"How do you even know what my power is?" I asked. Telling Dean that I was a cape was pretty easy, but telling Vicky I was a cape had required a lot of firm patient "I'm not interested"s in response to her attempts to help me brainstorm a cape persona, from name to costume to accent to modus operandi. It had also required a few patient "That's none of your business"es to get her to stop asking what my power was.

"I mean, I kinda figured you were a healer," Vicky said, her hands jittering as I walked up to her. "You don't really do the whole cape thing, and that's typical of healers and not really anyone else. So... what else could you be?"

"A flying brick who possesses more impulse control than a toddler," I said, walking past her to inspect the broken man laying on the alley floor. "Jesus christ, did you throw a fucking dumpster at this guy?"

"She did," the man groaned out. "Ah, shit, my- agh!"

I knelt down and touched his wrist; a few minutes ago, he'd been hit by an airborne dumpster which broke his spine and most of his ribs, and also a lot of his internal organs. If we left him here, then he'd be dead by sunset. But, also... a few hours ago, he'd bruised his knuckles beating up a black woman at the local university campus while shouting racial slurs, so I kinda understood why Vicky had thrown a dumpster at this guy.

"Well, he's a real piece of work," I said. "I take it your goal was to, ah... how did you put it... stop him from hurting anyone by whatever means necessary?"

"...Yes," Victoria admitted, quietly. "I just... What he did... you know the courts are soft on these assholes, right? That these fucking scumbags get to hurt whoever they want, as long as that person isn't white and straight, and walk free with a slap on the wrist?"

"Unfortunately, yes, I am quite aware that white supremacy is very much still alive in America," I said, my mind wandering back to the holdup at the pawn shop. And... the ugly clarity that I'd acted with, at the time. "However... The price for my help will be that you stand here and listen to me without interruption while I give some constructive criticism."

"Fuck you!" Vicky yelled, as I picked the man up in a fireman's carry and set him semi-upright on the front lip of the dumpster. "You're not a hero, you don't know what it's like out here! You're just another goddamn healer who does nothing but patch up the people who do the real work, all the while complaining about how we do our work!"

Wordlessly, I turned to look her in the eye, then drew my pocket knife, flipped it open, and slashed the skinhead's throat while letting him fall backwards into the dumpster.

"If you can't lock a man in a cage, the only way to force him to stop hurting people is to lock him in a casket instead," I said, as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "You want to believe in the rule of law? Then believe in the rule of law, and let the courts do their work, even if they're not great. You want to take matters into your own hands and dish out vigilante justice? Then do it, but don't you dare pretend you still believe in the rule of law, that you're not just another Shadow Stalker or Magpie or Gavel. Don't you dare call me up to help you pretend your hands are still clean. You wanna walk that path, you fucking commit to it. I want you to understand what you're doing. To do it on purpose. To kill these men because the world is a better place without them, not just beat them up because they're evil and punching bad guys in the face makes you feel good. That is kiddie shit, girl. That is beneath you.

"Now, what's it going to be? Are you gonna believe in the rule of law, and have me resurrect this guy so we can turn him over to the police with our eyewitness testimony, and hope the courts don't fuck it up this time? Or are you going to accept the path you clearly want to be on, and let him rot?"

She just stood there, mouth agape.

"You... you killed him," she said, quietly.

"I did," I said, nodding. "And I can bring him back whenever I want, as long as the body's still warm. And, Victoria? I did that on purpose. I didn't do that in an impulsive fit of blind rage. So I want you to take a deep breath, and ask yourself a simple question: do you, or do you not want to follow the path I just laid out with my knife and his blood?"

She looked down at the knife, then up at my scarf-wrapped face.

"You weren't expecting this, were you?" I chided, gently. "You've only really dealt with Panacea. Well, bad news, Princess: Panacea's your sister, and quite aside from the fact she loves you, she's also stuck with you. There's limits to how firmly she's willing to make her points to you. Me, though?" I shrugged. "I just killed a man. I'm not sure how we can escalate upwards from here, but if we find out, I'd at least consider it."

"I... oh my god," Vicky whispered. "I... I... bring him back, Joe, please bring him back, I can't have this on my conscience-"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"That's what I was hoping for," I said, reaching into the dumpster. "By the way, my healing erases memories- it's time-based- so he's not going to remember you going all 'excessive force' on him." That bit of 'encouragement' delivered, I pushed the skinhead back to before he noticed Vicky was chasing him, thus removing his wounds and memories. "Ah, there we are. Got him! Glory Girl, get over here and grab him, before he scurries away." I winked at her, and she hurried to do what I said.

She was shaking like a leaf, at first, but after a few minutes of waiting for the cops to show up, she'd managed to calm her nerves enough to give her statement to the police, and I, unfortunately, ended up having to give the cape name of Ouroboros.

"...I would've picked Rewind," Vicky said, as we climbed into my car to drive back to her place.

"Is that really what you want to talk about?" I asked.

"Well, the fact my friend is a murderer is kind of a messy subject," Vicky spat. "What the fuck? Have you done that before?"

"Not killing a man, but I did once stop a robbery at a pawn shop by punching the robber in the throat and wrestling the gun out of his hand," I said. "Something about my power..." Explaining the whole 'past lives' thing wasn't on the table right now. "...When the chips are down, it's like I'm another person. Someone who has done a lot of fighting, and has the training and the mentality to be really good at it." I shuddered, and started the engine. "I don't enjoy doing that any more than you enjoyed watching that. I'd probably be pretty fucked up for the next week or two if you'd decided to just let him stay dead. As it stands, though... fuck, that's still gonna haunt me."

"Yeah, you fucking cut a man's throat, I'd hope it would," Vicky said.

"Hermanita, you are not in a position to lecture me about excessive use of force," I said. "It's not about the raw amount of violence done, it's about understanding what is and isn't warranted by the situation. There'd be situations where throwing a dumpster at someone was a warranted use of force. This wasn't it."

She made a little hmph noise and started to wordlessly sulk, as I started driving. The sulking didn't last long, though, and soon, she started actually thinking about what I'd said. Sure, I'd been an asshole about it, and had told her things she didn't want to hear, but... well, if my read of her was right, she should be pretty fucking suggestible to reasonable-sounding authority. Which, well, I... kinda was, if you had the sort of chronic cape brainworms Vicky did.

"I know it sucks," I said quietly. "That guy deserved to get half the bones in his body broken. Fuck, that guy deserved to die in an alleyway with a dumpster as his coffin. But..." I sighed. "'Deserve' is a word for children. Serious adults who intend to actually accomplish anything with their actions have to consider factors beyond what people deserve. We have to consider the broader impact of our actions. And Hermanita... the United States government is not trustworthy. You know that- you didn't trust the courts to do their job properly. And yet, the reason I'm telling you to trust the courts is... the alternative is that we contribute to this idea that it's okay for superheroes, who represent the government and enforce its laws, to just beat the shit out of people whenever they want, as long as that person committed a crime at some point. Sure, today you beat the shit out of a guy who really did deserve it, but... What about Shadow Stalker shooting a fleeing burglar with fucking broadheads? Is that an okay thing for her to do? Of fucking course it isn't, we took away her broadheads and made her knock that shit off, because there is nuance, there are levels of antisocial behavior, and breaking into someone's house to steal their jewelry is not the same as breaking someone's bones because they're black and you have a problem with that. Criminals are not all the same, and we need to be careful about how we handle them."

"So I should just... do nothing about the Nazis?" Vicky asked. "Let them keep getting away with this shit?"

"Well, no," I said. "Again, I'm not saying using violence at all is bad, I'm saying you were using it wrong. As to what you should do about the Nazis... well, funny thing. The courts aren't completely insulated from outside influence. We know who that guy beat the shit out of, don't we? With the eyewitness testimony of two respected superheroes on her side, she could get a damn good day in court, provided she's got a good enough lawyer- like, say, one who specializes in personal injury."

Vicky nodded slowly, absorbing this carefully.

"The system is broken, I won't lie to you about that," I said. "The most productive use of our time would be to fix the broken system, so this shit stopped happening. None of this shit happens for no reason, after all. But... well, a lot of people have been, and still are, already trying to fix the broken system, and our efforts aren't going to be a silver bullet. So... in the meantime, I think it's important that we do what we can."