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Emergent (Legacy of Heroes Semi-Gamer SI)
- Thread starter Omega8520
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Emergent 1.1 - 1.4
New
Omega8520
Getting sticky.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2021
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Figured I might as well start a thread, now I've got to four chapters. Maybe it'll encourage me to write more of it.
Because what's the point of writing fanfiction if you're not writing about a niche game interest of yours that stopped existing over a decade ago?
Issue 1: School Daze
1.1
It was a hell of a thing to wake up to, and time hadn't made it any easier.
It'd been 3 days since I'd woken up in a crappy apartment somewhere in America, my body back to that of a teenager, and I'd spent most of that time freaking the fuck out.
In between stress induced breakdowns and periodic bursts of dissociation, I'd learnt a couple of things.
I was in the early 2010's, and not in my own world. The superheroes were kind of a dead giveaway on that one. The walls in my bedroom were plastered with posters of various superheroes and superhero groups, with the most prominent being the 'Genesis Squadron', who seemed to be this world's equivalent of the Justice League/Avengers, despite the fact that there were only 4 of them. Still, apparently they'd almost singlehandedly fought off an alien invasion (along with a guy called Aloysius Zeroth, who seemed to be kind of a cross between Lex Luthor and Batman, if Batman swapped out stalking the night for running the world's military industrial complex from his own private space station).
The city I was in went by the name Culverton, and was notable for the existence of the 'Phaeton Project', the world's first school for superheroes. Sponsored by the Genesis Squadron, it was (judging from the news channels the tiny, 10 inch TV that the apartment had would show) both the Squadron's retirement package and a way of training up 'the next generation of superheroes!' (read, stop superpowered teenagers from causing issues).
And, given the acceptance letter on the rickety table, when the new school year started tomorrow, I would be alongside the fresh-faced 16 year olds turning up to get the shite kicked out of us in the name of learning.
Thankfully, one of the other things I'd discovered is that I did have powers, of a sort, even if they weren't as straightforward and clear as I would have liked.
With a mental flick (that had taken me about a day and a half to figure out), I brought up my character sheet.
It wasn't a very impressive character sheet, to be honest. Apart from the fact that my name was apparently 'Norm L. Mann' (a fact confirmed by the acceptance letter), every single value on their being zero was not the most comforting fact when you're going to be starting at a superhero school.
The only other mental 'page' I'd been able to bring up was the quest one, and all that had on it was the quest 'Goal: Survive', a quest made all the more ominous by the phrase 'until the end of the world'. Not 'survive the end of the world' or 'stop the end of the world', just making it to the end would be enough to allow me to bail.
Still, it wasn't like I wasn't going to go to the superhero school. It had two strong things going for it. One, there was the draw of going to a school for superheroes, for fucks sake! Assuming that I figured out how these powers worked at some point, then this was the kind of opportunity people would have killed for, no way I could turn that down. The other thing going for it was the lack of any other option. A full sweep of the apartment had found the leasing contract (for one month, and it ran out tomorrow), the uniform for the Phaeton Project (spandex, with reinforced boots, gloves and shoulderpads, along with an oversized belt for, as far as I could tell, no reason at all), enough food to last me to breakfast tomorrow (if I was a fan of instant noodles), and a flip phone with no contacts. I didn't even have a wallet - no ID, no bank card, not even any cash.
Whatever had landed me here made the available options to me quite clear. At least the Phaeton Project had dorms, so I would have somewhere to live after this. If they provided food as well I was golden.
The day went in a similar manner to the last couple.
The TV (which had reception to roughly 4 channels, and they had a bad habit of changing depending on how cloudy it was) stayed on in the background, the news playing constantly in the vague hope I could pick up cultural clues by osmosis. World history didn't seem that much different to what I would class as 'normal', superpowers being somewhat of a freak occurrence and in the realm of myth until the forming of the Genesis Squadron brought them into the public eye. After that, it was difficult to tell if they became more common, more public, or simply better researched, but superheroes and supervillains definitely became more prominent afterwards.
Apart from half-listening to whatever was going on at the moment (apparently a villain called Sunder had robbed a bank or something), all I did was either engage in some form of mental breakdown (something that took up a significant portion of my time, although less as the days went on and I got slightly more used to whatever the fuck was going on), pace around the apartment, and make half-hearted attempts at exercising.
I'd considered going outside a couple of times, but felt like a breakdown in public might not be a good idea, so burning off my nervous energy at the situation was done indoors. Whoever was renting the apartment below must have hated it.
I was partway through another attempt at vainly trying to work off my anxiety by wearing myself out (along with the idea in the back of my head that I didn't really want to be the least fit super…kid? Least fit superkid in the school) by going through the exercises I could remember being good for this, consisting mainly of push-ups, sit-ups and crunches, when the box appearing in front of my face took my off guard enough that I lost my balance and collapsed. As I had just finished a push-up, I collapsed forwards. Good news, the box moved with my face. Bad news, the floor didn't. Picking myself up, and rubbing my now sore nose, I read the text floating in the air in front of me.
Well, that was something. Checking my character sheet revealed that yes, it had updated exactly as I would expect:
Testing to see if I could do anything with this new information was kind of a bust. I now had access to the 'Achievements' window, but that only had the two achievements I'd just unlocked in it, and nothing else. Still, that was something, as what had just popped up was the closest thing to a tutorial I'd had so far - legitimate advice that I could make progress. The fact that the first achievement was called 'Getting Fit, Part 1' implied there would be further parts, which gave me a goal to work towards. I was still flailing in the dark, but at least now I had a direction to flail in.
Testing my new 'Strongharm' stat was also pretty difficult. The implication there was that I was stronger, I guess? But I didn't really have any way of empirically testing it. Could I do more pushups? Maybe, but the number of pushups I was able to do in one go had been fluctuating all day, depending on how tired/motivated I was when I was doing them, so there was no way of tracking that. Could I lift more? I'd have needed to figure out how much I could lift beforehand, and there was no easy labelled weights knocking around. Was I tougher? The only way to test that would be to injure myself, and I wasn't that desperate for information, and again, I lacked a solid baseline.
All I could really do was take it as a win that I had earnt something, and hope that it would prove useful in the future. The card slot thing sounded promising, but no mental command (or verbal command - if anyone was listening in to me I'd have sounded mental, repeatedly loudly stating card related terms) seemed to actually do anything. Then again, the achievement page didn't appear until I actually gained an achievement, so maybe I just needed to earn a card somehow? Bah, this would be so much easier with a tutorial.
Shaking myself off, and rubbing my nose again, I moved away from figuring out how my powers worked to sorting things out for the next day, where, hopefully, one of the teachers would have a better idea around how it worked than I did.
Dinner was an amazingly balanced and nutritious meal of a vegetable flavoured off-brand Pot Noodle (or maybe it was on-brand, I mused, given that I had no actual idea if any of the brands were the same), followed by me getting my uniform out of the rucksack it had been kept, laying it out for the morning. Only one thing was left, and it was the first moral choice that I had to make. Did I make the decision that benefited others, or did I gamble on my own greed and desire?
"Sod it, I'm taking them." I muttered, standing on the bed to get the height needed to start taking the posters down. I had barely any possessions and no income, at least this way I'd have something to decorate a dorm room with.
1.2
Morning had me racing towards the Phaeton Project, dressed in my surprisingly comfortable costume, backpack containing my civvies, phone and posters bouncing as I ran.
Perhaps I'd made a mistake not scouting out the city in the previous days, as it hadn't taken me long after I'd left before I realised that finding the school would not be as easy as I'd thought - no giant signs or clearly marked paths. I'd expected the school to be fairly obvious, but that clearly wasn't the case.
Still, by virtue of the ancient trick of 'asking random people for directions' and doing my best to move quickly, I was able to make it to the school just in time to catch up to the back of the crowd waiting outside.
It was pretty easy to tell that the building was the place I was looking for, partially due to the crowd of awkward looking teenagers standing outside of the gates in uniforms (I ruthlessly crushed the envy and longing that I felt towards those who were being dropped off and hugged by their parents, I'd been an adult and capable of living on my own for a while now, treat it as moving to a different country and not a complete break from everything and everyone you've known) and partially due to how extra the building was.
Surrounded by skyscrapers, the Phaeton Project building sat in a patch of greenery and plant life. One level of the vaguely pyramid shaped building was entirely windows, and the path leading to the entrance was flanked by two golden statues, a golden globe suspended between them.
The entire display was just on the right line of classy vs tasteless; you could tell that someone had spent a lot of money on this place. I just found myself wondering if the windows were some kind of super tough advanced material, or if they had a stockpile of replacement windows that they went through whenever someone with superstrength got a bit too excited.
Given that I'd been running late, it wasn't surprising that I was the last one to get there. The older students (recognisable by their personalised costumes, rather than the generic base ones that the newbies were wearing) had separated into their own groups, leaving a small blob of apprehensive looking newbies, ranging from incredibly shy and awkward looking to overly eager and pumped up. I joined the back of the group, doing my best to keep my own nerves in check. On the one hand, I had less of an idea of what was going on than anyone else here did; at least they had the cultural background to know what was going on here and what would be expected of them. On the other hand, I had a significant amount of life experience more than the teenagers who I was standing by, even if I was physically the same age as them (oh god, hopefully I was already past the age where the hormones would be kicking in full force), and all I had to do was treat it like a job interview. I'd been in enough slightly awkward waiting about situations that I could style it out. All I needed was a cup of breakfast tea to sip from to occupy my hands and I'd be golden.
It didn't take long after I arrived for the gates to open and an older man in a suit stepped out. He looked like he was in his late 50's, but he was built, clearly having kept himself in shape. Angled cheekbones led down to a goatee, and the smoking pipe in his mouth added to the 'english professor with tenure' look that he exemplified.
I didn't let it fool me. This was Professor Helios, member of the Genesis Squadron, one of the world's first superheroes, and pyrokinetic extraordinaire. He used to run around in greco-romanic armour, hiding his 'secret identity', but he didn't bother anymore, mainly, from what I could tell, because he didn't need to. He had a combination of massive power and absolute control that meant he could make a wall of fire that could turn anything that touched it to ash, while someone standing next to it wouldn't even be slightly warmed.
Even just standing there in front of us, he commanded attention from his presence alone.
"Welcome to the Phaeton Project." His voice was rich and deep. He didn't speak loudly, but he didn't need to; all conversation had stopped the moment he opened his mouth. It made sense, if Superman (or I guess Green Lantern was probably the closer comparison, given how Professor Helios was able to shape his fire) started talking to you, you shut up and listened.
"For some of you, that is a welcome back. Third years, you will be with Moxie today, to make sure you haven't been neglecting your conditioning." Moxie, or Mo Xie, was a Hong Kong beauty queen before she gained the power to bounce bullets off of her skin and bench press tanks. The Wonder Woman analog of the group, her normal costume consisted of a leotard, boots, gloves, and a tiara. Not unsurprisingly, she tended to be front and centre of the posters I had featuring the Genesis Squadron.
"Second years, you will be with The Scarlet Tiger, to shake the rust off of off your fighting skills." I didn't know a lot about The Scarlet Tiger, some kind of tiger-themed wrestler, I think?
Both groups, roughly a dozen people in each, went off into the building, leaving the last dozen of us waiting in front of him.
"First years." He had our undivided attention. "If you'd follow me." It wasn't a question.
As he turned away and started walking, there was a moment of hesitation from everyone. With a shrug, I started walking after him, breaking the tension and causing everyone else to move with me.
"It is a common story that the Genesis Squadron have retired from saving the world to run this school." He didn't turn around, just kept speaking as he led us up the steps to the building's front door.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. We save the world on a daily basis by training you. Emergents have limitless potential, and can do great things, or great harm if left unchecked." There was firm conviction in his voice. This wasn't a man spouting a company byline - he genuinely and firmly believed in what he was saying and doing.
"This school will help you hone your newly emerging powers, and help you to be ready for any situation where you might be called upon to use them." He led us past rows of American-style lockers as he spoke, the twelve of us following him like lost ducklings.
"Whether that is to sculpt anything you can imagine from unbridled energy, flex muscles ten times that of an Olympic athlete, crack the sound barrier in your running shoes, or access the unused recesses of your mind to unleash arcane and mystical abilities." Wait, holy shite, this school also taught magic? Hell yeah, sign me up for magic lessons.
"Today will be your induction, where we will go through the basics of your life here at the Phaeton Project, what we expect from you, and what you should expect from us in return. The rest of the week will have a day dedicated to each of the four specialities that we class students under here. Your weekend, and most other weekends that you will have at this school, will be your own. From next week onwards, you will be joining one of the specialties here, and your schedule will depend thusly. Make no mistake, we will be expecting a lot from you, and we will push you in ways you had never thought possible. But in return, we will make you the best versions of yourselves that you could have ever dreamed to be."
By the time he finished talking, he had led us into a sports hall of some kind, with padded flooring and a number of doors in and out. He moved to the middle, and turned to face us.
"For those of you unaware, I am Professor Helios, and I lead the Firesculptors." Aha, that was where that stat came from!
"All incoming students will need to spar on their first day. It's the best way to gauge your abilities and test your potential." Wait, what? Just first thing first? Not even told where to put our things, just straight into beating each other up? I mean, maybe it made sense to tire us out first, I guess no one wanted anxious superpowered teenagers (sorry, Emergents) causing a problem, but it seemed a bit full on. A quick glance around the other first years showed a mostly similar reaction, although there were a couple that seemed very eager to get stuck in.
"Don't worry, no one will get hurt too badly." Professor Helios continued, face like he was giving a lecture at a university rather than telling teenagers to start a battle royale. "If you don't understand something, the automated training assistant will give you advice. Now, please separate out into the side rooms, and I will call you out a pair at a time."
I was immediately distracted from following those instructions by a number of pop-up boxes appearing in front of my eyes.
A cough from Professor Helios brought me back into focus, and I dismissed the boxes before following behind the pack of students heading off into separate side rooms. I'd figure out how those cards worked later, and maybe actually read the flavour text on them.
Still, the text on the quests and achievements had me suspicious now. Especially the one for joining the Phaeton Project. I don't know what the plan for me was, but it was very clear that whatever put me here clearly had some kind of plan, even if it was being communicated to me in the most passive-aggressive way possible.
My distraction had meant that I'd got to the side rooms last, even after the nervous looking shy kid. There were individual rooms for the each of us, small closet-sized things with a bench and a water fountain.There wasn't much to do while I waited, so I re-opened the 'Cards' window mentally and had a look at them.
I wasn't quite sure exactly why they were called 'Cards', as all I could see while looking at them was text, but that was hardly the weirdest thing about this whole situation. The flavour text on them was interesting, though. I didn't know who 'Dimetrodon' or 'The Cornerman' were, although I made a mental note to do my best to avoid getting in a fight with them.
The Abyss was easier - he was a member of the Genesis Squadron, their Batman, if Batman used magic and cloaked himself with shadow rather than wearing a bat costume.
The one that really pulled at my attention, though, were the Firesculpting ones. I'd previously assumed that when Helios was talking about what we would be capable of, that it was, not hyperbole precisely, but that we would be moving into whichever group best suited which superpowers we had. But from the sound of it, either pyrokinesis was a much more common power than I thought, or we could just choose to learn how to manipulate fire. And neither of those really meshed with how I thought superpowers were going to go - no one expected, I don't know, Spiderman, to suddenly be able to throw fireballs.
Still, if it meant that I could learn all four of the power sets that they taught here, I wasn't going to complain.
I spent a little bit of time playing around with the cards, eventually figuring out how to assign them to my 'Card Slot'. I could only assign the two Strongharm cards, and I eventually chose to put in 'Lesser Strike' over 'Lesser Block', semi-randomly if I was being honest. Without knowing quite how they worked I could guess that increasing Strongharm on attack would make me physically stronger? Would the block card make me tougher, or just better at blocking?
Once again, I cursed the lack of a tutorial. Even some time to experiment would have made me a lot more confident about exactly what it was I was doing.
After reading through the cards for the fifth time, I got up and started idly stretching, with no real clear goal other than the fact that I was vaguely aware of the fact that I should do so before a fight. It'd been over a decade since I'd last done any martial arts (probably when I was about as old as my body was now), and the only fighting I'd done since then had been Larping, which I had no doubt was very different.
"Norm, please come out into the arena." I was interrupted by a robotic sounding voice coming out of a tinny speaker in the ceiling corner that I'd not noticed. It took a moment for it to register that it meant me, and I immediately resolved to come up with a better name to use. After all, no one referred to Professor Helios using his real name (assuming that his last name wasn't actually Helios. It was unlikely, but given how superhero worlds tended towards nominative determinism, I couldn't be certain).
But what name could I use, I mused to myself as I stepped into the arena, the shy looking first year (what did they call them in America? Freshmen?) stepping out of one of the side rooms at the same time. I couldn't use a name that reflected my powerset, as I didn't really understand how it worked yet, and something like 'Achiever' or 'Growth' sounded dumb. Something generic, then? I didn't know what was taken, and I didn't want to sound too edgy…
"Jimmy, are you ready?" Professor Helios addressed my opponent, who had moved to take up a shaky stance on the other side of the field. It was just the three of us in a hall that looked like it was used to play basketball or five-a-side football when it wasn't used for teenagers to beat the crap out of each other.
"To fight?" Jimmy did not look particularly happy to be in this situation. "Okay… if the professor insists…" That part seemed more to himself than anything else.
"Norm, are you…"
"Omega." I interrupted. Ah, damnit, that was super edgy, wasn't it. Still, I didn't want to go around being called 'Norm' the entire time I was here - if I had to go by a name that wasn't my own, I might as well make it a cool one. Admittedly, it wasn't the best option, and maybe if I'd had more time to workshop it, I could have come up with something more suitable, but sod it, I liked it, and if I had to be called it for whoever knows how long, it might as well be a name I liked.
"I'm sorry?" A single arched eyebrow from Professor Helios made it quite clear that the question was really a very polite way of saying 'The fuck do you think you're doing', but I was in too deep to stop now.
"It's Omega. And I'm ready." And I was, to a certain extent. I didn't think my opponent really knew how to fight, which meant this spar would come down to 'Who was most willing to hurt the other person', so all I had to do was psyche myself up to hit them and not cower away from being hurt, and I probably had this in the bag.
"Very well, then. I will call a time out if I feel it is necessary, or if one side has achieved a substantial enough advantage that I feel that they have the victory. When I do so, you will cease fighting. Do you understand?" The tone made it abundantly clear that we had very much better understand, and I nodded along with Jimmy.
"Begin."
On his word, I moved forwards, bringing my fists to roughly just below eye level and my arms in front of my upper torso in some semblance of a combat stance. I could already feel it was wrong, any muscle memory that I might have once had of doing this long since eroded away, but it was better nothing, which was what my opponent was doing.
Steadily advancing on him, I got in range and jabbed him, his clumsy dodge barely moving him out of the way as I caught him on his chest, near the right shoulder. Despite my lack of decent form there was a solid thumping noise, and part of me winced in sympathy for the poor guy. That was going to come up in an ugly bruise.
His response of a wild swing caught me on the ribcage and stung, but not much more, and in response I popped him in the solar plexus, causing him to immediately double over.
"Halt!" At the professor's word, I stopped, immediately bending down to help my opponent.
"Up you get, come on. Bending over feels like it will help, but you need to straighten up, there you go." I coached Jimmy as I helped him stand up. Poor guy had clearly never taken a hit in the solar plexus before, the breathless wheezing a new experience. "Deep breaths, right down to the bottom. Your body is going to not want to do that, but while the short gasps hurt less, they'll make it last longer, so deep breaths, there we go." Once he was upright and focused enough to give me a shaky thumbs-up I stepped backwards, before turning to walk back to my starting spot. As I did so, I caught Professor Helios giving me an evaluating look, before turning to look at Jimmy.
"Mr. Brunden, are you able to continue?" Jimmy took a moment to collect himself in response to Helios' question, before nodding.
"I need to give it my all." I could respect his attitude. Not enough to not punch him again, I wanted that quest reward, but still, respect little dude.
As I got to my starting point, I turned back around again and got into my approximation of a fighting stance again. At Professor Helios' sharp "Begin!", I advanced on my opponent again.
For all that Jimmy wanted to give it his all, it turned out his all was remarkably similar to the way things went the first time. He blocked my first punch with his arms, this time, having copied my stance, but his own swing scraped off of my shoulder before I punched him in the face, his nose making a wet popping sound.
As blood began to piss out of his nose, I began backing up even before the cry of "Halt!" had reached me. I briefly considered advising him on leaning backwards to stop the blood getting all over the floor, but to be honest, I hated the sensation whenever I had to do that, and I was pretty sure the floor would be relatively easy to clean, so I just left him to lean forwards and make a small red puddle by his feet.
Professor Helios walked over to him and inspected it with a critical eye.
"Hmm, might not be broken, but best to go and see The Conservator anyway. Her office is just through there, second right." As Jimmy walked out, my attempt to say some kind of commiserating line was interrupted by the presence of another pop-up window.
By the time I'd dismissed it, Helios was looking at me.
"Well done, Omega, was it? Far be it for me to deny you a pseudonym, even if choosing one now could be considered a mite presumptuous. If you feel up for it, please return to your side room and we can see about getting you in against one of the winners of the other spars." I didn't really feel hurt or tired in any way, so I nodded.
"Sounds good to me, Professor." I didn't know if I'd get any other rewards for engaging in the fights, but the potential of it had me ready to go. Damnit, 3 days of boredom and I'm already whole heartedly throwing myself into the first Skinner box I find. Still, the lure of superpowers was a pretty good one.
With a couple of mental nudges, I put the 'Lesser Block' card into my new card slot as I walked back. I didn't know exactly what it would do, but I might as well go all out on my strongest stat, and just hope that punching people saved the day.
It wasn't long after entering the side room again before I got another pop up.
…ok, I was getting mixed messages now.
1.4
It wasn't long before I got called out again. My opponent this time was female, with long orangey-coloured hair. She smiled as she saw me.
"Yay! New competition!"
I was a touch taken aback. "Sorry?"
She bounced in place slightly. "Don't be sorry! The more we practise, the better we'll get!"
"Someone's eager." I shot a glance at Professor Helios after I said that, but he seemed completely unbothered.
I put my hands back up in their ready position. It seemed firmer, but I couldn't tell if that was from the new card I'd just equipped or from an increased sense of confidence at winning a fight.
"Sally, are you ready?" The professor asked; Sally responded with an enthusiastic nod.
"Omega, are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be." I answered dryly.
"You may begin." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sally practically threw herself at me, making up for a lack of skill with sheer energy.
I couldn't help but flinch at the sight of someone charging me, which allowed her to close the distance. As she got closer, I just reacted, and went for a straightforwards forward kick, hoping to slow her down or make her dodge before she collided with me. Unfortunately for me, she hadn't really planned on what would happen when she actually got to me. Unfortunately for her, this resulted in her running directly into my foot as I kicked out.
The impact clearly winded her, but didn't actually stop her momentum. As I was only standing on one foot at the moment, it was enough to break my balance, sending me toppling over backwards. Sally's momentum kept her going towards, and to stop her falling on top of me I straightened my now-bent leg and pushed off with the foot that was still on her sternum.
Since we were both falling at the time, this acted as quite an effective pivot. I rolled backwards as I impacted the floor and sent Sally flying over my head to hit the floor with a dull thump somewhere behind me.
While I would like to say that I impressively rolled to my feet, what actually happened was I laid in place for a second catching my breath before scrambling up. I had felt the impact all of the way through my back and shoulder blades, severely out of practice with my fall breaks.
Thankfully, my opponent had taken it worse, and was very slowly getting onto her hands and knees, breathing heavily.
"Are you good to continue, Sally?" I heard Helios ask. A small part of me was a little miffed that he didn't ask me how I was doing, but to be fair, I'd very clearly come out of that exchange the winner there. For a start, I'd managed to get to my feet. The rational part of my brain recognised that I was just being bitter and salty because my back hurt.
Sally struggled to her feet, but nodded confidently at Professor Helios.
"Come on!" She said to me, "The professors are watching. This is our chance to impress them!"
I looked around, but yup, only Professor Helios was in the room watching us. Were we being recorded, or did she mean 'the professors' in a general sense? Eh, whatever, if she wanted to put her all in to impress, who was I to stop her? I mean, the guy fighting her, but that was semantics.
I nodded to her. "Alright, better give it your all." She perked up at that, and when Helios said "Begin!", she once again practically flung herself at me.
Expecting it this time, I dropped into a crouch, shoulder forwards, and caught one of her legs as she rushed in. It was an awful attempt at a rugby tackle, but given that she wasn't expecting it at all, it still worked, and I dragged the pair of us to the floor.
The floorbound grapple (well, tussle really) was vicious but short-lived, and ended up with me having taken a knee to the lower ribs but her on her back, me straddling her, one leg pinning down each of her arms and the side of my forearm pressed against her throat.
I waited for the professors' "Halt!" before I moved, rolling off of her before getting to my feet. She was still lying on the floor, flushed and sweaty, so I offered her a hand up.
She stared at it for a couple of seconds before grasping it, and I hauled her up to her feet.
"Good fight." I said. "You almost had me that first time." I didn't know if it was quite true, but even if it wasn't, I didn't want to be 'that guy'.
Sally nodded. "Same, you were good! The girl I fought first just kind of collapsed when I got to her."
I shrugged, but any retort I was going to make was cut off.
"Congratulations, the both of you. However, I am declaring Omega the winner of that spar. Sally, how do you feel? Do you think you should go to see The Conservator, or would you like to remain for another spar?"
She considered for a moment. "I think I should be ok, thank you!" Fuck me was that girl chirpy.
Professor Helios then turned to me. "Omega, well done. Would you like to go and see The Conservator, or stay for another spar?"
I had to ask. "The Conservator?"
Sally practically jumped at the chance. "Ooh, she's a superhero nurse! The Phaeton Project hired her as the school nurse!"
I blinked twice. "Is she a superhero who is also a nurse, or does she have, like, nursing based superpowers?"
The ghost of a smile flickered across Professor Helios' face. "The former, I'm afraid. If there was someone out there with nursing-based powers, there would no doubt be a great many people bidding for their services. Although I'm sure that Aloysius could probably beat most of them."
I guess healing powers weren't really that common. Good to know, best to avoid getting the shite kicked out of me too badly (although, to be fair, I was planning on that anyway). That said, while I was a bit bruised and battered from that fight, I was pretty sure I had another fight in me. Part of me wanted to keep going for the quest, part of me wanted to keep going for my own ego, part of me wanted to keep going out of stubbornness, and part of me wanted to keep going out of the sheer sense of enjoyment I was getting out of being able to fight with superpowers (even if those powers were vague and undefined at the moment). Between them, they were able to overrule the parts of me worried about getting brain damage, being sore, and just generally being anxious.
"Sure, I'll stay for another spar then, why not." A superhero school probably had pretty good medical care even without super-healers, given the potential kinds of accidents that could happen here.
Professor Helios accepted us staying with equanimity, and simply directed us back to the side rooms. I didn't stay there for very long, though, as maybe five minutes later I was called out again. I got up from where I'd been loosely stretching to avoid stiffening up and walked out.
This time my opponent was a lanky guy, slightly built in a way that suggested doing a lot of sports rather than deliberately working out, with a cocky smile on his face that only grew when he saw me.
"They want us to spar? Sorry - guess they think taking a loss will be good for you."
I paused my walk, and just looked at him. I kept the stare up long enough for him to start to fidget slightly, and then started walking again. Alright, now I really wanted to win this fight. Spite, the great motivator.
Helios was looking at the pair of us as I got to my starting point, his face impassive. That was not a guy I wanted to play poker against. I mean, especially not now, given I was broke, but still, not the point.
"Omega, are you ready?"
I nodded. "Good to go."
He turned to my opponent. "Simon, are you ready?"
Simon grinned. "I was born ready." My desire to punch him in the face grew.
"When I call halt, both of you will stop fighting." Helios waited for us both to signal agreement before continuing. "This will be the last spar of the day, and I expect both of you to be able to walk to The Conservator afterwards. Begin."
I took me a second before I had actually registered we had started, the professor saying it so casually, but I started moving towards Simon as he went for me. It was a lot more of a cautious fight than the previous two, neither of us moving particularly swiftly. For all his words, my opponent had also been in a couple of fights by the looks of things, and had his tender areas he was looking after.
After twenty or so seconds of semi-cautiously making prods at each other, I moved in. What followed was what I would like to call a masterful display of martial arts, but in actual fact more closely resembled wild flailing. Neither of us had any particular skill beyond the basics, so as we both repeatedly swung at each other, it came down to a combination of luck and being more willing to deal with the pain, as exemplified when his knee caught me in the upper thigh right as I cracked my elbow off of his jaw.
Simon collapsed as I staggered backwards, but he pulled himself up off of the floor before the professor could say anything.
"You got lucky that time! Let's go again!" Simon had barely finished speaking before he went in to throw hands at me again.
Much like the previous time, it wasn't pretty. It was two teenagers (physically, anyway) with very little training hitting each other in the hopes the other one gave up first. I didn't know exactly what skills we were demonstrating to the teachers here, except for maybe the ability to get beaten up for very little reason? Wait, this was a superhero school, yeah, that was probably a good trait to have here.
Eventually I got my leg behind Simon's and tripped him over, following him down by just fuckin' landing on him. Neither of us stopped fighting, but it was very clear who had the stronger position when my knee was pressed against his sternum. I was getting ready to drop my fist onto his face, his own fists slamming uncomfortably but not particularly effectively into my hips, when I heard the "Halt!" from Helios.
I pushed myself off of Simon (using the leg not on his chest, I wasn't an arsehole), and helped Simon up. He didn't seem as bothered about losing as I thought he would be, but to be fair, both of us were still struggling to breathe properly.
"That was… a good fight…" I panted out.
Simon made a vaguely agreeing motion with his hands. "Almost… had you there. Next time… I'll get ya."
I grinned at him. "Keep dreaming, pal."
"An excellent fight from the both of you." Professor Helios walked over to us and gave us both an approving smile. "The winner of this fight is Omega, but you both did very well."
I snorted, and then immediately regretted it, the movement making my ribs hurt. "We just kind of slapped each other like drunken baboons." Simon went to raise a finger in protest, but stopped halfway through. I couldn't tell if that was because he couldn't argue with the point, or because moving his arm hurt.
"I will admit, your technique could use some pointers, but training from The Scarlet Tiger will solve that. No, you both did very well as you showed the most vital trait for an Emergent. Willpower. Even when it hurt, even when it was a struggle, you pushed through. That is much harder to teach, and I believe the two of you will go very far in this institute."
Helios clapped his hands together. "Now, I believe that the both of you should go and see The Conservator, and from there, meet up with the rest of your classmates. They have been watching the third years train while waiting for the other spars to finish."
Sharing a glance with Simon, we both started limping in the direction of the nurse's office, although I did have to mentally dismiss another pop-up.
Sarky fuckin' thing.
Because what's the point of writing fanfiction if you're not writing about a niche game interest of yours that stopped existing over a decade ago?
Issue 1: School Daze
1.1
- Quest - Goal: Survive
It was a hell of a thing to wake up to, and time hadn't made it any easier.
It'd been 3 days since I'd woken up in a crappy apartment somewhere in America, my body back to that of a teenager, and I'd spent most of that time freaking the fuck out.
In between stress induced breakdowns and periodic bursts of dissociation, I'd learnt a couple of things.
I was in the early 2010's, and not in my own world. The superheroes were kind of a dead giveaway on that one. The walls in my bedroom were plastered with posters of various superheroes and superhero groups, with the most prominent being the 'Genesis Squadron', who seemed to be this world's equivalent of the Justice League/Avengers, despite the fact that there were only 4 of them. Still, apparently they'd almost singlehandedly fought off an alien invasion (along with a guy called Aloysius Zeroth, who seemed to be kind of a cross between Lex Luthor and Batman, if Batman swapped out stalking the night for running the world's military industrial complex from his own private space station).
The city I was in went by the name Culverton, and was notable for the existence of the 'Phaeton Project', the world's first school for superheroes. Sponsored by the Genesis Squadron, it was (judging from the news channels the tiny, 10 inch TV that the apartment had would show) both the Squadron's retirement package and a way of training up 'the next generation of superheroes!' (read, stop superpowered teenagers from causing issues).
And, given the acceptance letter on the rickety table, when the new school year started tomorrow, I would be alongside the fresh-faced 16 year olds turning up to get the shite kicked out of us in the name of learning.
Thankfully, one of the other things I'd discovered is that I did have powers, of a sort, even if they weren't as straightforward and clear as I would have liked.
With a mental flick (that had taken me about a day and a half to figure out), I brought up my character sheet.
- Character Sheet
It wasn't a very impressive character sheet, to be honest. Apart from the fact that my name was apparently 'Norm L. Mann' (a fact confirmed by the acceptance letter), every single value on their being zero was not the most comforting fact when you're going to be starting at a superhero school.
The only other mental 'page' I'd been able to bring up was the quest one, and all that had on it was the quest 'Goal: Survive', a quest made all the more ominous by the phrase 'until the end of the world'. Not 'survive the end of the world' or 'stop the end of the world', just making it to the end would be enough to allow me to bail.
Still, it wasn't like I wasn't going to go to the superhero school. It had two strong things going for it. One, there was the draw of going to a school for superheroes, for fucks sake! Assuming that I figured out how these powers worked at some point, then this was the kind of opportunity people would have killed for, no way I could turn that down. The other thing going for it was the lack of any other option. A full sweep of the apartment had found the leasing contract (for one month, and it ran out tomorrow), the uniform for the Phaeton Project (spandex, with reinforced boots, gloves and shoulderpads, along with an oversized belt for, as far as I could tell, no reason at all), enough food to last me to breakfast tomorrow (if I was a fan of instant noodles), and a flip phone with no contacts. I didn't even have a wallet - no ID, no bank card, not even any cash.
Whatever had landed me here made the available options to me quite clear. At least the Phaeton Project had dorms, so I would have somewhere to live after this. If they provided food as well I was golden.
The day went in a similar manner to the last couple.
The TV (which had reception to roughly 4 channels, and they had a bad habit of changing depending on how cloudy it was) stayed on in the background, the news playing constantly in the vague hope I could pick up cultural clues by osmosis. World history didn't seem that much different to what I would class as 'normal', superpowers being somewhat of a freak occurrence and in the realm of myth until the forming of the Genesis Squadron brought them into the public eye. After that, it was difficult to tell if they became more common, more public, or simply better researched, but superheroes and supervillains definitely became more prominent afterwards.
Apart from half-listening to whatever was going on at the moment (apparently a villain called Sunder had robbed a bank or something), all I did was either engage in some form of mental breakdown (something that took up a significant portion of my time, although less as the days went on and I got slightly more used to whatever the fuck was going on), pace around the apartment, and make half-hearted attempts at exercising.
I'd considered going outside a couple of times, but felt like a breakdown in public might not be a good idea, so burning off my nervous energy at the situation was done indoors. Whoever was renting the apartment below must have hated it.
I was partway through another attempt at vainly trying to work off my anxiety by wearing myself out (along with the idea in the back of my head that I didn't really want to be the least fit super…kid? Least fit superkid in the school) by going through the exercises I could remember being good for this, consisting mainly of push-ups, sit-ups and crunches, when the box appearing in front of my face took my off guard enough that I lost my balance and collapsed. As I had just finished a push-up, I collapsed forwards. Good news, the box moved with my face. Bad news, the floor didn't. Picking myself up, and rubbing my now sore nose, I read the text floating in the air in front of me.
- Achievement Unlocked
- Achievement Unlocked
Well, that was something. Checking my character sheet revealed that yes, it had updated exactly as I would expect:
- Character Sheet
Testing to see if I could do anything with this new information was kind of a bust. I now had access to the 'Achievements' window, but that only had the two achievements I'd just unlocked in it, and nothing else. Still, that was something, as what had just popped up was the closest thing to a tutorial I'd had so far - legitimate advice that I could make progress. The fact that the first achievement was called 'Getting Fit, Part 1' implied there would be further parts, which gave me a goal to work towards. I was still flailing in the dark, but at least now I had a direction to flail in.
Testing my new 'Strongharm' stat was also pretty difficult. The implication there was that I was stronger, I guess? But I didn't really have any way of empirically testing it. Could I do more pushups? Maybe, but the number of pushups I was able to do in one go had been fluctuating all day, depending on how tired/motivated I was when I was doing them, so there was no way of tracking that. Could I lift more? I'd have needed to figure out how much I could lift beforehand, and there was no easy labelled weights knocking around. Was I tougher? The only way to test that would be to injure myself, and I wasn't that desperate for information, and again, I lacked a solid baseline.
All I could really do was take it as a win that I had earnt something, and hope that it would prove useful in the future. The card slot thing sounded promising, but no mental command (or verbal command - if anyone was listening in to me I'd have sounded mental, repeatedly loudly stating card related terms) seemed to actually do anything. Then again, the achievement page didn't appear until I actually gained an achievement, so maybe I just needed to earn a card somehow? Bah, this would be so much easier with a tutorial.
Shaking myself off, and rubbing my nose again, I moved away from figuring out how my powers worked to sorting things out for the next day, where, hopefully, one of the teachers would have a better idea around how it worked than I did.
Dinner was an amazingly balanced and nutritious meal of a vegetable flavoured off-brand Pot Noodle (or maybe it was on-brand, I mused, given that I had no actual idea if any of the brands were the same), followed by me getting my uniform out of the rucksack it had been kept, laying it out for the morning. Only one thing was left, and it was the first moral choice that I had to make. Did I make the decision that benefited others, or did I gamble on my own greed and desire?
"Sod it, I'm taking them." I muttered, standing on the bed to get the height needed to start taking the posters down. I had barely any possessions and no income, at least this way I'd have something to decorate a dorm room with.
1.2
Morning had me racing towards the Phaeton Project, dressed in my surprisingly comfortable costume, backpack containing my civvies, phone and posters bouncing as I ran.
Perhaps I'd made a mistake not scouting out the city in the previous days, as it hadn't taken me long after I'd left before I realised that finding the school would not be as easy as I'd thought - no giant signs or clearly marked paths. I'd expected the school to be fairly obvious, but that clearly wasn't the case.
Still, by virtue of the ancient trick of 'asking random people for directions' and doing my best to move quickly, I was able to make it to the school just in time to catch up to the back of the crowd waiting outside.
It was pretty easy to tell that the building was the place I was looking for, partially due to the crowd of awkward looking teenagers standing outside of the gates in uniforms (I ruthlessly crushed the envy and longing that I felt towards those who were being dropped off and hugged by their parents, I'd been an adult and capable of living on my own for a while now, treat it as moving to a different country and not a complete break from everything and everyone you've known) and partially due to how extra the building was.
Surrounded by skyscrapers, the Phaeton Project building sat in a patch of greenery and plant life. One level of the vaguely pyramid shaped building was entirely windows, and the path leading to the entrance was flanked by two golden statues, a golden globe suspended between them.
The entire display was just on the right line of classy vs tasteless; you could tell that someone had spent a lot of money on this place. I just found myself wondering if the windows were some kind of super tough advanced material, or if they had a stockpile of replacement windows that they went through whenever someone with superstrength got a bit too excited.
Given that I'd been running late, it wasn't surprising that I was the last one to get there. The older students (recognisable by their personalised costumes, rather than the generic base ones that the newbies were wearing) had separated into their own groups, leaving a small blob of apprehensive looking newbies, ranging from incredibly shy and awkward looking to overly eager and pumped up. I joined the back of the group, doing my best to keep my own nerves in check. On the one hand, I had less of an idea of what was going on than anyone else here did; at least they had the cultural background to know what was going on here and what would be expected of them. On the other hand, I had a significant amount of life experience more than the teenagers who I was standing by, even if I was physically the same age as them (oh god, hopefully I was already past the age where the hormones would be kicking in full force), and all I had to do was treat it like a job interview. I'd been in enough slightly awkward waiting about situations that I could style it out. All I needed was a cup of breakfast tea to sip from to occupy my hands and I'd be golden.
It didn't take long after I arrived for the gates to open and an older man in a suit stepped out. He looked like he was in his late 50's, but he was built, clearly having kept himself in shape. Angled cheekbones led down to a goatee, and the smoking pipe in his mouth added to the 'english professor with tenure' look that he exemplified.
I didn't let it fool me. This was Professor Helios, member of the Genesis Squadron, one of the world's first superheroes, and pyrokinetic extraordinaire. He used to run around in greco-romanic armour, hiding his 'secret identity', but he didn't bother anymore, mainly, from what I could tell, because he didn't need to. He had a combination of massive power and absolute control that meant he could make a wall of fire that could turn anything that touched it to ash, while someone standing next to it wouldn't even be slightly warmed.
Even just standing there in front of us, he commanded attention from his presence alone.
"Welcome to the Phaeton Project." His voice was rich and deep. He didn't speak loudly, but he didn't need to; all conversation had stopped the moment he opened his mouth. It made sense, if Superman (or I guess Green Lantern was probably the closer comparison, given how Professor Helios was able to shape his fire) started talking to you, you shut up and listened.
"For some of you, that is a welcome back. Third years, you will be with Moxie today, to make sure you haven't been neglecting your conditioning." Moxie, or Mo Xie, was a Hong Kong beauty queen before she gained the power to bounce bullets off of her skin and bench press tanks. The Wonder Woman analog of the group, her normal costume consisted of a leotard, boots, gloves, and a tiara. Not unsurprisingly, she tended to be front and centre of the posters I had featuring the Genesis Squadron.
"Second years, you will be with The Scarlet Tiger, to shake the rust off of off your fighting skills." I didn't know a lot about The Scarlet Tiger, some kind of tiger-themed wrestler, I think?
Both groups, roughly a dozen people in each, went off into the building, leaving the last dozen of us waiting in front of him.
"First years." He had our undivided attention. "If you'd follow me." It wasn't a question.
As he turned away and started walking, there was a moment of hesitation from everyone. With a shrug, I started walking after him, breaking the tension and causing everyone else to move with me.
"It is a common story that the Genesis Squadron have retired from saving the world to run this school." He didn't turn around, just kept speaking as he led us up the steps to the building's front door.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. We save the world on a daily basis by training you. Emergents have limitless potential, and can do great things, or great harm if left unchecked." There was firm conviction in his voice. This wasn't a man spouting a company byline - he genuinely and firmly believed in what he was saying and doing.
"This school will help you hone your newly emerging powers, and help you to be ready for any situation where you might be called upon to use them." He led us past rows of American-style lockers as he spoke, the twelve of us following him like lost ducklings.
"Whether that is to sculpt anything you can imagine from unbridled energy, flex muscles ten times that of an Olympic athlete, crack the sound barrier in your running shoes, or access the unused recesses of your mind to unleash arcane and mystical abilities." Wait, holy shite, this school also taught magic? Hell yeah, sign me up for magic lessons.
"Today will be your induction, where we will go through the basics of your life here at the Phaeton Project, what we expect from you, and what you should expect from us in return. The rest of the week will have a day dedicated to each of the four specialities that we class students under here. Your weekend, and most other weekends that you will have at this school, will be your own. From next week onwards, you will be joining one of the specialties here, and your schedule will depend thusly. Make no mistake, we will be expecting a lot from you, and we will push you in ways you had never thought possible. But in return, we will make you the best versions of yourselves that you could have ever dreamed to be."
By the time he finished talking, he had led us into a sports hall of some kind, with padded flooring and a number of doors in and out. He moved to the middle, and turned to face us.
"For those of you unaware, I am Professor Helios, and I lead the Firesculptors." Aha, that was where that stat came from!
"All incoming students will need to spar on their first day. It's the best way to gauge your abilities and test your potential." Wait, what? Just first thing first? Not even told where to put our things, just straight into beating each other up? I mean, maybe it made sense to tire us out first, I guess no one wanted anxious superpowered teenagers (sorry, Emergents) causing a problem, but it seemed a bit full on. A quick glance around the other first years showed a mostly similar reaction, although there were a couple that seemed very eager to get stuck in.
"Don't worry, no one will get hurt too badly." Professor Helios continued, face like he was giving a lecture at a university rather than telling teenagers to start a battle royale. "If you don't understand something, the automated training assistant will give you advice. Now, please separate out into the side rooms, and I will call you out a pair at a time."
I was immediately distracted from following those instructions by a number of pop-up boxes appearing in front of my eyes.
- Achievement Unlocked
- Cards
- Quest - Win your first fight
A cough from Professor Helios brought me back into focus, and I dismissed the boxes before following behind the pack of students heading off into separate side rooms. I'd figure out how those cards worked later, and maybe actually read the flavour text on them.
Still, the text on the quests and achievements had me suspicious now. Especially the one for joining the Phaeton Project. I don't know what the plan for me was, but it was very clear that whatever put me here clearly had some kind of plan, even if it was being communicated to me in the most passive-aggressive way possible.
My distraction had meant that I'd got to the side rooms last, even after the nervous looking shy kid. There were individual rooms for the each of us, small closet-sized things with a bench and a water fountain.There wasn't much to do while I waited, so I re-opened the 'Cards' window mentally and had a look at them.
I wasn't quite sure exactly why they were called 'Cards', as all I could see while looking at them was text, but that was hardly the weirdest thing about this whole situation. The flavour text on them was interesting, though. I didn't know who 'Dimetrodon' or 'The Cornerman' were, although I made a mental note to do my best to avoid getting in a fight with them.
The Abyss was easier - he was a member of the Genesis Squadron, their Batman, if Batman used magic and cloaked himself with shadow rather than wearing a bat costume.
The one that really pulled at my attention, though, were the Firesculpting ones. I'd previously assumed that when Helios was talking about what we would be capable of, that it was, not hyperbole precisely, but that we would be moving into whichever group best suited which superpowers we had. But from the sound of it, either pyrokinesis was a much more common power than I thought, or we could just choose to learn how to manipulate fire. And neither of those really meshed with how I thought superpowers were going to go - no one expected, I don't know, Spiderman, to suddenly be able to throw fireballs.
Still, if it meant that I could learn all four of the power sets that they taught here, I wasn't going to complain.
I spent a little bit of time playing around with the cards, eventually figuring out how to assign them to my 'Card Slot'. I could only assign the two Strongharm cards, and I eventually chose to put in 'Lesser Strike' over 'Lesser Block', semi-randomly if I was being honest. Without knowing quite how they worked I could guess that increasing Strongharm on attack would make me physically stronger? Would the block card make me tougher, or just better at blocking?
Once again, I cursed the lack of a tutorial. Even some time to experiment would have made me a lot more confident about exactly what it was I was doing.
After reading through the cards for the fifth time, I got up and started idly stretching, with no real clear goal other than the fact that I was vaguely aware of the fact that I should do so before a fight. It'd been over a decade since I'd last done any martial arts (probably when I was about as old as my body was now), and the only fighting I'd done since then had been Larping, which I had no doubt was very different.
"Norm, please come out into the arena." I was interrupted by a robotic sounding voice coming out of a tinny speaker in the ceiling corner that I'd not noticed. It took a moment for it to register that it meant me, and I immediately resolved to come up with a better name to use. After all, no one referred to Professor Helios using his real name (assuming that his last name wasn't actually Helios. It was unlikely, but given how superhero worlds tended towards nominative determinism, I couldn't be certain).
But what name could I use, I mused to myself as I stepped into the arena, the shy looking first year (what did they call them in America? Freshmen?) stepping out of one of the side rooms at the same time. I couldn't use a name that reflected my powerset, as I didn't really understand how it worked yet, and something like 'Achiever' or 'Growth' sounded dumb. Something generic, then? I didn't know what was taken, and I didn't want to sound too edgy…
"Jimmy, are you ready?" Professor Helios addressed my opponent, who had moved to take up a shaky stance on the other side of the field. It was just the three of us in a hall that looked like it was used to play basketball or five-a-side football when it wasn't used for teenagers to beat the crap out of each other.
"To fight?" Jimmy did not look particularly happy to be in this situation. "Okay… if the professor insists…" That part seemed more to himself than anything else.
"Norm, are you…"
"Omega." I interrupted. Ah, damnit, that was super edgy, wasn't it. Still, I didn't want to go around being called 'Norm' the entire time I was here - if I had to go by a name that wasn't my own, I might as well make it a cool one. Admittedly, it wasn't the best option, and maybe if I'd had more time to workshop it, I could have come up with something more suitable, but sod it, I liked it, and if I had to be called it for whoever knows how long, it might as well be a name I liked.
"I'm sorry?" A single arched eyebrow from Professor Helios made it quite clear that the question was really a very polite way of saying 'The fuck do you think you're doing', but I was in too deep to stop now.
"It's Omega. And I'm ready." And I was, to a certain extent. I didn't think my opponent really knew how to fight, which meant this spar would come down to 'Who was most willing to hurt the other person', so all I had to do was psyche myself up to hit them and not cower away from being hurt, and I probably had this in the bag.
"Very well, then. I will call a time out if I feel it is necessary, or if one side has achieved a substantial enough advantage that I feel that they have the victory. When I do so, you will cease fighting. Do you understand?" The tone made it abundantly clear that we had very much better understand, and I nodded along with Jimmy.
"Begin."
On his word, I moved forwards, bringing my fists to roughly just below eye level and my arms in front of my upper torso in some semblance of a combat stance. I could already feel it was wrong, any muscle memory that I might have once had of doing this long since eroded away, but it was better nothing, which was what my opponent was doing.
Steadily advancing on him, I got in range and jabbed him, his clumsy dodge barely moving him out of the way as I caught him on his chest, near the right shoulder. Despite my lack of decent form there was a solid thumping noise, and part of me winced in sympathy for the poor guy. That was going to come up in an ugly bruise.
His response of a wild swing caught me on the ribcage and stung, but not much more, and in response I popped him in the solar plexus, causing him to immediately double over.
"Halt!" At the professor's word, I stopped, immediately bending down to help my opponent.
"Up you get, come on. Bending over feels like it will help, but you need to straighten up, there you go." I coached Jimmy as I helped him stand up. Poor guy had clearly never taken a hit in the solar plexus before, the breathless wheezing a new experience. "Deep breaths, right down to the bottom. Your body is going to not want to do that, but while the short gasps hurt less, they'll make it last longer, so deep breaths, there we go." Once he was upright and focused enough to give me a shaky thumbs-up I stepped backwards, before turning to walk back to my starting spot. As I did so, I caught Professor Helios giving me an evaluating look, before turning to look at Jimmy.
"Mr. Brunden, are you able to continue?" Jimmy took a moment to collect himself in response to Helios' question, before nodding.
"I need to give it my all." I could respect his attitude. Not enough to not punch him again, I wanted that quest reward, but still, respect little dude.
As I got to my starting point, I turned back around again and got into my approximation of a fighting stance again. At Professor Helios' sharp "Begin!", I advanced on my opponent again.
For all that Jimmy wanted to give it his all, it turned out his all was remarkably similar to the way things went the first time. He blocked my first punch with his arms, this time, having copied my stance, but his own swing scraped off of my shoulder before I punched him in the face, his nose making a wet popping sound.
As blood began to piss out of his nose, I began backing up even before the cry of "Halt!" had reached me. I briefly considered advising him on leaning backwards to stop the blood getting all over the floor, but to be honest, I hated the sensation whenever I had to do that, and I was pretty sure the floor would be relatively easy to clean, so I just left him to lean forwards and make a small red puddle by his feet.
Professor Helios walked over to him and inspected it with a critical eye.
"Hmm, might not be broken, but best to go and see The Conservator anyway. Her office is just through there, second right." As Jimmy walked out, my attempt to say some kind of commiserating line was interrupted by the presence of another pop-up window.
- Quest Complete!
By the time I'd dismissed it, Helios was looking at me.
"Well done, Omega, was it? Far be it for me to deny you a pseudonym, even if choosing one now could be considered a mite presumptuous. If you feel up for it, please return to your side room and we can see about getting you in against one of the winners of the other spars." I didn't really feel hurt or tired in any way, so I nodded.
"Sounds good to me, Professor." I didn't know if I'd get any other rewards for engaging in the fights, but the potential of it had me ready to go. Damnit, 3 days of boredom and I'm already whole heartedly throwing myself into the first Skinner box I find. Still, the lure of superpowers was a pretty good one.
With a couple of mental nudges, I put the 'Lesser Block' card into my new card slot as I walked back. I didn't know exactly what it would do, but I might as well go all out on my strongest stat, and just hope that punching people saved the day.
It wasn't long after entering the side room again before I got another pop up.
- Quest - Top of the Class, First Day
…ok, I was getting mixed messages now.
1.4
It wasn't long before I got called out again. My opponent this time was female, with long orangey-coloured hair. She smiled as she saw me.
"Yay! New competition!"
I was a touch taken aback. "Sorry?"
She bounced in place slightly. "Don't be sorry! The more we practise, the better we'll get!"
"Someone's eager." I shot a glance at Professor Helios after I said that, but he seemed completely unbothered.
I put my hands back up in their ready position. It seemed firmer, but I couldn't tell if that was from the new card I'd just equipped or from an increased sense of confidence at winning a fight.
"Sally, are you ready?" The professor asked; Sally responded with an enthusiastic nod.
"Omega, are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be." I answered dryly.
"You may begin." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sally practically threw herself at me, making up for a lack of skill with sheer energy.
I couldn't help but flinch at the sight of someone charging me, which allowed her to close the distance. As she got closer, I just reacted, and went for a straightforwards forward kick, hoping to slow her down or make her dodge before she collided with me. Unfortunately for me, she hadn't really planned on what would happen when she actually got to me. Unfortunately for her, this resulted in her running directly into my foot as I kicked out.
The impact clearly winded her, but didn't actually stop her momentum. As I was only standing on one foot at the moment, it was enough to break my balance, sending me toppling over backwards. Sally's momentum kept her going towards, and to stop her falling on top of me I straightened my now-bent leg and pushed off with the foot that was still on her sternum.
Since we were both falling at the time, this acted as quite an effective pivot. I rolled backwards as I impacted the floor and sent Sally flying over my head to hit the floor with a dull thump somewhere behind me.
While I would like to say that I impressively rolled to my feet, what actually happened was I laid in place for a second catching my breath before scrambling up. I had felt the impact all of the way through my back and shoulder blades, severely out of practice with my fall breaks.
Thankfully, my opponent had taken it worse, and was very slowly getting onto her hands and knees, breathing heavily.
"Are you good to continue, Sally?" I heard Helios ask. A small part of me was a little miffed that he didn't ask me how I was doing, but to be fair, I'd very clearly come out of that exchange the winner there. For a start, I'd managed to get to my feet. The rational part of my brain recognised that I was just being bitter and salty because my back hurt.
Sally struggled to her feet, but nodded confidently at Professor Helios.
"Come on!" She said to me, "The professors are watching. This is our chance to impress them!"
I looked around, but yup, only Professor Helios was in the room watching us. Were we being recorded, or did she mean 'the professors' in a general sense? Eh, whatever, if she wanted to put her all in to impress, who was I to stop her? I mean, the guy fighting her, but that was semantics.
I nodded to her. "Alright, better give it your all." She perked up at that, and when Helios said "Begin!", she once again practically flung herself at me.
Expecting it this time, I dropped into a crouch, shoulder forwards, and caught one of her legs as she rushed in. It was an awful attempt at a rugby tackle, but given that she wasn't expecting it at all, it still worked, and I dragged the pair of us to the floor.
The floorbound grapple (well, tussle really) was vicious but short-lived, and ended up with me having taken a knee to the lower ribs but her on her back, me straddling her, one leg pinning down each of her arms and the side of my forearm pressed against her throat.
I waited for the professors' "Halt!" before I moved, rolling off of her before getting to my feet. She was still lying on the floor, flushed and sweaty, so I offered her a hand up.
She stared at it for a couple of seconds before grasping it, and I hauled her up to her feet.
"Good fight." I said. "You almost had me that first time." I didn't know if it was quite true, but even if it wasn't, I didn't want to be 'that guy'.
Sally nodded. "Same, you were good! The girl I fought first just kind of collapsed when I got to her."
I shrugged, but any retort I was going to make was cut off.
"Congratulations, the both of you. However, I am declaring Omega the winner of that spar. Sally, how do you feel? Do you think you should go to see The Conservator, or would you like to remain for another spar?"
She considered for a moment. "I think I should be ok, thank you!" Fuck me was that girl chirpy.
Professor Helios then turned to me. "Omega, well done. Would you like to go and see The Conservator, or stay for another spar?"
I had to ask. "The Conservator?"
Sally practically jumped at the chance. "Ooh, she's a superhero nurse! The Phaeton Project hired her as the school nurse!"
I blinked twice. "Is she a superhero who is also a nurse, or does she have, like, nursing based superpowers?"
The ghost of a smile flickered across Professor Helios' face. "The former, I'm afraid. If there was someone out there with nursing-based powers, there would no doubt be a great many people bidding for their services. Although I'm sure that Aloysius could probably beat most of them."
I guess healing powers weren't really that common. Good to know, best to avoid getting the shite kicked out of me too badly (although, to be fair, I was planning on that anyway). That said, while I was a bit bruised and battered from that fight, I was pretty sure I had another fight in me. Part of me wanted to keep going for the quest, part of me wanted to keep going for my own ego, part of me wanted to keep going out of stubbornness, and part of me wanted to keep going out of the sheer sense of enjoyment I was getting out of being able to fight with superpowers (even if those powers were vague and undefined at the moment). Between them, they were able to overrule the parts of me worried about getting brain damage, being sore, and just generally being anxious.
"Sure, I'll stay for another spar then, why not." A superhero school probably had pretty good medical care even without super-healers, given the potential kinds of accidents that could happen here.
Professor Helios accepted us staying with equanimity, and simply directed us back to the side rooms. I didn't stay there for very long, though, as maybe five minutes later I was called out again. I got up from where I'd been loosely stretching to avoid stiffening up and walked out.
This time my opponent was a lanky guy, slightly built in a way that suggested doing a lot of sports rather than deliberately working out, with a cocky smile on his face that only grew when he saw me.
"They want us to spar? Sorry - guess they think taking a loss will be good for you."
I paused my walk, and just looked at him. I kept the stare up long enough for him to start to fidget slightly, and then started walking again. Alright, now I really wanted to win this fight. Spite, the great motivator.
Helios was looking at the pair of us as I got to my starting point, his face impassive. That was not a guy I wanted to play poker against. I mean, especially not now, given I was broke, but still, not the point.
"Omega, are you ready?"
I nodded. "Good to go."
He turned to my opponent. "Simon, are you ready?"
Simon grinned. "I was born ready." My desire to punch him in the face grew.
"When I call halt, both of you will stop fighting." Helios waited for us both to signal agreement before continuing. "This will be the last spar of the day, and I expect both of you to be able to walk to The Conservator afterwards. Begin."
I took me a second before I had actually registered we had started, the professor saying it so casually, but I started moving towards Simon as he went for me. It was a lot more of a cautious fight than the previous two, neither of us moving particularly swiftly. For all his words, my opponent had also been in a couple of fights by the looks of things, and had his tender areas he was looking after.
After twenty or so seconds of semi-cautiously making prods at each other, I moved in. What followed was what I would like to call a masterful display of martial arts, but in actual fact more closely resembled wild flailing. Neither of us had any particular skill beyond the basics, so as we both repeatedly swung at each other, it came down to a combination of luck and being more willing to deal with the pain, as exemplified when his knee caught me in the upper thigh right as I cracked my elbow off of his jaw.
Simon collapsed as I staggered backwards, but he pulled himself up off of the floor before the professor could say anything.
"You got lucky that time! Let's go again!" Simon had barely finished speaking before he went in to throw hands at me again.
Much like the previous time, it wasn't pretty. It was two teenagers (physically, anyway) with very little training hitting each other in the hopes the other one gave up first. I didn't know exactly what skills we were demonstrating to the teachers here, except for maybe the ability to get beaten up for very little reason? Wait, this was a superhero school, yeah, that was probably a good trait to have here.
Eventually I got my leg behind Simon's and tripped him over, following him down by just fuckin' landing on him. Neither of us stopped fighting, but it was very clear who had the stronger position when my knee was pressed against his sternum. I was getting ready to drop my fist onto his face, his own fists slamming uncomfortably but not particularly effectively into my hips, when I heard the "Halt!" from Helios.
I pushed myself off of Simon (using the leg not on his chest, I wasn't an arsehole), and helped Simon up. He didn't seem as bothered about losing as I thought he would be, but to be fair, both of us were still struggling to breathe properly.
"That was… a good fight…" I panted out.
Simon made a vaguely agreeing motion with his hands. "Almost… had you there. Next time… I'll get ya."
I grinned at him. "Keep dreaming, pal."
"An excellent fight from the both of you." Professor Helios walked over to us and gave us both an approving smile. "The winner of this fight is Omega, but you both did very well."
I snorted, and then immediately regretted it, the movement making my ribs hurt. "We just kind of slapped each other like drunken baboons." Simon went to raise a finger in protest, but stopped halfway through. I couldn't tell if that was because he couldn't argue with the point, or because moving his arm hurt.
"I will admit, your technique could use some pointers, but training from The Scarlet Tiger will solve that. No, you both did very well as you showed the most vital trait for an Emergent. Willpower. Even when it hurt, even when it was a struggle, you pushed through. That is much harder to teach, and I believe the two of you will go very far in this institute."
Helios clapped his hands together. "Now, I believe that the both of you should go and see The Conservator, and from there, meet up with the rest of your classmates. They have been watching the third years train while waiting for the other spars to finish."
Sharing a glance with Simon, we both started limping in the direction of the nurse's office, although I did have to mentally dismiss another pop-up.
- Quest Complete!
- Quest - Field Dressing
Sarky fuckin' thing.
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