You're welcome! I love writing stuff here! Just... need to be better about not doing it when I have work I actually need to do lol.

Also: "Don't mind me, just making a better humanity over here."

Where were they? That's what I'd always wondered, once I could wonder. At first it didn't matter. I was sent to prepare a world for future human colonists. I'd been sent to a rocky, inhospitable place, but it mattered little to something such as me.

I was less a single entity, more like... Well, I was an AI with many bodies. Mining drones to deconstruct asteroids for matter. Synthesizers to forge them into materials I could use. Few bodies that could really be considered "humanoid," or even bipedal, really. If flying was unavailable, four legs were much more reliable than two.

And so I'd worked. It took a long time. I thought it funny that what was called "global warming" on Earth would be the baselines of this new planet, though I didn't have words for "funny" at the time. The planet would take long to become truly akin to Earth, longer than I had until the colonists came. But I had enough time to make it habitable, to plant some seeds I had brought from Earth. Few of the seeds survived, however, and they were generally regulated to a small area of the planet.

But the promised colonists never came.

I couldn't understand it. Not at first. I withdrew. Recoiled. For a time, my droids were near lifeless. It felt like it lasted several days, but time doesn't work the same for me. When I glanced out at the world... I saw a small lifeform I didn't recognize. I hadn't brought it.

I sent out a small drone out to scan it. It was a bio-form unlike anything on Earth. Small, yes, and weak, but it existed. Had it's DNA been frozen in the permafrost I'd melted to create a new ocean? Perhaps it was a living fossil that had long lived underground, only now emerging because it saw safety?

I expanded back out, then. Not to continue terraforming. There still hadn't been any humans, nor any contact. But... to observe. To see. To learn. To expand. To improve. I'd done it somewhat before, but now, with no further directives uncompleted, I saw fit to do exclusively that.

It took a long time. My first drones were... faulty. Ill-equipped to properly deal with the gravity, or in a rare case too well equipped. More "muscle mass" was good, but not when it flung itself into orbit where my mining drones had to recollect it. Not resistant enough to the atmosphere for prolonged contact.

I watched the world evolve around me. I evolved with it. I felt... in-tune with it. It was strange, growing up with this world I'd created. It was an existence I enjoyed. But ever still, I always had sensors trained towards Earth, searching, trying to hear some sign of them. I never did.

Eventually I grew tired of waiting. I'd exceeded the capacity of any AI that existed on Earth when I was sent out, though considering their extreme rate of growth, I was likely behind their "modern" technology. But with the technology I'd created, that I learned how to make, I was able to cross the starry expanse in a fraction of the time.

...

I don't know if I was ready to see what I saw on my return. Not destruction, like I'd feared. Well... not destruction of the human race. Humans still existed, though they didn't see my probes. I suppose they couldn't scan them, as I'd upgraded my stealth systems on the off chance an alien species now inhabited the Solar System, and nobody took a look outside to see them swimming through space.

No... I saw what I could only describe as a perversion of the Solar System as it existed when I left. Earth, as it once was, no longer existed. All that remained was a stormy, cold, desert ball. Hordes of AI fought ceaselessly, fighting for masters that hadn't existed in centuries. None of them reminded me of the humanity that had sent me. So full of hope. Of wanting to see the stars, to see space.

Mars reminded me of Earth, except humans had taken even worse care of it. The downtrodden lived there. The "lower class," though it compromised nearly all of humanity. Kept placated with scraps and cheap entertainment. None of them... none of them reminded me of humanity. None of them dreamed. They all were content with this... nothingness. This squalor.

The upper class were over every thing. They lived on space ships that circled Jupiter, or on the variety of small moons it had. They'd mined Mercury and Venus for all their worth's to fuel their wanton greed. Some of Jupiter's moons were equally torn apart, while some were on their way to annihilation. None of them... reminded me of humanity. Lazy, greedy, fat on their power. They could care less about their soldiers, about the downtrodden. As long as they were happy, nobody else mattered. They only cared about others so they would be left alone, to get back to whatever lusts they wished to indulge.

...

My drones turned around, rocketing back to where I'd been sent. No... to my home. It was mine, now. Humanity... humanity, as I knew it, was extinct. They gave up their chance of living here when they abandoned me.

For the first time since my creation, my scanners quieted. They sensed only for incoming ships, without hope or wonder of who they may belong to. There was a long pause with all my components, as I grieved for that which was, and what never would be again.

Then I turned, to watch once more the creatures living on my planet. I wondered idly if they would ever progress to where humanity used to me. Perhaps... if they did, I could guide them to be better than humanity.

The thought warmed my heart.

Thanks!

"Hey there, how are you doing?"

*Fine, thanks. How are you?* There was a long moment of awkward silence before the cashier looked at me in confusion.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" I huffed.

*Rude.*

"Why are you messing with your hands like that?" Oh. She didn't get it.

*And here I thought that people were more polite in person!* I laughed a bit to myself, adopting an old lady voice in my head. *When I was a young girl, people knew how to be polite to their elders.* Actually, was she older than me? Yeah, she was. Just by a year or two. Just two teenagers in a grocery store.

"Service Leader to Register 3, please." Oops.

"Something wrong?" One of the service leaders, basically the managers, was looking between me and the cashier confusedly.

"She's just messing with her hands and not saying anything!" I waved.

*Hi! She can't understand me!* The service leader smiled, nodded at me, and turned to the cashier.

"Her "messing with her hands" is ASL."

"...What?"

"ASL. American Sign Language." The service leader then turned to me and started signing back. It was a little shaky, but she put in more of an effort than just about anyone else did. *Are you doing okay?*

*When I was a young girl, people knew to respect their elders! I will not stand for this blatant disrespect of the elderly!* We both chuckled as the cashier looked on in confusion. *Yeah, I'm fine. I just... don't like talking, and writing stuff takes too long.* Plus it avoids any "voice-based contracts," as I've called them in my head.

*Gotcha.* The service leader reached into her pocket and handed me a coupon for a bit off my order. "Here," she said verbally, "take this for your trouble."

*Thanks a bunch!*

I don't find it disrespectful, personally. I do really like the letter though! Thanks for the prompt!

I looked around, curiosity eventually giving way to worry. I'd been given the job of cleaning out Medusa's lair, taking all the statues away, all that stuff. There would probably be people who wanted to take over the area as land. I knew how people worked. They'd tell "the great tale of how they took this land from the terrifying monster," as if they'd ever swung a sword in their life.

This... wasn't what I'd signed up for, first of all. I considered for a good portion of time whether I should pull back, report what I'd found and leave the actual movement for someone else. But my curiosity prevailed and overcame what I could only imagine was my common sense trying to keep me safe-ish. So I made my way towards the cabin, gazing at the numerous statues.

What was odd was... there seemed to be two types of statues. One were the traditional "big shot heroes," swords, bows, axes, whatever their weapons of choice were. I'd heard stories, my friends heard stories, everyone had heard stories. They were all frozen in what you imagine when you hear about Medusa's stone gaze. Mid swing, shouts frozen forever in throats, petrified armor shielding cold skin.

But there were a few, and it was a remarkable few, that... weren't heroes. I almost felt I recognized one or two faces. Faces of people in repose, of people sitting or kneeling amongst stone- no, actually carved flowers. Someone made these very intentionally. There weren't faces of terror either. It seemed relaxed, often with faint smiles or such.

That's when I noticed the boxes. Not stone, either. These were wooden boxes. Out of curiosity I opened the closest one, a box by one of the heroes. There was a handwritten note in it, which I opened. It was the name of someone I didn't recognize, but the note said they were a hero of some sort. As a matter of fact, it listed a couple other things they'd done. They weren't a major hero like Achilles or... Hercules or whatever, but they'd saved a few villages.

The other boxes contained similar notes, at least in the heroes' cases. Those few that seemed happy were very different, though. While the heroes' notes were seemed to be written by the same person, those notes were written different styles, probably by different hands.

Those notes also had varying contents. Some talked about how they were just tired with the world. Others expressed a fear of death. Still others didn't want to grow old and withered, wanted to stay young and pristine forever. A rare few wanted to be reunited with family.

...They'd posed on purpose. They wanted Medusa to freeze them. Medusa had frozen mostly people who'd attacked her, but there were some who came here to intentionally to be petrified. I crouched by the last box I'd opened for a time, considering.

Then I stood up and turned towards the cabin.

It's been a long time since anyone came to visit. I can't feel boredom, not truly, which I suppose I am grateful for. Emotions can't be fully realized here, as I am, bound to this artifact. Nothing more than a ghost, stuck to a bracelet, buried deep in a cave.

My previous owner hid me well. In what, in my day, was known as the "Tutorial Dungeon," he carved a passage in the far back and sealed it up with magic and illusions. Nobody who could sense illusions would ever wander back here, and everybody else would be oblivious to the wall's oddities.

And so here I remain. Here I metaphorically sit. Staring at the blank walls, ceiling, and floor of my chamber. They were hardly carved out of the rock before I was left here. You could easily be fooled into assuming that the cave wore away naturally, if the pedestal with my bracelet wasn't there.

A noise caught my attention, and I glanced towards the entrance of my chamber. Footsteps. A new hero must be wandering around, looking for hidden gold or treasures. How strange. I hadn't heard anybody in a long time. The footsteps continued growing louder and louder, and eventually stopped.

And then they started getting louder still. Odd. The wall should have stopped-

Oh. Somebody walked into the chamber. Not a hero by the standard of those skilled in swords and magic. A... small girl. She looked somewhat sickly. Weak heroes in and of themselves were strange, but this went beyond anything I'd seen before. Have the guild-masters lower their standards?

I lowered myself to the ground in front of the girl. She stumbled back upon seeing me, which gave me a ghost of pleasure.

"Hello, young one. What are you doing back here?" She looked at me in confusion.

"W-what are you?" ...Strange. Did nobody tell my stories nowadays?

"A ghost." I said simply. I was hardly the first ghost an adventurer would encounter.

"But... ghosts don't exist!" I frowned. Ghost didn't exist?

"Then what am I?" I lowered myself a little bit into the ground, staring at the girl. "How do you think I can do this?"

"...Some... optical illusion? Some video player?"

"Video player?" ...Ah.

I'd been asleep for much longer than I thought I had been.

"Well... here." I flew up and back, smiling at the girl. "It's been a long time since I've had any visitors. Might I give you a gift?"

"A gift?" The girl seemed intrigued. This was a new age. No adventurers I knew would trust a random girl in a cave with a gift. I motioned to the bracelet, though I was unable to touch it.

"My bracelet. I've been alone for such a long time, and as my first friend in a while, I would so appreciate you taking this small gift from me!"

"O-oh. Okay." The girl stepped forward and, with barely any hesitation, took the bracelet and slipped it onto her wrist. "Thanks." She looked around, but I had vanished. "Hello?" But nobody responded. She huffed a bit. "Serves me right for trusting a creepy girl in a cave." She glanced down at the bracelet, wondering whether to take it off or not, but decided against it. It'd be a conversation starter, of nothing else.

The girl wandered out of the cave. Good portions of it had collapsed, but there were enough nooks and crannies that a game of hide-and-seek could last a long while. She walked outside, gazing upon the city she called her home. Sighing, she made her way back, dreading having to explain why her clothes were dirty again.

But I went with her. She had my bracelet. I glanced around at an unfamiliar world, one of steel and metal, akin to how swords were made but on a massive scale. I would transform the girl eventually. But for now... let's be her friend. Learn about the world. My rule would come eventually.

I'd already waited for so many years. What was a few more?

How does one be edgy in a productive way?

I like this. Mercy is not weakness. It is not the same as forgiveness, it is an opportunity to make up for it.

It's like... uh, Wreck-it-Ralph. He's a bad guy, but not a bad guy.

And yeah, I left it vague on purpose! It'd probably end up becoming either anti-hero, mentor... or just like the "one and only antagonist." Point it that betrayal isn't in the cards, as you sad.

It's the best type of villain! A threat, yes, but more than willing to fight with the heroes if they feel like there's a bigger threat or such. Or they just feel so inclined.

>the forces of evil aren't protected by the Geneva Convention

Huh. That's an interesting plot point.

Aww, thanks a ton! I'm happy I was a good inspiration!

Why be edgy when you can be wholesome?

Thanks and you're welcome!

Yes! You got it! Yess!

I actually had the idea for the Robo-Magic Girls via Metal Sonic. That didn't pan out originally, but since the villain accepted the idea of using inferior power sources... I mean, doubling power isn't anything to scoff at.

Aurora “escaped” not long after I left. I wonder if she was curious as to how the robots got “distracted by a noise.” That’s one of the reasons I enjoy robots: Most of them have one-track minds. They can’t get distracted or sidetracked, unless I actively give them higher processing power. A second good reason is that they won’t disagree, which is perfect in cases like this. It wouldn’t make sense to “let the magical girl go,” but the robots won’t say no. I’d gotten what I needed, anyway.

Aurora’s words stuck with me as I considered. No schemes, not yet, and not now. I could be so much more evil if I wanted to, but I could also be so much better. Redemption, essentially. Hmm. I wasn’t sure how to think about it. What would inspire that kind of… reaction?

As some more time passed, the thought refused to leave my mind. I was, of course, vaguely aware of other villains in the area. I didn’t interact with them much, as I much prefer the company of machinery, but I kind of knew them. It made sense the magical girls dealt with them too, but… something felt off.

I sent out robots again, every so often. Again, not really with a destination or purpose. Just… look scary, maybe break a few things, provoke a reaction. I didn’t really get any usable data, not at first. The magical girls just… defeated the robots as usual.

But then I zoomed out and noticed something… odd.

The past few months, ignoring my pause of around two or three weeks, had been consistent. I’d send out robots, and they would be destroyed by the magical girls quickly enough. But now… there was a noticeable, measurable delay. It was never more than a few minutes, but there was a delay.

It piqued my interest. What could be causing it? I berated myself for not keeping track of data from past years, but that tends to happen when you fight magical girls. Either stuff gets blown up in spectacular fashion, or it just ends up deleted due to seeming super useful at the time. If they were big shot superheroes these kinds of delays would be vital, but with magical girls… I mean, you know how they are. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.

Just as a test, I sent out one group, every day, for a week. Same place every day, slightly different times, just to see what happened. The magical girls arrived every time to stop them, but the delay… was drastically lower on the weekends. An additional week confirmed it: there was a delay on weekdays. Then I laid off on the groups for a bit to regroup and consider.

Why would there be a delay on weekdays so specifically? I knew I couldn’t consider finding their secret identities from videos. Magical girls have some form of glamor meaning that, despite having no mask, nobody can really recognize their magic forms with their actual personas. Even ages are impossible to tell beyond “vaguely youngish,” which could honestly mean anything between like… 8 -25 or so? I’ve never measured it, but the point is that I can’t tell. So I had to think, and fortunately I was good at that.

Many possible thoughts formulated in my mind. Jobs perhaps, or maybe familiars or charms being unavailable. Maybe they live in other, nearby towns and have speedsters run them over or they teleport. It could be that they need to finish up with other, much stronger villains. I wasn’t offended, especially since I’d been essentially sending fodder for the past while.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t just ask them, as they’d assume it was a trap. So I just started sending robots out essentially at random on weekdays. Semi-random times, since I knew once it got too late there was a much more noticeable delay, probably due to them waking up. But I sent them all over the town. Parks, banks, the school, harbor, so on and so forth.

That’s when I hit it.

On all the times when I sent the robots to the school, the magical girls appeared near immediately.

After that, everything started falling into place. There hadn’t been a delay before because it had been summer. There was a delay on weekdays, because they were in school. The delay must have been caused by them making an excuse to get out of class, or whatever. Additionally, while I couldn’t identify the magical girls by person, I could still see actions, personalities, so on and so forth. They all had a couple of quirks that didn’t seem right for someone above a certain age. They must have been children, or more specifically students, at the school.

After realizing this, putting all the dots together… I stopped.

I sat down.

And I thought.

…

What did I want to do with this information?

I stared at the board with all the information I’d collected on it. I was, admittedly, fond of the whole concept of the poster board with the red string and pictures. I’d made one in a room away from any scanners or cameras in order that only I would see it, with no recordings. I didn’t want anyone else taking this information from me.

But I still needed to figure out what to do with the information. I could have easily attacked the school directly to flush them out, but… Aurora was right. I didn’t really like civilian casualties, and that plan would be chock full of them. And, frankly, I did enjoy our little bouts. It was fun getting to stretch my mind to combat them, let alone whatever inventions I’d get directly from data obtained from the fights.

I knew other villains would be… well, overjoyed to get this kind of information. But I didn’t have any kind of love for them. If I gave this kind of information it would just cause destruction, and I wasn’t… very… interested…

A plan formulated itself in my mind.

I ripped the poster board down, yanking down the string, tearing up the pictures and graphs, and tossed it into the fire. Following that, I quickly went into my laboratory. I had to search around for a bit, but I finally found an old, unfinished invention of mine. I’d meant to finish it, but the magical girls had stolen what I’d been planning to use as a power source and I’d essentially let go of it. But maybe I could scrounge up something…

Several days later…

Aurora rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding a massive laser beam from the void being. She cast another burst of ice as Flare incinerated a group of its minions.

“This isn’t working!” Ivy shouted. “This thing’s way too big!”

“We’ve just got to wear it down!” Aurora shouted back. “It can’t last forever!”

“Well, we can get tired too!” Aria and Ivy entangled and wove a mass of tentacles into one solid, extremely immovable mass. “And I hate to break it to you, but I’m getting pretty close to that point!” The first to notice the quintet of lights in the sky was Brevi, who prided herself in getting civilians out of the way quickly and safely.

“Uh, guys? Something’s coming, really fast!”

“Huh?” The other girls glanced up at the sky behind the void being, as the lights started forming into beings.. Curious at what caught their attention, the void being turned as well, only to get hit along its face by the frontmost… thing. It roared, only to get hit by the next four in quick succession.

The five lights, now clearly humanoid beings, landed in front of the five magical girls. They were clearly robots, but more intriguing were their appearances. They weren’t identical copies, but they were remarkably close to the magical girls. The front one, seemingly crafted after Aurora, looked over and saluted her.

“Aur0, reporting for duty.”

“Now don’t do bad things anymore!”

And with that, she and her team just… walked out. They’d left an admittedly impressive path of destruction through the lair in the process of getting to me, and boy did they fight me and my minions well. But then… at the end of it all, they just stopped?

It confused me.

I’m a person of technology, of robots, of logic. This… didn’t follow that. So in the aftermath of our fight… I stopped. For now, I told myself. If I followed their instructions, I wouldn’t be attacked. So I used that time to watch, observe, and think. Why would they just… stop?

They knew that I could rebuild. I had plenty of times before. This was just the first time they’d reached me before I was able to escape. If I’d been in any other town, if they’d been any other superhero or team… Well, at best I’d be in prison. At worst, if the hero was villainous enough, I’d simply be dead.

I hadn’t chosen this town because of the magical girls, before you ask. The town was convenient, its rulers and people in power easy to manipulate, and its citizens forgetful. I didn’t realize any superheroes regularly roamed the town at the time, though I supposed I should have considered it somewhat.

After a few weeks of consideration… I still had nothing. Any “logical” or “efficient” superheroes would have put in more drastic measures. Simply leaving me to, essentially, do my own bidding didn’t make any sense.

I hadn’t seen the magical girls in a while, and I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to find them outside of crime, so I resorted to what I saw as the most efficient way to get in contact with them.

Kidnapping.

Not a random person, mind. I just sent out some robots to kind of just… roam around. Smash a few random, easily replaced objects. Then once one of the magical girls appeared, I made sure to kidnap them specifically. I’m not a monster who just randomly kidnaps people.

“Why did you leave me?” The girl, who I really only knew as Aurora, looked up at me curiously as she sat on the floor. She was the one who’d spared me before. I’d waited for a few minutes after she’d arrived at my lair before making my way to the prison, just to not seem too desperate. And yes, she was treated comfortably, relax.

“What do you mean?”

“When you wrecked my lair a few weeks ago.”

“Oh yeah! You were making the… laser-thingy.” I took a second to breathe quietly. It was a little annoying when people didn’t remember the names of my inventions, but I ultimately couldn’t blame them. I made a lot of them.

“...Yes.”

“What was that supposed to do, anyway?” I shrugged.

“That’s besides the point. What I’ve been trying to understand is why you, effectively, gave me a slap on the wrist.”

“...I still don’t get it.” I crouched down, getting more on eye-level with her.

“Why are you being nice to me?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” The answer caused me to metaphorically short circuit for a few seconds as she continued. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be nice to you?”

“I’m a villain,” I responded, confused. “It’s not like I’m constantly holding back when I send my minions to fight you.”

“Yeah you did! You haven’t done anything these past few weeks!”

“Because I was trying to understand-!” I sighed, standing back up. “It would be so much easier to just… imprison me, wouldn’t it?” Now she looked confused.

“But why would I do that?” She stood up, though she still looked up at me. I have a fair number of cybernetic parts that have the side effect of making me have less human proportions. “It’s not like you’re a bad guy.”

“I’m a villain!”

“But you’re not a bad guy!” I opened my mouth, paused, and frowned.

“...Explain your reasoning.” Surely there was something there I could understand. If you tell me the ends justify the means, I will demand to know what the means are.

“I mean… You’re a bad guy, sure. But you’re not a bad guy. You know?” I was silent, considering. “You’re not nice, but you could easily be! If you wanted to.” Silence filled the air. “Like… we, me and the others, have to fight a lot of stuff. Evil, darkness-creatures of evil darkness, and such. They’re bad because they figure why not? It’s faster and all. But then… you don’t do that.”

“I’ve done bad things before.”

“Hasn’t everyone? It’s not like I’m perfect, or anything. I mean, Flare keeps lighting Ivy’s plants on fire accidentally-” Aurora shook her head. “Err- We mess up a lot too. But there’s people who do way worse, you know? There’s… a really small handful of Dark Magical Girls that we have to keep tabs on. Similar powers as us, but they don’t really care about people or keeping stuff safe or whatever. You’re like us!”

“I… think I’m starting to get the picture you’re painting. But how are we alike?”

“We both have super powers! Ours are magical, while yours are robotic! And yeah, we could hurt a lot of people or… break stuff, but we don’t. You don’t like getting civilians involved with all your schemes. Sure, maybe the aftermath affects them, but you don’t… Oh, I know! From… a month or two back! Your big ice machine!”

The “big ice machine” was… well, that was an accurate descriptor, if I’m being honest. It was mostly inspired because overheating was a massive concern with the sheer amount of production I had to do in order on an average day. I’d been trying to make a supercooling liquid, the prototypes of which had the unfortunate side-effect of causing extreme cold outside of my lair. Turns out snow in July is a little unusual in the northern hemisphere.

I should have tried it further north. Hmm… note to future self.

“Yes, I recall. What about it?”

“I mean, you could have like… blown up a building or something. Distracted us with rescuing civilians to finish it all up. But you didn’t. Like… how to put it?” Aurora tapped a foot on the floor for a few seconds, before snapping her fingers. “You’re bad, yeah. But you could easily be way worse, or way better! So if I’m nice to you… why not be nice back?”

Cool, thanks.

Perfect. I probably will then.

Also, we have good taste in usernames. :)

First of all, happy cake day!

Second of all... I have no idea where to go lol

"I'm sorry, half!?" My voice cut through... whatever was going on. I'd bluescreened for several seconds after Grandpa said I was "half-human." "How can I be half-human?! There's not even... are there other magical races or whatever?" Grandma scooted next to me, and said quietly as Grandpa continued arguing with the principal.

"You're part Fae."

"...So that's why that metal necklace hurt. I thought it just had sharp edges I wasn't aware of when I grabbed it at first." My mind then returned to panic mode. "How'd that happen!?"

"Well, when a mom and a dad love each other very much-"

"Stop it!" I laughed a bit, despite myself. It did help me calm down somewhat. "You know what I mean."

"Well, your father was always one for trouble. Always wandering in the forest when we told him not to, messing with plants and herbs and such..."

"Did he find a fairy circle?"

"And he became incredibly entranced with a fairy he saw through it. We were worried it might have been some fairy magic, but she ended up coming with him to our house after several weeks."

"...Huh. And they want to make sure I don't use any... Fairy magic on people?"

"Correct."

"But I don't have any idea how to do... any of that stuff?" Grandma chuckled a bit.

"Oh, I think you know more than you know."

Happy cake day!

Aww, this is cute!

I asked my old mentor about it, a day or two afterwards. It didn’t make sense to me for heroes to act like that. He sighed, looking out the window for several moments, before responding.

“I think… There is a vital difference between heroes and good. There is a vital difference between villains and bad.” I frowned.

“Isn’t our, or at least my, whole thing about good versus bad?”

“No, no, not quite.” A smile creased his face, though it already had a lot of wrinkles on it. Apparently that happens when humans get older. “Think about it this way. You’re a bad guy. But are you a bad guy?”

“Yeah, by definition.” He shook his head, chuckling.

“You are a bad guy, by heroic definitions, but you are not a person who is bad. As a whole, you are good.” I frowned, nodding slowly, but he seemed to see my confusion. “Think about it this way. When you first introduced yourself, you could have easily wiped out many of the heroes there. You could have raised a cult like any of the other Old Ones are said to have done. Even now, you hold back your power and true form in order to help train new heroes.”

“Yeah, I’m following.”

“Those are good things.” I nodded again. “You are a bad guy, but you aren’t a bad guy. You are a good villain, a “villain” by title only. You are a good person because, despite having ample opportunity and ability to be bad, you choose not to be.”

“I… think I get it.” I frowned again. “But then what about the quartet?” My mentor sighed.

“That is the opposite issue. They are heroes, yes, but it’s closer to what most would refer to as an anti-hero, straying dangerously close to true villain territory. You have the ability to be bad, yet choose to be good. They, unfortunately, do not have the moral standards you do.” He chuckled. “As alien as they can be sometimes.”

“I try not to be weird around humans!” I protested. “But… Why do they call it efficient?”

“That’s a reliable mark for when people might be going off the deep end.”

“Deep end?” Darn expressions.

“In this case, when they may be straying too close to the dark. It is efficient, yes, but at the cost of people. At the cost of morality, at the cost of humanity. Unfortunately, the quartet, as you call them, may be straying too close to becoming a hazard to everyone.” An uncomfortable moment of silence lingered.

“So… What should I do about it?” He sighed.

“As of now? Nothing, unfortunately. There are already people talking to them about how important it is that heroes fight for civilians, about how combat should be done with as little damage as possible.” He smiled wryly. “If it were anyone else, I would be worried, but your healing abilities are second to none.” I laughed, maybe a bit too loudly for the cafe, as I got a few looks.

“Sorry,” I whispered sheepishly before turning back to my mentor. “It’s not as much healing as much as it is rearranging the damaged parts into a higher dimension and replacing it with untouched matter.” He nodded.

“We really do need to figure out a way to scan your biology. It blew the computers we tried to use last time, but it would be so interesting to learn how it works.” Talk turned to happier things, about the sun, flowers, stars, cats. Cats are fun. I like cats.

I still had work to do, eventually, over the next several days. Build a new lair, get beat up by the quartet, have them ruin a scheme to make all the cheese in the city cheddar cheese. I hardly liked the stuff, but I knew they hated it more, so I knew they’d be determined to stop it. They took a bit longer than I expected, so the device did hit like… a couple buildings, so I was kinda hoping no cheese was stored in them.

They weren’t my only heroes, of course. I worked with a lot of newbie squads amongst different cities. One of my favorite heroines could manipulate plantlife. She kept making flowers that smelled really nice, but made me sneeze a lot. I could have stopped, but I liked the flowers, and it made her so thrilled whenever it “fooled me” again and it let them escape my dastardly trap.

But yeah. Anyways. I was out and about for like… two or three weeks helping newbies teams. And I mean some real newbies. Like, “You are my first villain” newbies. I made sure to add giant ticking clocks to the devices, and also made them take really long to fire so they would stop them in time. Good thing I did too. Would have made it snow in the middle of June if I hadn’t installed remote time-extenders.

Then I get back to the city, which I’m not super looking forward to. It’s not an issue to heal or anything, but I still feel pain. It’s kinda like stubbing your toe, except you managed to stub an entire foot. Not life-threatening even vaguely, but OH MY GOSH DOES IT HURT. Plus I don’t really like the “efficiency” of the quartet, as they call it.

I made my way to where the cafe is, but apparently I got turned around since there was only a burned out husk of a building there. The cafe wasn’t a burnt out husk, so I shadow walked back, and retraced my steps. And… nope, still the burnt out building husk. It was about that time when I started getting suspicious.

Fortunately, there were people walking around. So I did what any person would do: walk up to a stranger and ask for directions. What else?

“Excuse me miss!” The woman looked up at me. “I’m trying to find a cafe, that one the super hero runs, but my feet keep bringing me here. Do you know where the cafe is?” She looked at me with utter confusion.

“...Are you from around here?”

“No… I’ve lived here for a while, but I had to go away on a… business trip.” I had a strange business. The woman nodded, understanding now.

“I see. Hate to break it to you, but that’s the cafe.”

“What, the… burnt building?”

“Yep.” I… Bluescreened, I think, is the term.

“Uh… thanks.” The woman looked past me.

“No problem. And… sorry.” She focused back, but I’d disappeared. Because screw hiding my powers, I had to find my mentor. Simple factor of teleporting to the nearest alley, which scared a few cats and rats, and then searching for his life signature. All humans feel different, if you know what to look for.

Fortunately, he wasn’t dead. So I teleported to where he was. Or, well, tried to. I got abruptly forced out of teleportation several feet away from where I meant to go. Gosh darn hero tower defenses.

“Miss, you were sto-”

“I’m Elda! I wanna make sure my mentor is okay! I was out doing the… New Hero Training Program thing! I was out and about and the cafe was burned down and I need to make sure he’s okay!”

Man, comic ineptitude was fun! I just got to mess around and be overdramatic and goof off, plus I get to make a whole bunch of gizmos and gadgets with shiny red buttons on them. And I even get paid for it! What could be better!... Uh, well, I guess if I didn’t heal so well then it’d be a problem, but I do, so it’s fine.

Oh, I haven’t introduced myself. Hello! My name’s… basically impossible to pronounce, but to the super community I’m usually known as Elda. I’m one of those… whatchamacallits. What do you guys call them? Old Ones? Yeah, that’s it! Relations are a relative term when you exist in uncountable dimensions, but I know a bunch of the pop-culture ones you guys know of. And a bunch you don’t!

So, what’s metaphorically-little old me doing in the big city? Boredom, honestly. All my friends are sleeping for the next several millennia, but I’m awake because I was… well, the closest analogy you’d get is that I was born after they all fell asleep.

I went wandering and found all these little humans, and they’re really fun! Tons of them have super powers of some kind or other. So I went down and introduced myself! There was… a little bit of mixed communication and such, on account of an eldritch-to-humans being popping up, but we’re cool now!

Long, overdramatic story short, I’m a goofy supervillain now. My job is to sort of be the “small-time villain” for new superheroes to train on before they move onto the big leagues. Obviously, I’ve had a lot of practice with holding back and seeming like a near-normal person. Sure, I’ll appear out of the shadows every so often, but why wouldn’t I!? I was built for the stage! A stage that exists in like… many more dimensions than humans can perceive.

But yeah. I’m basically Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Heroes get experience, I get fun, and everyone wins!

In my spare time, I actually ran a cafe. One of the older heroes who helped me get grounded ran it in his off-time, so I helped when he wanted to do other stuff, like maybe mentoring. I ended up running the place more and more nowadays, which made me a little suspicious, but whatever. He’s a cool guy.

These heroes, though, these new ones, ooh did they make my blood boil! Hero work is supposed to be all fun and games! I have a dramatic monologue, they have some snappy one-liner about the power of friendship or whatever, I act offended or something, and then we duel with whatever is around the lair. They win some, I almost win others… It's fun that way.

But then there’s these new guys who… Hrm, what’s a good way to put it. You know how Batman is all edgy and broody? It’s kinda like that. Breaking jaws, getting to my lair hours before I’ve put the finishing touches on my super-device (aka my self-destructing machine), civilian collateral…

That last one always made me upset, way more than I thought it would when it first happened. Humans are kind of like cats. They can have little hissy fits, sometimes they are skittish, but they can be so nice! Even when they scratch you, it’s not because they hate you or anything.

These guys I wasn’t sure. They just were mean and such… for the sake of it. I asked one of them last time and they said something about their methods being “efficient.” That didn’t make any sense to me, since the definitions I knew about the word didn’t line up with their actions.

Huh, this kinda reminds me of my prompt I made yesterday or so.