Lure woke up with the familiar scent of balming lavender. She checked her wounds on her head, yet astoundingly found out that they had already healed. A pair of arms suddenly entwined her neck and shoulders.

“Good morning. I hope you’re well,” said Sinistra.

“I’m fine, I guess? I don’t feel any pain.”

“You should rest more; I have been waiting for your awakening the whole time, you made all of us worried.” Her friend stopped embracing her, while gently smiling and reordering the blanket, protecting her as if she was a fragile, breakable vase.

“How long was I gone?”

“Only for a day, we had superheroes healing you.”

“Superheroes?” exclaimed Lure. She had thought of many people Sinistra might ask, but definitely not of the enemy. Principled as she was, Lure did not like to compromise her values.

“I have fucked up. How much do you know?”

Lure frowned. There seemed to be more going on. I am possibly sitting in deep shit. “Not much. I know that the receptionist was a hero, that Thibaut betrayed us. Dunno about that Brutus dog.”

Sinistra sighed. “We had been on the heroes’ radar for a while, or at least me. When you decided to become a villainess, stones started rolling. Young girls are still pliable and can be changed, or so they think. The whole heist was an excuse to take you away since you are now officially a villain in their books. I couldn’t contact you because Splendor somehow trapped me in an illusion. When I was released, the heroes were already there.”

“Yeah, my family won’t tolerate it, I knew it… Wait, I am officially a villainess? That’s great! At least some positive news. So, what will happen now? Where are we?”

Her friend opened a button of her white business blouse and started fanning air. “We’re in trouble.”

“Big trouble?”

“Unfathomably big. You see, they have brought us to that school…”

Lure was tearing her hairs out. “Do you mean the school for superheroes, where the center for re-education is, the one meant to reintegrate villains, located somewhere in the middle of nowhere, right?

Sinistra lowered her shoulders. “You have guessed it correctly.”

The other teenager took her white, fluffy pillow and threw it away.

“Fuck. Fuck,” she shouted. After the short outburst, she calmed again. “Sorry. I…”

“Friends are there to relieve their emotional burden, don’t fret. And I should be sorry. You should have been protected as I was the leader of the operation, thus I should bear the guilt of our precarious situation,” said Sinistra softly.

“What's the plan now?”

“Get ready. We’ll meet with the headmaster; we might be able to decline.”

This unraveled a knot in Lure’s heart. For a short moment, she had thought that she was left with no more hope.

“Oh, and I have placed some of my make-up tools near your desk. Unlike you, I had time to prepare my stuff,” said her friend.

“You’re such a sweet cookie.”

“See ya.”

“Bye, bye.” Lure waved briefly, then stood up after Sinistra had left the room. She entered the small bathroom with her beauty tools and positioned herself in front of the mirror. What she saw was her haggard face. She was feeling empty. What have I accomplished? She had imagined her first heist as something glorious, a rebellion against the oppressive values of the society, yet in reality, she was but a diminutive force in the fight between two B-ranks.

Sinistra didn’t say how much time she had but nonetheless Lure went under the shower for half an hour. No longer feeling sticky, her smile reappeared. She knew she would have to fight for it if she wanted to achieve something in this world. The only clothing that she had found was a white chiffon blouse and a red skirt, in fact, Sinistra was wearing the same outfit. Grudgingly, she started dressing what she believed to be her uniform.

Preparing for her upcoming interrogation, she applied eyeliner, used a moisturizer, some primers and a scarlet lipstick. Her deep jade green eyes looked at her back. What did she see? A simple girl, or someone worth something? She didn’t know what or who she was at the moment, but she anticipated who she would become: a villainess, fighting for her ideals, even if she was rejected by society and had to make her hands dirty. The heist, though, was a stupid idea from the beginning; she should have convinced her friend giving up on it. Simply too many hints pointed at something suspicious, in hindsight everyone is cleverer.

She moved back to her bedroom. Maybe fifty square meters in total with the bath. Not too bad, she thought. Opening the window, she was greeted by a fierce wind, while dark clouds were premonishing her about the upcoming rain. Gloomy, that might be my destiny, huh? Surprisingly, she was situated on the first floor and could make for a daring escape, but she didn’t exactly know how to survive in the wilderness.

The interior of her prison wasn’t made without thought: a bed, a desk with even a pc. This sounded trivial, but it wasn’t. Most computer chips were destroyed during the Awakening when highly energetic particles with an ionizing effect appeared out of nowhere. The ensuing chaos had been an enormous setback for humanity.

Apparently, people used to have things called smartphones, small devices with a computer in it, able to do calculations but can be used for communication too. These days, most electronic stuff was used for communication between institutions, and for security and surveillance. After all, it had been thirteen years since the Awakening and not everything could have already been restored, though most prominent scientists on this subject agreed that a return to life before the Awakening was but a question of time. The superhuman stuff excluded, of course. The walls were painted turquoise, Lure preferred purple, however, the colour of kings and queens. Sweeping her desk with a finger, she found it clean, no single grain of dust. Well, perhaps I should feel like a guest.

She sat on a chair and waited, replaying in her mind what she had experienced a day ago.

“Miss Laura Ferris, may I please enter?” asked a friendly but hoarse voice. He tapped on the door, gently and cautiously.

“Yes of course.”

An elderly man opened the door, and Lure stood up, after all, every villain has pride and there is no reason to insult someone with an unknow Power and background.

“Welcome, Sir.”

“Ho, ho! Your father taught you manners at least.” He was examining her from head to toe, like a teacher a new student, or a butcher his calf. It was different than Brutus’s ogling, but it felt weird nonetheless. Had she any defect? A bizarre question that suddenly popped up in her mind.

With his checkered green-brown vest and beige shirt, he looked like a retired senior. He had no beard but oval glasses.

“Ah, well I nearly forgot, why I came here. Eh, huic, huic, huic,” he suddenly changed tone midways, frenetically shouting “huic”, whatever this meant. He did so, while disgustingly spitting on the floor.

“Sir, are you feeling well?”

His eyes were dull greyish, perhaps he had trouble seeing too.

“I have a form of Tourette Syndrome. Sometimes I make weird…exclamations.”

“Wait, are you Huic, the S-rank hero, who has disappeared from the public?”

“Yes, that is I. An old fool, leading this very school.”

Lure became silent. She may not like superheroes and their institutions, but she had immense respect for this particular man. Unlike many snobbish heroes, Huic was indeed helping the poor by spending his money on charity and had saved countless citizens from harm, for example by extinguishing fires. Not only the people living in the hero districts, no even the people who lived in regions controlled by some very nasty villains. He was immensely accepted in the populace, not so in the institutions, for he often neglected following orders. He preferred to save the few, not the many, saved those, who he saw with his own eyes.

“Do you have any more questions?”

“No, we can go.”

Lure silently followed him to his office. On their way, she didn’t meet any other teenager, but the headmaster explained that they had currently classes. She was impressed by the design, she had previously in her room imagined that the floor would look greyish, made out of concrete, but the doors, the ground and the walls were made out of wood, or at least planked. The roof was made out of glass, while aquariums and terrariums were placed inside the walls, and Huic told her that the students had to take care of the animals. She even stopped for one moment and touched the hard carapace of a turtle with her hand. Palms and other plants further imprinted the image of life, of vivid, bustling, life.

Upon entering the office, she immediately saw the person she wanted to see the least.

“Dad…”

“You are no longer my daughter,” he exclaimed in a tone that made no pretence of amicability.

Lure couldn’t reply, for her very existence was suddenly questioned.

“I had a daughter, or at least I thought I had one, who was a model citizen. Bright, dutiful, law-abiding.”

Huic cleared his throat. “Everything has a time and place; besides I have another guest.”

Sinistra smiled sheepishly, she had to wait for Lure’s arrival in the same room as her friend’s father, which must have been an emotionally taxing task.

The office looked differently than the floor, more like a typical bureau, with a library in the back. Once the headmaster sat in his fauteuil, a serious air surrounded him.

“Strider, I ask you not to speak for a moment.”

Strider nodded grudgingly.

“Laura Ferris, alias Lure, you are a suspect of – right, that’s not how it is done these days. You have attempted to rob a branch of Justice Bank. Now, you were found guilty and instead of serving a two-year prison sentence as is foreseen in act three of the Power regulations, the National Institute of Philosophy decided that instead, you should make amends by becoming a superhero. This means that you will become a student in this institution. And I am your warden.” An amused grin spread on his face. “Any more questions?”

“Can I refuse?”

“If you wish to live in a miserable high-security prison where your Power doesn’t work, sure.”

Lure looked back at Sinistra, who replied: “I took the offer, sorry.”

“Maybe I should give you more time.” The headmaster magnanimously stretched his hands.

“No, I agree. How long will it last?”

“Until you are redeemed in the eyes of society.”

She took a pen and signed the on the desk lying document, after having carefully looked through. She detected no hidden clause, which didn’t mean there weren’t any, but she trusted the old man.

“Mr Huic.”

“Huic is fine, it’s my alias after all. “

She tried again, hoping for an honest answer. “What do you think of villains?”

Scandalized her father stood up and threatened her with his index finger, “This has already gone far enough.”

“Huic, huic, huic, huic.” The headmaster simply couldn’t stop. “Huic, Huic, Huic.”

“If you are like this...” Strider bared his teeth and left wordlessly the office. He came three seconds later back and said, “I approve of the union.”

A bewildered Sinistra, whilst being silent during the whole conversation, asked, “What was that?”

“My Tourette is real, but sometimes I’m just playing dumb. Some fights are pointless, we both know. An old game between Lure’s father and me.”

Lure listened attentively. Her father rarely spoke of his work and his colleagues, since he wanted to protect her from the atrocities his job entailed.

The headmaster clapped in his head. “Now that Strider is gone, I may expound my view on super villains.” Nestling in his fauteuil, he sipped on a glass of red wine and continued, “Being a villain is not necessarily bad, even the higher-ups know it. The definition of a superhero: someone who works for the society; in reality, it means for its institutions. We heroes band together under a common moral framework crafted by the philosophers, whereas villains have their lose villain league, protecting only individual members from abuse by heroes and states.”

With verve, he rose, clenching his fist, and looked at the sky.

“About those damn philosophers. Let’s not kid, it’s the same as in academia, it’s more about politics than philosophy. Who gets the right to impose his values? Most philosophers believe themselves to be the wisest and impartial, promoting their moral systems and justifications, disguised as epiphanies of reason.” He paused.

Suddenly hitting his forehead, he exclaimed, “Oh, two more things, I am secretly a super villain and I managed to hoodwink you into my plan. All on board, let the ship sail. And before you ask, my ship is Thibaut free, I hate that dastardly cookie, you’ll get your sweet revenge, I promise.”