After a small break, the two proceeded to hog-tie the man as Calvin did with the previous one. They found rolls of duct tape inside the room and made use of its reliable, durable, and sticky properties to properly ‘merge’ the man with one of the tables in the room.

They went through almost two rolls. Just to be safe.

‘Yeah, don’t anger Ina. Ever.’ He noted to himself, staring at the man who was now looking like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

After securing the man and making sure the room was clear, both of them scoured the room to look where their pockets were hidden. After a few crates smashed open and cupboards broke apart, they found the pockets inside the unconscious man’s actual pants pockets.

“Should’ve checked there first.” Ina muttered.

“Yes, thank you, Miss Hindsight.”

The two also found their clothes while looking for their stuff, bundled inside garbage bags filled with other articles of clothing. Calvin pulled on his power and instantly turned the room into blackness, the most privacy he could give while they changed. Although they were still coloured by his power, he did not want to risk getting his ass kicked in by his dear friend.

“I’m surprised they didn’t take any of our stuff.” Calvin said, looking through the items in his pocket. Even the food he had saved was still inside.

“What do you mean? They haven’t had it for more than a day, of course they haven’t broken through the binding.”

“What binding?”

“Are you— no, you’re actually serious.” Ina sighed. “Not the time for this. Just be grateful your pocket probably has something that’ll stop people from pulling stuff out.”

“I am grateful.” He looked down at his shirt, feeling the upgrade from his beloved ‘plain white shirt’.

Super Help

Plain White Shirt A piece of armor designed by it's creator to hide in plain sight. Automatically conforms to the Super's preferred dimensions and enhances the Super's body.

‘I love you super shirt.’ He imagined himself blowing a kiss to his shirt. Turning to Ina, he asked: “What now?”

“Well, neither of our holowatches are here, so that’s unfortunate. We can’t use theirs to call for help as they’re in their own network. So our two options are: find our watches, or find an exit.” Ina said, her two fingers raised.

“Except we’re in Villainopolis. Even when we leave from this base, we’re still in the frying pan.”

“You said you know how to exit Villaino-whatever?”

“I know of a way to exit. But from my previous and only visit, the place is a maze, and I only know one entrance and exit.” Calvin’s shoulder sagged. “Getting the watches would be a more reliable way to find help.”

“But is it safer?”

“I don’t know. On one hand, we have no way to look for them other than busting through every room we find. On the other hand, there’s no guarantee we can break out of this place even if we knew where the exit is.”

“Haah…” Ina sighed, massaging her temples. “Either way, we have to find the others first.”

The two then busied themselves with looting every single tinker tech-like object in the room, hoovering them up in their pockets like it was a buffet. There were long sticks, sticks with things duct taped to the end, and sticks with things bolted to the end. A colourful variety.

“What’s this?” Ina picked up a metallic cylinder, looking at it curiously before trying to twist the cap off. After a few futile tries, she tossed it to Calvin. “Catch.”

“Wha— ow!” The cylinder smacked him as he turned to her.

“I said catch.”

“Say it before throwing it.” Calvin groaned, crouching down to pick up the cylinder. “What even is— wait… is this?”

Super Absorb

Fragmented Essence detected. Absorb? Yes No

“What is this doing here?” He muttered before looking up to read the panel. “Fragmented essence? It’s not a power?”

“What power?” Ina asked, breaking him from his confused daze.

“Nothing.” He muttered, putting it in his pocket. “It’s probably just another stick.”

“Yeah.” Ina grumbled, going back to looting the place.

“Why is everything sticks?” Calvin spoke annoyedly, shoving the last barrel of cudgels into his pocket. “Can’t make any armor or anything other than a weapon?”

“Maybe it’s the tinker’s concept.” Ina shrugged.

“Their concept is sticks?”

“I said maybe.” She said, putting in the last of the sticks into her pocket. “You ready?”

Calvin nodded. “As much as I can be.”

With a simple pull on his power, Calvin turned them and their clothes back to being cement-colored before they proceeded to the door. He opened the map again, tracing the route planned by Ina earlier to find the others.

‘We have to backtrack.’ Calvin thought, opening the door to see if the coast is clear before leading the way.

After going through a few corridors, they were nearly back to where the old man was sleeping on the chair, right by an intersection they needed to use. Calvin signaled Ina to wait as he peeked behind the corner to check.

He paused.

Then he ducked back to the corner, now sporting a confused furrow on his face. Ina looked at him concernedly as he doubled back to peek one more time.

“What is it?” She whispered, wanting to push him aside to take a look for herself.

“I think we got our work cut out for us.” He said with a wide smile as he undid their camouflage and stood up.

He grabbed Ina by the wrist and pulled her along, out of the corner and into the hallway.

Ina froze just as he did earlier. “Is that…”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Yep.” Calvin nodded.

In front of them were kids in underwear. Most were looking scared at what was happening in front of them, three were forcing the sleeping old man into a chokehold, and one was frozen with their eyes glued towards the two of them.

“Quinn?” Ina muttered before breaking into a sprint.

----------------------------------------

Quinn opened her eyes, a haze of colours swam in her blurry vision as her awareness slowly returned from its slumbering state. A feeling of numbness coursed through her body, like her blood was air, her bones were marshmallows, and her muscles silk.

‘Drugged.’ A simple thought came as her memories returned. She closed her eyes again and continued to wait and observe every one of her senses coming back to life at a snail’s pace. ‘The snacks. Allen. Mind control— no, mental suggestion. I’m alive… kidnapping. For ransom? No, too risky for money. Then, political? Maybe. Revenge against my parents? Too messy… My Aunt? No one’s that suicidal.’

Her mind flared as she kept herself busy with organizing the sequence of events from what she can remember to form a plausible theory. A few blots were present from her memory, starting from when the instructor first gathered them until now. Like pages ripped from a book, they felt empty and painful to remember.

“Quinn?” She heard a familiar voice call out to her. “Are you awake?”

“Almost.” She replied with a flat smile and a pained groan, slowly opening her eyes again to adjust to the light.

Regina didn’t answer immediately, but her voice rang in her ear again. “You’re surprisingly calm.”

It was blurry, but she could tell the person was Regina. Her ink-black hair paper-white skin was unmistakable even through the haze. She had no clothes on, except for her underwear, and was currently shackled on both wrists with a rectangular device.

Quinn looked down and examined herself, finding her fashion in the same situation.

“Where’s Ina?” She asked immediately, looking up and around the blurry room. She noted skin-coloured figures, likely the other workshop students.

“I don’t know. She wasn’t here when I woke up.” Regina answered. “Neither is your other friend.”

“Calvin.” She spoke through gritted teeth. Her hands unconsciously balled into a fist before a sting of pain from her un-numbing head cleared dark thoughts. “Where are we?”

“Same answer as before.” Regina let out a dissatisfied sigh. She rubbed her shoulder, looking around the room as she spoke, ”Alden and I woke up a few minutes ago. We’ve been shaking everyone awake since, trying to find out if anyone knows anything.”

“Who’s here?”

“Everyone but those two.”

‘Why?’ She asked herself, her flat lips curving downwards.

There wasn’t enough information.

Her sight finally cleared, as did the numbness in her body.

Taking a better look of the room, she started counting the number of people in silence while also noting every detail about the room itself, not that there was much detail.

The room was empty, apart from them, a few light bulbs, and two doors on two of the walls. One of the doors was made of steel, clearly reinforced haphazardly, and had a transparent window on it. The other door was a much simpler plane of painted wood.

“Where are you going?” Regina asked as Quinn got up. Seeing her go straight for the door, she let out an annoyed scoff. “What? You think we hadn’t checked if that’s locked?”

Quinn didn’t answer, she wasn’t checking if it was locked. Her eyes went straight towards the hinges, checking to see if it’s possible to take it off.

‘I’ll need a tool.’ She thought, then looked at the shackles on her hand. ‘And free hands.’

“We can’t use our powers.” Regina said raising the shackles. “Must be some kind of tinker tech.”

“That’s not possible.” She muttered, scrunching her brows in thought. ‘Even the Empire hasn’t made any that completely disables powers.’

With the slightest, most gentle pull of her will, she used her power on the shackles.

A glow appeared on the unseen lines and seams on the shackle’s surface, and ever-so-slightly, it started vibrating. She felt the usual drain of her power, the fatigue that felt more than physical or mental.

“They’re power dampeners.” She spoke and raised the shackles, showing how they were glowing brighter. “They’ll absorb the power, but they’re not limitless. They’ll probably break down if we overload them.”

Regina looked at her suspiciously, “how do you know that?”

“Just keep using your powers. Look—”, her shackles were starting to glow noticeably brighter, “— it’ll take some time but it should damage them later.”

“I meant; how do you know it’ll overload?” Regina spoke while trying to do as she said, pulling on her will to summon her crows. Her shackles started to glow like Quinn’s, and a small blot of ink started appearing in her palms

“I don’t, but it’s better than doing nothing. Besides, it’s not like we’re using our powers to do anything else.”

“It works. Alden!” Regina nodded. She stood up and walked towards Alden.

She observed them for a while, noting in surprise the drastic change in behavior of the usually quirky Alden. The two of them were working together to calm down the others, the boy, especially. He seemed more of a leader than before, his expression soft yet reliable, like he knew of a plan to get out of this place.

‘Croftweld.’ She briefly recalled his family’s name, a tinge of understanding went through her mind with the recollection, before throwing that train of thought away and prioritizing.

Her gaze went back to the shackles— a feeling of impatience grew as she watched the glow brighten much too slowly. ‘Should I just break them? She isn’t here anyway…’

“Who’s that?” An innocent question was asked.

All eyes went towards the person, the girl that could summon stone walls. Not everyone noticed she was white as a sheet, but all traced her line of sight towards the door.

A cold shiver ran through everyone’s backs as they saw what she was looking at.

A face uglier than what a mother could love.

It was pressed up on the door’s glass window, wide eyes staring at them like a monster in their nightmares staring down at them while they were all paralyzed. It seemed to notice their fright, which only made the hideous creature grin wider and somehow become uglier.

A second later, the monstrosity left and moved on, leaving everyone breathing a sigh of relief afterwards.

There was a buzz of frightened conversation that rang in the air as realization and awareness finally dawned on those conscious enough in the room. Whatever creature it was that passed by had woken them up.

This was real.

“It worked! I got it off!” Alden shouted in elation, showing them the destroyed shackles hanging off his wrists. “Everyone, keep using your power.”

A sliver of hope.

With that signal from Alden, the others had started doubling their efforts to break free of the cuffs. Without the dampeners, it would be an easier time to escape.

Quinn observed Alden. He was playing it casually, but she could see the tremble of fatigue and pain in his shoulder. The boy had overexerted himself over a hugely untested theory, just to give them motivation to keep going.

‘Not bad.’ Quinn thought before looking at her own shackles.

Firmly, she increased the output of her will, just enough to make it vibrate as it ‘normally’ would without the suppression.

Within moments, whatever mechanism it was inside the device that was feeding off her power broke with an audible crack, leaving an intensely vibrating shackle strapped on her wrists.

She immediately removed the vibration with her power, leaving the still and powerless husk of a tech hanging limply.

With a simple smash towards the wall, the shackles cracked and broke. Noticing their attention towards her, she smiled just as she usually did.

“Got it off too.” She raised her wrists, showing them the destroyed shackles. She looked at the brunette boy and asked a question. “Hey, Alden, why don’t you try breaking theirs?”

“What do you mean?” Alden tilted his head.

“Use your power on their shackles. Punch it then use your power. It should be easier to break from the outside.” She suggested.

Alden hesitated for a moment— fatigue had built up from continually using his power and breaking his own shackle. He breathed deeply and made a determined face, not wanting to break the momentum he had going on with the room’s morale.

He walked towards the nearest one to him and punched the shackles on her wrist. His fist stung from the pain, but he persevered. Using his power, he repeated the force of the punch on the shackles, making metallic clangs until it broke just a second later.

“That was…” He muttered, looking at his own hand.

The newly-freed girl clenched her first. She closed her eyes and used her power, immediately transforming herself into a crocodile-beastman hybrid. “Yes!”

‘Wow. Glad that worked.’ Quinn nodded.

Alden and the crocodile girl moved to break the other’s shackles, an endeavor that proved to be easier than cycling their own power to overload them. In minutes, everyone was free, and were now setting their powers free.

“Calm down, everyone.” Alden gathered them all and they sat in a circle, away from the door with the see through glass panel. “We need to get out of here.”

----------------------------------------

“Ina? How are you guys—” Quinn asked before getting tackled by Ina in a hug.

“Queenie!” Ina embraced her tightly. “You’re safe!”

Quinn seemed to be frozen for a moment longer before hugging back her best friend just as tightly. While the two were having a moment, Calvin went to the others behind them.

“That old man dead?” He asked, looking towards the unconscious old man on the ground.

“No.” The girl choking him shook her head, releasing her power. The metal arms she used to strangle the old man turned back to flesh.

Calvin noted how cool it was before summoning duct tape. “Here, you can tie him up. Just leave holes to breathe or something.”

“Calvin.” Alden called to him.

“Is everyone here?” He asked first, looking around and counting everyone gathered in the hallway. “I counted eighteen of us before we got— well.”

“Everyone’s here.” Alden nodded, gesturing to the others behind him. “How did you guys get out?”

“Painfully.” Calvin massaged his chest, feeling the cracking ribs from tanking hits earlier.

“You okay?” Regina came up.

“I’m alive.” He nodded lightly. “We can share stories later, right now we need to get out. Or, better, find our holowatches and call for help.”

“Don’t you have one?” Regina pointed to his wrist.

“Not mine. We took it from some fat guy. It’s on its own network, so we can’t call for help with it. But, we do have this—” he opened the map and projected it on the floor. “Here’s what we know…”

Calvin explained to them as briefly as he could about Villainopolis: what it is, where it is, and how he got in and out before. He felt a bit guilty for telling them about Sam’s fridges, but it was an emergency.

‘I’ll make it up to you Sam.’ Calvin pretended to have telepathy and sent an apology to Sam.

Alden scratched his chin. “So… our choices are to either find a way to call for help—”

“Which would involve scouring this place with no idea where to look first.” Calvin nodded.

“Or escape on our own.” Regina listed the other option.

“And out of Villainopolis, which we have no idea where to look for an exit.” Calvin sighed. “Not to mention all the supervillains in this place.”

“Should we put it to a vote, then?” Alden suggested.

“I think the holowatches are our best choice. You don’t understand how much of a maze it is out there. There’s no guarantee we’ll find an exit if we escape. But if we get a holowatch, we can be sure about being able to send a message.” Calvin argued.

“And what? Search room-by-room?” Regina frowned.

“Better than alley-by-alley. Look, we need to make a decision now. We don’t know when they’ll check up on us. If they haven’t yet.”

“Plan made, let’s go with looking for the watches.” Alden nodded. “Just keep the exit in mind in case of emergencies.”

“Emergencies, huh. Like this one.” An unfamiliar voice quipped.

They turned to the source, finding someone who wasn’t quite as naked as them. He was standing in the hallway, arms crossed, muscles bulging, mouth grinning.

Calvin flinched, feeling a dull ache in his ribs as he recognized who the person was.

“So, you escaped huh? Mundane.”