“Driver, let him go and come here.” His voice rang in their ears. “We can’t kill them, moron. Not yet, anyway. Look, just tell me how it— woah. What the fuck happened to your eyes?”
The monster stayed its lips, only continuing to growl and mutter curses with a languid expression.
“Ah, fuck. You’re that out of it, huh? Anyway, doesn’t matter. I’ll ask after you get the drugs out of your system. Just tell me who made you like this. A ringleader or something. Talk.”
The green monster man called Driver was silent for a moment before speaking gutturally with his usual disdain, “mundane.”
“Mundane? Those two?” He narrowed his eyes.
Driver shook its ugly head, “just boy.”
The man raised his brow in disbelief before nodding and opening his holowatch. Tapping away with nonchalance, he started muttering names and looking towards the faces of the kids, reading through a list he opened up.
“Hmm… Calvin, I guess? Ina sounds like a girl’s name— Calvin… is anyone here Calvin? Raise your hand.”
Calvin fought the impulse, only to get hit by another wave of dizziness. “Ugh.”
“I said raise your hand if you’re Calvin.”
Without the strength to resist, his hand shot up in the air like a student going to the bathroom. The man’s eyes darted towards him, widening for a moment as he looked back and forth between the scrawny boy on the ground and the massive protein-guzzler growling in the middle of the corridor.
“Are you sure it’s him?” He asked Driver almost in a flabbergasted tone.
“Can’t see.” Driver replied.
“Ah, your eyes. Huh, they look weird but kinda cool. Anyway, it doesn’t matter— now, Calvin,” he turned to Calvin with a bored and annoyed look, “explain.”
He fought the dizziness once again. “What?”
“Explain how this happened, brat. How you got out of your rooms. How this place got destroyed. How my right hand man here got desperate enough to use an enhancer.”
“I dunno. Shoved a stick up his ass then the fucker turned green.” He growled.
The man narrowed his eyes before chuckling freely. “Ha, you’re fun for a fucking mundane.”
He walked closer to Calvin, his wide grin spread over his mostly casual expression. With a swift swing of his arm, he slapped him as hard as he could, making Calvin’s head turn to the side with the impact.
‘That… didn’t even hurt.’ He looked to his status information screen. ‘Two points in super body already makes me that durable? Or was he just that weak? Or both?’
The man stood up, looking back to the other workshop students. “Come on, we need to set an example. All of you—“, he pressed a button on his choker, ”—follow.”
Another feeling of forced compulsion blanketed the area, the man’s voice reverberated in their minds, echoing with various degrees of hypnotic pitches and tones that made them feel hazy and numb. They synchronously started moving, like puppets on strings, following the man who turned around to walk with leisure.
“Ah… I hate using this.” The man grumbled, adjusting his choker like it was digging into his skin.”
Calvin felt the dizzy feeling in his stomach again, much more intensely this time, followed by the compulsive force disappearing. He paused in thought for a moment to decide on what to do, before shrugging and just following, walking along as robotically as the others.
‘What’s happening?’ He wondered briefly why he wasn’t getting controlled, but the saner head in him re-prioritized escape. ‘I can sneak away on my own, I think. If I time it right, I can probably jump into one of the empty rooms, wait, then run the opposite way. I have the holowatch… it’s doable. But— no, it’s impossible to save everyone—’
Calvin looked towards Ina and Quinn, then towards the others. He followed in silent contemplation, his heart torn in two trying to make a decision.
‘Fuck it.’ He thought, re-thinking a plan to beat up the mind-control guy instead.
“Finally. Fucking maze of a hideout.” The man said as they stopped in front of a solid steel door with a peer-through window and a wheel for a handle like a submarine hatch. “Buy a big hideout they said, it’ll be good when your group gets bigger they said. Goddamn scammers.”
He opened the door with a simple push, not even bothering with the decorative wheel in front. “Go in.”
At this point Calvin didn’t even feel the compulsion anymore, just straight up a blob of nausea drilling into his mind as the words ended. He still followed them inside, though, as to try and find an opportunity to smack him in the head. Preferably with a stick.
They all walked inside the room, the green monster man ducking through the door too short for his monstrous height. As the last person went through, they felt the compulsion release itself.
Calvin felt his heart sink as he saw what was inside the room. The familiar green glow hitting his face, making him shiver in fear of how much more of a big deal this kidnapping actually was.
“No using powers.” The man commanded with a tut. “Can’t have shenanigans here, kids. These are very precious equipment me and my friends had to dig through a mile of debris just to haul them out of that demolished lab.”
He gestured towards the machinery on the other side of the room.
Five cylindrical pods. Glass walls, green liquid, and complicated machinery on the top and bottom. It was the same exact thing that Calvin had woken up in when he first came into this world.
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And one of them was occupied.
“Is that…” Gasps and stifled barfs as they recognized the person inside the pod.
“Allen.” Calvin muttered, feeling his stomach drop.
“Correct! Your beloved instructor. Shame, really, he didn’t want to cooperate so we had to use him some other way.” He smirked evilly. “Looks like grown ups can’t survive the machine. You guys still might have a chance though, so don’t worry too much.”
“Why are you doing this?!” The crocodile girl screamed.
He scoffed, walking towards the girl and leaning in her ear. “Why? Because fuck you.”
“Wha—”
“Fuck you and your golden-shit families who only care about power. Fuck your narcissistic heroes who only care about their image. Fuck your media. Fuck Vanguard. Fuck all of you. All you inner and central city bastards lording your privilege over us.
Thinking you’re all better than us just by being born near the center of this goddamned city. Thinking every super that comes out of the outer city is a criminal and potential ‘supervillain’. Thinking that you can keep stomping down on us like we’re just ants under your heel without anyone biting back.”
“You ask why, girl? Fuck you. That’s why.” The man started panting heavily, veins bulging in his neck from getting worked up from his own speech.
“But we didn’t do anything like this…” The girl muttered meekly, having shrank back from the man’s aggressive speech.
“Like this?” He gestured to the machines. “Who do you think, in all of Bastion, can finance a project like this? This isn’t tinker tech, this is just mundane. This is all research and hard work. Lot of overtime pay, so I’ve heard.”
Without waiting for any other reaction from the students, he walked back to the front and turned back around. He scanned the anxious faces of the crowd in front of him before giving a wicked smile.
“We’re going to be doing an experiment first though. All of you shut up. And you,—” he turned to Calvin, “—come here.”
He pressed a button and drained one of the pods, opening its glass encasing as a welcome to its next occupant. Calvin fought the bile coming up his throat as he did his best to pretend to be controlled.
Step by step, he shuffled towards the pod. Before he could continue, he felt a familiar grip on his wrist.
“Ai, so stubborn. Release him.”
The warmth on his wrist disappeared and he carried on walking to the man. He stopped, just half a step away, looking as blankly as he could towards him.
“We can’t have clothes in the machine, so… strip.” He smirked.
“No.” Calvin sent a punch towards the man’s face.
“Ow— you fuck!” The man felt an arm around his neck.
“Just so you know, I’m poor and I live in the outer city.” He tightened his grip.
Calvin had gone around his back and took him hostage, putting a hand over his mouth to prevent him from using his power. He faced Driver, the monster man, putting the mind-controlling villain in between them.
“Oi you fucking green cancerous racist meat bag. Remember me? Remember the mundane that kicked your green fucking ass?!” He shouted, taunting him as best he could.
“Mundane!” Driver growled looking towards him with his still-blind eyes. It crouched down, preparing to pounce towards them.
“Mmm!—” The man started screaming, trying to pry off his hand. Calvin let go, hedging his bets that he’ll stop Driver. “Stop!”
Driver paused, mid-pounce.
As soon as that happened, Calvin re-covered the man’s mouth while bellowing to the other students. “Hit them!”
He anticipated dog-piling, especially now that the monster was unmoving. However, none of the students moved. They didn’t attack. They didn’t run. They just stood there, mortified by what was happening in front of them.
Calvin felt a sting on his side, before a jolt of electricity fried him into a painful hell. He let go of the man and fell to the ground, convulsing helplessly from the static still running in his body.
“Ha, you fucking— how the fuck aren’t you affected by my power?” The man ran up and kicked Calvin on the back.
The kick had no power behind it, at least to Calvin who had upgraded his body. Nevertheless, he couldn’t do anything about it as he was too busy dancing like a fish out of water.
“You weren’t mundane at all, were you?! Ha! Fucking— didn’t think those capes would let that slip by. Driver, pick him up and out him in the pod.”
Calvin felt himself being picked up by the neck and dragged on the cement floor. Driver threw him smack into the middle of the pod, its glass walls immediately encasing him as he landed. Pipes opened from above, letting through gooey green water to fill it up.
“Luckily, we have another mundane to experiment on. You, go to the pod.” Not taking any more chances, the man directly ordered Ina to go into the next pod he opened.
Quinn wanted to shout. She grabbed Ina and pulled her to her back, stepping forward to protect her. The man didn’t miss a beat and ordered her to stop with his powers, grumbling at his sore throat and how annoying all the kids were.
Ina stepped into the pod, and similar to Calvin’s, was enclosed quickly in glass as it started to fill itself up with green liquid. The two of them tried to punch the glass and break it however they could, Calvin even summoning a stick to hit it.
The glass was immovable, not even a small thud from the hit. It was like he was hitting cloth, not a shred of impact in his arms or on the glass.
“Sturdy, right? Ha, why do you think that thing’s still intact after getting crushed under a mile of rubble?” The man grinned, seeing Calvin’s concerned glance towards Ina. “You know what? How about we start with her? Let you watch as payback for that fucking stunt you pulled, you little shit.”
He walked to the console in front of Ina’s, pressing a few buttons to open a small hatch on the bottom. With a wave of his hand, he procured a flask from his pocket and inserted it into the hatch, twisting it securely before closing it again.
All the while, Calvin had been trying his best to use his power to deter him, changing the color of his eyes, the machine, and everything else he could. But to no avail, whatever the glass was made of, it didn’t let him affect the outside.
“Okay— let’s just wait until it fills up— and—”, he slammed a button on the console as soon as the green liquid reached the top, “—enjoy the show!”
They all watched in horror as wires extended from the top of the machine, shooting towards the struggling Ina and piercing each of her limbs. Not a drop of blood was spilled, but the pain she was feeling was apparent with how she tried to scream despite the liquid.
A white glow started to appear in the wires, flowing as if it was being siphoned through them. The light went from her body, through the wires, into the machine, and finally into the hatch that had the flask.
‘Fuck! What do I do?!’ Calvin was panicking, and so was everyone else. They had no idea what was happening but they could see her writhe in pain inside the tank.
Suddenly, white motes also appeared outside of the capsule, floating in the air like stationary will o’ wisps.
“What the hell?” The man muttered, confused. He reached up to one of the white motes to touch. There was no tactile feeling to it, no texture nor temperature, yet he felt something inside him scream warning bells and he quickly retracted his hand.
The white motes converged towards Ina, gathering from the outside towards the otherwise invulnerable glass. They weren’t even deterred for a moment, they simply passed through like the glass wasn’t there.
Calvin noticed the wires changed. The flow had reversed, as if it was draining the machine of power instead.
A red panel appeared on the glass of every machine.
Power Supply has been killed.
Procure another power supply.
Opening Pod
0:00
The glass in every machine around suddenly opened a small door in front, releasing the green liquid into the room. Calvin, for the second time of his life in this world, was flushed out along with the green liquid.
“H— it’s a fucking hatching…”, the man muttered, his eyes dilating and his face paling an impossible shade. “Fuck! Shit! God fucking damn it! Driver stay here and don’t let the hatchling escape. Fuck!”
He sprinted out of the door in a panicked fever, bellowing with a trembling voice into his holowatch about an evacuation.
The other students also started running away, stumbling over each other in a stampede to go outside the room. All except Quinn, Calvin, and, due to the mind-controlling ass hat, Driver.
“Ina!” Quinn screamed as she sprinted towards her friend. “Ina! No!”
Calvin crawled towards them, still slipping over from the green liquid. “What’s—”, he coughed out a blob of green liquid, “— what’s happening?”
“Sh—she’s. Ina’s— she’s hatching! She— no!” Quinn was blabbering, embracing the unconscious Ina in her hand.
White motes continued to converge towards them, passing through Quinn and into Ina who was slowly starting to glow. Calvin found them familiar, yet he pushed stray thoughts away to focus on his two friends.
His first-aid training from the previous world kicked in, gently checking Ina’s breathing with his finger over her nose. Feeling a slight breeze touch his skin, he moved on to find a pulse.
As he grabbed her wrist, a few panels suddenly popped up.
Super Absorb
Super Power: Demon Cultist detected. Absorb? Yes No
Super Absorb
Super Power: Jumper detected. Absorb? Yes No
“What?”