Riley’s heart was pounding.

She stood still, basking in schadenfreude. That look of shock and fear on Shane’s face as he clutched his newly-bruised cheek…she absolutely savoured it. What she wouldn’t give to have a picture of this…but no, taking out her phone now would ruin her momentum.

All term—all frackin’ term—the boy had picked on her relentlessly. Mercilessly. And now, when she finally had the nerve to fight back, it turned out he couldn’t even take one little punch to his stupid little face. Wimp.

Well too bad for him, because no way in hell was she gonna stop now. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips turned up into a malicious grin.

It’s payback time.

-~-

“OH YEAH!” Anger’s voice rang out across Headquarters. “IT’S PAYBACK TIME!!!”

He reached for the lever that would start the party, ignoring the quiet sob coming from the side of the room in response to his words.

The source of the sound had been Sadness, of course. Tears trailed down her cheeks from her closed eyes, and her arms were wrapped around her torso as if she was literally holding herself together. Beside her, Disgust sat with arms and legs crossed. She looked at the wall right in front of her face rather than the control panel and viewing screen, unable to stomach the proceedings. On Sadness’ other side, Fear was curled up in the foetal position, trembling.

Joy’s eyes were the only ones who paid attention, and they were heavy with resignation. Sitting with her back to the wall, Joy looked tired, as if she wouldn’t have been able to muster the energy to stand if her life depended on it, and yet she was still making an effort to console Sadness while simultaneously cradling her own injured arm.

Anger pushed the lever.

-~-

A small part of Riley noticed that she had drawn a crowd—not surprising given the level of traffic passing them in the halls. Good, she thought, Shane’ll be even MORE humiliated this way. She abruptly raised her fist, and felt another stab of perverse pleasure as Shane flinched away…

And Riley stopped.

-~-

Anger was having a hard time processing what his senses were telling him.

The lever wasn’t moving.

When he had pushed it, it had gone three quarters of the way up without a problem, and then just…stopped. He pushed again, and again, and the lever stubbornly refused to move any further.

As his efforts continued to fail to produce results, he began to open and close his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. There were no words for this; nothing like it had ever happened before. It was…it was…

-~-

Riley’s fist was trembling.

She stood still, teeth clenched, glaring at Shane, who was waiting for the hammer blow of her punch. And she didn’t strike.

She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. The desire surged through every fiber of her being, screaming at her to do it; refraining felt fundamentally wrong somehow. She want want want wanted it.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and held it.

-~-

If Anger thought his eyes were deceiving him before, he was nearly certain of it now. That was the only rational explanation for this.

As he began sputtering wordlessly in apoplectic rage, Joy gasped. At the sound, Sadness went silent, and Fear’s trembling subsided but for the occasional twitch. Disgust risked a glance in Anger’s direction, which became a stare of stunned disbelief to match Joy’s.

For she could quite clearly see that, despite Anger trying as hard as he could to push the lever upwards, it was slowly but inexorably moving down.

On its own.

-~-

One, Riley counted, ignoring the few audience members egging her on. Two, THREE.

And with an effort that made her feel like she was deliberately cutting off one of her own fingers, she turned away, lowering her fist and letting out her breath in a huff.

-~-

The lever slammed itself the rest of the way down, violently enough to throw Anger to the floor.

Joy’s mouth fell open. Disgust’s eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of her skull. Sadness, with much trepidation, turned and looked at Anger uncomprehendingly.

-~-

NO, Riley told herself firmly. THIS…

-~-

From his position on the floor, Anger’s eyes were fixed on the lever as he tried and failed to make sense of the past few seconds.

A few paces behind him, a secret compartment in the ceiling opened up and a robotic hand emerged. Joy’s eyes snapped to it immediately, opening even wider than Disgust’s.

Wh- What?! she thought. Since when do we have something like that?!

-~-

…IS NOT… Riley continued.

-~-

The robotic arm swooped down and picked up Anger by the back of his shirt, which caused him to start flailing wildly. Joy staggered to her feet, struggling to push back her fatigue, but she hesitated to intervene.

-~-

…WHO…

-~-

“Gyaaaaaah!”

Anger was whisked backwards towards a cage that had just emerged from another secret compartment, this one in the wall. Then he was unceremoniously dumped inside.

“Hey…what…?” His eyes were wide as he spun, looking frantically for a way out.

Joy stumbled towards him. She didn’t know what she would do when she reached the cage, but…

-~-

…I AM.

-~-

Joy was about halfway to the cage when the floor under it disappeared, dropping Anger into darkness.

“AAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!!!”

-~-

Riley opened her eyes.

I am better than this, she declared. I’m not like him. I won’t sink to his level.

-~-

There was stunned silence in Headquarters.

-~-

Riley wasn’t quite sure what she had just done, but she knew it felt good.

Well, maybe not good, exactly. More like, satisfying. Calming.

Calm. Yes, that’s how she felt. Calm, focused, centred. Zen-like, even. Her head was breathtakingly clear, her thoughts sharp.

Wow. I hope this doesn’t wear off, or if it does I hope I can do it again. I feel like I could write super-important tests back-to-back all day and still be just as relaxed at the end of it as I am now.

She glanced back at Shane, who was now looking at her with a rather confused hope, and asked herself whether she still wanted revenge on him.

Why bother? came the answer. Waste of time.

Cool, she responded. Wouldn’t want to be late for class anyway. Then she stopped talking to herself, because that was weird.

She looked around at the crowd, and asked, completely nonchalant, “Could someone please take this guy to the nurse?”

Without waiting to see their reaction, she pushed through them and walked away.

As Riley weaved through the bodies that filled the halls, she continued reflecting on her newly-achieved mental state, growing more confident by the second. Yes, she realized, I am more than my emotions. I’m not just any old animal. I’m human, and it’s time I started acting like it. Move over, limbic system; my prefrontal cortex is in the driver’s seat now.

She allowed herself to feel enough amusement from that thought to turn her lips up into a wry smile, before realizing what she’d just done.

I reflexively intercept emotional responses before I even feel them? Fascinating.

Suddenly, she was reminded of a certain pointy-eared fictional character who had a habit of saying that.

Huh. I was never really a fan before, but I guess that guy was on to something after all. I’ll have to look into that when I get home. She took out her phone and made a note to that effect, then continued on.

She suspected that she would be sentenced to detention for punching Shane, but she would bear it in calm silence; making a fuss would accomplish nothing except wasting even more of her time. It was not a punishment she expected to recur, since if Shane had not already been intimidated out of further harassment, her newfound ability to effortlessly shrug it off would certainly cause him to lose interest quickly.

Her smile widened. This, she decided, has been a very good day.

-~-

In a room inside a girl’s mind, an array of buttons, levers, and various other input devices moved seemingly of their own accord, while four anthropomorphized emotions looked on in mute horror.