The leadership course was both enlightening and humiliating. Senpai Bob, in his identity as Jupiter, the ex-leader of Olympus, was the teacher. Mindy, as Frostweaver, had decided to go ahead and sit next to me, but she hadn’t spoken to me, so I didn’t really know if she was still furious or trying to get past it.
He was running the initial part as a question and answer, giving a few pieces of sage advice which he referred to as ‘turds of wisdom’, and he was talking about the psychology of supervillains.
“So let’s talk about some of the clue-by-fours that will let you know whether the guy you are dealing with is a psychopath, a poser, or a professional. First off, let’s talk about death traps, a tried-and-true staple.” he looked directly at me and said, “Blueprint, how about you let us know a little bit about why a cowl will use a deathtrap?”
I gulped, “Me? Uhh… I am just here to learn.”
He laughed, “Nonsense!” and I was worried he was going to just dump my extra-curricular villain out into public. “According to your dossier, you made a brief stint as a vigilante, which was cut short by a death trap.”
“Oh,” I said and nodded, grateful. I knew a hell of a lot more about death traps, but this was a good excuse. “Yeah. Umm.. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I was technically a borderline class three at the time, so when I was out pretending to be a hero, I ran into Bushmaster.”
He nodded, so I continued, “He was actually out for Darkon, but he didn’t seem to be that badass, so I jumped him, planning on putting him into custody. Big mistake, Bushmaster is known for using two machetes, but that’s because his power involves multiplying their edges with TK. He beat me pretty soundly, but I interfered with his plans for Darkon, so he put me into the deathtrap he’d made for Darkon.”
“It was pretty easy to escape, it was supposed to be, but I didn’t have Darkon’s powers, and when I got out, I lost a hand.” I held up my left hand and wiggled my fingers. “Darkon would have been fine, and so would most heroes, but at the time I was only slightly higher than rank one toughness. I spent almost a month wandering around like a zombie as I tried to restore my hand. My healing is comprehensive but super weak.”
I sighed, “It brought home several lessons. First, I wasn’t strong enough to play, which is why I dumped the hero idea at the time. I got into it for stupid reasons, my ex ascended and we broke up when she was invited to join the Flare, and I thought that becoming a hero would get us back together.”
“So what does that tell you about who you were facing?” Bob… Jupiter asked.
I shrugged, “I realized that Bushmaster wasn’t really a villain. He was a superpowered actor, getting paid, probably by Darkon, to make a big production out of capturing him, a bold escape, and eventual hero’s triumph. Later on, during an incursion, I saw both of them fighting side by side against a lesser wave.”
He smiled, “Exactly right. Some people just aren’t powerful enough in the ways it matters to become headline heroes or even solo hunters. Bushmaster is dangerous, but his blades aren’t able to penetrate class three durability or higher, and he’s not a homicidal monster.”
“A LOT of villains are like that. Either professional actors or people whose powersets don’t lend themselves to becoming part of a major team. A real psychopath would probably just kill you instantly if they can, or if they have made it personal, their ‘deathtraps’ mostly involve personal torture followed by killing you. Big monologues, ranting about their power, and acting like you are their nemesis are usually a clue that they are just having fun or making a buck, which is one of the reasons that usually when there’s a superpower duel, all the local heroes don’t descend and immediately capture the villain with sheer numbers.”
He grinned, “Hell, some supposed supervillains make a living by just adopting new identity after new identity, getting paid by the heroes they are fighting to take a dive and escape, vowing vengeance, and they can even monetize their streaming video if they have the resources to set it up.”
“A good example would be Canon and the Black Widow… They were both street-level, so their battles weren’t particularly destructive, but their powers were extremely flashy, so every time the two would streak across uptown chasing and fighting they would pretty much automatically draw a huge audience and publicity, and they split the streaming profits. Turns out after Black Widow unfortunately passed away during an incursion, Canon admitted that they’d been married as non-alphas for fourteen years, and reinvented both of their identities as a game that paid off handsomely. Unfortunately, Canon took his own life shortly afterward, so I can’t invite him to the class to talk about it.”
“Later on, we will talk a little more about that pair, because they were both what we refer to as power suits. Technically, Black Widow was a gadgeteer, but Canon actually discovered one of the ways baseline humans can meaningfully challenge Alphas, through using custom-designed magical or divine artifacts.”
After the class, my sort of mentor called me over to talk to him. Frostweaver raised an eyebrow, and I nodded to her before she headed out without me. I guess she wasn’t still furious, but only time would tell.
“Sorry for calling you out like that, but you have a very useful perspective, and I might call on you for more viewpoints about flash villains. I honestly wish we could get your whole story, as a lesson for more wannabes, but it would put an intolerable strain on your private identity, as well as dredging up stuff you might prefer to forget.”
I smiled a little, “It’s fine. I kind of got my head kicked in about the whole Crystal debacle, and while I’d prefer to put it all behind me, well, she IS part of the Flare so sooner or later it will come up. I’d rather just… stop giving a shit.”
He chuckled, “Immersion therapy?”
I nodded, “A little bit. Plus, I had it driven into me that I am still letting her control my life, or at least my assumptions based on her behavior. I am trying to work with the idea that while there are lots of alphas exactly like her, they aren’t all like that. It isn’t easy, but at the risk of sounding like a trite meme, my team has driven home the fact that I need to work on myself and I’ve been letting her live in my head rent-free.”
He looked at me closely, “Do you want to talk to a therapist? I don’t put much stock in psychologists, but I know someone that is surprisingly good at listening, and her suggestions are generally pretty good even if they don’t strictly adhere to psychology guidelines.”
“Is she an alpha?”
He shook his head, “Nope, total baseline.”
“She won’t prescribe medication?”
He looked at me narrowly, “Would you prescribe medication to people who might drink mercury as a refreshing top-off to their dinner of chlorine bleach over cobalt flakes?”
I shrugged, “Most importantly, can she keep a secret? Even if it’s something sort of criminal?”
He smiled, “I would trust her with my life, I already have trusted her with my personal identity. If you tell her you are looking for your next serial murder victim, she’s likely to alert someone if she can’t talk you down, but stuff in the past, as long as it isn’t too horrible? Yeah, she can keep a secret. You aren’t the first ex-villain to walk through these halls, and some of them were the real deal before they decided to turn over a new leaf.”
I nodded, “Go ahead and set it up, if you would be so kind, Senpai Bob.” I didn’t LIKE the idea of ranting to a complete stranger, but if he trusted her, I would try to. I really respected Bob. In a lot of ways, I thought he was a lot like me, even though he could probably turn me into a slime in a heartbeat if he wanted to.
He nodded, “Bear in mind, she is a true believer in superheroes, sort of like you but a lot less… cynical about it.”
***
Tabitha Morraine wasn’t trying to convince me to be a superhero, she mostly was just asking questions about why I was… the way I was. Almost like a prison psychologist, but without the agenda, she preferred to call herself a counselor rather than a psychologist or a therapist, mostly because I think she was fond of the character from the old Trek series.
After a bit of coaxing, I finally told her about what happened the second time I was kidnapped, and while she was sympathetic and non-judgmental, it opened up the discussion about why I didn’t consider myself a hero.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Have you heard of the Superman dilemma?”
She looked a little embarrassed, “You mean the one about why he can’t have sex?”
I shook my head. It embarrassed me a little too. In a lot of ways, Tabitha resembled everyone’s favorite grandmother, to the point where she even had blueberry scones and herbal tea on her coffee table while we were talking in an office that closely resembled a living room/kitchen combination. In her mid-sixties, she was slightly overweight, although I thought she might have been a stunner in her youth, kind of like Angela Lansbury.
“No. The fact that he can go into space and see and hear almost everything. He could stop almost any crime or disaster easily, but even working twenty-four hours every day he can’t do everything.”
She nodded, “Here at the school, we call that the Primus Question, because Primus, the class seven, is in the same boat. He has to pick and choose what he helps with, and if he’s stopping a Kaiju in Tokyo, there might be a typhoon that’s killing thousands in Ecuador, a tailored virus released by a villain in Paris, and a spree-killing pyromancer burning a town in Russia at the same time.”
I nodded, “That’s why I can’t be a hero, or call myself a superhero. Can I heal people? Sure. But who decides?”
She nodded slowly, “You are talking about your limits. You have decided that if you are in proximity and can take the time, or if it’s one of your teammates, that is a priority, but you could heal others, expand your limits?”
I snorted, “Network told me I have over a thousand pieces of correspondence of people begging me to heal them. I have no idea how, since that’s a massive violation of school security, but some of them have come from as far away as Alaska.”
“I have very limited energy. I can get it back, but I have other things I need to do also. The US military is threatening to conscript me under the Emergency Powers Act, and then you have people like the Maxwells who are willing to do anything, up to and including mass murder and kidnapping, just to have me help them out.”
She nodded, “Adrian having his father killed just after you saved his life had to be traumatic.”
I shrugged, “Traumatic is… I mean, I have seen lots of people die. A couple of times I could have saved them if I was just a little more powerful, a little faster, it’s just part of living in Empire City. We have more incursions than Neo-Tokyo, Great Lakes, and San Angeles combined.”
“But… I would throw my powers away for one more year with my father. And Adrian, I thought he was desperate to have his father back, just like me, and he had his bodyguard execute him as soon as his pet telepath got what he wanted.”
I shook my head. “It just drove home the reality that I am not a hero. Who am I to judge who will live and who will die? Yes, I have limits, and I could push past them, but I’m not God, I am not omniscient. Heck, if God has to deal with this all the time, I don’t blame him for stepping back and saying ‘Figure it out yourself’.
“Some of those messages offered a huge amount of money or special resources to help. But if I set that as part of my limits, suddenly human life has a monetary value, because I can’t save everyone. That’s why I never wanted to be a doctor. They have to set a monetary value on saving lives, otherwise they’d starve.”
“What about children?”
I shook my head, “That’s even worse. Look, I get that you protect your children and try to shield them from harsh reality until they are old enough to make their own decisions, but setting that as the limit is even worse… I have sympathy, I do, but what if that child I save grows up to be a serial killer, a drug dealer, or a psychopathic supervillain? What makes a child more worthy than, say, a fifty-year-old business owner who created a thousand jobs to keep a thousand more families filled with children from starving?”
“I could volunteer to spend some time in a hospital as an on-staff healer, but then either I have to look directly in the eyes of people I can’t help permanently because they have a genetic disorder that causes their sickness that I can’t touch, and I have to make that decision of who deserves my energy and who doesn’t, or I have to hand the responsibility over to other people who may have objectives or motivations I can’t understand.”
“What if that power I spent saving a few children means I can’t afford to build something or heal someone who would be instrumental in stopping an incursion that would otherwise kill a million people? What if I save a mastermind that cracks and builds the big one? I can't be a hero, because I can't make that kind of decision and stay sane.”
She nodded thoughtfully, “That’s a hell of a decision, and you are right, volunteering yourself will force you to make that choice constantly. But you do set limits… and you do use them to help people. Isn’t that still a hero?”
I shrugged, “My limits are kind of selfish in a lot of cases. I won’t zoom around trying to find trouble like a hero does, because zooming takes energy away from actually helping. And my power has strict limits in recharging, limits I am rapidly approaching, or it recovers much more slowly. But that’s not heroic. And to be fair, I have been leaning on other people to deal with my trivia more than they can handle… something that was driven home to me the day before yesterday.”
“Being selfish occasionally doesn’t make you less of a hero.”
I shrugged, “Tell that to the person who has just been gut-shot that I can’t save because I am too busy eating dinner with a beautiful girl.”
“Can you tell me what your limits are?”
I nodded, “My team. I will burn all of my energy if my team is in danger, or to help keep them safe. If I am close and someone is hurt, I will try to save them, but I won’t go out of my way. I will try to help with nearby issues, like incursions, Kaiju, or even easily addressed supervillain problems if it won’t take me out of action. But I won’t touch crime just because it’s a crime, that’s the job of the police or superheroes. I plan on being a monster hunter, because their limits are well-defined as well, and I can live with them.”
She nodded, “I won’t disagree with those limits. What about if a friend has an issue?”
I shrugged, “Case-by-case. If one of my friends or teammates asked for help like if their brother was dying and I could help, that’s a priority. I plan to burn energy to help the police, hunters, heroes, and rescue workers do their jobs more safely and effectively, as well as help personally if I can, but… I know it sounds cold… the mother that sends me a blitmail from Alberta offering a million dollars to save her little girl? It’s heartwrenching, but it’s outside of my limits. I just… can’t.”
She nodded, “I think you are assigning too much meaning to the word hero. Your limits are fine, but I sort of blame the Academy and popular media for setting impossible standards for the word. You can’t really blame them, their job is to produce people who can achieve the goals that they need, but all this meaning has been dumped on 'hero' when what it really means is that you choose to risk yourself to help others.”
“You might want to ignore that artificial definition if you can. You risk yourself to help others. You don’t have to spend every minute of your life doing it, despite the demands others might place on you. Believe it or not, a lot of the people I talk to have nearly the same problem, or are wrestling with a failure to meet impossible standards. I believe you are a hero and have been so many times, but that’s based on my standards. You need to find your own standards, and setting your own limits, even if they are a little bit selfish sometimes, doesn’t make that any less true.”
“A lot of alphas do it by using the mask. When they are wearing their mask, they are the heroes people want them to be within the confines of their abilities, whether mundane or alpha. When they are not wearing the mask, they are just a civilian. That won’t stop them from acting if something awful is in their face out of uniform, but it’s a way to have downtime so you don’t go crazy.”
I raised an eyebrow, “I thought you weren’t supposed to use words like crazy.”
She laughed brightly, “No, psychologists and psychiatrists act like not using that word somehow makes things better, but it’s a semantic and self-defeating argument used as a way to take offense. If someone calls you a motherfucker, that just reveals their own opinions to you, it doesn’t mean you have an Oedipus complex. You can take offense or not, but that’s your choice, even if it’s intended to provoke a reaction.”
She chuckled a little, “Can we continue this conversation later? I have a class to teach in twenty minutes.”
I nodded, “Thanks. You helped me more than you know… I think I am going to make a list of what my limits are so it’s clear-cut in my head, rather than winging it all the time.”
She nodded, “That’s a great idea, and should help take some of the pressure off, just don’t get obsessive about it. By the way, I noticed that you are in Jupiter’s leadership classes. He talks about just this thing, from the point of view of a decision-maker. I will probably be seeing you in my own classes on threat assessment next year.”
I smiled and headed out, “Thanks.”
An hour later, I was tapping the list into my tablet in the library, when an instant message popped up.
You have my attention, now what do you want?
I was a little confused, but then I realized, Abbey must have gotten to work already. The tablet was attached to the school’s hard link, and I guess that let technopaths in remotely. Fortunately, I didn’t have anything too secure on the network.
Quiet Code?
Yes. You took a hell of a route to get to me, with three sneakernet cutouts. Network’s doing? Technopaths can’t get to me, but she could.
Yes, I asked Network to. She said you are a very special sort of technopath, and probably exactly what I need. You are part of Frost Phoenix’s team?
Yes and no. I dropped out last year, but she’s kept me on the team lists for reasons.
You are being watched by a brainsucker. Meet me at 22nd and M Street, dressed as Sno-Cone. Make sure you change off-campus and ditch tails. I can screen one extra person, but not two. Bring a demo suit, the good stuff, tomorrow at noon. I have a price, and I hope you can meet it.
The chat box disappeared.