93- What is a Hero

Mason got a personal tour of nearly the entire mansion, with only the more sensitive areas beneath the mansion not explored. Not that Mason minded, he did not feel the need to see the Cerebro with his own eyes.

That did not stop the visit from being insightful either. Not only did he get to discover the grounds, but he also got a good impression of the roster of the X-Men.

Finally, it was only at noon, for lunch, that Audrey freed herself and joined Mason.

The two of them sat by the small artificial lake, Audrey having brought her lunch from the cafeteria. When she arrived, the first thing she asked was, "Did you figure things out with Professor Logan? You better, he’s a really good teacher!"

Mason chuckled, waved for her to come sit beside him, and only when she faux-reluctantly did so did he reassure her, "Of course I did. I don’t know if we will ever become friends, but he no longer wants to slice me up."

Audrey finally looked relieved and asked, "What was that all about anyway?"

Mason gazed at the lake, not really feeling like talking about it. "Grown-up matters. It’s complicated."

But Audrey was not so easily fooled, and she immediately guessed, "It has something to do with that order of demonic ninjas you were fighting, wasn’t it? And you don’t want to talk about it because you don’t want to speak about our fight."

Mason paused before snorting, "Well, aren’t you a sharp one."

Audrey lifted her chin proudly, "It’s in the family. It unfortunately skipped the middle child."

Mason flicked her forehead with enough force to make her yelp, and said, "You’re right, I wanted to avoid the subject, but since you are so intent on addressing it, let’s."

Audrey, who was about to complain about the flick, slowly lowered her hand and muttered, "I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I don’t really hate you. I was just mad. And my power, it kinda feeds my emotions. Mostly pride, but anger also."

"That sounds like something you will have to work on, and incidentally, something I can help you with. But we’ll return to the matter of your powers later. First, of course I know that. And I never blamed you. I did not leave because I was angry with you, I left because I had to stop that demon."

Audrey stabbed her salad with her fork and added, "Good. But that does not mean I agree with what you did. And I remember what you said. That those ninjas were being possessed by a demon. But that still does not make it right."

Had it been any other teenager, Mason would have ignored them, but this was his sister, so he patiently asked, "I understand your point of view. And believe me, I am glad you see the world this way. If I can help it, I would make it so that you never have to kill even a robot in your life. May I explain why I did what I did?"

Audrey was a little weirded out by the way Mason spoke, but she nodded nonetheless, so Mason showed her his hand and conjured Chi to it. As his hand glowed with a dark gold Sunfire, he explained, "This is something I call Sunfire, which in reality is Chi mixed with the Dao of the Sun. I understand that none of those terms mean anything to you, but what you should understand is that this represents the power of life."

He brought his hand down on her head, slow enough for her to see, and she did not even blink despite humans’ instinctive fear of fire.

And sure enough, as the Sunfire washed over her, she did not feel a single iota of pain, but relief instead. Those few hours of sleep she had missed because she was too excited to sleep, the scuffle in Professor Logan’s class, and the other classes after that- it was all washed away by the Sunfire.

Seeing her happy-cat-like face, Mason smiled and continued, "This is a power that is fundamentally incapable of harming living beings from our world. I am capable of lifting 10 tons today." She interrupted for the first time, "Show off."

Mason gave her a look for the interruption, but resumed nonetheless, "But if I covered my hand in Chi, I could hit a regular person with all my strength, and they would not even be injured, only knocked unconscious with no possibility of any health issues. It would do more healing than harm, actually. A crude way to heal, but a healing nonetheless."

He removed his hand from her head. "But when confronting beings from other dimensions? When facing that demon? It burned hotter than the sun. Now, I will spare you the grizzly details because it would do no one any good, but that was the kind of thing I was facing, and the kind of thing that threatened to take over our world. A being so revolting that life itself burned him."

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But Audrey still shook her head, sighing softly, "But Mason, you don’t understand. I never argued, or at least I did not mean to, that those ninjas were not good people. And if you ask me, although I would not have liked it either, you would have been more justified in killing them if they had been acting of their own volition than if they were controlled."

She finally looked up from her salad, and Mason now understood that she was more sad than angry or even disappointed. "I don’t know if they could be saved. But neither did you. You did not even consider the possibility that you might be able to save them, you considered them lost from the get-go. Trying to save them would have certainly been harder, but the hero’s way is never the easiest."

Mason was… stunned by the heartfelt argument. And quite proud too. Beyond their personal argument, Audrey had given him a true argument that showed her reflection on what it meant to be a hero. And it was right there that Mason understood Audrey had already found her way, and that Jean had been right about what she said.

Irrespective of Audrey’s mastery of her powers, she already had the conviction.

But being impressed did not mean he agreed. Still, he patted her head, smiling brightly and proudly, "And if you keep this in your heart, you will make the best hero of them all. And you are right, to a degree. Among the people I killed, there was one of them who was not controlled by the demon. A serial killer and super assassin who calls himself Bullseye. That man, I decided to kill because it was the easy thing to do. Something I do not regret, because I firmly believe, even today, that had I not killed him, he would have killed you."

"But could you say the same thing for all of them?"

Mason shook his head. "That’s the thing: I didn’t have to. They were already dead."

Audrey was taken aback, staring at him owlishly as he was not making any sense. "W-what?"

"I told you that demon was the enemy of life. It was incapable of controlling living people, so it had to kill them first, then twist their souls and control them that way."

"I thought I wasn’t supposed to learn about the grizzly details!" She exclaimed, her tone half humorous. And half horrified.

Mason was completely serious, however. "And I am sparing you those details. You’ve got to understand, Audrey, I was not fighting some super-villain. I was not fighting something capable of redemption. I was leading a war against an extra-dimensional demon who would have killed and enslaved billions had I not stopped it. Maybe what I did was not what a hero should have done, but that is because what the world needed was not a hero."

He gestured upward, towards the sky, "Considering you joined this school, you probably know this, but aliens are a thing. Now, tell me, were an alien to invade our planet with the express purpose of slaughter and domination, what do you think should be the correct response?"

Mason could see she was being swayed, but she still replied, "It depends on who you are. If you’re the army? Defend yourself at any cost. But if you’re a hero? The priority should be on saving, not killing. It’s just… I thought… I get that there are tough choices, responsibilities to be had, but I thought you would always be a hero. The greatest of them all. Solis."

Mason passed his arm over her shoulder, hugging her from the side. "And that means a lot. But that would only work in an ideal world. My purpose is to help others, not to be a hero specifically." In truth, Mason had not known those Hand ninjas had been possessed by a demon when he killed them. He did what he did to protect his family, but the argument remained the same, even with that in mind.

He hugged her closer. "But because I could not do it does not mean you can’t."

"M-me?"

Mason nodded. "You obviously have the conviction. And according to your teachers, you would make for a great one. Speaking of which, you still haven’t told me what your power is. Some kind of electricity or lightning manipulation?"

Audrey shook her head with a blush, pushing herself away from Mason. With a snap of her fingers, her hand glowed with a bright golden aura, which only then registered to Mason’s Divine Sense. And with said Divine Sense, he sensed how her Three Treasures were being strengthened by that aura in real time.Audrey explained, "Fame Empowerment is the official name. It transforms my fame into an energy source that can strengthen me, or be projected out of my body. It takes the form of this golden lightning." She spread out her fingers, and an orb of golden lightning manifested from her hand.

Now Mason understood what Jean meant. Exposure to the world was exactly what Audrey needed, as presumably, the more famous she became, the more powerful she could get.

Mason studied the strange energy curiously and asked, "Is it consuming your fame to power you?"

"Do you mean am I burning my ‘fame’ to empower myself? Then no. How famous I am determines the upper limit of my power, and how much energy I can use in one sitting, but it will recharge over time."

That sounded busted. Strong individuals tended to be noticed, and with how showy her power was, Mason could imagine how fast her power would grow once she got onto the field. And most importantly, it seemed to be one of those unreasonable powers.

Like the Hulk becoming infinitely stronger the angrier he got. What would happen if Audrey became famous not only on this planet, but throughout the universe? Throughout the multiverse?

Mason did not ask because he probably was not meant to know about the classifications of mutants, but he assumed his little sister had become an Omega-level mutant.

"And there’s no limit to your power?"

Audrey shrugged. "Not that I know of. But it’s hard to tell just how much stronger I can become. I was already kinda famous when I awakened it, so it makes it nearly impossible to calculate how much my power could increase. I’m mostly comparing it to my subscriber count nowadays."

Mason raised an eyebrow. "How is your channel doing? I imagine you are quite busy here."

"Not anymore than before, honestly. School takes just as much time, and I don’t have the school bus anymore, so I actually have more time than before. And although there’s a lot I can’t show, people are very interested in the mansion. I’m close to my second million."

Mason ruffled her head proudly.