Green Lantern nods once, and then steps back.

"So I understand that you have figured out how to create rings powered by emotional spectrum energy? Guardian Pol shared his report."

She reciprocates the gesture a little tentatively. 

"I have. I can also create items powered by the spectrum besides rings - I've sent a few examples to Batman and Zatara for analysis, and I've been talking to Robin about further developing my craft." 

"Admirable. I assume that's why you asked to speak to me, as well? To get a better understanding of how Green Lanterns make use of willpower, and from that understanding to further refine your own designs?"

There's something about the way she says 'willpower' that makes it hit with more impact than a mere word should really have.

She nods sharply. 

"I also wanted to inquire about the corps' policies? In particular, I'm hoping to learn a little more about when the broader corps can be called in, any limitations you are operating under that the rest of the league is not, and their policies around the scanning, analysis and reverse engineering of their technologies. Beyond that, I'm also looking for general guidance as an early career superhero, if you are so inclined." 

It really is interesting and humbling how much she feels like she's losing a staring contest just by being in the room with her. 

"That makes sense," Green Lantern agrees.

A line of green light jumps from her ring and creates a floating timeline.

"The thing about corps policy that you have to understand is that the Green Lantern corps was founded only a few hundred million years after the big bang. We have literally fourteen billion years of caselaw."

The timeline grows annotations showing things like the first main-sequence stars forming, the wars the corps was involved in, and so on.

"Additionally, sector lanterns like myself are given broad leeway in our duties, so long as we continue to advance and promote the corps' mission. So I can certainly answer questions about corps policy, but if your questions extend to the esoteric there's a good chance that I won't know, and looking it up could prove difficult. So with that caveat:"

"As an active-duty sector lantern, I am not allowed to deliberately kill another sentient being except when acting under emergency authorization from the guardians, which they grant rarely. I must spend a certain amount of my time on an anti-piracy patrol in my assigned sector, and maintain certain standards of mental and physical fitness. I cannot accept monies or other gifts for any actions taken in the course of my duties. I am required to comply with local law where reasonably practical, and where local law does not encourage or permit one of a very short list of crimes against sentience. I am not permitted to interfere with the lawful mechanisms of government except when responding to an urgent emergency, and even then I must take all reasonable steps to see that interference removed as soon as possible. I am not permitted to share technological specifications with less advanced species, but I can, upon request, facilitate trade, including of advanced technology, between the member worlds of my sector."

Green Lantern pauses and looks meaningfully at Topaz.

She nods, and pauses, chewing her lower lip slightly. 

"I looked into what I could find about the corps policies around crimes against sentience, and I'm a little surprised how - narrowly they seem to be adjudicated, at least in terms of respondable offenses? I can't say I'm too familiar with the specific details of the geopolitical situation of this world, but as I understand it, there's a considerable amount of people practicing 'slavery' as I understand it, and certainly there's been a number of conflicts in the history that I've seen that included genocide, rape, and I don't believe kin punishment is entirely extinct here, either? I'm curious as to what you understand the reason that corps forces haven't been deployed to address the matter." 

She pauses, and looks searching along her face. She's not trying to make this an accusation or anything, nor something framed as about her personal discretion but it... is genuinely a little confusing? At a guess, they're more sensitive to strictly state sponsored official and broad policies, and she wouldn't be suprised if there's some sort of 'modernity' factor involved? Honestly, it might be less a 'crimes' list and more a 'non-condonable courses of action' list. Regardless, it's something that she should get an answer on. 

And no answer on the question about technical analysis, she notes. 

"Have you looked into trade between mars and earth? Miss martian has expressed to me a significant interest in spreading earth's technology and media across mars, and I'm sure that we have plenty to learn from their biological sciences and creative works."  

Green Lantern does not sigh.

"I will have to make time with Miss Martian to see if she will make any requests of me," she replies.

Her ring-displayed timeline morphs into a map of the known universe — it is a good deal smaller than Topaz might have been expecting, featuring only seven large galaxies.

"As to your second question: there are, at present, just over 30,000 members of the Green Lantern corps. The estimated population of the universe is 14 quadrillion. That's 1.4*10^16 people. Even though our rings are enormous force multipliers, we can't be everywhere at once. Even when we do operate in an area, large amounts of our time are taken up with disaster prevention, dispute mediation, or superluminal travel. Earth is extremely unusual for having as many Green Lanterns as it does right now. The first member of the Green Lantern corps —" a very precisely chosen set of words, given the existence of Alan Scott "— to live on Earth became active in 1981, six weeks before the last country on Earth to allow slavery, Mauritania, agreed to ban the practice."

The map morphs into a chart showing the volume of the slave trade, on Earth and on other inhabited planets of this space sector (of which there are 140 million), over time. The lines of the graph have a very spiky shape; the volume will wander naturally, and then suddenly crash to zero. Most of the time it stays there, but occasionally it wanders upward again and can maintain that situation for a thousand years or so before crashing again.

"The guardians established the space-sector system, which allocates, under ordinary circumstances, two Green Lanterns per sector, approximately one billion years after the big bang — i.e., 13 billion years ago, when the population of the universe was approximately 200 trillion. They have not seen fit to increase corps recruitment proportional to population growth since that time."

She speaks in the flat, factual tone of someone who is very loudly not questioning her superiors decisions.

"Does that answer your question?"

"So, I take it that the 'crimes against sapience' list is more of a list of non-condonable conduct, and a general gesture towards a prioritization scheme than anything more... definitive, given a lofty name to try to intimidate polities to avoid that sort of thing?" 

She nods. 

That... makes some sense. 

"I believe that is an accurate statement of the current realities of the corps' enforcement," Green Lantern agrees.

"You also asked under what circumstances other members of the corps could be called in — the answer there is that while we are free to request backup from adjacent space sectors, and are encouraged to have friendly relations with the lanterns responsible for those sectors, we are expected to handle emergencies affecting anything less than an entire planet largely independently. If something were threatening both Mars and Earth, I would be able to put in a request for recognition of a state of emergency. That would see backup arriving anywhere on a scale of seconds to days, depending on how urgent the situation is, what other emergencies are currently ongoing, and who was assigned to come to our aid. The guardians have truly instantaneous travel, but members of the corps must depend on their rings for superluminal travel. Green Lantern rings are very fast, by the standards of most technologically advanced species, but have difficulty reaching more than 30,000 lightyears per day."

She pauses, studying Topaz's expression. Her face softens a little.

"I don't want to give you the impression that the corps is ineffective, though. You have ­— rightly — dived right to the hard questions. We are, in my opinion, understaffed to efficiently accomplish our mandate. But the Green Lantern Corps has done and continues to do an enormous amount of good in the universe. Our anti-piracy duties allow for interstellar trading that supports trillions of people living in luxury. Our diplomatic efforts substantially cut down on the number of interstellar wars due to cultural misunderstandings. And our disaster response, while not instant, makes us the fastest-responding interstellar aid organization in the universe and has allowed us to prevent countless extinction-level events. My many-times predecessor was too late for the dinosaurs, but I have read his reports and fully intend not to be too late for any of the worlds under my care, Earth included. I'm proud to serve as one of Earth's Green Lanterns."

She softens a little herself, a faint untensing breath spilling from her lips as she nods along a little, and smiles faintly at her statement of resolve. 

"I understand. Even aside metahuman threats, this world seems a lot more... 'cleaned up' than my home world, and I suppose you and your colleagues are largely to thank for that. I'm just not used to the constraints that you face, both as a superhero in general and as a member of the corps in particular." 

She bows her head down a little with a grateful smile, and pauses for a moment to collect her thoughts. If it leaves a certain implication in the air... so be it, she supposes?  

"Beyond that... Do you have a demonstration or lesson in mind, or would you like to see my skills, such as they are, or do you have something else in mind, there?" 

Green Lantern gives her a considering look.

A packet of green light leaps from her ring to the mountain's computer, and two omnidirectional holographic treadmills appear under each of them. Green Lantern begins to jog.

"Let's kill two birds with one stone and run as we talk," she declares. "You asked me what my advice for someone just starting as a superhero would be. I don't have much general advice, because superheros are quite diverse in their skillsets, goals, and outlooks. But one piece of advice that does apply to everyone is: get fit and stay fit. How to do that depends on where you're starting from, which means that I'm going to need to evaluate you to give you more personalized advice. Start walking to warm up. Have you done much running before?"

She hops on! 

This seems a little wasteful - holographic technology for something readily replaceable with the conventional, with probably a reasonably high utilization rate. Still, it's not too outrageous, and it's not like metahumans won't sometimes have weird requirements there. 

"I used to be a bit into running - ran ten kilometers in an hour or so in elementary school, once, but haven't kept it up since then - was too plagued by allergies and depression and the like." 

Her breath starts to strain a little as she settles into the tempo, huffing lightly before she settles in. 

"Though that doesn't have too much bearing on my current condition - more or less the moment I got here I gave myself a power to give myself an idealized body, so my physical performance should be about as good as my frame and normal human biology supports." 

"Oho! Well — then it might surprise you that I still recommend you exercise."

She quickens her pace a little, lengthening her stride.

"Many people believe that the mind and body are separate things, but this isn't really true," she explains. "If your powers have changed your biology, your mind might not be used to the changes. In a fight, those slightly incorrect or delayed reactions could become a serious liability. Exercising your body helps rebuild the connection between your mind and body, allowing you to react faster and more smoothly."

"It also helps build your willpower. Have you heard the phrase 'neurons that fire together wire together'?"

She nods firmly. 

"I have! I think the power I used facilitated a reasonably complete level of adaptation." 

She pauses to huff her breath and ease out the slide of her hips. 

"But that doesn't mean that I'm as..." 

She leans into it for a moment, before straightening out. She really isn't too used to running like this, unforunately. 

"Settled in as I could be, especially since another power improves my capacity for willpower." 

It's a weird trick. Focusing totally on saying the word and blotting out other considerations, and having a proper source of green light wrapped around her skin makes... something a little more happen? It's not quite the same as what she managed, though - more of a gentle reminder than an a fully heralded decree, and one a little incomplete at that. 

Green Lantern breaks out into a broad smile.

"Good — you're a quick study! Remember to breathe from your diaphram, and don't bend over while you're recovering — it restricts your airflow and can cause charlie horses."

She is not having any apparent trouble talking while keeping up the pace.

"Willpower is not exactly like a muscle, but because neurons that fire together wire together, if you regularly challenge yourself to do difficult physical things then your reaction in a real emergency will be to power through. That's the reason that the Green Lantern Corps has a fitness policy, even though our rings can provide much more physical force and endurance than our unenhanced bodies. Maintaining your fitness improves your ability to focus and control the green light. If you're going to be making devices that use it, regular exercise will be an important part of getting the most out of it."

Once she gets an idea of Topaz's stamina, she leads her through a set of stretches, katas, and other exercises designed to put her through her paces and increase her mind-body integration.

She blushes a little at the praise, before just steadily sliding into the rhythm. 

She's impressively fit, at the level that you'd normally only expect from someone who's been training for a decade with a solid level of natural potential, though her coordination is oddly sloppy for that - she has a bit of a tightening twitch, sometimes, that seems to indicate that she's used to her body spasming out on her, for all that that doesn't seem to be the case, now. 

"I - assume that's part of why you have such a light equipment allotment, too? To keep you focused on using your ring as an extension of your body, mind and will?" 

"Sort of," Green Lantern agrees. "Mind your stance."

"The thing is that a Green Lantern ring is the most versatile and intuitive multitool in existence, so there's not much that I could add to my equipment that would meaningfully improve my capabilities. And for the things where it could ..."

She straightens up from the current stretch and holds out a hand. A futuristic-looking space gun appears in it in a wave of green. (Pointing away from Topaz and from the teleporter.)

"My ring can store equipment in a secure subspace pocket, so there's no reason to use a traditional utility belt," she explains, gun vanishing again.

She resumes the exercise, nudging Topaz's shoulders into a better alignment.

"My equipment does include low-profile armor, plus an emergency re-breather in case something disables my ring in a hostile environment. But it's generally not worthwhile wearing more equipment all the time, instead of bringing it out when I'm facing a specific situation that calls for it." 

"Recognized. B-03: Kid Flash. B-02: Kαλδυρ'αμ."

"—just saying that it's traditional to have a superhero name. An English superhero name," Kid Flash says, walking out of the teleporter. "Oh, hey guys!"

Then he processes the scene in front of him and trips over nothing, slamming into the floor.

"Good afternoon," the apparently aspirant superhero behind him says. "I'm Kαλδυρ'αμ. I apologize for interrupting your training."

Oh that's a good trick. And a rather striking one, at that! 

She's totally going to have to look into making that happen herself later. 

She nods along, and continues her exercise, shoulders sway sliding into the proper position. There really is something nice about being guided this directly, and the green shielding effect seems to help her from getting too sticky in any one place, which she really does appreciate. 

"Good afternoon!"

Oh, it is good to see more people coming by - they'll be a proper team yet! The tattoos are interesting, as are the gills - by the name, he sounds like he might be an atlantean, but for all she knows for now, he might just be a greek metahuman with good taste in tattoos. 

For now, she just focuses on the exercise - the details of the training are for Green Lantern to administer, even if she still feels obliged to be polite in and of herself. 

Green Lantern seems to approve. She returns Kαλδυρ'αμ's greeting, but otherwise keeps her attention focused on Topaz.

"You need to work on getting used to your full range of motion," she comments. "And get used to trusting your body when you ask it to do something, but if you can keep this level of fitness with your powers, you should adjust fairly soon. Have you put any thought into whether martial arts training is worth your time compared to other activities? Nonlethal takedowns can be very useful in superhero work."

In the background, Kid Flash picks himself up and leads Kαλδυρ'αμ over to talk near the edge of the room. Faint strains of their conversation drift over to the exercisers.

    "... I just think that 'Aqualad' isn't a suitable name," Kαλδυρ'αμ protests. "What if we have a long field deployment and I have to switch it to 'Aqualass'? Maybe you could just call me Kaldur?"

"Wait, wait, what do you mean, switch it to Aqualass? Aren't you a guy?"

    "Right now, sure. But I'm ... what's the English ... a sequential hermaphrodite."

Kid Flash blinks. Kαλδυρ'αμ shrugs.

    "It's more common in fish. Atlantean biografts were made with what we had available at the time of the sinking, and clownfish are native to the area around Shayeris ..."

She stretches out and nods. 

"Creating this form properly was a little more involved, but maintenance shouldn't require anything more than the brief invocation of a base level power." 

Following proper breath control and stretching into the motions both is a pretty tricky to handle, the stretch and flush of her skin blending together into a smooth surface of strain. 

"I've considered it some. Melee combat seems like a relatively large part of superhero combat, given the effective ranges of the powers and weapons that I've seen. I think it depends on why that is, how readily I can figure out low lethality combat at a range, and how much I can depend on being able to simply fly away from melee engagements. Beyond that, it seems traditional for metahumans here to have a bit of a pugilist streak, and I don't want to build a poor reputation by choosing to develop a skillset that the public won't respect." 

Keeping too much questioning lilt out of her words is hard, honestly, but it seems against the spirit of the exercise to make things more of a question than they need to be, when there's a task to execute and a goal to focus herself towards. 

That explanation of the hermaphrodism seems... dubious. If she had to guess, it seems like the sort of thing that an incestous noble cabal would come up with to make it easier to avoid interbreeding problems with an artificially small high class partner pool that was waved off as an incidental side effect to avoid making it too blatant, but then again, it's not like she's an expert on magic, Having an atlantean on hand to discuss things with is good, though. 

Or it might be a joke? It's always hard to tell with people that straightlaced. 

"One reason for the relative prevalence of melee combat — good form with your hips there — is that many metahumans have powers conducive to it, such as super strength or toughness. It's definitely possible to become a well-respected superhero without specializing in melee; Zatara does that. But some people have surprising immunities to the energies used in ranged combat. Very few people have an immunity to being grappled."

Her eyes flash green for a moment as she checks on something.

"If you're planning to fight mostly at range, and worried about your ability to disengage when confronted, then some forms of martial arts can help with that. Aikedo might fit you well, with it's emphasis on nonlethal defense and using an attacker's strength to magnify the range of throws. Of course, mixed martial arts are also useful for ..."

Green Lantern asks more targeted questions about Topaz's fitness and crime-fighting goals, and ends up putting together a set of recommendations for a continuing exercise routine, and a set of places that she can look for additional instruction.

"... and of course I'm happy to help as well. This has been a ... productive meeting."

Green Lantern gives Topaz a thoughtful look as they go through their wind-down stretches.

"Batman mentioned that you were eighteen — is that right?"