Sword of The Lanterns

Chapter Thirteen- First Mission

"Wait a minute- there are more lanterns!?"

"Talk less, focus more!" John barked.

Though they made her stay at the mountain, John and Hal were still Jaina's mentors. She was advanced in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, and she was continuing her force-using lessons with Anakin in secret, but she still had to work with using the full abilities of her power.

Namely, her ring.

Jaina held up her ring arm again, using her shield to block the barrage of green bullets from the machine gun John made from his ring.

"Don't just play defense, Jaina, fight back!" John urged.

On the sidelines, Hal continued talking.

"There are nine different colors of lanterns. Green, our color, is fueled by willpower."

At John's insistence, Jaina called out her sword, dismissing her shield and holding the hilt firmly with both hands.

"Our rings' power is almost limitless, but it is useless against the color yellow, the color of the lantern Corp powered by fear.

"There is also red, powered by anger; orange, powered by greed; blue, powered by hope; purple, powered by mercy or compassion, and violet-pink, powered by love." Hal's face went slightly red when he mentioned the last Corp.

"There's also white and black, for life and death." John rattled off the last two corps, easily blocking all of Jaina's lunges.

Jaina took a deep breath, but Hal was surprised to see that she hadn't even broken a sweat yet.

"Am I supposed to be memorizing all these or something? Because I wasn't paying attention." Jaina smirked, her green blade clashing against one that John had created out of his ring mana.

Hal shook his head and resigned himself to watching the sparring match. Soon enough, Jaina managed to knock John's blade from out of his grasp, hit him in the gut with her hilt, and sweep his legs put from under him.

"Very good." Hal clapped slowly, walking back over to them. "A couple more weeks and you'll be able to pin Killawog. Maybe."

Jaina beamed. "Thanks, Hal." She threw her arms around his waist, hugging Hal tightly.

"What, no love for the beat-up mentor?" John asked. Jaina grinned, just missing the fatherly expression Hal was watching her with.

"You know, Jaina," John scooped her up and set her on his shoulders, "I think you're ready for your first mission."

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"This is the country of Tamba, in Eastern Africa." Batman pulled up a map of a land mass that resembled the mirror image of an upside-down "L", with a small, rectangular portion of land outlined in yellow.

"It's about halfway around the world," Kid Flash whispered to Jaina helpfully. The nine team members were all lined up in front of the computers in the training room, but they lacked that happy-go-lucky attitude Jaina had sensed when they were training with Black Canary.

"It's more like a quarter of the way around the world." Robin hissed from the other side of Jaina. Batman coughed, making both boys go silent.

"Ten hours ago, a group of terrorists infiltrated the capital city of Lowethe and kidnapped almost one hundred children, all selected randomly, from the local elementary and junior high schools."

"They're all about five to fourteen," Kid Flash continued his side comments for Jaina's assistance.

"They hacked the entire country's news network, announcing what they had done, and claiming that they did it because they oppose the country's new law, which requires girls to be taught alongside boys in every public school."

"Why isn't Tamba's military and police taking care of this?" Artemis demanded.

"Tamba's chief military commander claims that he is unable to track the terrorists, but we have confirmation that he has done nothing to even attempt to find these children. Your mission is to find the children and find any connection between the commander and the terrorists."

Jaina swallowed. "Batman, shouldn't we rescue the kids too? Or was that read between the lines?"

Batman shook his head. "You're on a covert team now, Girl Lantern. You are not meant to be broadcast on TV or widely known among the public like the Justice League. Find the connection, and hopefully that will be enough to convince Tamba's president to allow the UN and the Justice League to help."

Jaina stared at her feet, clenching her hands into fists.

"Hopefully." Could Batman hear how hollow his words sounded?

No one else questioned the orders, and the team boarded the bioship post-haste. There would be plenty of time for Aqualad to form a plan en-route to Tamba.

*Tamba is a fictional country, made purely for the story.