{AN: Slightly longer chap to make up for the pause. I mentioned before that I just picked up a job and my afternoons are mostly occupied, so chapters are coming out a lot slower, especially when I'm putting extra effort in writing them myself, rather than just relying on AI. Hope you like!}
The night sky in El Paso was always strangely calming. The air was filled with a soft breeze, and all kinds of sounds. Someone was screaming at their partner somewhere a few blocks away, a cat somewhere was yowling surprisingly loud, a group of teenagers were snickering to themselves down the street, and a group of men were nervously working at the door to a flower shop with a crowbar.
"Come on man, it can't be that hard!" One whisper-yelled.
The one with the crowbar was rightfully indignant. "When was the last time you were on crowbar duty?"
The third knocked them both on the head. "Stop fucking around! The coppers could roll by any minute."
The first just huffed and turned deeper into the alley. "Whatever, I'm gonna take a leak."
"Fine. Just hurry back."
The thug quickly found an isolated area around the corner, lifting up his mask enough to hold a cigarette and light it before loosening his pants and letting go. "Ahh, I've been holding that for like an hour!"
Something shifted above him. "You know, smoking isn't very good for you," Someone said, making the thug quickly reopen his eyes, only to see a black and blue figure emerge from the shadows above him. "but I guess you need the stress reliever."
He stumbled back, "What the fu-"
Suddenly the figure was behind him, having chopped his throat to shut him up. "Shh. Your friends will join you soon, don't worry."
...
"Bob-Ahem, Tomcat? You done with that piss yet?" Nothing. The leader of this little ragtag team frowned, strutting to where 'Tomcat' had gone. "You better not be fucking ar-OH SH-!"
Crowbar-Man stood up straight from where he had hunched over, leaning over slightly to peak into the rest of the alley and catching the sight of his boss's form slumped against the wall.
Shrugging, he dropped the crowbar and took off his mask, walking straight out of the alley. "I didn't sign up for this. I don't even know why he wanted to hit a flower joint- they only sell flowers for fuck's sake!"
Unfortunately for him, it seemed he had no choice in the matter, as long, tentacle-like limbs reached out from the dark and gripped him around the torso with it's six reticulating (Just means multi-jointed for the laymen) fingers and yanked him back into the alley.
A hard knock to the back of the head put him to sleep before he could regain his confidence and start fighting back. Jaime sighed to himself as he tied each of them up with some nano-cuffs. He'd designs them so they could transform into drones or something and find their way back to him under the control of Khaji Da.
"Huh, that's pretty neat!" A voice from above scared Jaime far more than he'd like to admit while Khaji flew into analyzing how and why he'd failed to notice the source.
[Highly advanced technological device has been detected. Source: The Green Lantern Corps. Likely subject: Green Lantern of Sector 2814- Identity unknown.]
That made Jaime relax the slightest bit as he finally turned around to face the man, and it was just as Khaji had said, it was Earth's very own Green Lantern.
Jaime hadn't seen much of him online in recent times, but that could be explained away as him being on some mission or another. Either way, he respected the man.
A human, chancing upon a dying alien and just taking up his position in some inter-galactic organization that essentially serves as life's greatest protectors all across the cosmos? Rad.
And it was a little similar to his position. Well, in the way that they are both humans who use alien tech/strange-magical-ring-based-on-emotions. So naturally, Jaime held a smidge of respect for him.
Because of this, instead of facing the man with suspicion as he'd most likely give to... oh I don't know, Batman, Jaime gave the floating green man a nod and a wave.
"Hello Greeny!"
Hal almost visibly flinched in reaction to the nickname, but his smile only grew wider. "Hey, Bluey! This visit has two very important reasons, so why don't you leave these fine upstanding men for the police and join me on the roof for a conversation?"
Jaime almost laughed at the thinly veiled joke and agreed, giving one final check that the police were indeed on their way from his report. When he arrived to the roof of the same flower shot that had nearly been robbed, he found Hal sitting on the West edge, watching the approaching sunrise.
The man glanced back at him and lightly patted the space next to him, a gesture to join him. Jaime obliged and retracted the majority of his armor for comfort while leaving what he needed to both cover his vital areas and more importantly, his face.
Hal seemed amused at his actions, and even decided to speak on them. "I know how you feel kid, even in the colder days, flying around stopping criminals and monsters never failed to make me sweat...Though that may be because I have a habit of skipping my league training for 'Off World Obligations.'"
He and Jaime laughed for a shore while before he continued, stepping into business mode briefly. "Ok, so I was originally sent her by the corps when they detected the reach signature that your Scarab let out when you started messing with it, and they wanted me to check in. But I can see enough that you have no risk of being turned into a Dalek."
Jaime laughed again before he had to ask: "How'd you know I changed Khaji Da into what he is now? I don't think there were any signs directly pointing that fact to me other than myself being the only clue."
Hal shrugged. "The ring scanned you and detected signs of autonomous control of the nanos in your body, which although may be an unusual case, many technopaths have unconscious connections to the technology around them."
Jaime started tapping the concrete in thought, mumbling to himself. "Hmm, I might want to look into ways to mask that, it would be stupid to be unmasked purely because of my abilities..."
"...You said there was another reason for the visit, right?" He eventually asked.
Hal nodded. "The Justice League had you marked as a person of interest because of your vigilante actions, mostly as a potential recruit. They were on the fence about reaching out, but because I already had to talk with ya..."
Jaime let out a small laugh. "Let me guess, Batman being paranoid? I heard he has quite the tendency."
Not that got a laugh from Hal, to the point where he was clearing his eyes of tears. "Hahaha! Yeah, you aren't wrong about that! Me and Ba-Ahem, Flash get on him all the time about it, but I do have to admit his excessive planning has gotten us out of a close shave or two."
"So, what else did you wanna talk about Greeny?"
"Well...I don't really have any missions at the moment, so I wanted to see if I could give you some advice. I watched the footage from the other day's indecent and..."
Despite his flaws and his sense of humor, Hal Jordan seemed to have a vested interest in making a connection with Jaime. Maybe it was because he'd yet to find a successor of his own while nearly every other Leaguer has some form of sidekick or another while he always flew solo, but that was irrelevant.
Right now, he was just having fun connecting with a promising kid, but who knew where the future would take them...