"What scares you, my child?"
"I am not a child. I don't think I ever was"
"You are all of you, my children."
...
"I was watching a movie with Wally and Artemis, I mean, before she went undercover and everything kriffed up, and this woman said that she was scared of a gilded cage, to be held back as if she could do nothing."
"Is that what you are afraid of?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I hate being told what to do, that I can't do what I want to about anything, or that I'll mess up and make a mistake.
"A mistake in what way?"
...
"I'm afraid of getting close to people. Because all these Black Lanterns, they're right. Everyone dies eventually, as dear old gramps found out, and either there's nothing you can do about it, or you do something that causes their death."
"Like your brothers."
"Don't you dare mention them. Don't use them against me anymore. It's your fault!"
"Jaina Solo, is their death anyone's fault?"
...
"Jaina Solo, I have lived for a very long time. Longer than you can comprehend. I am cursed to live forever, I cannot experience death the way you mortals can."
"Is that why you play around with everyone's lives? Let everyone suffer so you can spice it up for yourself ?"
"You chose this path, Jaina Solo. When it comes down to it, every hero makes the choice to be such. That is what your uncle and your parents did. They could not stand by to see others suffer, and so they gave themselves up to be heroes. And as much as you did not want to be one of the new Jedi Knights, you chose to train. You built your saber, and you made your allies and traveled all over your galaxy to save others."
"...What about Earth? Did I make that choice too?"
"There were things you needed to understand, allies you needed to meet, secrets you needed to learn to become the White Lantern, things you would have never known if you had only been a Knight."
"So am I ready to be a White Lantern now?"
...
"Let's see."
The color returned just as suddenly as the air to her lungs.
"Jaina!" Jessica was hovering in the air just in front of her, fear on her face fading into a smile. She tried to hide that she was hiding a tear when Jaina hugged her tightly.
"Jaya!" Allana wanted in too. She hadn't had a good hug in so long. Jaina hugged her niece and her padawan closely, feeling their hearts beating furiously in their chests.
"I'm never gonna leave you guys. I promise." She whispered
"You so sure?" A voice rumbled. Nightwing leaped towards her padawan, hand aimed for Jessica's chest. Jaina blocked him with a shield of white light.
She looked at her hand in surprise. Instead of green, her ring was white. Her whole uniform was white and glowing, with the symbol on her chest that was the opposite of the Black Lantern's symbol.
She was a White Lantern.
"Jaina?" She looked at the rubble, where she'd deflected. Coming too, in a pile of black goo, was Nightwing. His mask was torn, but his eyes were the brightest blue, like the bird on his chest.
"Connection severed..." The Black ring on his hand spluttered, and crumbled into dust.
"What just happened?" Richard asked.
Jaina looked at her ring, and then at Jessica and Allana, grinning.
"Forget their deaths," Padme had said.
This was it, this was her destiny, to make everything right again.
"Your destiny is to die!" Sidious screamed, as if he could read her thoughts.
"Move!" Jessica pushed Nightwing out of the way and Allana shoved Jaina as Sidious raised his hand, tearing up the ground beneath her feat. Both girls screamed as they were suddenly buried beneath the rubble.
"ALLANA! JESSICA!" Jaina screamed too. She reached out to save them, but Brakiss leaped at her with lightsaber ignited, attempting to cut off her remaining arm with her ring.
"Intruders!" Sidious howled at the empty shell of the White Lantern. "I will have peace!"
Jaina had enough sense to wrap her one arm around Richard, and carry him with her as she used her new (and fully charged!) White Ring to fly out of Brakiss's reach. Brakiss flew at them, only to be knocked out of the sky by Hal, Carol, Leia, and Luke's combined rage.
"Now what, fearless leader?" Richard asked as Jaina landed in a circle of their friends.
Jaina threw him a lopsided smirk for half a second, before spotting the man she'd inherited such a quirk from.
She leaped over M'gann and Conner, creating a sword of white light that struck her father. A scream, a flash of light, and Han Solo was on his hands and knees vomiting a stomachful of tar.
Jacen and Anakin were next. Jaina smacked them with the dull side of the blade, and they fell to the ground. Alive, but unconscious.
Aunt Mara. Lowie. Lusa, all her past failings swarmed at her, and she promptly forgot them, returning it to as it had been before.
She had the rest of the Black Lanterns turning tail. They were trying to escape, but only ran into a impenetrable wall of Lanterns fueled by willpower, anger, hope, and any other emotion they could feel, corralling them back to the crater.
All tried to flee, except for one.
Vader slowly approached her. He knew what was coming.
"Tell your grandmother, she was right," Vader removed what was left of his helmet to look at his granddaughter.
Jaina shrugged. "She was, wasn't she?"
Vader chuckled, and Jaina drove her blade through his heart.
His cloak dropped to the ground where he had been standing a moment ago.
"Hey Jaina!" Artemis hollered, "Not that I'm not glad you're over there facing your worst nightmares, but we got bigger fish to fry!"
Luke, Leia, Hal, Carol, Sayd, Ganthet, anyone who could be spared, were all attempting to finish off Sidious.
"I will have order!" Sidious thrashed about violently, determined to kill anyone in his path.
"Shut up already, would you?" Zekk muttered, "You died like fifty years ago."
"And all of you should have never existed," Brakiss came up behind his former darkest knight, catching him by the throat."
"Life was an accident, Zekk," He said, as if he were teaching a creche addition and subtraction, "It has no meaning, no purpose."
"You're wrong," Jaina let her voice echo throughout all of existence as she stabbed Brakiss with her sword right before he could take Zekk's heart.
"Life doesn't give us purpose," She said, "We give life purpose."
A blur ran at her from the side, but she deflected it with her sword as she had with Nightwing.
"We all choose life, when given the chance," She said, now directing her words at Sidious.
She grasped Zekk's hand. He placed his hand on Tenel Ka's shoulder. She reached for Artemis, who took Nightwing's hand, and on and on around in a circle around Sidious, until Leia's hand rested on Jaina's shoulder.
"And life connects us all."
The white light formed at her chest, spreading to each of her friends and family, and all who had been taken by a Black Lantern.
In the center of the circle, Jaina could see a great, winged, many-limbed creature growing from the light. The entity stood above them all, and reached down to Sidious's aged form.
"No!" Sidious shrunk back from the light. "You are all trespassers! You are enemies to existence!"
Jaina ignored his senseless pleas.
"In brightest day-" Jaina started her Lantern oath as she always did, but this time the words rolled from her tongue in a different way.
"-There will be light."
"-To cleanse the soul and set wrongs right," Hal joined in.
"When darkness falls," One by one, the others began to recite the words that instantly came to mind.
"Look to the sky. A new dawn comes-"
"No!" Sidious begged.
"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
Light erupted from their circle, throwing everyone back and spreading across the plain, around the Earth, and out into the rest of the universe
When the light faded, The plain was repaired. No crater, no White Lantern, no Sidious, and no Black Lanterns.
Jaina looked down at her hand, which was still holding Zekk's as tightly as he held hers. Her ring had returned to green once more.
Artemis blinked. "Wal- Wally?" She choked on her own words. Jaina followed her gaze. The cloud of dust that she'd driven off was Wally, in all his mustard-and-ketchup-clad glory, who was lifted off his feet by Nightwing in a great big bear hug.
"Han?" Leia finally noticed her husband among those resurrected by the White Lantern.
John's face went slightly pale. "We need a Blue Lantern, stat!"
Jaina blinked at him. "What?" Her mind was starting to fuzz over a bit after everything that had just happened.
"Rage compromised." The voice came from Leia and Artemis's rings, and they began to convulse on the spot.
"Artemis!" Wally had her in his arms in a moment, and John created a cot for Leia to fall back on.
"What's happening?" Han demanded, futily hoping he could hold his wife still.
"Zekk! Uncle Luke! Your rings!" Jaina remembered quickly. She had Zekk's violet set an emotional connection between her parents and Artemis and Wally, while the Blue Light of Hope from Uncle Luke's ring allowed the red rings to be returned to their original owners.
"The red ring takes over the functions of the heart," Jaina explained to her father as Leia stopped shaking. She sat up with a great heaving of breath, launching herself into her husband's arms.
"Wally?" Artemis whispered after a similar experience. She cupped his cheek in her calloused hand. "Are we dead?"
Wally chuckled, pressing his forehead to hers. "No," He told her decisively. And for once, he didn't crack a joke.
The rest of the borrowed rings were returned without further incident, and Jaina caught sight of Luke and Ben reuniting with Mara before she saw Tenel Ka digging away at a pile of rubble.
"Jessica! Allana!" She ran to help, but that was unnecessary. Tenel Ka was pushed back by some unseen force as the rocks slowly began to lift from the ground.
Allana was alive and conscious, but barely managed to keep the rocks above herself and Jessica before Jaina and Tenel Ka could yank them out. Tenel Ka held her precious daughter, rocking her back and forth and stroking her hair, while Jaina checked on Jessica.
Her uniform was gone, the one that the ring of Volthoom gave her. In fact, Volthoom's ring was gone as well.
"Is she..." Jaina whispered.
"She isn't dead." Jaina jumped at the voice behind her, and there with singed robes, sandy-brown hair and striking blue eyes was Anakin Solo.
"How- what?" Jaina didn't know why she thought she was surprised to see Anakin alive, she had brought him back herself.
"She faced her greatest fear of death, rejecting the ring of Volthoom once and for all." He said simply. Anakin pressed two fingers to her jawline. "She has a steady heartbeat, it's probably mostly shock."
Jaina kissed her baby brother's forehead. "Welcome back," She said.
A streak of green shot past her nose, and onto Jessica's hand. Jaina prepared herself for another Volthoom, but Jessica was gently lifted from her arms in a swirling green light, which woke her up but didn't make her afraid.
"Jessica Cruz, you have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps."
"Great. Another Green Lantern." Batman growled.
Jaina snapped. She had enough of the Bat, so she marched right up to him with one fist swinging. "Excuse you, I think you mean, 'Oh wow! Power Ring overcame her greatest fear and got to become one of the awesomest people in the universe! Wow, we are so lucky to know her and know that Earth is in good hands because we now have five of the Universe's best warriors protecting our planet'!"
Ganthet made a noise that was the closest thing to a chuckle that Jaina had ever heard from a Guardian of the Universe. "It is fitting. Jessica Cruz will make a fine candidate for the newest Green Lantern, especially as we enter an age of rebuilding."
"There is much to discuss about the future of the corps," Sayd agreed. He and Ganthet looked to where their eight companions had been buried, the same place they had been born, so to speak.
"About the future of all the corps," He looked at all the leaders of each individual corps' leader, including an indignant Sinestro, and ended with Jaina.
"However, Ganthet, I am afraid that you will have to do it without me."
Larfleeze snorted. "Larfleeze demands what was promised, Blue one!"
"Sayd," Jaina started.
"It is alright, Jaina Solo," Sayd dismissed her worry with a kind smile, sounding so much like the Entity. "Perhaps I can help him."
Larfleeze took off with his newest acquisition, and the Indigo Tribe and Red Lanterns followed soon after. Princess Aga'po and Saint Walker ensured that Earth's Lanterns and Star Sapphire had things well in hand before leaving.
John, the architect, went back to Oa with Ganthet and the rest of the corps. They would have a lot of reconstruction to do in the next coming days.
"Look!" Jessica pointed towards the mountains in the East.
After being in the dark all night, Jaina had barely noticed that the sun was rising. The League and Heroes of the New Jedi Order were silent, pausing to take in the beauty of such a mundane and every day occurrence after everything that had happened the night before.
"I guess it's true what they say," Jessica said, too happy to make her ring stop flying.
"The brightest day always follows the blackest night."