4 Chapter 4 – Hero Dilemma

—Ten Years Later—

After the first time using my power, my family became quite clingy to me. My parents started showing an interest in learning my hobbies and going out on more family outings. Knowing that it was their attempt at trying to prevent me from becoming a villain, I played along with them and actually enjoyed some quality family time with them…something I never had in my prior lives. It was nice to see what a normalish family felt like after so many centuries of never having one myself.

My education changed as well, my parents started taking active roles in my training. Between my father and grandfather, I mastered many of the Electrical techniques that I inherited from Cole MacGrath. In addition to that, I unlocked the ability to convert my body into electricity and literally flow through conductive materials at near-light speeds. Of course, this ability made my parents nervous, but eventually, they learned to trust that I had no evil intentions in mind for its use.

As far as training my other powers, I had to train them in private. My family wouldn't have understood where the powers came from as no one in my biological history had anything similar. Once I perfected the ability to convert myself into electricity, I donned a vigilante costume and used criminals as training dummies. On more than one occasion I left criminals crippled or disabled as my Concrete and Napalm powers were simply too powerful for most people to withstand. That said after several months of training, I slowly gained control over my power output and fewer criminals were being seriously injured.

"The Nightwalker Strikes Again…", my father read on the newspaper's front page, "Why is the public still backing this person? They have been active now for three years, and still, the public and the reporters treat him like he's some sort of angel!"

"Dear he has done quite a lot of good for the community, though he has gone overboard on several occasions.", my mother said as I made breakfast.

"Someone needs to bring him in! Last night he brought an entire building down on a group of criminals!", my father fumed, "Fortunately no innocent people were harmed, but bringing an entire building down on them was way too excessive!"

Glancing at the article as I walked past, I pointed out that the group was making deadly Quirk Boosting Drugs. Looking at me as I took a seat a seat, my father asked what I thought of the Nightwalker. He hadn't brought it up with me directly before, but as I grew older he liked to pose situational questions to test me.

"I don't know, like mom said they are doing a lot of good for the community.", I replied, "Was the organization even on your radar?"

"They were, but we were still in the investigation stage. Fortunately, no one at our agency was caught in the collapse.", he told me, "Do you think he should be brought in?"

"Unless someone else is going to watch the streets better at night, I don't think it's a good idea.", I remarked, "I mean look at the city, the mayor said recently that night crimes are down almost seventy percent. He attributed most of that to the Nightwalker's activity, you can't argue with the results."

Looking at me with concern, my parents told me that crippling and killing people was wrong. Letting out a sigh, I pulled out a paper I was writing for my English course. Tossing it on the table, I looked at my dad with a serious expression.

"Grandpa had me do a research paper on villains in other countries…since you intend to expand the family Agency internationally.", I advised for background, "Japan has a villain called All For One, his quirk allows him to steal Quirks from others for himself. He's destroyed the lives of thousands by stealing their Quirk or by the destruction he causes when fighting Heroes. His body count easily reaches five digits, and yet every time someone fights him they only try to catch him. In my book, they should be trying to kill him, not subdue him. Some people just can't be saved, and those people need to be put down for the safety of everyone else."

"Cole you shouldn't say that, everyone deserves a second chance at life.", my mother argued.

"Tell that to the thousands of people that lost a part of themselves or loved ones to All For One. How many people have to suffer before someone is willing to put someone down?", I questioned, "He isn't the only one either, there are dozens of villains that kill hundreds of people every year with no remorse but Heroes only try catching them alive. It just seems like killing a few villains of their caliber would send a strong message to the rest of them."

Staring at me in shock, I realized they hadn't experienced any life or death situations. This was the usual reaction when I spoke about my views with other people in my past lives, so I had to approach this from a logical point of view.

"I am not saying all repeat offenders should be killed, I am saying villains of this caliber should be open season. You can't say that Heroes haven't given them plenty of opportunities to surrender themselves, this guy name Argo from Russia has been given over a hundred chances to surrender to authorities but never does. He is a mercenary with no moral compass, he does whatever the highest bidder wants and sometimes thousands die because of him.", I said showing them documents to back up what I was saying, "A man like Argo is too far gone for rehabilitation to work, he's killed too many people."

Smacking me across the face, my dad was even more pissed off now. Unfortunately, he wasn't willing to listen to reason on this, it just wasn't something he could comprehend till he was in that situation.

"I understand that you are only sixteen years old, but don't ever let me hear you talk that way again. Life is a sacred thing, don't be so quick to kill villains just because it's the easy thing to do.", he lectured me, "As Heroes we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard than everyone else. We can't be judge, jury, and executioner for villains…that is the court's job and duty."

That is exactly how I thought early on as the Hero in my first life. I tried to reason with everyone no matter what walk of life they came from. Ninety-nine percent of the time I was successful with that, but some people were just too stubborn to be reasoned with. That one percent were the ones that showed me some people do need to be killed. One example of that was Humanity's King at the time, King Arnoth.

Having brought representatives from every race, no matter how small, together to negotiate peace King Arnoth refused to compromise on anything. He was of the mindset that Humanity should be at the top of all the races and that everyone else should be slaves to us. I completely disagreed with him stating that humanity was just as flawed as every other race and that to survive we had to all work together. My words fell on deaf ears, and he ultimately tried to assault the Elf King's daughter one night to exert what he felt was his right.

I ended up decapitating him in front of the Elven representatives, and it was at that point I realized some people couldn't be reasoned with. Showing the races that I was willing to lay it all on the line for peace was what brought everything together. A few more misguided individuals fell to my blade, but ultimately peace won out.

'No only that, I got several wives out of it too. I couldn't have pulled it off without them.', I thought standing up from my seat, "I respect and see your point of view, but I don't see a peaceful future with that way of thinking. You and I may never agree on this, that said we both want the same end result. If you will excuse me I will head to class now."

Leaving my parents behind, I took the bus to the Agency.

The rest of the day went by pretty quickly. Unlike my father, my grandfather wasn't so quick to shoot down my idea. Debating the topic for the entire day, ultimately he was convinced I wasn't some sort of Sociopathic Hero that wanted to kill every villain I met. I wished my father was as level-headed as my grandfather was…it would make things a lot easier for me.

That evening, after we finished celebrating my sixteenth birthday, I headed out into the city once everyone was asleep. It was a pretty quiet night so I had time to reflect on everything. Taking a seat on a rooftop, I pulled the few photos of the women I would have married. In all my past lives I had a few people close to me that I could confide in, but this time I had no one. I had no close friends and my family was out of the question as they were too sensitive on most topics.

"The older I get the harder dealing with this shit becomes.", I chuckled to myself, "You never realize the side effects of living for such a long time."

Since things were going slow tonight, I pulled out a pen and paper to start drawing up a schematic for making a replica version of Kessler's armor. As I wasn't the greatest at mechanical engineering, this design would probably be altered quite a lot by whoever built it. Something like this would have to be sent off to I-Island for construction just to avoid dealing with my parents.

"I will also have to earn money for it too…", I groaned, "My money from previous lives is no good here…if I pay with gold bars people will think I robbed a bank."

Knowing that I was going to need a lot of cash for my suit, I decided to look around for a good-paying job. Sure I could work for my family and earn money, but I didn't want to give them false hope that I'd take over the agency eventually.

—Four Years Later—

With the goal of making the armor in mind, I ended up taking a job with the electric company helping build out the power infrastructure throughout the county. My Quirk allowed me to work around high voltage equipment while it was live which was something only a small number of people could do. Fortunately, my parents didn't fight me on taking the job as they knew my Quirk kept me safe from danger, and they were proud I got a job, to begin with.

"Cole, we need to talk.", my dad said walking into my room, "I need you to go to Japan with your grandfather to open up our first international branch."

"Seriously…", I sighed as I submitted my order request to I-Island, "We have been over this dad, I don't want to be a Hero."

"I know that son, originally your grandparents were supposed to go but your grandmother…", he stumbled, "With your grandmother's recent passing grandpa isn't doing so well. As the head of the agency, I can't go with him but you can. Please do this for me, I am afraid your grandfather won't hold out without someone there with him."

Acknowledging that grandpa's mental health wasn't in a good place at the moment, I knew my dad was right. Having grown fond of the old man, I didn't want to see him sent off somewhere alone after having lost his wife to cancer.

"I don't have a Hero License though, I can't really help him out that much.", I advised.

"No worries, I pulled some strings to get you one.", dad said tossing me an International License, "When you get to Japan you will need to register a Hero name with the Hero Association."

Realizing that he had planned this out, I could only groan in frustration.

"I will go, but I want to make it crystal clear that I am not inheriting the agency. While I am there I am helping grandpa and taking in the sights.", I told him.

With that, I was on my way to Japan.