The chapter opens with a soliloquy about how important it is to protect children from the evils of the outside world before they leave them on their own. The narrator laments the fact that many heroes have stumbled across the enemy's lair. He laments that the new zero has let everyone down. The hero who stumbled upon the lair, the cavern kid, asks the hero if he's a hero. The cavern kid tells him that he doesn't have the power to jump into the deep end, and the hero says that he'll figure out a way to help the kids at the school. He tells the kid that the school is under attack, and that any hero not engaged in the fight is supposed to head straight to the school to save the kids. The kid says that the attack isn't a fight, but a massacre. He says that if the kid is too scared to be a hero, he should go back home and turn the news on because he is going to save all the kids in the school, not just the one who's been killed. He's not going to kill the kid, he says, and he promises to come back later.