Scrap Metal Philosophy 22 (Patreon)

Scrap Metal Philosophy

Chapter 22

-VB-

Silliconia

No moment she took down Oni Lee, Silly did the one and only thing she knew would neutralize this threat forever without killing him.

“Taylor,” she spoke up. “Keep the bugs on his eyes.”

Kneeling down at the unconscious cape, she turned him over and got on top of him. She placed her knees and shin on his arms.

She was ready now. Without any hesitation, she drew her right hand up to his face… and dug her slender fingers into his eye sockets. She ignored the squelching, wet, hardness inherent to human eyes. As the suicide bomber screamed as he was abruptly brought out of his unconsciousness, she grabbed the eyeballs by their roots and yanked them out.

Blood splattered around her hands and on her front while Oni Lee screamed underneath her.

Unfortunately for Silly, Taylor had arrived on the rooftop.

“W-What the hell, S-!”

“Cape names,” she quickly snapped at her, and Taylor froze for a moment before shrinking into herself.

Aw shucks, she was making this worse than it needed to be.

“There’s no need to tell Oni Lee here what my real name is, Danaia” she added. “Not that he will be cape for long as long as Panacea doesn’t restore his sights or he gets himself a pair of tinkertech eyes.”

“You … didn’t have to do that to him,” Taylor muttered even as she kept the bugs all around. Despite her objections, she kept the area secured and obstructed so that randos weren’t filming every single second of the fight.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Silly told her. “But first, can you check if there are other troubles in the area? Otherwise, we can wrap him up and drop him at the PRT HQ.”

Taylor took a moment to disperse her bugs and “scan” everything within her range without being obtrusive. Otherwise, she would have caused a fuss with at least two dozen restaurants shrieking about food quality and safety.

No one wanted to know how many parasites there were in their raw meat. No one.

Actually, Silly did, because she could let the meat fester before giving it make-up. It’ll look like a dead person from afar but not up close. The stench would carry too, which would give it an “air” of legitimate human corpses. There were so many things she would be able to do.

Just imagining some poor schmuck pissing himself after seeing piles of “dead bodies” crawling with maggots made her feel a little bit too good.

“Clear.”

“Good, then let’s go drop him off. Hopefully, they won’t have Panacea heal him. Or give him short-sightedness if she does. Can you imagine how terrible he would be if his teleportation was dependent on the clarity of his vision?”

Taylor did not look amused.

---

PRT gave her a bit of a fuss over mutilating Oni Lee, but in her defense, she had been in a “life or death” scenario with the suicide bomber who clearly did not hold back.

It was wonderful how cheesy the Unwritten Rules were when they worked in her favor.

The PRT let her go, though they recommended that she took their public relations courses either online or in person.

Why would she do that when she was best used as a tool of terror? Not that the PRT knew, of course. No, she was a tool of terror against those who would hurt Taylor, Danny, and her father.

Speaking of Taylor…

“Talk, now,” Taylor demanded while dragging her up the stairs. Neither her father nor Danny got to ask either of them how their patrol went, not that they would be enthused about Oni Lee’s appearance and subsequent beatdown. No parent wants to hear that their children ran into serial killers, after all.

Silly let Taylor drag her up the stairs and into her room, and finally, Taylor let her emotions show. She scowled and glared at her, and personally, Silly thought that Taylor was putting too much effort into it. The girl obviously wanted to show her displeasure nonverbally before “laying into her.”

Poor thing. She didn’t know the lecture coming her way.

“Let’s sit first,” Silly said and they did. Taylor sat at her bed and Silly took the chair. “I will say right off the bat that between Oni Lee and myself as the cape Toy Soldier -” It was actually embarrassing that she never told anyone her cape name and had to give one for the PRT when she dropped off Oni Lee. “- that my action was not objectively wrong.”

“... I think you’re wrong,” Taylor replied after a moment. It was obvious that she was trying her best to be open-minded about this, but it wasn’t coming easy, especially where violence was involved. Mutilation, after all, was not a tool of heroes and police.

But then again, Silly never professed to be a hero, just a guardian.

“How so?” she asked. “Personally, I think I went easy on him by only damaging his eyes.”

“You blinded him!”

“And in an age where that mattered, sure, that would be bad.”

Her words made Taylor pause.

“Panacea is around. Tinkers are around. Hell, there are even some Strikers who can fix you up. Scapegoat or something? The point is, if the government decides that they want to heal him up and release him, then that’s their choice,” Silly scoffed. “And while they are busy deliberating on the legal procedure to give or not give a serial killer his precious eyes back, he will be off the streets and/or useless if he escapes before treatment. That means that the number of people he would have otherwise hurt has gone down, hasn’t it?”

“But you’re a hero!”

“... Am I?”

Finally, she got it. She looked at me like a deer caught in the headlights.

“You’re the hero, Taylor,” she told her. “I’m not.”

“But… why?”

She looked hurt.

“Taylor, I care about you, dad, and Danny. Period. I have no attachment to this city, its people, this nation’s ideals, and its institutions,” she replied. “And I found myself running into not one but two different people who wanted my dear Taylor hurt or, worse, dead.” She tilted her head a little to the side for a dramatic effect. “Taylor, I want you to know right now that I would rather burn this city than let it harm you.”

She looked both stricken and comforted by her words.

“And do you remember what dad told you about prevention?”

“Yes…?” she answered, still a little dazed by her answer, apparently.

“How many people do you think Oni Lee kills in a week?”

“I don’t know…”

“At least one. If Oni Lee stays locked up for at least one week, then that’s a life we saved. I won’t apologize for that.”

“How do you even know how many people Oni Lee kills a week?” Taylor asked with a frown.

“I took a peek at FBI’s database.” The FBI kept better-detailed track of cape activities than the PRT; the latter possessed a broader map of all activities they knew of.

“The FBI’s database?”

“You’ll be surprised by what people in the shadows do when none of us are noticing.”

She looked like she wanted to argue but thought better of it.

“It’s still wrong to mutilate someone like that,” she shook her head.

“If I was strong enough, then maybe I wouldn’t have to,” she shrugged casually but with an admittedly smidgen of helplessness. “But I’m not, Taylor.” Because why did she have to stain her gloves with some filth’s blood? As for this matter, how was she supposed to get Taylor to see that what she did wasn’t wrong? That it was right for the situation? Why did decent people have to suffer for the sake of evil? “Oni Lee made his choice when he came at us with the intent to kill, Taylor. Those weren’t kiddy glove grenades but real military-grade weapons of war. If even a single one of those exploded within a yard of you, then your costume wouldn’t have shielded you.” Taylor’s costume was great against small arms and knives, not so much against explosions.

“I refuse to go down to their level.”

“Then you will have, by your inaction, blood on your hands when inevitably Oni Lee’s bombs and attacks leave someone else hurt or dead.”

Taylor glared at her. “I’m not weak. I won’t let that happen.”

Silly tilted her head. This was actually dangerous ground. If Taylor remained stubborn, then she might do something to prove herself that she will regret later.

“Taylor,” she replied slowly. “We are weak.”

Taylor’s glare intensified. “You told me that I was doing good.”

“You are, but even Eidolon can’t stop casualties when a villain really wants to make casualties. This is a simple fact of life. It is easier to destroy than to protect, and you who chose to become a hero have a higher threshold of minimum ‘strength’ you need for what you want to do. Or lower the threshold by not following regular morals to the T and do what I did.” She took a deep breath in, not that she needed to but it was part of the neural networking’s effects. “Taylor, it is not wrong to defend others with lethal force. What I did was -.”

“Just because it sounds logical now doesn’t mean it makes sense!”

Oh, dear.

Silly narrowed her eyes. “... Then is it alright for me to let gangsters kill Danny?”

Taylor gritted her teeth. “You’re deliberately choosing extreme scenarios.”

“You chose to be a hero, Taylor. Your situation is extreme.” She crossed her legs and straightened her back a little more. “Taylor, being a hero is not about what you want to do. It’s about doing what you have to do.”

“And what does a hero have to do?” she asked sarcastically.

“Save people. Reassure them. Protect them.” She paused. “And if you can’t do any of those, then avenge them. I’m sure quite a number of people will praise us for blinding Oni Lee.”

Taylor looked sick at the thought of it.