Chương 81: 6.02 How many Samanthas does it take to change a lightbulb?

2104: 02: 04: 08: 41: 22 I entered the classroom at the usual time, though it wasn't the usual classroom. The class schedule had been revamped, so instead of History with our class mentor Miss Sims, we now had Math with Mrs. Saenz. Seating had also been rearranged, but it was more of a hypothetical change than anything else. Since everybody was allowed to choose their seats, and thus their deskmates, most of the 'who sits near and next to who' was unchanged, just shuffled around a bit.

I still sat next to Amber, Jolie still sat next to Saga, and Millie still sat next to Rohana, a girl who was part of a trio of friends behind Millie. The only thing different was that Amber and I were seated further in the back now in the row farthest from the door – depending on the classroom – and that Millie and them were now seated closer than before, to the front in the same row as us and right up to the teacher's desk, with only Rohana's friend group in-between.

"Morning Millie," I said. Millie removed her earpods and, suspiciously, flipped her phone so the screen was invisible.

"Hey Sam!" she greeted cheerily, her smile a bit too bright for a Monday. She looked around quickly, then asked, "Busy day yesterday?" in a voice that promised nothing good. Narrowing my eyes, I said, "Why're you asking?" There was no way Millie would be willing to talk openly about masked business in class, no matter how distant or engaged our other classmates were. She flipped her phone and handed it over.

"Play it from the beginning." I did and watched the half-minute long NurTube video. As I should've expected, it showed me being manhandled by the kid while in duck form, my quacking sounding more distressed than it had been in reality. Had the creator edited it? Seeing my face, Millie laughed, which only served to twist it further.

"It didn't even record 'her' joke properly," I said, putting on a pout.

"Joke?" I repeated it in full until, "-so the duck yelled at the doctor, 'Y-"Quack," she interrupted, stealing my thunder. At my downcast expression, she began laughing again and I threw her phone in an arch, Millie scrambling to catch it while still laughing.

"What's she laughing about now?" Saga said, joining us with Jolie in tow.

"Nothing," I said.

"You gotta see this!" Millie held out her phone for Saga to grab. I lunged to grab it, but Millie the Mindreader was too quick, snatching her hand back before I could. With a snap of the fingers, Jolie ordered, "Saga, attack!" and her henchie obeyed. Out of position after my lunge, the henchwoman easily grabbed ahold of me, lifting me ever so slightly into the air. I play-struggled as Jolie received the phone from Millie, playing the video in a way so that Saga – and I – could see it too.

Of course, their joy at my misfortune soon joined Millie's.

"That's soooo cute," Jolie said, exaggeratedly cooing with a sarcastic grin.

"Look at 'im, taking down the mighty hero in one fell swoop." All Saga did was laugh as the quacking from the phone grew louder and louder. To further add to the circus, Amber arrived as well. When asked what was going on by Amber, Jolie showed her the video. Amber snorted.

"Seen it already." She turned her cruel, cruel eyes to me.

"Sam's a bit of a Jester fan isn't she?" I gasped.

"You promised you wouldn't tell!" Amber ignored me.

"Got quite a bit of views too." How ominous. I hadn't looked at the numbers since it wasn't the first video of Amber and I to circulate, but they never really got any traction outside of Charm's local masked fan circles on Chitterchat and a few Charm-centric online forums. And even there, our numbers were much smaller than any of the staple heroes from the Wardens, Guardians, and their junior organizations. That Amber felt the need to comment about the views was…

"You talking about the Jester video?" An unexpected voice sounded from behind us. We all turned to look – me finally breaking from Saga's grasp – and saw it was Rohana that'd spoken, with her two friends Rachel and Maram looking over as well. Unnoticed, the trio had arrived just a moment ago, but they had clearly overheard us.

"Yeah," Millie said.

"Funny, right?"

"It was sooo cute!" Rohana cooed. Here there was none of the sarcasm Jolie carried.

"You don't normally see vigilantes do that kind of stuff, especially not with kids – that's more for Propectus or Acolytes. Those teen vigilantes normally, like, take themselves waaaaaay too serious and stuff. Pretending to be stoic and whatnot – or they take the edgy route, like that partner of hers; Crowsong or whatever." Amber scoffed but didn't say anything, so I defended her in her stead.

"I don't know, Crowsong's pretty cool too. And if she's the one teaching Jester she can't be that edgy. Besides, isn't it better for heroes to take things seriously?"

"Eh, maybe," Rohana said, shrugging.

"But I'm talking more about her style, or optics or something like that."

"Yeah, and it's not like Jester doesn't take things seriously. That's pretty clear from all that stuff that happened the past two months," Maram said, defending… me from me?

"But when its just her and a fan? She knows how to play the game.""'The game'?" I asked, eyebrows raised. That sounded suspiciously Michael-like. Maram nodded.

"You know, like she knows when to be the stone-cold vigilante and when to chill out. Like, she knows what to do with Nth-Sight-" I repressed the grimace, "-while also clearly letting a kid basically manhandle her in duck form." Yes, letting him. Clearly.

"I can't see Crowsong doing things like that." All of us remained quiet at that, most of the group nodding or humming in something like agreement. Meanwhile, I could practically feel the urge to roll her eyes radiating from Amber. She remained quiet nevertheless.

"I like Crowsong," Rachel said uncertainly, her characteristically soft voice barely managing to rise above the growing din of the classroom. We all stared at her, causing the teen's cheeks to pink over.

"She's just… badass, you know? I find it pretty inspiring." She grew even softer towards the end there. As we all stared at her in wordless surprise, we were prevented from commenting by Mrs. Saenz calling a start to the lesson. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. X Amber and I were sneaking through the forested hills north of Charm toward a hidden compound of Motorgang.

We'd gotten the location last week by 'accidentally' letting a henchie escape in a classic alley shakedown after placing a pinger on her car. Then all that was left was following the signal to their hideout and presto, there we were. The compound itself was a long-abandoned camping spot where Motorgang had built a quick makeshift building – though even that was being generous.

It was little more than an area cleared of trees hemmed in by fences, with shipping crates stacked on top and side by side, then hollowed out to make something that functioned like a building. That, two cars and two pickup trucks were the only things here. Getting in was easy. Crowsong cut through the wire fence without issue and I shifted into a cat to make my walk through the hole even easier. Really the most difficult part by far had been finding it, though who knew?

Maybe sneaking up on whoever was inside would be harder. I doubted it though. With her in a low crouch and me on cat feet, we quietly made our way to the central building. It had been a while since Crowsong and I did a sneaky offensive operation, though not for lack of trying. Not having Nth-Sight there to feed us intel slowed down our information gathering by a lot. We had to rely on the tried-and-true interrogation and detective work instead – a fine tradeoff, of course.

Though Nth-Sight being dead naturally still weighed on me, him never interfering in our lives again did not. Crowsong crouched low next to the compound and I climbed onto her back. With the mighty leap of a miniature tiger, I softly clung to the metal edge of the 'windowsill' on top of the 'second floor' – a gouged-out rectangular hole covered by a plastic tarp draping from the top of the structure. I crawled through the gap between tarp and wall, finding my way to the metal shelf on the other side.

The inside was as barebones and boringly functional as the outside, but what it contained was a pleasant surprise. Shelves with locked fenced metal gates lined both walls, holding goods too various to be part of a smuggling warehouse. The flatscreens were all of different sizes and brands, as were the laptops, tablets, phones, headphones and other home electronics.

There was both high- and low-end jewelry and jewelry boxes, branded luxury wear (though some were likely fakes), perfume bottles of all shapes and sizes, all varieties of pharmaceuticals and small caliber firearms, and more. It would seem we were either in an in-between storage location for stolen goods, or the base of a Motorgang fence outright. Further inspection of the room proved the latter to be more likely. There were four henchies dressed in Motorgang black-and-red leather and bandanas inside.

Two men were playing cards near the entrance, handguns on the table beside them while another, a woman, acted as the fence and/or facility manager behind a counter, marking things down on a tablet – or playing a game on it, I couldn't tell. The last guy was located in the warehouse proper, lazing in a chair with his feet up on a stool, watching videos on his phone, doing nothing. I crawled back out the way I came and a few seconds later, Crowsong returned from her survey of the outside.

I shifted back and we began communicating through text. Problems revealed themselves quickly. There were no other entrances besides the intended one and the rectangular slits on the side – and since these landed us within the caged pallet racks the latter weren't entries at all. There weren't even any holes for me to crawl through insofar as she could find, and in a quick playback of my memcordings I confirmed there were no openings in the roof. Plans were made and discarded.

My idea to lure them out by making noise was dismissed since it meant we had to deal with armed and alert guards, which wasn't ideal. Charging in while in gorilla form could work, but would inevitably end with me taking hits – which was fine – and potentially result in friendly fire between the criminals – which was less fine. It would also give the two henchies in the back the opportunity to arm themselves with whatever they had back there; another uncertainty we didn't want to deal with.

Demolishing the building as an elephant wasn't… the worst idea we had, but besides hurting the henchies in unpredictable, maybe even lethal ways, it would destroy all the evidence as well. Crowsong hoped the manager's tablet would grant her access to the Motorgang network, so getting it was a priority. Ultimately, we landed on a two-stage plan. I would enter the building a scurrying rat to serve as a distraction and to make my way to the rearmost henchie.

There I would transform and take him out while Crowsong would enter and take out the two distracted henchmen at the entrance. From there, whoever was closest would rush down the sole henchwoman and take her out as well. Thus agreed, we enacted. I shifted into rat form and made my way to the entrance. I went in-"What the-?"

"Jesus it's a fucking rat! And a big city one as well!"

"Get it out of here!" -and was immediately spotted. The guards jumped from their chairs and went over to chase me away, stomping and kicking more to scare than kill me, but I didn't waver. I hurried through the narrow rhombus-shaped webbing of the fence – even big rats could fit through surprisingly small openings if properly motivated – and hurried to the back of the building.

"Lenny!" the manager yelled to the henchie lounging in the back.

"What?"

"Get off your ass and get rid of the rat!" He whined pathetically.

"Why do I have to do it?""'Cause its crawling around there, lazy ass!" one of the entrance guards said. With a world-weary sigh, the hench-Lenny rose and did his duty. I passed some of the metal fences and deliberately rattled them to lure Lenny further in. The young man tsked and walked straight towards me, broom menacingly raised high up, ready to stun me with a mighty blow. I quick-shifted into gorilla, causing the broom to break on my head. We stared at each other in silence for a moment.

"Oh God! It's the Crows!" Lenny yelled. The other henchies cursed and Lenny reached for his belt. Unfortunately for him, his holster was still where he left it, on the table next to where he'd sat.

"Oh," he said, forlorn. I casually grabbed and put the barely-struggling henchie under my armpit, taking him with as I made my way to the front booth. The other three henchies hadn't been idle. The manager had ducked underneath her desk and was still looking for her gun while the other two had hurried back and lunged for theirs on the table. One of them was close, but not close enough; Crowsong was on them in a flash. Diving through the entrance like a vengeful specter, Amber threw a flurry of blades.

Two knives hit their guns and blasted them off the table before they could reach them while a third disabled a henchie by pinning the sole of his shoe to the floor midstride, causing him to stumble and fall flat on his face. The second guard, the one who'd reached the farthest, had his outstretched arm pinned to the table by a trio of knives stabbing the sleeves of his leather jacket, nailing it to the wood.

Right as Crowsong was busy doing that, the last henchie finally found her weapon and rose up from the booth, turning to me with a shotgun in hand. But by that time I was already on her. With my free hand I grabbed the gun and aimed the barrel up. The shotgun blast echoed deafeningly in the metal cannister of a building, but outside of an itchy ringing in my ear I wasn't harmed. Before she could fire the next shot, I ripped the gun from her grip.

She fearfully stepped back, but all it did was make her bump against the counter, stuck between a rock and two hundred kilograms of gorilla. Without much resistance, I picked her up, threw her over my shoulder, and that was that. Success. Whoo. All henchies down, and near bloodless too if you didn't count the henchie that fell flat on his face. A great improvement from our early days, even if it gotten a bit rote by this point.

I stepped over the counter and joined Crowsong as she was securing the floored henchie with zip ties.

"Throw 'em all here; I'll secure them in a moment." I obeyed and then went and unpinned the other henchie from the wooden table, placed him next to the other three, before staying there in gorilla form, menacing them from behind Crowsong as she completed her task. Once done, I shifted back to base as we went to deal with our spoils. While I surveyed the back, Crowsong got out her phone and a cable from her utility belt.

She plugged the ends into the respective devices and after a minute, she let out a victorious, "Got it!" I blinked. That was easy.

"You got access to their network?"

"Eh, not really. As expected this was but a small fence – more of a waystation-slash-miniature import-export hub for outsiders than a real base. It's purposefully locked-off from the bigger network, but we did get the next best thing: dates, locations and businesses."

"Businesses for what?"

"Locations used for drop-offs, both for goods and whitewashing dollar credit. Barbershops, car rentals, online retail, gambling sites, video game companies, software developers, a number of private banks, high-end clothing stores, art stations and galleries; the whole shebang." I frowned.

"That's a lot, but is this proof enough?"

"Proof enough to start looking," she said.

"And who knows? Some are no doubt already under investigation, and this might be just the breakthrough they need. Even if it isn't, it's sure to cost Motorgang time, effort, and business – and thus lots of money – to deal with it." It was clear Amber was happy enough, but I felt… underwhelmed? As she said, we expected this to be but a small bust in the grand scheme of things, but it'd still taken us a couple weeks to get even this much.

Add to that the way the villains' stage-play masked fights and all we went through during the Jannacht Wars, and it felt like we weren't really doing anything. Or at least not things with any great impact. I voiced that exact thing to my mentor.

"Doesn't this all feel, you know… kinda small?" Crowsong turned her head from her phone, staring at me wonderingly for a second before shrugging.

"This is the day-to-day of heroing: not glamorous, but definitely necessary. What, do you want our lives to be a series of constant life-or-death struggles with villains?" She asked it rhetorically, sarcastically, yet instinctively I wanted to say 'yes, that's exactly what I want'. I barely caught myself in time and interrogated the feeling: was this truly what I wanted? Not the life-or-death part necessarily, but a constant series of facing villains in straightforward combat?

In my heart, I felt that should be my focus, that that was the quickest way to finally rid the world of villainy. But logically? To weaken the villains – all villains – I knew we needed to cripple their networks, their gangs, their money-flows and, hopefully, their spirits and desire to do villainy altogether. And above all else, before everything else, heroing was supposed to be about helping people. On the other hand, it's not like fighting villains was bad.

Capturing and locking them up was good, and something that seemed to be praised by the news more than, say, busting up a crime ring through closing their money laundering operations or drug smuggling routes. Hell, when comparing news coverage of heroes fighting villains to, for example, a firefighter rescuing someone from a wrecked car, it would seem that fighting villains was deemed 'worthier' to the general public than helping people. But regardless, this was good work.

Work that helped people and that, in the long run, would help us capture the villains we- I so desperately wanted to capture. Why, then, couldn't I accept this as a necessary part of reaching my stated goal? Why did fighting Hexkey – even if it was all play-pretend, even though she'd escaped – feel more worthwhile than this? Was it because I feared I might be on a time limit and thus wished to take the more direct route? Or was it another part of my Heroic Impulse going haywire as it degraded over time?

Or worst of all: was this the Mad Android Syndrome seeping in through the cracks? Then again, I'd also felt similar things when I first started masking, so maybe this was just a me problem. But how could I be sure? How could I distinguish between me, the Heroic Impulse, and the Mad Android lurking underneath us both? While the revelations surrounding my Heroic Impulse had initially brought me great relief, I was starting to doubt myself more and more with each and every day. And I was running out of time.

Either my Heroic Impulse cracked first, or I did, or we both did. None of which was good. And yet, what was the solution? Was there one?

"Jester?" Crowsong asked, breaking me from my thoughts. I snapped back to reality.

"Yes? Sorry, just… thinking about things." Crowsong stared for a second before deciding to let it slide.

"Well, better get your head out of the clouds. I've called the police and you know what that means. It's time for everybody's favorite part of masking: making reports and inventorying spoils." Joy.