The Best Idea [OPEN]

Everything was so busy lately. Too busy. Aurora already didn't get much sleep at night, but at this point there was barely even enough time to think. Between the city clean up, what Pandaemonium seemed to be expecting from her, the nature of her civilian life, and her own tendency to just obsess over everything vaguely distasteful there simply weren't enough hours in the day for her to do everything she wanted anymore. That was always true, but prioritizing was never this hard. That said, there was one thing she'd always have time for: beating the shit out of anyone that double crossed her.

There were always going to be people that took advantage of disasters for their own gain. It was easy to tell that Aurora was a bit stressed, was willing to delegate, and wasn't doing as much fact checking as usual. Some idiot decided it was a good idea to try to take advantage of her good will to make a few extra bucks. There were few things that pissed off Aurora more than taking advantage of her good will. No matter how busy she was, she could not let this stand. The culprit wasn't hard to track down. He didn't seem to be very smart either, which just showed exactly how careless she had been. He had a house in the slums that she entered through the front door without hesitation. There was nothing he could do to her. At first, everything was quiet. Her attacks were limited to inside the building, and at first she didn't even touch him. Suddenly, a scream rang out through the area, and the building was practically torn in half.

Aurora left the man crumpled on the floor in the remains of the building, twitching slightly. She created a new hole for herself, not that she needed to, the wall was just closer than the hole she made earlier. Her aurora trailed behind her at her waist level lighting up the area around her. Her boots clanged against the pavement, making her presence even more obvious if the bright, colorful lights weren't making her noticeable enough. There was a little bit of blood on the knuckles of her right glove, not that it was obvious due to the color of the material, but otherwise she was still fairly clean. Not even her hair looked messy. She walked down the street to head back to the docks with a small smile on her face. Even one-sided fights like that could put her in a good mood sometimes.

When someone plopped out of nowhere in front of her all Aurora did was raise a brow. She didn't even bother slowing down; she had places to be and someone getting in her way wasn't going change that. Once he started talking her entire expression contorted into a scowl, and she suddenly started moving even more quickly and more aggressively. She could deal with people deciding to block her path, she could deal with people disapproving of what she did, but she had it up to here with people asking for her permission for every little thing.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she yelled. "People are feeling the need to ask for my permission to ask me a goddamn question now? In that case, yes, I would terribly mind if you asked me about what happened back there. Fuck off!"

Aurora wasn't particularly interested in fighting right now. As much as she just wanted to knock this guy's teeth out, she didn't have the time to deal with such a nobody that even she didn't recognize him. That was saying something considering how closely she watched Pandaemonium's activities, even if a lot of it was forced because all these idiots kept flocking to her like lost puppies to tell her about what they were doing or to ask her for her permission for god knows what. Part of felt like she should be happy that Pandaemonium was getting more organized, but she had no desire to be these peoples' mom or to fill whatever void was in their life. If he didn't move by the time she got to where he was, Aurora was content to just push him out of the way and continue to head back to the horde proper.

It was amazing how quickly a few mean words could break someone's facade. No one here was polite or pleasant by default, it was always fake. It was manipulative, but it would never work on her. She would see through it every time and would act accordingly. Her glare deepened, and her pace slowed to allow each echo the metal parts of her boots made to properly dissipate before she moved on. Her aurora swirled at her feet, with small parts rising out of it occasionally as though it were some kind of snake ready to attack if it got the chance.

"You want to know what happened? You really want to know? Well, see, I can't stand liars, manipulative people, or fake people. This guy," she took a larger step forward, making sure to slam her foot on the pavement harder than usual for an extra loud clang. "Was worse than even that. I don't tolerate people backstabbing me, so I did something about it.

"I found where he was hiding, and took everything he stole from me back. But I couldn't just leave it there. He realized this and tried to run," she stopped directly in front of him and leaned forward into his face. "I hate it when they squirm," she continued walking past him. "So I pulled out once of the fence posts I collected earlier, and threw it into his calf."

A gothic style metal fence post materialized in the aurora at her feet, which she then grabbed and started twirling in her hand. Aurora continued telling the story in excessive detail, making sure to thoroughly describe every broken bone, every scream, and every drop of blood spilt. She didn't kill the man, or even put him in critical condition, but he was going to have great difficulty moving for quite some time.

Aurora just rolled her eyes and dissolved the fence post she materialized into particles once more. Typical of manipulative liars, they have to cover up their own insecurity and inability to deal with their own emotions with humor. She just kept walking away from him, largely tuning out what he was saying. It didn't sound like he was saying anything important.

"You asked a question, I answered. If you don't want the answer, then don't ask the question. Unsurprisingly, the reason people come to me varies on the person, but it doesn't change that I'm not their mom. My personal affairs are also none of your concern, and your opinions on the situation are neither needed nor wanted," at this point she just sounded bored. "As for the man, well you can always go ask him for yourself. I'm sure he'd come up with a cornucopia of entertaining excuses for why he decided to sell the food and water he was supposed to distribute while I got the plumbing and electricity working in the area again. I don't care what his excuses are though, I will deal with anyone that double crosses me.

"But none of this is hardly any of your business, so I'll reiterate: Fuck off. If you have time to be standing around sticking your nose where it doesn't belong I'm sure you can find something more useful to be doing."

"Same reason I haven't sanded your tongue off for wasting my time when it's particularly valuable: I only use extreme measures when they're proven to be necessary. I see no reason to escalate an issue when a less harmful and less permanent option should suffice."

Her tone was flat. The more she talked, the less emotion was in her voice. Aurora had largely disengaged from this conversation now that her brain was shifting back to what needed her attention next. Her irritation hadn't gone away, but now that dealing with the guy selling off her free supplies was crossed off her list, she knew she needed to get to the next one. She couldn't let herself get distracted, the city needed her right now. The slums was part of Pandaemonium territory, part of her territory. Right now, it was under her protection and she was going to do everything she could to revitalize it. The destruction here gave the area room for a second chance and she wasn't going to waste it.

"You are wasting your time. You are being a completely useless piece of shit. You're saying useless words at me, so I know for certain. If you'd like to stop being useless, I could use someone to take care of the rat problem we've been having ever since we uncovered a nest in an abandoned house. Or if that doesn't suit your fancy, because of the lack of services out here right now, trash and human waste is starting to pile up and needs to be cleaned out. I'm sure even someone like you could handle either of those."

Aurora slowed to a stop with her eyebrows raised, surprised that he actually agreed. They were a couple of simpler tasks that needed to get done, but there was a reason it was so difficult to get volunteers to do them. Even if she wasn't intentionally picking a couple of the dirtier tasks for this guy, she knew what they were and expected him to turn them down like everyone else. She finally turned around to actually face him while she spoke, resting her weight on one leg with her arms folded.

"If you can use that power that let you put yourself in front of me on other things, then the trash clean up shouldn't take you more than a few minutes. You can drop the trash into the dumpsters outside of one of the businesses on Malachite Isle. They weren't hit by the dragon, so most of their services are still running. The human waste should obviously going into the sewers, but I'm afraid I don't know the layout of the pipes under the city. You're on your own to figure that part out.

"I doubt the rats will be hard, there's just a lot of them and they're surprisingly elusive. They tend to be around areas with food or garbage. I suspect you'll find several around the areas with large piles of garbage. It's unhygienic enough that you should avoid approaching if you are at all able. You can just drop the rats in the ocean, no one will miss them."

Aurora turned back around and started walking to her next destination again. It was always nice to see people willing to help after a disaster like that, and he didn't even seem to be doing it to get her off his back given he was the one bothering her. Pausing, she looked over her shoulder again.

"If you're looking for something else, you can talk to the other people working or come find me," she made her aurora rise above her head. "I'm not difficult to find, just look for the colored lights."