The preschool teacher teaches in an isolated area. It was accessible through this sett-paved road that had been built a long time ago. How it survived was a wonder.

The time was around afternoon. The trees waving as the afternoon light passes through the gap. Hild could detect about fifteen guards posted in the area.

“Fifteen. You got this?”

“Not your problem, Hild.”

“Roger.”

Hild saw Diable move like a skulking panther. He was timing his nimble movements with every shade that passes. He approached two guards, electrified his hands, and froze their movements with a voltage shock. He grabbed hold of the two and then pulled them out.

It was a practiced movement. Each movement was tactical and he was isolating every guard immediately. By the time there were only nine left, the guards noticed their missing comrades, and yet despite their raised alertness, they were swiftly taken out. Diable’s bioelectricity was beyond normal. She had experienced the voltage, and even without the use of his bioelectricity to neutralize them in a non-lethal fashion. The amount of force carried by his fist reinforced with an exoskeleton was enough to knock these guards out for six hours.

There was no one left after he was done. There was feedback from this natural jamming signal that he was releasing through the use of his exemplar abilities.

“I’ll talk to him for now. Holler if there are enemies coming. Stay non-lethal.”

“It’s your show, Diable.”

Gaston entered the school. His eyes immediately spotted the bullet moving to his skull. He blocked with his left forearm, pounced like a predator, and grabbed hold of the pistol that the teacher was using. He whipped the magazine out, tore the slide, and tossed it on the side.

The teacher struggled. But he was pinned down by Gaston and cuffed with zip ties. Gaston lifted the man with one hand and carried him like he was a sack of potatoes.

Gaston went out of the school and carried the man to the clearing set by Hild and her contacts. It was an isolated clearing surrounded by trees. The equipment was powered by ichor-based batteries complete with cameras and lights.

The preschool teacher was on his knees. His eyes showed no fear. There was nothing in the man’s eyes that betrayed him. He stared at Gaston with a silent disgust. It was a stare of a man who could not be easily broken.

“Are my people fine?”

“They are. Knocked out, but they'll lived.”

Gaston said. The digital mask of his rippled. The respirator that formed around half of his mouth covered his features. He took out the casing that was strapped on his back.

“It was true. You are targeting all of us. To shame us. What is your reason?”

Gaston didn’t answer. He took the cuffs and attached it to the bracer on this man’s arm. The man’s eyes withered. He was gasping for breath as if he was exhausted. He looked at Gaston with a strange terror in his eyes.

“Have you taken away my abilities?”

Gaston didn’t answer. He focused his attention on his bracer and started setting up the stream. He also prepared the video that was sent to him by the informants and the agents that worked under Sir Mortimer.

“Stream will start in a few minutes.”

The man looked at him sincerely this time. There was no pretense. There was no fear. Just this questioning eyes asking why he was doing this.

“Why?”

“It’s nothing personal. Someone wants your church shamed. I’m here to fulfill that role. You have stepped over the line and played holy in the eyes of the people.”

He said the same lines to the first one. The next one will be the same. He had no intention of discussing morals. From the start it was simply a job.

The man tried to ask more questions. But seeing the mask hiding Gaston’s face. The man knew that there was no sense appealing to the man’s morals. There was nothing he could do. Gaston wasn’t going to kill, true. But they were going to be dismantled. The dirty work that they have made to be displayed to their followers.

The man felt depressed for a moment before he became strong. He straightened his back and did not look at the man who would shame him.

“Your ears are deafened,” Paul started. “You do this because someone paid you to. It must be because we may overstepped. That we are saints, that we are the light that the people looked up to. Your employers must have hated it.”

Gaston didn’t reply. He listened.

“That we are doing good. That we are helping people. Yes, we have dirtied our hands, but not because of our greed, but because there was no other choice. A foreigner, a stranger like you judges us for the sins we made for the greater good. Are you different from us? What is your right to judge us?”

Gaston typed on his display and adjusted the settings. Seeing that there was no reply, as if his words went to deaf ears, the man lowered his head and sighed.

“Are you going to come after the rest of my people?”

“I will.”

Gaston replied to that while adjusting the lighting. He checked on the camera footage again and nodded his head.

“For what?”

“I have said my piece. There are people who are interested in harming your church and your associates. In this world, they don’t need those who would proclaim as holy.”

“You are heartless. You do not have a soul.”

There was no reply. Gaston moved to the equipment handling the streaming and started the countdown. He took out a syringe and injected the man by the neck.

The man started to become less aware. He was dazed and there was a blank look on his face. It was clear that the man was not seeing properly and he was in a trance. Gaston snapped his fingers in front of the man and nodded as the stream began playing.

He stood on the side of the man as the stream broadcasted.

“What is your name?”

“I’m… Paul.”

“And who do you belong to?”

“My God… my lord and savior…”

“What are your crimes?”

“I… have done it for the good of my people.”

“Were you involved in gunrunning?”

“No, but I was involved in the sale of contrabands. We take the extra supplies that we receive from donations to sell to the market for a higher price. It was to feed more of our flock.”

He spoke in a trance. Like the one before him. There was a clip playing behind Diable. It was footage of this man selling contrabands to armed individuals. One of the men in the footage was profiled as one of the known extremists.”

Gaston saw the comments explode in the broadcast. The knowledgeable ones were able to recognize. The rest were clearly taking photos while there were comments how disappointed and heartbroken they are for this man to show his true colors.

“Why have you done this?”

Gaston asked Paul. Paul looked at him dazedly.

“For the good of our flock. There was nothing we could do. The people we must feed. The children that are starving. We need to make sure that they have a place to run to when the monster comes again. We must not make the same mistake. We must not make the same mistake.”

The man continued muttering resolutely. The holy aura that the man had was not around. That holy-like aura that made them approachable and revered was no longer around. Gaston could see that there were others who clearly supported the man. The rest of the comments were rage towards Paul and the Church for supplying weapons to hated extremists for the sake of their funding.

The opinion was split. Gaston continued asking the man of his wrongdoings and he answered without hesitance. The drug that Gaston applied on the man was a potent one that allowed him to speak without falsehoods. It was a modified truth serum that Gaston had acquired from Mortimer’s contacts to sell it properly.

The man that was in front of the camera was saying everything that he knew without a care in the world. He preached goodness while also lamenting about the sacrifices he had made to make sure that his flock would thrive in this broken world.

“Men must dirt their hands so that his flock can live in peace. Some must take the sword to drive away the demons that the devil has spawned.”

His unfiltered rhetoric was displayed to the world. By the time the serum was running out. He had spilled everything he knew to the people watching him behind their screens and heads-up displays.

When the man had awakened fully. He looked at the blinking red light and lowered his head in defeat. The message was clear. These men were no true saints. They were not children of God. They were men who were trying their best to keep their own believers from harm.

They were honest to good men that Gaston had to shame. It bothered his soul, but his mind remained on the job. He bottled his emotions and tempered them in the forge inside his head. Hammering them into steel walls that could protect his mind.

The man raised his head while weeping. He was in tears. Snot fell from his nose and he didn’t look like the man who glared at Gaston without fear.

It was a cruel serum. A serum that made him tell the truth. Nonetheless, Gaston detached himself from the weeping of this man. He was like a spectator. He wasn’t excusing himself either. It wasn’t personal, but it was his own volition that led him to shaming this man. It was his own personal choice. His reason was his own. He wasn’t delusional enough to do that to himself. To take responsibility for his own actions, it was something that he could do.

The only unfortunate thing here was that they were in someone’s way. They were in the way of a man who could give Gaston what he wanted.

Gaston sent a signal to the local police who were ready to capture this man. Gaston hid in the shadows, watched the man get arrested and left the area as the equipment was retrieved by Hild’s associate.

Taking his mask and respirator off. Gaston made a short call to the man in charge of this operation and took Paul off the list. Gaston retreated back to the road where Hild was waiting with her motorcycle.

Gaston sat on the back of the motorcycle.

“You‘re probably the only one who doesn’t really care about riding on the back.”

“We’re done here.”

“Great job. Those truth serums are really useful. Anyway, we’ve split the opinion once again, from what I can tell. Their church has clearly announced that they are being targeted and are even telling their people to beware from harassment. It is really hard to hate such competent and yet so kind people, no? Is your heart in pain yet?”

“Nope. This is a job, and I made peace already. Not that it’ll make me sleep well.”

She started her motorcycle and started riding back to the safehouse.

“It wouldn’t be easy to reach them now. I mean we made it clear. Now everyone in this city knows how we’ll shame them. Some are split when it comes to this. I mean it is working enough that some are arguing the reason for this. Some think that we are ‘heroes of justice’ that are revealing their true colors. The rest are still undecided whether they want the truth or not. People tend to want that there is only good and evil.”

Gaston folded his arms.

“Isn’t this better than most of your jobs anyway?”

“It is. Less hassle. No need to kill unless necessary. This job wouldn’t be worth this much. But it’s a necessary test on whatever this Disruptor’s Peace that they are so eager to achieve. We do their work and we get paid.”

Gaston nodded quietly.

“I just hope that they pay well.”

“They will. For people like him. Money isn’t their concern already.”