Heroism

"I'm in jail?" Nothing made sense.

"Maybe this is all because I took that damn super-serum. It probably altered my powers. Messed up every reality... Because it messed me up for sure..."

Pueris knelt in the cellar, his ankles chained to the ground. His long white hair ran down his back, it felt like spikes.

Nothing felt right.

The night sky outside mocked him, stars shining beyond his reach. A moon burning brighter than it should've been.

Falling light cascaded down his face, revealing the glistening of water in his eyes.

Reality felt strange. His vision was a little too blurry at times. Sounds were either too loud or too silent.

"This feels like a dream." He muttered, but he said it like it was undeniably true this time.

He looked around. The cellar was small, fitted for one person.

Himself.

Nobody was nearby. There were no sounds of life.

It didn't feel like a cellar. It felt like a separate dimension. Not even the wind met his ears—nothing did.

His fingers caressed the walls in hope of uncovering something, anything.

Eventually, he came to the conclusion that nothing had changed.

"We failed this task. It sounds cruel, but—"

He squinted his eyes.

Am I being too cynical?

"Failure is always a part of success, but... I've seen too much."

He slammed the wall with his fist. He felt no pain. Life was playing games with him at this point.

"I've watched these guys murder thousands. I've been there with them, covering my own hands in blood. What did it even amount to? We didn't fix justice; we only fueled it. Our names drove the headlines, and those headlines all led to him."

Suddenly his mind felt a hard ringing sound in the back.

He heard the faint sound of helicopters whirring and cameras snapping pictures. He heard reports chuckling and birds chirping.

"Eh? But—none of those things are here—?"

When he blinked, the entire scene changed. His body mutated, becoming less pale and slightly more sun-burnt.

Was it a dream? All a lie? My own hallucination? What's going on?

The air was rinsed with perfume. The sound of clicking cameras resonated in the air. He was standing next to Justice 7, who had his arm around his neck, smiling at him like they were buddies.

"I'd like to welcome Beta's newest hero, Pueris. After losing in battle, he decided it would be best if he joined forces—"

"No."

Pueris spoke quietly, but every camera stopped clicking.

The entire conference room—the hundreds aligned in cheap seats, the few people at the conference table—all of them looked at him.

Is this another reality? Well, I definitely don't want to work for the scum in this corrupt system. Or is it the original reality? Did Justice 7 not actually end up killing me?

"I don't want to join forces with your kind. Why do you think I joined Red 0?"

"And what will you do if you don't join forces with us? Just die?" Justice 7 grinned at him, waving his hair to the side. "Die a worthless death like your comrades?"

"What do you have left? Your friends are dead. Your powers are too weak to even scratch me. You might as well go help a real cause."

"I still have one thing." Pueris looked down at his hands. "I wonder if you know what that is."

"Oh? What's that?" Justice 7 smiled widely.

Pueris stopped time in that moment.

He killed every single reporter in the room and then finally himself.

Time resumed.

Justice 7 watched as blood splattered over every corner of the room.

People's necks twisted for no apparent reason. Everyone died, even Pueris.

Justice 7 realized he was untouched, but he was too late to save everyone.

He flew outside the building, and helicopters that had surrounded the building to capture the news of Pueris' admission to the hero society suddenly found a new headline.

His face was an image of horror as he looked at his blood-stained hands.

"I didn't kill anyone! I swear on my mother's life, on my soul! On everything a hero stands for!"

Dozens of conferences, only one conclusion.

Justice 7, the traitor. The sociopath who killed everyone for no reason.

"But can't you slow down the camera footage to 0.000001 like you did last time?" Justice 7 pleaded.

"We did," they argued. "We did that. That's why we know it was you. On our camera systems, we realized you were the one who did it all—at superhuman speed. Pueris was just another victim."

They played the footage. Justice 7 strangled every single person in the room in slow motion, leaving Pueris for last.

"This can't be—"

With no explanation that satisfied the public, Justice 7 was locked up.

The public was outraged. Were all heroes like this? Their strongest hero, their favorite hero, was a cruel villain all along.

Videos were posted of Justice 7's worst moments, from killing families to mocking the dead civilians.

Eventually, Justice 8 was released—a girl who promised to fix the last generation's mistakes.

For a while, the world was cured. But then the same thing happened.

In the lab, the scientists stared at each other in awe.

"Is it really true? The Justice Factor turns people into assholes? Because that's all I've been seeing. Not a single generation has been a kind soul, even after we modify their hormones."

"There is no cure for arrogance. It always exists, deep down."

"The public is not appeased, and the government is no longer in contact with us. They don't want our power that only causes controversy. Apparently, their technology is more efficient, less flashy, and worst of all—not going to include us at all."

"So we have to stop shipping serums into the water sources?"

"We have to shut down everything. Let the world return to normality."

"Why?"

"Because after Justice 7's actions, the whole world has turned against heroes."

The two turned to the side tiredly.

Dusk came that day, coldly and quietly.

"Do you remember… Back in 1985, when we introduced powers… The world went crazy."

"But it wasn't a good crazy. People fought wars for the serums. It wasn't until the first generation of Justice rose that the world became peaceful."

"But was there ever truly peace? Or was it just a mirage covered by the people's awe for heroes?"

"We have grown wrinkles and aching joints, but we never overlooked ourselves. Is this our fault? Should we have made the serums weaker? The issue isn't the heroes—it's the public. They looked at them too highly, like gods."

"So when gods fell... The uproar was too great. Now we're here. The governments want all our operations to stop."

The first scientist began to laugh, and the other swiftly joined him.

"I've read the forums. The opinion is nigh-universal, save for a few devil's advocates. Powers have to go. Let the governments use their tech to take out rogue power users. Meanwhile, in the East and Russia, rumors of supposed power-removing machines have surfaced."

"We should flee. If they find out what we actually did to the serums, we'll be in big trouble."

A year passed.

Julius Al Pavar was sent to prison on accounts of modifying serums against government orders.

Albert remained, his partner locked up.

He stood at a certain gravestone.

The grave of Pueris.

"You know, Pueris… We handpicked every single super-mutant. You got your powers to save the world. You chose to destroy it. This was your deserved fate. I don't see why you had to take the whole world down with you."

Ten years later...

"Justice 7 has been released from prison. His powers have been removed."

The figure of Justice 7 made his way down the street. A thick beard adorned his jawline. His beady eyes had turned shrewd and extremely reactive. He raised his hand to the flashing paparazzi, as if he had never seen them before.

Hundreds stood outside his jail, asking how it felt to be a mass murderer and released.

Albert watched the news channel in intrigue.

Justice 7 went up to the camera. "I wasn't the one who started this all. It was the people who created the power… They're still out here to this day—"

Bzzt.

He turned the TV off. He ran to his notebook, thousands of fully sketched pages.

Hundreds of printed images spread across pages.

"Even if heroism is dead… My plans will supersede this era of humanity."

He left his book inside a charity shop, covering the cover with a Harry Potter book's front.

Inside, he wrote his testimony and his will. His will—the recipe for powers.

He then handed himself into court the next day. All his assets were seized, even the pajamas he had left in Berlin 30 years ago.

"The fruits of my work.. They suggest that heroism is not an inherent virtue but a societal illusion that inevitably leads to corruption." He smiled to himself, accepting that conclusion. "Perhaps somebody can fix this error in my ways."

In prison, he met many past ability users. None seemed to recognize him. He noticed his sentence was several years longer than it should've been. Several videos of things he didn't remember doing popped up.

"Ah," he muttered. "The hacker… They're framing me too. I should've known Justice 7 wouldn't actually do that."

Far away, Angjayre slouched over her desk. With her powers forcefully removed, she had grown into a real-sized girl. Her hands typed away as she forged yet another fake video, the more evidence she framed, the more bad people she sent to jail.

Her powers remained in her right eye.

She pleaded as a victim—and succeeded. She used evidence to free herself.

As she watched Albert through the prison's foreign security cams, she couldn't help but look at her wall.

A picture of Red 0's full group, smiling and laughing.

A picture she couldn't look at without hundreds of memories flashing back.

A picture she resented, because it reminded her that only one of them was alive now.

"Why am I the only one left? Those morons... They didn't have to die for this."

But she still couldn't help but rarely smile because their goal had been achieved, heroism was dead.

Heroism and the lot of them were long gone.

Merely fragments of her past.