“Hello mother, good to see you,” smiled Ven, knowing what to expect.

  The bodyguards spread throughout the room as Vera looked through the blinds of the hospital.

  With a silent fury, Vera began. “You know, when I learned that you left home, I assumed you just needed some fresh air, and I was… so happy.”

  Ven looked at all of the three bodyguards look at him with anticipation as well. They probably felt awkward and out of place, but did not want to leave Vera’s side for obvious reasons.

  He then set his attention on the strange new bodyguard named Dak. It almost felt like there was an immense aura emanating from him. Dak didn’t utter a single word, but something about his demeanor let Ven know that was an emergee… an extremely powerful one at that.

  “I never would have imagined that you would be sent back to the hospital on the same day!” She turned around with watery eyes. “It’s the fact that you fought a gang leader too when you literally just got out the hospital. You also just got superpowers. Out of all people you could have fought, Con-Crush? Are you serious? Do you know how many people he’s killed? How many heroes he’s destroyed? You should have never even been fighting him. Why pick a fight with someone who has had powers for years? Do you have any idea of just what could have happened to you? What were you thinking!?”

  “Give me a break. I wasn’t looking for a fight—I just wanted to test out my powers when I saw two guys chasing a kid. If I had done nothing, my new friends could have been killed,” Ven argued.

  “New friends? You can’t be serious, you don’t even know those girls! You met them only a day ago and you’re already calling them your friends? Perhaps you don’t know how to world works, since you’ve been in the hospital for so long, but people don’t call people they just met friends. If you really wanted to help that girl, you should have called the police,” Vera argued back, her hand gestures adding to her arguments.

  Ven felt his fury stir up more each second. In his mind, the decisions he made were the right choices, nothing else could have been better. If someone had the ability to help someone, but chose not to, they were a scumbag according to Ven’s mind.

  “Just because I’ve been sick my whole life doesn’t mean I don’t know anything,” began Ven. “And no police officers would have arrived because, I was in Ashton.”

  “Why were you in Ashton anyway!? Are you crazy?” complained Vera.

  “I wasn’t looking to go there, I didn’t even know that place existed. All I wanted to do that day was test out my powers, go home, and get ready for the hero exam anyway I could.”

  “That still doesn’t make any sense, if you saw this kid in trouble, why didn’t you consider where you come from? You have bodyguards available, you could have asked them to go,”

  “You mean ‘your’ bodyguards.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re a Nguvu, so by extension, they’re your bodyguards too. They were your bodyguards when you called Nuru for help? Why couldn’t you have called them sooner? This all could have been avoided if you just thought about the bigger picture.”

  Ven raised his voice. “I already told you, if I did nothing that little girl could have been killed. I didn’t have time to call anyone else at first. I don’t regret saving her! Why don’t you get that!?”

  Vera looked at Ven in an even more furious scrawl. “Who do you think you’re raising your voice at? I’m the one who helped you all this time, if it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead. And you have the audacity to raise your voice at me?”

  “I’m not trying to yell at you it’s just—“

  “I’ve been the main one worried about you, and like I said, I don’t even want you to become a superhero. I want you to relax, get a comfortable job, and live a peaceful life. I’ll let you be a hero if you want, but you should be legally registered if you’re going to fight crime. What you did was reckless, immature, and dangerous.”

  “There’s no, ’you’ll let me be a hero,’ I’m going to be a hero rather you like it or not and nothing will ever change that.”

  “Is that so? And that means you don’t regret the vigilante activities you just performed?”

  “Uh, no I don’t. I just told you why.”

  “Then that means you’ll just do more vigilante activities while squandering more of my money.”

  “I never said that,” said Ven. The whole discussion was painfully annoying him and he couldn’t wait for it to be over. He thought it was odd how apparently, the body guards were also his, but the money was only hers. He didn’t want to bring it up because he wanted the whole thing to end quickly.

  “How much of my money did you give those girls?”

  Ven flinched before opening his eyes wider. “How did you know I gave them money?”

  “It’s in the report I’ve been given. It says that the girl named Tamu is making a superhero costume for you. Did you already give her the money or are you waiting on the costume first?”

  “I already gave her the money.”

  “And how much?”

  “…A half a million oricas.”

  Vera turned around and began to walk back and forth in the room. After awhile, she stopped and planted her feet. “Are you serious? You just met these girls and you’re already giving them that much money!? Why risk your life for strangers, and then pay them to be saved by you? You don’t know how people from Ashton are like.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Speaking of Ashton, why does it even exist!? When I went there, I saw nothing but extreme poverty. It was terrible! Is it wrong of me to help out one family from that place, since you won’t help anyone from Ashton?” Ven explained.

  “How on earth do you know I haven’t helped people in Ashton? You’re just assuming things not!”

  “Am I really? You’re a billionaire, you alone should be able to completely reconstruct Ashton! With all that money you should have the power to change all of the residents’ lives. Do they not matter to anyone with a lot of money? Do you guys just pretend like they don’t exist?”

  Vera sighed. “It doesn’t work like that Ven! You don’t know as much as you think you do. People in Ashton are “sick,” the majority of its residents are drug addicts, and they don’t care about anything other than violent crime and dirty money. You can’t exactly easily fix people who have a disease. Treatment is only given to those that seek a doctor. Your new ‘friend’ should be familiar with this.”

  “What do you mean by that!?”

  “Asha Kibwe… She’s only three years older than you, yet she’s already found herself into a heap of trouble. She dropped out of high school, and has a lengthy police record. She was arrested for burglary during that time, and then she was arrested for assault and battery in downtown Amani not longer after. Afterwards, it appears she worked at several odd jobs but suddenly stopped working at them and began soliciting herself for sex, which she has been arrested for numerous times. This is the woman you just have a half a million oricas to…”

  “Well, it was really meant for Tamu, since she’s doing the job. And I’m sure Asha had her reasons, she grew up in a terrible place after all.”

  “You’re missing the point Vendel! I grew up in a terrible place too, and so did your father. We both had a plan to get out and we became successful, and eventually billionaires! It didn’t happen overnight, but we had a drive to succeed. Others around us were out there getting high, while we were up all night studying. Why do you think we barely talk to other family members? I didn’t steal like Asha did, nor did I fight people and sell my body for sex. I had pride in myself and worked my butt every single day. I worked many jobs I hated, but all of my wealth was earned. You gave all that money to a woman who doesn’t deserve it!”

  “I told you it’s meant for Tamu.”

  “Tamu Kibwe is the one of the only good things to come out of Ashton. According to our sources, she is an ambitious young girl who is very talented in various artworks. The thing is, shes a naive kid, so she will probably give that money to her mother and sister. Ashton has a disease. The people there don’t have a drive to improve themselves, they just want to sit in their own pond of misery, and when someone tries to help them, they rip their arm off. There has been many projects to help the people of Ashton, but the citizens have murdered or scared off most of the people that try to work on the infrastructure. When drugs were removed, the citizens would simply move where the drugs were and then return to Ashton with them. When we sent people to go defeat the drug lords, they were killed. Shall we send an army? They have armies too. For every superhero we send, they send three more supervillains.”

  “Furthermore, we gave the citizens of Ashton food, and many of them just simply stopped working; they used their money to buy even more drugs. You cannot fix a drug addict, only an addict can fix themselves. We have built several rehab facilities, and only a small fraction of people choose to go… Did I mention it’s free? Asha chose to get into prostitution, knowing that it was dangerous. She was after fast money, and what did that bring her? Tamu chose to be an artist, believing it would pay off some day. It’s fine to work with Tamu, but you overpaid her, and now her sister and her mother might do God knows what with that money. Did I mention that their mother practically fried her brain from all of the drugs that was in her system? If she survives, what will keep her away from more drugs? The only sickness she had is that she couldn’t put down poison.”

  Ven’s eyes were practically twitching at this intense revelation. If it were all true, then he just didn’t know how he would conduct himself. His mind just couldn’t think of any counter arguments.

  “This is a lot to take in,” Ven said quietly.

  “I’m not mad at you for hiring Tamu to make your costume, it’s just that you overpaid her. You don’t know what her mom and sister will do with that money. Would you believe it if I told you that I’m just like you? When I was younger, I met a young woman that was in poverty. Like Asha, she was a prostitute that did to help her family. I felt bad for her, and since I considered her a ‘friend’ I gave her a half a million oricas. This girl then came back to me to ask for more money for her’family.’ I believed her and gave her even more money. This kept happening for about a year, and I didn’t think anything of it because I thought I was helping someone less privileged than myself. Turns out, she was buying a ton of drugs with that money and she never stopped selling her body, because she generally liked it. I didn’t learn all of that until after her funeral, she died about a year of me giving her money, from an overdose. She had two kids; I tried to help her son, but he blamed me for not helping her more, even though I thought I was. He joined the Cinder Fangs when he got a little older and died before he even turned eighteen. Her daughter also became a prostitute, but then died on the streets only last year actually. Ashton is a poisonous place, you don’t know Asha like you think you do. If she’s going to be given such a large sum of money, then she should have had to prove herself.”

  Ven knew he couldn’t counter-argue any of Vera’s points, all he could do is take it all in. Still, he didn’t think Asha was as bad as his mother made her out to be. She had to have had a good heart, since she tried to drag Ven’s unconscious body to safety after he defeated Con-Crush. She probably wasn’t an addict, he only saw her smoke a cigarette, but then again, he didn’t know her all too well. Still, he decided to vouch for her. He did not think she was a bad person.

  “Look Mom, you’re right. Ashton might have a sickness or something, but I’m going to trust Asha. I just don’t think she would do what your friend did. She tried to give back a lot of the money when I gave it to them. I think deep down, she has a really good heart.”

  Vera looked at Ven with a pessimistic expression. “I see… that is interesting then. I hope you’re right then.”

  The three bodyguards looked at each other as the brief silenced graced the room. Dak remained composed and calm, taking his job super seriously.

  “Overall I’m tired. I just fought my heart out yesterday against some guy who I thought was gonna kill me. I wasn’t looking for a fight. All I want to do is rest. You could have asked, how I was when you walked through the door, but instead you just went straight to arguing.”

  Vera flinched and went straight to hugging her son.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I was worried about you, and I don’t understand some of the things you’ve done. When I heard that you fought Con-Crush, I just couldn’t believe it.” Tears began rolling down her face.

  Ven, now also adorned with tear filled eyes, hugged his mother back. “I’m sorry Mom, I do want to become a legally registered hero, just understand that when I saw Tamu in danger my body moved on its own. I’m sorry I worried you, I just wanted to do something. I wouldn’t be able to call myself a hero if I did nothing, but call for help, that day. I just had to do more.”

  “I suppose you really are your father’s child. That’s probably something he would say. God, I miss him.”

  Vera stopped hugging her son and grabbed his face. “Promise me you’ll stay safe out there and not do any other vigilante activities. Promise me you won’t fight someone like that again until you’re way more powerful… Well then again you did beat Con-Crush. Just promise not to fight someone on that level until nobody can stop you.”

  “I promise Mom,” lied Ven. He still had to figure out what the terminal incident would be about. If a demon was really trying to destroy the world, then he would become a vigilante once more. He would have to disappoint his mother once again.