No More Heroes

by Michelle Kan

One of the most important unspoken rules of being a Vigilante could be summed up in one word: compartmentalisation. Everyone who took their Abilities to the night knew about compartmentalisation, and anybody who didn’t would soon learn about it for themselves. Compartmentalisation: the act of separating your true self from your Vigilante self; keeping apart your person during the day from your façade during the night. It was the reason that Aliases were so important to an active Vigilante. They weren’t just a tool to hide your identity from others, but also a handle to which you could fix your Vigilante persona, to regulate the time which you spent in the hellraiser corners of your mind, be able to pick up and pack away during the day and put on again come the night. Compartmentalisation was vital to any Vigilante. It wasn’t just a matter of discipline, but also a way to deal with all the things that came with having an Ability and spending your nights fighting for justice. It wasn’t just about being able to protect yourself from others, but also about being able to protect you from yourself. And most importantly, it allowed everyone with an Ability to play at something that they would never truly be able to do again – and that was to resume a normal life.

Vigilantes in cities all over the world were able to secure a sense of solidarity, and maybe even inspiration, just from hearing these tales. Somewhere out there, there was somebody else just like them, a Vigilante using their Ability to own the night – and even if for a moment, it meant that they felt a little bit less alone.

We’re not heroes. There is no justice, and there are no more heroes. Not in this world. Just Vigilante idiots and fools rushing in.”

Mistakes usually meant that he still had things left to learn, and he was always willing to learn.

Mistakes were how you learned to become a better person, provided that whatever that mistake was didn’t kill you first.