Sinestro was unsure when he had become a regular corpsmen again- when the guardians had started to think they could order him about like just another little brainless minion. He was not one of their fold, and he was not someone who listened to their commands. For them to call him away from his personal business to try and assign him some kind of mission was beyond reasoning. Clearly, they had snapped even more than he would have thought. The fools.

Still, it wasn’t like he could out-right deny them, either. They had control over the ring bound to his finger, and could more or less dictate what he did with it. While they didn’t seem to have any power to turn it off and on at will, being trapped in the corps did mean they had the power to lock him away within the central power battery again, should they feel like it. As fun as it sounded, he imagined he would not find a secret stash of yellow energy tainting the battery, nor would he be able to use it to escape as he had done the first time around. So, while he felt he was above their command, he actually was a bit stuck in that he had to listen to them.

Anyway, he couldn’t say he wasn’t curious to see what was so important on earth that they would deem to send one of their strongest. Even with his prior history, they would be idiots not to realize he was an extremely powerful Green Lantern. So why did they feel the need to waste his talents on a planet like earth? For some kind of trinket they had been abusing?

He had to assume there was more going on then the Guardians were willing to say. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

The surprise actually came in who they had decided to assign alongside him. Not only did he feel having a partner would only slow him down, but the conflicts he would find himself in with this particular person seemed to suggest that the guardians wanted him to have a hard time of things. What the hell were they thinking, pairing him up with his daughter? What was the point of this whole thing? Making a powerful lantern go to a deadbeat planet to deal with some unimportant matter, and giving him someone who would be nothing but trouble the whole way?

They were making a mockery of him.

Landing in some kind of recreational area, Sinestro had to take a moment to look around before he sought out his kin. In all honesty, he had never really been to the rest areas of the planet, more interested in keeping to business as often as possible. Despite knowing so much about the planet, such areas were almost completely foreign to him. And rightfully so- it didn’t seem like they were anything important. Frowning, he let his ring guide him to his daughter, who looked ready to explode as she sipped at her drink. Amusing.

“I see this is going to be fun- you already look tired of me and we haven’t even set off yet,” he said almost lightly, his hands moving behind his back as he watched her. “If you have finished with your drink, we should be off- apparently there’s work to be done.” Was this how his daughter acted in the corps? A slacker like the rest of them? Unacceptable.

It would be the death of her, were she a member of his former corps.

“I’m sure you would have liked me more if I had been able to find you sooner,” insisted the Lantern veteran easily enough. He didn’t mind if she was bitter with him- he imagined some of it was moderately warranted. There had been a couple blips with the management of their home planet that she probably had yet to forgive him for. Considering he had tried to enslave it and all.

But hey, he knew he had gone too far- she just needed to let it go. He was trying to do the same. If not for him, his leaderless corps would have still been in control of their home world. Korugar was safe because he had the capability of shutting down an entire corps in the blink of an eye.

She needed to remember that.

“I hardly think you’d become an alcoholic on my behalf,” Sinestro grunted, “your interests in your duties takes precedence over your want to feel comfortable.” She was the same as him- a work horse. He had spent a long time pushing aside personal needs and desires to accomplish his goals. That had been a road already traveled, and things hadn’t gone well the first time around. It was unlikely he would follow the same path twice, lest he end up with another kid who wanted to kill him.

“Come, child, we need to be off.” He left the recreation room, leading them up and off the planet. Out in space, Sinestro felt the most at home. It was a comfortable place, with nothing around him but the future. Beat lanterns glaring at him on Oa- now he only had one to deal with. Heading for earth, Sinestro peered over his shoulder, watching his somewhat dazed daughter.

“I don’t suppose you had anything to do with accompanying me on this little mission,” he said lowly, though his tone was as neutral as ever, “perhaps you wanted to keep an eye on this old traitor.”

Her comment confused him mildly, though not enough for him to invest interest in having her expand on it. If she meant it as some kind of a slam, she had missed the mark a bit. To him, it sounded like she actually had more emotion for him than she was willing to let out. One, perhaps, he could get her to look at him without loathing in her eyes.

Until then, he’d just continue being a jerk to her. That worked, right?

“You’re right,” Sinestro sneered, “you’re not a schemer. I was merely asking to pass the time. It’s interesting to see how angry you get over a simple question, though. This is going to be fun indeed.” He looked ahead of him again. The good thing about space travel was the severe lack of anything to run into. And even if they did happen to come across something, the barrier provided by his ring would make short work of it, anyway. Indeed, there was no problem in swaying around, or watching someone you were traveling with like a hawk while you were out in space.

Sinestro smiled to himself, amused by her state. It seemed she had inherited something else from him, besides her sharp tongue and tinted skin- she had the same somewhat lax ability to hold her alcohol. Though he would never admit it, he was a bit of a light weight when it came to drinking. It stemmed from the same reason he had never really been in the more recreational areas of Oa, he just didn’t like to put pleasure in front of business. So he didn’t know how to drink. Maybe she wasn’t as strict about it as he had been in the past, but it didn’t seem like she had been a party animal in her youth, either. Or was it just because that drink had been particularly strong? He had never seen it before, so there was no way he would know.

Either way, it almost made him weirdly proud that she seemed to be struggling. That, or he was just an immense asshole.

“You’re looking a bit rough, my dearest daughter,” he hummed thoughtfully, “is the stress of being a lantern getting to you? I never thought the job was suited for females.”

“Oh my, quite the talker,” Sinestro hummed, “I’ll have to do better about paying attention- I’m afraid I stopped listening to you, my dear.” He was lying- he wouldn’t ignore his daughter, but he would certainly pretend he had to hear more from her. Enraged seemed to be the only way he could get people to spill their beans to him, and it was a tactic he utilized a hell of a lot, sometimes not even on purpose. When people were angry, they sometimes said things they didn’t mean to be so harsh, but they always spoke the truth.

It was the best way he knew to get information, when he knew scaring the pants off of someone wouldn’t work.

“In any case, I still think the stress of the job has gotten to you more than you’ll admit- you’ve changed so much from the Soranik I watched growing up. And not entirely in a way I would have liked, though I suppose I am still proud of you for being a Green Lantern and your help on Korugar.” He didn’t go too far into specifics, not wanting to sound too much like he was trying to reach out to her. It would only make her shut up, and any conversation was better than none. He was learning so much about her.

Her temper amused him, though he imagined he couldn’t keeping poking the bear to get all the fun reactions from her. Eventually, he would have to take things seriously, as he was usually want to do.

Maybe he was just secretly happy about the whole arrangement.

Since she wasn’t doing much in terms of progressing the conversation, and he was bored of prodding, Sinestro left the rest to silence, moving through space without so much as glancing at the views that shot by them. After a while, it just got boring. Space was magnificent and vast, but it all started to look the same after a while. A collection of planets and stars, most of which in need of help all the damn time. In need of order. Like he could really go about dishing that out, now that he was stuck wearing he wrong ring. Oh well. No point crying over spilled milk, as the humans would say. He was going to be learning a lot more stupid sayings once they arrived on the planet, he was sure of that.

When they broke through to earth, Sinestro took a moment to observe the planet, his nose wrinkling in distaste. Great. Back on earth. And he wasn’t even there to force Hal into working for him again.

Hopefully this ridiculous mission wouldn’t take long- he had no interest in spending any more time on the planet than he needed to. Actually, he had half a mind to let the oh-so-amazing Soranik deal with things, so he could get back to tasks that actually mattered. Like showing the guardians they couldn't saddle him with remedial tasks just because they felt inclined to mess with him.

The jerks.

“You’re researching now?” Sinestro grunted, “perhaps you are not so much my daughter as I thought in terms of this job.” He moved into the atmosphere at that, heading down towards the surface of the planet. It seemed a little late in the game to be looking up information- he had been researching the planet since the moment he had been told of the assignment, despite his distaste of it. She, apparently, had been off drinking her woes away instead. Being unprepared was not something Sinestro approved of. Sighing softly, he lowered himself to the floor, gently touching down as the glow from his ring faded around him.

There was no need to land. He would need to fly if he wanted to hunt out his leads and discover more about the trinket they were after. But, he imagined he would need to wait for Soranik to join him before they did anything, and he didn’t know how long she would be up there studying. In the meantime, he could at least take a look around. Re-familiarize himself with the landscape.

How long had it been since he had been anywhere other than Coast City?

But it wasn’t a vacation, even if he wasn’t too inclined to get to work. They were there for a reason, and the quicker they completed the mission, the sooner they would be able to get back to their own lives. Soranik could go back to playing super doctor, and he could return to cleaning up Korugar and following his own little leads. He’d been having some trouble with the Indigo Tribe, and it annoyed him that he couldn’t deal with them properly due to the guardians placing him on earth. He was relatively out in the open there. An easy target for his enemies, if they knew where to look.

Hopefully the mission wouldn’t take long.

“I hope you plan on joining me down here at some point, dearest daughter,” Sinestro said to his ring, the message transferring to Soranik without skipping a beat.

Sinestro smiled to himself. He wouldn’t call her that again? It seemed like she didn’t really know who she was speaking to. He didn’t take orders from others, especially not offspring. Anyway, he wanted to call her his daughter- that’s exactly what she was. If she had a problem with it, she would have to talk to a therapist. For him, it was rather enjoyable knowing he had a daughter. Something left of Arin.

Not that he would ever talk about it like that, though.

When she finally joined him, he gave a grunt, moving his hands neatly behind his back as he stood beside her. “I would give it an hour,” he replied in something that might have been considered a joke, were it not for dead serious he appeared. In all honesty, he didn’t think it would take long for him to break a rule from the Green Lantern code of ethics. It had been a long time since he had checked in on things with their rules. The only one he really knew was that it was okay to kill members of his corps, thanks to him. The rest… was a bit of a blur.

He could sense it- fear. It was all around them. Fear of the unknown, fear of the future, fear of getting attacked. Humans seemed to live in fear. While normally it would have pleased him, he could only be disgusted at the sheer amount of useless fright filtering through the hearts of the people in the nearby city. Humans. They were so under-developed. Far too inclined to react with their base instincts.

They were only a small step away from being wild animals, so crude and sickeningly chaotic.

“Well, daughter,” he said briskly, shrugging off the fear he sensed, “where shall we go first? Since you’re so eager to get your research in, surely you have a lead.” He had his ideas on where to search, but he was also interested in seeing how his kin got things done. This was a rare moment where he could actually see her in her element, working for the Green Lanterns.

He could see how different she claimed them to be.