JaBrawn

He didn't like the outdoors. There was too much of it.

He meandered down the dank, littered streets glistening with slime, and talked to himself a lot. In his head, at least. First off, he was not entirely certain of the extent of his powers. He had been told by his creator that he had been given the strength of "six score men," which he rationalized was about enough to lift ten or twelve tons over his head with considerable effort. He could part the veil of consciousness and override senses and nervous systems. Those of any psychic or mental merit could resist him, but they would have to be of considerable might to turn his hand. He could also see and track the misty, ephemeral vapors known as auras. Such divinations could also suggest intent and personality, though there was a great deal of interpretation involved, and he could be fooled under the right circumstances.

He was dense and heavy, and could shrug off fists and clubs as if they were the affections of an infant. Knives would sting a bit and could nick his flesh if enough strength were behind them. Bullets would carve shallow divots from his body, but it would take many, many hits to fell him. Anything more powerful than that? Who knows? He didn't. He'd rather it stayed that way, because the only definite way to find out was to... well... find out.

He could also speed up his reactions and perceptions to a degree many times that of any human. He had yet to use this ability. He had yet to test any of his powers, really. He knew that this great and powerful entity had sent him here as a "hero." He was still unclear as to why. Paragon City was rife with heroes, many of which were either more experienced, more powerful or both, than he.

Still, here he was. The sun sifted its way through the clouds and skyscrapers and finally found his back. It warmed him and brightened his mood, confound it. He wanted to stay grumpy and morose, he fit in better that way.

He passed a vagrant who peered at him through gummy, red-rimmed eyes. "Good morning."

JaBrawn looked up at the great, blazing star that perched in the sky. "It's... nearly dusk, friend."

The man nodded. "Yeah. It's morning somewhere, though." He continued to nod, as if the meaning behind his words was self-evident.

"Well... yes." JaBrawn's wide features pinched together a bit.

The man stopped nodding. "Got a dollar?"

JaBrawn regarded the question for a moment. Then, he reached inside his pocket and withdrew a wallet stuffed with cash.

The man's eyes miraculously cleared at the sight of it. "Make that... forty dollars?" he corrected.

JaBrawn shrugged and withdrew two twenty dollar bills. He had been versed on many things, the use of currency being one of them. He handed the bills to the transient.

The man took the money and swallowed, peering up at his broadly-stacked benefactor. "Feel like giving me some more?"

JaBrawn smiled, feeling that he was doing a good thing. Perhaps this was the sort of feeling one would get whenever they handed money out? He had been provided with basically limitless resources, though his creator warned that being too flambuoyant with it would be foolish and dangerous. He paused as he wrapped his fingers around five hundred dollar notes, the folds of illusionary wealth halfway out of his wallet. Was throwing money at this human--even this paltry amount--dangerous? His eyes narrowed, and he replaced the cash.

"Hey--" the scrawny pile of rags and filth that was a man said, his voice halfway between irritation and disbelief, "you can't play with my head like that man, hand it over."

JaBrawn shook his head. "No... I don't think that would be a good idea."

The man's eyes widened, and he slowly got to his feet. "Well I think it would be a very good idea!"

The alien construct turned more towards him. "How so? What will you do with the money? Get new clothes? Rent an inexpensive room for a couple of nights to clean up so you can get a job? What?"

The man curled his lower lip in and stuck his stubbly chin out. "What the hell business is it of yours what I do with it? I know you have it and by the looks of ya I know it ain't gonna' hurt ya to part with it, so just give it to me!"

"And if I don't?" The end of JaBrawn's question was paired with the slight lifting of both eyebrows.

The man's jaw shuddered open and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I'll... I mean," he regarded JaBrawn's heavy form. Even if he only weighed as much as he looked, JaBrawn would have outweighed the man two to one.

Sometimes, though, desperation makes you point pointy things at people you really shouldn't. A rusty, serrated length of knife slipped from his pocket and into his hand. He lifted this and held it shakily in JaBrawn's direction. "Give... give me all your money."

JaBrawn was stunned. Even if he hadn't given him all his money, he had given him some--no questions asked! If he had been truly aware of how exorbitant an amount it really was to give to a bum, he would have been even more shocked. And yet here this human, this mortal, was threatening to kill him if he didn't relinquish every last cent. What a world this was. What a noble, honorable race to protect.

He could have reached into the man's head and shut down his ability to move and think, but instead, he pushed the open palm of his hand against the pointy edge of the knife, and pushed it away. It should have scored his skin, sliced away tendon, bled. Instead, it bent like stiff cardboard. The vagrant suddenly realized that he was up against something that was not a normal man. Maybe a hero, maybe not. If he weren't so terrified, he'd think it odd that there was not a lick of spandex on him.

JaBrawn regarded him coldly. "There is no reason to let you live. None at all." He spoke these words with such callous detachment, that his removal from humanity instantly became obvious. The transient moaned slightly and slumped against the grimy bricks of the structure behind him. "So that's why I won't kill you. No reason at all. Remember that. There is not a single reason for you to be alive." He peered down at the fellow and turned away, his feet thumping against the old concrete alley floor.

The filthy bum, trembling and whimpering, had a small revelation.

No reason to live?

He could have told him that before any of this had even happened.

---

JaBrawn stepped out onto a busy sidewalk. Hordes of people were stampeding down the narrow walkways hardly giving him a glance. How many of them had qualities similar to the worthless husk he had just encountered? How many of them would ask for something, get it, then demand everything if they thought he had it? How many?

He peered back in the murky armpit of the alley. He could just make out the slumped form of the wretch, sitting spread-legged, his head in his hands. He appeared to be weeping.

He had obviously foiled an attempted mugging.

Why did he feel so rotten then?

The first night of my awakening, I was charged with a deceptively simple task. Choose a name.

I had already been instilled with a decent intelligence and a more than capable creative side, but I found the assignment daunting. There are simply too many combinations between consonants and vowels--and that's just English. So I pored over names that already had or did exist. I feared I could not come up with something utterly original, so I would borrow the title of another.

I found the first thing I thought fascinating about humans that night, not even quite ten years ago now: many of them have the same names, yet they are all individually distinct. All original. Their names are still personal, yes, but they are simply the cover for the book, and nothing more.

It took me nearly a year, but I decided on JaBrawn, an ancient Norse warrior name, Benjamin, after the great timepiece in London, and Marshada, after an Arabian spirit that lived forever in the shadows and only wished one thing--to able to touch the light without burning. JaBrawn Benjamin Marshada, a cosmic construct under the loving tutelage of a god that finds the meanderings of creatures that are less to her than a termite would be to you, priceless.

If you were to look at me, you would probably agree that my creator--who has no name known to me, incidentally--did a reasonably good job. I stand a few inches higher than six feet. Tall, but not freakishly so. My build is broad and thick, but clever application of clothing can dull this. There is, however, an unfortunate side effect from being constructed of so much cosmic matter: I weigh nearly 600 pounds. If I walk on wood, it creaks and bows. If I walk on stone or earth, my feet thud against the stuff like sledgehammers. I try to avoid anything that does not look like it could support me, and this once gave me away to an enemy who had an inkling of what I actually was. I almost "died" that time, thought none of us truly do. Maybe I'll tell you about that some time.

I decided to wear my hair long, a minor vanity on my part. I enjoy the feel and look of it that way. Certainly not unheard of for males of any age, but still unusual enough to make me feel... special, I suppose. Forgive the term. I also wear a goatee, but only so that I might remove it in the case of a sudden and effective need to hide my identity. Such quick alterations are easily accomplished. In fact, the hair might also fall in this category. Yes, that's the actual reason for the hair. Disregard that whole "special" nonsense. Pfah, I've been on this world for far too long already--I can feel these "emotions" creeping over me unbidden, like watching the fog slink in from an ocean.

Anyway. I tend to dress in nondescript attire. Slacks, button-down-shirt, mediocre tie, and an overcoat or suit jacket. My endeavors usually require some amount of dissolution into the masses, so being able to look like everyone else is a useful ability.

I think that is enough elucidation for now. See you around.

From the author: This is from way, way back, before release date. Some may remember.

The universe is actually kind of boring.

Some would disagree, of course. There are all manner of black holes, quasars, sub-space distortions, novas, supernovas, and an endless list of anomalies from rogue comets to unexplainable collections of cosmic dust that shouldn't be there. Though, however infinite the universe may be, there are... finities.

They are separate or bound together. Intangible as a whisp of hydrogen gas so thin that its length could circle a planet yet its breadth could not be seen without pale, dull, limited machines such as an Earth electron microscope. Things as vast as clouds of particles so immense you could slip a galaxy over it as you would a ring over your finger.

Yet, there are those that protect these trifles, these... cosmic mortalities.

They are largely unseen. Some do not stir for millenia at a time. All are beyond the concepts of any planetary intelligence. They are beings that smile at the life of a star as one would watch a dandelion lift its children to the wind. No, I am not one of these; I was, however, made by one. One who, for reasons I cannot possibly even fathom, treasures these infinitesmal cosmic motes known as life. For some reason, when you stack carbon just so, or arrange inconceivable molecular globes of iron, calcium and proteins in a certain way, they suddenly become life. I admit, this does fascinate me, but the entirety of such beings seem so... limited. I had always wished my creator had explained how this came to pass. I cannot see her, of course, but I feel that she smiles at me as you would smile at a child as it marveled at the simple movement of a blade of grass touched by the finger of a butterfly.

She wove a tiny cosmic thread and placed it in a body of dense material, one that can absorb and utilize energies that cannot even be registered by any normal means. I can use these energies to pierce minds, move at great speeds, see into spectrums both scientific and arcane, and endow my muscles with strength enough to crush bricks into sand. She calls this thread, this core of my being, a soul--and she calls my body a vessel that this soul acts through. I know, it seems like so much existential jargon, but I assure you it is truth.

I think.

So, here I am. A mushily noble being possessed of an honor I do not understand and charged with a task I feel is meaningless: help life continue, and snuff out those who would quell such intentions. I tell myself, "but I kill life that is attempting to subjicate other life. Is this not a ridiculous contradiction? A wolf snaps the neck of a rabbit with no remorse or thought on its behalf. If this loss of life falls within my parameters, why do I not seek out every last act of villainy? Such a task is laughable."

I feel her smile again... and I cannot help but smile in return, da*n her. I feel the touch of communications that are not words, yet I place them here as such.

"The wolf kills because it has to, to survive. It was built to do that. Others kill because it suits vile desires. You will know the difference."

I must say... I don't know if that's exactly right, but I can't disprove it either. I soberly remind myself--I contest the musings of an entity that twirls suns on her fingertips. And, in my annoyingly empathic way, I cannot prove that the wolf actually DOESN'T kill the rabbit without remorse.

Can you?

This is so embarassingly accurate I'm thinking of scrapping my scrapper.

I'm somewhere between Feral and Civilized.