A/N: This is something that has been in my head for a while. I recently saw the newest Green Lantern movie, and after some time, I wondered, "Why did you give it to a PILOT? Why not a gamer, or an anime nerd, or even better, someone who's both?" This is what I think may have happened if both Hal and a nerd were chosen to be the new lanterns. At least, as far as the training spar. Oh, right... spoiler alert for those who haven't seen the movie.
Disclaimer: I own none of the series mentioned or used in this fan fiction, and I do not generate any profite from its publishment.
The Green Gamer
"Come ooooon.. yes yes yes – wait, what? Oh, come ON!" Cried someone at the couch of their small, but cozy, apartment. "That's bullshit!"
"What happened?" A voice asked, coming from his headset.
"This guy, uhh... JoxBob, got a headshot on me – and he was on the other side of not one, but TWO walls! I'm calling hax."
"No, really? He is definitely – WHAT!"
"What, did he just get you?"
"Yeah!"
"Temporary truce?"
"Hell yeah!"
With that, the person in the apartment, and his online friend, teamed up to take this one guy on the map down.
"Where are you?"
"Behind you!"
"Okay, let's – DAMMIT!"
"Oh, COME ON!"
"What? The game's over? Great. Just freakin' great... we were that guy's winning kills... well, I'm putting him as AVOIDED."
"That makes two of us."
With that, the person and his virtual friend both went onto the system's dashboard and lowered the guy's reputation and set him to 'avoid' and 'never see again' in order to not fight the stupid hacker.
"It's getting late, I gotta get off now."
"Okay, see ya later," The guy said, before the sound of his friend leaving the Xbox LIVE party played through his surround sound system. "Freaking hackers. I think I'll log off too, that just freaking pissed me off."
With that, he turned off his Xbox, leaving the Halo: Reach disc in for the next time he got online. Perhaps tomorrow after college. He grabbed his laptop, and as it booted up, he went to grab a glass of milk. There, at the kitchen, the phone rang.
"Hey, Jon," Said his friend. "You open to hanging out sometime?"
"Probably, but I gotta finish this essay soon," Jon replied, returning to his computer and opening the essay that was a work-in-progress. "It's due in a couple days, and I've got almost nothing done on it."
"Procrastinating again?"
"Naturally."
Jon and his friend talked a bit more, before the gamer hung up when the conversation was finished. Then he went back to work on his homework. Why didn't the essay finish itself? That would've been so much simpler. He spent a good couple of hours on it, before finally heading to bed.
I don't care what you're thinkin',
As you turn to me.
Jon was still asleep when, on the other side of the country, a man several years older bolted out of bed, racing to get dressed in time in order to leave and reach his destination on time. He casually told his date that there was water in the tap, and that she was welcome to have some. How rude. Either way, though, he raced out of the place, grabbing his present for his cousin on the way with some newspaper and tape to wrap it as he drove. Not exactly safe, but whatever, he made it to the flight hanger on time. He and his flight partner were testing out some automated planes that were supposed to have incredibly advanced A.I.
"Hey, would you come over here?" He called through the radio, as he and his partner flew away from the automated planes. She flew over to be at his side, and he smirked beneath his mask. "Now... just sit there and look pretty."
She glared at him as he did a loop to come up behind the robotic planes, effectively using his partner as a distraction. The two machines immediantly recognized him as the more prominent threat, and followed as he started to fly straight up.
"Wait... what're you doing, Hal?" Asked one of the guys at the radio tower.
"Going to make them stall," Hal answered casually. "You said they stall at 50,000 feet."
"Yeah, but so do you," His friend countered. "And that's the cap to the rules of engagement."
Hal ignored all of that and decided that it was a good idea to stall himself and the two machines, as he fired his missiles, almost carelessly. Just then, he and the pilot-less planes stalled, and as the machine started to fall back down to the earth below along with him, his missiles came back down and smashed their non-existent faces in with explosive force. Well, that was incredibly satisfying, especially as his radio friend whooped in approval.
Said friend was frowned at by all the business men in the room, and soon silenced hmself, as Hal froze for a moment. His father had died in a plane crash – was he about to do the same? Then he pushed past that huge lump in his throat and ejected from the jet, his parachute shooting up behind him as the plane crashed in an explosion on the ground. Taking deep breaths as he slowly fell down to the ground, he prepared himself for the chewing out he was no doubt going to receive.
'Cuz what I have in my two hands,
Is enough to set me free!
"Welp, another day in paradise," Jon commented, before grinning as he walked upstairs in the college's main building. Here, there was a hallway where all the nerds resided, and as he dumped his bag by a chair and sat down, he pulled out a small box. "You guys just starting?"
"Yeah, you wanna join?" Chris asked.
"Of course!"
With that, Jon pulled out the cards in the deck box, shuffled, and requested that someone cut or tap the deck as he prepared his dice in order to keep track of his life count. This game of Magic the Gathering was going to be fun. When the other people were going, he worked on his homework some more, making at least a little bit of progress.
He paused in time to do very little on his first turn, just like pretty much everyone else. Playing card games was how he passed the time until he left a few hours later, intent on heading home. It didn't take long to drive to said building, but it was as he left his car – locking it as he went, of course – that this giant green ball came out of nowhere, and pretty much abducted him.
"What the hell!" He cried, as the thing flew towards the coast of his home state, Washington. It was one the hidden area of a beach that he landed. Stumbling at first, he looked around franticsally – before his eyes landed on the form lying on the beach, bleeding from a large wound in the chest. "Shit, man, why didn't you call for help?"
Jon asked that as he came forward, ignoring the fact the guy was obviously an alien dressed in a green suit that looked like a second skin. Which it probably was, what with the glowing center and all.
"The... the ring has... chosen you..." The creature's voice croaked out.
"Don't talk," Jon said, doing everything in his sanity just to ignore that this guy was an alien. Here. In front of him. He pulled off his jacket, more than ready to rip a piece of his undershirt off to take care of the wound.
"Don't... bother," The alien said, smirking slightly. "It's... fatal. Please... take the ring... the lantern in... the ship... and make... the oath..."
"What?" The twenty-year-old asked, shocked. "Ring? Lantern? Oath?"
The alien gently grabbed the young man's hand, and deposited something in his palm. Jon could only watch as the creature took its last breath, and the green suit vanished. Taking a moment to take in the fact that this obviously male creature was at least a foot taller than him, with scale-like blue flesh, and appeared to be quite strong, the human was unsure of what to do. How was he supposed to get home? Was there a train or bus nearby? First, though, he had to search the remnants of the ship on the shore, and inside, he found a large green lantern. Then with a deep sigh, he slowly headed into town, intent on making it home for some well-deserved sleep. If only he knew about Hal's similar experience on the United State's opposite coast.
I can fight the feeling to resist it all the time,
But when it's just too much to take,
You sneak up from behind.
As Hal was walking out of the bar, he was ambushed by some old 'friends' from his job. He had, like Jon, been visited by an alien in green and given a ring. Then, both had, more by accident than anything else, given the vow to a glowing green lantern that now sat in their apartments. Never-the-less, Hal was shoved against the edge of a truck bed as his old 'pals' smashed their fists into his chest and stomach. It was as they were leaving that it happened.
"Hey... I'm not finished yet," He groaned out.
"Oh really?" Snarled one of the attackers, punching Hal again and making the man's head hit the truck bed.
Enraged, Hal pulled back his fist, and as he swung, out of literally nowhere, a large green version of his fist smashed into all three attackers. Bewildered, he stared at the ring on his hand that started to glow brightly, before encircling him in a ball of green. Just like when the alien had summoned him – except now it was hurtling out to space. He was so focused on himself he didn't notice the other one following.
Is it me, you say, you're looking for?
Let me show you who I am,
And what I'm here for.
Jon slowly opened his eyes, and found himself in the weirdest place he'd ever been. Slowly standing and looking around, he spotted a mirror, and raised an eyebrow at what he saw. The green suit that alien had been wearing was now what he had on. Glancing at himself – and taking a moment to pinch his arm to ensure that he was awake and not dreaming – he quickly realized this was the result of the ring. What else could have caused this? Especially since said ring was glowing slightly, pulsing similarly to the circle on his chest.
"Hey!" Called a voice, making him about-face, and spot another human dressed similarly. "You here to welcome me or something?"
"No, I'm new here," Jon answered, shaking his head. After a moment, he smiled and held out his hand for a shake. "Jon."
"Hal," The other man said, shaking the younger man's hand. "Man, how old are you?"
"Twenty, why?"
"...Great, now you've made me feel old," Hal groaned, making Jon grin.
"Why's that old man?" Jon asked, receiving a smack on the arm.
"Are you two quite finished?"
Both humans spun around, and blinked at what they saw. The clearly male – if they were going by the voice – creature there seemed to be something of a fish standing on two legs. Hal was quite tactless in terms of saying so, but the alien seemed fine with it, shrugging it off easily. Both humans immediantly noticed when the green masks covering their eyes vanished, Hal gasping from the sudden action without his willing of it to do so.
"The mask removes itself when you are around those you can trust," The bird/lizard/fish alien said, calmly and gently mentoring the two humans.
"Like you guys?" Jon guessed. "Green... what? Lanterns?"
"Yes, that is what we are," The creature nodded approvingly. "How did you guess?"
"Hmm," Jon began to say, sarcasm heavy in his voice, in a joking manner. "Our suits are green... there's the shape of a lantern on the suits... those were the first couple of clues that gave it away."
The creature chuckled, before guiding the two humans to an edge. Looking down, Jon's heart raced at the height, and he backed away.
"Afraid of heights, human?"
"Very much so," Jon said. "And the name's Jon."
"You may call me Tomar-Re."
"And I'm Hal," The older human cut in. Tomar-Re nodded, before jumping off the edge of the cliff – and hovering there easily.
"Would you both care to fly with me?"
"Now you're talkin' my language," Hal grinned, easily willing himself to hover next to Tomar-Re. Jon wasn't so quick and reckless. "C'mon, kiddo."
Jon grimaced at the thought of flying so high above what was obviously the ground. Then a thought came to mind.
"I have a better idea..." Jon said, smirking. He held out his fist, the one with the ring on its ring finger. Out came a floating road, and he stepped on it. "I can't stand hovering in air without something under my feet."
"A very creative solution," Tomar-Re complimented. "But you can't overcome your fear if you avoid it."
"Baby steps, Tomar-Re," Jon said. "Baby steps."
With that, the three started to head out, Jon using his ground as a method of sort of air-surfing. After some time of getting accustomed to floating in the air, he leapt off his self-made ground, and forced himself to fly alongside the other two. It took only a few more moments before they reached their destination, where there was an enormous amount of other Green Lanterns – and one of them stood by what seemed to be a monument. He stood there with slightly pinkish skin, and pointed ears, and he gave a speech of how the group of lanterns gathered – for the first time in a long time, apparently – were to team up against someone known as Parallax – an enemy who uses fear as their weapon of choice, going against the Lantern Corps' choice of using will as a form of power.
After the admittedly short speech of how the leader of the Corps was going to take the best of the best to fight this Parallax, the entire congregation of Lanterns thrust up their rings and let light burst from them, showing their willingness to fight. Well, everyone except the two humans, whom simply watched. Shortly after, Tomar-Re took the two of them out of the meeting, and began to help explain how the rings worked, bringing something like a moving fractal into existence with his own ring.
"The rings create items that are viewed in your mind," Tomar-Re explained calmly. "It requires your willpower in order to do so, however. All of your creations are limited by the strength of your will, and the limit of your imagination."
That certainly opens up a shit-ton of options for me, Jon said, smirking, as he did what his new mentor and Hal were doing, and created a flowing fractal. He and Hal were confused when their fractals flashed a couple of times, almost warningly.
"It also warns you of incoming danger," Tomar-Re said casually.
Jon snapped to alert, but just like Hal, didn't dodge in time and was floored by the smack-down he received. Looking up from where he lay, he spotted someone large and clearly powerful stalking down to the two humans that were slowly recovering. Once the two of them were standing, the thing took the time to smell them. Both Jon and Hal fought the urge to retch at his horrible smell.
"You smell awful humans," The guy said.
"We do?" Hal countered, again without tact.
"But then again, I have never encountered a human before, and here I am meeting two," The guy said, slowly backing up. "You two will adress me as Kilowog, and I am your trainer on the use of the ring! Can you save yourselves?"
With a single thrust of his fist, Jon and Hal were seperated by several feet, Jon being pushed behind the older human. A second later, two boulders appeared – one above Hal, the other above Jon. Instinctively, the two created shields of metal above them to catch said boulder.
"You willpower is weak humans," Kilowog sneered. "And that makes your constructs weak!"
He laughed viciously, as he chucked anouther boulder at the two humans, both of whom strained to support their metal constructs. After some thought, Jon decided a stationary catching system wasn't going to work.
C'mon, c'mon... think, think, THINK! Jon strained mentally, scrambling through his memories. That's it!
He thrust his metal construct up with a giant spring that sent it flying – while Hal went with putting up supports that Kilowog easily wrecked – as a third boulder was sent down on them both. This time, rather than catch it in a giant pan, Jon went for a different approach. He brought out another metal surface – coated with a special paint. The moment the constructed rock hit the orange paint glowing green, it bounced up. Then Jon sealed it in a box full of the orange paint, making the rock bounce around, building up speed.
"Return to sender!" Jon grinned, making a tunnel that shot the rock at Kilowog at the speed it had built up. The drill sergeant alien easily swept it aside with a construct of his own. "...Shit."
"Good idea, human, but not good enough!" Kilowog scolded harshly, abandoning his previous works to create something of an orb in between both humans – both of whom were quickly drawn towards it. Both Jon and Hal used a grapple and a hook to secure themselves to the ground. "How do you like that? It's the same gravity as your own sun!"
Gravity? Jon thought, and another thought jumped to mind. Ah-ha!
The twenty-year-old focused. Tomar-Re and Kilowag, the former hovering above the training session, watched as the younger of the two humans was encased in orange-ish armor. Just like all Green Lantern constructs, it had a glow of green, but the result of this armor brought Jon to his feet – and kept him grounded, allowing him to dismiss his grapple hook.
"What is this construct, human?" Kilowog wondered.
"It's the Gravity Suit!" Jon smirked from behind the green visor.
Kilowog was about to go further, when someone came forward.
"Stand down, Kilowog, I will train them one at a time," called a voice.
"Thaal Sinestro?" Kilowog said, surprised. After a moment, he relented, albeit reluctantly as he went to hover next to Tomar-Re.
"First is the older man," Thaal said, giving a disapproving look to both Jon and Hal. After a moment, Hal nodded to his fellow human, Jon followed Kilowog.
Try to reach inside of me,
Try to take my energy,
Let me show you just what I'm made of!
Jon was quite annoyed when he was called by Thaal – as he'd heard it from Kilowog earlier – down to swap places with Hal. When he landed, he was asked much the same question as Hal.
"You reek of fear, human, just as the other one does," Thaal scolded harshly. Clearly fear was looked down upon here. "What makes you think you will fair better than your fellow human?"
Jon was silent for a bit.
"You know, you're right, I am a bit scared," Jon admitted. "But right now, I'm more annoyed than anything else. What with your pre-conceived notions of my species and assuming that because one human screws up even the slightest, then every other human is the same... and I don't like that."
Thaal raised an eyebrow challengingly, as if asking Jon why it was so important. After all, the other human had been horrible done horrible at the admitted test.
"It does not matter, choose your weapon, human," Thaal said coldly.
"But I have so many choices," Jon said. "I can't pick just one... and as I go through my list, I think I'll show you just how tenacious humans are!"
With that, Jon placed his hands in the form of holding a chain gun, and the moment the construct he envisioned was in his grasp and firing, Thaal noted that despite the fear coming off the human – he noticed this as he shielded himself from the bullets quite easily – the twenty-year-old had a fire burning in his eyes.
"Your construct is weak, human!" Thaal harshly lashed out. "When you will is weak so is your –"
"Shut up!" Jon snapped, shifting weapons in moments.
Replacing the chain gun, Thaal watched as a large, shoulder-mounted weapon was created – and immediantly the tip started glowing red. The laser that fired was easily blocked by another defensive construct from Thaal; but he was impressed at the rapid shift in items, and the creativity.
"What I lack in willpower, I make up for in creativity!" Jon said, far more harshly than his 'mentor' had been speaking earlier. "Because unlike Hal, I have so many more sources to pull from! Like this chain gun!"
The chain gun reappeared – and its bullets were firing far more fiercely, noted Thaal.
"It's name is Sasha!" Jon said, easily reciting the trailer's lines. "It weighs one-hundred-fifty kilograms, and fires two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges at ten thousand rounds per minute!"
Hal began to have an idea of exactly who Jon was.
"Then there's the laser – a Spartan Laser!" Jon said, firing the laser-based weapon again. "And now for some more items I can draw upon!"
Thaal, tired of being on the defensive, threw a large boulder Jon's way. If it wasn't stopped, it would crush him – but the leader of the Lantern Corps didn't expect the human to fly up into the sky, the sound of a spring resonating. Sinestro took his chances, and threw a sword at the human, doubting it could be dodged. What he didn't expect was for Jon to avoid it. The human had thrown up another spring at his feet, and launched up another fifty feet, before hitting a series of springs that safely landed him behind Thaal. The mentor spun on his feet, blocking a sword strike to his back with ease.
"The Master Sword," Jon commented, before jumping back and away from Thaal's counter-strike.
"What... kind of human are you?" Thaal inquired during the pause.
"I'm a gamer!" Jon answered immediantly, chest filling with pride. "And with all of the countless video games and cartoons I've played and watched – I have thousands of constructs to choose from!"
"Can you hit me with them, even once?" Thaal challenged.
"Easy!"
Thaal, and the other viewers – with Hal now understanding where the kid was getting all these ideas – watched as Jon encased himself in armor.
"Is that to protect you from harm?" Thaal taunted. "Your fear weakens the construct, fool."
"It's not to protect me from you," Jon answered. "But from the speed."
Thaal was confused, as Jon jumped up and down a little.
"Ready... GO!" Jon cried, racing forward at an impressive speed, making the boots of his armor carry him forward safely. Thaal was forced to avoid it at the last second, the wind pushing him aside easily.
"What virtual entertainment was that from?" Thaal inquired with interest.
"Sonic the Hedgehog, featuring a blue talking hedgehog capable of moving faster than the speed of sound at will!"
Jon took the time the pause gave to rid himself of the armor, and replace it with some other things on his forearms. He launched himself towards Thaal with another spring. The leader clashed constructed metal with constructed metal, two hidden blades jumping out of Jon's equipment.
"Assassin's Creed." It seemed Jon was now saying what series each item was from.
Jumping back, Thaal protected himself with a shield of water as fireballs were hurled at him.
"Super Mario Bros."
It was the next one that hit Thaal. He watched as a box of white walls appeared around him, cutting his view of Jon off. He didn't hear the human approach – but he did notice when he was pinned to the ground, the human on top of him.
"That was Portal... and with that, I hit you successfully," Jon said, standing as he dismissed his constructs. "That's a good lesson for you; never underestimate a gamer."
Thaal gave the human a look, nodding stiffly. He had been shown how wrong he was for this human, whom still reeked of fear – but the human had been incredibely stubborn when it came to defending his race. Perhaps the species was worth having on his side after all...
Credits: Song lyrics from "What I'm Made Of" by Crush 40, featured in Sonic Heroes.
A/N: Please don't forget to review. Favorites are nice, but it's the reviews that I want to see. Thank you.