you are going to do from now."

"I understand. You need meto prove myself to you. Iwill. Give me sometime and I willrestore your faith in the Lady once again. That's what you really wanted all along, isn't it, tobelieve again? I'm sorry you everlost your faith. But know this, theLady never lost her faith in you and you were always part of her plan." Jane turns and walks out of the roomleaving John to ponder what he should do next.