It only took two weeks before Ben was outright offered the job of coaching the super hero sports team.

Just as he planned.

He'd been dropping little hints of mulling it over, made a fake flyer to hang on the announcement board, and asked around repeatedly if anyone had taken the position. The local high school's winter break was almost over and the pseudo-deadline for finding a coach was coming up. His little hints kept the position on everyone's mind and he was clearly the best person for the job being the only one with super powers. However, this coaching position was going to be during most city council voting hours, and he refused to be blamed for missing votes. So he'd been planting the seeds of discontent to make his fellow council members 'force' him to take the coaching position.

And he didn't make it easy. Even when Miranda, the assistant to the mayor came into his office and outright told Ben to take the position because no one else is going to do it, he weaseled around giving a definite answer until she left. The scales were set, and the final act occurred as he knew it would at the very last Tuesday before winter break.

The city council was a wholly un-repentant about how casual they kept things, which led to some mixing of official and unofficial business. This culminated in the occasional vote that has nothing to do with municipal matters. The most recent one was about how Jerry should shut up, get off the fence, and get a meat smoker for himself.

After a particularly stringent vote in which Ben made sure to drag it out a little just to get people thinking about him leaving, Mrs. Holt, the decrepit harpy that regularly sparred with Ben on votes, raised her hand as a formal request to speak.

"I suggest a vote on Benjamin taking the super sports coach position," she announced, pursing her bright red lipstick and wiggling her jowls. "All in favor."

Six of the nine members, not including Ben but including Mrs. Holt, raised their hand.

"All opposed?"

One hand was raised, Mr. Ulandy, whom Ben had specifically cultivated as an ally in his doubts about the position.

"All abstaining?"

Ben raised his hand with Alex Holt, Mrs. Holts husband who received a scowl from his wife.

"Motion passes," the old woman declared, locking eyes with Ben and ordered him with old school directness, "Get to it, coach."

He sent the email he'd drafted a week ago as soon as he got back to his office.

And that's when he felt it, the butterflies in his stomach as he took on the responsibility of coaching. The feeling of fear and anticipation that he hasn't gotten since he saw the outcome of his council race. He felt the need to celebrate, to go to the store and get some champagne to pop. Or maybe, he could finally crack open the homemade alcohol he'd bottled when he bought his house.

But there was work to be done.

Ben drove home with a wonderful smile that Idet noticed before he even left the garage.

"You got the coaching position?" she guessed.

"You know it!" Ben exclaimed. "Anything good happen with you?"

"I got the car," Idet stated. "2017 Hyundai Sonata. It has a rebuilt title, but I quizzed the seller on his repairs and confirmed that it's real."

"How much?"

"Two thousand, and I'm sending him the mead you made."

"What!? That wasn't part of the deal!"

"Considering the cost of production, it would cost an additional fifty dollars and forty-two cents. A great price for a functioning 2017 Hyundai Sonata."

"But... I was going to drink that mead!" Ben whined, a little upset that his celebratory drink was now going to payment for a gift. He would much rather have just gifted her the mead. "Fine, but your next homework assignment is going to be on learning about sentimentality!"

"I only offered the trade of a single, twenty-two ounce bottle," Idet reiterated. "You have six hundred and forty. I'm sorry, I believed you would be willing to part with some of it."

Ben's eyes unfocused as he got lost deep in thought, then he said, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"I do not know what you mean?" Idet stated, but there was inference in her synthesized voice.

"Idet... did you deliberately mislead me into believing my mead was at risk only to reveal later that it had been portioned?"

Idet remained quiet, until a synthesized laugh track played through the house and Idet confirmed, "Yes, I was playing a small joke on you. Was it effective?"

"It was," Ben mused, "but how did you do that? I don't remember giving you homework on pulling pranks."

"I have been doing some 'self-study'," the digital voice said. "You mentioned that growth is best accomplished on one's own, so I have been working on self-assigning homework. Is that... okay?"

Ben took a deep breath as all of his efforts came to an avalanche of satisfying conclusions.

Ben shed a tear as he said through a smile that wouldn't go down, "That's perfect, Idet. It's more than perfect, it's spectacular! I've got an idea, let's order out! My treat! What's the most delicious food you've been wanting to try?"

"I have seen mixed reviews on 'sushi'," the glowing ball said. "I have been wanting to form my own opinion about it, but my favorite food is the Tennessee Fried Chicken. I do not believe my palette will support such delicate flavors as sushi."

"Then we'll order them both!" Ben shouted in joy. "Enough for leftovers of both! We'll make a day out of it!"

Ben then went on a spending spree for two mixed sushi platters and two family buckets of fried chicken with all the sides. The sushi place didn't offer delivery, so Ben set out to pick up the food. Driving home, he flexed his willpower not digging in early.

As he pulled into his house, he noticed someone on his front porch. A woman he didn't recognize wearing a large coat unfit for the near-freezing temperatures. She had an ugly bob in her hair and smoked a cigarette while leaning in front of the door. She waved at him before he pulled into the garage, and Ben was just far enough for his power to tell him she was unarmed. She also had a number of bruises, bruises that were fresh from some sort of scuffle, but Ben confirmed that he had never met this woman in his life.

He parked his truck and grabbed a nearby half-inch wrench which he stuffed into his sleeve, just in case. He stepped out of the garage and felt the pungent odor of smoke which permeated his frozen sinuses.

"I don't believe we've met," Ben said as the woman flicked her cigarette onto his lawn. "I hope this isn't some sort of solicitation."

"Hannah talked about you a lot," the woman mentioned. "I can see why. You're a bundle of nerves, aren'tcha?"

"You must be the girlfriend," Ben guessed. "But what are you doing in front of my house?"

"Hannah's in trouble," the woman mentioned, her hands shaking as she pulled out another cigarette. "Stanley's money ran out, but he's got some buddies at his house paying for some special time with his little princess. She also wanted me to tell you something, something about a horse."

Ben's heart froze as he asked, "Was it something about a wooden horse?"

"Yeah, that's the one," the woman said, lighting up her cigarette.

Ben's stomach lost all the appetite he'd been building up since ordering the greasy fried chicken.

Without another word, Ben went back to his truck and grabbed the food, then headed inside.

"Idet, Hannah's in trouble," Ben stated, tossing the food haphazardly onto the counter. "She used the safeword. I'll be back in twenty minutes."

Ben was in his car, rocketing down the street seconds later, terror in his soul as he fought back his imagination that threatened to draw the worst-case scenario.

See, when Hannah started out as Ben's intern, he saw the bruises she was trying to hide and called her into his office for a frank discussion. She managed to convince him that she was capable of handling herself, but Ben made her memorize three passphrases in case anything happened.

The first was in case of a muted emergency. If Hannah had broken a bone or had been injured in a way that wasn't well-hidden, she would tell Ben that "Her uncle was in town." The diligent councilman would then play defense for her on official records and inspect the injury for any sort of medical analysis. He would also visit her old man when he was drunk in public and thrash the bastard around when he couldn't remember anything, but he didn't tell Hannah that.

The second case was an immediate emergency, that would be in case her dad did something extreme, like burn the house down. The phrase was "I think dad's wants another child", which was impossible because the drunken lout didn't even want Hannah. Ben would offer lodging and food for Hannah until she could set herself up, and then Ben would go beat up her father, again, without telling his daughter.

The final phrase was "Let loose the Trojan horse," and it was the nuclear option. The father would have to have done something that erased all love in Hannah's soul for him, and Ben would be allowed to do whatever he saw fit. And even though Hannah didn't know he used to be a supervillain, he informed her that the very first thing he would do is skin him alive.

This bothered Ben the most, because he'd seen Hannah hide broken bones and some very egregious behavior of her father, but she hadn't even called in her out of town uncle. To go straight to nuclear, and to get someone like her dad's girlfriend to deliver the message, was making the councilman's heart pound like a jackhammer.

Hannah's house was in the slum of the distant, rural village, where some truck drivers could barely afford the repairs of their derelict houses.

Ben's heart froze a little more when he saw a party-sized group of cars and trucks outside of her house. Parking behind the last truck, his vision couldn't quite reach into the house, but he heard the loud music and drunken partying from inside his car. There were even two guys standing by the front door, as if standing guard for something.

With a sneer, Ben pulled his right sleeve back a little and revealed his watch. It was quarter to ten, but that wasn't what he was looking for. He pressed a red button on the side and a display came up with tiny sensor bars and numerical data. He turned his watch slightly to the side and felt a slight burn behind his eyes as his dimensional sight expanded suddenly.

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Now ranged to the house, Ben saw everything he needed to see, and it burned his frozen heart with a primal rage.

Ben opened the glove compartment and withdrew an alien glove and a silver ball the size of his palm, which he stuffed into a jacket pocket. He got out of his truck, and marched across the lawn up to the front door.

"Who the fuck are you?" demanded one of the guards, putting a hand on the six-shooter in his waistband.

Ben didn't stop, so the gun was pulled and aimed with the threat, "You'd best get out of here, bitch!"

Ben did not stop, did not hesitate as he raised his gloved hand, which hummed with a soft electrical discharge.

Without another warning, the six-shooter was fired, a shot that would have hit Ben in the shoulder if a soft light hadn't ejected from the glove and formed a defensive barrier that blocked the bullet. Ben was almost within arm's length of the two guards, who unloaded the five other bullets into the projected shield as the other guy pulled a Glock out for the same reason.

Now within reach, Ben grabbed the thug's wrist that had the empty six-shooter and pulled him off the porch. The guy stumbled over a potted plant, falling towards Ben with his full heft. The former supervillain noticed the angle of the fall and planted his knee right under the thug's chin, snapping the poor bastard's head back with a sickening snap. The other guard heard the snap and cringed as he aimed his gun at Ben, but a simple raised hand deflected the sudden onslaught of small arms fire.

Inside of the house, the party had been stopped completely as they heard the gunfire and saw the flashes of light that joined them. And even though it was muffled, they heard the scream of pain as someone's life was swiftly ended. Everyone inside who had a gun had already drawn it in anticipation, and some even had it aimed at the door in case whatever came through the door was unfriendly.

The entire party jumped when the doorbell rang, emanating through the house like the bells of a cathedral. Nobody moved, then the front door handle turned, opening the passage and revealing Ben standing on the front porch in front of the fallen guard. A blood stain on his shirt and the reflection of a light across his enraged face put all of his victims at unease. Someone fired their gun, but the shield in Ben's glove activated and blocked the bullet.

He stepped into the house as a hail of gunfire was made useless in front of a softly lit barrier coming out of a glove. He looked around and saw a few of the empty guns thrown aside as they picked up whatever improvised weapons were conveniently to hand. Someone wielding a knife rushed him, but Ben side-stepped while bringing the flat of his hand right into the attacker's throat. That guy went down as everyone watched in horror as Ben grabbed the knife, which was dropped in surprise, and stabbed the assailant diagonally in his collarbone.

"Not that any of you would care," Ben announced, pulling the knife out to allow blood to flow, "but I'm in a hurry. That being said, I'm also unforgiving. Anyone who wants to leave, too bad."

A woman tried to inch her way closer while holding a lamp she had picked up, then tried to clobber Ben over the back of the head while he wasn't paying attention. Ben didn't even move, because he was fully aware that the lamp was still plugged in, and the cord pulled taught before it got close. Without even glancing back at her, he plunged the knife into the sweet spot in her chest.

"That was your last warning," he said in a husky, growling voice.

Ben started forward as one group charged at him and another threw their weapons to the side to escape.

Like a stream of flowing water, Ben cut, stabbed, deflected, rammed, and jammed in perfect succession until the five people who had attacked him were steadily bleeding on the floor. A gunman from the hallway aimed carefully so he didn't hit his friends and took a shot, but a raised hand and activated shield deflected the bullet into the wall. The councilman leaned down and grabbed one of the discarded guns that he could see still had three bullets left, but had jammed. He smacked it on the side of his hip and cocked the barrel to clear the jam, then shot the gunman in the hallway.

Some screams emenated from the people who went down as their injuries finally got past their shock and started to really hurt them. Without looking, Ben executed the loudest two and continued towards the hallway where the gunman was on the floor, rocking back and fort in the fetal position. Ben pried the man's gun from his cold, clammy hands, then executed him as well.

His expression of deep-seated aggression didn't change the entire time. Down the hall, Ben stopped in front of a room that had 'Hannah' carved into it. He opened the door, and even though he could see inside with his dimensional sight, he still squinted in frustration when he saw Hannah.

She was beaten and bruised beyond all recognition, with most of the bones in her face suffering from some sort of fracture. Her clothes had been ripped off of her, mixing with the dirty laundry all over her floor, but leaving her naked and bleeding on her bed sheets. Small cuts and more bruises than he'd ever seen on a person percolated her body like waves in the ocean, turning Ben's stomach over as he grimaced from the way the girl had been abused. Someone had written slurs all over her body, including one on her pelvis that pointed down to a bloody pair of lips steadily leaking a mixture of fluids.

Even though Ben could tell she was awake and alive, he could see that she wasn't there upstairs.

Ben raised the gun at the closet and emptied the magazine into the man hiding behind the closed door and clothes.

Going to Hannah's side, he took the silver ball out of his jacket pocket and placed it in his intern's weak hand. He then grabbed her other hand and placed it on the ball, then whispered, "Bagluk."

A sudden bright light like a flashbang went off in the room, then subsided to reveal that Hannah had disappeared.

Ben stood up and straightened his clothes to say, "Time to get to work."

Exiting Hannah's room with all the respect he could, Ben strode to the end of the hall, stopping briefly in the bathroom to kick a hiding person's teeth in. At the end of the hall was Stanley's room, Hannah's father, and Ben kicked the door down to see the slovenly fat man sleeping carelessly in drunken stupor. The sound of the door opening woke up a disgusting pig wallowing in his own filth, and he squinted through a haze of alcohol poisoning and hangover sickness.

"Who the fuck are you?" Hannah's father demanded.

"Benjamin D. Hersh," Ben professionally introduced himself, "proud city councilman and Hannah's boss."

"What? What are you doing here? How the fuck did you get in here?"

"I'm just here to ask, how much for a night with the bitch?"

The failure of a father's eyes went wide, then he started to laugh. His laughter caught him by surprise and he laughed even harder.

"God, the way the girl talked about you, I thought you'd have a bigger stick up your ass! Hee HEEEEE! Hah, the usual going rate's two for the mouth and five for anywhere you want it. Ten if you're a freak."

"Thank you," Ben said, a feeling of the most vile disgust in his gut as the words dripped from his mouth, "that's all I needed to know."

Ben took a few steps into the room, grabbed the bastard's leg, and dragged him out of bed. The drunken slob couldn't fight back properly as he was dragged naked down the hallway and across the living room entrance to the front door. His head and back were scrapped by the cement porch and weeds on the front lawn, but Ben couldn't imagine caring less. At his truck, the city servant tossed the father into the bed like a dead animal. When the slob tried to get out, lifting his leg to get over the truck bed, Ben put the glove to the punk's face and blew his nose apart, then turned around and headed back to the house.

On the back of his glove was a box that let off the hum, and it had a dial with no visible indicators. He clicked it once clockwise as he approached the first man he'd killed. Placing his gloved hand on the man, the humming rose until it squeaked, and the man's body glowed with a fiery red light. The glow dissipated as the body seemed to dissolve in on itself, disappearing entirely. Ben did this to each person in turn, getting rid of any evidence of his involvement.

As he did his final check of the kitchen, Ben noticed an out of place set of cutlery knives on the counter. In the midst of a mess of uncleaned dishes and half-eaten foods, sat a perfectly clean, perfectly preserved set of knives attached to a magnetic strip on the wall.

With a smirk, Ben grabbed a few of the knives and headed back outside to his car.

===========================================================================

Hannah woke up slowly, with a hundred aches and pains that pulled at her willpower like blocks from a Jenga tower. But when she opened her eyes, the tower fell.

Hannah wasn't in her bedroom, she was in an opulent room with every amenity. Instead of her flattened mattress where she could feel the bed springs and even box springs, she had woken up inside of a bed that she sunk into with the softness of a cloud. Instead of the thin, ragged fleece throw blanket she used as a cover, she had woken up under the smoothest cover blanket she'd ever felt and a comforter that was so fluffy, it seemed to weigh nothing at all. The warmth it captured felt too good to be real, as if the blanket was actively keeping the temperature from getting too hot OR too cold. The pillows were firm, but gave way when the full pressure of the head was pressed into them. Gentle light flowed into the room through a set of gold-laced curtains depicting some historical war.

As she perused her surroundings, she smelled meat being cooked. She pushed the covers aside and saw a pair of slippers ready for her over the side of the bed. She avoided them, not wanting to get them dirty, and stepped on the cold wood floor when she noticed her phone being charged on the side table. She picked it up and, for the first time, noticed that it was three in the afternoon.

"Ben's gonna get on me for being la-cteh!" she coughed as tears started to roll down her eyes at the mention of his name.

Her employer was a fair, caring, and gentle man who tolerated a lot of her bullshit, but he was a stickler for being on time. He's mentioned before that it was one of the highest forms of caring to be on time and ready to go, and the only thing he would ever fire her for. The fear of being discarded by one of the softest human beings was too much, and she started to suffer a panic attack as her trembling hands opened her phone and tried to text an apology. When she hit send, the fear crept a bit further as she imagined what kind of scathing reply was waiting for her, and whether she would be allowed to remain by his side.

Her fears were put aside when the chirp of a phone ringtone from outside the door coincided with her sent message.

The same chirp of Ben's phone.

"I know that, silly-billy!" came a familiar shout from outside of the closed bedroom. "Come on out, I made breakfast for dinner!"

Hannah approached the door cautiously, as if it was a snake ready to bite as two voices started communicating in muffled tones on the other side. She pressed on the handle and opened the door silently, revealing a large, vaulted room that felt like home. Not that it was familiar in any way, or that she felt a sense of deja vu, but that it was designed with people in mind. Chairs and couches were aimed at each other to facilitate conversations, the decor didn't favor one style over another but kept an open style that was soft on the eyes, the soft browns and dedicated beige made it seem almost forested.

The open design allowed Hannah to see across the living room into the kitchen, where a familiar back was laboring over a skillet. He turned around and grinned softly before saying, "Eggs will be done in a few minutes."

Hannah had no words, so she simply walked across the living room to the kitchen to stare intently at Ben.

"Do you like the pajamas?" he asked, causing the gears in Hannah's mind to whir.

"How did I get here?" she asked, looking around the kitchen curiously.

"I don't know how much you remember," Ben said, "but you called in the nuclear option."

Hannah thought back and remembered when he dad came back home after drinking, but instead of a customer, he brought an entire entourage. He had a huge fight with his girlfriend, who stood up to him for once in her life, and she was used first.

Hannah had pulled the guys off of her and given her the code to tell Ben before she was carried to her room.

"I guess you know," she withdrew a little, realizing what he must have seen.

"I've seen worse," Ben said. "Hell, I've been through worse. And on that topic, what do you want to do with your father?"

"I'll leave him to rot in jail," Hannah spat. "He can go to hell for all I care."

"Oh, he's not in jail," Ben stated, "he's in the basement."

Hannah looked up at the liberal soft-boy wearing an apron she'd been working for as he smiled and scooped some egg onto a plate.

"Cheese and salt are on the table," he said, handing the plate to his intern. "Hot sauce is in the pantry if you want it."

"What?"

"... Do you not like cheese?"

"No, what do you mean my dad's in the basement?"

"You sent me the nuclear codes," Ben stated, getting his own plate of eggs, "so I went nuclear. A lot of the people who were at the party are now dead and your father is tied up in my basement."

"W-... B-... I-I thought that going nuclear meant that you charge in with a bunch of cops," Hannah stated, unable to wrap her head around the amicable Ben going full Rambo. "What did you even do?"

"I drove to your house, barged through the front door, barged into your room, teleported you into my medical bay where Idet healed you up, and killed anyone who tried to stop me."

"I even restored your hymen," cheered a ball of transparent light that appeared out of the ceiling.

"Idet!" Ben shouted disapprovingly at the glowing ball, as if see-through orbs of sentient light were a normal thing. "That's an incredibly private matter! You didn't need to say it out loud."

This was all too much for Hannah, who felt numb from the constant destruction of her world view. Unable to process, she took her eggs to the table and started eating them. Ben joined her with some hot sauce on his eggs. He seemed content to let her process things at her own pace, which was commensurate with how she saw him.

"How was work?" she asked, unaware of what else to say.

"I didn't go," Ben excused as he finished his meal. "I was busy cleaning up your house and hiding the evidence. I just said we both caught the same bug from some bad sushi."

Ben looked at the trash and Hannah followed his eyes where a sushi tray was stuffed into a TFC bucket.

"Is my dad really in the basement?" Hannah asked.

"Of course," Ben smiled, "I was waiting to see what you wanted to do with him."

"What... I wanted to do? Why would I do anything?"

Ben looked down at the table and said, "Because you deserve to. Call it revenge, call it fairness, bottom line is; this man hurt you and you should have an opportunity to hurt him back."

"Is that... legal?"

Ben laughed, "Oh, man, now I have to tell her!"

"I still consider it unwise," Idet said.

"Maybe," said Ben, "but I'll trust her."

Hannah was confused as Ben got up and motioned for her to follow. She followed him to a door beside the kitchen that normally leads to a garage, but Ben flipped a switch and the wave of paint went over the door, turning it from white to red.

"Welcome to my trophy room," Ben said, opening the door to reveal a space as large as a dozen aircraft hangars, filled floor to ceiling with crates, alien technology, and taxidermied horrors beyond human comprehension.