“We had a deal.” Adrian

“And I have done nothing to compromise the deal.” Director Mordred

I gnash my teeth and bite back the urge to growl.

“Bullshit!  I just got a letter--” Adrian

“Outlining that you have been reassigned as the new head of the training for the New Mexico Superhuman Containment Compound.  The motion however didn’t come from the Board of Directors, but instead from the League of Heroes.  The motion came from them with a unanimous decision, so only half of the Board was needed to sustain it, and as you know I barely control my half of it.” Director Mordred

…. what?

“What do you mean, unanimous?” Adrian

“Magnificent Mind is off leading a research team to those new floating islands in South America, and since they can’t send any communications to that area, a temporary Counselor was assigned to take his place.  Everyone else simply understood the value of your powers in training the new generation.  Well, with the obvious exception of the Three Kings, they just wanted to see you suffer.” Director Mordred

Of course they did.  Son of a-  you know what, calm down, Adrian, calm down.  There has to be a few perks to this, I probably won’t get a deal on the level of what the last guy had, but they can’t justify the same de facto slavery when my predecessor was essentially living the high life.

“What are the perks?” Adrian

I couldn’t see Director Mordred’s face, he was actually being displayed on a screen in a way that essentially showed me a shadow of him.  Hell, I didn’t even know his name, I didn’t know the name of anyone on the Board of Directors.  Mordred wasn’t his real name, just like how Director Galahad is named Galahad.  They’re all named after people from Arthurian legend, obviously.  Although he seemed to have a tinge of british in the lilt of his voice.

“You received a pay increase, you now have a weeks leave per month instead of two days, and are allowed to leave the Compound in want of training missions.  You’re duties have also changed.  You will now focus on grouping the Superhumans in such ways as to promote synergy, in lieu of the antagonisms you previously saw to with the convicts.  Also, I did pull some strings with the reinstatement, this will be your final year here.  Finally, a new Super will be chosen to oversee the convicts, and in accordance with our agreement with the League of Heroes, it will be one of their members.” Director Mordred

Oh great.  I like everything preceding the last point, really, I do.  Training fresh meat was doable, they weren’t as transfixed around their powers due to how little they’ve experience the world of fame, but working that closely with fulltime Heroes?  Well, that’s a whole ‘nother matter entirely.

And in case you’re wondering why now this is a problem for me, it’s because the last one in my position wasn’t a Super, he didn’t need to be.  He was just a normal human, because he just needed respect, which can be earned without power.  For intimidating all of the convicts?  Power is needed, raw, indomitable power.  I had that, and it works out great, but whoever it is that’s coming will probably need more.

“Do you at least know who it is they’re sending?” Adrian

“I don’t have any power in the League, Anu has a way of keeping all it’s dirty secrets within the confines of it’s, albeit resplendent, walls.  Regardless, I’ve had one of my men compile a list of likely choices.  They’ll be following in your footsteps, after all.  Few are as capable at suppressing another Super as quickly as you, without doing irreparable damage to their bodies and surroundings, that is.” Director Mordred

At that, an email notification showed up at the bottom corner of the wall sized screen.  I tapped said corner, and several files opened up, all dossiers.  

None of them describing people I was especially fond of.  Especially the last one.

“I get the feeling they’ll have assigned the final individual to take your former position.” Director Mordred

“You sound way too damn happy about the prospect.” Adrian

I heard him start chuckling at my grumbles, and not long after the video feed ended.  

“Jackass.” Adrian

Okay, let’s see, I’ll probably have a few weeks of relative peace until the new warden shows up, and if Director Mordred was right, which he usually is, all hell might break loose by the end of this peace.  

Yay me.  

“Mr. Murphy, I have just been notified of a fight between two of the Trainee Supers, I am to remind you that--” Osus

Figures they’d start a fight right now.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m to end any and all aggressions as quickly and painlessly as possible.” Adrian

I got out and started running towards the elevator system.  Despite how therapeutic this whole scenario was about to become for me, sometimes you just have to hit somebody, it’s still highly dangerous for most everyone else in the probable vicinity.

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When I got in the elevator, Osus opened up a wall and showed me an assortment of stun guns, tranquilizers, and the like to use in taking my opponents down without causing much injury.  I ignored it though, I mean, why wouldn’t I?  Do you use a nutcracker on a squeeze ball?  Of course you don’t, it defeats the purpose.  These items likewise defeat my purpose, and that is an extremely fast acting and effective

Next time I might use a weapon, unless it was again with a Trainee, in which case I now had a, moral, obligation to teach them ‘hands on’.

Very quickly the elevator stops, and I’m exiting the doorway into a veritable cluster fuck.  Oh wonderful, it somehow escalated into a brawl this quickly?  No wonder Palmer thinks Supers have a predisposition to violence, we just can’t keep our fights to ourselves!  Right now, I’m looking at the mess hall, the entire place filled with Supers in the throes of what’s probably the best fight of their lives.

To me it looks like a kindergartener’s attempt at a food fight, but that barely matters right now.  

The majority of them are visibly using powers, shooting off balls of light or , or a great many other things really.  There’s one guy who’s throwing fireballs, though the effect seems only to be a form of kinetic blast instead of real fire thankfully.  To me though, I can smell up the stench of every other type of power as well, and seemingly the only ones not using their powers are either not doing anything or cowering in fear in the corners of the room.

I tried calling out and telling them to sit down or else, but some pain in the ass charges me and tries to throw me up against the wall a few feet away.

Okay, yeah, to hell with giving them all an easy way out.

Before we even come into contact with the wall, he’s sweating up a storm and barely able to push me, so I punch him in the back, sending him flat against the floor.  I let out a ferocious and hungry grin as I feel the power, and then roar and charge into the brawl, making everyone around me start dropping unconscious either from me beating the hell out of them or lack of stamina.  

I catch myself in a moment of introspection as I’m using a stout man as a club while beating the hell out of some guy who’s glowing blue.  I knew the small man could make parts of his body highly dense, going by his weight and durability, hence my obvious willingness to, otherwise, severely hurt him to beat the other man down.  However, why the hell am I using him as a club?  I’d stopped putting this entire brawl down a few unconscious Supers ago and now I’m a willing participant in the melee.  

And then I realize it.

Someone is causing the fight with their power, otherwise I’d already have everyone on the ground by now.  I toss the stout man into someone who was charging me, and quickly scan the area for anyone who isn’t fighting right now, as something like this should take a lot out of someone.

And low and behold, I saw Super Groupie standing, still as a statue, hands clenched at her sides, and hair flying all over the place.

Yep, she’s using a power alright or my name's Daphy Duck.

I fight the urge to go back to berserking like a maniac, which is much harder than it should be, and weave through the fighting towards the girl.  I get there fairly easily, grab the sides of her head, and in an instant, she’s slumping into me, sleeping like a log.  As I suspected would happen, everyone starts calming down the sound of panting is heavy in the air as all eyes look utterly confused, before people begin looking at me now fireman carrying the groupie as I exit the room without a word.

I’ll leave the explanations to the other people here, I need to get this girl to my office as soon as possible.  She’ll be waking up in a few minutes, and I when she does I’m having a talk with her.  Her powers can cause one hell of a lot of trouble if she’s not made aware of their potency.  Hell, I’ve had telepaths try working me up like that in the past, but nothing on her level.  She must be a field type, otherwise she’d have given herself a seizure affecting that many supers of differing powers and mentalities.  

And field types can be one hell of a lot of trouble when it comes to training their powers, so I’ll have to remember that for later.

I go into the elevator and tell Osus to bring me to my office, and no that isn’t the same area as my home.  I have an actual office, though I see little need to use it most days, although I guess I’ll have much more work that requires an office nowadays.  Damn.

I get some quirked eyebrows and worried looks at my carrying the girl from some people, mostly the new hires though.  I got into the room, and dropped her into a chair directly opposite my desk, making sure she’s at least not in an obviously uncomfortable position.

“Osus, pull up this girl’s file, including Palmer’s profile on her if that’s been made yet.” Adrian

Maybe I should explain something, it’s been two days since I first introduced myself to everyone during orientation, and so far I’ve just been taking care of my former duties as warden.  That consisted of keeping the convicts in rotating sleeping arrangements and keeping the ones who have powerful power combinations far away from one another.  Now, my main duties have essentially changed from weakening the convicts to strengthening the Trainees.  

Great.  

Also, Dr. Plamer is currently in the process of profiling every single one of the Trainees to determine how we should deal with everyone.  We want as small a chance as humanly possible to produce any more convicts and potential Super Villains, so we modify our approach to keep that from happening.  This is the first time I’ve started using these profiles for anything other than sabotaging people, so this out to be interesting.

I get the file almost immediately, and thankfully I also get a profile.  

Her name’s Taylor Jones, age 17, slightly below average grades, cheerleader.  It seems she’s probably a Born Super, which means her powers manifested at a young age and almost always comes about when you have a Super as a parent.  The Hunters discovered her following her awakening.  According to others, her mood was always infectious, even as a baby, but what really tipped the Hunters off was when she went to a comedy movie, and a burial procession that was happening in a nearby church turned into a room filled with incoherent laughter.  

They monitored her for some time more before bringing her with this batch of Trainees.  

Dr. Palmer’s profile describes her as a very social, but at the same time slightly dense girl.  She comes from a nice family, has decent morals, though has no siblings.  She’s adopted, because her mother’s infertile.  That also means that, at this moment, there is potentially either a Super with a missing kid, or an unknown super who’s off our records.

I notice her wake up, and she’s looked at me with bleary eyes.  She’ll be perfectly fine in a few minutes, though she’ll definitely be tired for the rest of the day.  I look at her and speak with my usual monotone voice.

“Ah, Ms. Jones, I was hoping you’d wake up.  Now, what do you remember?” Adrian

I ask her this because sometimes the unconscious activation of a power when you’re not that skilled at controlling it can cause blackouts.  It’s what happened to me when I awakened.  Awakening is usually what happens when you powers first begin to grow, and only really happens with Born Supers, and most of the time occurs outside of the Supers own control.

She looks at me with confusion and a little fear, though I can tell she’s trying to remember what happened.

“I-uh, I d-don't- r-remember what?  What happened?” Taylor

I nodded, this was expectable.

“Well, something managed to anger you enough to unconsciously activate your power, which then managed to get everyone else angry.  I went down to break up the ensuing fight.  I prevented you from causing any real damage.” Adrian

Now she looked terrified.  Ah, she probably expects me to torture her or something, or whatever people these days call disciplinary action.  Sadists the lot of them, at least I don’t pretend I don’t enjoy some of the punishments.  Then again, I’m supposed to be in charge of training them now, so I may have to change my tactics.

“A-are you going to p-punish me?” Taylor

I shook my head.

“If it was intentional, which I find doubtful, I would.  But as it stands, I’m just going to tell you to keep better control over your moods.  If I find out you lose control like this again, I’ll consider taking disciplinary action.  Now, go back to the commons, someone will explain everything in more depth to everyone, yourself included.  Good day.” Adrian

At that, I got up, opened the door and waited for her to leave.  She got up, but surprised me to a degree.

“T-thanks for stopping me before I hurt someone, and for not punishing me.  I’ll do better next time.” Taylor

At that, she left the room, and I closed the door before getting back to my desk.  I now had a lot more work to do, like finding every way to screw with the Council and Board of Directors I can without giving any legitimate reason to punish me.  

But first how about I get acquainted with the system.  I’ll be needing it in the near future, this is my new job, after all.  Then I take a look at the file…

A file that’s just under ten gigabytes in size...

This is going to take a while.