Power Thief's Revenge [BL]

Hermes' heart sank. He stole Eirwyn's ability just through what!? A massage!?

'But how could that be? I thought I had to consume the DNA of others in order to gain their power?' 

The system read his mind, and replied telepathically in its monotone voice.

[I said absorb, not just consume. Think of your body as a sponge, Power Thief. Your skin is covered in pores, and through these pores, you can absorb someone's DNA through prolonged skin to skin contact.]

'So even a hug can work?'

[A brief embrace with clothes on would not work. It had to be full of skin to skin contact for at least a few minutes.]

'Oh.' 

Hermes was a bit disappointed, since the ways he can have skinship with others are very limited and often in an intimate context.

[So as you can see, absorbing DNA is more preferable using other methods. It is also preferable to have samples that come from within the user's body, not external. External samples like skin cells tend to be exposed to other substances, making them impure.]

'Samples from within…'

Hermes could almost feel steam coming out of his head as it overheated with wild thoughts. He had to get it from inside the user…

'But wait… If I had stolen Eirwyn's Rewind, then did I manage to heal his injury!?'

Just as he arrived at this conclusion, Eirwyn stretched his bent foot from side to side in amazement. 

"The pain… It's gone!" He exclaimed. "And my foot appears to be in proper form now…"

He tried to stand up from his chair without a cane, and then walked a few steps towards the door. His gait was awkward but…

He can walk properly now!

Hermes was also amazed by this, starting at his hands that just managed to heal someone from a curse that even doctors and powerful medics cannot cure.

But then….

"Ow!" The foot bent painfully again, and Eirwyn slipped.

He managed to hold on to the door handle, panting. "It's back… It must have been a fluke."

Hermes felt sorry, as he could not tell him that the true reason the curse returned was because the duration of his Power Thief ability had ended. 

He only experienced 3 minutes of freedom. It felt more cruel than not healing him in the first place. 

Hermes helped him back to his chair. "I… I have to go, Mr. Curacio. I'm so sorry."

He walked out of the HR office with his head down, feeling truly guilty. Eirwyn tried to call for him, but he was already out the door. 

When he returned to his cubicle, everyone was already busy trying to finish up their work for the day.

Hermes was thankful for that, as he needed some silence to let everything truly sink in. 

'Fuck… Is there really no way to cure Mr. Curacio permanently? I don't want to just keep stealing his powers just so he won't be in pain. What's the point? He cannot be in the field without his powers!'

The system replied. [Since this is a curse from a power user, you just need to either convince them to stop cursing Mr. Rewind or eliminate them. Which would be easy given your ability.]

'Eliminate…'

If he killed the villain responsible for this… Steal her power for a few minutes, then curse her heart to deform and turn itself inside out like she did with Eirwyn's ankle…

He can give Eirwyn's hero life back. And then Eirwyn can save so many people…

But could Hermes really kill for the sake of the greater good? He had never killed anyone. He could not even hurt those who hurt him.

His cynical side spoke again. 'You want to be a hero and yet you're scared of killing someone? That's why you're so weak.'

Hermes responded with what the village elders always told him. 'Kindness is not weakness.'

His darker self chuckled. 'Kindness without fangs is just being suicidal. You have the ability to be so much more. And yet you do not want to do the practical choice. You would rather hold on to your fragile dignity.'

"I said shut up!" 

BAM!

He ended up punching the wall next to him, making a huge dent. 

He had tried to keep that voice in his head down for as long as he can remember. It was worse when he was younger…

When the villagers found him at the edge of town, in the fields where no one dared to venture.

That place, which they call the Danger Zone, was close to a rift leading to the Void, and often creatures there manage to pass through. 

The villagers said that his parents lived close to the Danger Zone. But Hermes could not remember, since he was only 3 when he lost them. 

Since then, the whole Village AD18 took care of him. Everyone treated him like family, and they all took turns to raise him and give him a home. That was why he would forever be grateful to his hometown. 

But sometimes…

Sometimes he had nightmares and intrusive thoughts that scared him. 

Hermes covered the dent on the wall next to his cubicle with a small whiteboard. There, he wrote a reminder to himself:

'What separates man and beast is the patience to not fall to impulses.'

Those were the wise words that Elder Thales told him. He was one of the village heads, who raised Hermes the most in his tiny hut. 

He had no children or lovers. He spent most of his time alone, and there were rumors that he was a power user himself. And yet Elder Thales was a quiet and secretive man. 

He was always so serene and talked in a way as if he understood everything. He would smoke a pipe at night, watching the stars and teaching Hermes constellations. One time, he pointed at a constellation of Orion.

***

"Do you see that hunter over there?" Elder Thales asked little Hermes.

'Little' only in the sense that he was younger. But he had always been a big child, about twice the size of his peers.

"A hunter?" Hermes asked. 

"There." He pointed to the constellation, tracing its shape. "You can see him drawing his bow to shoot the beasts in the sky."

"Really?" Hermes looked at the constellation excitedly. "Then he is a hero!"

"Is he now?" Elder Thales asked. "But he hurts and kills others."

Little Hermes shrugged. "The beasts are evil anyway, just like those living in the Void. Heroes slay them to protect the humans."

Elder Thales blew smoke into the air, and said: "Then who will protect the beasts? Are they still evil if they do not attack humans? What if they were kind?"

Little Hermes did not know what to say to that for a while. 

Then he said: "But… They often kill humans to eat. That's how they are. That's what makes them beasts."

Elder Thales replied: "But we also kill to eat. We kill animals, we kill plants. Does that also make us beasts?"

"Then… What makes us different from beasts, Elder?" The little boy asked innocently.

He patted Little Hermes in the head. "What separates a man and a beast is the patience to not fall to our impulses. Everyday, we hurt others out of necessity. But once we start hurting them out of anger, out of greed, out of malice…"

He pointed at the giant scorpion next to the Orion constellation.

"Then that is when a man becomes a beast."