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Of Heroes And Villains:
The Paths Not Taken
By Minikisa
There are moments that change a life forever. And within those moments, heroes and villains alike are born of choice.
Officer Pearson did his best to keep his arm steady as he aimed it at the perfect Ten. His visor glinted, masking his widened eyes. He and his squad had faced their share of threats, but this was above their pay grade. Far above.
The red-haired woman was standing frozen in the midst of a crater that had blown half the docks away, staring at him. She looked impossibly young and innocent, but this was the woman who had one of the highest hero kill counts of all existing villains. Pearson had been called in to clean up the massacre at The Asylum; he knew exactly what she was capable of.
She raised her hands, and Pearson tensed for an attack. He could feel faint panic over the mental communication link that made their squadron so effective, which was never a good sign. The comm link made them vulnerable to feedback loops, which was why emotions had to be kept in check.
One of his men lost his nerve and discharged his cannon.
Event Horizon yelped, a ridiculously high-pitched and girlish sound that had no business coming from a mass murderer, and snapped her arms up.
The ARES Mk. 2 arsenal integrated into their armor was one of the most sophisticated weapon systems known to humankind, augmented with cutting edge technology from Reynolds Industries’ science division. A single plasma discharge could level a building and burn through the hull of a tank.
The red bolt simply dissipated when it hit Event Horizon.
She didn’t even appear to notice, still holding her arms up as if bracing for impact.
Doomed.
They were all beyond doomed.
Event Horizon slowly lowered her hands, blinking up at them. Then she took a deep breath, Pearson already mentally composing his last words, and then she spoke, her voice ringing loud and clear.
“I surrender!”
Pearson watched the mass murderer through the one-way glass. She was screwing up her pert nose and tracing the outlines of a faint scar over her right eye, frowning at her reflection as if she’d never seen it before.
He gazed once more at the power suppressor cuffs around her wrists, just to make sure that they were still there. Unbeknownst to her, there had been a great and ferocious mental battle over who should be the one to cuff her, every one of them suspecting a trap and not wanting to go near her. But no, she had been silently cooperative as they teleported to the most secure police precinct in Paragon.
But there was a calculating gleam in her eyes that Pearson did not like at all. She was scrutinizing everyone and everything with far too much intensity.
He straightened his back and then pushed open the door. She looked up at the whirring sound of his armored boots stomping toward her and dropped her hand, leaning back against the chair as he sat down opposite of the small desk between them.
Sitting in full heavy armor was deeply uncomfortable, but meeting her dressed in uniform armed with nothing but his gun would have felt even worse.
For a long moment silence reigned.
Event Horizon tilted her head but said nothing. He wasn’t quite sure what game the monstrously powerful fallen hero was playing, but he would not play along.
Officer Pearson laid down a thick file on the table. “Ms. Elaine Evans.” It wasn’t a question; let her know that they had figured out her secret identity. His sharp gaze snapped up – he had taken off the helmet just so he could use his patented Glare on her. “Correct?”
She sighed. “Apparently.”
His lips thinned, and he opened the folder. “You’ve been linked to 49 counts of –“
“I want a lawyer.”
“… murder and 74 counts of manslaughter.”
“Lawyer,” she repeated.
“Do you have one?” he snapped.
“No. But I’m not obligated to talk to you until I’ve had legal counsel.”
“And who would willingly defend you, Event Horizon?”
She tilted her head. “Is this some sort of dystopian nightmare world where the rule of law no longer exists?”
“…no.”
“Did aliens take over the world and pass a number of new laws stripping us all of our basic human rights whilst possibly also legalizing certain probing endeavors?”
“No.”
“So you are in fact obligated to get me a lawyer when I ask for one.”
Pearson ground his teeth.
She smiled sweetly.
Elaine closed her eyes, taking deep and even breaths.
She was calm. Serene. Definitely not freaking out in any way, shape or form.
Her lungs begged her for just a little hyperventilation, but she shut that nonsense right down. There would be time for that later. For now, she had to think rationally, survive, and find out what the hell was going on.
She opened her eyes, her gaze immediately wandering to the mirror. A familiar face gazed back, and yet it was wrong. There were scars on the right side of her face, faint and almost healed, but still visible. She tilted her head, sweeping back her messy red hair to reveal her neck, which had similar scar tissue. She wondered just how far down her body it extended.
Elaine tentatively tugged at her white glove, squeezing it past the power suppressors, and hissed in a sharp breath.
The burn marks covered her entire right arm, and did not heal as neatly as the ones on her face. Instantly she thought of Wildfire, swallowing heavily. She had refused to entertain the notion, but… was this her future?
49 counts of murder and 74 counts of manslaughter.
Jane stopped in front of the one-way mirror, and sighed. Then she futilely combed her hair with her fingers, knowing that it was a fruitless endeavor. No matter how many cans of hairspray fell victim to her quest of making her hair as voluminous as possible, it never did quite hide her small, red horns.
Truly, the most useless mutation there ever was.
She couldn’t even impale anyone with them, no matter how tempted she was whenever she got called the devil’s advocate.
Though with this client, she might actually earn her nickname.
The lawyer sighed and pushed open the door to the interrogation room.
“Ms. Evans,” she said primly, sitting down in front of her. She could feel the fallen heroine’s gaze on her, but did not look up, adjusting her glasses before neatly adjusting her shabby briefcase to stand just right. “My name is Jane Tanaka and I’m the lawyer you requ-“
“What year is this?”
Jane glanced up, meeting green eyes staring at her with intensity. “Come again?”
“What year is this?” she repeated.
Jane sighed. “2014. And if I may say so preemptively, if you’re hoping to plead innocent on account of time travel shenanigans, your chances are slim.”
Event Horizon leaned back in her chair and exhaled in what appeared to be relief.
“Not time travel, no.” Then she peered at Jane, the scrutiny back in her gaze. “Okay. So I think there’s some sort of Alternate Universe thing going on.”
“Is there?” Jane said in a dry voice.
Event Horizon frowned, then pressed on, “I just woke up in that crater. I have no idea who Event Horizon is, or what exactly she has done. I’m just… I’m just an average girl. I never had any powers.”
Silence reigned.
Jane lifted her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose.
“There’s legal precedent for this, right?” Event Horizon sounded pitifully hopeful.
“You could say that.” Jane barely kept the sarcasm out of her voice. Barely. “In that almost every single one of my clients attempts to go for that defense. Well, not every. It’s fairly evenly split between ‘My evil counterpart from an alternate universe did it’ and ‘A psychic made me do it’. And I will tell you what I tell them – no judge will buy it.”
Event Horizon’s lips parted in a silent oh.
“If what you say is true, then all you have to do is remain in custody. It should only be a matter of time until the real,” Jane mentally inserted air quotes, “Event Horizon shows herself in public.”
“I…” She squirmed in her seat. “I’m in her body. I think. And she might be in mine, back home…” She trailed off, eyes widening in horror.
“Of course. So there’ll be no proof of your claim forthcoming.”
Her brows furrowed.
“I’d let a psychic read –“
“Your mind? Another psychic could just as easily have modified your memories beforehand.”
The frown deepened.
“But it’s true.”
“Yes. A wonderfully plausible claim that is almost impossible to prove or disprove conclusively, which is why using that defense is all but an admission of guilt.”
And then Event Horizon laughed.
It was the giddy hysterical laughter of someone about to have a nervous breakdown.
“So what you’re saying is… people use that plea so often that judges instinctively dismiss it – because it’s so reasonable. Right. Okay.”
Her fist came down on the table and a pulse wave washed over the room.
Event Horizon’s eyes glowed like stars.
And the power suppressor cuffs were cracking with a purple glow.
“You know, I did everything a law abiding citizen should. I didn’t try to run. I cooperated. And I get that I look like some horrible villain to you, but I deserve to be heard and not have my own lawyer dismiss me with scathing sarca-“
The lights flickered before the light bulbs above exploded, raining shards of glass down upon them.
Jane lay passed out on the floor a moment later.
A white-haired woman wearing a police uniform was standing over her unconscious form, fingertips crackling with electricity.
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Comments
cliffhanger!
geesh, you do like the cliffhangers, don't you?
cool chapter, though.
And this just in...
"Reports are coming in to Paragon City News that hundreds of windows and doors were blown out at approximately the same time this morning. Anonymous sources have reported that various heroes/villains were getting their latest fix of oHaV and were shocked at yet another cliffhanger. Various witnesses have reported hearing roughly the same thing, 'NOOOOO! Not more cliffhangers!' We will, of course, keep you updated here at Paragon City News as this story continues to develop."
Great chapter. Thank you.
Cicero2K
'Otium cum dignitate'
Minikisa
being fond of cliffhangers? Are you sure? :)
Now we know that not all of those one-size-fits-all power-cuffs are all they're cracked up to be. There is an upper limit they can suppress and our very confused girl is past them.
Important safety tip! When dealing with obscenely powerful individuals, it just might be wise not to be a sarcastic twit!
Hugs
Grover
Memory manipulation
This is probably overthinking things a biiiit, but on that quip where a psychic reading might be hampered by memory manipulation: even if it -was- the case where a psychic tampered with her mind, does it matter? Either way, she is literally not the person Event was, and a psychic would prove that, regardless of whether it were the result of another psychic's tampering or an alternate reality body swap. Do memory manipulations have an expiration date?
Loving this story so far and not-so-patiently waiting for more!
And if they actually found
And if they actually found evidence of memory manipulation any case against her should collapse anyway. If someone actually managed to erase/change that much of her identity, who knows what else that psychic did to her? For all they'd know her rampage was caused by a psychic in the first place. She's a power negator, not immune to powers.
If the guy was actually a serious lawyer he should have grabbed that opportunity. Even if she's a villain she should walk free from any process that has anything to do with due process at all.
The fact that they don't seem to care is very worysome. I wonder how many of their villains were actually fucked over by psychics or brainwashing machines.
There's some really nice philosophical questions
to be considered in a superpowered universe. But in the end, it's often the case that the justice system must be pragmatic rather than necessarily just. Hell, you see that reflected in the real world where a lot of factors outside a person's control (extreme poverty, for example) play a significant role in whether or not that person will commit a crime.
The key word here is really 'for all they know'. With no way to recover deleted memories or to see what was originally there, you can't tell if the psychic tampering was the cause of the rampage, or if it's independent from it. Furthermore, locking people up is not necessarily about punishment - it can also be to remove them from society so they do no further harm. Once psychic damage is done, it's done, and what if they go on rampages again and again? You have to lock them up for the safety of other people. That is, after all, what happened to Stephen, despite it being evident that he was not responsible for his actions.
There's also the matter of just how deep a psychic scan goes. There's superficial mind reading which can be used in interrogation to confirm truth/lie of a statement, but that wouldn't detect previous psychic tempering at all. For that you'd need a deep, deep intrusion which finecombs every single memory for discrepancies, and then you're left with a new headache whether that sort of violation is even ethical. It'd be horrific to have your entire being invaded just because you stand accused of a crime, so that is far from standard procedure. (Also pretty much covered by the Fifth and the right to privacy to refuse such an examination)
Now imagine organized crime deliberately taking advantage of this clusterfuck: Villains hunted by the police seek out a psychic, have them modify their memory, then turn themselves in, submit themselves to the (superificial) psychic scan and honestly say that they did not commit all the crimes they actually did commit. They create 'reasonable doubt', are found not guilty and walk free - and then have the original psychic they hired restore their memory. And then they can't be tried for those crimes again.
So basically, what they ended up doing out of necessity was to have psychic testimony be unadmissable in court. To claim brainwashing, one needs ironclad proof of brainwashing. And that's why every Paragon lawyer groans when their clients try to make those claims sans evidence.
As Sam, from Quantum Leap would say,
Oh boy. Al? Where the heck are you ? This is NOT a good thing!!!
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
Ah
Well hello there Oracle (or whatever her name is), that didn't take you long. What exactly are you doing here though?
-Tas