Any Questions? [HaLOS]

As Blue Jay wandered, eventually came across the main security room. It was in the center of the building, like all good security rooms where, and thus had weathered most of the damage. This was a fancy security room, too. It was wide enough for five people to sit comfortably before the wall of screens and long enough for a fax machine, com device, and coffee machine all on one side. Four of the five spinny chairs remained in the room (the last was forlorned out in the hall) and seemed to be in fairly good condition, given the conditions. The linoleum was fairly uncracked, and though a whole half of the large computer display looked like it had seen better days (likely the ones prior to the large claw mark) and computer guts littered that side of the room, but there was still a good bit of tech that looked to be in pretty good condition. Poking his head in, Blue Jay wondered if any of them still worked. Stepping in to investigate, he walked into the center of the room.

And then he heard the door close behind him.

A chill went up his spine as the lock mechanism clicked. Blue Jay spun around. It hadn’t just been his imagination; the door was completely shut. Wind? No, this room didn’t have any windows, or other openings. That thought made the hair on his neck rise. He ran to the door and pulled on the handle. Locked. He pulled harder. Still locked.

Shit. Panic replaced Blue Jay’s surprised expression. Shit. If he had his powers, he could just teleport through the door, no problem. But he didn’t have his powers. This was an electric door, meant for keeping intruders (like him, normally) out of the heart of the security system. If it door wouldn’t budge, he was stuck.

Blue Jay jerked to attention when the monitors behind him turned on, his hand reflexively going for the sword over his shoulder. This time he carried through with the action, drawing it out as he turned to face the monitors, and held it defensively out before him, edge angled at the… face in the monitor.

“Who-” He sputtered. It was an odd monochrome face, and while it spoke like it knew him, Blue Jay hadn’t the slightest clue of who or what this thing was, let alone why it wanted to talk to him.

He wouldn’t attract any large trouble, he had thought. He wouldn’t run into anyone, he had thought. Blue Jay would like to see the him from five minutes ago say that now. Give him a good slap in the face for wandering around dangerous parts of town like that wasn’t going to end poorly for him.

He looked once between the door and the monitor, and turned back to the door. One hand against the end of the hilt, he jammed the blade into the crack between the door and its frame as hard as he could. Metal screeched against metal. It was about as pleasant a sound as the static coming from the monitors.

“Let. Me. Out!” He yelled through his locked teeth, attempting with minimal success to pry the door open.

The door wasn’t budging, and no amount of stabbing, swearing, or glaring was likely to change that. With a huff, Blue Jay stepped back from the door (giving it one last kick for good measure, resulting only in an awkward hop in which he attempted to regain his balance). His sword, useless as it may be against doors let alone weird computer faces, was still firmly in his hand and at his side as he turned to face the other in the room.

“Why do you care?” He couldn’t help but ask aloud. This was among many questions Blue Jay had of his own. Who was this person? How were they communicating like this, and how had they found him? Those two could be explained by superpowers, but then why was this super trying to ask him things? About his last two battles, none the less? This whole thing was just confusing and not something Blue Jay wanted to be a part of at all. But he was stuck, and apparently this guy was holding the key to the door. It wasn’t like he could just fight his way out; there didn’t seem to be anything to hit, even if he did have confidence in his current combat ability. Damn, some strong Bulwark he was.

His stance was straight but stiff, and his face spoke of his reluctance. “Fine.” He said stiltedly. This was giving in and he hated it, but what other choice did he have? “Ask your stupid questions.”

Blue Jay’s eyes widened as the image appeared on the screen. Knowing (from television, a very reliable source) what not exactly heroic people like to do with cars and crossroads, he had a pretty good idea what this guy was trying, even before the light malfunctioned. “H-hey, wait!” He shouted, running to the control panel in front of the screen. He could do nothing but watch as the intersection was thrown into turmoil, and several people came a little too close to getting really hurt.

“I already agreed to your terms, there’s no need to bring civilians into this!” He exclaimed. Exasperatedly, he dropped down in the nearest spinny chair. This guy, as if trapping him in a room and demanding answers to who knows what questions, he was endangering innocents for what, “motivation”? And all because this guy was apparently curious about his “choices” and “personality”. Well, whoever they were, they had his undivided attention.

Blue Jay’s eyebrow twitched at the question. He didn’t want to talk about this at all, let alone with some crazy rando who’d trapped him in a room and was threatening people’s lives. But it was because of that last thing that, with crossed arms and obvious irritation in his voice, he began to speak. “Because, if one of the supers had attacked the car and made it crash, it was very likely innocent civilians would be caught up in it. It was going really fast - getting into a collision at that speed easily could have killed people. It would’ve been the same if a stray attack hit one of the cars traveling on the highway. I was just going to follow the car until it got out of town and intervene once there weren’t so many people around, but then other supers engaged it on the highway. I had to do something.”

If Blue Jay seemed irritated before, he now looked like he was ready to tear this guy’s monochrome face right out of the screen. His head was down, brow furrowed and eyes shut. Not worth anything in the grand scheme of things? Weren’t they so high and mighty. He assumed they thought they were important to this “grand scheme”, like they were somehow greater than Henry in Accounting. And like the inevitability of death meant anything about a person’s worth. He wanted to yell at the monochrome face for their prideful and self centered response. But he held his tongue because people whose lives were worth a great deal, grand scheme or not, were in danger.

“We are not friends.” Blue Jay huffed, the resentment he felt coming out instead in this answer. It hadn’t even been that long and already rumors were circulating about the Bulwarks that were frankly flippantly untrue. “I swear, you stand next to someone one time and everyone’s shipping you to be married.” He grumbled. He looked up, making eye contact against with the face. His expression was serious, like a mentor tiredly laying out the simple truths of the world to a student. “Aurora is a selfish and short-sighted hypocrite who thinks she’s above everyone else because she’s got a half-baked plan and some super powers. I do not depend on her - I don’t even like her. She’s just another villain who needs to be stopped when she feels she's entitled to hurting or destroying the stuff of the people who piss her off. The only thing that makes her more of a threat is she’s still got a brain, even if it’s the kind that ignores the facts that don’t suit her. But that’s all she is to me: a threat. Nothing else.”

He raised an eyebrow at Computer Person. “Happy?”

He noted that the Disembodied Head and Voice took statements literally. In all honesty, he kind of zoned out while they went on about how they don’t feel happiness, even though that was just an expression asking if they were content with his answer in a way that conveyed his annoyance.

It was two words that snapped Blue Jay back into their monologue. “R-rogue Bulwark? Is that what people are saying about me?” He guessed there were worse things he could be called, but that was one step short of calling him traitor. It wasn’t entirely undeserved, and rumors and stupid nicknames happened at the drop of a hat, but he still wasn’t happy about it.

Blue Jay was surprised to see footage of Unhallow and himself from a couple nights ago. He guessed they had been walking, so there must’ve been traffic camera footage at the very least.

“They were injured and no other Keepers were helping them. I was worried about them so I offered to help.” He said sternly. He really didn’t understand the reasoning behind of this question, but at this point he was questioning the reasoning of this whole thing. “I think they’re scared of hurting people with their power, and they didn’t want me to get close because of it. I made them angry because I insisted on helping and they insisted that I didn’t, but I couldn’t just leave them to walk back to Malachite Isle alone. That HaLOS asshole had already abandoned them.” Looking over at the forlorned coffee machine, he grumbled to himself, “Some teammates, those Keepers.”

He still had his blade’s hilt in his hand, even if he had no idea what to do with it. He didn’t want to sheath it; that would mean he’d relaxed or given in and neither was the case. But it wasn’t like he had anything to strike or guard himself against.

What he did have was words. “But why do you care?” He asked defensively. “I’m just some random Bulwark, doing my poor job at trying to keep the city safe. There’s plenty of other supers who’re stronger than me, or more famous than me, and I don’t even know who you are. Why bother with me, of all people?”

“So they were being watched,” from afar, it seemed, “and you guys didn’t step in to help? What, did you think they wanted to walk back by themselves while injured like that? No, I don’t know for certain if they needed or wanted my help or not, but something tells me that their reasons for turning me down were not ‘to get stronger’ or whatever. Maybe it was the fact that their arms were crushed. Or maybe it’s because if they want to get stronger or tougher, doing so in the Keeper base would be both safer and much more efficient.” The sarcasm in his voice was voice was thick and laced with anger. He was only one tonal step down from yelling, and his eyebrow twitched again.

“You asshole Keepers. Does allyship mean nothing to you?” Judging by their familiarity with Unhallow, it was a safe assumption to make that whoever this was, they were part of the Keepers. This made two Keepers to have left Unhallow to their own devices, probably more. What kind of faction was this? “Your reason for not helping Unhallow is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. That is not the best way to become strong, that is exactly how you bleed out on the sidewalk or get shot by police. And you just assume that they have means of asking for help? It’s not like they could use a phone, and if you guys were keeping an eye on them to make sure nothing too bad happened, why didn’t you interfere when I, a Bulwark, approached them?”

The more he thought about it, the more flawed the logic was and the selfish the reason sounded. These Keepers, they sounded like they’d leave their best friend to die if they got nothing out of it.

“You know, I’m starting to think you Keepers are trying to get Unhallow killed.” He finished with a huff.