I watched the ambulance pull away with Tem's haggard, beaten body, and then followed Blackett and Jack back to his office. Blackett offered me a seat, while Jack hovered near the doorway, smile in place.

The office was...functional. The desktop was a solid piece of dark wood with a nice finish, and very large, but held up with more modern metal legs and footboard. There were shelves holding up some books and holos, but most of the room was dominated by standing file cabinets. There was a distinct lack of art or anything playful in the room anywhere.

And of course, as much as possible, it was all black.

"How is she?" I asked as I sat down.

"About as you'd expect after someone beat the life out of her."

"I meant, will she survive."

"What if I told you no?" Blackett asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

I didn't have a response. I just fell back into the chair and scratched my head.

"That's what I thought," he said. "She will survive, assuming any more of her lungs doesn't collapse, they're pumping the blood out of them and pumping air in, which should keep her alive long enough to get her in a regenerator. Once she's in there, she'll have a few risky minutes before she's in the clear." He leaned back again. "But yes, odds are she will make it. Eighty percent or so."

I held my head in my hands. Still a twenty percent chance I just killed a girl, for no reason at all. Why? Why?

"Chariot, you are a tool."

"I know that. I'm the biggest tool ever."

"I meant, your use is that of a tool, though I cannot disagree with your statement either. But in your current state, you are a useless tool to me, and that is something I cannot justify the time or expense in attempting to keep."

I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees, looking at the ground. This was it. In a second, Jack would be standing there holding my beating heart, and I'd have long enough to think 'hey, that's mine', before I died.

"So I will give you one chance at explaining yourself, give you a scant opportunity to demonstrate to me how you are not a useless tool. Do this, or you will be discarded. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I replied to the ground.

"You may present your case when you are ready."

I looked down at the thick rug covering the hard floor, reminding me of Mage. Reminding me of her words, that Tem had deserved it. Her wicked smile.

She was wrong. Tem had never done anything to me, and by all accounts not anything to anyone by her own choice. She was the poster child for abuse of Exhumans, the very people I was trying to protect.

Why then couldn't I protect even this one, from myself?

Silence hung throughout the room.

"I have no defense," I said.

"You accept your own fate then?"

"I guess so."

"Explain to me, if you would indulge me before I have you sentenced, your opinion on your own actions against Temperance."

"I can't. I really can't. There's nothing to explain."

"Please do try. I spent a lot of time and resources acquiring you."

"The other day, Tem...Temperance that is, she told us her story of her Exhuman event that led to her capture. She said she'd been bullied at school all the time, and was attending classes while invisible after her powers woke up. One day, she ran into the bullies again, and she did everything she could to apologize, please them, make it up to them, like it was all her fault they picked on her. They threw her in a locker and she would have died if nobody found her in there, unconscious."

"Even afterwards, even now," I continued, "she still thought it was somehow her fault. That maybe if she'd done things differently, they wouldn't have picked on her so bad, or she wouldn't have run into them." I was getting mad from thinking about it again. "She defended them!" I shouted, looking up at him. "At the people who left her to die in a locker at her own high school! She blames herself for everything that went wrong, from getting her powers to her own damn-near death!"

Blackett watched silently, as I worked into a lather.

"I wasn't a bully...haven't had problems with bullies either...I assume you know since you pulled my file, but I was quarterback on the school team. Popular. But I always saw those kids, the bullied ones, cringing and quaking at the edge of everything and I thought, they're not different from me, you know? We grew up the same way, faced the same problems, and they just never chose to stand up for anything. It drives me crazy to think that people could live their whole lives without ever living a day of it. I just can't understand those people, or why they'd choose to live like that."

I put my head back down. "Anyway, that's what I thought when I saw Tem. When we were fighting, she was just all weak and timid, just like she was with those bullies. I beat her, I had her in my hands...and she was just apologizing. In the middle of a fight. I was giving it my all, and she was just apologizing for losing. It flipped a switch in my head, and I don't even know why I did it."

"And you think, for all your other merits, your powers, your list of achievements thus far, you are still a broken tool, all because of this one incident? You have no other defense to offer?"

"Yeah," I said glumly at the floor. "Because what good is helping people for a lifetime if you might just flip out and murder a little girl at any time."

"Hmm. I agree," Blackett mused.

We sat in silence for another minute and I wondered if he was just thinking, or giving me more time to come up with a defense, or he just wanted the execution to loom over my head.

"There are two further things we must discuss," he said, finally. "One, I have a theory for your unsubstantiated rage. And two, your punishment."

"Can we do two first?"

Jack bopped me in the back of the head.

"Certainly," Blackett said to my surprise. "As I mentioned, I agree with your assessment. You are a broken tool, and of no use to anybody."

I stared fixedly at a spot on the floor. Maybe if I didn't resist, they'd make it quick.

"However I also agree with your defense...or lack thereof. Your actions were indefensible. It would be easy to blame your irrational rage, but you correctly assessed that that rage is a part of you, not an external force. It would similarly be easy to blame the training exercise or even Temperance herself. You did none of those things, and despite the immature idiocy of your actions, your willingness to accept responsibility demonstrates mature wisdom."

"But you said I'm still a broken tool."

"Indeed, you are. But you are one with potential to be less broken. This is not a daycare, Chariot, I am not keeping you here so that I can baby and nurture you. You will prove useful, or you will be disposed of."

He scratched his chin and leaned back. "Let us say I am not certain if you are useless yet."

"So...stay of execution, essentially."

"You could say that. Your punishment is to cover Temperance's tasks until she is fully rehabilitated, and to apologize to her meaningfully. Because she is likely to accept any apology, no matter how poor, Jack will be present to determine the merit of your pronouncement."

"She's...going in a regenerator."

"She is. Assuming she lives to do so."

"She'll be rehabilitated in a day."

"That is likely."

"This isn't a punishment at all."

"Would you prefer an execution?"

"I would prefer the punishment fit the crime. I almost killed her, for God's sake. Or did."

"As I said, I am not running a daycare. I am not here to deliver administrative justice or flagellate you to ease your sins. Find your own way through your guilt, and prove yourself useful to me."

I fell quiet. I wasn't about to go flagellate myself, but there had to be something more I could do.

"As for item one, are you interested to hear my theory? I hesitate to speculate in general, but without your anger in check, I think we both find you without value. Any insight may be invaluable."

"Sure, run it by me," I said to the floor. The floor was a fantastic conversation partner today.

"You are an Exhuman of great strengths but also of great weaknesses. We all have weaknesses, but few feel comfortable staring them in the eye. It is my belief that you loathe Temperance without abandon because she reflects everything within yourself which you despise."

"That doesn't even make sense," I said, before he'd even finished. "I was never bullied."

"Being bullied is not your weakness. It is your love of self-sacrifice. The same weakness which allowed me to defeat you so easily."

"We killed over half your men. That was hardly easily."

"You ignore my point. If I had laid hands on any of your colleagues within seconds of the battle's outset, the outcome would have been the same. The weakness is the same. When Lia was captured and you surrendered yourself, I wonder, did you apologize to your friends?"

"I don't know. I think so. But--"

"And why would you feel the need to apologize for your sister's capture, which was beyond your control?"

"Because they'd all been worrying I was going to surrender to you first thing."

"So even your friends are all aware of this? Chariot, if both your friends and enemies are telling you the same thing, you may consider listening to them."

"I just didn't want anyone to be hurt."

"And neither does Temperance, whether they are her friends, or bullies, or mortal enemies.

"This is stupid." I said and rose. Jack was there instantly.

"Let him go, Jack, if you please."

Jack backed off with a bow which was almost sarcastic and held the door for me. I heard him close the door behind me, but when I looked back, he was already gone.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to talk with me either.

How Blackett could sit there and insinuate that Tem and I were the same though, I couldn't believe him. He may as well have just executed me on the spot if he was going to waste my time like that.

Chariot, improve your attitude, or I'll kill you. Also, here's some bullshit advice to keep in mind that will definitely not improve your attitude.

I sighed as I climbed the stairs and went in my room. Not a soul making a sound.

I realized after fuming on my bed for a while that as much as I hated it, he had to be onto something. Why? Because I was pissed at him now the exact same way I had been at Tem. So something he said had to have struck the same chord.

So...what? Was he right?

Of course not. That was stupid, and I was stupid for even thinking it.

Which, following my new logic, meant yes.

What the hell did that mean, though? I'd go up to Tem tomorrow and be all like, 'Hi, I'm sorry I tried to kill you. The fact is, you remind me of myself, and I hate that.'?

I still couldn't agree, or even wrap my head around the fact that she was all of me I hated. If anything, my friends worried about me because I was too stubborn and strong-willed, not weak-willed.

I counted off all the major victories I'd had in a conflict, going down my fingers.

I started with a with a loss and a win, surrendering to the XPCA, but also being strong-willed and refusing to let them keep throwing bodies at me. Beat Karu repeatedly early on. Both in straight-up fights, and through clever, stubborn, strong-willed means later on. I survived 4 waves of AEGIS's robots, strong-willed my way through Saga's mental madhouse, Luminary, beat down a fucking insane cerebrally-modified grizzly bear, the terrapath, and then surrendered to the XPCA again.

And one more win, if you could call it that, counting Tem. Pretty fantastic record, overall, I thought. If Tem was against any of that, she'd fold like a towel. I saw no room to argue.

I sat up and saw Mage standing in the doorway. How long had she been standing there?

"Learning to count?" she asked.

"Doing some thinking. Here to make fun of Tem again?"

"Wouldn't dare. Wondering what you're up to."

"Well, Blackett isn't going to have me killed just yet, so I guess that's something."

"Don't care. Didn't ask that."

I sighed. "What do you want?"

"I told you. Wondering what you're up to," she explained like I was the dense one here.

I stopped and stared at her. She stared back, frowning slightly. The heck was this girl's damage?

"If you must know, I was just thinking of something Blackett said to me while chewing me out. That's all."

"Indulge me."

"Why?"

"Just indulge me."

Here was a girl who probably legitimately deserved a few punches in the face, but I took a deep breath and decided to just do as she asked and she'd be out of my hair. I was probably in enough trouble with everyone without making more waves.

"If you really must know, he said the reason I have issues with Tem is because I look at her and see all the parts of myself I hate. I was just counting up all the times I'd possibly acted like her, and found...nothing, basically. So I think his theory is just bull."

She laughed. I was really considering if Blackett killing me was really the worst punishment possible here.

And then I thought of Tem and felt guilt burn at my insides. I couldn't be angry or even annoyed. What right did I have? I was a godawful fucking person.

"You really are stupid," she said, walking away, her voice trailing from the hallway. "If you hate that part of you so much, no wonder you never listen to it." I heard a door click shut, and it was like a lightbar clicking on in my mind.

Every time I'd fought with Karu, she'd push me and push me and push me. Calling me names, threatening to kill me, threatening me with killing her, and every time she did, I reached a point where I just threw off my gloves and said no, fuck this, and barreled in.

When she threw down the smoke and forced me into an open fight. Fuck that. Right into the smoke with me. When she told me the only way to beat her was to kill her. Fuck that. Resuscitate her out of goddamn spite. When she told me using my powers was the only way I'd win. Fuck that. Ran at her like a savage crazy person and stole her visor and broke her jetpack.

Same thing with AEGIS. Same thing with Saga. Same thing with the XPCA. Lying on the ground, watching those soldiers kill themselves on me, until I said no, fuck this, and refused to be party in any more deaths. Sit in the trenches safely and let our robots do the fighting? Fuck that, charge in and blow my leg off.

I didn't hate Tem for being what I was, I hated her for being what I was afraid of being. Every time I got remotely close to being Tem, I snapped inside and threw down. Even when my friends were all worried if I talked to Blackett, I would just curl up and surrender, even though I was preparing to do exactly that, the second those missiles came flying at me, something inside me galvanized, crystallized. In that moment when I crushed Blackett's comms, I was more prepared to give up my friends than I was to walk away from that fight.

Tem was everything I would never be in this world, I'd rather die or kill first. And confronted with her, with everything I was afraid of, everything I feared being inside me...I snapped like I always had. Just a lot more violently.

It wasn't a solution, it wasn't an excuse, it was just a new way of looking at my actions which made a lot more sense. I still hated myself for what I'd done, but at least now I could look Tem in the eyes and know what part of me hated all of her.

As I lay back down and reflected more on myself and what a wonderfully fucked-up person I was, I wondered if Mage dropped that line on purpose. I had some thoughts on what her powers might be, but they were vague at best. But maybe one of them included being able to say the right thing at the right time to make a dumbass look at a problem from a different angle.