Ben was dumbfounded. Shocked. Shook. Suffering from a catastrophic loss of thoughts and feeling, his mind still reeling from the unmitigated disaster of the Hero Hunt.
The big game day had started off so well, and even the week before was excellent. Team coordination practice was absolutely stellar, considering they were children, and every single formation was drilled into them by the end of the week. On Friday, the entire group came up with gameplan strategies, even Stanley pitched in with little bits of advice. Ben had printed out some photos of the park they were going to be battling over to come up with more nuanced tactics. It was a mostly open field with some trees at the edges where the game was to be held.
The following day, they all packed into a school van and drove forty minutes to the field. When they arrived, there were parents setting up chairs to watch their kids play hero, and Ben suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach when he saw the opposing team.
Not a single one of them looked like they could hold a candle to his own team, even Stanley. They were skinny, fat, anemic, pimple-ridden teens without an ounce of discipline or cohesion on the sidelines. The coach wasn't even present, one of the parents had to fill in and act as a coach.
Ben's team on the other hand, conducted themselves like special operators on vacation in a warzone. They had their eyes open, gauging threats, discerning powers from the homemade costumes the other team wore while trying to act as nonchalant as child actors could. They even all wore uniforms, something Ben splurged on because of his idea to pretend to be a sports team. What's worse, Katherine even huddled the participating members together and gave them some last minute game plans she came up with for victory.
Ben kept his worries to himself, and secretly hoped that the opposing team was more powerful than they appeared.
No such luck.
Hero Hunt is simply a game of tag where one five-man team chases down each member of the opposing team one at a time. The teams then switch positions so that the team being chased is now doing the chasing. Each round consists of a single chaser given five minutes, points are awarded whenever the chasing team tags the solo member of the opposing side, or when a solo can go thirty seconds without being tagged. The idea being to practice survival if you're a hero outnumbered by villains, and to not let the villain escape if he tries to run.
Jefferson High had their solo up first with Stanley, who didn't even move from his spot to get out as quickly as possible. Scranton team thought this was some ploy and gave him a full minute as they tried to goad him into using his powers. When one of them finally rushed in and tapped Stanley, he shrugged and got cheers from Katherine that the kid who didn't want to play got them a full two points. Gary then insisted that Stanley at least run around a bit so they wouldn't lose so many points, but the Scranton kids were so weak, they only got Stanley two more times, even with their powers.
It was an absolute massacre after that. Ben was crying on the inside as his team scored point after point, Michael cracking jokes at the poor kids who couldn't touch his invisible form. The sheer mockery of it all was torture to the councilman, who just knew he would be getting strongly worded emails from the parents for his coaching. At least Katherine kept her fire reasonable, not torching any of the kids and only using it as a barrier to slip between a pincer attack.
Gary turned out to be the biggest problem, regularly shouting insults at the top of his lungs whenever he built a quick construct to avoid being tagged. It was absolutely toxic behavior, and not something Ben though about fixing during training.
When it was half-time, Jefferson High was up by nine points, a near impossible feat for the disadvantaged side of the hero hunt. Luckily, he was able to meet with his team during halftime, and he begged them to not absolutely mop the floor with these kids.
They did not heed his pleas.
The referee had to call the hero hunt short because Ben's team was up fifty-six to fifteen and the last child was crying himself silly at the thought of having to face four absolute menaces and a disinterested bystander. It would have been called a mercy in any other game, but the entire parent section of the Scranton side were collectively glaring Ben down.
Katherine cheered and led the three other active participants in a war cry that tore at Ben's soul as he imagined how awful the Scranton kids must feel being absolutely destroyed by a first-time team with a part-time coach.
On the trip back, Ben said nothing, too stunned to even formulate words as he realized he may have dug a deep grave for himself. If it ever got out that his team bullied other teams, his poll numbers would enter freefall and he could kiss a mayoral run goodbye. Hell, his councilman position might even be in jeopardy if word got around. He considered bombing one of the other kid's vehicles to mask the tragedy of their performance with a greater tragedy, but decided against it for fear that it would make the devastating loss even more tragic.
He just drove him in mostly silence as the five-hero squad in the back cracked malicious jokes at their opponents looks and powers. He felt a little sick, almost like a bully mentoring other bullies.
When they got back to the school, the parents were already waiting to pick their kids up, and Ben noticed that Stanley's older brother James was driving him home. Once all the cars were gone, Ben numbly went back to his truck and drove home.
Back at his house, he was surprised when he first noticed Hannah had let herself in. He entered in a daze, confronted by Idet and Hannah immediately through the door.
"How did the game... go?" Hannah asked, changing her tone halfway through when she noticed Ben's distant expression.
"Did you lose?" Idet asked in concern.
"No," Ben said, leaning against the wall for support, "too much the opposite.... I just... I spent so much effort training them to win... I didn't think about how they would behave if they actually won."
"What do you mean?" Hannah asked, and Ben unfolded the whole story. "Oh, who cares? They lost and you won, isn't that all that matters?"
"No!" Ben almost shouted. "Winning is one thing, but being cruel and pretentious about it is too far!"
"You're a villain! Isn't cruel pretention kind of in the job description?"
"I was never cruel for the sake of my own enjoyment, and I was certainly never pretentious without a reason! This was just... it was like watching someone strangle a kitten! A kitten who only bit you because it grew up on the streets, it was just... evil."
"You... didn't happen to teach them to be evil, did you?" Idet asked curiously.
"Certainly not, I was just going over tactics and... oh my god."
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"What?"
"The training!" Ben shouted, running out to his truck and grabbing the fifty page book he'd assimilated. "I'd been putting it together from what I knew the heroes do and some of my special forces training! Fuck! This is a fucking high school sports team, these topics are too advanced for them!"
"You overtrained your team?" Hannah chuckled. "Are you serious, is that really your problem?"
"You don't get it! This manual is just the most effective, efficient methods that I could think of when meta-humans fight! This is what I would do if I had a team! But I'm a professional! These guys are amatuers! And their opponents are all amatuers! How did I not think of it! I should have given them some basic advice and just did some regular exercises!"
As Ben was tearing his hair out stressing over the now over-powered team he was mishandling, Hannah started breaking down into a fit of capricious laughter. She couldn't control herself, almost falling over holding her gut as Ben looked on, unamused.
"What?" he demanded, but Hannah was wheezing too hard to breathe. "Idet, do you find this amusing as well?"
"Quite a lot, actually," Idet answered, "but I lack the ability to laugh, so I shall merely enjoy the irony."
"What exactly is the irony in this situation?" Ben growled angrily.
"You're a fucking supervillain!" Hannah wheezed. "And yet- and yet- and yet you're freaking out over winning because it's- it's unfair! HAAAAA HAHAHA HAAAAA!"
Ben was fuming that he was being laughed at, but considered the outside perspective and chuckled a little, "I guess there is humor to be found in a villain talking about fair play. But, still! These kids are not supposed to be this powerful!"
"Well, what were the other side's powers?" Hannah asked.
"There was a frog-man, a girl who could shoot jets out of her ankles, a guy who could jump really high, a girl with night vision, and a guy who could swallow things and compact them in his throat."
"Was the frog-man the crybaby?"
"Yes, why?"
"I just assumed, because Garrett is a snake-man, that the frog would be afraid."
Ben ignored his intern as she laughed herself silly, considering his options.
"I need to destroy the books," he decided. "All at once would be suspicious, I should do it one or two at a time. No, but then they could just copy the books, or they would ask for MY copy. Hrm."
"Why don't you just amend the book with a copy that has less effective methods?" Hannah suggested.
"No, they would eventually realize what I'd done after they lose a few rounds.... I guess I'll have to shame them. Hopefully they aren't all psychopaths."
=====================================================================
Monday rolled around once more and Ben drove to hero practice while reciting in his head the speech he'd come up with over the weekend. It might be a little strong, but it was necessary to keep his image clean.
The meeting was in the library again, something originally planned to review their battle from Saturday and reorganize their thoughts on what went well and what went wrong. Ben was a little surprised to see that the kids were already in the library, discussing new strategies without him. Katherine was leading the talk, still giddy from their overwhelming victory. Gary and Garret were being bros, bringing up the best parts of the match and where everyone did their best, passing around congratulations like confetti. Michael was the damp towel, talking trash about what points they lost and how they should have won. Stanley was doing Pre-calculus homework.
"Evening, heroes," Ben greeted as he entered the library, putting on a sour expression, "not that you're anywhere near heroes."
"C'mon," Katherine interjected, "we won the match!"
"But how did you win the match, hm?" Ben demanded, slamming his large binder on the table in fake anger. "Because what I saw out there was about as far from heroic as you could possibly get! As soon as you knew those kids were going to be no match for you, you should have dialed it back, gave them some room, maybe even played a few points off. But what you actually did...."
Ben continued his act by glaring at each member in turn, witnessing children reflect on their actions with dour expressions.
"You guys were merciless," Ben argued, "unrelenting, unrepenting, and at the end of it all, you rubbed your victories in their faces! That is NOT what heroes do! That is not how heroes act!... That's what villains do! That's how villains act! Are you guys thinking about becoming supervillains? Because I am not going to be coaching evil bastard psychopaths!"
The swearing caught the team off guard, having been used to teachers and faculty who regulate their language. The heavy feeling on their chests deepened, except Stanley, who was listening with a bit of amusement.
"But if that's how you want it, then congratulations! You just made a bunch of kids cry because you thought it was FUNNY!"
Gary sniffled a little as he fought back a tear. Katherine and Michael just reservedly looked at the floor, unable to say anything. Garrett was zoned out, replaying his behavior on the field through a lens of the other team.
"Read these," Ben said, opening his binder and pulling out three pieces of printer paper with the emails of angry parents. "I got these emails over the weekend, and I know I'm going to get more this week. Two of these emails are about three kids who want to quit their dreams of being heroes because you guys were such assholes, and that third one is about a kid who cut herself because of you animals."
In reality, only the crushing dreams emails were real. Ben had fabricated the self-harm one to really drive the point home that their behavior could have the most serious consequences. But already, the team was suffering from a massive guilt trip. Even Stanley was starting to feel it, even though he was barely involved.
"Our next game is in three weeks," Ben informed. "Capture-the-flag. I don't know if the team is going to be as weak as our last match, but I will guarantee that you all will behave like responsible heroes. Because if you don't, I won't be here the week after."
The city councilman let the kids stew in their own thoughts, then played victim.
"I'll accept my part in this," he said, causing the kids to look up at him. "I was so focused on making you guys the strongest there was, I didn't think to teach you how to control that strength. But that's what this week will be about. We're going to be training light attacks and softer ability usage. You guys are going to learn how to use only as much power as necessary. And you'd best believe we're going to go over behavioral ethics! I'm going to make sure this email is the last complaint I ever get."
Ben stood back and let the kids wallow in guilt and shame, letting them marinate until he got into the real meat of his guilt tripping.
"We'll start the review," Ben said, taking a seat and eyeing Michael. "Michael, care to share how you could have done better in the Hero Hunt?"
"I," he sniffed, "probably shouldn't have cheered when I won the chase."
"Really?" Ben sarcastically accused. "Nothing to say about mocking the other team while they were doing their best to catch you?"
"I-I was trying to throw them off," the invisible boy excused. "I thought it was a good strategy."
"I told him to do that," Katherine admitted, burying her head in her arms.
Ben acknowledged it was a good strategy to get inside the opponent's head, he'd done it quite a lot during his tenure as The Gentleman.
He did not admit this out loud.
Ben took each high schooler in turn and dissected their performance on the field, especially Gary, who was almost in tears by the end of his analysis.
When Ben was done, he finished with a carefully edited monologue he'd been preparing while he was supposed to be reviewing the financial records of the parks department.
"It's one thing to strategize, train, and work your hardest to win," he began. "That's how everyone does it, heroes and villains alike. The difference is always in what you're willing to do and how you're willing to cement victory. A villain will sacrifice anything, except themselves, to win, while a hero often sacrifices themselves. In the future, you should always keep something in mind whenever you're making a plan, in sports as in heroism:
"Don't be worse than the people you're trying to stop."
Hannah had laughed in his face when he was practicing the speech, but he really felt like that line was the most necessary. This came from his experience grand standing as a villain, as well as reviewing some of the greatest speeches of all time and space. The last thing you say should have the greatest impact, and also keep people thinking about your speech once it's done.
Ben got up to leave, but he was stopped by Katherine, who put an arm out to block his path.
"I'm not sorry," she said, even though she was clearly struggling with her words. "Being a hero is not a game. If you're too weak, you shouldn't even try. You'll just get everyone else hurt with you. Sportsmanship is unheroic."
Ben knelt down until he was level with the fire-breather, and said in the coldest tone of voice, "Trying saying that again when you're an actual hero, and not a member of a high school sports team. Maybe I'll believe you."