Jaime Reyes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
escarabajo) wrote2014-01-06 03:57 am
escarabajo) wrote2014-01-06 03:57 am
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tushanshu reapp
Note: any headcanon will be in blue!
Player Information:
Name: Danni
Age: 21
Contact: khajixda @ AIM;![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
reenact; purewhiteglastonbury@gmail.com
Game Cast: n/a
Character Information:
Name: Jaime Reyes, aka the Blue Beetle
Canon: DC Comics (comics; pre-new 52)
Canon Point: Blue Beetle #28 (or after the "End Game" arc, with a couple filler issues thrown in). Jaime's successfully ousted the Reach from Earth and has held the mantle of Blue Beetle for about six months.
Age: 16
Reference: "Another annoying monster battle, another interrupted date... another typical night in the life of Jaime Reyes."
Setting:
The DC Universe is much like our modern world: modern (if slightly advanced) tech, nearly identical locales (with a couple extra cities or countries and some ersatz versions: Gotham, Star City, Metropolis, and so on, and countries Bialya and “Qrac”), similar wars and histories, the whole shebang... up until you take the superheroes, aliens, and magic into account, that is.
While DC’s Earth is pretty close to ours on first glance, the addition of superheroes has definitely taken its toll on the way that the world works and thinks. You see, in the DCU, costumed superheroes are a staple of modern culture, having been around since at least the 1930’s or 40’s. And these heroes have origin stories of all sorts, making these supernatural concepts at least vaguely familiar to the civilians. You found a magic bug that lets you fly and shoot lasers? Sure. You’re the last of your alien race and can leap buildings and run faster than a locomotive? Why not. Just wanna dress up in spandex and punch criminals? Go nuts. Not to mention their motivations: reasons for becoming a hero range everywhere from vengeance to supernatural obligation. Though individuals have their own distinct opinions on the culture of the superhero in the DCU, as well as on “metahumans” (those with superhuman abilities), the idea of costumed vigilantes running around and fighting crime is something that is more or less accepted as commonplace in the world. Folks like Batman--without powers, but trained to a peak-- and Superman-- leaping buildings, locomotive-speed, etc-- exist side by side, both working to protect the people of Earth from crime and natural disasters. Jaime himself acquires his powers completely by accident: one day, he finds the Blue Beetle Scarab on the ground in a parking lot, picks it up, and takes it home. (It fell out of space. Long story.)
Some heroes even leave legacies, with one person taking up a title, then passing it down through death or some sort of more pleasant retirement. Batman, for example, has a whole brood of protegees: sidekicks like Robin, info-gathering allies like Oracle, and so on. Typically, in a legacy, each successor resembles their predecessor in some way: i.e., every Flash possessing super speed and a red-and-yellow costume. But there are exceptions. The Blue Beetle mantle is a particular one: none of the three incarnations of the Beetle have had similar costumes OR powers. We’ll get to Jaime later, but the first Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett) used a magic scarab for his powers, while the second (Ted Kord) used only his smarts, acrobatics, and gadgets. Furthermore, superhero teams and alliances are also quite present. Oracle, for example, is head of the Birds of Prey, an all-female team. (Only one of them actually has a bird codename, though.) The Teen Titans is, as their name suggests, a team of younger heroes, some of which are former sidekicks looking to strike it out and become their own heroes apart from the tutelage of their mentors. The most publicly visible and often the most respected group is the Justice League: as time goes on, members shift, leading the league to go through many different incarnations. Ted Kord was specifically a member of the Justice League International, a version of the team that was active in the 1980s. Maxwell Lord was a big financier/manager to this league, but we’ll get back to Max later.
Of course, the DCU’s not a perfect world. Villains exist right alongside the heroes, working with the same kind of limitations and the same vast pool of origins and motivations. Criminals who don’t run the cape-and-tights circuits still exist, but per the large influence that the caped community has on the world at large, gangs and crime syndicates still interact with them. One such group is Intergang, who uses advanced weapons and technology from the planet Apokolips. And in El Paso, the crime lord La Dama works particularly closely with gathering up metahumans and magical objects to use for her own gains, alongside more traditional illicit deeds.(Like stealing Intergang’s weapons.) There are also metahuman gangs, such as the Posse, also based in El Paso: they in particular, however, are more about protecting their own from La Dama or any other outside threats than criminal activity for its own sake. Not that they happen to be angels, or anything.
The heroes aren’t immune to mistakes, either-- something that can be fairly terrifying when one considers how much power metahumans possess. Batman, after learning that his memories had been magically altered by the Justice League, grows suspicious enough to warrant the creation of a satellite called Brother MK I. Brother MK I controls cyborgs called the OMACs, which have access to a database archiving the weaknesses of every metahuman, good and bad, should any of them fall out of control. (Excessive? Mildly fascist? Welcome to Batman.) Remember Maxwell Lord?because of editorial meddling Max became suspicious of metahumans, considering them a threat to humanity, and sought to use the satellite to control them. Ted Kord discovered his plan and tried to stop him-- and was shot in the head for it, because no one believed him and backed him up. (Except Booster Gold. But he was in the hospital because he’d gotten hurt trying to help.)
Speaking of Booster Gold, one very vital element of the DCU is time travel, alternate universes, and travel between universes. I’ll expand on the alternate universes at the end (it’s extremely confusing), but the concept of alternate/parallel worlds is very real in the DCU. Time travelers, like Booster (originally from the 25th century), also exist and can travel between time periods, albeit with some limitations. There is also a realm called the Bleed, which is an interdimensional space that exists in between alternate universes in the DCU. Time does not function normally in the Bleed, which Jaime learns the hard way. After becoming the Blue Beetle, Booster enlists him to help with the Brother MK I debacle-- the satellite gains sentience and renames itself Brother Eye, then attempts to destroy all metahumans while cloaking itself. Conveniently, Jaime’s Scarab lets him locate the satellite: unfortunately, the Scarab freaks out and sends him into the Bleed afterward. He emerges on Earth a whole Earth year later despite only perceiving a few minutes.
Heroes and villains also aren’t limited to Earth. Aliens are commonplace enough in the DCU to the point that several countries actually have diplomatic protocol in dealing with extraterrestrials. Alien superheroes like Superman are lovely and all, but space isn’t all fun and games, either. Big in the space justice area are the Green Lantern Corps. Green Lanterns, who use energy rings fueled by sheer force of will, are a sort of intergalactic police force formed byshort blue and ornery beings known as the Guardians. Green Lanterns come from specific “sectors” of the universe--meaning, they are from a diverse range of far-flung planets and species. (One is a planet. One is a sentient math equation. The DCU is a very big and weird place.) Earth’s got a few, including Guy Gardner, who has met Jaime Reyes and was formerly on the JLI alongside Ted Kord. There’s also a rogue lantern named Sinestro who starts up his own corps with rings fueled by the ability to instill fear: the war between the Sinestro Corps and the GLC is fought across space and even touches Earth at least once.
Very prominent in Jaime’s life and in the history of the Green Lanterns are the Reach. The Reach are an alien race whose specialty is discreetly conquering worlds. By selecting an “infiltrator” (the host of a Reach-made AI superweapon) and/or winning over the planet’s population over a typically lengthy time period, they’ve enslaved almost every world they’ve tried to conquer through, force, coercion, or some horrible combination of the two. The weapon itself is a blue scarab; it attaches to the host’s spine and creates a suit of alien armor to use in combat. The Scarab technology is, in essence, a highly advanced alien Swiss army knife of death: its deadly capabilities are only limited by the imagination of its host. Earth, which had been on the to-conquer list, had a Scarab, as well: it had been stored in an Egyptian pyramid, but was subsequently stolen by archaeologist Dan Garrett, then passed on to Ted Kord when Dan bade him become the second Blue Beetle.
Ages upon ages ago, the Reach and the Green Lanterns waged a war so vicious it had to end in a truce, with the Reach agreeing to stop conquering and destroying worlds and the Green Lanterns agreeing to not, er, continue to try obliterating them. The war’s repercussions reach to the present day: Jaime, as host of the Scarab, has some trouble being around Green Lanterns, since the rings tell GLs to attack Jaime and the Scarab tells Jaime to attack the GLs.
However, where the Reach and GLs are based in science, many other sources of power are based on magic or the supernatural. The two can certainly mix... but it doesn’t always end well. Take Dan Garrett: as the first Blue Beetle, he activated the Scarab using magic and used it to give himself powers, but he couldn’t use it to its full capabilities. (He also damaged it, and by stealing it from the pyramid it was housed in, separated it from the “instruction manual” that should have been passed down to the infiltrator.) Magic, or “quantum improbability energy” as the Scarab refers to it, isn’t understood too terribly well by Earth’s non-magic population, either, to the point that the Reach was planning to pass off advanced genetic engineering and science as magic as part of their world domination plan. Amongst the magical population are the Homo magi, who are genetically inclined to magical abilities. Furthermore, God or someone like him definitely exists in the DCU, to the point that there are agents who work in his name. God’s wrath and vengeance is incarnated in the Spectre, a near all-powerful supernatural being. (This role was formerly held by Eclipso, who was basically fired for turning evil.)
And, well, I’ve saved the strangest part for last: the multiverse. Out of canon, the multiverse was originally created so that alternate universe tales could be written, but within the DCU? There are most certainly parallel worlds and universes. 52 of them by Jaime’s canon point. But let’s go in chronological order.
Initially, there were multiple universes: Earth-One, Earth-Two, and so on. A big confusing crossover event called Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, and these universes were merged into one universe. Survivors of this cataclysmic event (Earth-Two Kal-L/Superman and Lois Lane, Earth-Three’s Alexander Luthor, and Superboy-Prime) remained in a pocket universe, keeping the memories of their old worlds with them.
When Lois fell ill, Kal-L sought to restore Earth-Two, thinking she would recover on her home world. Luthor and Superboy-Prime had other plans: Luthor wanted to create the perfect world, and Prime sort of just wanted to kill everybody and make himself the only superhero left. Using the remains of a being called the Anti-Monitor and captured heroes from old universes (I know it doesn’t make sense) Luthor restores alternate universe after universe until he is eventually stopped and the many universes merge into one, New Earth. Then Prime, who has been going absolutely nuts and killing people, get locked up on a Sun-Eater, his powers drained.
Long story short, there used to be many alternate universes, then there weren’t, then there were again, and then there weren’t again.
(Except this is untrue: in 52, it’s revealed that there are still 52 parallel universes, though their existence is kept secret to all but a select few. The DCU is complicated.)
Personality:
For all intents and purposes, Jaime Reyes is a pretty normal kid. He’s sixteen years old. He’s smart, but no genius. He’s got a sister, a dad, and a mom. They live in Texas, they’re middle-class, they’re Catholic; Jaime is an average, unsurprising, everyday Mexican-American teen living in the new millenium.
But how very normal he is belies what a true, honest-to-goodness superhero Jaime is. It’s not so much how powerful he is (very) or how many times he’s saved the world (once, but it was a doozy, okay) that matters to him: in fact, he doesn’t even choose to acknowledge himself as a superhero for a long time. While Jaime does value that whole Truth, Justice, and the American way schtick, his first priority is helping people rather than specifically going out of his way to be, well, super. In his eyes, doing good and being kind isn’t anything particularly special, or worthy of praise, it’s simple human decency. “I don’t know anything about being a ‘superhero’,” he says, when gearing up to rescue the daughter of a potential enemy: “she’s a baby.” Being a hero is something that he just does, not to impress anyone, not to prove anything, but because it’s a thing that he can do, should do, and chooses to do.
He also isn't a show-off or a braggart because of his abilities. In fact, he's usually impressed by other, more experienced heroes, looking up to them, seeking their advice, and living by their example. He idolizes Ted Kord in particular and has read up on his (and Dan Garrett’s) notes as much as he could. Heck, he’s dedicated enough to have a corkboard in his room dedicated to “What Would Ted Kord Do?”: notes, strategies, newspaper clippings, all to inspire him to look to the past and do the best with his present. (And, well, yeah, the kid’s a bit of a fanboy too.) All in all, he’s the sort of person who thinks before he acts, preferring to plan first as opposed to getting in over his head. Which is an extremely valuable quality to have in the high-pressure world of superheroics. Humble and respectful of the past though he is, he’s not afraid to call out anyone who does things he’s morally opposed to, no matter who they are. He doesn’t blindly follow the past so much as use it as a guide to make his own life and choices from a more informed perspective.
Whether or not doing the right thing is always something particularly lawful is another question, though: Jaime’s priority is, again, to people and not to the established law. For example, he successfully manipulates Bruce Wayne into buying an entire hotel to accommodate typhoon victims in Mexico (all poor and unable to pay for shelter), and he lets an aged former supervillain go free, believing that the old man had already repented for his crimes. It’s not that he entirely distrusts the system, but he’s very quickly becoming aware of the holes in it: "I have to be a hero for everyone-- no matter who they are, where they come from, or how they got here,” he says, rejecting an assignment to patrol the Mexican border later in his canon. “Oh, and by the way... the guy responsible for all this? Rich white guy. Just sayin'."
To get around the holes in the system, Jaime’s learned how to be flexible and to think outside the box. Jaime’s no genius, nor is he a cold strategist, but he’s definitely a critical thinker, able to turn problems upside down to find creative solutions. He’s also not a lone wolf, unlike some OTHER heroes aroundhi, batman. Jaime is very aware of his limitations, and isn’t afraid to reach out to others for help if it’ll make things easier. Stubbornly working alone is far too rigid for the way that he operates, and he has a lot of faith in friendship and community efforts.
As you can probably guess, Jaime is a moral person through and through, and the center of his moral compass, is, in effect, life. Jaime firmly believes that every being deserves the right to a life on their own terms: no one deserves to have their agency taken away from them, not because of anyone around them, because they’re of a different background, or because they happen to be, um, particularly subjugate-able by aliens. He’s also firmly against killing. In his eyes, there’s always a way to do good without having to take a life. When asked why he won’t kill, he’s got a simple answer: “Because my mother didn’t raise me like that. It’s wrong.”
This dedication to the freedom of choice extends to how he operates as a hero. Jaime’s abilities should have effectively turned him into a monster, but through sheer stubbornness he overcame it. The freedom of choice, however, doesn’t absolve him of responsibility-- another value he holds very close. Instead of trying to get rid of the Scarab or letting it take complete control of him, he immediately accepts that he's got to be responsible when dealing with its immense power. He learns how to use it correctly AND for good causes. Not to mention that he offers the possibility of a new life to the Scarab itself. He’s not a terribly judgmental person: anyone, or anything, can turn from a negative path to a more positive one should they really put the effort out there to try.
“I didn't choose to have this power. But I can choose what to do with it. Just like--we don't choose the life we're born into, but we can choose what to do with it.”
Family is by far the most important thing in Jaime’s life. His family is very close-knit and he’s got a great relationship with his parents and sister-- the expected sibling bickering aside. His father is his biggest role model, and he respects his mother like nothing else. His upbringing-- where he came from, his hometown, and his culture-- are things that have built him up to the kind of person that he is today, which he respects; Jaime’s extremely down-to-earth and makes choices based on whether they agree with the values he’s set out for himself and whether they’ll be things that’ll do his family proud. He also considers his friends honorary members of his family, granting them the same amount of love and loyalty. His tendency toward thoughtfulness has given him quite the gift of being a good listener and a mediator, something his friends value him for.
It’s still a work in progress, but as both a teenage boy and a superhero with two great predecessors, Jaime’s working very hard to establish his own identity and to get out of the shadows of people who have come before him. He still respects these people, yes, so these growing pains take the form of self-doubt as opposed to resentment towards Ted (or Dan, or the JLI). Therefore, he comes across as... a little awkward. Jaime sucks at public speaking and witty fight banter; he’s not awesome with girls and, while friendly and well-intentioned, is prone to occasionally messing up social situations. His self esteem isn’t dangerously low, however: he’s mostly just a confused teenage boy trying to wrestle his way into adulthood.
Jaime occasionally has times where he feels inadequate or discouraged when he makes a mistake, and early on in his canon, was often confused, anxious, and frustrated because of it. His inexperience and his acute knowledge of that inexperience are his greatest flaws: Jaime is his own greatest critic and has a tough time forgiving his own missteps and faults. Another unfortunate consequence of his giving, open-hearted personality is that he tends to ignore his own needs and blame himself when things go wrong. If he saves a few hundred people in a typhoon and misses a dozen or so, he’ll fixate on the dozen. “I should have saved them all.” It’s here that his humility becomes a fault. He can’t always take complete pride in how genuinely good he is because his faith in his own abilities isn’t completely... complete just yet. This also connects back to his uncertainty of himself and his own identity: if he isn’t doing the hero thing right, what if he’s just not good enough for it?
And finally, serious moral concerns aside, Jaime is funny. Sometimes it’s by accident (awkward teenage boy, remember), but he’s a pleasant, easy-going guy and it shows in how fun he is to be around. His sense of humor can also turn a bit sarcastic or snarky, sometimes in a way that is self-deprecating, but he always means well in the end. After all, he’s just a kid. A pretty great one, but a kid nonetheless.
(note: this paragraph no longer applies to Jaime's current development, as this will not be Jaime's first time in Tu Shanshu, but I'm including it as a reference for his previous reactions to the setting!
The setting of Tu Shanshu itself won’t be TOO jarring-- after all, he’s been tossed into other dimensions before-- but learning that he’s stuck in a sort of between-world will make him just a bit nervous. It isn’t so much the concept (he’s heard weirder) as his uncomfortable history with in-between dimensions and uneven passages of time. Even after being convinced that time is most definitely frozen back home, he still won’t be able to get completely comfortable in Keeliai knowing that his family and friends aren’t with him. After all, his last extended absence from home due to intermediate dimensions had a whole lot of negative repercussions. He would much prefer to see his loved ones and know they were safe, just in case something screws up again and time really isn’t frozen. That and he’ll get homesick something fierce.)
Returning to Keeliai after previously disappearing will, again, be just a little uncomfortable. He'll be comforted by the mechanics of the situation-- what'll feel to him like an instantaneous return will confirm that time really is frozen on the turtle-- but lacking control over his comings and goings will, again, take him back to his missing year. Particularly since this is the second time such a departure has made him leave his mother behind. Having come into himself as a part of the superhero community a bit more, this will give him added resolve to really actively work out how to do what needs to be done to ensure the safety of everyone on the turtle, foreigner and kedan alike. Jaime won't lose his easy-going nature, especially since he'll have to be patient if he's concerned about making a difference here, but he will be making extra effort to use his time wisely.
(And he'll be spending time with the friends he's still got here, too. Gotta let them know how much they mean to him if it's possible he won't see them in his own world again.)
Appearance:
Armor: one | two | three
Civvies
Jaime is really just a normal-looking kid. He has brown skin, dark eyes and hair. He likes his hair a bit longer than most guys, but not too long, as it's cut mid-neck. Jaime's hair has also got a bit of a natural curve to it and tends to curl up at the ends a little. And while he has been seen without it, he usually has a scraggly little goatee on his chin. It's never a full beard. Just a bit of stubble. He likes to think it makes him look more mature, but it really only makes him look slightly dorkier.
This average appearance doesn't lend well to his job: by superhero standards, Jaime isn't terribly impressive. Though he isn't short, he isn't particularly tall, either. Jaime stands at 5'6", which doesn't make him look like much when standing next to all the 6-foot-plus superhero men. His build isn't a superhero one either--it's about average, with a little extra lean muscle thanks to sports, some very basic martial arts training, and 6 months of active superheroing. His sense of fashion is quite simple and understated as well. A t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers is Jaime's usual outfit. Sometimes he layers with a button-up over a plain t-shirt. (Jaime really loves button-ups.)
However, the Blue Beetle Scarab is the strangest aspect of Jaime's appearance. It's usually not visible because it's hidden under his clothes most of the time, but when the Scarab is active, it (and sometimes his spine) glows a faint blue underneath his skin. The Scarab itself is located at the top of his spine, just under his nape. When he transforms, the Scarab crawls out of his spine (a process that has gradually become much less painful than it sounds) and grows to the size of a backpack, then proceeding to sit on his back a lot like a real backpack. Its limbs wrap around his torso, and the antennae stick up right behind Jaime's head. The armor itself appears to seep or melt over his body, forming black and dark blue plates that much resemble a beetle's exoskeleton. The armor also completely covers his face to make a black and blue mask that is reminiscent of a luchador's mask. The opposite happens when he changes back to Jaime--the Scarab shrinks back into his spine, and the armor melts away back into the Scarab. His clothes also reappear once he changes back.
Abilities:
(I'm aware of how overpowered Jaime's Scarab can be, since its canonical limitations are only very vaguely defined. If there are any nerfs that need to be put on Khaji Da I am more than happy to accept 'em!)
On his own, Jaime does not have any powers, aside from being bilingual and of moderate intelligence. He knows a little bit about hand-to-hand combat and is clever enough to strategize well as a superhero, but his real superpowers lie within the Blue Beetle Scarab.
The Blue Beetle Scarab (Khaji Da) is bonded to Jaime's spine. Previously, it belonged to Blue Beetle I (Dan Garrett) and Blue Beetle II (Ted Kord). Dan partially activated it using magic, damaging it, and Ted further damaged it by exposing it to Booster Gold's time cooties. It gives him a HUGE selection of powers, many of which he isn't aware of or willing to use at all (it's apparently capable of WMD-level force). If Jaime is ever incapacitated in a battle, however, the Scarab will take over; it doesn't have many reservations about its abilities. Since it is attached to Jaime's spine, removing the Scarab is extremely dangerous, if not fatal, for him. Additionally, Jaime is the only one who can hear the Scarab, unless it chooses to externally broadcast itself in some way.
Jaime's main powers include...
Blue Beetle Armor - Jaime's armor is made of a tough alien material. While it can be punctured, it does take a good deal of force to do it. Blunt force will still be able to hurt him, but the armor is strong enough to withstand entering the Earth's atmosphere without disintegrating. The armor can also change shape and, to some extent, form: Jaime can do things like turn his arm into a blade, create a shield, sprout wings, and so on. It can also reconstruct itself when broken.
Scarab Sight - This power is active whether or not Jaime is wearing the armor. The Scarab is able to detect things that are hidden in other dimensions, see in the dark, and study people around Jaime in a great amount of detail--for example, Jaime once was able to determine that a woman was pregnant very early in her term.
Tracking - Jaime can track energy (including magical energy), several types of electrical signals, and he has the ability to locate people that he has met at least once before. Jaime's also able to pinpoint his own specific location.
Flight, Strength, Agility - He's got wings and a suit of alien armor!
Energy Blasts - Jaime can turn his arm into a laser cannon. While nonfatal, they are painful and are capable of stunning.
Insulation - The suit protects Jaime from heat and cold: Jaime has stood directly under a rocket launch and flown to Antarctica in it. It isn't invincible, however--extreme temperatures will still hurt. It's also capable of withstanding the effects of being in space... not that it's entirely pleasant.
Neural Link to Scarab - Khaji Da is linked completely to Jaime's nervous system through his spine. It can sense and report any abnormalities in Jaime's body, override some functions (it is capable of numbing nerves), and it is also capable of taking complete control of Jaime's body should the need ever arise.
Healing - The Scarab gives Jaime a slightly accelerated healing ability when it is active. It isn't, say, Wolverine-level, but he still heals wounds much faster than he would without the armor.
He also has several miscellaneous powers. (The Scarab's like a superpowered alien Swiss army knife, really.) These include but are not limited to: Creation of magnetic fields, wi-fi and telephone, printing, re-forming Jaime's clothes after he's deactivated the armor (both the paper from printing and his clothes are made of dead skin cells and misc. waste, very gross), and simulating radiation (he's even faked Kryptonite once).
Inventory:
- Clothes (t-shirt, jeans, shoes, etc etc)
- Blue Beetle Scarab (sorta latched onto his spine, there)
- Wallet (a learner's permit, $5 plus some loose change, and a few photos of his family and friends)
- House keys
- assorted pocket lint
Suite:
Earth or wood! One floor is okay. Jaime's not particular about wealth or luxury, and prefers a laid-back, simple life. The gangs of the Earth Sector won't bother him too much, either. He could also do well in the Wood Sector, as the Scarab has a link to nature. It'll approve of the natural setting very much.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Jaime Reyes liked to think he was a pretty all right kid. Decent grades, brushed his teeth three times a day, didn't complain about babysitting Milagro all the time. (ALL the time.) No gangs.
Unless you counted the gangs coming to HIM.
And it wasn't like he'd gone out of his way to head to the rougher part of town either. Fires don't discriminate between the rich and the poor. (Wait. But lower income housing's made out of worse materials that are closer together-- never mind. Splitting hairs.)
Well, it was too late now. Lesson learned: if you want to walk home from superheroing to protect your family's secret identity, be prepared to protect yourself too.
Some punk had clocked him on the back of the head in an alleyway in the dead of the night. (Seriously? No pre-mugging banter? Rude.) He'd only weaseled his way out of it with an elbow jab to the gut and a pair of quick feet; without the Beetle suit, stifling his puffing breaths, and hearing his heart beat insistently in his ears, Jaime was huddled behind a dumpster in a different alley. Too close to change into his armor without being conspicuous, not enough time to flee. Like a scared child hiding. Dang, this was downright embarrassing.
Peacemaker's words rang briefly in his head. Something about making a choice to kill, to not kill. Uhm, sure-- if he didn't somehow get rid of the guy stomping his way over with a loaded gun clutched in his sweaty palms, he'd wouldn't have a choice about being dead in an alleyway for no good reason.
Twenty, eighteen, fifteen seconds left 'till he was spotted. There was a broken bottle of beer to the immediate left of his foot. A part of him considered the jagged glass edges; how easy, how simple would it be to slice through flesh with it?
But that was too easy. There was absolutely no way he was going to kill someone-- take the simple way. He was better than that.
Jaime swallowed the lump in his throat. The footsteps were getting louder, and he needed a plan. "Think, Reyes, think," he murmured to himself. Now wasn't the time to panic. He needed to stay calm, consider the surroundings, take it all in and process it and do something... completely tactical and also completely ridiculous.
"What would Ted Kord do?"
Wouldn't shoot a guy dead, for one, he thought. His gun thing wasn't even a REAL gun.
--Of course, of course--he could partially activate the armor, right? All he needed was to stun before the guy got a chance to figure out what was going on! Jaime quickly morphed his arm into something more useful and scrambled to his feet as soon as the thug stepped into the mouth of the alleyway.
"Prepare to die, punk!"
Jaime grinned. "Not this time."
He shut his eyes and fired the (nonlethal) laser in the thug's direction. The alleyway was engulfed in blinding white light, and the man groaned, his arms brought up to shield his face--and his pistol clattering to the ground.
Now was Jaime's chance.
With a shout and a tackle that'd make Guy Gardner proud, he lunged forward to shove the man into the dumpster. Still fairly blinded, Jaime's enemy gasped and collided hard, the wind knocked out of him. He swore and flailed his arms wildly.
Jaime scooped up the gun.
"Stealing's wrong, you know. And so is killing people."
He opened the chamber, letting the bullets clatter to the pavement.
And then clubbed the guy upside the head with it, knocking him out cold.
Network:
[Ain't this old familiar face a sight for sore eyes, Keeliai. Jaime appears on the network with a tight frown on his face and an uncertain way about him-- to be expected when he's apparently fast-forwarded through two whole months.
He takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. God. Should've calmed down before the network post, but he's still in a rush. The kedan have dodged the specifics of what's happened since his disappearance, why the Emperor's not the same Emperor anymore, and while he understands that it's probably something Very Sensitive that will be revealed in time? He doesn't want to be left in the dark. Jaime needs to finish playing catch-up, and quickly.]
So, I guess I was gone. [A quick, nervous smile.] I'm going to skip right to the serious stuff, because... I don't know a lot of what went down, but I know that something definitely did. And I'm gonna go through the archives and do all my homework, I promise, but if someone could give me the gist? Please?
[His expression turns grave again.]
What the hell happened in two months?
[He doesn't mean to sound exasperated, or upset. He's simply weary: of having to leave friends, of making his mother worry.]
That's, um. That's all I wanted to know. I hope everybody's still doing all right here-- nothing's been blown up, as far as I know, but, well, you can never tell.
[He motions to turn the feed off, before adding:] Wait. One more thing. I might need some help learning kedan. The main dialect. I got the basics, but I keep getting tripped up on grammar.
[Jaime gives the camera a quick wave and ends the video.]
Player Information:
Name: Danni
Age: 21
Contact: khajixda @ AIM;
Game Cast: n/a
Character Information:
Name: Jaime Reyes, aka the Blue Beetle
Canon: DC Comics (comics; pre-new 52)
Canon Point: Blue Beetle #28 (or after the "End Game" arc, with a couple filler issues thrown in). Jaime's successfully ousted the Reach from Earth and has held the mantle of Blue Beetle for about six months.
Age: 16
Reference: "Another annoying monster battle, another interrupted date... another typical night in the life of Jaime Reyes."
Setting:
The DC Universe is much like our modern world: modern (if slightly advanced) tech, nearly identical locales (with a couple extra cities or countries and some ersatz versions: Gotham, Star City, Metropolis, and so on, and countries Bialya and “Qrac”), similar wars and histories, the whole shebang... up until you take the superheroes, aliens, and magic into account, that is.
While DC’s Earth is pretty close to ours on first glance, the addition of superheroes has definitely taken its toll on the way that the world works and thinks. You see, in the DCU, costumed superheroes are a staple of modern culture, having been around since at least the 1930’s or 40’s. And these heroes have origin stories of all sorts, making these supernatural concepts at least vaguely familiar to the civilians. You found a magic bug that lets you fly and shoot lasers? Sure. You’re the last of your alien race and can leap buildings and run faster than a locomotive? Why not. Just wanna dress up in spandex and punch criminals? Go nuts. Not to mention their motivations: reasons for becoming a hero range everywhere from vengeance to supernatural obligation. Though individuals have their own distinct opinions on the culture of the superhero in the DCU, as well as on “metahumans” (those with superhuman abilities), the idea of costumed vigilantes running around and fighting crime is something that is more or less accepted as commonplace in the world. Folks like Batman--without powers, but trained to a peak-- and Superman-- leaping buildings, locomotive-speed, etc-- exist side by side, both working to protect the people of Earth from crime and natural disasters. Jaime himself acquires his powers completely by accident: one day, he finds the Blue Beetle Scarab on the ground in a parking lot, picks it up, and takes it home. (It fell out of space. Long story.)
Some heroes even leave legacies, with one person taking up a title, then passing it down through death or some sort of more pleasant retirement. Batman, for example, has a whole brood of protegees: sidekicks like Robin, info-gathering allies like Oracle, and so on. Typically, in a legacy, each successor resembles their predecessor in some way: i.e., every Flash possessing super speed and a red-and-yellow costume. But there are exceptions. The Blue Beetle mantle is a particular one: none of the three incarnations of the Beetle have had similar costumes OR powers. We’ll get to Jaime later, but the first Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett) used a magic scarab for his powers, while the second (Ted Kord) used only his smarts, acrobatics, and gadgets. Furthermore, superhero teams and alliances are also quite present. Oracle, for example, is head of the Birds of Prey, an all-female team. (Only one of them actually has a bird codename, though.) The Teen Titans is, as their name suggests, a team of younger heroes, some of which are former sidekicks looking to strike it out and become their own heroes apart from the tutelage of their mentors. The most publicly visible and often the most respected group is the Justice League: as time goes on, members shift, leading the league to go through many different incarnations. Ted Kord was specifically a member of the Justice League International, a version of the team that was active in the 1980s. Maxwell Lord was a big financier/manager to this league, but we’ll get back to Max later.
Of course, the DCU’s not a perfect world. Villains exist right alongside the heroes, working with the same kind of limitations and the same vast pool of origins and motivations. Criminals who don’t run the cape-and-tights circuits still exist, but per the large influence that the caped community has on the world at large, gangs and crime syndicates still interact with them. One such group is Intergang, who uses advanced weapons and technology from the planet Apokolips. And in El Paso, the crime lord La Dama works particularly closely with gathering up metahumans and magical objects to use for her own gains, alongside more traditional illicit deeds.(Like stealing Intergang’s weapons.) There are also metahuman gangs, such as the Posse, also based in El Paso: they in particular, however, are more about protecting their own from La Dama or any other outside threats than criminal activity for its own sake. Not that they happen to be angels, or anything.
The heroes aren’t immune to mistakes, either-- something that can be fairly terrifying when one considers how much power metahumans possess. Batman, after learning that his memories had been magically altered by the Justice League, grows suspicious enough to warrant the creation of a satellite called Brother MK I. Brother MK I controls cyborgs called the OMACs, which have access to a database archiving the weaknesses of every metahuman, good and bad, should any of them fall out of control. (Excessive? Mildly fascist? Welcome to Batman.) Remember Maxwell Lord?
Speaking of Booster Gold, one very vital element of the DCU is time travel, alternate universes, and travel between universes. I’ll expand on the alternate universes at the end (it’s extremely confusing), but the concept of alternate/parallel worlds is very real in the DCU. Time travelers, like Booster (originally from the 25th century), also exist and can travel between time periods, albeit with some limitations. There is also a realm called the Bleed, which is an interdimensional space that exists in between alternate universes in the DCU. Time does not function normally in the Bleed, which Jaime learns the hard way. After becoming the Blue Beetle, Booster enlists him to help with the Brother MK I debacle-- the satellite gains sentience and renames itself Brother Eye, then attempts to destroy all metahumans while cloaking itself. Conveniently, Jaime’s Scarab lets him locate the satellite: unfortunately, the Scarab freaks out and sends him into the Bleed afterward. He emerges on Earth a whole Earth year later despite only perceiving a few minutes.
Heroes and villains also aren’t limited to Earth. Aliens are commonplace enough in the DCU to the point that several countries actually have diplomatic protocol in dealing with extraterrestrials. Alien superheroes like Superman are lovely and all, but space isn’t all fun and games, either. Big in the space justice area are the Green Lantern Corps. Green Lanterns, who use energy rings fueled by sheer force of will, are a sort of intergalactic police force formed by
Very prominent in Jaime’s life and in the history of the Green Lanterns are the Reach. The Reach are an alien race whose specialty is discreetly conquering worlds. By selecting an “infiltrator” (the host of a Reach-made AI superweapon) and/or winning over the planet’s population over a typically lengthy time period, they’ve enslaved almost every world they’ve tried to conquer through, force, coercion, or some horrible combination of the two. The weapon itself is a blue scarab; it attaches to the host’s spine and creates a suit of alien armor to use in combat. The Scarab technology is, in essence, a highly advanced alien Swiss army knife of death: its deadly capabilities are only limited by the imagination of its host. Earth, which had been on the to-conquer list, had a Scarab, as well: it had been stored in an Egyptian pyramid, but was subsequently stolen by archaeologist Dan Garrett, then passed on to Ted Kord when Dan bade him become the second Blue Beetle.
Ages upon ages ago, the Reach and the Green Lanterns waged a war so vicious it had to end in a truce, with the Reach agreeing to stop conquering and destroying worlds and the Green Lanterns agreeing to not, er, continue to try obliterating them. The war’s repercussions reach to the present day: Jaime, as host of the Scarab, has some trouble being around Green Lanterns, since the rings tell GLs to attack Jaime and the Scarab tells Jaime to attack the GLs.
However, where the Reach and GLs are based in science, many other sources of power are based on magic or the supernatural. The two can certainly mix... but it doesn’t always end well. Take Dan Garrett: as the first Blue Beetle, he activated the Scarab using magic and used it to give himself powers, but he couldn’t use it to its full capabilities. (He also damaged it, and by stealing it from the pyramid it was housed in, separated it from the “instruction manual” that should have been passed down to the infiltrator.) Magic, or “quantum improbability energy” as the Scarab refers to it, isn’t understood too terribly well by Earth’s non-magic population, either, to the point that the Reach was planning to pass off advanced genetic engineering and science as magic as part of their world domination plan. Amongst the magical population are the Homo magi, who are genetically inclined to magical abilities. Furthermore, God or someone like him definitely exists in the DCU, to the point that there are agents who work in his name. God’s wrath and vengeance is incarnated in the Spectre, a near all-powerful supernatural being. (This role was formerly held by Eclipso, who was basically fired for turning evil.)
And, well, I’ve saved the strangest part for last: the multiverse. Out of canon, the multiverse was originally created so that alternate universe tales could be written, but within the DCU? There are most certainly parallel worlds and universes. 52 of them by Jaime’s canon point. But let’s go in chronological order.
Initially, there were multiple universes: Earth-One, Earth-Two, and so on. A big confusing crossover event called Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, and these universes were merged into one universe. Survivors of this cataclysmic event (Earth-Two Kal-L/Superman and Lois Lane, Earth-Three’s Alexander Luthor, and Superboy-Prime) remained in a pocket universe, keeping the memories of their old worlds with them.
When Lois fell ill, Kal-L sought to restore Earth-Two, thinking she would recover on her home world. Luthor and Superboy-Prime had other plans: Luthor wanted to create the perfect world, and Prime sort of just wanted to kill everybody and make himself the only superhero left. Using the remains of a being called the Anti-Monitor and captured heroes from old universes (I know it doesn’t make sense) Luthor restores alternate universe after universe until he is eventually stopped and the many universes merge into one, New Earth. Then Prime, who has been going absolutely nuts and killing people, get locked up on a Sun-Eater, his powers drained.
Long story short, there used to be many alternate universes, then there weren’t, then there were again, and then there weren’t again.
(Except this is untrue: in 52, it’s revealed that there are still 52 parallel universes, though their existence is kept secret to all but a select few. The DCU is complicated.)
Personality:
For all intents and purposes, Jaime Reyes is a pretty normal kid. He’s sixteen years old. He’s smart, but no genius. He’s got a sister, a dad, and a mom. They live in Texas, they’re middle-class, they’re Catholic; Jaime is an average, unsurprising, everyday Mexican-American teen living in the new millenium.
But how very normal he is belies what a true, honest-to-goodness superhero Jaime is. It’s not so much how powerful he is (very) or how many times he’s saved the world (once, but it was a doozy, okay) that matters to him: in fact, he doesn’t even choose to acknowledge himself as a superhero for a long time. While Jaime does value that whole Truth, Justice, and the American way schtick, his first priority is helping people rather than specifically going out of his way to be, well, super. In his eyes, doing good and being kind isn’t anything particularly special, or worthy of praise, it’s simple human decency. “I don’t know anything about being a ‘superhero’,” he says, when gearing up to rescue the daughter of a potential enemy: “she’s a baby.” Being a hero is something that he just does, not to impress anyone, not to prove anything, but because it’s a thing that he can do, should do, and chooses to do.
He also isn't a show-off or a braggart because of his abilities. In fact, he's usually impressed by other, more experienced heroes, looking up to them, seeking their advice, and living by their example. He idolizes Ted Kord in particular and has read up on his (and Dan Garrett’s) notes as much as he could. Heck, he’s dedicated enough to have a corkboard in his room dedicated to “What Would Ted Kord Do?”: notes, strategies, newspaper clippings, all to inspire him to look to the past and do the best with his present. (And, well, yeah, the kid’s a bit of a fanboy too.) All in all, he’s the sort of person who thinks before he acts, preferring to plan first as opposed to getting in over his head. Which is an extremely valuable quality to have in the high-pressure world of superheroics. Humble and respectful of the past though he is, he’s not afraid to call out anyone who does things he’s morally opposed to, no matter who they are. He doesn’t blindly follow the past so much as use it as a guide to make his own life and choices from a more informed perspective.
Whether or not doing the right thing is always something particularly lawful is another question, though: Jaime’s priority is, again, to people and not to the established law. For example, he successfully manipulates Bruce Wayne into buying an entire hotel to accommodate typhoon victims in Mexico (all poor and unable to pay for shelter), and he lets an aged former supervillain go free, believing that the old man had already repented for his crimes. It’s not that he entirely distrusts the system, but he’s very quickly becoming aware of the holes in it: "I have to be a hero for everyone-- no matter who they are, where they come from, or how they got here,” he says, rejecting an assignment to patrol the Mexican border later in his canon. “Oh, and by the way... the guy responsible for all this? Rich white guy. Just sayin'."
To get around the holes in the system, Jaime’s learned how to be flexible and to think outside the box. Jaime’s no genius, nor is he a cold strategist, but he’s definitely a critical thinker, able to turn problems upside down to find creative solutions. He’s also not a lone wolf, unlike some OTHER heroes around
As you can probably guess, Jaime is a moral person through and through, and the center of his moral compass, is, in effect, life. Jaime firmly believes that every being deserves the right to a life on their own terms: no one deserves to have their agency taken away from them, not because of anyone around them, because they’re of a different background, or because they happen to be, um, particularly subjugate-able by aliens. He’s also firmly against killing. In his eyes, there’s always a way to do good without having to take a life. When asked why he won’t kill, he’s got a simple answer: “Because my mother didn’t raise me like that. It’s wrong.”
This dedication to the freedom of choice extends to how he operates as a hero. Jaime’s abilities should have effectively turned him into a monster, but through sheer stubbornness he overcame it. The freedom of choice, however, doesn’t absolve him of responsibility-- another value he holds very close. Instead of trying to get rid of the Scarab or letting it take complete control of him, he immediately accepts that he's got to be responsible when dealing with its immense power. He learns how to use it correctly AND for good causes. Not to mention that he offers the possibility of a new life to the Scarab itself. He’s not a terribly judgmental person: anyone, or anything, can turn from a negative path to a more positive one should they really put the effort out there to try.
“I didn't choose to have this power. But I can choose what to do with it. Just like--we don't choose the life we're born into, but we can choose what to do with it.”
Family is by far the most important thing in Jaime’s life. His family is very close-knit and he’s got a great relationship with his parents and sister-- the expected sibling bickering aside. His father is his biggest role model, and he respects his mother like nothing else. His upbringing-- where he came from, his hometown, and his culture-- are things that have built him up to the kind of person that he is today, which he respects; Jaime’s extremely down-to-earth and makes choices based on whether they agree with the values he’s set out for himself and whether they’ll be things that’ll do his family proud. He also considers his friends honorary members of his family, granting them the same amount of love and loyalty. His tendency toward thoughtfulness has given him quite the gift of being a good listener and a mediator, something his friends value him for.
It’s still a work in progress, but as both a teenage boy and a superhero with two great predecessors, Jaime’s working very hard to establish his own identity and to get out of the shadows of people who have come before him. He still respects these people, yes, so these growing pains take the form of self-doubt as opposed to resentment towards Ted (or Dan, or the JLI). Therefore, he comes across as... a little awkward. Jaime sucks at public speaking and witty fight banter; he’s not awesome with girls and, while friendly and well-intentioned, is prone to occasionally messing up social situations. His self esteem isn’t dangerously low, however: he’s mostly just a confused teenage boy trying to wrestle his way into adulthood.
Jaime occasionally has times where he feels inadequate or discouraged when he makes a mistake, and early on in his canon, was often confused, anxious, and frustrated because of it. His inexperience and his acute knowledge of that inexperience are his greatest flaws: Jaime is his own greatest critic and has a tough time forgiving his own missteps and faults. Another unfortunate consequence of his giving, open-hearted personality is that he tends to ignore his own needs and blame himself when things go wrong. If he saves a few hundred people in a typhoon and misses a dozen or so, he’ll fixate on the dozen. “I should have saved them all.” It’s here that his humility becomes a fault. He can’t always take complete pride in how genuinely good he is because his faith in his own abilities isn’t completely... complete just yet. This also connects back to his uncertainty of himself and his own identity: if he isn’t doing the hero thing right, what if he’s just not good enough for it?
And finally, serious moral concerns aside, Jaime is funny. Sometimes it’s by accident (awkward teenage boy, remember), but he’s a pleasant, easy-going guy and it shows in how fun he is to be around. His sense of humor can also turn a bit sarcastic or snarky, sometimes in a way that is self-deprecating, but he always means well in the end. After all, he’s just a kid. A pretty great one, but a kid nonetheless.
(note: this paragraph no longer applies to Jaime's current development, as this will not be Jaime's first time in Tu Shanshu, but I'm including it as a reference for his previous reactions to the setting!
The setting of Tu Shanshu itself won’t be TOO jarring-- after all, he’s been tossed into other dimensions before-- but learning that he’s stuck in a sort of between-world will make him just a bit nervous. It isn’t so much the concept (he’s heard weirder) as his uncomfortable history with in-between dimensions and uneven passages of time. Even after being convinced that time is most definitely frozen back home, he still won’t be able to get completely comfortable in Keeliai knowing that his family and friends aren’t with him. After all, his last extended absence from home due to intermediate dimensions had a whole lot of negative repercussions. He would much prefer to see his loved ones and know they were safe, just in case something screws up again and time really isn’t frozen. That and he’ll get homesick something fierce.)
Returning to Keeliai after previously disappearing will, again, be just a little uncomfortable. He'll be comforted by the mechanics of the situation-- what'll feel to him like an instantaneous return will confirm that time really is frozen on the turtle-- but lacking control over his comings and goings will, again, take him back to his missing year. Particularly since this is the second time such a departure has made him leave his mother behind. Having come into himself as a part of the superhero community a bit more, this will give him added resolve to really actively work out how to do what needs to be done to ensure the safety of everyone on the turtle, foreigner and kedan alike. Jaime won't lose his easy-going nature, especially since he'll have to be patient if he's concerned about making a difference here, but he will be making extra effort to use his time wisely.
(And he'll be spending time with the friends he's still got here, too. Gotta let them know how much they mean to him if it's possible he won't see them in his own world again.)
Appearance:
Armor: one | two | three
Civvies
Jaime is really just a normal-looking kid. He has brown skin, dark eyes and hair. He likes his hair a bit longer than most guys, but not too long, as it's cut mid-neck. Jaime's hair has also got a bit of a natural curve to it and tends to curl up at the ends a little. And while he has been seen without it, he usually has a scraggly little goatee on his chin. It's never a full beard. Just a bit of stubble. He likes to think it makes him look more mature, but it really only makes him look slightly dorkier.
This average appearance doesn't lend well to his job: by superhero standards, Jaime isn't terribly impressive. Though he isn't short, he isn't particularly tall, either. Jaime stands at 5'6", which doesn't make him look like much when standing next to all the 6-foot-plus superhero men. His build isn't a superhero one either--it's about average, with a little extra lean muscle thanks to sports, some very basic martial arts training, and 6 months of active superheroing. His sense of fashion is quite simple and understated as well. A t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers is Jaime's usual outfit. Sometimes he layers with a button-up over a plain t-shirt. (Jaime really loves button-ups.)
However, the Blue Beetle Scarab is the strangest aspect of Jaime's appearance. It's usually not visible because it's hidden under his clothes most of the time, but when the Scarab is active, it (and sometimes his spine) glows a faint blue underneath his skin. The Scarab itself is located at the top of his spine, just under his nape. When he transforms, the Scarab crawls out of his spine (a process that has gradually become much less painful than it sounds) and grows to the size of a backpack, then proceeding to sit on his back a lot like a real backpack. Its limbs wrap around his torso, and the antennae stick up right behind Jaime's head. The armor itself appears to seep or melt over his body, forming black and dark blue plates that much resemble a beetle's exoskeleton. The armor also completely covers his face to make a black and blue mask that is reminiscent of a luchador's mask. The opposite happens when he changes back to Jaime--the Scarab shrinks back into his spine, and the armor melts away back into the Scarab. His clothes also reappear once he changes back.
Abilities:
(I'm aware of how overpowered Jaime's Scarab can be, since its canonical limitations are only very vaguely defined. If there are any nerfs that need to be put on Khaji Da I am more than happy to accept 'em!)
On his own, Jaime does not have any powers, aside from being bilingual and of moderate intelligence. He knows a little bit about hand-to-hand combat and is clever enough to strategize well as a superhero, but his real superpowers lie within the Blue Beetle Scarab.
The Blue Beetle Scarab (Khaji Da) is bonded to Jaime's spine. Previously, it belonged to Blue Beetle I (Dan Garrett) and Blue Beetle II (Ted Kord). Dan partially activated it using magic, damaging it, and Ted further damaged it by exposing it to Booster Gold's time cooties. It gives him a HUGE selection of powers, many of which he isn't aware of or willing to use at all (it's apparently capable of WMD-level force). If Jaime is ever incapacitated in a battle, however, the Scarab will take over; it doesn't have many reservations about its abilities. Since it is attached to Jaime's spine, removing the Scarab is extremely dangerous, if not fatal, for him. Additionally, Jaime is the only one who can hear the Scarab, unless it chooses to externally broadcast itself in some way.
Jaime's main powers include...
Blue Beetle Armor - Jaime's armor is made of a tough alien material. While it can be punctured, it does take a good deal of force to do it. Blunt force will still be able to hurt him, but the armor is strong enough to withstand entering the Earth's atmosphere without disintegrating. The armor can also change shape and, to some extent, form: Jaime can do things like turn his arm into a blade, create a shield, sprout wings, and so on. It can also reconstruct itself when broken.
Scarab Sight - This power is active whether or not Jaime is wearing the armor. The Scarab is able to detect things that are hidden in other dimensions, see in the dark, and study people around Jaime in a great amount of detail--for example, Jaime once was able to determine that a woman was pregnant very early in her term.
Tracking - Jaime can track energy (including magical energy), several types of electrical signals, and he has the ability to locate people that he has met at least once before. Jaime's also able to pinpoint his own specific location.
Flight, Strength, Agility - He's got wings and a suit of alien armor!
Energy Blasts - Jaime can turn his arm into a laser cannon. While nonfatal, they are painful and are capable of stunning.
Insulation - The suit protects Jaime from heat and cold: Jaime has stood directly under a rocket launch and flown to Antarctica in it. It isn't invincible, however--extreme temperatures will still hurt. It's also capable of withstanding the effects of being in space... not that it's entirely pleasant.
Neural Link to Scarab - Khaji Da is linked completely to Jaime's nervous system through his spine. It can sense and report any abnormalities in Jaime's body, override some functions (it is capable of numbing nerves), and it is also capable of taking complete control of Jaime's body should the need ever arise.
Healing - The Scarab gives Jaime a slightly accelerated healing ability when it is active. It isn't, say, Wolverine-level, but he still heals wounds much faster than he would without the armor.
He also has several miscellaneous powers. (The Scarab's like a superpowered alien Swiss army knife, really.) These include but are not limited to: Creation of magnetic fields, wi-fi and telephone, printing, re-forming Jaime's clothes after he's deactivated the armor (both the paper from printing and his clothes are made of dead skin cells and misc. waste, very gross), and simulating radiation (he's even faked Kryptonite once).
Inventory:
- Clothes (t-shirt, jeans, shoes, etc etc)
- Blue Beetle Scarab (sorta latched onto his spine, there)
- Wallet (a learner's permit, $5 plus some loose change, and a few photos of his family and friends)
- House keys
- assorted pocket lint
Suite:
Earth or wood! One floor is okay. Jaime's not particular about wealth or luxury, and prefers a laid-back, simple life. The gangs of the Earth Sector won't bother him too much, either. He could also do well in the Wood Sector, as the Scarab has a link to nature. It'll approve of the natural setting very much.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Jaime Reyes liked to think he was a pretty all right kid. Decent grades, brushed his teeth three times a day, didn't complain about babysitting Milagro all the time. (ALL the time.) No gangs.
Unless you counted the gangs coming to HIM.
And it wasn't like he'd gone out of his way to head to the rougher part of town either. Fires don't discriminate between the rich and the poor. (Wait. But lower income housing's made out of worse materials that are closer together-- never mind. Splitting hairs.)
Well, it was too late now. Lesson learned: if you want to walk home from superheroing to protect your family's secret identity, be prepared to protect yourself too.
Some punk had clocked him on the back of the head in an alleyway in the dead of the night. (Seriously? No pre-mugging banter? Rude.) He'd only weaseled his way out of it with an elbow jab to the gut and a pair of quick feet; without the Beetle suit, stifling his puffing breaths, and hearing his heart beat insistently in his ears, Jaime was huddled behind a dumpster in a different alley. Too close to change into his armor without being conspicuous, not enough time to flee. Like a scared child hiding. Dang, this was downright embarrassing.
Peacemaker's words rang briefly in his head. Something about making a choice to kill, to not kill. Uhm, sure-- if he didn't somehow get rid of the guy stomping his way over with a loaded gun clutched in his sweaty palms, he'd wouldn't have a choice about being dead in an alleyway for no good reason.
Twenty, eighteen, fifteen seconds left 'till he was spotted. There was a broken bottle of beer to the immediate left of his foot. A part of him considered the jagged glass edges; how easy, how simple would it be to slice through flesh with it?
But that was too easy. There was absolutely no way he was going to kill someone-- take the simple way. He was better than that.
Jaime swallowed the lump in his throat. The footsteps were getting louder, and he needed a plan. "Think, Reyes, think," he murmured to himself. Now wasn't the time to panic. He needed to stay calm, consider the surroundings, take it all in and process it and do something... completely tactical and also completely ridiculous.
"What would Ted Kord do?"
Wouldn't shoot a guy dead, for one, he thought. His gun thing wasn't even a REAL gun.
--Of course, of course--he could partially activate the armor, right? All he needed was to stun before the guy got a chance to figure out what was going on! Jaime quickly morphed his arm into something more useful and scrambled to his feet as soon as the thug stepped into the mouth of the alleyway.
"Prepare to die, punk!"
Jaime grinned. "Not this time."
He shut his eyes and fired the (nonlethal) laser in the thug's direction. The alleyway was engulfed in blinding white light, and the man groaned, his arms brought up to shield his face--and his pistol clattering to the ground.
Now was Jaime's chance.
With a shout and a tackle that'd make Guy Gardner proud, he lunged forward to shove the man into the dumpster. Still fairly blinded, Jaime's enemy gasped and collided hard, the wind knocked out of him. He swore and flailed his arms wildly.
Jaime scooped up the gun.
"Stealing's wrong, you know. And so is killing people."
He opened the chamber, letting the bullets clatter to the pavement.
And then clubbed the guy upside the head with it, knocking him out cold.
Network:
[Ain't this old familiar face a sight for sore eyes, Keeliai. Jaime appears on the network with a tight frown on his face and an uncertain way about him-- to be expected when he's apparently fast-forwarded through two whole months.
He takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. God. Should've calmed down before the network post, but he's still in a rush. The kedan have dodged the specifics of what's happened since his disappearance, why the Emperor's not the same Emperor anymore, and while he understands that it's probably something Very Sensitive that will be revealed in time? He doesn't want to be left in the dark. Jaime needs to finish playing catch-up, and quickly.]
So, I guess I was gone. [A quick, nervous smile.] I'm going to skip right to the serious stuff, because... I don't know a lot of what went down, but I know that something definitely did. And I'm gonna go through the archives and do all my homework, I promise, but if someone could give me the gist? Please?
[His expression turns grave again.]
What the hell happened in two months?
[He doesn't mean to sound exasperated, or upset. He's simply weary: of having to leave friends, of making his mother worry.]
That's, um. That's all I wanted to know. I hope everybody's still doing all right here-- nothing's been blown up, as far as I know, but, well, you can never tell.
[He motions to turn the feed off, before adding:] Wait. One more thing. I might need some help learning kedan. The main dialect. I got the basics, but I keep getting tripped up on grammar.
[Jaime gives the camera a quick wave and ends the video.]