POV: Randall.

  “Are you sure we should be going this way?” I asked Vince as he led us through another set of cluttered streets.

  “Of course Vince is sure.” Vince said casually. “Everyone around Vince needs healing and Sully isn’t boosting because he wants to teach Charlie and Henry and Luigi a lesson.”

  “Mittens foresees. Mittens agrees. Mittens is here.” Mittens spoke up from beside Vince. Her body now looking more like that of a normal woman’s than what she actually was.

  She or, he, it was hard to keep track whether we were talking about the possessed villain or about the male kitten thing possessing her, shivered suddenly. Her yellow eyes shining and becoming more alive as she looked back at me and around the corner we’d just passed.

  “Mittens sees wayward souls. With well-worn soles. Wandering through darkness. Blind to the light of the lost and the meek.”

  He sang the statement, more than saying it. But the volume of his voice made the tune carry throughout this block. And I suspected through the adjacent blocks as well.

  “Terror and fear, are easily forgotten. When the life’s blood, falls towards the earth.”

  I blinked in confusion. Turning to Vince.

  “What is he doing now?”

  “Vince thinks he’s warning the press gang behind us to mind their own business.” Vince said nonchalantly.

  “Sully did tell Vince and Mittens about them beforehand and he asked Vince and Mittens to keep the killing to a minimum. As they are not gnomes, and therefore, can still be saved.”

  I felt a headache coming in. Just like all those times I felt I was forgetting something. I mean, I’d known my memory was tampered with to some degree, but the extent of it never became apparent.

  “What are press gangs?” I felt myself asking.

  “People who go around beating other, weaker people up to recruit them by force. Back in Vince’s world, emergency militias were formed like this. In your world too, I think. Vince read history too and recalled that sometimes the old navies used press gangs to get people to work on their big, dangerous, smelly boats for low wages. Or to work in mines. Or anywhere else really.”

  Vince sighed.

  “Vince personally would have loved to gut them all, but Sully said no. He’s teaching my old friends and his new friend a lesson you see.”

  “A lesson in comradery.” Mittens echoed.

  I blinked.

  “Why would you want to kill people from press gangs?” I asked with some surprise. “I mean, it’s not a nice thing to do, but we’re supposed to be heroes here. That… seems an awful lot like losing your temper and abusing your power over something that isn’t worth getting too upset about.”

  ‘The same reason why I supposedly got mind-wiped.’

  Vince didn’t immediately answer, so I continued.

  “I mean, desperate people will do desperate things right? And everything I’ve seen from Sully tells me he’s the kind of guy who will offer a helping hand first, and leave killing as a last resort. I thought, I mean… Thunder Fist did say that heroes had to keep their heads cool. That justice wasn’t about going around beating people up or killing them. It was about being selfless. And sacrificing yourself for others.”

  Vince stopped to break into another house. Coming out a few seconds later to a chorus of thanks. Echoing through many different lips.

  I pointed at him.

  “See? Kinda like what you just did right now.” I said again. Moving closer.

  “No one told you to go in there and heal those people. But you did it because it was the right thing to do.”

  Vince turned to me.

  “So you don’t think killing the gang men isn’t the right thing to do?”

  “Well, no.” I admitted. “I mean, I get they’re bad people and that they’re beating people up but… I dunno. Maybe we should just beat them up instead? That seems more fair, I think?”

  Vince stopped to look at me. His hollow cheekbones making his eyes look like the orbs of an owl on the hunt as they reflected what little light came through the clouds.

  “Okay.” He said.

  “Okay?” I echoed.

  “Okay.” Vince repeated. “Vince wasn’t going to kill them anyways, but Vince now thinks its better to stop them. More gently like.”

  Mittens gurgled.

  “Hahaha. Vince speaks and Vince squeaks. So many lives. So many lies. Mittens is here.”

  Vince turned to Mittens.

  “Vince means it. Vince has more self-control than that. Vince was never going to kill them. Even if Vince wanted to. Vince is not crazy you know.”

  He shuddered suddenly and hugged himself with both arms. His eyes now looking as though they were very far away. In another place. Another time. Another life.

  He began to whisper. His eyes growing wider.

  “Kill gnomes. Maim gnomes. Step on gnomish heads. Break gnome skulls and break gnome kneecaps so no gnomes can escape. Sever gnome tendons. Feed gnomes to other gnomes and feed gnomes to big cats. (Gnome) on gnome scorpion stew and feed the stew to gnome grandmas. Run away with gnome inheritance and scam gnomes with online calls. Pretend to be handsome gnome with scam and trick gnomes into divorcing other gnomes. Break apart gnome families and set fire to gnome houses. Steal gnome trucks and go on gnome-running-over sprees. Crash gnome trucks into gnome houses and do it all again. Take gnome airplanes and crash them into gnome towers and…”

  I turned to Mittens.

  “How long is this episode going to last?”

  Mittens shrugged.

  “Until the Master makes him forget.”

  “No, I meant this time.”

  “Oh.” Mittens said. “Two minutes, seven seconds.”

  “Okay.” I said. “That’s a lot of time we’re not walking around healing people. You wanna keep going or do you want to turn around and beat up the gangsters?”

  Mittens’ beautiful golden eyes turned to me.

  The feminine smile of his host widening into a cheshire grin.

  “Mittens foresees. Mittens agrees. There is some progression. A new fresh obsession. An excellent lesson. Mittens is here.”

  “O…kay then.” I answered softly.

  Shrugging and readying my powers. Making sure the beams of sunlight were less lethally charged with heat and more focused on the application of force. The precise application of force.

  “We know you’re out there! Step into the street where we can see you! Foul villains! The times where you could beat people up with impunity are at an end!”

  For a second, no one moved in the street or in the adjacent alleyways. I was just about to turn on my sensory powers, despite the headache that would follow, when ten or so people stepped into the faint light.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Damn it. These ones aren’t going to do.” The lanky one who seemed to be in charge spoke up. “These ones won’t do at all. They’re all kinds of crazy.”

  “Yeah.” Another one followed. “You got the skinny one whispering really disturbing things to himself. The girl singing creepy songs in the middle of a plague and this jackarse who thinks he’s some kind of hero.”

  “Well that one might actually do, once we put him in his place.” The lanky one interrupted. “As for the bird, I dunno. She might be cooked in the head, but I hear some men are into that. And she’s pretty enough for a bordello so it won’t be our problem.”

  “Damn right. I hate dealing with the crazie…”

  “Holy (Gnome)!” I interrupted. Suddenly feeling my veins freezing. “Is that a kid!?”

  The men turned back to the pack they’d been dragging. A young teen with blackened spots around his eyes and bruises up and down his bare chest.

  His arms had been tied with a length of hempen rope and they’d been bound so tightly that his limbs looked like they were losing their color.

  I saw it and suddenly recalled what Vince had said. About him wanting to kill these men.

  Then I felt a surge of white-hot fury overcoming me.

  “Let him go! Right now!” I commanded.

  The men stared at me.

  They and the boy they had bound up.

  His eyes, or what little of them I could see, were filled with despair. Theirs seemed to be filled with a mix of shock and amusement.

  Then they all laughed. Loudly and with vigor.

  “Hey! Hey lads! Get a load of this guy! He thinks he gonna scare us away!”

  I ignited the fire in my hands.

  The men stopped laughing.

  “I’ll give you all one more chance.” I said. Maintaining eye contact.

  “The boy go and…”

  “Bleeding hells! It’s the demon!”

  “The demon that killed Whitmer!”

  “Shoot it! Shoot it!”

  All the men had clubs tied to their waists, but they now reached towards hidden pockets and began to pull out pistols. Their eyes widening with fear and naked abject terror.

  But they never stood a chance.

  With a flick of my willpower, several thick walls of unburning fire and force closed in around them. Hammering them in place without severing any limbs, leaving any burns or otherwise inflicting any permanent damage.

  Within a heartbeat, the problem had been solved. Without a single drop of blood being shed.

  I smiled with confidence, unable to keep myself from feeling more than a little proud at this achievement.

  “Hey Mittens! Check this out! I did it! My first criminal arrest!”

  Mittens stepped in closer. His feminine nose sniffing the air like a dog.

  “Gooooooonnneeee.” He sang softly. “To the manse. To his gloooooorious expanse. Praaaaaaayyyy. At his feeeeet. To stay the doooooom. You shall meeeeet.”

  He elongated his tongue and licked one of them.

  “Mittens sees you. Mittens smells you. Mittens can taste your fear, sinner. Mittens will have you for dinner!”

  He laughed and his shadow lengthened behind him. Growing horns and vicious claws as the men’s eyes widened even further.

  All but one soiled themselves from the front and back. Including the boy they’d captured earlier.

  “Mittens is here!”

  “AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!” The boy wailed from the ground. Squirming in his bindings and trying to crawl away as a snail would.

  “Holy Saturn! Don’t let the demon get me! Saturn! Sister Nina! Charlie! Help! HEEEEELP!”

  “Okay!” I snapped. Willfully ignoring how hurt I was from the ingratitude.

  “No! I’m pretty sure Sully’s going to be mad if you go off and kill these guys after I practiced so much to catch them alive. We’re taking these guys to jail.”

  I turned to Vince.

  “Right?”

  Vince stared at me as he broke out of his stupor. Eyes tracking me and giving a look as if I were stupid.

  “No?” He said with confusion. “Of course not. These men work for the one who owns the jail. The first people they beat up and threw into the mines were the ones in the jail. Bringing these men to jail means Vince and you will have to beat up even more men at the jail. And then the guards will come and we’ll have to beat them up too. And then the people around us will scream in fear and start to make funny posters about us being criminals. That’s a stupid, stupid idea. You’re a stupid, stupid man.”

  I stared back in shock.

  “Wait, these guys work for a corrupt authority? Then what are we supposed to do?”

  “Well, Vince was planning to just break their legs and leave them on the side of the road.” Vince said with yet another shrug.

  “Not like it’ll matter when Sully does his thing.”

  I squinted.

  “What thing?”

  “The boost. Obviously.” Vince answered with casual indifference.

  “I thought he promised Charlie he wouldn’t do that.” I countered.

  Vince and Mittens gave me a pitying look.

  “Of course Sully promised that Randall. But only so long as Charlie didn’t change his mind.”

  Vince pointed at the crying boy on the floor.

  “He’s one of Charlie’s brothers. He ran when the bad men came to take the older children to the mines. I saw it in my visions, so Sully must have seen it too. Charlie doesn’t know yet, but he will know soon. What do you think will happen when Charlie finds out?”

  “Okay?” I said. “I get that. But why wouldn’t Sully just save all the children from the orphanage in the first place then? It’s not like he couldn’t do it.”

  Mittens snickered.

  “Far too much trust. Ground into dust. Mittens is here.”

  Mittens walked forwards and broke through my power. Sending the men scrambling to the floor while grabbing the leader by the throat.

  “The lives they do trample. A fantastic example. Mittens is here.”

  Mittens looked back at us.

  “Mittens does tell. Mittens does swear. Burn away the lies and give praise to the fire.”

  “Yeah. I have no idea what you’re saying Mittens. Try speaking English for once. It would help.”

  Mittens threw the man into the air, allowing him to scream. Then he jumped and grabbed him by the ankle, using him as club to bludgeon the other crooks on the ground.

  “Dude! Stop! What’s wrong with you!”

  “He’s trying to tell you what Sully’s planning.” Vince spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “He sees what Vince sees. That there is no justice for the people here. But he sees it more and he sees it constantly. Sully is forced to see all the pain and all the suffering. All Sully wants is for the pain to stop.”

  Vince sighed.

  “Charlie does not see. Nor Henry. Nor Luigi. They are blind. All of them. Their eyes are yet to open.”

  Vince stepped in and began healing the weeping wrecks on the ground. Gently pushing Mittens aside.

  To my surprise, the kitten possessing the woman relented. Stepping back with a growl.

  “Vince is not blind, Randall. Vince and Thunder Fist see Sully for who he really is.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” I snapped. Feeling my temper rising. “He’s a hero who’s willing to make the hard choices. I know. I…”

  I bit my lip.

  “I know what he does is for the greater good. I know it’s justified. I don’t hold a grudge because of what he did to me. If Sully, the Sully I know now, was willing to cross that line, then I deserved it.”

  I took a deep breath and sighed.

  “So, what? Sully wants to teach Charlie to be less selfish and to see the bigger picture? Is that why he didn’t save the children in the mines? I dunno. That sounds pretty morally dubious to me. I think it would have gone better if he’d saved them first and then gone to Charlie.”

  Vince sighed a deep sigh of his own.

  “Then you can put that theory to the test when we meet Charlie in a bit. Tell him how things went here and how we saved the boy. But you’re still missing the point Vince was making, Randall. The point Mittens has been trying to make for a while.”

  He turned again to face me. Now cradling the weeping youth in his arms as he healed him.

  “Sully does heroic things. But Sully is not a hero.”

  “Huh?” The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

  “What are you talking about? In the few weeks I remember knowing Sully, he’s done nothing but save as many people as he could left right and center. Never asking for anything in return. It’s…”

  I bit my lip. Feeling my hands tremble a little.

  “It’s why I feel bad questioning my own brainwashing. I’ve never actually see him do something selfish. It’s always about self-sacrifice with him. About making sure as many people survive and lead happy lives. It’s hard to hate someone like that. This…”

  I waved to the condemned houses around us.

  “Not stopping these plagues as soon as we got here seems like the most morally dubious thing I’ve seen him do so far. If I’m being honest. Again, I get that he wants to change how Charlie and the others feel, but if they can’t see the good in saving sick people, then they’re not worth keeping around in my opinion. Their changed perspective isn’t worth a few dozen lives. Let alone the tens of thousands we could be saving in this city alone. Or in this world. We can always find new people to recruit.”

  “Again, you miss the forest for the trees. Randall.” Vince shook his head. “You see the end result and you see the means, and you ignore what really motivates Sully.”

  “Self-sacrifice.” I said again. “Because he’s a real hero. He’s putting himself into a position where he was to do questionable thing for an objective moral good. It’s what a hero should do. Their own well-being is sacrificed for the good of others.”

  Mittens giggled.

  “Fool and fool and fool again. Blind fool and deaf fool. Fool without fingers and fool without a nose. Fool without a tongue and fool that lacks in prose. You have eyes but you do not see. You have ears but you do not listen. You call others blind, when your eyes are yet to open. Mittens pities you.”

  He kicked the prone figure of one of the men. Not hard enough to break bone.

  “The Master has never been a hero. The Master has never had his pick. The Master has always been a child, forever stuck at six.”

  I blinked again. Failing to grasp what this thing was saying.

  “He’s saying that Sully does not sacrifice himself because he wants to.” Vince followed up. “It is because he has to. To make the voices stop. To make the pain stop. It is a poison Vince has tasted all too well. Though in a limited range.”

  Vince shivered.

  “Vince cannot imagine what it must be like to hear so many miseries all at once. To have them haunt Vince forever and ever. Guilt eating away at Vince even after the flow is stopped and the Psy stops flowing. The voices and their memories remain. Vince knows and sees they will come to pass. Vince knows who will die and who will live if Vince does not act. And Vince is not a tenth as strong as Sully is.”

  He shook his head.

  “So Vince pities his friend. And Vince tries to help. Charlie and Henry and Luigi should be helping too, but they do not see Sully suffering. They see the mask and the mask fools them. They see the power and they do not see the scared child trying to stop. Trying to get his parents to love him again without being brainwashed. Trying to silence the voices in his head.”

  Vince pointed at the crooks.

  “Even they have a voice that Sully can hear. Families that will miss them and children that will mourn them. I cannot kill them, despite them being villain and child traffickers, because Sully would feel all their pain, even though he does not deserve it. Sully wants to give them a second chance because it is the only way to make the pain stop. Randall. It is the only way for him to know some measure of peace.”

  I stood there in the dirty street. Mouth agape. Trying to process this information.

  “Enough about that.” Vince interrupted me. Pulling me along while carrying the child in his arms.

  “Come, we have children to save and a hero to forge. Come and see how Sully forges his blades.”