The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 254

Chapter 254: 254 | A Hero Doesn’t Get to Choose His Partners

That landed. I watched the implications process across twenty faces at different speeds. The Hero team couldn’t go in with overwhelming force because collateral damage might destroy the hostage. The Villain team couldn’t use the hostage as a shield or set traps near it because their own Aspects could trigger the trauma sensors. The hostage wasn’t just an objective. It was a shared constraint that punished recklessness from both sides equally.

It was, in fact, the perfect test of exactly what Mercy had spent the morning teaching us about accountability.

Camille spoke up from my left. "What counts as heavy damage? Is there a threshold?"

Radiant nodded. "If three or more of the hostage’s trauma sensors go red simultaneously, that’s a critical threshold. Both teams fail. No exceptions. No appeals." His jaw set in a way that made clear this was not negotiable. "A Hero who destroys the thing they’re trying to save is NOT a Hero. And a Villain who destroys their own leverage has already lost."

The afternoon sun sat lower in the sky now and the shadows from Ground Beta’s buildings stretched across the concrete toward us. The hologram continued its rotation, casting faint blue light across Radiant’s costume as the fake building revealed its rooms and corridors and the small glowing figure of the hostage sitting in its chair on the second floor.

"Teams." Radiant collapsed the hologram with a tap and reached behind his back with one massive hand, producing a cloth bag that looked absurdly small against his frame. "The teams will be decided by..."

He shook the bag. Something rattled inside.

"DRAWING LOTS!"

Caden’s groan was audible from six feet away. "Random? Seriously? What happened to tactical squad composition and complementary Aspect pairing?"

"Random is HOW THE REAL WORLD WORKS!" Radiant held the bag aloft with the enthusiasm of a game show host who happened to be capable of punching through tectonic plates. "A Hero doesn’t get to choose who stands next to them when the building goes down! You work with whoever is THERE! You adapt! You communicate! You TRUST!"

He extended the bag toward the nearest student.

"Each lot has a number and a designation. H for Hero. V for Villain. Matching numbers are teammates. H-1 and H-1 are a Hero team. V-1 and V-1 are a Villain team. H-1 fights V-1. Simple!"

"Simple," Marco repeated flatly.

"SIMPLE!" Radiant confirmed with zero acknowledgment of sarcasm.

The bag reached Camille first. She reached in without hesitation and withdrew a small metal disc, examined it, and held it up.

"V-3."

Her smile was the kind of thing that suggested the Villain designation suited her just fine.

The bag moved down the line. Theo drew H-2. Caden pulled V-1 and immediately began performing an exaggerated villain monologue about his plans for world domination, which Marco interrupted by drawing V-1 and high-fiving him with enough force to make Caden wince. Felicity drew H-4 and pressed the disc against her cheek like a good luck charm. Nyx drew V-5 with an expression that communicated she had been born for villainy and had merely been waiting for institutional permission to pursue it.

Percy drew H-3 and showed me the disc with wide eyes. Rina drew H-5 and clutched the disc with both hands.

The bag reached me.

I put my hand inside. The remaining discs rattled against my gloved fingers, cool metal against reinforced fabric. My hundred-point Intelligence processed the remaining probability distribution in the time it took to close my hand around a disc and withdraw it.

I opened my palm.

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