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As the heroes protect their cities and the Justice League protects the earth, so in other sectors, do the jedi protect their galaxies and The Green Lanterns protect all of the universe, keeping peace and making sure everything runs smoothly. However how each of the 7200 green lanterns of the 3600 sectors of the universe protect their sectors is up to the lanterns of that sectors. While some such as the green lanterns of 2814, which contains earth and its galaxy, prefer a hands on approach and actively involve themselves in the affairs of their sector, others prefer a more distant approach, only intervening when things threaten to stray beyond the borders of the sector and let things within work out as they may. The unfortunate trait of this means that when people set out to discover something new, they don’t know what’s out there waiting for them, now this could end badly for someone; they could start a war or die in black space that has nothing for lightyears; or you could meet some of the greatest people you’ve ever known and maybe for some,they just might meet the love of their life. That’s the thing about space you just never know what you will find out there. Space is too big and beautiful to be able to predict what you can find.
Barrie Allen is a very busy woman, between her forensics work for the police and her work as the superhero known as The Flash and her family, she doesn’t appreciate major emergencies. I mean, she is married and has a wonderful relationship that she spends a lot of time on (Iris truly is the greatest woman she has ever meet and she loves her soo much), and she just became guardian to two orphans, The Stone twins Kieran and Keira. and her nephew Wally West. Several months ago his father had nearly killed the poor kid in a brutal attack that his mother hadn’t survived. It had been the natural, if you could even think that word, escalation of a cycle of abuse that had lasted his whole life. When Wally's father ended up in prison, Iris had decided that she and Barrie were going to adopt him and of course Barrie wholeheartedly agreed after all, Wally was her nephew and her protege and she loved that kid like a son. She also does a lot of forensic work for the police, holding down her secret identity; and The Flash had a lot to deal with, between patrols and criminals in both Central and Keystone city, and a founding member of the Justice League with all the responsibilities that come with that. On any normal day, she is busy, but can still make time for being the hero her towns need; but right now, there wasn’t time, she had to find her Wally, Zoom had him, had kidnapped him and Barrie had to find him before Zoom tortured and killed him. This was a KID being held by one of the most dangerous villains she knew off, this was family. She had loved that boy since Iris had introduced them. The weekends he got to stay with them quickly became her favorite days. And when she had taken him as her protege after his accident, he became her son, in her heart and mind anyways, and then after everything he had been through, his father, his mother, all the trauma with that, he’s just a kid goddammit and she was supposed to protect him. She needed to find him before he was killed, but at the very same time her city needs her. The signal from the city was only for threats that the police have no possible way of dealing with, that meant metahumans and aliens; but her Wally was in danger. He was probably being tortured at this very moment! The entire Justice League was looking for him, cause that’s what they did, Wally was considered one of them and they took care of their own, and if this threat was alien or metahuman, then civilians could be killed and possibly the whole city and beyond destroyed, Iris could be hurt. This day was getting worse by the nanosecond. When she thought about it though, whoever was causing trouble was most likely linked to Zoom. The other major villains she faced were either still in jail or currently not causing much trouble, Zoom was the only one who had broken out recently. She sighed in resignation, and turned back to central city, Impulse was out with some of the other young heroes tracing a bunch of leads with some of the other heroes she was close to, Keiran was running down every online lead and scanning for signals that might give some clues, and the entire justice league was ears to the ground for any news of a location. She could spare 30 seconds to grab one of Zooms minions and beat a location out of them; that would be more effective than blindly running around the world. With that thought, she raced towards to red and orange beam reaching into the sky from downtown central city.
Galaxy far away
Anthdor paused on the edge of the spaceport and looked out at the stars. He had come a long way to arrive at this point. Long had the question of the origins of humans in the galaxy bothered him. After all, almost every other species had a known planetary origin, even if they spread everywhere through the galaxy. With the exception of humans, every species could trace their origin to a specific planet. Anthdor had always wondered where the planet humans originated was, and with the development of new deep space starships, seeming end to the war, and the support of other humans through both the senate and the jedi order, Anthdor had managed to convince the Jedi Council to send out a mission to discover the origin planet of the human species. What he hadn’t expected was that they would decide to send out only 1 ship with 2 Jedi Knights and that he would be one of them. Of course he and the other Jedi assigned to the mission, his best friend Nikobri Orrishir would be bringing their padawans and so there would be a total of 4 jedi plus a pilot droid and a couple astromechs. Pilot droids weren’t often used on these starships as they were designed to spend most of their time in hyperspace, but they still had one for times when they were flying in normal space. He also hadn’t been expecting to be placed in charge of this mission. It was honestly like a dream, a dream come true, he hadn’t felt like this since he became a Jedi Knight. Anthdor was a little worried though, he could handle this, he was certain of that, and his padawan, while curious and stubborn, was highly disciplined and generally cheerful and would do very well on an exploratory mission like this and it would be good for him to have a longer mission to start to get more familiar with the freedom to make critical decisions that a Jedi Knight dealt with while on their missions. But Nikobri and his padawan, Anthdor wasn’t so sure about. Nikobri was known to be reckless and a bit careless and hotheaded, he was like a brother, and they went on a lot of missions and trained their padawans together, but he did frequently bent the rules and always seemed angry at everything. And his padawan, oh his padawan.
Anthdor still remembered when they had brought in the kid, he was a young jedi and Nikobri had still been a padawan himself, it was one of the first missions they went on together, it was a large scale attack on a sith base. The Jedi shadows had called for backup and the Jedi Council answered. The sith had decided to do away with their tradition of two in an attempt to build up enough of a force to destroy the Jedi. They had gathered several dozen Force sensitive children and were training them in the ways of the sith. One of the children they had rescued when the sith temple was destroyed became Nikobris padawan. He had seen the child grow and train and Nikobri had done a good job as his master, but still he was a Zabrak and a former sith youngling and he was going to be locked on a ship with a wookiee and a human who had nasty temper when provoked, for an unknown length of time. They all got on very well and the boys had grown up together so he didn’t think that there would be any issues, he did worry a bit though. He just hoped that years of training would be enough hold tempers in check while in close quarters through this journey. He looked up to see Freyraark moving towards him across the spaceport. The Wookiee, decked out in the traditional padawan robes that both he and Nikobri had their padawans wear at all times, even if Nikobri didn’t wear Knight robes unless it was a more formal event, was nearing the end of his training, standing near seven feet tall and strong in both physical strength and the Force, soon he would be ready to undergo the trials of knighthood. Anthdor was incredibly proud of his padawan and all he had accomplished thus far in his training, the young wookiee had become like a son to him and honestly, he couldn’t wait to see what Freyraark would accomplish through the rest of his life. He could feel that he would go on to do great things. Further back he could just make out Nikobri just exiting the building, no doubt his padawan just behind him. He smiled as Freyraark moved up next to him “Well, my young Padawan, We are nearly ready to go. I’m looking forward to this trip, are you ready to leave all this behind and venture into the unknown vastness that awaits us?”
Nikobri stepped out onto the spaceport walkway, his padawan just a step behind him, their packs slung over their shoulders and a glint in both their eyes. This trip could be very fun! Exploration and travel had always been a wonderful part of jedi life for Nikobri, but he really didn’t get to go anywhere that wasn’t already known to the galaxy. Now he and his best friend got to go and find a long lost planet and they got to do this with their boys; this was going to be awesome! Thinking logically, it could potentially be bad, being locked up in small spaces for days on end could wear on even the best tempers, and both Zabraks like his padawan and Wookiees like Anthdor’s padawan were known to be violent species and he knew full well he had a nasty temper when pushed, but it was all going to be fine. They had trained their padawans to control their emotions well and it would all be fine. He glanced back at Vass, the kid grinned back, the excitement at getting a mission the likes of which hadn’t been done in a very long time, was clear in his eyes. Nikobri couldn’t deny a part of him worried about Vass constantly, he loved the boy like a son and had been watching over him since the day he had found him. He wasn’t supposed to love, love meant attachment and attachment wasn’t allowed to a Jedi, but he couldn’t help it. It was like finally having a family, the kid captured his heart the first time they had met. It was one of the last missions he went on as a padawan and one of the first with the newly knighted Anthdor who would go on to become his best friend and a brother to him. They had responded to a call for backup on a raid on a sith temple. They had arrived to find several dozen younglings the Sith had gathered up to try and rebuild their numbers. The children had been brought here through a combination of kidnapping and being handed over by their families. Vass Sazen had been the latter, his family recognized his force sensitivity and just tossed him to the Sith, with no regard for the consequences. Nikobri could still remember when one of the sith had been cornered the same room as a group of younglings, he had ordered them in front of him, willing to sacrifice children to protect himself and when Vass held a few of the kids back, small kid, face painted in full red and black war makeup, trying to protect them from what he saw as a huge threat, not yet really understanding what was going on, terrified of the Jedi and even more scared of the sith ordering him to die, , but still determined not to let the kids smaller than him be hurt. When the sith had tried to punish him for his disobedience, Nikobri had reacted on pure instinct, leaping forward to protect the brave little boy and taking a full hit of sith lightning. Of course his own master had leaped forward and struck down the sith. After the battle, they rounded up all the younglings and while most of them were returned to grateful families, a few had horrible families or no families at all, and were brought to the jedi temple and trained as Jedi in a much safer environment. He had brought Vass in himself and ended up spending time with the young kid, and when he was ready and had left the shadows, Nikobri took the advice of his own former master and his friend and took Vass as his own padawan. He did feel he was best suited for the young Zabrak, he had a strong temper and was reckless and frequently bent the rules and could be unpredictable. This gave him an advantage in helping Vass learn to handle his own nature and be more in touch with the force than he might have otherwise been had he ended up with a more traditional master. Though he can’t deny he finds a bit of amusement in doing little things like making his very fashion conscious padawan wear traditional robes that the kid despised the appearance of, while he, most of the time, unless he had to go on official missions or appear before the council, did not.
He reached the end of the walkway and nodded at the Wookiee standing next to the tall, dark-skinned Jedi. “greetings Freyraark, hope the two of you are ready to take off, this is gonna be a long trip” he turned slightly to look at the large starship docked just ahead as Vass moved forward to greet Freyraark and they began conversing, he was glad they got on so well. He reached out and clapped Anthdor on the shoulder “Are you ready old friend. I know how you like your comforts”
“Nikobri, you know very well that you are now being ridiculous, we are lucky enough to get this mission and we both know how much this means to us both,” Anthdor leaned forward and his voice dropped slightly “I’m still in a bit of a daze really, I was hoping that someday, this mission would be a reality, but I never thought that I would be on it, let alone leading it, I always assumed they would send some of the masters”
Nikobri leaned back and laughed at Anthdor face, a mask of near disbelief. All the years and things they had been through, he still sometimes forgot just how young they still were. “ I know, just imagine it Anthdor, the home planet of humans, our origin planet. I can’t even imagine what it might be like. I can’t wait to see. It’s gonna be amazing” he was very nearly bouncing in his excitement.
Anthdor laughed and clapped his shoulder, squeezing briefly before he let go “calm down, old friend, we have to get there first” He glanced over to where the droids were moving back and the astromechs being moved onto the ship as their pilot droid started towards them “it looks like they’re ready for us”
“looks like, shall we”
“indeed, Freyraark, Vass, it’s time”
The padawans moved to flank their masters and the four of them walked toward the starship, meeting the pilot droid partway there.
“All systems are functioning correctly, food stocks are full and the astromechs already aboard. the ship is ready to depart as soon as you sirs are”
“thank you, we are ready to go now, let's get out there and see what can be found” Nikobri threw a grin at the droid, he always found their behavior at these spaceports to be entertaining, particularly since he knew that most of them had different personalities once they were out in space and away from the rules and regulations that ran spaceports.
The four jedi followed the pilot droid up and into the ship, quickly settling their things in their bunks and moving into the cockpit.
As Anthdor and Nikobri settled in and started set the navicomputer to take them out of known space, they were going to start near the two planets that had the earliest records of humans being on them and then go past them, which should set them in the right direction to run into their target. Anthdor glanced over at the padawans and nudged Nikobri, he turned his head and looked at the two of them standing by the window looking out. The two of them watched their padawans as Vass and Freyraark stood side by side, shoulders touching, watching Corsecunt fade into the background of space. As they prepared to enter hyperspace, they moved back and sat down, anxious expressions hiding in their eyes.
Anthdor looked over to them. “Don’t worry, we’ll see it again, we’ll be back. It won’t even be that long, We’ll find the planet and come straight back to report.”
Nikobri recognized what he was doing. He could see the kids were still unsure, despite everything, they were still young, even for humans, and they both would have significantly longer lifespans “Anthdor is right. If it helps, we’re leaving the only galaxy we’ve ever known too. I mean we won’t be out for a little while, but still. I think in this, we are all a little new”
The small smile that Vass got and grunt of acknowledgment from Freyraark, told him that for now they had said the right things. He had learned that occasionally admitting he was a bit unsure actually got Vass to trust him more and listen better and to make both of them feel calmer. They would of course need to take their own padawans aside for meditation and helping them to work through their emotions and clear their minds. but for now, all was fine.
Anthdor, looked at him and nodded and Nikobri smiled at him and no more was said at that moment as they entered hyperspace and truly embarked on their journey.