Ah, vandalism. There was nothing more fun for Nathan Darrow than causing trouble. True enough, he was supposed to be a ‘good guy’ now, but what did that really mean? Had he been a bad guy before? He didn’t think so, and he wasn’t just being proud or vain. He knew very well that he had never gone out of his way to do traditionally good things, and certainly went out of his way to do bad ones, but did that allow people to brand him as bad?

Deep.

Ultimately, he didn’t think so. Mostly because he had a very simple idea of good and bad. Good people were normal folks. Flawed or not, they were the people who went through their lives and did what they had to do to keep themselves alive, to keep themselves happy, and to keep themselves occupied. They could be the typical hero, or they could be the ruffian punk. It didn’t matter. Bad guys? They were the evil ones. They were the ones that did things with malice, that murdered and raped. Pirates? Bad guys. Nathan? A good guy that happened to like to steal, fight and break into places and things. He didn’t kill anyone. Hell, he didn’t even hurt anyone unless he had to, or if they were asking for it. Yeah, he made people have harder days if he stole from them or vandalized their property, but that was just a part of life. He was that bump in the road for them, but it would just be something else for him. Everyone had to deal with s**t going wrong.

In any case, he wasn’t a bad guy. He just did bad things. It would take a few shocks for him to realize that the line just wasn’t that clear, and certainly not that easy to smudge and redraw just to suit himself. He had never had to justify what he did or who he was, but the more he would learn about being a Senshi, the more he would come to realize that he couldn’t hold double standards, or allow this leeway.

Right now? Shooting someone elses s**t with his paintball gun and then running from them if they caught sight of him was awesome and fun, and still totally allowable despite his recently discovered power and new duties.

He was sitting on a rooftop, his legs dangling down over the ledge, his gun resting in his lap. His eyes were glued on the cars below, the slow traffic constantly moving, though there were only a couple of cars on the road at any given time. It was later in the evening, and he imagined these guys were all on their way home from work. Worker drones. Boring. He could easily see them living like his father did, following the same schedule each week, going to work, coming home, going to work, coming home. He was doing a civil duty here, by breaking up the monotone that was their lives.

How often did they get shot at by paintball guns? Once. When Nathan deigned to grace them with his presence, and bestow on them the gift of his benevolence. He just cared about them too much, these nameless faces of the hive mind that was common society.

Grinning ear to ear, he lifted his gun and peered through the sight. He was in his street clothes, a black hoody over dark pants. He didn’t have his goggles or his body armor for paintball: nothing that someone could identify and get him caught for wearing. He fired a few shots and then fell backwards onto the roof, under the lip of the building, so he didn’t get spotted when people started looking around in confusion. He heard brakes squealing, and peered up over his cover just enough to get his eyes over the ledge, stooping behind the low wall of the railing, keeping hidden as he checked on his handy work.

He saw someone out of their car, waving their arms in frustration. Another car was stopped behind them, presumably because they hadn’t wanted to hit them.

Under the low lights of the lamps, Nate could see the crack front window of the car he had hit. Whoops. Property damage. It was time for him to slip away. He grabbed his gun and stealthily slipped off, working his way down a fire escape and into the alleys to work his way back home.

And he still wasn’t a bad guy.