The room could barely be called a gymnasium. Rusted pipes ran along the ceiling, dripping water onto the old, worn mats that were tiled in the center of the room. The crumbling, bare concrete walls were stained with years of grime. “Did I stutter? Boy, you had better start running before I come over there and beat your ass,” growled what could only be called a werewolf that stood in the center of the room. He was a mutant whose triggering and subsequent powers mutated them to synergise their powers and body better.Deciding I did not want an angry werewolf out to get me, I started running around the edge of the room. I noticed the other people running on the opposite side of the room. Eleven wore Black masks and were tired and lagging behind the four white masks. “Alright, now that everyone is here, we can start the orientation. Firstly, I’d like to give you the most important advice you’ll ever hear whilst working for us: Always Run at first contact with a super; we don’t expect you black masks to fight for us. That is what the white masks are for.” This got a few murmurs from the black masks; they hadn’t expected to hear that.
“Now that's enough running for now; you are going to want to be doing a lot of cardio whilst working for us.” the group sighed, groaning at the werewolf's comment, and began approaching the wolfman on the mats.”Oberon. Last I heard, you were locked up in Alcatraz.”
“Oh, you know me, Beowulf can’t keep me locked up for long,” said a cheerful voice from a flamboyantly dressed, lean man wearing a white mask.
Grunting at Oberon's comment, Beowulf said, “Now for the next part of orientation, a warning.” with a blur, Beowulf was on one of the white masks, a woman wearing a tight armoured bodysuit carrying a pair of knives. The woman, surprised, managed to block Beowulf's first attack, deflecting it with one of her knives and using her other to try and slash out at the wolfman, but it skated across his armour, letting out a scraping sound. Beowulf used the opening to close the gap between the two, slashing out with his claws towards the woman's stomach. The woman had expected her attack to go through Beowulf's armour and wasn’t prepared for the counterattack. Beowulf's claws pierced through the woman's armour, and she released a surprised gasp. They carried on into her stomach, slumping as the shock hit her.
“Now for the warning.”Beowulf said, “This will be your only warning: if you are a part of any of the corporations or hero groups here to spy on us, leave, and please, for the love of god, if you are a civilian who thinks they can spy and help the heroes take us down, Leave this isn’t a place for you.” the woman seemed to get a second wind. She tried to stab Beowulf between the neck and collarbone, but the wolfman just grabbed her arm and tore it off at the shoulder, spraying blood everywhere, and throwing it across the room. The tearing sound almost made me lose what little food I had in my stomach. Reching sounds came from my left as one of the other white masks hunched over; the young woman also almost lost her dinner. She wore torn jeans, a band t-shirt and a leather jacket. She looked up at me, and although I couldn’t see her face, her eyes glared at me.
Oberon started clapping and said, “damn, I've missed you, wolfie, always so intense, but underneath all that fur, you've got a heart of gold” Letting out a snarl that turned my blood cold, Beowulf threw the corpse of the woman at Oberon who didn't dodge as the body passed right through him and towards the other White Mask, a suit of power armour, the black power armour didn't move either, backhanding the body with a sickening crunch sending it flying towards the wall where with a splat it crumbled motionless on the floor.
"I forgot how annoying you are, Oberon. Perhaps I should remind you of old times,” Beowulf let out with a snarl. Just as I thought the two Supers would start a fight, the big double doors at the end of the room flung open, and two people stepped in. The first was a tall, muscled man wearing black military gear and a black mask. Next to him was a woman with raven black hair, a long black dress, and a Whitemask, which only covered the top half of her face. The lilac eyes that seemed to glow told me who was behind the mask: Esmerelda.
“Beowulf, you know the rules for fighting the newbies, although you will be in charge of training them,” Esmerelda said with a smirk.
“Emissary, how is my favourite empath?” Oberon said, trying not to notice the feral grin on Beowulf's face.
“I am well, Oberon. Please remember that you left us on less than amicable terms; with Hades' grace, you will be given another chance within the Hellions. You have a lot to make up for, and starting a fight in the orientation is not helping.” Oberon seemed to falter slightly, his jovial demeanour faltering.
“Now that you supers have gotten reacquainted, are we ready to move on to the last part of the orientation?”
“You are correct, Mr. Knight. I will be taking you two,” Esmerelda said, pointing at me and the girl beside me. Mr Knight will take the Blackmasks for the next part of their orientation.” Emissary motioned for us to follow her, leading us through the doors she came from and the winding corridors until the girl spoke up, “Why did you take me away from the last part of the orientation? You and I both know it was a combat test, not whatever you’ve got planned, and who is this boy?” she said whilst glaring at me.
“Now, now, Songbird. Hades wants to speak to you. “This surprised me: Hades, one of the most powerful Supers in New Halcyon, wanted to talk to her “, and he needs to see Dr Nocturne.” Song didn’t seem to accept Emissary's simple answer and kept staring at me until we arrived at an atrium. “Welcome to the Atrium, the heart of the Hellions base; here you can find jobs,” Emissary said, motioning to the right, where a group of Black masks were looking at a digital board. Although, as Whitemasks, you will be given specific missions you need to complete, you can take extra jobs.” Emissary led us through the Atrium and into a hospital. White walls and laminate flooring lead past an operating room and multiple hospital rooms. At the end of the hallway was an office. Standing at the back wall going over some X-rays was a woman with dark blue hair and a lab coat with grey scrubs underneath.
“Ah, Emissary, is this the boy you wanted me to fit with a set of augs?” Dr Nocturne said
“What sort of caveman are you to not have any augs?” songbird snidely remarked.
Ignoring Songbird, Dr Nocturn turned to me. “Seeing how you're a Whitemask, I need to know if any of your powers will affect your surgery.”
“Oh, uh, my regeneration will probably affect it.”
“Hmm, that will be a pain, but Regiblock should slow the regeneration. Any other powers?”
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“I don't know any of my other powers, so I can’t say if they will affect the surgery .”
“Alright, come on, Songbird, best not to keep Hades waiting too long; see you later, Dr Nocturne.”
Esmerelda and Songbird left the office, leaving just Dr Nocturne and me. “Right, might as well take the mask off now.” I hesitated. I didn’t know Dr Nocturne; she wouldn’t share my identity, not that it mattered much. I haven’t got any family that anyone could threaten, and I’m pretty sure Pete can handle himself. Taking my mask off was an odd feeling. I hadn’t worn it long, but felt like a second skin. I felt naked without it. Dr Nocturne didn’t comment; she just led me to an operating room, where she informed me of what she would do and said that she would fit an aug system made by the Mechromancer specially designed for supers with regeneration powers. It was more biological, like adding an extra organ to my head that works like an aug system. She couldn’t explain exactly how it worked, just saying it was tinker bullshit and that if she had to listen to Mechromancer try to explain it to her again, she was going to kill someone.
The operation only lasted a few hours, but I slept right through the night. It had been a long day, from waking up in a morgue to joining a villain organisation, and I needed a good night's sleep. Waking up in a hospital room was disorientating. Getting dressed in the clothes and mask left for me, I came across Dr Nocturne returning from the cafeteria. “Ah, you’re finally awake. You could have told me your regeneration was so strong I had to use enough Regiblock to slow your regeneration that most other supers would have had cellular atrophy and died twice over. What sort of regeneration do you have?”
I wasn’t sure about telling the doctor about the extent of my powers, but if anyone could help figure out the extent of my powers, it would be her. Emissary had said that being more knowledgeable would help, perhaps learning the extent of my regeneration. Also, possibly learning about how the human body works on the cellular level would help improve. “I, uh, my regeneration brought me from the dead”, I said nervously.
“Yeah, that would do it.” I wasn’t expecting her complete non-reaction. Everyone else I had told had at least reacted in surprise. She noticed my surprise. “What I’ve been around supers most of, yeah, your powers are unique in their scope, but I've met supers who could turn into light.”
“I was actually hoping to ask you for help with my power,” I said nervously.
“Now, that is something I don’t hear very often; most supers don’t want non-super help with their powers, so how do you think I could help you.”
“Firstly, the extent of my regeneration. I don’t really know how powers work, especially mine, and Emissary said that knowing how your powers work helps you use them better. Secondly, I was curious about biology, specifically cells.”
Nodding along, Dr Nocturne said, “I could see that helping; whilst it is usually up to the other supers to support the new supers in exploring their powers, I can ask Emissary if I could take over the task, but I won’t do it for nothing you’ll be my lab rat on a few of my more experimental drugs.”
Seeing the glint in her eyes, I began wondering what I had gotten myself into. “ Alright, when do you want to start?”
“Whenever you want, but I suggest you go to the cafeteria and get something to eat; if your regeneration is like most of the others I've seen, then you will need either a lot of calories or a lot of nutrients for your cells to regenerate.”
At that moment, my stomach decided to growl. Taking that as a sign, we quickly agreed that she would test and tutor me twice weekly and that I would be her guinea pig. The cafeteria was a part of the Atrium; it sat on the second floor, taking up a third of the second floor. It was bustling with people, mostly Blackmasks, but the odd Whitemask could be seen wandering about. I hadn’t expected much from the cafeteria, but I wasn’t expecting restaurant cooking, getting a simple breakfast of hashbrowns, sausage, bacon and eggs. I sat at an empty table.
Halfway through my food, three other people sat at my table. Songbird was the only one I knew, but the other two were young, around the same age as I was. “So you are our fourth member,” the well-built young man with blond hair wearing a simple hoodie and jeans said, holding a hand out for me to shake. “Sheildsmith, Tinker, and the name kind of gives away my speciality.”
Confused, I said, “Wait, what do you mean the fourth member.”
“See, I told you this was a bad idea; he’s an idiot who didn’t even have augs before he came here and probably has no idea what he’s gotten himself into,” Songbird interjected. That caught the attention of the young woman who looked up from her food. She had pink dyed hair tied up into a ponytail and gym clothes.
“Is that why you missed our first meeting? Songbird said yesterday you had to go see Dr Nocturne,” she said
I glared at Songbird, who proceeded to ignore me. “My triggering caused me to lose my augs, so I needed to get new ones.” Following Sheildsmith's introduction, I stuck my hand out to the girl. “I haven’t decided on a name yet. I need to figure out my power more, but it is regeneration.”
The girls took my hesitated but took my hand. “Jinx, I, uh, my power is Luck, although it usually gets me into more trouble,” she said with a small smile. I had heard of a few supers with Luck-based powers. Fortuna came to mind over in Atlantic City. She could cause people's luck to change, often catching criminals by causing them to get into accidents.
Songbird let out a huff but didn’t say anything. Sheildsmith saw as the introduction was done, “Sorry about her; Emissary placed you with us, saying that you were a newly triggered super and that being with other supers of your age would be better. Jinx and I joined on the last intake a month ago, so we are still training for missions, so she thought you would be a good fit.”
I hadn’t thought that there would be teams in the Hellions. It was more of a super thing to team up together, but it made sense; we were minions, not actual supervillains, and we were expected to help the actual villains with their plans to tie up the heroes so the villain could have their big moment or that was how I had seen it happen more often than not.
“We're going to have a training session after this. Do you want to join us?” Jinx said nervously
“Sure, the closest I’ve ever been to a fight is a drunk smashing a bottle over my face when I was young. Probably best if I get some training before fighting Superheros.” I said jokingly, getting a surprised look from Shieldsmith and a solemn nod of understanding from Jinx.
We made our way out of the Atrium and weaved through samey hallways until we arrived at a room similar to where the orientation was held. We decided that simple spars would be better at the moment as I had no fighting experience. It was easy to say I got trounced by everyone, especially Songbird; she didn’t go easy on me, using her better skills to grapple me, forcing me to tap out. It was an hour into getting thrown about when we were interrupted.
“Alright, kids, that's enough playing around!” Beowulf said, annoyed. He stood next to Emissary, who looked amused at Beowulf's annoyance. “You kids need some serious training, and you're lucky. Emissary asked me to help you personally, and I will get you fighting ready even if I have to beat you black and blue.”
Emissary approached me. “We’ve managed to sort out your identity; we had to make a new one, as bringing back your old one would flag too many corporations looking for that sort of thing” As she said that, a download came onto my augs, I was now Nathan Black, twenty years old, resident of District Twelve I worked and lived in Mega Complex Fifteen.