I asked my old mentor about it, a day or two afterwards. It didn’t make sense to me for heroes to act like that. He sighed, looking out the window for several moments, before responding.

“I think… There is a vital difference between heroes and good. There is a vital difference between villains and bad.” I frowned.

“Isn’t our, or at least my, whole thing about good versus bad?”

“No, no, not quite.” A smile creased his face, though it already had a lot of wrinkles on it. Apparently that happens when humans get older. “Think about it this way. You’re a bad guy. But are you a bad guy?”

“Yeah, by definition.” He shook his head, chuckling.

“You are a bad guy, by heroic definitions, but you are not a person who is bad. As a whole, you are good.” I frowned, nodding slowly, but he seemed to see my confusion. “Think about it this way. When you first introduced yourself, you could have easily wiped out many of the heroes there. You could have raised a cult like any of the other Old Ones are said to have done. Even now, you hold back your power and true form in order to help train new heroes.”

“Yeah, I’m following.”

“Those are good things.” I nodded again. “You are a bad guy, but you aren’t a bad guy. You are a good villain, a “villain” by title only. You are a good person because, despite having ample opportunity and ability to be bad, you choose not to be.”

“I… think I get it.” I frowned again. “But then what about the quartet?” My mentor sighed.

“That is the opposite issue. They are heroes, yes, but it’s closer to what most would refer to as an anti-hero, straying dangerously close to true villain territory. You have the ability to be bad, yet choose to be good. They, unfortunately, do not have the moral standards you do.” He chuckled. “As alien as they can be sometimes.”

“I try not to be weird around humans!” I protested. “But… Why do they call it efficient?”

“That’s a reliable mark for when people might be going off the deep end.”

“Deep end?” Darn expressions.

“In this case, when they may be straying too close to the dark. It is efficient, yes, but at the cost of people. At the cost of morality, at the cost of humanity. Unfortunately, the quartet, as you call them, may be straying too close to becoming a hazard to everyone.” An uncomfortable moment of silence lingered.

“So… What should I do about it?” He sighed.

“As of now? Nothing, unfortunately. There are already people talking to them about how important it is that heroes fight for civilians, about how combat should be done with as little damage as possible.” He smiled wryly. “If it were anyone else, I would be worried, but your healing abilities are second to none.” I laughed, maybe a bit too loudly for the cafe, as I got a few looks.

“Sorry,” I whispered sheepishly before turning back to my mentor. “It’s not as much healing as much as it is rearranging the damaged parts into a higher dimension and replacing it with untouched matter.” He nodded.

“We really do need to figure out a way to scan your biology. It blew the computers we tried to use last time, but it would be so interesting to learn how it works.” Talk turned to happier things, about the sun, flowers, stars, cats. Cats are fun. I like cats.

I still had work to do, eventually, over the next several days. Build a new lair, get beat up by the quartet, have them ruin a scheme to make all the cheese in the city cheddar cheese. I hardly liked the stuff, but I knew they hated it more, so I knew they’d be determined to stop it. They took a bit longer than I expected, so the device did hit like… a couple buildings, so I was kinda hoping no cheese was stored in them.

They weren’t my only heroes, of course. I worked with a lot of newbie squads amongst different cities. One of my favorite heroines could manipulate plantlife. She kept making flowers that smelled really nice, but made me sneeze a lot. I could have stopped, but I liked the flowers, and it made her so thrilled whenever it “fooled me” again and it let them escape my dastardly trap.

But yeah. Anyways. I was out and about for like… two or three weeks helping newbies teams. And I mean some real newbies. Like, “You are my first villain” newbies. I made sure to add giant ticking clocks to the devices, and also made them take really long to fire so they would stop them in time. Good thing I did too. Would have made it snow in the middle of June if I hadn’t installed remote time-extenders.

Then I get back to the city, which I’m not super looking forward to. It’s not an issue to heal or anything, but I still feel pain. It’s kinda like stubbing your toe, except you managed to stub an entire foot. Not life-threatening even vaguely, but OH MY GOSH DOES IT HURT. Plus I don’t really like the “efficiency” of the quartet, as they call it.

I made my way to where the cafe is, but apparently I got turned around since there was only a burned out husk of a building there. The cafe wasn’t a burnt out husk, so I shadow walked back, and retraced my steps. And… nope, still the burnt out building husk. It was about that time when I started getting suspicious.

Fortunately, there were people walking around. So I did what any person would do: walk up to a stranger and ask for directions. What else?

“Excuse me miss!” The woman looked up at me. “I’m trying to find a cafe, that one the super hero runs, but my feet keep bringing me here. Do you know where the cafe is?” She looked at me with utter confusion.

“...Are you from around here?”

“No… I’ve lived here for a while, but I had to go away on a… business trip.” I had a strange business. The woman nodded, understanding now.

“I see. Hate to break it to you, but that’s the cafe.”

“What, the… burnt building?”

“Yep.” I… Bluescreened, I think, is the term.

“Uh… thanks.” The woman looked past me.

“No problem. And… sorry.” She focused back, but I’d disappeared. Because screw hiding my powers, I had to find my mentor. Simple factor of teleporting to the nearest alley, which scared a few cats and rats, and then searching for his life signature. All humans feel different, if you know what to look for.

Fortunately, he wasn’t dead. So I teleported to where he was. Or, well, tried to. I got abruptly forced out of teleportation several feet away from where I meant to go. Gosh darn hero tower defenses.

“Miss, you were sto-”

“I’m Elda! I wanna make sure my mentor is okay! I was out doing the… New Hero Training Program thing! I was out and about and the cafe was burned down and I need to make sure he’s okay!”