Little Girls and Cute Dogs (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

"Sentient Grue are hunted down and killed by the others," Sharl muttered, "there can't be any on the homeworld...right? Do it," said Citizen suddenly, thinking about childhood memories of horror stories about the Grue as well as the grim reality he'd encountered studying Freedom City's history. "Blast it now, and we can deal with the consequences later," he added, thinking both of the in-test consequences and what Mr. Archer might have to say when they were done. "Right now we need to stop the Grue, either from killing us or from attacking Earth again. I'll take care of the engines," he added, "we need to start up the wormhole drive whatever we're doing." And with that, and a decisive nod, Citizen disappeared into the computer banks, his form visible on the many consoles on the bridge as he flitted about, redirecting power to the engines that had brought them there in the first place. Once inside and directly interfaced with the system, he could feel the power represented by the starship's big gun and shuddered. Was this based on a real event? He hoped no one else had had to make this choice in real life.

[Thunder King]

"This is murder. Heroes don't kill. Justified or not, act of war or not, that's no excuse. What do you think the Freedom League would do, in our situation? Destroy that many lives? Heroes don't do what they do because it's easy, or take the convenient route. They take the better way, they do things better than that. I can't stop you, but you know this isn't what heroes are supposed to do."t It was true, this was still all a simulation, and attacking her classmates couldn't possibly be the way to handle this.

"All life is sacred, even life you don't like, or life that doesn't agree with you. Even life that tries to hurt you. I understand the Grue are bad, and I understand that they'd do it to us in a heartbeat, but that's the point! We're supposed to be super heroes, we're supposed to be better than the bad guys!"

She said her peace and sat down quietly. She closed her eyes, and lowered her head. Simulation or not, she was bothered. She knew her friends had valid points, but every fiber of her being told her this was wrong, that this wasn't something they should do.

"Just...do what you think you have to do."

[Electra]

"That's a nice, easy thing to say," Koshiro pointed out evenly, his voice flat, "an easy opinion to have that doesn't make you consider the difference between sentient beings and vicious animals, or lethal viruses that destroy whatever they touch. Just because an animal or insect crops up occasionally with the ability to talk and think doesn't mean we don't wipe out killer bee nests or destroy vicious dogs. The Grue are a million times worse than the worst animals we have on Earth, and I'd much rather wipe out a billion mindless monsters than be responsible for every sentient creature they murder for the rest of my life."

He put his hand to the button, let it hover there. "Citizen," he said to the thin air, "you can use the sensors, right? Can you confirm that this is the world, and that all that's down there is Grue?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"It's..." Citizen's fingers slipped through the console as he interfaced with the 'system' onboard the ship, the modifications that Miss Americana and he had made to the Doom Room systems letting him establish a cybernetic connection to the illusory unit. His jaw tightened as he concentrated on the work ahead, face pulled into an expression of concentration behind the mirrorshades he wore in costume. "It...can't tell for sure," he reluctantly admitted. "This matches the coordinates in the ship's databanks for two centuries of stellar drift, the star system is right, the Grue fleet pulling into the system is right, all the Grue on the planet below are right, but all the images it has are so old and so attenuated by distance it can't be 100% accurate. The Meta-Mind _is_ on the surface, though; it's detecting way too much telepathic energy for it to be anything but that." He nodded. "I think this is the place."

[Electra]

"It's where it's supposed to be, it's where the ship navigated to, it's full of Grue, including the Meta-Mind... good enough." Even so, Koshiro's hand hesitated one more moment. He knew they weren't real sentient beings, knew they were murderous monsters from space, but something inside him still shuddered at the idea of raining death down onto the unsuspecting planet in order to prevent future atrocities. "You don't get to kill any more of us," he murmured aloud, then slapped his hand down onto the firing button.

[Avenger Assembled]

There was a great flash of light outside the ship and a deep, basso rumble from the deck beneath their feet. Citizen pulled himself out of the computer to watch, eyes wide, as a celestial beam of reddish-blue fire tore from their vessel's hull and slammed into the planet's surface beneath like the fist of an angry god. No, not a fist: as they watched, the planet's surface seemed to catch fire like wood dropped into a campfire. Red seared to black and black seared to ash, and by the time the beam stopped mere seconds later the planet's surface below was all scorched earth and absolute devastation. The Grue ships chasing them seemed to go mad as they careened towards the now-tumbling Lor vessel, out of control and firing wildly, and for a second, all at once, one filled the viewscreen-

And then, the lights were coming on and the scenario falling away, and the three young students found themselves standing among the naked walls of the Doom Room, mere seconds away from simulated devastation. Sharl took a moment to steady himself, shooting a glance at Koshiro and Mali, before the voice from above spoke. It was Mr. Archer. "Hmm. Well, that was an interesting result, everyone. Why don't you tell me why you did what you did?"

"Well...we had a chance to stop the Grue, and we took it," said Citizen after a moment's thought. "Even if we didn't make it back there at the end, risking our lives to save so many others is worth it. A hero should be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. It's not like we had a lot of good options, popping out of space right there over Gruen. I think we took the best one."

[Thunder King]

Mali shook her head. "I still disagree. If we're super heroes, we have to watch ourselves. We have to watch what we do, and make sure taking lives is never an option. I'm not saying the Grue are nice people, but do we really know that was the right choice? From the moment we arrived we were in constant danger. I'm not sure we assessed the situation the way we should have, and I'm not sure we shouldn't have just left the moment we figured out where we were. I...those sorts of choices are just...bigger than me. I couldn't wrap my head around the consequences. I'm not a genius, I would much rather leave the big choices to the smart guys who can make sure they're making the right choice. If I have to make a choice, I make the one that saves lives."

[Electra]

"We did make the choice that saved lives," Koshiro maintained, a bit of heat creeping into his voice. "If we want to be superheroes, we have to be ready to make decisions in the heat of the moment, not look for ways to pass the buck. That's why we're here, right, to learn how to make tough choices. We didn't have a lot of time, but we did have enough information to know that we had a good chance of being able to use the Lor's weapon to wipe out the Grue. And that's not murder." He turned on Archer, as though expecting the teacher to argue. "You've fought them yourself, right? You see what they do, how they do it. Just because Pseudo could be reprogrammed doesn't make them sentient beings. We wiped out a virus before anyone else was contaminated."

[Thunder King]

"I get that, now..." She said. "I wasn't willing to blow up a whole planet full of people without knowing anything about them. I still don't really know anything about them, though. I'm 16, and I have a lot of years to make tough decisions in. I was thrown into a decision that's bigger than me, without enough personal knowledge to go on. I've never even seen a Grue, so as far as I knew, we were about to blow up people, not mindless puppets."

She offered a sweet smile as a counter to Koshiro's heated voice. "I'm still a kid." She admitted with a wry grin. "A kid who was in way over her head and went with the choice that made sense based on what she knows and believes. I'm still growing, and learning, and trying new things and experiences. I went into being a superhero to beat up muggers and stop gangsters, not to deal with Grue and other huge threats. If I was ready to make big, tough choices I'd be an adult already."

"But hey, that's what the Doom Room is for, right? To train and educate us, so that when we're the newest generation of big name heroes, we'll know how to make those choices, and make sure we make the right ones."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl listened patiently as Mr. Archer talked to them about mercy and necessity, about the tension between a hero's duty to protect his people and her duty to guard life. "This was a tough decision to make, and there are no easy answers for it. What matters at this stage of your careers is that you were willing to take action fast and that you could all defend your choices when it was done. Not every student is able to act, and defend what they've done. All three of you get full marks for this mission; but by the end of the week, I want you to write up a summary of the arguments of the other side. So Sharl and Koshiro, try and argue from Mali's perspective, Mali, try and argue from theirs. I'd like to see how well you put yourselves in each other's shoes."

When it was done, and they were all leaving the Doom Room, Sharl took his chance. Mali had shown a lot of promise by his lights; she'd been willing to risk her own life to guard a group of enemies that most people didn't think were human (like, say, alien Nazi computer programs), and she was right there. "Hey, Mali," he said as they headed for the locker rooms. "You did pretty good back there. You want to get a chance to get on a team that sees some real action?"

[Electra]

"Pay's not much," Koshiro put in with a half-smile, "but you get a lot of extra training. And so far, we've saved one planet and haven't blown any up. So our record's pretty good that way. Sharl got us a headquarters out in one of his mentor's big science skyscrapers, and when you're on a team, you get some extra freedom to patrol and use the Doom Room. Studying's good and all, but the best way to learn to be a hero is to just go out there and start doing it." He took his birds out of the pockets of the bulky spacesuit-simulation and put them all back where they belonged, even the cranes that had been fluttering around. "Plus it's some extra credit."

[Thunder King]

"Wow, really?"o She asked, her jaw dropping. Never in a million years did she expect to be invited onto a team, especially a team like theirs.

"Wow, um...yeah, wow..." She shook her head. "Okay so...a distinct probably, but not a definitely. I have to think on this, you know? I can't make this kind of decision easily or quickly, but I promise you guys will know soon, and thanks for the offer! It's really flattering, makes me feel good, you know?"

Of course, she was probably going to say yes, but she needed to weigh the risks, and make sure it was right for her. At least, she needed to meet the rest of the team before making the decision. Definitely wouldn't do to agree to something only to find out that she couldn't get along with the rest of them.

[Electra]

"That's not a problem," Koshiro assured her. "Listen, why don't you come on by the HQ tomorrow and meet everybody, see how it all clicks? I can pick you up and give you a ride over there, maybe afterward we can grab something to eat. You shouldn't try and decide what you want to do till you have a chance to see what you're getting into." He gave her a smile that was considerably more charming than his intense demeanor during the simulation, then slunk his backpack up over one shoulder. "And maybe I can talk you into joining if you're still not sure. We need more traditionally alive human beings on the team, I'm totally outnumbered right now."

[Thunder King]

Mali smiled, the same sweet, nice smile she'd used before. "Sure, yeah that sounds great. I'd love to meet everyone." Of course they weren't going to throw her on the team so quickly, introductions were in order. She grabed her backpack and threw it over her shoulders and turned away for a moment.

Then, she caught herself. What had Koshiro said? Grab something to eat afterward? Did he mean with just Koshiro, or with the whole team? Then again, she wasn't really sure anyone else on the team even needed to eat. He did mention a lack of 'traditionally alive human beings', but she had no idea what the team did in situations like that. Was this a date, or...she had no idea, she didn't even know if she should ask! What if she embarrassed herself? Best to accept the invitation, and dress well, that way she could simply pass it off as making a good impression.

All of this ran through her head in only a few moments before she turned around and flashed another smile. "That sounds great." She said, writing something down on a small slip of paper before handing it to Koshiro. "That's my cell phone, just call me when you guys get everything sorted for tomorrow, okay?"

With that, she turned back around and tried to leave. She was blushing just a bit, and worried about what Koshiro was thinking. That was a very bold thing she did, far bolder than she'd ever done. She wanted to leave before it sunk into her head what she'd just done, and let Koshiro sort that out...

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen didn't need to take a shower, of course, so by the time Koshiro and Mali had changed back into street clothes, Sharl was already standing in the corridor talking to a very animated little girl. "" said Eira, waving her arms for emphasis. "" she added with the ingenous loyalty of a little sister with her big brother wrapped around her finger. She switched back to English, and so did Sharl, when the others came out to the hallway. "Can I meet the rest of your team, pleaaaase? I know you said they were probably on campus, and it will not take too long. I would like to meet the girl from India, and the ghost!"

"She's not really a ghost," said Sharl patiently, "but I bet we can probably find them...Mali really should meet them anyway if she's going to be on the team. I'll message your dad on the way," he added as they headed to the elevator and back upstairs.

"I was going to be a ghost too," Eira informed Mali and Koshiro sociably, "but Miss Americana and Sharl and Dragonfly made me a robot instead."