Afterlife [Aurora]

It wasn't unusual for Aurora to wander around in the more remote areas of the docks. It was one of the few areas that was quiet, allowing her to think without leaving the docks entirely. More than that, it seemed to be one of the final answers for how to make this area lively again. Most of what she was doing for the docks now felt like a temporary fix, and not just because it would inevitably be destroyed by a dragon again. That part she didn't mind so much, what bothered her was that this place was likely to remain desolate until there was a reason for people to want to live here again and an actual economy surrounding the area. The docks themselves, as well as the trainyard, showed that there used to be a thriving economy here, but it disappeared. It wouldn't be easy to get it back, especially since her greatest asset right now, Pandaemonium, was the likely cause for why it wasn't coming back in the first place. She could dress it up all pretty, but as long as there was nothing here, it would still be hollow.

Aurora was snapped out of her thoughts by a metal clang that wasn't caused by her. She practically jumped out of her skin because of it, given she hadn't heard even the slightest sign that someone else was here. Sure, she hadn't been here for very long, but given how quiet it was she expected to hear footsteps at the very least. She quickly turned around, and her aurora enveloped her body, but when she looked the only thing there was a sword. This area was more open than some other parts of the docks, so there wasn't anywhere to hide, yet there was no one here. Just the sword. Cautiously, she approached it and as she got closer it started to look familiar. She didn't even have to open the letters to know where she'd seen it. She'd seen it enough times to quickly place that this was Blue Jay's sword, yet there was no sign of Blue Jay. The area was open enough that he would have had to throw it from quite some distance in order for it to land there without her seeing him, and she wasn't sure his scrawny little arms could pull something like that off. She continued approaching it, only more suspiciously than before, and carefully picked it up once she she could.

The first thing she noticed was the envelope stuck to it, and after poking at it a couple of times, she carefully removed it and opened it. Aurora wasn't quite sure what to make of what she found. A quick glance through all the papers made it obvious that they weren't all written by the same person, and that some of them were written by multiple people. It also only took a quick look at one of the diagrams for it to be obvious what all of this was. Aurora briefly considered not reading it at all, but ultimately, knowing her enemies' abilities would be useful and was in no way the same as seeking out other personal information. She started at the beginning, with the first note in the stack.

Even reading the first couple of sentences made her raise an eyebrow. She assumed the writer was Blue Jay, who else would it be, but nothing about this letter made sense, except for maybe the him being dead part. That could happen to anyone. The writer was writing way too much without actually saying anything, so she started to skim. Once she got to the part that called her a superhero all she could do was stare. Evron had clearly made a bad choice here. Not only was she perfectly capable of turning her back on people, she did it quite frequently. More than that, she was often the cause of suffering for a great number of people, as Blue Jay himself could attest to given how many times he tried to stop her himself. She was more than happy to just put the sword in a crate and forget about it. The letter did put a few things into perspective, but mostly she just found herself irritated at how stupid he was. At this point, she wasn't sure who was dumber, the sword of the writer. What kind of demon weapon would outright tell people they were going to die? It was a good thing these people were total morons or it'd never succeed in killing anyone. This writer knew he was going to fail, and yet went along with it anyway? He didn't make any effort to try to change the outcome? Change his strategy? Find other resources or methods? Absurd, she didn't feel even the slightest bit of sympathy for him at this point. Once it was done the only thing she could think of was how glad she was that he was done. She could only take so much self-righteous bullshit in one sitting. Without a second thought, she crumpled up that page in her hand and turned it into particles. She'd dispose of it properly later, with as much work as she put into making the docks nice again, she didn't want to leave trash on the ground.

Right away, the second letter revealed that the writer of the first one wasn't actually Blue Jay, which meant there was another moron happy to rush straight into his death. It started out saying mostly the same things, so she started to skim again. If he was going to leave the other letter with it then why did he feel the need to say the same thing again? She supposed it wasn't fair to ask someone that thought they were going to die to be coherent and rational, so she avoided mentally complaining too much. The end did confirm that it seemed to be a requirement for the sword to choose idiot heroes with no sense of foresight, there was no way it could survive otherwise. He was just saying what she had been telling him the whole time. How did he even expect to not be a statistic when he wasn't doing anything of note? Once again, once she reached the end, she crumpled up the letter and added it to her aurora. This time she was even more annoyed than before because reading that ended up revealing more than she wanted. There was no reason to go seeking out peoples' secret identities, and she hated it when people that were trying to hide their face shoved it in hers. She made a point of not looking for them so she wouldn't be vulnerable to mind readers, and so exploiting them wouldn't even be an option in the first place. At least he was dead so she wouldn't have to worry about it.

Aurora skimmed through the rest, only because she was interested in superpowers in general. If Blue Jay was dead than this information wouldn't help her much because she had no intention of using the sword. She wasn't an idiot after all. It at least gave her anger some time to settle so she could think of what to do. Right now she was in possession of a weapon that was responsible for the death of many supers, and would likely be responsible for many more if she let it. Even if she didn't use the sword, dragons were enough of a threat that she couldn't afford to think that she'd live forever. She did her best to mitigate risks, but it was impossible to run away from. She hoped that the person that wrote the first letter at least died to something like that and not something stupid like a lone super like Blue Jay did. It would at least make his decision make sense. Regardless, it was interesting that the sword chose someone that not only wouldn't feel inclined to use it, but also someone that would be most likely to be able to destroy it given the nature of her own power. Something wasn't quite adding up, but she didn't put the pieces together until she heard a clang on the pavement several feet away.

---

It didn't take long for her to find Blue Jay once the sword started moving. Aurora had enough experience with her own power with roadkill and other dead animals to know that while it wouldn't work on anything living, it would work on even recently deceased bodies. The fact that she couldn't add him to her aurora meant that he was alive. It was much faster than checking for a pulse. There were enough variety in superpowers that a bit of precognition didn't sound even remotely implausible, so she was willing to take what he said in his letter at face value. He was like this because he attacked someone violent, and if that person found that he wasn't actually dead she wouldn't be surprised if that super decided to fix that. If it wasn't him, it might end up being the police. The crater here was massive, enough so that she was pretty sure that the only reason she had missed its creation was because she was on Malachite Isle taking care of a few things until recently. It would undoubtedly draw attention. Leaving him here wasn't an option if she actually wanted him to survive this. In the end, she meant what she said, she was fighting for all supers, whether they liked it or not, and in most circumstances she wasn't going to leave them to die. She didn't hold any kind of ill will towards him because he decided to fight her. She encouraged people to do that, people should be fighting for what they believe in. Sadly, she didn't have anywhere to take him. He was still an enemy, so taking him to her safehouse would defeat the purpose of having it. Taking her to her actual house would just be a terrible idea all around. The people that lived there did not take as kindly to supers as the people at his home did. In the mean time, she dropped a large, square plank of wood onto the ground next to him, and a rope into her own hands. She created a small hole in the plank and ran the rope through it, then carefully rolled Blue Jay onto the plank, trying to move him as little as she could. With that, she could at least get him out of here in relative safety. The area was mostly paved, so the ride wouldn't be too bumpy.

Aurora stayed in the remote parts of the docks. Even if the super that nearly killed him didn't find him, she wouldn't be surprised if some opportunistic people tried to finish the job for them, and there was only so much she could do. Staying here meant that the odds of them being seen were lower, as long as she ventured far enough away from the site of the crater that the police wouldn't investigate. Eventually, she came upon an empty dumpster. It wasn't ideal, but it would do. She quickly turned it into particles and reformed it to get rid of any muck that might have been on it. The inside would be perfectly clean, wouldn't even smell, and she was certain of this because of how many times she'd seen this phenomenon when using her powers. It would keep him out of sight for the time being. Before hiding his body, she spawned her first aid kit and dressed his wounds as best she could. She didn't bother trying to avoid finding out his identity, since she already knew now, which made the process go by a little quicker. She did make sure to put his mask back on at once she was done though. She carefully lifted the plank and lowered it into the dumpster, then closed the cover and sat on the one that he would be less likely to push up on when he was able to sit up again. Making him feel trapped in a state like this was not a good idea. From there, she spawned a book on circuitry she'd been reading lately and waited for him to wake up. For someone that was supposedly just nearly killed he was in surprisingly good shape. If it weren't for that she would have considered taking off his mask and calling 911 claiming she saw a super attack and that someone was severely injured. Given it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it would be, she figured she could at least let him decide what he wanted to do.

As much as Aurora would have liked to keep the lid open in order to reduce the odds of him panicking, she still considered it more important to keep him completely out of sight. It would be difficult to defend someone in that kind of condition if the super that caused this decided to try to find him again. Thus, she listened carefully for any signs of motion. In his current condition, she wasn't sure if he would be able to sit up, even if she did position herself in the way she did just in case he could. Thus, when she heard signs of stirring, she quickly but gently raised the cover of the dumpster. At most he'd see her arm at first, but the brightly colored particles floating in the air quickly revealed who she was before she even peered down into the dumpster. She dissolved her book again and leaned over the edge so she could see his face.

"You were considerably less dead than your letter suggested, so I thought I'd wait until you woke up before taking you to the hospital," she saw no reason to acknowledge his hello. "Do you want me to call an ambulance? You'd have to come up with a reason for being in such a dangerous part of town, but I suspect they'd be sympathetic to someone that was nearly beaten to death by a super. Your costume could easily be converted into civilian clothing, so they'd be likely to believe it. I won't call them if you don't want to deal with it though. Or I can take you somewhere else if you prefer. I would just have to move slow because, while I did what I could, there's only so much I can personally do to treat wounds. Moving you too much could still cause long term damage."

She shifted to get into a slightly more comfortable position, her head disappearing behind the closed part of the dumpster. It probably wasn't necessary to maintain eye contact for this anymore. She didn't even want an answer now, he wasn't in any condition to be thinking about something like this.

"One more thing. You don't have to decide now, just keep the offer in mind. I avoided using my power on your sword in the past because it was connected to your powers and I didn't know what would happen if I made it dematerialize. Given the nature of the sword, having it disappear may be for the best. If you decide you want me to try to destroy it, I'm willing to see what I can do."

He was completely delirious. Aurora sighed. She expected something like this, but she didn't realize exactly how bad it would be. She could only imagine what she must have been like after her own brush with death, but it's not like she remembered the moments shortly after she woke up that well. The way he was looking at her, the way he was talking, it was almost a little creepy, certainly a little surreal. It was clear she was talking too much. She was going to have to make a serious effort to limit the amount of words she used and the number of ideas she posed.

"'Nice' is not the word I'd use, but I digress. One thing at a time," she spoke slowly as she went through the options. "Do you want me to call an ambulance? Or do you want me to take you somewhere else? Or do you want to stay here until you're able to move on your own again? If done co--right, all three options should be safe. However, it may be several days until you're able to move on your own again. I will not be able to stay here that long, so you'll be spending a lot of time alone if you choose that option."

That was about as concise and simple as she could put it. There were a lot of other factors to consider at this point, but they'd likely go over his head again like they did before, so this would have to do. As much as she would have liked to have left it there, it was probably important for him to know what was going on so he didn't panic or something. Aurora didn't see any reason to state her offer to destroy the sword again. She could do it when he was a little more stable.

"No, you're not dead. You're not too far from where that fight took place. I took you just far enough to avoid police searches. Your sword showed me where you were. I left it behind. Based on your letter, I figured it would catch up on its own. Your wounds and getting you somewhere safe was more important."

"Yeah."

Aurora slid off the dumpster without any further words. Even though she had only been there once, and was unconscious the first time she was taken there, she still remembered where it was. She left on her own, so she had to figure out where she was relative to where she wanted to go, and from there it would be pretty difficult for her to forget. The hard part was going to be getting him there without drawing attention. The sun was going down, but it wasn't late. Plus, they were in the docks, the place practically came to life once the sun went down, and she was difficult to miss. Carrying around an injured 'hero' on a plank of wood would be odd, and he would be vulnerable. Then they'd have to go into the suburbs proper, with the police likely on high alert thanks to recent happenings. She likely wouldn't have much freedom to move with how noticeable she was, and she wasn't quite willing to drop her aurora completely just yet.

"We're going to have to go the long way. You still shouldn't move too much if you can avoid it."

With that, she lifted the other half of the lid to the dumpster, grabbed onto the ropes on either end of the planks she put him on, and slowly started to lift him out of his hiding place. Aurora made sure to keep both sides of the plank even, and to raise him slowly to avoid jostling him, but it proved more difficult than she expected. It was fortunate he was scrawny, because lifting something slowly and carefully like this was much more difficult than lifting something quickly. Once Blue Jay was out of the dumpster, she slowly lowered the plank of wood to the ground, grabbed the longer rope, and started dragging him along. The sound of the wood scraping the ground was fairly loud, but it wasn't any louder than her boots, and her aurora gave her away from a great distance anyway. She had long given up trying to get anywhere unnoticed.

"Before, I said that I was willing to try to destroy your sword, to destroy Evron, if you wanted. Just keep it in mind. It sounds like you have a lot to think about already, so I'm not expecting an answer soon. You can probably do more than you think you can without your powers. It's just a matter of deciding what you get from accepting this weapon's powers is worth what you have to do to have them."

"And everything about your powers and how you feel about the past year among other things. You rambled for awhile in your letter."

Aurora was still a little irritated about that and it showed in her voice. There were several reasons she went out of her way to avoid discovering too much about other supers, and having it shoved her in face didn't sit well with her. She wasn't going to leave him behind because of it, or even shake the plank of wood he was on, but she would be quietly fuming about that next few days.

"I have no way of knowing without trying," Aurora shrugged. "There's no reason to come up with reasons for why it wouldn't work, a simple 'no' will suffice. You don't have to justify your reasons to me either, or convince me that you made the right decision. It's an offer, not a demand. The only thing that matters is that you make the choice you're most happy with. I don't need an immediate answer, or even a fast answer. The offer will remain as long as I'm still alive, barring any sudden changes of heart."

She knew this wasn't an easy decision to make regardless of a person's state, and trying to make anyone make it quickly would be stupid and outright cruel. Making someone make that decision in Blue Jay's current state magnified that ten fold. If he wanted to talk about it, she was willing, but she wasn't interested in trying to convince him to go one way or the other. It was his decision to make.

"Are you certain that's what it's for? You said you couldn't even get much information on the people that owned it previously, were you able to find any information on the sword itself? The other note you left did not sound like it came from the most reliable of people, you should take what they've said with a grain of salt. How do you know it's old? How do you know how many dragon's its fought? How much have you looked into this? I would hope that this incident at least taught you that you don't have to accept the information around you, or what you think your fate is, at face value. Things can go in different directions; you can change it.

"There's no denying that we'd lose a valuable asset against dragons if I was able to destroy it, whether it was originally made for that or not. I made this offer knowing that, we would find a way to manage. If it's as old as you seem to think it is, it's probably killed at least as many, if not more, than any dragon would. You shouldn't treat your own life as so meaningless. You shouldn't treat the life as the person you'd be inflicting the sword on should you die as so meaningless. Are both you, and all the future wielder's of Evron, somehow unworthy of happiness or protection?"

"Why, because you admitted that I was right the entire time?"

It's not like it was surprising. Aurora could tell from the second she started talking to him for the first time that he was being an idiot and that he knew that on some level. All the letter told her was that he was finally fully aware of it. His next small rant made her think for a moment. It sounded like she gave an impression that she didn't mean to, but couldn't really fault him for thinking. It was difficult to explain and there were rare times when words failed her. She looked up and tapped her chin with her free hand while she mulled over the best way to explain this.

"I don't think you necessarily have to give up the information you have because it's unreliable. Strictly speaking, all the information we get is unreliable because our senses are unreliable, but acting as though we know nothing at all times would be impractical. I don't think you should disregard it just...be skeptical of it. Let me put it this way, if you hadn't received a letter telling you that the sword was going to try to get you killed, would you have thought that vision you got was as certain as you treated it?"

The comment on dragons was in the same vein. Aurora had no way of knowing if it was simply a placebo effect or if there was more to it than that, so there was no point in commenting on it further. It was useful against dragons, that was all that mattered and that was all she intended to say. The next question managed to make her smile, granted it was a soft smile shrouded in a great deal of smugness.

"What works for me is not going to work for you, or you wouldn't be asking me this question right now. You're going to have to find the answer yourself. The best I can do is to help you find that answer. First, you need to understand yourself. Don't try to claim that you already do, you're obviously clueless. For that, you have to completely open your mind to new ideas, even the really stupid ones. Read books on philosophy, psychology, and history. Understand people in general. Blogs work as well, if you're more interested in that kind of structure. I'd recommend a little of both; both academics and common people can provide very different perspectives. Read actively. Figure out which parts you agree with and which parts you disagree with and make sure you can articulate why. If you can't explain it, you don't understand it well enough. In that time, you should be able to find something you care about enough to put everything you have into. It doesn't matter if it's big or small; someone that wants to take care of animals, that volunteers at an animal shelter and captures feral cats, is just as valuable as someone that wants to be president. What you're doing is less important than how you feel about what you're doing. The kind of goal you have is less important than how well you can pick out the steps to accomplish it, and how well you do them. Does that make sense?"

In his current state she was worried that might have been too much information all at once, but there wasn't a lot she could do about it. He was asking about a complicated subject, one that took her years to come to terms with despite her personality.

Aurora rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to yank the rope she was pulling him along with. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have, but his injuries a sudden movement like that could actually cause serious injury. It was enough to make it a disproportionate response for someone trying and failing miserably to be funny. Instead she settled on walking a little bit faster.

"It's because I've spent a huge amount of time trying to make sure I do understand. I've studied people, I've studied situations, I've studied, and thought about, every little thing I can think of exactly so that when I see a situation or am confronted with an idea I know how to respond. It's difficult and time consuming, which is why most people don't do it, but it's worth it in the end. It means I won't betray myself when I see something shiny or something just sounds like a good idea," she paused for a moment. "It sounds like talking is painful. Maybe you should stop it."

The first comments caused some irritation, the question caused much more than that. Her grip on the rope tightened, and her free hand balled into a fist. There was obvious tension in her shoulders even if he couldn't see her face. Despite this, she maintained the same pace and was still careful over any bumps. Her voice was louder than usual, and she was talking faster than usual, but it still sounded calmer than her body made her look.

"You ask this question like those two things are mutually exclusive. That's only true if you believe some goals are less than others, which is complete bullshit. A person who decides to dedicate their life to raising a family is not less than the person that decides to become president and run a country. A person that decides to cure an obscure disease that only six people globally have is not less than the person that decides to cure cancer. Peoples' desires and goals are not worthless! That's the very idea I want to fight against! People can do more than they think and it's stupid ideas like this from the people trying to control them that make them feel this way. It's because people think that only certain actions, ideas, or desires are worthwhile that we have this problem to begin with!" Aurora scoffed, and once again had to stop herself from pulling on the rope too hard.

"But," some of the tension in her voice left. "To answer your question, it's because there is no happiness without achievement. It's obvious. Can you think of a single person that thinks they can't accomplish anything that is also happy? There's even entire entertainment industries being built around achievement, the most obvious being video games. People need it on some level. It doesn't mean they have to take over the world, just...I don't know, do well on that test, create a nice piece of art, whatever. It varies from person to person."