FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS:
Look who came in the mail this week:
Yes, that be the legit Jaina Solo official Star Wars 6" Black Series action figure. There were still some on Amazon last I checked, so if you want one you gotta move fast!
Ready to defend the campus from Imperial resurgents, alien terrorists, Yuuzhan Vong, and maybe even a Black Lantern or two ;)
Check out that classic lopsided Solo smirk. Han would be proud.
SECOND: POTJ won first in the Green Lanterns Category of the 2017 DC Comics Watty awards! I don't think this series will have another book, but I want to thank you all so much for the support and love that you've given these two books (don't worry, this isn't the last chapter in this book, no worries XD)
And THIRD;
Honestly, you all know what's gonna happen in this chapter. Wally will "die" or whatever and Jaina will lapse back into her depression/ptsd after losing another brother figure and lean back on the self-destructive habits that she tried to leave behind when she came to Earth. So before you read all of that in detail, get comfortable. Snuggle up in a warm sweater or blanket for comfort, get plenty of water to replenish your tears, get a brownie or a milkshake or some other comfort food to snack on, and prepare yourselves for the worst.
WARNING: Extensive wounds and blood.
"Not that I'm not happy to see you, Gramps, but can we do this later?" Jaina plead.
Anakin waved his arms to get her attention. "Jaina, you need to listen to me. I don't have much time before the force-"
"I'm helping the team bring the Reach in tomorrow so that they're ready to head to court when Hal and the others can get back. This should be what the force wants me to do, right? Can I please just have one night of privacy and rest?"
"Jaina, I have information that may help you tomorrow!"
Jaina crossed her arms tightly and pouted. "What is it?" She growled through gritted teeth.
Then she got a good look at Anakin's face.
It was blue and glowing, so it was kind of hard to make out some of the details, but his eyes were wide, scared. His jaw was clenched and his movements seemed strained and erratic.
"Anakin- Grampa, what's wrong?" She asked. Fear tugged at her gut, though she knew she shouldn't let it.
Anakin's mouth moved, but no sound came out.
"No!" Jaina shouted. She lunged for the ghostly remains of her grandfather, the first of the line of chosen Skywalkers. He was shouting now, or at least trying to. But something kept the sound from reaching Jaina's ears, which felt clogged by some cloudy, dense material. The same sensation was trying to obscure her vision, but she was determined to fight it.
"Grampa!" She screamed, reaching for his outstretched hand.
"Jaina..." His mouth formed her name one more time as his robes began to fade away with the stars.
"Don't trust the force."
"Jaina!"
She shot up, breathing heavily. Jessica jumped back from the bedside, struggling to return her heart rate to normal.
"Oh, Jess, I'm sorry-" Jaina panted, but it just felt like the air wouldn't reach her lungs. Her dream had been terrifying, but she couldn't remember what, exactly, she had dreamed about. It was more frustrating than when she had lost her memories.
"What is it?"
"Nightwing called," Jessica swallowed her nerves.
"It's time."
-------
They were placed on Alpha squad, along with Aqualad, Blue Beetle, and Green Beetle, though they were still wary of the latter. Jessica was having a hard time trusting Aqualad, but she trusted Jaina, who had faith in Kaldur. Jaina just hoped that both scarabs were off-line for good now.
The nerves of the morning melted away as Jaina confidently slipped her ring back on. Captain Atom had revealed the evidence that the team had gathered against the Reach and the Light to the United Nations, who immediately rescinded the invitation for the Reach to stay on Earth. Ganthet had immediately contacted Jaina while she was en-route to the Watchtower, officially giving her the authority to act in place of the Guardians of the Universe and bring the Reach into custody.
Nothing would have given her greater pleasure.
"Is it bad that I'm grateful for Godfrey at this moment?" Jaina mused contentedly. She grinned as she watched the anchorman leading the riots outside the UN, demanding that the Reach's bug-like ship leave at once. The bug-like ship that she was currently sneaking aboard with her friends.
"So long as he keeps them distracted, I suppose I do not mind him as much either," Kaldur shrugged. He was taller, and the manta-suit had kept his muscle growth hidden, but now he wore his old Aqualad suit, back in command of the team again. He looked a little different, but a good kind of different.
The ship's doors were no match for raw Atlantean strength, and they were momentarily on the deck, facing Black Beetle and the Reach Scientist.
"Lay down your arms! You are all under arrest for breaking your treaty with the Guardians of the Universe, and tampering with the people of Earth!" Jaina aimed her ring at Black Beetle, obviously the most dangerous person in the room.
He gave a feral shout, and leaped across the room, fueled by his jetpack.
"Warrior, no!" The Reach Scientist cried in futility. Jaina blocked Beetle's hits at the last second, and Jaime used a "giant staple" to pin the scientist to the window.
Power Ring and the Beetles attacked the swarms of guards that flooded the bridge as alarms echoed through the ships, while Green Lantern and Aqualad faced Black Beetle.
Jaina pointed her glowing ring at him. "Don't suppose it's too much to ask you to come quietly?"
Black Beetle growled, sizing up his two opponents.
"You are alone, warrior," Kaldur observed.
"I am sufficient!" He snapped.
Jaina grinned, the light of her ring glowing brighter and brighter. "We'll see."
As Black Beetle charged at them, Blue and Green blocking any incoming Reach soldiers, Jaina formed a sword out of green ring mana. It wasn't the same one she'd used year ago, but it felt the same to her. She let the ring's power flow through her, preparing her to strike alongside Kaldur.
Aqualad went low and Lantern went high, forcing Black Beetle to calculate between the two of them. His eyes narrowed at Aqualad, and Jaina had all but forgotten the cannon on Black Beetle's chest a moment before he fired it at Kaldur, throwing him back up against the wall. Kaldur fell to the floor, and remained still.
Jaina couldn't let herself be distracted by him. She had to take out Black Beetle on her own now, and the odds were skewed slightly more in his favor. While she blocked his right arm from swinging a serrated sword in her direction, the left arm- also holding a sword- came at her from the side.
Her arm went numb. A second later, every nerve in her shoulder cried out. She wanted to cry out, but all that her body would let her do in response to the overwhelming pain was gasp.
Her ring clattered to the floor, next to her arm. Black Beetle grabbed her by her good shoulder before the rest of her could follow it, forcing her wide eyes to stare into his.
"What did I say, meat? You Lanterns are all pathetic."
Jaina barely registered being flung across the room after Kaldur. She crumpled to the floor next to him as he slowly tried to get back to his feet, grasping for his water bearers.
Jaina looked around. Was her arm bleeding or not? Where were Blue and Jess? Where was her ring?
"Jaina-" Kaldur tried to hold her back as she launched herself across the bridge, reaching for her severed limb and the ring that had rolled to a stop next to it.
It shattered under Black Beetle's foot a second later.
No.
Her one escape. The biggest certainty and comfort in her life was snuffed out in an instant.
"Jaina," Kaldur's voice broke through the static that plugged up her ears.
"Jaina, focus on me," Her erratic breathing and blinking tried to focus on his face, but it only slowed when he brushed her cheek. A gesture so gentle, but strong enough to lean on.
"Jaina," He repeated her name again to hold her attention from the shock.
"Jaina, it will be okay."
He had torn off half of his red shirt, wrapping it around the half of her arm that was still attached to her shoulder. The blood melted into the color of the cloth, and any blood that dripped through onto her black suit disappeared just as easily. Jessica knelt next to them, doing her best to ignore the amount of blood as she tried to make the ring of Volthoom listen to her and make a tourniquet.
Black Beetle and Green Beetle lay on the floor, the shattered remains of their armor and scarabs littered on the bridge around them as they breathed slowly, but surely. Jaime stood in between them, staring at Black Beetle, horrified.
"What have you done?" His whisper carried across the silent bridge as the rest of Alpha squad approached him. Jaina didn't have the coherence to prevent Kaldur from carrying her like a baby. She doubted she could carry herself anyways.
"It is over; we have won. But Lantern is in shock, we must get her to the Watchtower."
"No, we lost," Jaime said. Even Jaina could not miss the hopelessness in his voice.
"When my scarab tapped into Black's, it found out that he's already set in motion a plan to erase all evidence of the Reach's attempt to conquer us- by destroying the Earth."
-------
Kaldur kept talking to her. She forgot the words a moment after he' said them, but he kept telling her to focus on his voice, not on the pain. But Jaina couldn't feel any pain.
Black Canary and Doctor Mid-Nite, the League's on-call doctor, met them at the zeta-tubes with a gurney. The team's freshmen were all oo-ing and ahh-ing at the watchtower. Senior team members were all crowding around Jaina's cot even as Canary tried to shoo them off so that there was room to move it. Captain Atom was calling Nightwing, Aqualad, and Blue Beetle over to the computers.
"Does someone want to say, exactly, what the heck is going on!?" Lagoon Boy shouted, everything suddenly went silent, and the rest of the League zeta'd in.
"The world's about to end." Jessica blurted out.
"Again? I thought we just stopped that." Bart said.
"No, we just started it," Jaime grit his teeth as Nightwing pulled him over to Atom.
"Jessica, go with Jaina. Keep talking to her." Kaldur said, glancing at the Captain out of the corner of his eye.
"What do I say to her?" Jessica took a step after Canary.
"Just keep her awake-" Kaldur turned around and ran right into Raquel and Zatanna.
"Kal, what happened to your shirt?" Raquel asked, cheeks flushed.
"Come on," Kid Flash, Wally, put his arm around Jessica, escorting her down the hall to the med wing with Artemis.
"Come on Jaina," Canary grit her teeth as she tried to pull her hair back and attach the probes to Jaina's chest at the same time, "You can pull through this."
"How long ago did she begin bleeding?" Mid-Nite asked. Though blind, his infrared goggles allowed him to move around and consult the computers with ease.
Canary turned to Power Ring for an answer as she stood in the doorway with Kid Flash and Artemis.
"Um, uh, maybe twenty, thirty minutes ago?" She mumbled uncertainly.
Canary nodded, noting Jessica's pale face at the same time. "Artemis, take Jessica somewhere to calm down. We're going to need her in top shape if the world really is ending, as Beetle says.
Artemis nodded, turning down the hall to bring Jess to her friends, but Wally entered the room, crouching next to Jaina.
"Hey, Jay, it's me. The Wall-man. Your twin, remember?" He cracked a joke, squeezing her good hand.
Jaina's eyes fluttered up at him. "Jasa?" She whispered deliriously.
"She's lost a lot of blood already. I don't want to risk giving her any anesthesia," Mid-Nite shook his head.
"Wally, keep talking to her. Keep her distracted." Canary barked.
Wally nodded resolutely. "Hey, Jay, what time is it when an Elephant steps on your watch?"
"Huh?" Jaina slurred.
Wally managed a grin. "Time to get a new watch, duh!"
Jaina laughed. She really was out of it.
"She's going to need a blood transfusion," Mid-Nite continued as Canary helped him with the scrubs.
"What's her blood type?"
Wally swallowed, forcing himself to keep from squeezing Jaina's hand too tight and cutting off all the circulation. "Hey Jaina, I doubt you know this one. How does NASA throw a party?"
Jaina grinned wobbily. "They planet."
"What! How did you know that one?" Wally was at a loss.
Jaina giggled. She'd never tell.
Wally shook his head with a chuckle, pushing her hair back from her face. The way Mid-Nite and Canary were talking with each other made him nervous.
"Jasa?" Jaina said. Wally didn't reply, but she continued anyway as Mid-Nite began to operate to seal her wound.
"I forgive you."
"For what?" Wally asked. He really was curious. Jasa. Jacen was her brother, wasn't he? What was she forgiving him for?
"For turning evil." She said bluntly. "Granpa turned evil, but he turned good too, so maybe you could have turned good too.
"Do you forgive me?"
"For what?" Wally's throat ran dry.
Jaina's eyes fluttered closed. "For killing you?"
-------
An hour later, Jaina heard a quiet whispering just beyond her range of hearing.
She tried to say something, but all that came out was a slurred moan.
"Jaina!"
"Calm down, Wally." Tenel Ka. No wait, Artemis?
"Jaina, can you hear us?" Connor. Raynar? No, Connor.
"Jaina," Kaldur and Zekk's green eyes stared down at her.
"Jaina, you're going to be okay," Kaldur told her slowly.
"For now, at least," Nightwing huffed. Ani had never been that angry.
"She will be okay!" M'gann scolded him loudly.
Raquel held Jaina's good hand. "You lost a lot of blood. You're going to need more, but your blood type doesn't match any made on Earth, so we're going to wait for the Lanterns to get back before we do anything." She said slowly.
That was a mouthful, but Jaina managed to process it.
"What time izzit?"
"A couple hours after you faced Black Beetle," Zatanna smoothed back her hair.
"The team and the League and all our friends are going out to stop the Reach's endgame before we can blow them back to space." Raquel grinned hopefully.
"All operatives, report to Metropolis!" Captain Atom's voice over the Watchtower's PA was static in Jaina's ears.
Wally kissed Jaina's forehead as they slowly filed out. "Bee and Doctor Mid-Nite are here, they'll keep an eye on you." Bee beeped an affirmative from the floor.
"You'll be back though, right?"
"Yes, Jaina, we will," Kaldur promised, lingering in the door as he waited for Wally.
"Promise?" Jaina grabbed Wally's hand.
Wally grinned at her.
"Promise."
-------
Bee hacked the League transmission, broadcasting the play-by-play of twenty squads spread across the globe to stop twenty Magnetic Field Disruptors with the help of "Anti-Reach Software" developed by Lex Luthor.
Jaina huffed like a child. "I could've made that. And better. And more honest." She tried to cross her arms, but only one arm responded. She ran her fingers over the stitches on her left stump, wishing for bacta. Did Tenel Ka feel this helpless after she lost her arm? Did Uncle Luke? Did Granpa?
She exhaled slowly as Lagoon Boy declared a victory for his squad. She tried to block out all the noise and the shock. She struggled to clear her mind, but even so, she didn't receive a reply.
"Granpa, where are you?" She thought, "Granpa, I need you." She just wanted someone to hold her.
She was jolted from her thoughts as Wally burst back into the room with Artemis.
"Eleven down! Nine to go!" He declared as if he were watching a football game, snagging the seat next to Jaina to watch Bee's projection of the feed.
"Feeling any better, Jay? We brought you saltines and Jello." Artemis said.
Jaina slowly ate a cracker. "How's everyone else doing?"
"Well, no one's dead yet. I've got a pretty good feeling about this." Wally grinned. They helped her prop up her pillows as the other's trekked in, tired and smelling like laser smoke, but relieved and alive.
"Fifteen down," Zatanna grinned. "The Reach honestly thought they could beat us?"
"Well, obviously they've never encountered the stubbornness of humans and their incredible willpower before," Raquel grinned.
Jaina took another cracker before Wally almost shoved a spoonful of green jello in her mouth. "Hal did say that there were more humans in the Corps than any other race."
"But there's only four of you," Wally said.
"Exactly." Jaina grinned.
"But there's like a million Green Lanterns!"
"Exactly."
Raquel laughed, giving Jaina a fist bump. "There's a lot more aliens out there than you'd think, Wall-man." M'gann and Connor had to laugh at his expense.
"Where's Jess?" Jaina asked, swallowing a tiny bite of Jello.
"On a squad with Jaime and Bart," Kaldur said, "They just defeated their MFD."
Nightwing couldn't tear his eyes from the feed. "Nineteen down."
Everyone seemed to inhale at the same time, not daring to breathe as they waited, listening for the all-clear, until Black Canary's cry rang out:
"Asami has deployed the egg and defeated the drone."
Everyone cheered. Artemis kissed Wally, Zatanna and Raquel were hugging each other and jumping up and down in the cramped space.
Bee shut off the projection, trying to avoid being trampled in the celebrations.
"How do you feel, Jaina?" Kaldur asked, kneeling next to her bed.
Jaina's brow furrowed as her stomach turned nauseously. "I don't know. I feel like I should be happy now that I know the world's okay, but I can't shake the feeling that-"
"Wally?" Artemis asked, suddenly serious. Jaina and the others had enough time to glimpse the fear on his face before he ran out of the room, leaving a gust of wind in his wake.
"Wally!" Artemis ran after him, Connor and M'gann close behind.
"What was that?" Zatanna asked Nightwing.
Nightwing's white face was even paler now as he consulted his own data readings. "Something's wrong, Flash and Impulse are talking about a chrysalis-"
Bee squealed in alarm.
"The Earth's magnetic field is still being disrupted?" Jaina translated.
"But we got all the MFDs!" Raquel argued.
"Apparently not," Nightwing gritted his teeth and sprinted from the room with Zatanna.
"We'll be right back," Kaldur promised Jaina. Raquel squeezed her hand, and before Jaina could protest, they were gone, and she was alone.
"Bring it back up," She told Bee.
Bee beeped nervously. Jaina's pulse was increasing.
"That's what happens when the world's about to end." She snapped, "Bring it up. Yes, it'll make me less nervous. Just do it!" She screamed at the terrified droid, "I can't just sit here and feel useless!"
Exhausted, she slumped back into the pillows, breathing heavily.
"Why'd they have to leave me alone?" She whimpered.
Her friends were gone. Everyone was trying to save the world. Hal, John, and Guy were light-years away. She'd run away from her family, and Jacen and Anakin were dead.
She had no one to blame for it but herself.
Beeping softly, Bee once more pulled up the link Jaina had requested.
"-disrupting flash and Impulse's comms-" One of the Atoms was saying. Jaina couldn't tell if it was Captain Atom or just The Atom.
"Kid Flash is with them," Artemis interjected, teeth grinding. She was going to kill Wally for scaring them so badly.
"We're just arriving in the Arctic now, but whatever they're doing seems to be working." Nightwing said, "The chrysalis is slowing down!"
"And my scarab says that Earth's magnetic field is stabilizing!" Blue Beetle confirmed.
Jaina tried to disintegrate the feeling in the pit of her stomach by breathing evenly. "It's fine. They'll be fine. They're gonna stop it." She told herself. It wasn't working. Curse the Solo instinct.
"Don't trust the force."
Jaina shuddered as her grandfather's voice seemed to come from the comms. That was the first and only time she'd ever been told that. Even when Anakin couldn't tell her what the force had in store for her, he told her to trust it. Because of the force, Jaina knew that everything was going to turn out okay.
But what if it wasn't?
"They did it!" Miss Martian exclaimed at last. Bee confirmed that Earth's magnetic field was once again stable.
Jaina's heart beat faster.
"Wait-" Artemis's voice shook even over the static of the comms.
"Where's Wally?"
"Artemis," Wally's uncle started, "He wanted me to tell you-"
"No, no," Artemis begged.
"He loved you."
Jaina's world shattered, and suddenly she could feel the pain that she had blocked out all day. Her arm ripping away from her body. Blood pouring from her wounds. Exhaustion battering her chest. Her brain throbbing in her skull.
She shut her eyes tight as Wally's thread floated in the void, neatly clipped with everyone else's.
Jaina wanted to cry, she really did, and if she could have, she would.
But she couldn't.
She had cried all the tears she had left to cry.
Shirtless Superboy is old. Shirtless Kaldur is IN!
Okay, I realized that I make Jaina cry a lot in the book (sorrynotsorry) and I realized how annoying it might seem, but I want to let you guys know that it's okay to cry. It's okay to feel like you can't keep everything bottled up, because you shouldn't. You can be badarse and emotional at the same time just like Jaina, the two are not mutually exclusive.