Part 101: Side effects

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True to her word, Mirko hibernated for, like, 48 hours straight after the mission and got up only to eat, still half asleep.

This was generally the result of overdoing it-- she would just crash for a few days like this.

But when she finally woke up out of her fog, she was raring to go.

Hawks had left her a message on her phone to the effect of, "I'll patrol your area while you're taking a break. No worries."

Like she needed his help!

But it was probably better for the city...

She had a few messages from people wanting her to take care of a mission but nothing too major.

She watched the news while eating breakfast and lifting weights with the other hand.

No major activity...some minor villain attacks.

But the League didn't appear anywhere. Apparently they were true to their word.

Well, after that mission, they were probably lying low.

Mirko frowned.

She hadn't had much time or energy to mull it over till now, but the mission bothered her. It was too weird. Too unnatural. And incomplete. Like she'd told Hawks, it was a draw at most.

She scowled at the TV and clicked it off.

More than that, she, she of all people, had gotten trapped and lectured to by a villain! A villain!

The humiliation was crushing.

And then the exploding kid had said some salty stuff too, and she'd just let him. She never took anyone's crap.

Put it down to the crisis, she thought to herself, No one has the time to care about stuff like that when they could die at any moment.

Right, that had to be it. Normally she'd never have let that get to her.

Another thing she felt bad about, when she remembered it...was Miss Joke getting shot.

She should have been able to stop that punk. Why hadn't she noticed him get up? It was disgraceful!

Having a team really did just distract you. Always she was aware of everything around her because she never had to worry about anyone else getting in her way. It worked best that way. Look how sloppy she got when that wasn't the case.

She went up to her private gym she'd made sure was built into the top of her apartment and started kicking her extra heavy punching bags in annoyance.

"I am not selfish," she muttered to herself, "or self centered. Who does that freak think he's talking to? Endeavor?"

Then she caught herself. What was she doing thinking about that again?

She kicked harder and broke the chain off the ceiling... This happened so often, she just picked up a replacement chain and installed it with one jump, then she resumed kicking and punching.

"From the first to the last your poor cooperation with your team puts them in danger constantly. You're ungrateful if they help you and put them down if they need assistance... You've been the primary reason there's absolutely no cooperation on the Pros side... Everything you do is just for your own fame... It's to be expected of the shallow, superficial icons of the hero world to be selfish...but I gotta admit, most people try to hide it more. It's almost admirable that you make no effort to pretend to care about anyone else, but then, what does it say if you can't even fake that image for the sake of reputation? Kind of makes you a worse failure than before."

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