If I wanted the power to protect my team, to change the world, to never be a victim again, then I had to be willing to pay the price.
I had to be willing to become the monster they needed.
I pushed myself up from the floor, my movements stiff.
The decision was made. The dread was still there, a cold stone in my gut, but it was now encased in a layer of icy resolve. I would do it. I would cross this line.
The mission was solo, but that didn't mean I had to work blind. I opened my secure channel.
Oracle. Maya. I need intel,I typed, my words stripped of all pleasantries.
A D-Rank hero, 'Ricochet.' Real name: Marcus Thorne. I need everything. Patrol routes, known associates, digital footprint, favorite brand of coffee.
I want to know when he breathes and where he sleeps. This is a deep background check for a potential high-risk exposé. Priority Alpha.
The replies were immediate.
Understood, Boss. I'll peel back his entire digital life,Mark texted.
On it,Maya replied. I'll have a full dossier for you within twenty-four hours.
They didn't question the solo nature of the mission. They trusted my command.
The irony that I was using their loyalty to prepare for an act I had to commit alone was not lost on me.
The next day, the information flooded in. Maya's dossier was a masterpiece of intelligence. She had compiled maps of Ricochet's patrol routes, which favoured the derelict, low-income industrial sectors on the city's fringe.
She had found his favourite dive bar, a grimy place called 'The Oiled Cog.' She had even found security footage of him being overly aggressive with a street vendor.
Mark's contribution was just as vital. He had hacked into Thorne's public records, his credit history, his social media. He found a pattern.
Thorne was a creature of habit and ego.
Every Friday night, after his shift, he went to The Oiled Cog, had exactly three beers, and then took a "victory lap" through the abandoned canal district nearby, a place with no cameras and no witnesses, likely looking for easy targets to intimidate or worse.
That was it. That was my kill box.
I spent my remaining 50 VP in the System Store. I didn't buy a weapon. A knife or a gun felt too loud, too messy.
My power was in the shadows, in silence. I bought a simple, Grade F item.
[Item: Choke-Wire Spool (Grade F)]
Description: A three-foot length of micro-filament wire, nearly invisible and possessing immense tensile strength. Attached to two small, weighted grips. A tool for silent, efficient work.
The description made my stomach churn, but I confirmed the purchase.
Friday night arrived, cold and moonless. I stood on the rooftop of a condemned factory, overlooking the dark, silent canals of the industrial sector.
The air smelled of rust and stagnant water. Below, the streetlights were few and far between, casting pools of sickly yellow light separated by vast oceans of shadow.
I materialised my Raiment. The familiar comfort of the shadows coiling around me did little to soothe the cold knot of dread in my stomach.
I was no longer Luna, the orphan. I was no longer the Puppet Master, the strategist. Tonight, I was something else.
I checked the time. According to Maya's intel, Ricochet would be leaving the bar any minute. I opened the sealed police report the System had provided, forcing myself to read the clinical, horrifying details of what he had done to the university student.
I let her stolen testimony, her pain, her fear, become my own. I channeled my old rage, the helpless fury of the girl bleeding on the convenience store floor, and I focused it into a single, sharp point.
This wasn't murder. This was a punishment. A balancing of the scales.
My 'Predator's Sense' tingled. Far below, a figure emerged from the main road and turned down the canal path.
He was wearing his cheap-looking hero costume, a gaudy blue and silver affair. He walked with a swagger, a predator confident in his territory. It was him.
I retrieved the Choke-Wire Spool from my inventory. The weighted grips felt cold and heavy in my gloved hands.
I took a final, deep breath, the cold night air doing nothing to calm the frantic beating of my heart. The girl I was yesterday would have run.
The girl I was yesterday would have been his victim. But I was not that girl anymore.
I am the Evil Villainess, I thought, the words a silent mantra, a prayer to the new god I had become.
And with that final thought, I used Shadow Step, dissolving from the rooftop and reappearing in a deep, black shadow directly in his path, a silent spectre of judgment waiting for him to take his final steps.