Chapter 7: Two Dinners, Two Truths
POV: Ben
Ben stands before two doors on the same evening, one hand raised to knock while the weight of choice settles into his bones like winter.
Maya's apartment in Brooklyn radiates warmth through windows that glow golden with kitchen light and the promise of someone who cooks with love instead of necessity. The scent of sofrito drifts through the hallway—garlic and cilantro and the particular comfort that comes from recipes passed down through generations of women who understood that food was just another way of saying "you matter."
Six miles away in Chinatown, Popclaw's penthouse waits in manufactured darkness, all reinforced surfaces and hidden chemistry, where death beckons with the certainty of withdrawal schedules and pharmaceutical desperation.
"Two worlds. Two versions of who I could become."
Ben knocks on Maya's door before he can convince himself that choosing warmth is weakness.
Maya opens it wearing an apron that reads "Abuela's Kitchen" in faded letters, her smile bright enough to make him temporarily forget about Systems and shadows and the growing list of monsters who need killing. She's pulled her hair back with a bandana that somehow makes her look like she's stepped out of a cookbook designed to heal souls instead of just feed bodies.
"Perfect timing." She stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and the contact sends warmth through places that have been cold for months. "I just started the rice, which means you have exactly enough time to help with vegetables and tell me about your day."
Maya's kitchen is small enough that they have to navigate around each other with the particular choreography of people learning to share space. She hands Ben a knife and points him toward plantains while she tends to chicken that's been marinating in something that smells like happiness distilled into liquid form.
"When was the last time someone trusted me with sharp objects without calculating whether I might use them as weapons?"
"My grandmother's recipe," Maya explains as she adjusts seasoning with the confidence of someone who learned to cook by watching instead of measuring. "She said food is just love you can taste, and anyone who comes to your table hungry should leave feeling like family."
Ben focuses on precise cuts while Maya talks about her thesis research, her volunteer work, her dream of opening a counseling center where Supes could learn to heal instead of just cope with power-related trauma. Her hands move with practiced efficiency, and when she laughs at something he says about his knife skills, the sound fills the small kitchen like music designed specifically for healing broken things.
"She believes anyone can change. Even monsters. Even me."
"What about you?" Maya bumps his shoulder while reaching for spices, the contact casual and electric. "What's your dream? When this is all over—whatever you're carrying—what do you want to build?"
The question hangs in steam rising from rice that's been seasoned with saffron and hope. Ben stares at plantains turning golden under his knife, wondering how to explain that his dreams died when he woke up in a world where gods wear capes and justice gets marketed like breakfast cereal.
"I want to protect people." The words taste true even though they're incomplete. "Build something that keeps the monsters from hurting the people who can't hurt them back."
"True. Just not the way she's thinking."
Maya studies his profile while he works, her empathic abilities picking up emotions he's not ready to name. When she speaks, her voice carries the particular gentleness reserved for touching wounds that haven't healed properly.
"I see it, you know. Something beautiful fighting to surface through all that storm-gray determination." Her hand covers his on the knife handle, stilling his movements. "Whatever happened to you, whatever made you so afraid of letting people get close—it doesn't define who you have to become."
Ben turns to face her, and for a moment the kitchen falls away. Maya's eyes hold the kind of warmth that makes confession feel like relief instead of vulnerability. He could tell her about the System, about shadows built from murdered Supes, about the particular necessity that comes from knowing which heroes rape and kill while cameras roll.
Instead, he kisses her.
Maya tastes like cilantro and possibility, her lips soft against his in a way that makes him remember what it felt like to be human instead of just playing one. She kisses back with the certainty of someone who's decided he's worth the risk, and for the first time since arriving in this world, Ben feels genuinely worthy of protection instead of just capable of providing it.
"This. This is what I'm fighting for. Not revenge or power or the satisfaction of watching monsters die. This moment of being seen and chosen despite the damage."
They break apart when the rice timer chimes, both breathing harder than chopping vegetables should require. Maya's cheeks are flushed, and when she smiles it's like watching sunrise happen in fast-forward.
"Good timing." Her voice carries warmth that has nothing to do with the kitchen temperature. "Any later and dinner would have been ruined."
They eat by candlelight while Maya talks about her patients at Vought—employees traumatized by proximity to superhuman violence, support staff who've seen too much and been told too little, security guards who've learned that enhanced doesn't mean stable. Her empathy extends even to the people who enable the machine, understanding that complicity sometimes comes from desperation instead of malice.
"She works inside the monster's belly and still believes in redemption. Either incredibly naive or incredibly strong."
"What about the Supes themselves?" Ben asks, genuinely curious. "Do you ever counsel actual enhanced individuals?"
Maya's expression grows more complex, hope mixing with frustration and professional confidentiality. "Sometimes. Mostly lower-tier heroes dealing with power-related anxiety or identity issues. The Seven... they have their own specialists."
"Specialists who probably tell them exactly what they want to hear about being superior to normal humans."
"Must be difficult," Ben manages. "Trying to help people who could literally crush you if therapy gets uncomfortable."
"Enhanced doesn't mean evil." Maya's voice carries conviction built from experience rather than theory. "Most of them are just... people with abilities they never asked for, trying to find meaning in a system designed to exploit them. The real monsters are the ones who convinced them that power justifies cruelty."
The observation lands with uncomfortable accuracy. Ben thinks about Juice Box, about Popclaw, about the growing list of targets who might have been different people in a different system. But Juice Box still chose to terrorize shopkeepers, and Popclaw still crushes clients who can't survive her idea of intimacy.
"Some monsters are made. Others just find systems that let them be themselves more efficiently."
Ben's phone buzzes against his thigh—news alert notification that he'd set to monitor police frequencies and emergency reports. The screen shows breaking news from Chinatown: police responding to disturbances at a luxury apartment building, multiple witnesses reporting screaming and what sounds like structural damage.
His danger sense explodes like someone just painted a target on his forehead.
"Popclaw. Something's wrong. This is either opportunity or disaster wrapped in emergency lighting."
"Everything okay?" Maya notices the change immediately, her empathic abilities picking up the sudden shift from warmth to predatory focus. "You just went from here to somewhere very far away."
"Friend's in trouble." Ben stands before he can second-guess the lie, already reaching for his jacket. "Emergency. I'm sorry, I have to—"
"What kind of emergency?" Maya's voice carries the particular concern that comes from caring about someone who attracts trouble. "Do you need help? I could come with you, or—"
"No." The word comes out harder than intended, and Maya flinches like he'd raised his hand. "I mean—it's complicated. Personal stuff. I need to handle this alone."
Hurt flashes across Maya's features—not anger, but the wounded confusion of someone who thought they'd made genuine connection only to watch it evaporate without explanation. She nods with the kind of careful dignity that makes Ben hate himself for choosing necessity over honesty.
"She's hurt. I'm hurting her. But if I don't go now, the opportunity might pass forever."
"Of course." Maya's voice stays level despite the disappointment behind her eyes. "I hope your friend is okay."
Ben kisses her forehead because anything else would be lies wrapped in affection, tasting the salt of frustration against her skin. "I'll call you. When this is over."
"Sure." But Maya's smile doesn't reach her eyes, and they both know he's just traded warmth for whatever waits in Chinatown's neon-painted darkness.
The subway ride to Chinatown tastes like copper and regret, Ben's reflection in dark windows showing someone who's learned to choose operational necessity over emotional connection. His phone buzzes with updates—police setting up a perimeter, EMTs on standby, witnesses reporting sounds that suggest superhuman strength applied without precision.
"Withdrawal episode. She's lost control, and someone's paying the price. Perfect timing if I can get there before the authorities figure out what they're dealing with."
Ben arrives to find chaos painted in red and blue emergency lighting. Police cars block street access while EMTs stage equipment for casualties they're not allowed to treat yet. The apartment building's lobby shows impact damage that suggests enhanced strength meeting normal human architecture, and the elevator bank echoes with sounds from above that make seasoned first responders look uncomfortable.
"Twenty-third floor. Right where she should be, doing exactly what withdrawal episodes do to people with enhanced strength and impulse control issues."
Ben bypasses police lines using fire escape access and shadows that seem deeper than they should be. His shadow—Juice Box's echo—manifests briefly to test structural integrity, confirming that the building can support superhuman violence but probably not for much longer.
Popclaw's apartment door hangs off its hinges like a broken promise. Inside, furniture that cost more than most people's cars has been reduced to expensive debris, and the walls show impact patterns that tell stories about enhanced strength meeting pharmaceutical panic.
She sits in the center of destruction, hyperventilating over a body that used to be her landlord. Mr. Chen—Ben recognizes him from surveillance footage—lies in a spreading pool of blood, his skull caved in by force that normal human bone was never designed to absorb.
"Rent dispute. Withdrawal paranoia plus enhanced strength plus financial pressure equals accidental homicide. Perfect."
"Ben?" Popclaw's voice cracks like broken glass. "Oh god, Ben, I didn't mean to—he just kept yelling about late fees and I couldn't think straight and—"
She looks up with eyes that have seen too much chemistry and not enough sleep, mascara running in tracks that map the particular geography of someone discovering they're capable of casual murder. Her hands shake as she stares at Mr. Chen's remains, enhanced strength made meaningless by the reality of irreversible consequences.
"She's vulnerable. Emotionally shattered, physically exhausted from Compound V crash, desperate enough to accept help from anyone who offers it. This is the opportunity."
"Hey." Ben kneels beside her with movements calculated to suggest comfort rather than threat. "It's okay. We can figure this out."
"It's not okay!" Popclaw's voice carries the hysteria of someone whose life has just imploded in real time. "I killed him! I actually killed someone! What am I supposed to do? Call A-Train? Call Vought? They'll bury me so deep—"
"They'll clean it up," Ben agrees, letting his voice carry false reassurance. "Make it disappear. But you'll owe them. Forever. Is that what you want?"
Popclaw stares at him with the particular desperation of someone drowning in consequences she never learned to calculate. Enhanced strength had always been the solution to her problems, not the cause of them. Now it's made her a killer, and the people who gave her that strength are the same ones who'll decide how much her life is worth.
"She trusts me. Thinks I'm here to help. Thinks I'm the kind of person who saves people instead of killing them."
"What choice do I have?" Her voice breaks completely. "I can't go to prison. Normal prison would be a joke, and enhanced-individual containment is just another way of saying 'medical experimentation until you die.'"
Ben positions himself behind her while she sobs, his movements careful and purposeful. In his jacket pocket, the paralytic needle waits—medical-grade neurotoxin borrowed from Sarah's hospital supplies, designed to shut down nervous system function without triggering enhanced healing responses.
"She was always going to hurt someone. Better it ends here, before she crushes more skulls during withdrawal episodes."
"There is another choice," Ben whispers, and drives the needle into her neck before the words finish leaving his mouth.
Popclaw convulses once—a full-body spasm that sends what's left of her furniture crashing into walls already damaged by enhanced desperation. The paralytic works faster than expected, shutting down motor function while leaving consciousness intact long enough for her to understand what's happening.
Her eyes go wide with betrayal and pharmaceutical terror as his shadow manifests—Juice Box's echo wrapping translucent fingers around her throat while Ben watches enhanced durability prove meaningless against precision neurotoxin and systematic suffocation.
"You were always going to hurt someone," Ben explains with the particular gentleness reserved for necessary cruelties. "Better it ends here."
Popclaw tries to speak, but the paralytic has stolen her voice along with everything else. She can only stare as Ben's shadow tightens its grip, enhanced healing meaningless when your nervous system has been chemically disconnected from conscious control.
When she finally goes still, Ben feels the familiar satisfaction that comes from successful hunts—cold and complete and more disturbing than the killing itself. This isn't justice. This is practical resource management disguised as mercy.
"Two down. Hundreds to go."
[TARGET ELIMINATED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 1,200 XP]
[LEVEL ADVANCEMENT: 3 → 5]
[SHADOW EXTRACTION AVAILABLE]
[COMMAND REQUIRED: "ARISE"]
Ben places his hand on Popclaw's cooling corpse and whispers the command that transforms death into tool. Shadows explode from her body like black lightning, coalescing into a form that retains her enhanced strength and density manipulation but moves with different purpose.
[EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL]
[SHADOW QUALITY: UNCOMMON]
[POWER RETENTION: 35%]
[MANIFESTATION DURATION: 8 MINUTES]
[NEW ABILITIES: ENHANCED STRENGTH, DENSITY MANIPULATION]
The shadow kneels without being commanded, empty eyes reflecting Ben's face like mirrors designed for studying monsters. Popclaw's echo wears loyalty like ill-fitting clothes, but the power flowing through its translucent form is substantial—enough to punch through reinforced concrete or bend steel bars into art projects.
"Stronger than Juice Box. Much stronger. This is what hunting enhanced individuals gets me—real power instead of just enhanced human strength."
Ben dismisses both shadows and leaves through the same fire escape that brought him, stepping back into a world where police lights paint everything in red and blue consequences. By the time emergency services breach the apartment, he's three blocks away and texting Maya with fingers that remember the weight of needles and the particular satisfaction that comes from successful extractions.
Had to help my friend through a crisis. Need some space to process what happened. I'll call you soon.
The message tastes like ash and tactical necessity. Maya's response arrives five minutes later—just three words that hit harder than enhanced fists.
Are you okay?
Ben stares at his phone while walking through Chinatown's neon-painted maze, shadows following at distances calculated to avoid detection. His apartment waits six miles away, along with the choice between becoming someone Maya could love or becoming someone strong enough to matter when the monsters wear hero costumes.
"She felt it. Her empathy picked up the exact moment I chose killing over warmth. Probably tasted like metal and winter."
In his apartment, Ben sits between his two shadows—weak Juice Box and stronger Popclaw—wondering if he just destroyed the only chance at normalcy he'll ever have. The System pulses with quiet satisfaction, blue text cataloging power gained and resources acquired.
[QUEST PROGRESS: BUILDING AN ARMY (2/5)]
[NEW SKILL AVAILABLE: SHADOW COORDINATION LEVEL 1]
[CURRENT XP: 45/300 TO LEVEL 6]
Outside his window, the city breathes with the rhythm of eight million heartbeats, most of them belonging to people who believe in heroes instead of understanding that heroes are just monsters with better marketing. Maya's somewhere among them, probably wondering why storm-gray eyes suddenly tasted like metal and betrayal.
"This is who I am now. Someone who chooses necessity over warmth, hunting over healing, shadows over light."
The resolution sits heavy in his chest like winter that's forgotten how to end.
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