Chapter 9: Balance
GOD
Humans use words like "hero" and "villain." Though strictly speaking, villain is a term that the elites used to demonize the working class. In other words, it's like saying, "You're a peasant, so you must be evil." This came from a prevailing sentiment among the upper classes that the poor were criminals looking to steal from them. Actually, they should have thought about how the rich use taxes to steal from the poor, middle, and other rich.
While the word hero is a nice term, its opposite is not villain but rather "nemesis." The term nemesis comes from a Greek god of vengeance. The idea is about distribution of what one is owed by divine right. The implication is that when you are a hero, you develop a set of morals concerned with stopping what you see as evil. But a nemesis is a hero that is out of balance. Maybe they convince themselves that the donations they get from private individuals and the stipends from the town are not enough, and give themselves a few perks in secret. A few starts to creep toward too many, and they are stealing instead of saving the day. Or maybe they indeed try to follow justice, but become caught up in vengeance or think it should apply to even small crimes. A nemesis is someone who has gone too far, and needs to be stopped by another hero.
THE WORLD
Superheroes were issued licenses by the Department Involving Super Humans (DISH, for short). The term nemesis first appeared in print due to the licensing system. When a hero became licensed, they were issued an identification different from the regular driver's license that a majority of the population earned over the course of their life. This document was an Active Update Form. It was made of laminated plastic like the the above card, but unlike the other card, it updated in real time. For example, if you changed your address, the card would know immediately. If you turned evil or good all of a sudden, the back of the card would switch from «HERO» to «NEMESIS». Or vice versa, if you had a heel-face turn. This is the origin of the term "card-carrying" nemesis, they often did have a card. A nemesis often got their card through official channels too, though seldom did they apply formally to be a nemesis. Instead, when they get arrested for their evil schemes, they were issued a card listing them as a nemesis, which also could update if they started doing heroic actions. In fact, a licensed nemesis often was fully allowed to do villainy, and the law enforcement would allow them to, so long as they signed for a mayhem permit. This allowed heroes with temporal reversion barriers to set up areas so they would bounce back if any property damage was caused.
However, some people weren't licensed. These people, known as vigilantes, worked heroic deeds or did villainy without a card clearing them to do so. Only very idealistic individuals referred to people as villains or bad guys. It took a pretty simplistic worldview to see these groups as anything other than licensed people. These were people who were doing actions as a part-time or full-time job.
LIBRA
I wanted to be neither a hero nor a villain. My goal was to balance the scales. My first powers as Libra were to simply banish groups of superpowered heroes to somewhere distant. But it always seemed as though they flew back to fight some more. They paid no attention to all the people that were caught it the middle. Their petty rivalries meant that one of them was right and one was wrong, according to their self-narrative. I didn't see much difference in sides, it was just the strongest who called themselves heroes as far as I was concerned. They were all villains in my book, as all of them risked human lives for their senseless feuds.
It seemed like I would try to break these fights up almost every day. This talk of justice meant neither side would concede that maybe they were wrong and stop already. So eventually, I worked on developing my powers, learning a move that seal away their powers. But then I discovered that without their powers, the two groups imply would pull out weapons and attack each other.
I was filled with despair for awhile, and that despair led me to sit in my room in the dark mulling over ways that I could stop people from harming others. I could feel the scales guiding me to a solution, even while I was not actively in my Persona.
It was then that I discovered my powers could be used to kill. And by this point, I was so tired of watching endless battles that I was perfectly willing to allow my powers to do just that. Generic Hero Man and Generic Villain Woman having a scuffle? "Guilty," the scale read, and both of them dropped dead on the spot. A villain hanging about in an evil lair watching Netflix? "Guilty," the scale read, and the life was snuffed out of him when I came for a visit (I was honestly surprised he invited me in). Ohayo Kitten saving a little girl from a truck in the street? "Guilty," the scale read, and the little girl, Ohayo Kitten, and the truck driver dropped dead. The truck careened off and hit some random hero, so she supposed it found him guilty too.
ISEKAI
Dammit, not again. Anyway, after that, I was reincarnated as a beautiful villainess with white hair. The story said that I was supposed to try to marry the brooding dark-haired man, which in turn would cause the hot-tempered redhead to become jealous and kill me. I quickly defied that fate by getting all other characters to marry each other, and then I rejoined Yuki. But us both being girls was an adjustment. I was also now younger than her, so I had to wait a few years to keep up. I was now thankful that she only aged every leap year.
LIBRA
Everyone would pay for destroying the delicate balance. All had fallen short. It was not enough to judge just the big time superheroes and nemesis types, everyone with powers needed to be judged. The scales guided me to another deserving punishment. It seemed as though this guidance happened more and more often lately.
GEMINI
"A new villain has appeared, calling herself Libra. She wields a set of scales, which she uses to judge heroes and villains alike as guilty. We have a picture of this mass-murderer taken using my Snapshot ability," Darsha Klotho reported. I guess she could do real news after all. The background showed the picture of this woman with black and white hair, a set of bronze scales, and a long dress. Something about her looked familiar, but her superhero disguise had totally transformed her.
At the time that I was watching this broadcast, I had been wondering how to make up with Bookworm, now that I was back in touch with friends and could shop normally. #BeSafe was still a major nemesis, but much fewer people took the scientists and medics who preached in its name seriously. Whether a physical person was pushing this narrative or some kind of program was being the knowledge of most of us, but we simply didn't care. There was more to life.
In any case, I didn't get too much time to consider this while watching the show, as two rooms over (the news room had some glass doors connecting hallways to impede and would-be angry customers willing to murder them for slander. They typically corrected this to "libel" and escorted them out), some sort of noise could be heard. Darsha looked over to her left at the "Breaking news! It appears the villain in question has just killed the assistant editor and the plant maintenance professional on the way into this very newsroom. This is exciting times indeed!" I quickly realized that getting a good story mattered (true or not, as I'd already observed) was more important to her than her own life. This looks like a job for Unmasked.
I considered changing into a costume, as I was basically in a brown strapped cotton minidress that I used as a set of pajamas, but it wasn't really my style. Besides, she needed my help whether she knew it or not. I shifted my Territory to that location, hoping that I wasn't too late!
LIBRA
I had seen the sort of nonsense this journalist had printed. Her faulty articles had actually cost human lives, making them react to events in ways that weren't sensible. The guy who watered the shrubberies had dropped before my power, and soon I would be rid of this lousy reporter. I opened the door. I stalked towards her. I waved my scale and... "Not guilty," I heard Unmasked say, as she clasped a hand around my scales. With a twisting motion, she disarmed me. Unlike many superpowered people, my power was entirely dependent on my item. It was basically my weakness.
But I knew hers. While she was immune to powers, she probably couldn't defend as well against fog or mist attacks, because this involved her breathing something. I imagined the internal system wasn't like her skin, which repelled all powers. And I also suspected that if I knew something that made her afraid, she would be unable to defend against it. But her biggest weakness...
I gave her a quick kick between the legs. She knew as well as I did that she was born a male, as she groaned in agony. But that wasn't her biggest weakness I was talking about, her biggest weakness was that normal attacks of all sorts could work against her. She could die like any other person if she was shot by a bullet, knifed, or beaten to death. Anyway, I used the few seconds she was on the ground to move towards my weapon. Unmasked was notoriously determined, and pushed past the pain to dive toward the scales. We struggled on the ground, wrestling for control of them. I kicked her in the back, and I heard a small groan of pain, but she wrapped her arm around the back of my leg and I tumbled to the ground butt first. I slapped her around, and she grabbed my arms, kicking the scales away. She wrapped her legs around my legs in a way that would be suggestive if there was anything sexual at all about it. But there wasn't. Instead, she appeared to have me pinned. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, "why kill both heroes and villains?" I stared at her for a second. Then I responded.
GEMINI
While this went on, Darsha took Snapshots. Her power worked by miming holding a camera in her hand. She could do things like high speed shots, panoramic stuff, or even let the shot expose at different f-stops. She couldn't record the news, as her power worked by dropping developed pictures at her feet, but she mainly did photography for the newspaper anyway. They had been trying her out for television only a few hours a day. I had heard that she needed some extra money, so she reported crime stories for a special broadcast about superheroes and any nemesis at large. And so, while she snapped pictures using her power, so gave a play by play. She reported, "Libra wriggles out of the hold and slaps Unmasked with her left hand! Now Unmasked slaps her her right hand and gives her a backhand! Oh, it looks like Libra is pinned again! Oh wait no, Libra is moving her legs free from Unmasked's leg hold, and they're rolling... Ohhh, it looks like they hit the wall that time."
The fighting went on for awhile. Libra finally spoke up, as she was getting exhausted. "Oh all right," she said, "I was a normal person until a group of heroes fought some villains in front of me. Their selfish battle destroyed lives, and I vowed to stop these battles. The Nemesis League, the Federation of Heroes, the Villainous Guild, and the Super Friends... all of them cause so much property damage and destruction. The world would be better without all of that."
Something about her story seemed awfully familiar, it reminded me of something Mom said. "Balance?!? Balance Fisher? Is that you, little sis?" I asked. Libra behaved like I had seen Balance do when accused of something, doubling down before admitting the truth, "Me? No, I am Libra, the guardian of balance and justice... Okay, yeah it's me. Gemini, is that you?!? I haven't seen you in awhile, and you're rocking that femboy look!" Normally, I'd stop a nemesis by punching them out, but I simply poked her forehead, and resisted the urge to say, "Sorry, Sasuke, maybe some other time." This was all it took to completely shatter her Persona. By now, Balance was a grown woman, so her Persona didn't make her look older, but she did look substantially different. Gone were the scales, the black and white hair and the snazzy dress, and there was my ordinary sister, although more grown up. Balance looked defensive, but all this caved in when I asked her a simple question, "I understand you were trying to bring things under control. But what did you expect to do when you were done with the big heroes? I mean, even regular people like Mom have powers. You'd be killing people until most of the people in the world are dead." Her hostile posture fell apart, and she burst into tears, "I know! I always knew! But I felt trapped by more own powers. It was like my own power was urging me to kill them." I had heard about this phenomenon. The origin of powers was psychic, and some people lost control of their powers. This was called letting your powers control you. Worse, their fears could actually cause their powers to recoil on them sometimes or get them to do things that weren't normal. The Persona would take over, and cause them to do things. Even though I had no costume, I always worried that maybe I too would develop some kind of personality that wasn't me. I gave my little sister a hug, "We'll get past this. I'm your sister, and we know this sorta thing happens." It was kinda a shame about the whole murdering people thing, but even this was going to be okay. She was genuinely remorseful, and we got her some therapy. As far as her powers went, it was quite a while before they used them again, but when she finally did, she had a better sense of balance. She knew who she was, and the power was no longer making her do evil things.
The next day, my name was in the papers again. «Superhero Beats Up Her Own Sister» the article read. Seriously?!? I hated that woman so much. If she ever needed me again, I would be doing my nails or hair. Maybe my makeup.
