Simple Chaos [OPEN TO 1]

Blue Jay actually came upon Aurora completely by happenstance. Here he’d been, minding his own civilian business, walking through downtown and supporting local businesses like a good citizen, when all of the sudden the sky clouded with those shining particles of pain. The people around him began screaming and running away, yelling things like “It’s Aurora! Run!” and “Oh no, she’s going to kill us!”. He even caught one instance of “Why of all times did Aurora Disco have to show up now?!”. It seemed her name was getting around.

So, like a good citizen, Blue Jay joined in the scattering, at least far enough so as to duck into a back ally. He’d been lucky in that he’d been coming back from class and had his outfit and sword just on him. Obviously he wasn’t about to completely change right there, but he traded his jacket for the one he commonly wore while supering, and slipped on his mask. He’d have to leave his bags here and hope no one had the time or mind to steal his glorified cloth sacks full of clothes, notebooks, and about five pencils more than he needed.

Blue Jay pulled his sword from its bag, slipped on the sheath strap, and was off. They’d be the only trace he was ever there, as a moment later he appeared atop the building adjacent to the ally and about half a block down from the other super. While he wasn’t sure what exactly Aurora was up to, the ominous cloud and the running crowd offered little to the argument of it being anything good. Yet, she wasn’t actually attacking anyone. She was just kind of sitting there, grinning. Threateningly.

Well, he may as well go over there before a swarm of angry particles began attacking the poor people just trying to enjoy their afternoon. Blue Jay ran to the edge of his current roof and on the last step before the roof gave way to sky, teleported. His destination was Aurora’s roof, and he landed with a soft step on its nearest corner.

“Didn’t think I’d run into you again here. I thought you’d already proven to Colorful Stardust Jewelers that you were the superior colorful stardust.” Blue Jay joked. Arms crossed, he walked slowly towards her. He’d still yet to draw his sword. “I don’t suppose you’re just here for the good sunbathing spot?”

Blue Jay had expected to be attacked right off the bat, but, to his surprise, Aurora made no such move. The only thing she threw at him was a reply, and it was even less self-important than usual.

That worked for him. Blue Jay shrugged. “Happened to be in the area and noticed the screaming crowd.” He settled perhaps ten feet away from Aurora, far enough that there was still some space between the person he’d fought on three separate occasions and him, but close enough he didn’t have to speak too loudly to be heard. He crouched on the edge of the building. Sitting would’ve been more comfortable (even more so if he had a chair like the one Aurora had set up; propped up, even), but he wanted to be able to react quickly if she did decide he was worth attacking. “‘A crime to exist’, though? I didn’t think you were that pessimistic.” He chuckled. It was one of those lines thrown around on the internet or in hate-fueled speeches, and though he was sure all supers were aware that that was actually a thing that went through some people's heads, he'd rarely heard another super reference the remark. He was surprised to hear Aurora mention it.

People were still scattering on the street below. Those making their escape now were mostly those on the upper floors of the surrounding buildings, who had stairs, doorways, people to push out of the way before they could make it outside. In one storefront, one man didn’t even bother with the bottleneck of a door. He simply threw a metal mannequin through the window and hopped out.

“It is impressive, I’ll give you that, but there's this thing called ‘disturbing the peace’ that I’m pretty sure this falls squarely into.” But that was hardly an excuse for him to engage in any kind of combat. Smashing up buildings wasn’t exactly good for preserving the peace either. He looked away from the street to glance at the super. “You, uh, do know that showing off like this is going to draw the police right to you, right?”

“It already looks like you’ve started something.” Blue Jay teased. “Loss of business, damage caused in a panic, psychiatric bills…” He shook his head. “And what about a helicopter?” He couldn’t help but laugh, thinking about the police attempting to use a helicopter against someone who had such dominance over the airspace. Blue Jay could say from experience that flying through Aurora’s cloud was not a pleasant activity, but one would hope people as supposedly trained as the police would be able to tell that without having to test it out once.

But if she was trying to aggravate the police, perhaps it was best he left. Try as he might to be helpful and tell the public at large he was only trying to be helpful, the destruction he’d inadvertently caused in his past couple of battles spoke louder to the people than his own words could. Being seen with Aurora would not help his standing. At the same time, he had a couple reasons to stick around. For one, though he’d come to not fear the safety of civilians too much around Aurora, he did fear the property value of the surrounding structures. He’d prefer if no buildings met their untimely end today. Also, he was bored. “Nah, I think I’ll stay.” He said simply, stretching his arms above his head.

With his mind on the newspaper, Blue Jay had an idea. Perhaps rather than being detrimental to his public appearance he could turn this into an opportunity to push it in a way he wanted. “But if I’m sticking around, there’s no need to do the same ‘predictable’ thing for the nth time. What’dya say I help you do something less boring?” He stood up and pivoted on his heel to face the other super. “Want to put on a mock battle for the police?”

“Ouch.” Blue Jay said, actually surprised by the harshness of her response. “Here I am, offering to help you with your boredom, and you start glaring at me and calling me all these rude names.” He crossed his arms and shook his head. “This is why people don’t like you, Aurora. Wouldn’t kill you to accept someone’s good will for once.” He said jokingly. He knew he was being rather harsh in his teasing, but it was only because he was actually somewhat insulted. It was true he was still working on his super-stopping and not breaking stuff skills, but insane vigilante? It wasn’t his fault his powers weren’t well suited for general crime stopping.

Maybe he was just a little sensitive on the subject. It also wasn’t her fault he wasn't doing his job as well as he should be. Well, it sort of was, but he still shouldn't take it out on her.

It was becoming pretty clear Aurora wasn’t here for a fight, but if not that, then what? It seemed unusual for someone to just come scare a crowd of people and get the police called on them just for the heck of it, but then again, Aurora wasn’t your usual person.

“You make a really good angry civilian.” Blue Jay laughed, the small bit of tension previously in his voice evaporating. This was a sort of indirect apologizing for jumping to conclusions, even though it was probably too subtle to be taken as such.

“You’re probably right, I bet if I did just wave my blade around a bit I could scare a good crowd of people.” He sighed. “That sounds like some kind of accomplishment, but, I don’t know. It’s hard to read the newspaper the day after you’ve limped home from a fight to find people complaining about how you’ve messed up their front display.” He turned around and gazed down at the few people left in the square, and wondered how much of the overturned tables and shattered storefronts would be blamed on Aurora. “I knew I wasn’t going to be thanked when I started doing this, but I’d like to leave some kind of legacy that isn’t ‘was only good at causing more trouble than he stopped’. But maybe that’s just the American Dream talking; ‘leave your mark’ all that.” He paced slowly back to the edge of the roof. Crouching down again, he could see over the edge of the rail’s ledge without having to lean or crane his neck, and could feel the breeze trailing up the face of the building. “Yet another lie from the people that own the newspapers and fund the history books.” He mused.

Blue Jay felt became aware that’d he’d been talking quite a bit, yet he still wasn’t completely done. There was still something bothering him. “So, now I’m curious - are you only here to watch people scatter like little ants or something and to bug the police because you can and this is some kind of hobby for you, or is there some other, more focused motivation behind this?” He asked, looking over his shoulder at Aurora. “I’m half expecting you to stand up any moment here and start cackling evilly before railing off on how we’ve all fallen into your dastardly trap.”

Something about how she attempted to explain him didn’t quite feel accurate. Attempting to achieve a positive public appearance had just seemed like a natural step, but he felt like he’d jumped to this conclusion without checking with his subconscious self on how they’d gotten there. For nearly half a minute he was silent, attempting to put his thoughts together. “They won’t ever like any of us, will they?” He sighed. “Yeah, on some level I care about what people think of me - I feel like that’s a pretty normal thing to worry about - but it’s more like my reputation is a side effect of my work. It’s a way to gauge how successful I am. Getting just one thanks in a world that hates you means you’ve done a whole lot of good, right? It does suck when I get blamed for things I didn’t do, or when people blow up my mistakes or ignore my successes, but it’s the kind of annoyance that can be forgotten with a soda and a good night of sleep.”

He paused to find his point. “I don’t want to be a hero or whatever because I want people to like me. I don’t care about that. I want to have a good reputation - or, really, I want to help people because then I won’t feel like I’ve wasted my life.” He said in honest admittal. He was admitting a lot of stuff recently - it seemed he wasn’t all that good at keeping these things to himself.

“But you probably think that sounds silly.” He chuckled. “I bet you’ve found twenty holes to poke in my argument by now. But, I ask in rebuttal, how’s going with the grain of public opinion going for you?” Absently, he looked up at the sky. The bright light of Aurora’s cloud made him immediately regret it. “So now it’s my turn to make wild guesses at your life goals and motivations.” He said teasingly, rubbing his eye. “You seemed there like you were speaking from personal experience. If it’s smart to accept we can’t change the public’s mind, that’s what you’ve done, haven’t you? You’ve given up. Damn, you are pessimistic. Realistic, but pessimistic.” He laughed. “It’s important to you, right? Your image. That’s why you give all those speeches after you win, and why you attacked that news station, and it’s why you’re here today. Of all the things to just lie down and accept… That’s ironic, you know? What did you say at the jewelry store, that those hiding powers should stop allowing the weaklings - unpowered, I assume - to control them?” For once his detail-oriented memory was coming in use. “Sounds to me like you’re letting these ‘weaklings’ control you if you don’t think you can change their opinion. You’ve ‘accepted’ it.” He was doing this lightheartedly as an elaborate means of teasing her for jumping down his throat so quickly. That tone carried all the way through his little monologue.

Out of the corner of his eye, Blue Jay caught a flash of movement. A reporter - first on the scene, lucky her - had a camera out and had snapped a photo from about half a block away. As soon as she realized he’d spotted her, her shoulders tensed and she ducked into a nearby ally. He wondered how long it’d be before others started arriving. Being seen wasn’t too big of a worry for him; if worse came to worse, he could always just teleport down a floor into the building they were on top of.

Blue Jay burst out laughing. “Were you listening? That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

The inevitable police had arrived with their cars and fancy hats. Standing up, Blue Jay stepped back from the increasingly hazardous edge of the building. “Aurora you’re proving my point for me. You’re just making guesses at my motivations; I don’t even know how you got to thinking I cared so much about my public reputation.” Pausing for a moment, he retraced their conversation. “You called me a liar after I said a want to have a good reputation was a poor goal to have, that’s what it was.” He recollected. Tilting his head to the side, he said, “I was saying that it seems like I should try to shoot for a good reputation with the public because, I don’t know, there’s all those images of the grand hero helping out the common people in need.” A little ways back from the edge of the roof a group of air ventilation units stuck out like a hand trying to claw its way out of its tomb. Blue Jay picked the shortest and gave it the unintended use of his new seat. “Also because Seaside’s Bulwark is getting all chummy with the police.” He grumbled. “Can’t say I don’t want to be seen in that light, even if it is impossible. I was just reflecting aloud that perhaps I shouldn’t aim for something like that. It’d just be a long, uphill battle that wouldn’t actually help me accomplish anything I’m trying to do.” He shrugged. He couldn’t explain it any more clearly than that.

“So no, I don’t have some wall at my place covered in all the news stories mentioning me, bits about me circled in red and the ones I like best framed, just as I assume you don’t wallow in despair like a 60’s actor pining for her lost love about how the public will never accept us.” He joked. “When I said that, I knew I’d be mostly or completely wrong. That was kinda the point. I don’t know what’s going through your head any more than you do mine. How about next time, rather than presuming to know what I’m thinking, you just ask?” He shot her a wink.

White and blue cars could be seen on every side of the building, and the population down in the square was increasing like someone had spotted gold in one of the planters. Blue Jay was caught in a weird spot where if he left he’d be proving her point, but if he stayed it would seem like he was doing so only to prove his own.

He had said he would stick around and, as he wasn’t afraid of anything the police might try, he figured he may as well stay. He still had a bit to say, and he couldn’t say he wasn’t the tiniest bit curious as to how Aurora was going to deal with the police (plus he did want to make sure no one got crushed under falling rubble).

A police officer with a particularly fancy hat and badge had emerged from one of the cars and was now shouting something into a megaphone, but Blue Jay was more interested in the sheer quality and shininess of that badge (and his exchange with Aurora) than whatever she was saying. She must’ve polished it this morning.

The policewoman was still talking when Blue Jay spoke up again. “I’ll give that one to you, that unpowereds don’t like us because we are considerably more powerful and capable than them. Like, I would be the best mailman ever.” He said cheerfully. “But there’s a lot of diffrent things that can be drawn from that conclusion. Some might argue that therefore we, the supers, should be in charge of everything. Aurora for President, taken by popular vote or force. Others might say we should be carefully controlled exactly for that reason of yours, and though they’re few and far between, I’m sure some supers agree with that. Not that they’d admit to it; that’s how you get all the supers in a five mile radius to gang up on you. I would say we should use our abilities to help further society, just like smart people are working to make us snazzy quantum computers and 3D printed hearts. I even read one thing on the internet where a guy was saying supers are the next step in human evolution and we need to take out all the ‘weaker’ humans so we can rein as the true dominant species. But then they went on about something about aliens and reptiles in the government.” And those were only to name a few. Most people had some option, oftentimes a strong opinion, on the matter.

“I’ll go ahead and live what I preach and skip the speculation. What exactly do you draw from and what are you trying to accomplish with the knowledge that we’re stronger than ninety-nine point whatever of the population?”