From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

- G. K. Chesterton

Contents 1 Now... 1.1 Crey's Folly 1.2 Brickstown 2 ...Again 3 Author Notes 4 Footnotes

Now...

"It is no secret that the citizens of Paragon sing the praises of the Heroes who are actually helping the city. It is time they sang praises of YOU. It is time the criminal filth of this city feared the Reciprocator uniform and name once more!

"Pariah Flux and I are keeping our ears to the ground, if you are out doing what your responsibility dictates; if you are furthering the mission of the Reciprocators; if you are being a HERO, we will hear about it and see that our contacts treat you accordingly."

The note hung on the notice board, like an accusatory thesis packing ninety-five unseen brothers' worth of vehemence^[1]. Dutifully, Josiah scanned the patchwork of papers, memorising details. Lost dogs and past causes, be-on-the-lookouts and dusty notes of hopeful 'Have you seen me' messages given to the Reciprocators by grieving parents as much as years past. He took it in, committing to memory the faces, the names, the details, pre-empting the day's possible pitfalls by arming himself with information.

It was only after a long moment that his eyes settled on the note, put there by Heavy Mettle. A reason for pause, the note sat defiantly on the board as Josiah canted his head at it. An unreadable expression bore on his face, a sincere befuddlement, broken only by the arrival of another.

"Hey, Josiah," the voice asked from a mile away. "Been busy?"

Josiah shrugged -

Crey's Folly

He wasn't the Rose Paladin here. He wasn't even Josiah Holland here. He was Cape, he was Vigilante, he was Get The Hell Away, he was a Plausibly Deniable, or more tellingly, he was the sound of a gun being cocked. Crey's Folly spread out beneath him like a fetid puddle in a heat-stained swamp. There was the scent of death in the air; not the gore of a battlefield, nor the bleak sting of a murder. It was the death of something that had taken forever to die, a lingering and painful end.

It was a far cry from the haunting death that was white snow over mountainsides. But then, the nature of things was so different, from here to there. There, you'd hunt one man across twenty miles as he tried to escape justice because that was the only way to keep him from succeeding; here, you could walk around a corner and watch a gang war in progress^[2].

There, on the silo - another fight breaking out. You could argue that they weren't hurting anyone who didn't want to be hurt; no doubt the Freaks^[3] receiving the beating would be happy at the end of the day and the Freaks who gave it would have enjoyed themselves.

But the law's the law; Crey's Folly - Venice - was a restricted area, and Josiah was here to enforce that law that was so readily forgotten. If they didn't leave when asked, then Josiah would see that law was brought to bear in full force.

It was a fascinating kind of social alchemy. Josiah just had to walk up and say, oh, for example, "Excuse me, Gentlemen! I'm sure you're all aware you're in a restricted area - I'm asking you to leave quietly, now." and what was a brawling street-gang faction-fight suddenly coalesced into a territorial knife blade of neighbourhood responsibility, pointed directly at him^[4].

"Alright, then."

Josiah plunged forward. As one boot hit the ground the other pulled up, swinging out in a wide kick that claimed the jaw of a gunner. His arms spread behind him, like a thief kicking open a doorway, his swords, lengths of thorn and bone, rippled into existence in his hands. Blades flexed and twisted, and around Josiah in strands shot lengths of thorn and bramble. Black flowers blossomed, spreading their rich scent - a scent that eroded the consciousness and muted the senses. After that, there was only so much Josiah could categorise, could report; he could remember the elbows to the throat, remember slicing through metallic arms with swords. It wasn't that Josiah lost himself in the war, that some primal force of masculine combat took over - it was just that when you had thirty elbows flying in high speed, the only two you could really account for were your own.

And almost just like that, it was over. Rarely did a fight Josiah knew end with an extended slugfest between two factions; but Josiah didn't fight like one man. An army of thorns and vines, of branches and broken limbs, that slowly and silently grew, blossoming as they enjoyed their brief life away from Josiah. Nodding quietly to himself, Josiah only paused long enough to kick a rising stunner in the jaw - watching him crumple from the sudden hit, and turned to survey the bodies as the medical teleporters picked them up.

Fourteen prone forms; Josiah counted off, noting the order they fell in, reconstructing the fight in hindsight, as the medical teleporters whisked away their forms. Eleven, twelve, thirteen...

Fourteen didn't fade.

Josiah looked at the unconscious Freak. Normally, medical teleportation tech would transport the bodies straight into medical police custody - after all, they'd just been violently apprehended. Josiah looked up, around the area to check all the routes out, then down at the form as he gave a sigh and a shrug. One hand came down, to a wrist; another to an ankle. Up over the shoulder, the clank of metal digging into his shoulderblade - oh, that was going to hurt tomorrow - and the Freakshow was held.

Josiah tapped his boots against the ground.

Nothing.

Seems the Emblem of Bellerophon was not something that managed extra weight well.

Josiah sighed... and walked towards the ladder down, skirting the visual radius of the Rikti scavengers he saw. He'd come back for them - they'd keep for now. Patient and stead, Josiah paused, holding the Freakshow Stunner on his back, and looked down the ladder. No hand guards.

Oh bother.

Brickstown

Chad looked up from his paperwork, his navy scrubs still marked with water from when he'd put his foot in that bucket leaping over that orderly's misplaced gurney on the way to Mrs Bover's room. He laughed, spinning the pencil. Good times. Good times, far away from paperwork, far away from the mounds and mounds of forms he'd been filling out. Fortunately, he'd been able to score a quiet spot by reception where he could look important and enjoy the nods of people as they walked past, without having to deal with the hassle of being asked to do anything.

Of course, if he had to, he would. That was the way it was. You got out of the hospital when you could, but he only had half an hour between shifts, so... why not hang around for a bit, you know? Brickstown Hospital was, fortunately, not one of the busier ones in the cities - and at least he wasn't on televac duty. You wound up patching up good guys as much as you did bad guys, and when someone didn't make it, it was typically a good guy... or at least a better guy than most.

Chad twirled his pen, sighing. It was kinda sad sometimes. You spent all that time in medical school, then your internship, then your rotations, then you started work and you never really knew where you stepped over that line, did that defining thing that made you a doctor... he almost wished someone had handed him a certificate, had made it clear to him that he wasn't just a paperwork-and-catheter machine. Sighing, he looked down to his paperwork, the form that refused to make more sense no matter how long he'd been staring at it, hoping for another distraction.

Then the doors slid apart, the thump of loud boots and jangling metal

"Excuse me," the blonde man asked, gesturing with his chin at the elevators. "This man's been injured in a fight. I think he has some broken bones, a few lacerations, and he might be bleeding internally." Chad blinked in surprise as that raised, clenched fist emblem on the newcomer's chest marked in blue and green, was now streaked over with a long line of red.

"Hello?" Josiah asked again, canting his head as he leaned down, trying to catch Chad's eye. Training took over, and Chad bolted to his feet, running around the counter, as he called for a nurse. The gurney came up, and Josiah watched as the work of a hospital unfolded, setting down the Stunner on the metal rig. Wiping his face with the back of his hand, he felt the grime and the sweat of the Folly flood off him for a few moments. Good job, well done.

To another mind, leaving the Stunner was the right thing. Worst that could happen is one fewer bad guy. It was out in the Folly, too - who would know? You could fall down a chimney and die and they'd never find your body out there. It was a lawless place, a place with no consequences. What mattered was doing right in the end, right? Josiah didn't have to carry a two hundred pound jangling autamaton of metal and flesh across countless hazardous streets, through two sewers, beating off the stings of insects and dodging the maneuvers of strange Prussian soldiers. He didn't have to do it, so surely there was some reward to be had, some end goal, some recognition, if nothing else.

To Josiah, there was never any doubt, any wavering of conviction. What had to be done had to be done - because we make Justice a real thing with the works of our hands. And as he watched the doctors he smiled, feeling the water, the blood, the sweat, and the grime on his frame... and he gave a smile as he turned on his heel, walking to the door.

Chad looked up from the Stunner's body, already arranging the bones, knowing they were going to have to set things - best done with an unconscious form, after all. "Where are you going?"

"Hm?" Josiah paused, stepping towards the sliding doors. "Oh, I spotted some Rikti scavengers I should go deal with." He nodded, touching his forelock. "Good evening, doctor."

And for the first time since he'd donned those scrubs, Chad knew he was talking to him.

...Again

- and shook his head. "Nothing special. Same old, really."

*

"I swear to you, then," said MacIan, after a pause. "I swear to you that nothing shall come between us. I swear to you that nothing shall be in my heart or in my head till our swords clash together. I swear it by the God you have denied, by the Blessed Lady you have blasphemed; I swear it by the seven swords in her heart. I swear it by the Holy Island where my fathers are, by the honour of my mother, by the secret of my people, and by the chalice of the Blood of God."
The atheist drew up his head. "And I," he said, "give my word."

- The Ball and the Cross (1909), part II: "The Religion of the Stipendiary Magistrate", G. K. Chesterton

Author Notes

I wrote this on one morning where the temperature soared up so high I couldn't even run City in safe mode on my computer without it overheating. I wasn't planning on penning the story - I mentioned to Mettle that it felt masturbatory. Well, I guess I've done it so you can all tell me what a wanker I am.

In the end, writing for a character like Josiah, solitary, is tricky. He can come across as very naive, or very superior. He's not. He's an attempt on my part to write and roleplay what I call a realistic optimist^[5]. Really, Josiah needs a contrast; he needs someone to stand alongside who would have left the Stunner there, just for convenience, and who would, by just as much the story's telling, a hero.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Heavy-Mettle wrote like he spoke; the writing was hard and thick and it no doubt was felt two pages deep on the pad he'd used - a man who hollered without raising his voice, a man who yelled with the written word.
2. ↑ Josiah could track a salmon upstream through a river of ice - which made finding it in tins in the supermarket disconcerting.
3. ↑ Inwardly, Josiah repressed his desire to use some other term, to choose a non-perjorative to refer to these people Who Were Just Different to him. It was awkward dealing with people who insulted themselves when you sought to be polite.
4. ↑ Josiah could admire the Freakshow's sense of community, at least.
5. ↑ A real optimist is hard to write. You have to have a world like ours, a world where optimism is difficult, a world where bad guys win and good guys die like dogs, and then you have to set this character out in the world and have them be an optimist. Have hope, have faith, and create a better world step by step because they really do, honestly, believe in it. It's easy to be an optimist in a Disney setting or a Four Colour comic world. It's much harder to be one in a world that's not shaking your hand the whole way.