Application: Brenda Amparo (Blue Beetle III comic)

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Mrs. Reyes, are you sure I can't help -"

A thin girl with carrot-red hair and freckles turns around, school uniform skirt swirling around as she does. She's startled to find a stone wall behind her rather than the kitchen door she was expecting.

"Oh brother. C'mon, I didn't even pick up a weird alien artifact this time or anything!" She walks

Comments

[grandmasteryoda]

"These CDs that you have. In comparison to Dio, how are they?"

[ibrokeaplanet]

Brenda blinked. Okay, aliens she could handle. Weird questions, she could handle. The combination of the two? Threatened brain-breakage.

"Um. Not really all that metal-y. That's what Paco meant by 'chick rock', that they're a little softer sounding." Dio? Good grief.

[grandmasteryoda]

Yoda studied her intently, then nodded. "A chance, I will give it. Looking for new beats to groove to, I am." Yoda's knowledge of current Earth musical terms was... shaky, at best, but he enjoyed using them, if only for the looks on peoples' faces. "What are they called?"

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Um...I've got Alanis Morrissette, Neko Case and Rilo Kiley left. Let's see - in descending order of metalocity, I'd say Alanis, Rilo Kiley and Neko in last."

She was a little distracted by images of what this - amphibian? - 'grooving' might look like.

[grandmasteryoda]

"Try this 'Alanis,' I think I will. Thank you, I do. Now," he said, folding his hands over his cane, "about yourself, tell me."

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Sure. I think you'll like her." Brenda handed over the CD.

"About myself? Um. I'm mostly a pretty normal sixteen year old girl. I go to school, I volunteer with a social services agency that's been good to me, I study martial arts. I hang out with my best friends a lot. I'm a vegetarian. Really the only unusual thing about me is who a couple of the people closest to me are. One's a super-hero and another one's a crime lord." She shrugged. "Can't pick your family, though, I guess."

[grandmasteryoda]

Yoda tucked the CD away in his robe for later listening. If Alanis Morrissette did not rock as hard as Dio, perhaps she would still be entertaining.

"Mmm." Yoda tapped his cane on the ground. "Unusual family, that is. Interesting for you, that must be."

[ibrokeaplanet]

"It might've been, if they'd been up-front with me about what they are, what their lives are like. Only one of 'em was." She shrugged. "I love 'em both to death, but guess which one gets my loyalty?"

[grandmasteryoda]

"The truthful one," he guessed. "Hard it is to trust one who keeps the truth in shadows."

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Exactly. I love my aunt, but I don't see how I can trust in anything she says or does anymore. My friend the hero kept her secret, and I'm mad as anything at him for that, but at least he's got a solid record of truth-telling behind him."

She sighed. "He says he could see I was happy with my aunt, and he wanted that for me. He even seems to be able to separate how she behaved with me from how she behaved in criminal dealings. But I just can't understand how he does that. I mean, can a person have two natures like that?"

[grandmasteryoda]

"When not in someone's best interest a secret is percieved to be, even the most truthful person may be silent." Not that Yoda would know anything about that. Oh no. Though a certain Tatooine farmboy-turned-Jedi might have something to say on the topic, were he here.

"For some people, easy it is. Who they really are, and who they appear to be, completely different may be. Nothing in common but a face, the two may have. And for some, not even that."

[ibrokeaplanet]

Brenda nodded. "That's why I love my friend. The hero one. Even though he wears a mask sometimes, he's always the same person through and through."

Brenda paused, thinking of the day she learned Tia was La Dama. How many people has she killed?

Less, in the last five years. She's not a saint, but she's changed. Or trying to.

"You sound like somebody who knows a lot about this kind of thing. Is it ever possible for someone who's got two natures like that to change? To choose one, and give up the other? Bring the two sides together?"

[grandmasteryoda]

"A long time have I lived. Repeat itself, the nature of people tends to do." He paused and chewed on his cane before speaking again. "Possible, it is. Easy, it is not. Time and motivation it will take, and the desire for change. And in some cases, possible it is not. Like making two strangers into one person, it would be." His ears lowered and he sighed. "But possible it may be."

[ibrokeaplanet]

Brenda's voice got very small.

"They say...those who say my aunt's trying to change...they say it's because she loves me. Because she wants to make a good home for me."

[grandmasteryoda]

"A good motivation, love is. Seen one fallen very far turn back for love, I have." Figuratively speaking. You couldn't actually see anything when you were one with the Force, but he saw Vader--no, it had been Anakin there at the end--redeem himself nonetheless. "If support she has, easier it will be, and happy both of you will hopefully be."

[ibrokeaplanet]

"...Does that mean I shouldn't still be angry with her? For not telling me, for the things she's done?"