I'm No Hero. Neither Was I

The was concrete unfairly cool on the backs of her thighs, to the point that she couldn’t care less about the dirt and dust that would surely work its way onto her, or the scratchy red marks the texture would leave. She was tugging her shirt at the chest in another vain attempt to cool herself in the heat, how Lily and Ryan were sitting next to her completely fine in the awful heat, she had no clue.

“I swear you were built for winter or something, Thea,” Lily almost mocked, stretching out her legs from underneath her, but not looking up from her phone.

“I was built for appropriate clothing,” she retorted back, “honestly, these uniforms are practically torture,” she lamented.

“What are you so obsessed with anyway?” Ryan tried to look over Lily’s shoulder and at her phone, “You know what will happen if a teacher walks past,” he reminded her.

“Oh, please, as if that would be my luck,” she pushed Ryan away without any real force, “besides, Temper has been back at it,” the disdain for the vigilante palpable in her voice.

“Calm down,” Thea warned. Lily had a tendency to overreact to any news involving the powered. “What did he do this time?” she asked, genuinely interested.

Vigilantes had a weird name. Back before they were real, well, as real as they are now, as they have been her whole life, a vigilante was just someone who acted outside the law to enforce it. Sometimes, enforce what it should have, to go after those the law protected instead of prosecuted. These days, it was just a catch-all for those with powers that used them, because they were outlawed almost the entirety of the thirty years they have been public knowledge. Yet, some vigilantes were clearly good or bad. Diane, an archer of spectral arrows, was one of the first vigilantes. She went after those who assaulted women and weren’t being prosecuted. The public named her after a goddess for a reason, she was a clear good. Then there were those like Shadow Blade, who had no qualms about killing anyone in his way or who he perceived to be deserving of it. How was it fair to call them by the same title, to accuse them of the same crime?

Was Temper a vigilante like Diane or one like Shadow Blade? It was a question she had pondered more than she would care to admit. He was active in their city, so it wasn’t odd to hear a lot about him, and it was weird. He’s killed plenty in his three years active, but they always turn out to be awful people who were being protected by someone powerful. He had tortured confession, and back mailed resources, and every time there was a chase of him, he famously disappeared into thin air. Was he a hero or a villain? Then again, if it was not fair for him to make the moral judgement of who lives and dies, was it fair for her to use such labels? The state had already made its delineation. Temper is a vigilante, just as the state had made their various delineation on his victims.

“Temper destroyed some executive's arm this time, a ton of nerve damage and the guess is full loss of his hand to frostbite,” She explained.

“Yikes, what the executive do to deserve that?” She asked without thinking, more accurately remembering who she was asking.

“What do you mean by that?” Lily seethed, finally looking up from her phone.

“I mean what I said, does it say why Temper did it?”

“What reason could justify it?”

“I’m not saying anything, could I just want to know why?”

“It was torture,” she said, getting up, “I’m getting a drink,” she said as she walked off.

“Why would you say that you know what she’s like?” Ryan asked her quietly.

“She can’t expect everyone to have her same black and white world view, and it's not like Temper’s never given a beating to a scumbag executive,” she explained her point of view.

“True,” he agreed, “on both, at least this time she just walked away,” he added after a beat.

“Wonder what the torture was about,” she mused, not particularly expecting a response.

“God, your mind never stops, does it?” Ryan shook his head with half a laugh.

“Shut up,” she chided, “blame the philosophy classes, or the history ones,” she didn’t quite mean the joke.

She knew she had a minority opinion, or at least one that people kept silent about. Temper might not be some evil murderer, but it just seemed more complicated on his part, especially. The guy ran a blog, for God's sake, he actually presented evidence and proved the claims he was making against a lot of his victims. She had read a few posts of his and she couldn’t exactly be upset with the deaths, other than the extrajudicial nature of it. But she also knew the law, government, police, corporations, all of them were protecting the people he most often went after. They would never be charged, investigated or found guilty by a court because they would never see a court. As far as current vigilantes, Temper was setting an interesting precedent in his attempts to hold himself accountable with this blog.

“Are you coming out after school?” Ryan asked.

“No,” she groaned, “mum has me running errands for her,” she complained, halfheartedly knocking his knee with her foot for reminding her.

“Again?”

“Your parents didn’t have you for free labour?” she asked the joking question with an exaggerated aggrieved hand on her chest, “how passe.”

Any annoyance fled her body and mind with the soft summer breeze that ran past them. That and the peace offering drink that Lilly brought back with her. The last class of the day felt like it would never end, but that was no doubt in part to their teacher’s refusal to turn on the fans or open any windows. Funny how he was wearing clothes appropriate for the weather, as all of his students suffered in button-ups and the heavy, dark shorts and skirts.

She didn’t have time to go home and change before working through her mum's list of tasks, and thus her suffering in the heat only worsened. At least she didn’t go to one of the schools in the area that also required blazers in the summer, which would give her heat stroke for sure.

She was fanning herself with the envelope of cash her mum handed her in the morning while she waited in line. Banks were always so lovely and cold, and infinitely preferable to the walk home awaiting her, so much so she almost didn’t mind how long it was taking. Only one teller to handle cash. Something about increased risk and a lack of cash use. It felt pretty dumb, cause right now she was fifth in line and there were open tellers she couldn’t go to.

There was a loud bang, and immediately her hands flew to her ears as her heart began to pound hard enough to break through her chest. Her eyes darted around the bank, trying to find the noise. Right by the door, there were four people in all black and with guns that looked like they were out of a video game. One of them gripped the gun as though they were about to shoot again, and she crouched to the ground, trying to convince her body to move more to get out of the way, under one of the tables behind her.

But nothing. Nothing but the feeling of her blood rushing through her body, leaving a tingling feeling behind, as if the pressure of her heart was causing pressure vacuums inside her veins. There was a pulsing in all of her arteries like choke points unlocking and releasing, allowing something more than blood to flow through her, as it drowned out the sounds of screams and demands that echoed across the plain walls and bulletproof glass of the bank.

Her vision blurred foreground and background, separating from each other in a haze, as her neck lulled before she blinked it away. Blinked herself back. She felt in equal parts fear and power coursing through her, the consequence of adrenaline, which made you think you were a hero. She knew better; she was not a hero and had no intention of trying her luck against four grown men with guns. She stayed exactly where she was.

Crouched on the ground, with shallow breaths and eyes that darted to the smallest of movements or sounds, she waited. The last thing she wanted was to make anything worse. All she had to do was wait, and this would end.

Her ears caught on a sigh. How odd, a sigh? Not an exhale, or a gasp, a sigh, almost like someone was relaxed or tired. The woman who had been in front of her in line, a woman in her late twenties and a suit, had slumped to the ground like a corpse. Thea couldn’t move her eyes off the woman. How had that happened? There was no reasonable explanation for how she could have just died like that, and she was right in part as she watched the rise and fall of long and deep breaths. It was not like she had dropped dead, but like she had fallen asleep. Which was somehow weirder.

Looking around the bank once more, she saw that more people near her had succumb to whatever this was. Had they set off or released some gas or something? Was that even possible, something that would send everyone but these robbers to sleep? Maybe if they had powers, if they were the kinds of vigilantes that used their abilities for gain, like many had.

It was a reasonable theory until they dropped too. Once again, her heart picked up, if it were even possible for it to beat faster somehow. Everyone but her in this bank had seemingly fallen into some deep sleep, which couldn’t mean anything good for her.

She couldn’t breathe or think, and with every beat of her heart, she felt less and less blood and more of whatever was leaving that tingling sensation that just barely bordered on pain. Her head whipped to the doors before the glass had shattered as if her body knew it would happen before she heard it.

Walking through the still falling and shattering glass was a man dressed in white, one she recognised. Temper. Thick white denim that had been ruined with ash and dust, black boots and gloves that matched hair that hid the sides of his face, and a mask that prevented you from seeing any of his face short of his eyes. She had seen enough photos in news pieces to know who that was, and it only made what was happening to her worse.

She clutched at her throat, sure that despite the feeling of her lungs expanding and constricting, no air was entering. She couldn’t move her eyes from him, worrying what he would do, but knowing she hadn’t done anything wrong, only worsening her breathing and her heart. His eyes met hers and he raised out a hand in her direction. This was it, this was where she died. She would die with her heart beating fast enough to do the job for him, and breathing that could do much the same. She heard a brittle crunch behind her and watched his jaw move. Why wasn’t she dead yet?

“Summon.” The word sounded like it was spoken by shadows themselves and directly into her brain before everything spun and went dark.

…

“That’s without question, but to bring her here?”

Thea squeezed her eyes tight, something made her afraid to open them as she came to around an argument. She was brought somewhere? Right, she had been at the bank, which got attacked.

“What was I supposed to do, leave her to the dogs?”

“Obviously not, but I didn’t exactly have the time to find a better word, so now she’s your problem.”

It seemed to be just two men, there were no other voices. No hems or murmurs, just the two she had heard speak. The phrase a better word was weird. Wait, the last thing she remembered was hearing the word ‘summon’, was that what they were referring to?

“You're kidding me, what exactly am I supposed to say?”

“You got yourself into this mess, I just helped.”

“Exactly, you helped, and it's not exactly a guarantee she doesn’t think the worst if it's me.”

She opened her eyes at last. From what they were saying, it didn’t exactly sound like they wanted to hurt her. If they did, they wouldn’t be so concerned about her reaction. She couldn’t see them from where she was, but she was lying on a couch, and it almost seemed like this was their home.

“Your own fault for being a drama queen.”

“Hey, whoa,” she heard one of them call out as she sat up with a wince.

“That’s my cue,” her eyes scanned him as he left, and she had no clue who he was.

“Where am I?” she asked the obvious first question, watching the other man who was rounding the couch with a chair to sit and face her.

“Can’t tell you,” he answered plainly as he sat down, and she felt that tingly feeling come back in her hands, as she realised that was Temper. She was sitting across from someone theorised to have killed a not insignificant number of people, and he wasn’t wearing a mask. Which unnerved her about her chances of leaving this place, wherever it was.

He coughed and reached for a mask, unlike the one he had worn in the bank, which was on a side table nearby. It almost looked like a gas mask.

“Can you calm down?” he half chided, half demanded, with less distortion than she’d expect from a gas mask.

“I’ve been kidnapped after I was a hostage, not exactly a time to be calm,” she snapped.

“You were hardly kidnapped,” he rolled his eyes.

“Then I can leave?” she asked.

“Well…”

“That’s what I thought.”

“I’d still like to breathe so cool it,” he said as if it were an obvious request.

“What are you on about?” she asked. She didn’t know what happened at the bank, but did he and his friend, partner, whoever, think she had some part in it?

“Wow, okay,” he pressed his hands into his head. Wasn’t he a famously scarily silent hero, like straight to the point if he even bothered to ask?

“Vigilantes aren’t born with their powers-”

“Yes, they are. They did a full study into it to prove it,” she cut him off from whatever nonsense he was going to start.

“Yes, because the government has never lied,” he snapped at her, “they get triggered in life or death type situations, or at least they were for me and the six other vigilantes I know.” He explained, and it made sense, they weren’t little kids running around with powers, for example, but still.

“Seven if you include yourself,” he added, and she laughed.

“I don’t…” she trailed off, needing him to be wrong about the pieces that were already threatening to form in her head.

“Everyone in the bank dropped because of poison, which came from you,” he confirmed.

“Are they…” she couldn’t ask the question that seemed the most important.

“No, you just put them to sleep,” he answered, and she calmed down, the tingling feeling went away, and he cautiously pulled off the mask as if he could tell.

“The robbers, too?” She asked and watched his face contort in confusion.

“Oh no, they're in hospital, a bit of neurotoxin and frostbite,” he answered like it was the weather.

“Oh god,” she was going to be sick, she had poisoned people.

“They were bad people, I was only even there because they had killed some kids last week, but one had a brother, an opposition minister and the kids weren’t worth the trouble for anyone else.” He explained with an expression that made him look younger, more her age. “At the very least, you did me a favour, so I’m doing one for you in not leaving you there to be killed,” he explained.

“Killed?” she asked, shocked how he came to that conclusion.

“Have you ever heard of someone with powers and not a vigilante?”

“No, but-“

“Because government policy is to kill anyone who presents with them, that's why I destroyed the camera and took you so you could at least have the information”

“But the law…” she trailed off again, forced in a matter of minutes to change how she viewed every aspect of her country, the world even.

“It is flawed, and it always has been. We named ourselves vigilantes, and it stuck because we act outside the law, not against it. People can call me a vigilante all they want, but I am a hero, and I am giving you the same chance,” he explained with a furrowed brow, as though he thought she should have just agreed right away.

“I agree that change is needed, but I can’t,” she said, shaking her head, struggling with the words.

“I, I’m no hero,” she argued. She couldn’t do what he did. Could she?

“Neither was I, not at the start, but now, if there is one person that thinks to stand up because of me, that’s enough. I’ll fight the symptoms until enough people can see the cause.” He held out a hand to her, and all she had to do was take it and do the same.

“Where do I start?”