Title: Philosophical Tenet
Author: Elena
Pairings: A little Warhawk/Aquagirl, just because I could.
Warnings: Knowledge of the future Justice League as of Batman Beyond's "The Call", though no spoilers for episode.
Disclaimer: I don't own, I just like 'fixing' it. Sorta like my dad's car.
Summary: Green Lanterns are weapons. Kai-Ro thinks there's got to be a philosophy hidden somewhere to explain it all.
Notes: This was written primarily in response to the fact that the Justice League in the call has a Green Lantern who's, like, eight. I watched the episode when I was ten or eleven and didn't think anything of it, mostly because I didn't know what a Green Lantern was and I wasn't much older than him. (Hey, I wanted to be a superhero too!). But after learning that the Green Lanterns are really galactic police/peacekeepers/paramilitary agency, I was sort of disturbed that they recruited a kid who should really be in elementary school. I don't care how philosophically advanced a kid is, Green Lanterns go into wars. They support rebel movements. And honestly, that's got to have an effect on a kid. So…this story is born.
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It was winter in Tibet, and the sky was the color of brittle iron, arching over the snow-covered ground. The mountains loomed over the valleys of this land like angry gods, black and white teeth piercing the soft grey belly of the sky. The valleys between the mountains were grey, tinted the colors they would bear in summer: green, brown, tan, and red. In one valley, there was a road, snaking its yellow way up the valley to the temple at the head.
It was on this road that the Norbu's widow had a religious experience.
Her name was Vasha, and she had three children. Only one of them was a boy, though – her oldest child at five years of age. The others were two twin girls of barely three years. And as they always did, they were walking up the road to the temple at the head of the valley.
The girls held onto Vasha's hand as they always did, while her son ran ahead. Sometimes he would come back with a flower or a question or an oddly shaped stone for the girls to play with, but then he would leave them, searching for something only his childish mind wanted. They were in sight of the temple when he stopped and bent down to pick something up. He picked something off the ground and held it cradled in his hands, and for just a moment, everything was still.
And then he disappeared.
Later, when she was telling the monks what had happened, she left out the peculiar green glow that seemed to radiate off her son for a split-second.
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Katma Tui was not a happy woman. Lots of things made her unhappy: the color yellow, the stupidity of most sentient beings, and the way the male members of the Corps insisted on staring at her chest rather than her face when speaking to her were all a few reasons she was unhappy. Today, though, she was unhappy because an idiot former pupil of hers had pulled her off active duty in the middle of delicate negotiations to act as a trainer for a new Lantern.
"Nartu, if you don't have a good explanation for why I was pulled off the Kentari/Vasshu negotiations now, I will be very unhappy. And you don't want me unhappy."
Commander Nartu of the Green Lantern Corps swallowed. "We have a special case, and you're the best trainer we have."
Katma scowled ferociously. "How 'special' is this new recruit?"
"He's five years old."
Yes, Katma was definitely not a happy woman.
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Katma's office is large and well appointed, as befits the senior trainer on Oa. Kai-Ro knows it is an honor to be trained personally by Katma, knows that in her own way she loves him like a son, but that doesn't make a summons to her office any less nerve-wracking.
"At ease, trainee. It's come to my attention, Kai, that your level of control is sufficient for a live assignment."
There's a pause, and Kai tries to figure out if he's supposed to speak.
"Because of your performance, you have been assigned as the junior Lantern of Sector IR-17. You are to report to Lantern Vera in a week. If you acquit yourself well, you may soon become a full member of the Corps, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. You're dismissed, trainee. I suggest that you pack and say your goodbyes today; the next ship to Earth leaves tomorrow."
Kai salutes and is almost out the door when she squeezes the back of his neck with the ring and says, "Good luck, Kai." It's the closest he's gotten to a hug from Katma, and he savors the memory of it all the way to Earth.
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Lantern Vera is an old human woman, and she smiles gently at him when he reports in. For all that her physical body is emaciated and frail, her strength of will shines through her green eyes. She has the eyes of a warrior.
"Kai-Ro, correct?" He nods sharply in reply to her query. The watchtower of the JLU is cold and angular, and Kai finds himself wishing he were still on Oa.
"My name is Vera Drake, and I'll be your supervisor. Mostly I'll be working with the Justice League. You, on the other hand, will have a set area to survey and protect. This week, you need to take care of South America. There are a lot of food riots down there…" She trails off, and Kai doesn't say anything in response.
"I think you'll do well, trainee."
Kai wishes he were so certain.
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He sees Vera often. He lives with her as the Chinese boy she fosters, because isn't she a nice old lady, and isn't the boy so polite? Vera tells him lots of things.
Vera tells him that alter-egos only work if people let them. To most people, Superman isn't a face, he's a uniform, and the same applies to the Green Lanterns. If all they see is the uniform and the power ring, they won't see anything else. Most importantly, they won't connect the officious woman in the green uniform to the old lady down the street who gives candy apples to children on Halloween.
Vera tells him that the only Green Lanterns who live to die in their sleep are the cunning ones, the Lanterns who watch and listen and think. Will is only as effective as the mind wielding it, after all. He doesn't understand that – the Green Lanterns everyone is told to emulate are John Stewart and Kilowog and Kyle Rayner and a thousand others who died in the prime of their life saving the universe.
"All the biographies of John Stewart say that he was a rather shrewd individual," he says, tilting his head to the side. Vera smiles that smile of hers, the one that he thought was gentle the first time he saw it but is really many different things; sad, happy, wise, gentle, knowing, sharp, experienced. "Oh, he was smart," she says, shaking her head. "Very smart. Not very imaginative, though. If he was, he wouldn't have died the way he did."
Kai looks at her inquiringly. For all that the life and times of John Stewart are common reading, his death is still classified as top-secret information. Vera smiles drily. "Ask Katma the next time you see her."
And just like that, the subject is closed.
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The League HQ is based in Metropolis this decade. He's heard that every few years, the base is destroyed and they have to find a new one. It's a sort of running joke on Earth ("how long does it take superman to change a lightbulb?" "enough time for an alien to destroy metropolis while he's busy!") but Kai wonders how it would feel to have a different base every couple of years, to have it all destroyed and then have to rebuild.
"It's not so bad," Merina grins at him when he asks her this, and he almost smiles back. He thinks Merina is younger than the others, but it's impossible to tell. She's an Atlantean, and they age differently. "These places aren't really our homes. It's mostly shocking because they could have destroyed us and didn't."
"We're lucky that way." Warhawk is another whose age is unknown, whose face is covered. Kai-Ro thought that he might be Thanagarian, but there are none left. Merina frowns at his tone and they begin arguing. Kai watches them go back and forth, back and forth, and an argument over nothing degenerates into less than nothing. It ends with each hero storming out the room in opposite directions, muttering angrily about the other's thick-headedness.
There's a long pause, and then Barda snorts. "Do they really think they're fooling anyone?"
Vera grins and shakes her head slowly. "Who knows, with those two…"
Kai looks at the women confusedly. "What are you talking about?"
The women burst out laughing, and they only stop when Superman enters the room and irritably asks what's so funny.
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Kai-Ro knows he is not normal. Normal humans can't do advanced algebra at eight, normal humans have a hard time concentrating for prolonged periods of time, normal humans don't understand advanced theorectical religious treatises after reading them just once.
Normal humans aren't Green Lanterns.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, in the area between asleep and awake, he constructs a philosophy for Green Lanterns. The power ring is only a construct of the mind, subject to the will of the Lantern, right? Therefore, the actual weapon is the Green Lantern themselves, their mind and will and soul. They are the weapons of the Guardians, promoters of truth, justice, and liberty throughout the universe.
He tells Vera his idea, and she looks at him with something between pride and pity. Write it up, she tells him. Send it in to the training school. It's a very precise idea of being a Lantern, and they always need new training tools. In fact, your project for the month is to write a paper elaborating on that thesis.
His paper is only ten pages long, but Katma tells him it's the best theoretical explanation of Green Lanterns she's ever read. The training school begins using it as a construct exercise, and his name becomes known as a theoretician.
When it comes down to it, being a Green Lantern is sort of like Confucianism. Kai-Ro dimly remembers Confucius' precepts being taught at his temple, of having drilled into his brain until it throbbed.
He thinks his mother was proud of her scholar son. He wonders if she would be proud of him today.
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A year and a half after he is assigned to Earth, Vera throws him a party. She is retiring as a teacher to the training school, taking over for Katma, who wants to get back to the field. It's only then that he realizes Vera wrote most of the books and created most of the exercises the training school uses.
He was lucky to serve under her. He is even luckier to be her successor.
"I've taught you all I can teach, and you've learned it well. Good luck, Kai, and God bless," she says, hugging him tightly. Even though she is smiling at him happily, there are tears in her eyes.
Green Lantern Kai-Ro of Sector IR-17 hugs her back gingerly.
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Things have changed between him and the Justice League. They watch him warily, judging his every move. He watches them in return, and sees their every thought. They think he is a child, seeing only the physical face and not the reality of his will.
They think he is a child. He sets out to prove them wrong