Silhouette

"David, stay with the group. Goliath, being cautious is good but paranoia won't help anyone."

James and the rats had finally run out of food. Well, the rats did - James' shadowy body didn't need sustenance. A few hours ago the rats had finished eating the last body stored in the mechanical spider and James had decided it was as good a time as any to teach them how to hunt - not that he actually knew anything about it in reality.

Clean water had been surprisingly easy to come by - a simple leak in some pipe at the end of the tunnel in which the nest's entrance was located - but food? Healthy food? James did not even entertain the idea of eating leftovers that dropped down here - at least cockroaches, no matter how mutated, were a natural part of a rat's diet, sewer burgers marinated in waste juice were not.

David was overjoyed - he got to get out of the nest and tear something to shreds. Blanche was rather disgusted by the whole affair - free food and a clean environment had spoiled the white-furred ratling. Foudre didn't appear to care all that much, she paid attention to her surroundings but that was it. Goliath was scared and nervous, a real scaredy-cat - or, well, rat.

Lucille however had quite surprised James. She had always been the most mature of the litter, whereas they acted like intelligent dogs she acted very human-like, she was always the one to break up fights if James didn't notice or act fast enough and she, overall, seemed to be the leader of the band, thus, James had expected she would be the one taking the exercise the most seriously. What he hadn't expected was the sheer joy and viciousness she showed.

Three times now they had come across a cockroach. Three times now she had rushed on the poor insects and eviscerated them in a single quick claw attack. Even David, despite being at the head of the formation, couldn't react quick enough to interfere. James had to admit it was a bit unsettling to see the usually calm rat turn into a murder machine. He hadn't even had the chance to turn into a rat and show them how to fight!

"Okay, I sensed one nearby. Lucille, I truly appreciate your... Professionalism, but could you please let your siblings deal with it? They need to learn too."

The small light grey rat huffed but agreed, going at the end of the line to watch out for possible surprise attacks.

"Thank you, Lucille. Well, who wants to try next?"

David was practically hovering with how much hopping around he was doing. He was even rising his front paws to make himself more noticeable. James swore the rat was even smiling.

"Fine David, it's your turn. If it's too hard don't hesitate to flee- And you're already going. Alright."

David had ignored everything James had to say once he got confirmation he could finally enact on his violent tendencies, sprinting down the tunnel and preparing to pounce as soon as he had the cockroach in his line of sight - which was quite easy considering this specific specimen was one of the glowing ones.

David jumped and, not giving the insect the time to react, pinned down his prey with all four of his paws before tearing its head off with his teeth. He simply sat on his prey and turned toward the group, boasting about being just as efficient as Lucille when it came to killing.

Then the cockroach threw him off.

"Okay class, I thought you all knew since Lucille didn't attack the head but better late than never : although decapitation will ultimately kill a cockroach, it will be through starvation - they need so little brainpower to function that they can live without a head."

David was fuming, he quickly got back up and took hold of the insect - without its eyes and antennae it couldn't perceive anything bar vibrations in the ground, even then it wouldn't have been safe from a humiliated child's wrath - and began tearing it apart, laughing maniacally all the while.

"Now kids, I want you to note that diabolical laughter is a sign that something is very wrong with a person's mind - though overall, don't grow overconfident and start celebrating in enemy territory."

The ratlings wisely nodded, watching their youngest sibling madly shredding his prey into pieces with unsettling glee - even Lucille, who had shown a vicious joy in hunting and killing prey, was unsure on how to react to her brother's performance.

"David, you are aware this is hunting, right? You're supposed to eat it afterward."

David stopped his rampage and looked down at his victim - or rather, the goop and small chitinous chunks it had become. He shrugged and took a pawful of whatever it was the cockroach had become and proceeded to eat it. James was comforted to see that the other ratlings were just as disgusted as he was.

"Sooo... Who's next?"

Blanche, Foudre, and Goliath exchanged a glance - the young male stepping back as soon as his sisters looked at him - and Foudre volunteered.

When they came across their next victi- target, she came forward. Whereas Lucille and David had rushed at their opponent to end the fight as quickly as possible, Foudre took a slower approach. She advanced toward the cockroach - a non-glowing one this time - and studied its movements. When it noticed her and took a step back she took a step forward, when it took a step to the left she took a step to the right, when it took a step forward she took a step back, when it took a step back-

It deployed its wings and rushed toward Foudre, readying its mouth and front legs to strike, when she suddenly jumped. She put her hind legs on the insect's wings and used them to propel herself even further, her claws ripping through the fragile flesh normally hidden behind wings and shells. She turned to face the cockroach once more as it crashed into the ground where it spasmed for a few seconds before dropping dead.

Lucille nodded, approving her sister's method, while David grumbled. Goliath was still a bit afraid of facing an enemy himself and Blanche, seeing her brother's stress, replaced Foudre as the hunter.

James meanwhile wondered why were the rats so good at hunting despite still being babies and how they could be so good at it considering they had been defenseless when facing the mechanical spider - which he then realized was perfectly logical when taking into account the fact that the spider was much bigger than them and made out of metal, unlike the cockroaches which were roughly their size and made of chitin.

As for wondering about how they were so good at hunting, well, James remembered his decision to stop questioning the logic of this world after all that it had thrown at him and just gave up, assuming that, just like their suspiciously high intelligence, it was probably some sort of mutation or simply how rats worked here - which wasn't exactly wrong.

When Blanche finally found something to kill, she did it quickly : she asked Goliath to fetch her a small stick that was floating down the canal - something that James did instead to prevent the young rat from falling and being eaten or drowning - and then simply used that stick as a spear to stab the cockroach to death at a distance, preventing its insides from dirtying her white fur. James barely held a shudder when witnessing the stabbing but bore it through.

Finally, it was Goliath's turn. James didn't have high hopes for the eldest of the ratlings - they were good, yes, but he was clearly uncomfortable in this situation - and was prepared to bring them all back home after giving the big baby rat a small speech about how not everyone had to fight and it was perfectly ok to be scared and prefer to do other things, like taking care of the nest, but, before he had the chance to begin, a cockroach with knife-tennae came flying in from down the tunnel.

James got ready to intervene but, just as he had begun to summon a tentacle to tackle the bug and the other ratlings got ready for a fight, the cockroach reached Goliath, and a series of events that no one had expected occurred.

One, Goliath didn't flee but froze, turning his back on the threat to cower.

Two, the insect had targeted Goliath and closed in on him.

Three, maybe as an instinctual reflex due to fright, Goliath's tail twitched and swung around.

Four, the cockroach met Goliath's tail head on and proceeded to get flung into the wall where it splattered into a thousand pieces.

James and the ratlings looked at the cowering Goliath and the splattered bug before exchanging glances - or just head movements in the case of James since he had a blank face. He approached Goliath and gently petted him, taking the shaken rat into his pair of newly formed arms.

Without a word James began the journey back home, the rats following him silently. They all shared the same thought: none of them, not even James, had managed to react before the insect struck, and, had luck not been on their side, Goliath could have been seriously hurt.

They would have to train, to be better. This time it was a small bug, one that easily got squashed with a lucky heavy tail hit. But what about next time? How would have things went down had it been a catfish, another robot, or maybe even another rat, or, worst of all, that giant crocodile?

This hunt had been the first time the ratlings were actively trying to improve themselves, so far they had only played or lazed about. That needed to change. For their big brother.

James had similar thoughts. So far, after arriving in this world, he had the excuse of experimenting with how his body worked, the basics of his anatomy - or lack thereof -and how he needed to move around. Then he had the ratlings to take care of. Then the nest to improve. But never had he focused on his combat faculties - DESPITE encountering a monstrous crocodile AND a murderous mechanical spider, definitive proofs of the dangerousness of this world.

He had to train, too. Just like them. For them.

Sarah looked around her. The Hero Union's Hall was an impressive work of art : an enormously long and slightly less wide room with a yellow paved ground - gold would have been a bit too pompous - covered by a sky-blue carpet that indicated the different paths to follow to exit the room, columns of white marble stretching up and up on the sides of the room seemed to support the ceiling - that is, until you looked up.

There was no official statement on how the Hero Union did it, leaving the public to wonder about the secrets of the Hall's ceiling, but it was undeniably beautiful : the beige walls of the room stopped at some point - if Sarah had to hazard a guess they were probably three floors worth of height - whereas the columns kept on going forever. Why wouldn't they, when there was no ceiling?

Anyone standing in the Hall, when looking up, would be gifted with the marvelous sight of an always sunny sky, small clouds drifting in the winds. There was no actual sun - there had been one, once, but nocturnal races and Cored with specific mutations had filed many complaints, ultimately it was the visit of a neighboring city's Hero, Holy Moly, that sealed the artificial sun's fate.

This fake sky was quite a feat considering the fact that the Hall was on the ground floor of the Hero Union's Headquarters, a massive fifty floors high glass tower with a garden surrounded by white marble walls on top.

How would you access this garden? Well, upon looking closer - or simply by witnessing the comings and goings of people in the Hall - one would realize the columns were in fact elevator shafts. Elevator shafts that allowed access to the rest of the building. Elevator shafts that were always being watched by at least three Heroes.

Sarah could easily recognize the ones on watch today, even from afar.

Mecha Man, a genius mechanic who was behind most of the other Heroes' gadgets, currently wearing a futuristic golden knight outfit with black highlights and a singular red eye. Although it looked like he was dutifully watching over the Hall, based on her uncle's stories, Sarah knew he was probably looking at some holographic screens only visible to him, leaving the actual surveillance work to a few drones flying around - they looked a lot like bees to her.

The Serpent, a heavily mutated creature who now looked like a fusion between a human and a snake - though no one was sure which they had begun as. They had a scarred cobra's head with a permanently puffed up hood and an anaconda's long and thick body, only with a somewhat humanoid torso and two pair of arms, with such a body no regular clothes could suit them so instead they wore a gladiatorial leather and iron outfit - which included holders for their net, their trident, their shortsword, and their buckler. Her uncle had told Sarah that, despite the scary looks, they were actually a big softy.

And finally, Miss Malice, a reformed magical Villain who had decided to keep her old alias to further cement herself as a redeemed individual - which had worked : not many remembered Miss Malice, the Villain who took a pleasure to spread chaos via magical shenanigans, but everyone remembered Miss Malice, the friendly neighborhood Hero good witch who knew how to dispel a curse better than anyone else in Zalcien - as well as her youthful face, her short pink hair and cute purple and pink witch outfit, straight out of a fairy tale. Sarah's uncle had told that in truth, Miss Malice's Villainous career had been so easily swept under the rug because she was more of a Cored teen pulling pranks than a criminal mastermind - and that she apparently still had some of that old cheekiness when out of the public's eye.

Seeing them made Sarah a bit self-aware and she looked down at herself. She looked as young as Miss Malice - though the witch cheated with a few dozens potions and spells - but wasn't anywhere near as confident. Her ginger hair and blue eyes clashed with each other, she was short, even for a nineteen-year-old girl, and felt like she was way too thin. Annnd she felt ridiculous in the Union's trial clothes for trainees : a white full bodysuit with a pair of white gloves and of white boots and a classic white domino mask. Really, she couldn't wait to design her costume with Arachnanny.

As Sarah kept thinking about how ridiculous she was, a figure silently approached her. Even when they were standing right behind her she didn't notice them. They went in for the kill.

And simply booped Sarah on the nose.

"Huh ?"

She turned around, her eyes reaching the chest of her uncle's suit, and looked up at his face.

"Sarah, a Hero must always be on guard."

"Yes, uncle Dou-"

"No real names or familial references."

"Yes, Firefighter."

Her uncle, Firefighter. Technically one of Zalcien's less known Heroes, mostly sent on rescue missions or small-time Villain attacks, but actually one of the core members of the Union there. He was among the eldest still active Heroes in Zalcien - despite only being in his mid-forties - and most of the others looked up to him - or at least acknowledged his input.

His costume was simple : a red and blue bodysuit with yellow gauntlets, boots, chest piece, and helmet - mask included, looking like a welder's mask with two different holes for the eyes instead of a singular line, the glass being tinted blue.

"Come on, you're the one who insisted on becoming a Hero. It's an incredibly rewarding job but it has a lot of responsibilities. Not everyone wants you to stay safe."

"I know, I know. I was just... Thinking about... How... Maybe..."

Firefighter put his hand on her shoulder.

"Second thoughts? The Hall does that sometimes. And seeing Heroes not as inspirational figures but a goal to reach can be scary. But remember : it's okay to fail. You can try more than one time and, if it's just not your thing, no one will look down on you. I won't."

"I was just thinking about how ugly the trainees' suit was."

Firefighter let his hand drop from her shoulder.

"Oh."

She chuckled, imagining her uncle's cheeks turn red behind his mask.

"But I needed to hear that too. Thank you, uncle Firefighter."

"What did I say Sa-"

"No names!"

"But you don't have an alias yet you'"

"Fighterboy! Already scaring the kids?"

Sarah and her uncle turned around to see Mecha Man approaching them.

"Mecha, I swear to Pyros and Aqua, if you call me 'Fighterboy' ONE MORE TIME I WILL DROWN YOU!"

Sarah laughed as her uncle and Mecha Man, two well-respected Heroes, began to squabble like children.

Yes, this is the life she wanted.