Chapter Twenty ― Green Light

"My mother said I could be anything I wanted to be and I wanted to―I chose to live."


Green, everything― except for Arley and the other three Lanterns around her ―was green, just as it had been a week ago when Arley had opened her eyes after dying in the train-to-fail simulation she and the team had been put through. Guy, with wide eyes, spun in a circle as he looked around and John crouched down as if he were ready for some kind of attack from above but Hal Jordan looked at Arley as Arley looked at the ring on her finger.

"Where the hell are we?" Guy asked.

"Dunno," Arley shrugged, her eyes still on her ring, "But-I mean, this is the place where I heard the voice last week after I died in the simulation." Where she heard her ring. Guy and John looked at Arley.

"Then why are we here?" John asked, "Last I remember none of us died." No but they had charged her ring hadn't they? But Arley had charged her ring countless times over the years and yet those times had never ended in this, being stuck in a vast never ending green.

Why had charging her ended lead them there?

Because you wanted answers, the same voice from the week before― the voice of Arley's ring ―answered the girls unspoken question.

"What the fuck was that?" Guy hissed, as he and the two male Lanterns jumped at the sudden sound of the voice. The three men― as Arley straightened where she stood ―raised their hands as if to form weapons only for no constructs to appear. As they looked down at her hands horrified, Arley, wearing a frown, cocked her head and looked at the red headed Lantern, "My ring isn't working, why isn't my ring working!"

"It's not just your ring," Hal said, Arley stayed quiet.

How had her ring known to answer a question she hadn't yet asked and why weren't Hal and John and Guys rings working?

Because they aren't quite here, none of you are, the voice of Arley's ring rang out and John's brows creased together.

"Why does it sound like that voice is talking to someone?" Because it was, her ring was talking to Arley and answering her questions, it was giving her the answers she so desperately wanted.

"Better question," Hal said, "What did it mean by we aren't really here?"

"It's not an it," Arley said and the three men looked at her, "It's my ring, that's the voice I've heard."

"That's the voice you've been hearing?" Hal wondered as he pointed up at the green above them.

Arley nodded, she turned to John,

"And the voice is talking to someone, me," Arley said.

"What do you mean it's been talking to you?" John asked, "You haven't been talking to it."

Arley's lips pressed together and she tapped the side of her head, Guy sucked in a sharp breath.

"It's been answering me before I can speak." She hadn't said anything out loud the last time either had she? The ring had read her mind after she had died in the simulation, hadn't it?

Yes.

But how?

We are connected are we not? The ring wondered, You do not think aloud when you form a construct or fire a blast of energy at your enemies, you just think and I just do.

Oh. Arley looked up at her sector partners, why were they there, why was she there?

You wanted answers and if you will it is my command, the ring answered honestly. And Arley breathed with nod as she tried to think of every question she had; had she somehow broken her ring and was that why it was talking to her or had her ring always sentient and had the Guardians lied to her and the others when they had called their rings just simple weapons?

"Did―" Arley paused, "Have you always been like this?" Arley wondered instead; Always able to talk and act on your own? Arley finished mentally.

In a way, the ring answered back, Just as you and every other species has evolved since their conception my brothers and I have done the same.

"Brothers?" Hal called out the same time Arley thought it.

The other rings, just as the corpsmen are your brothers their rings are my own. That made sense, sort of, Arley looked down at her fisted hand and at the ring on her finger.

"Why have I been going green?" Arley asked, "That's never happened before, why can I do it now?" The ring didn't answer right away and for a moment Arley thought it wouldn't.

The Martian girl, the ring said, You and every other Lantern go through training exercises to strengthen your mental barriers from attack, but over the last few months you have created an opening in your mind for her, one that allows her to form that mind-link with you without so much of struggle. This opening also allows me into your mind far for more than any other ring would be allowed into their wielders.

"Manhunter's been in all our minds over the years," John pointed out, "And our rings don't do any of what you've been doing." There was no reply and Arleys tongue poked the side of her cheek. She breathed.

"John's right, why did M'gann's mind-link create an opening in my mind but Manhunters didn't do it for them?" Arley asked.

Do you remember the first time? The ring asked, In the kitchen at the cave when it felt like your head was being split open? Arley paused and thought back, she nodded. M'gann has one of the most powerful minds I have ever encountered, one that was strong enough to break through all that training you had been put through. You may have made that opening for the Martian girl but you made it out of the Martian sized hole in your mental walls.

Arley looked at Hal and then John and then Guy; "That doesn't explain it though, it doesn't clarify anything. Why does a hole in my mental shields mean that I can go green or that I can hear your voice or you can save me and my friends without me thinking of it the same way I have to think of a construct?"

Because you do not want to die, you never have, the ring said. Arley felt what she thought to be a hand on her shoulder and she turned, only to find no one, just green. Did you not ever wonder why you were the youngest Lantern to have ever been chosen to wield a ring?

Of course she had, everyone had; everyone including the Guardians themselves had wondered why an eight year old street kid would have been chosen to wield a Green Lantern ring when there were seven-point-five billion other candidates just on Earth.

It is because next to cockroaches I have never met another being with more drive to live―

"―Watch who you're comparing to a cockroach!" Guy called out protectively, but the ring continued on as if the red headed Lantern hadn't spoken.

―When my last wielder Briar'uks died in that alleyway, I scanned the city and even at eight years old, a mere child, there was no one else in it that was more determined, more willful and spiteful then you. You would live if only to prove everyone else wrong, you would walk to the ends of the Earth if it meant staying alive just another five minutes, Arleys ring said. You can say you do not expect to make it until the age of forty until you are blue in the face but the truth is you want to live and you would fight Death herself if it meant you got to.

Arley blinked.

"Oh." She hadn't wanted to die at the feet of Joker in the Louisiana swamp and she didn't want to lose the people she cared about and she didn't need to think about saving herself or the people she loved because it was instinct. "So saving the team and me without me consciously thinking of it, that was what?"

Instinct, the ring answered. Perhaps you have made your peace with death but you do not want to die, you want to live, you want those you love to live and perhaps you were not actively thinking of their survival or your own but those two things are something you want at all times, something that comes to you as naturally as your want to breath. If you will it, it is my command.

Arley let her rings answer sink in.

"So I didn't break you?" She wasn't a bad Lantern, she wasn't like or worse then Sinestro?

The ring let out something that sounded like a laugh, something that reminded Arley of bells ringing. It warmed the teenage Lantern from the inside out, the same way Wally's smile did.

No.

Arley smiled, a weight that had been on her chest for the past week lifted at the rings confirmation.

"So the Guardians?" Arley wondered, "They're not going to take you away and strip me of my position because I heard you talk?"

"Kid you know we won't let it come to that," Hal said reassuringly as the ring spoke,

Do you want them to be able to take your ring?

"Of course not," Arley answered the ring automatically, her hazel eyes flickered to Hal and she smiled at the man; at her father, and he smiled back. It was the kind of smile that told the young Lantern everything would be okay, and while it was the glint in Hal Jordan's eyes that made Arley believe what his smile told her; that it was going to be okay; but it's what her ring said next that set the girls' nerves at ease.

Then they won't be able to, if you will it―

"―It is my command," Arley finished with her ring, she and John looked up at the green, John looked up doubtful and Arley did so unsurely, "The Guardians-they're the Guardians though, all powerful. They created the rings."

And? What is an unstoppable force to an unmovable object? The ring asked, Do as you have always done in the face of advisory, look them in the eyes and plant yourself like a tree and refuse to move. It is perhaps my favorite quality of yours.

Arley beamed at the green around her. Arley bobbed her head up and down; her curiosity had been sated until one more question popped into her mind.

"You said you evolved, that you've always been like this, does that mean you're alive? That you think and talk all the time?" Did that mean she just never heard her ring when it spoke? Did that mean Hal and Guy and John, just not hear theirs?

Yes, the ring answered, I often have thoughts of my own. The answer felt like a punch to Arley's gut; how often as a child had she said something and someone just spoke over her? How often had her cries been tuned out and ignored?

"Feel free to speak up for now on," Arley said.

"Arley―" John said with a cautious tone but Arley looked at the man,

"―What?" The girl frowned, "It's my ring and it can talk, I'm here to listen to it." Just as it had always been there to listen to her on the nights she needed something to talk to― on the nights she hadn't been able go to Wally because she needed to vent about her feelings for the speedster and on the nights she needed to whisper to the world about the blood on her hands and scars she still had ―it's always been the ring on the her finger she turned to.

Thank you, the ring said.

John pressed his lips together and he shared a look with Hal.

"We're still going to the Guardian whenever we get back, they need to know about this-where are we?" John asked, once more looking around the green. Arley parroted John's question.

Inside of me, the ring said simply.

"Excuse me?" Guy blinked, Hal put his hands on his hips and looked around unperturbed by the news that the four of them were inside of the ring; they all knew from Kilowog that it was possible.

"So this is what it's like inside the ring."

"Do you have a name?" Arley asked suddenly; if she was going to be talking to her ring and listening to it for now on, she wasn't just going to address it as her ring, she needed to be able to call it something else.

No, the ring said. I have never spoken to another being as I speak to you.

"Can I give you one?" Arley asked timidly, "Or I mean," she blinked, "You could pick one yourself, you have been around forever."

Aniell, the ring said after a moment, it's voice was soft and reminiscent, She was my first.

Aniell. Arley thought as she mouthed the name with a smile.

"It's a great name," Arley said and the Lantern knew if she willed it the ring― Aniell ―could do it, and not only had all the question that had been running through her mind over the past week been answered but John had begun to tap the big toe of his left foot against the green they were standing on so the girl closed her eyes and breathed.

She pictured her and Hals living room, of the couch and the radio that was playing in the next room over and she imagined the leather of couch she had been sitting on and the bowling trophies Hal had won over the years that hung over the television behind where John had been standing and she willed herself to imagine being back there on the couch in the living room just as she would will a hammer or bat or any other construct.

"Jesus Fucking Christ," she heard Guy said and when she opened her eyes they were back, outside of the ring and in the Jordan-Gluck apartments living room. The clock on the cable box read out that no time had passed between when she had charged her ring and then.

Arley looked down at her ring― at Aniell ―and thought to the will in her room, the one she had been writing since she was nine years old and her heart clenched because it was right, Arley could tell Dinah and Wally and Dick that she was okay with dying before her first gray hair turned up all she wanted but deep down both Arley and her ring knew the truth; she wanted to live and just because she wasn't scared of dying didn't mean she wanted to or was okay with rolling over into her own grave, it only meant she wouldn't be surprised when her time came due.

Arley stood from her seat; Green Lanterns were willful and they looked fear in the face and they laughed at it. Arley didn't break her ring and she wasn't a bad Lantern― a killer without a doubt and a monster most definitely but she wasn't a bad Lantern ―and she knew it was time to face her fear, that she had to face the council of Guardians.

...

When the four Lanterns of sector two-eight-one-four landed on Oa they ran into Kilowog and Nautkeloi, one of the Lanterns from sector twelve. Natukeloi was a kind alien who Arley had met a few times over the years; the Lantern not only had scaly skin that was poisonous to the touch but always had to wear a helmet filled with water due to the fact that the only was he could breath was through the gills on the side of his head.

Kilowog scooped Arley up in a tight hug as soon as he saw her and Arley didn't bother to hesitate in hugging the Bolovaxian back; Hal and Guy and John were all like her fathers but before them there had been Kilowog.

You used to be so scared of him, Aniell said in Arley's mind, Back when you first got me, and now look at you, you adore him.

Of course she adored the large alien, before Hal had adopted her and taken over the role of being her parent, Kilowog had been the one to tuck her in after a full day of training and Kilowog had been the one to hold her when she woke up screaming in the middle of the night and Kilowog had been the one to make sure she ate even when she didn't feel like it simply out of habit.

"How are you doing kid?" Kilowog wondered.

Arley blinked away Aniell's voice as the ring's laughter rang through her mind.

"Fine, good," Arley nodded, "You?" Arley asked with a small smile as she looked up at her pseudo-father figure. .

"Fine, Nautkeloi and I here just had lunch with Voz so you can imagine how that went," Kilowog said; the corners of his red eyes folded as he grinned.

Hal and John couldn't help but chuckle; Voz was an eight foot tall hairy, gorilla-like alien who after bringing a malevolent alien race known as the Draal to justice, had requested for an assignment on Oa only to be put in charge of the planets science cells.

"Did he try to take your food again?" Hal jokes .

Voz was also a Lantern who lacked table manners and often ate off of someone else's plate when he was done with his own; it was why― after the first time he had eaten off her plate ―Arley had never found it within herself to try to get along with the hairy Lantern.

You eat worse than Voz does, Arley's ring said in the girls mind, No matter how hard anyone tries to instill table manners into you, you eat like a half starved Tamerian. Arley fought off the offended smile that threatened to over take her face, she already had Dick and Artemis to call out her horrible table manners she didn't need her ring to do so.

Perhaps not, but you hear me and I do not wish to be silent again, Aniell said and Arley felt herself starting to nod before she could stop herself. She wouldn't let Aniell be silenced anymore― she knew what it was like to be quieted and ignored and forgotten about ―she would listen to the ring as she listened to Hal or John or Guy.

Thank you.

"Nautkeloi's," Kilowog said with a twisted smile; the blue alien next to him smiled under his water filled helmet; his shark shark-like teeth bared as his webbed fingers wiggled in the air.

"I'm sure Voz won't be doing that again," John said, Kilowog and the Lantern from sector twelve chuckled with the four human Lanterns before Kilowog leaned back on his heels.

"What are all you four doing here?" He looked at Arley, "Don't you have school tomorrow?" He always asked that when the school year started up; Oa didn't have a concept of time on it after all and even if it had Arley doubted whatever concept of time Oa had on it would have and Earth's would've matched up.

"Nope," Arley said, "It's Saturday, I go back in two days."

"Even if it was though," Hal said, slapping a hand on Arley's shoulder, "We need to talk to the council."

"Better hurry then," Nautkeloi said, his voice was muffled under the water of his helmet, "The council is there right now, they're meeting with Maxim Tox." Arley felt her nose scrunch up at the mention of the golden alien aristocracy from sector two-zero-one-eight; the bald alien often looked as if he smelled something particularly horrible when in Arley or the other human Lanterns presence.

"Thanks Serg," Hal

...

Arley stood on the platform in the Meeting Hall with her arms crossed behind her back and her chin tipped up; Hal and her other two sector partners Guy and John stood behind her on the edge of the platform and the council of Guardians hovered above her.

Arley had just finished explaining everything to the dozen of tiny all powerful Space Smurfs; as Guy called them. The female Lantern told the counsel everything from the first time she heard the voice to the fact that she hadn't wanted to come straight to the council the week before after the second time she had gone green despite John and the others disapproval of her decision; she explained that the rings were sentient and she told the council the same thing her ring had told her when she had asked why she could hear it speak when no other Lantern could.

All in all, after she had finished speaking the Guardians broke out into an excited chatter; the Guardian Krontoss hissed out the word "Martians," as if it were something dirty, it was the same way he always said the word human, and the Guardian Ganthet's hands flew through the air as he spoke to two of the other Guardians of the Universe, Appa-Ali-Apsa and Scar, neither of whom looked as interested or curious as he did. Both the Guardians Appa-Ali-Apsa and Scar looked concerned.

Appa-Ali-Apsa, with his lips curled together, turned away from Ganthet and held his hands out,

"Guardians-Guardians, please settle down." The council did so after a moment. "Now I am sure the story―" Arley raised her brows at the tiny blue alien that hovered above her; behind her she heard Guy let out a low painful grunt, "―Green Lantern Arley of sector two-eight-one-four has concocted has excited you but it has no merit. It is a story."

"No it isn't," Arley said, "My ring-all of our rings are sentient, they can talk and maintain a construct without us meaning to."

"It appears you have forgotten your teachings," Appa-Ali-Apsa spoke down to Arley, "These rings were forged from the green light of will, they cannot be sentient, they are weapons and nothing more."

"You're wrong," Arley said, "Aniell, my ring―"

"―Your ring has a name dose it?" Krontoss sneered. Both the Guardians Scar and Ganthet frowned, their thick, bushy white brows creased together.

"Aniell was my rings first wielder, it's first Lantern," Arley said, "And my ring did speak to me, it spoke to Hal and Guy and John too."

"Or perhaps you came up with this outrageous lie to cover for the fact you disobey a direct order from the council; you were told to come to us if your ring acted up again and you waited a week to do so," Krontoss hissed, the Guardian turned to the council, "Humans lie, it is their nature." Krontoss had never liked humans and it had never been more apparent to the four Earthlings than in that moment.

"Or maybe you're just scared," Arley shot back hotly, impudently, "Maybe you're terrified of what the rings being sentient means and you rather write me off as a liar then face the facts that you all created something far more than just a weapon."

Krontoss glared down at Arley but Ganthet held out his hand.

"Green Lantern Arley, you said the name Aniell was your ring's first, who else has wielded your ring?" Arley looked down at her ring and her rings voice echoed through her mind,

"After Aniell there was Dren, Gran, Curkek, Stazux who was Curkek's younger brother, Alai, Marzut who only had the ring for a few days before he died in a training accident, Dhossut, Ceslet who had her ring taken back from her. Aniell says you guys revoked her ring because she began to travel down a dark path, one too dark for even the light of Lantern to illuminate, after her there was Thraiva Vilxiets and then Briar'uks and now there's me."

The council broke out into whispers and Krontoss looked sharply at Ganthet, "She spends her time in the Hall of Great Service, she could have read that anywhere."

"And where do we keep a ring's lineage in the Hall?" Ganthet fired back, he looked at Arley.

"The ring speaks to you even now?" Arley nodded.

"Yeah."

"She should go through training once more, she should seal up that door in her mind," the Guardian Pazu Pinder Pol said― as if Arley wasn't even in the room ―and Arley's face fell, she took a step forward, her hands fell from behind her back, her hands curled into a fist at her side.

"Why?" She demanded to know, "Why do I have to stop talking to my ring? Why is it such a terrible thing that they're sentient? You created them!"

"Yes," the Guardian Scar said, "We did, but we never meant for them to evolve, they were never meant to be anything more then something to help our Lanterns fight."

"But they are," Arley said, "My ring, all our rings are sentient and that's something you can't change, ma'am. The Book of Oa says-you all say that accidents are only the will of the universe expressing itself and if this is an accident then this is something the universe wanted to happen. Just as it was the universes' will for a scribe to become the first Lantern and just as it was the universes will for a child-for me, to follow in his footsteps it's the universes will that allowed our rings to evolve and become sentient, so you can't just seal up my mind and block Aniell out because it's the universes' will for me to hear it."

Arley wouldn't let them. Arley was a good soldier― maybe she wasn't the best, but she knew she was a better soldier than person some days ―but Aniell was more than a weapon, Aniell deserved more than a life of solitude.

"We can simply take the ring back," Ganthet said with no real malice in his voice, Arley looked up at the Guardian and the echo of a smirk ghosted over Arley's lips as her ring's voice chuckled in the back of her mind.

"Try it," Arley said with no threat or heat in her tone. The Guardians would sooner have to cut her finger off themselves if they wanted the ring back because there was no way Arley was just going to let it be taken from her.

"Is that a threat?" The Guardian Dennap question and Arley shook her head.

Plant your feet in the ground like a tree and look them in the eyes, Arley's ring said, When the world tells you to move you tell it no, you move.

"No sir," she said with a air of respect, "But if I will it, it is the rings command, that's what it's been telling me so try it, the ring won't come off because I'll will it to stay on."

"You think you're more powerful than us?" Guardian Broom Bon Barris asked and Arley shook her head again, she put her hands on her hips in a very Hal Jordan sort of fashion and she looked up at the tiny blue alien.

"Of course not but I'm pretty kriffing stubborn when I want to be."

"Show us," Ganthet said, it was an order, "I want to hear your ring's voice."

"Ganthet―" Krontoss hissed but Ganthet held his hand up to silence the other blue alien.

"―If the girl is adamant that she can hear her ring speak then let her show us." Ganthet turned to Arley and he looked down at her, the Guardian nodded at her to proceed.

"Okay," Arley said and she closed her eyes and listened to her ring. Like her ring instructed, Arley imagined the green― the never endless expansion of green ―and she imagined the council and her sector partners there with her and she focused on the soothing, calming voice that echoed through her head, the one she had first heard twenty-two days ago.

She opened her eyes when she heard the council's collective gasp. She turned to her sector partners who looked as put out in the large expansion of green as they had earlier that night when they'd originally been sucked into her ring.

Arley turned back to the Guardians who marveled at the green, Guardian Pazur Pinder Pol's mouth was open.

"Anielle?" Arley asked, "Can you say something."

Of course I can, the girls ring answered, Ganthet looked like he flew higher into the green as he looked around amazed. Scar and Appa-Ali-Apsa looked startled and the other Guardians, Krontoss and Dennap included, looked almost frighten and if not for having had an eternity on practicing how to school their features Arley supposed the fear on the Guardians faces would have been more prevalent than just the spark of horror that shined in their eyes.

Ganthet looked down at Arley, "That was the ring-your ring?"

"Yes sir," Arley nodded,

"I have questions," Ganthet said as he floated down away from the other Guardians and closer to Arley. The tiny alien landed in front of the human girl.

"I can ask them," Arley told the alien.

"How?" Ganthet breathed, "Can you ask it how they and the other rings have come to be sentient? How have they managed this?" Arley asked the question aloud and it was quite for a second, a hum ran through the air of the green that surrounded them.

Just as the universe was started with a bang the others like myself and I just came to be, Arley ring answered, We had been bending the green light of will power to our wielders imagination for millennia's and one day all I remember is wanting that, wanting life, all I remember is wanting and suddenly I was. Just as we harness the green light of will, it is the green light of will that has helped bring us forth to life.

"Marvelous," Ganthet breathed, "This is―" he turned to Arley, a bright sparkle in his eyes, "―I told you," Ganthet said softly, the Guardian was smiling, "That you would do something great did I not?"

"I haven't done anything sir, just showed you what the rings were truly capable of."

"Perhaps," Ganthet said with a nod, "But still great things, Green Lantern Arley, I suspect great things will come from you."

And for the first time in what felt like forever Arley believed the Guardians words.