It was already Monday two weeks after agreeing to coach the high school heroes team and he was already regretting the decision. This realization came after he had just watched the children redouble their efforts in training to become stronger, both with their powers and their bodies.

Even after the bullying session of last time, they had clearly learnt nothing from his self-prescribed epic speech. Katherine had parsed out half of the hour the team had to work out, and the other half to practice their powers. Gary and Garrett were as submissive to the red head as ever, but even Stanley started to exercise to increase their odds of victory in the next game. Michael worked out with the rest, but acted as more of a supporting role so the rest of the team became familiar with his invisibility. It would have been inspiring, so long as you weren't aware that they were training to destroy their competition mercilessly.

It was all going wrong, and Ben was struggling to come up with a way to rein these wild horses in. In his past, he would have just murdered one of them so they were stuck with an incomplete team, but these were kids and he didn't want his future mayoral run to be hampered by tragedy. Dead kids tend to stick to your name in a non-mayoral fashion. Plus he would have to pretend to be agrieved, and that wasn't happening.

That left him with one option.

Sabotage.

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

At the office on a very pleasantly warm Wednesday, Ben was typing away when he noticed a particular fireman walking within eyesight of his office.

"James!" Ben called, feigning a simple small town gossip interest. "Come here, I want to talk to you."

The fireman glanced nervously around, hoping to find some excuse to not interact with the non-human. When none appeared, he approached cautiously trying not to make it obvious how painful he found it.

"Is everything okay?" the Humanity First member asked, being careful to stay outside of the office.

"Yes, I just noticed that Stanley is your brother! Chevis, right?"

James' reaction was to keep his expression still, but the little bit of disgust he showed through muscle flexes showed Ben he was on the right path.

"Yes, that's my little brother. Is he behaving himself?"

"Gosh, he's great," Ben stated. "He's been practicing so much recently, it's been really inspiring to the rest of the team!"

"That's great to hear," James said, trying not to grit his teeth.

"He's probably the best strategic mind in the group," Ben said, "and he's even been helping the others with their powers! His insight is just magnificent."

James heart rate was steadily increasing as he choked out, "I'll have to give him some congratulations when I get home."

"Well, I don't mean to pry, but," Ben set the stage, "do you know why he doesn't use his power?"

"He can't control it," James immediately said. "It's a personal issue, but it can be serious."

"Oh my! That sounds terrible.... Well, I won't pry any further. Anything interesting happening in the fire department?"

James deflected the pleasantries conversation with a quick, "Nothing really, although one of the fire engines is on the fritz and I'm looking into it. Speaking of, I should get going."

"Oh, then I won't keep you. Nice talking to you!"

As James exited Ben's doorway, he shuddered just out of sight, then scowled to himself as he made a decision on what to do about his little brother.

Ben smiled upon seeing this, leaning back in his chair and wondering what magnificent mayhem might unfold from his meddling. Now he just needed a way to get at the other kids.

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

At their meeting that night, Ben made sure to mention when he saw Stanley that he had a conversation with his brother, the fireman. The color drained from Stanley's face and his heart rate spiked.

"Are you alright?" Ben asked with fake concern.

"My brother doesn't like meta-humans," Stanley admitted. "None of my family like meta-humans."

"What!?" Michael shouted. "But- but you're meta!"

"Yeah," Stanley sighed, dejectedly.

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"Is that why you don't use your power?" Katherine demanded.

"I'm just bad at using my power. I can't control it at all."

"What, like, the power?"

"The power, the range, the size, the weight, as soon as I try to use my power, it goes out of control and just ruins everything."

"We were all like that at first," Gary said. "If I was daydreaming, random objects would just appear out of thin air and people would complain all the time."

"Yeah, man, I would turn invisible at random times and scare the crap out of people," Michael laughed. "It takes some getting used to, but that's why you need to use your power. If you've got no feeling for it, it can get out of control."

"I burned down two sheds trying to practice my fire breathing," Katherine adjusted in her chair to look square at Stanley. "And when I first got my power, I almost burned down our house! But that's why my family put together some fireproof-"

Katherine cut herself off when she realized her supportive family allowed her to practice in relative safety. If Stanley's family didn't like meta-humans, he wouldn't have support to get a hold of his power. He'd be totally new to it.

"Let me ask you," Ben interjected, "not your family, not your brother, just you: Do you want to practice your power?"

It was a simple question, but Stanley clearly wasn't prepared for it.

Of course, Ben was prepared for anything. If Stanley refused to practice his power, Ben would simply steer the future games into ones that would benefit enormously from Stanley's power. As the games become increasingly difficult, Stanley would be pressured more and more to use his power. Ben would intervene as necessary to grease the gears of conflict until something snapped. Should Stanley want to practice his power, well, Ben just needed to get the family involved.

Stanley couldn't come to an answer, so Ben assuaged the teenager with a simple, "You don't have to answer right now. You can talk to your family and get their position, but the decision will ultimately rest with you. Take your time, think it over."

"Don't worry, man," Garrett said, clapping the freshman on the back. "Whatever you say, we've got your back."

Stanley was nervous, but the show of support to the young man was heart-warming to watch. The rest of the club time was spent brainstorming what levitation could do. If he was being honest, even Ben was curious exactly how this levitation worked, but he was willing to let it slide for the sake of his mayoral aspirations.

When it was time to go home, Ben watched with his dimensional sight as the kids got into their respective family cars and he noticed the whole Chevis clan pull up in a truck. Ben noticed that the father also had a Humanity First tattoo, but the mother had a burn mark in the shape of the three triangles, almost like she was branded. The dad, incidentally, was built like a lumberjack with super-soldier serum in his veins. Besides some crusting around his arteries, the middle-aged man was the absolute picture of health, no doubt the reason behind Stanley's own physique.

Stanley seemed equally surprised that both of his parents showed up, and the conversation that ensued confused Ben to no end.

"What do you think you're doing?!" the dad yelled, getting out of the truck and aggressively slamming the door.

"Dad!" Stanley exclaimed, frozen on the spot. "What are you doing here?"

"Your brother told me what you've been doing," the dad accused as he made his way around the car. "How could you lie to me?! To us!?"

"Dad, it was-"

"Save it!" shouted the father loud enough for Ben to hear it from inside the thick school windows. "When we get home, I'm going to make sure you never even think about using your power again!"

Ben felt something pull at his heart strings when the six-foot six-inches grown man grabbed his own son by the shirt and lifted him into the air with a clenched fist. He turned around where his wife opened the back seat and Stanley was tossed like a ragdoll into the truck. Once the young boy was in the back seat, the mother started slapping him and calling him the devil. She openly berated him for allowing sin into his heart and following the path of satan. Stanley balled up, defending himself from his own mother while the dad charged back around to the driver's seat. They sped away with a screech of the tires, and Ben watched them go with a new weight on his shoulders.

"Huh," he said to himself, "that hurts more than I thought it would."

From that moment to the moment that Ben got home, his mind was occupied by Stanley. Perhaps he should have done more research on how volatile his home situation was before igniting it. He regularly glanced at his watch, considering undoing the dampener a few notches so he could see what the poor boy was going through.

"Something wrong?" Idet asked, snapping Ben out of his trance.

"I just... I think I've gotten rusty," he said, massaging his wrist.

"What did you do?"

"One of the kids, Stanley, has Humanity First parents and siblings. In trying to drag the team down, I brought his cooperation to their attention, but now I just... feel really bad about it."

"It does seem rather nefarious."

"But I've done worse!" Ben argued, puzzling his way into the kitchen for a glass of water. "Do you remember that guy, Green Dynamic, or something?"

"Green Dynamo?"

"Yeah, that guy! I did everything to him! Pretended to be his best friend, slept with his wife, got his kids kicked out of that expensive private school, I even framed him for murder! And it was hilarious! Yet this kid that I've known for less than a month is suddenly making me... guilty? That's not right. Something's not right!"

"Perhaps it has to do with him being a child?"

"No," Ben disagreed, "the Dynamo's kids were actively starving by the end of it. Being a kid's not the deal."

"Is it 'responsibility'? Like it or not, you are now this kids coach. Perhaps you've compartmentalized Stanley as being someone 'under your care' and are now suffering emotions because of how you have 'betrayed' him."

Ben considered Idet's argument, but then another thought intruded.

"Where the hell did that come from?"

"I have been reading medical literature as it pertains to grief counselling and therapy in order to be of more help to Hannah," Idet explained.

"Right," Ben rolled his eyes, thinking more about the situation. "You might be right. Of all the horrible things I've done, I've never done them to someone under my charge. God, what a fucking horrible reason to be feeling guilty."

"Is Stanley like Hannah, someone who has experienced abuse?"

"No," Ben said, "at least, not physically. Maybe he gets insulted by his family, but that can be resolved with a serial killings in future.... Here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to hold out on this horrible feeling and hope that it resolves itself."

"That seems inefficient."

"Perhaps," Ben acknowledged, drinking some water to soothe his throat, "but it's best to leave things to a natural course of actions once I've interfered. If I do too much, they might catch on."