Loading System...
“What the fuck?” Calvin blurted out, his eyes wide and glued to the familiar blue panel floating directly in front of him.
System Loaded!
Super Information
Super Name None Super Attributes Super Status Alive, Cold, Malnourished, Spirit-severance Super Body 0 Super Quest None Super Mind 0 Super Points 0 Super Spirit 0.5(-0.5)
Super Powers
Super Absorb
Super Power: Impervious Pebble detected. Absorb? Yes No
Super Absorb
Super Power: Gourmand's Insight detected. Absorb? Yes No
He stood frozen, confused, and dazed, his attention overwhelmed by the sudden amount of stimuli slapping him in the face. Three blue panels overlapped on top of each other, all in bright blue, popping up without any warning. It was like his eyes suddenly downloaded some sketchy program and got infected by malware and viruses.
Calvin instinctively read the text despite his surprise, starting at the topmost panels.
“Super power? Uh… sure?” He muttered, reaching his finger out to the button to confirm.
Before his fingers could reach halfway, the two topmost panels disappeared from view. A feeling of suction came from his center, like he was starting to breathe through invisible holes in his chest. He felt like a dry sponge in the middle of the desert, trying to absorb the barest amount of water available to him.
“W—whoa.” He expressed surprise at the alien feeling.
Calvin’s eyes widened as he watched a white mist started permeating from within the two cylinders in his hand, forming a pair of foggy clouds that floated freely in the air in front of him. Unprompted, the clouds coalesced into a pair of milky-white streams that danced in the air and coiled into a double-helix, streaming straight towards his chest and into somewhere deep inside of him— somewhere he couldn’t quite feel.
“Ah.” A blissful moan came out of his lips as the feeling of ecstatic electricity soared throughout his body, building up to a crescendo as the last wisp of mist entered him fully.
He stood there for a while, enjoying the feeling of fullness he had never felt in his eighteen years on Earth. He felt like it was the first time he had eaten anything other than gruel, the first taste of spiritual umami.
The experience quickly faded away, much to his disappointment, leaving him standing like an idiot with all his limbs spread-eagle.
“That felt… wow.” He shivered, coming back from the short-lived high. “Never felt like that even on the happy meds.”
Breathing in felt easier, breathing out felt like ecstasy. He didn‘t know what changed, but he felt… more. His senses saw more of the world. His body felt more like his own. His mind thought more… thoughts.
His entire existence felt more significant.
Calvin started stretching his body, moving his muscles, clenching his fist. The sensation felt both odd, yet more comfortable as his movements grew more at ease.
‘Well, enough of that, what’s next?’ He looked at the remaining panel in front of him.
Super Information
Super Name None Super Attributes Super Status Alive, Cold, Malnourished, Spirit-severance Super Body 0 Super Quest None Super Mind 0 Super Points 0 Super Spirit 0.5
Super Powers
Impervious Pebble Gourmand's Instinct
A confused smile appeared on his face as he kept reading with wry amusement. “Did— did whoever made this really just plaster the word ‘super’ in front of everything?”
He kept reading. So most things on the panel were self-explanatory, except for a few things, “What the hell is Spirit-severance?”
Super Help
Spirit-severance
The Super‘s spirit is fragmented, their very essence is severed in two by an external force. This affliction leaves their spirit weak and vulnerable, their ability to draw from their potential and form their own power is made impossible.
“Well, that‘s not unnerving at all.” He muttered. "Cold, malnourished, and my literal soul is probably cut in half. But hey, I‘m alive. Hooray for that.”
He shook his head, massaging his temples at the amount of information shoved down his throat in such a short amount of time. The Super System itself was surprising enough, but now he discovers someone or something cut his soul in two like a banana split. “At least I have powers. Let‘s see, uh… Super Help? What’s [Impervious Pebble]?"
Super Help
Impervious Pebble
Summons an immovable and indestructible pebble for ten seconds.
“…that‘s it?” He squinted, trying to see if there was anything more, like some small font or something else at the bottom of the panel. He tried peering at the back of the display to check, but the panel stubbornly stayed in front of him. “Well, that kinda explains why it was left here, I guess. Now… uh, Super Help? How do I use it?”
He waited for a moment to see if another super helpful super popup would super appear in front of him, but he was super ignored by whatever super entity it was that was sending him the super panels. A frown appeared on his face as he tried again and expectedly got the same result.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Damn…”, he cursed, giving up and just starting experimenting himself.
Calvin closed his eyes and held his hand out, palm-side up. A slow and deep breath to prepare before he tensed his muscles as his eyes opened and glared at the top of his palm. With a hefty helping of air, he shouted, “[Impervious Pebble]!”
Super quiet.
“Okay, no to that then.” He mumbled, moving on to the next, more quiet, experiment.
This time, he simply closed his eyes and tried to calm his excited heart in an attempt to find something with his senses. He didn’t know what he was looking for, just something new or something different. He started thinking of the name of the power in his mind like a mantra when something clicked.
His eyes opened and stared at the palm of his hand. A new muscle, a tendon to pull, a will to exert. The feeling was indescribably foreign, but he knew how to do it. Without a word or further thought, he flexed his power.
A small pebble appeared on top of his palm. No warning, no sound, and thankfully no fireworks. It was just there, like it had always been there.
“Oh, that was easy.”
He felt a minute wave of fatigue wash over his body, like he just started a ten-meter sprint, or did a few jumping jacks in succession. Except the feeling felt more essential, like his spirit itself was doing the exercise. “Spirit stamina? Or mana? Is this magic? Whatever it is, it feels weird.”
He started prodding the pebble in his hand, which did absolutely nothing. He tilted the hand to the side, all the way until it was no longer supporting any bit of the pebble. The unfeeling little stone ignored him, and gravity, floating in mid-air without a care.
“Ah,” he muttered in surprise. The pebble disappeared, popping out of existence just as it had popped in, without fanfare. “Ten seconds goes by fast.”
With another pull of the power’s metaphorical muscle, another pebble appeared in mid-air, exactly where he envisioned it to appear. He smiled, “Neat, no calculation of distance and height and bullshit to make it appear where I want. Just pop it in and poof.”
He prodded and smacked it with the flasks while in mid-air, and similarly, it ignored everything he did. Calvin even started trying to climb the stone and jump on it, only for the pebble to disappear and for him to trip forwards and smack his curious forehead on the desk.
Just as he was thinking about summoning it again to play around, an alarm blared in his ears. Lines of red light suddenly flashed on the walls as large holographic screens appeared all around.
WARNING. INTRUDERS DETECTED.
CODE 8-5-18-15.
ALL PERSONNEL TO STATIONS.
“Oh yeah, Evil lab. Escaping. Right.” He muttered, prying his attention away from the superpower that wasn’t as super as he imagined but it was a power nonetheless.
He ran towards the door, opening it slightly to peek through. His head popped out of the gap, turning left and right to check both sides of the corridor before popping back inside. Not seeing anything or anyone, he resorted to another sense. Closing his eyes, he tried to listen for the sound of footsteps or some marching. Unfortunately, there was an alarm blaring.
‘Fuck it.’ He thought, getting out and crouch-walking towards where the guard came from.
Arriving at an intersection, he paused to catch his breath. He massaged his aching thighs, burning muscle pain running through them from his unnecessary duck walking.
‘Okay… if I was an exit, where would I be?’ He thought as he stuck his head from the corner, looking down both corridors. A pleasant hum escaped his lips as he noticed a familiar green man cheekily running into the green outline of a door. ‘Under the exit sign. Obviously.’
He checked both corridor ends one more time before jogging over to the exit, not bothering to crouch-walk and further torture his bone-thin thighs. As he walked down, he made sure to stop and peek into the doors to see if there was anything useful inside. Mainly those superpower cylinders.
More superpowers were always good.
‘Evil science room. Evil office room. Huh… evil game lounge— are those board games?’ He thought while quickly looking into the room as he passed by.
His stomach started protesting against its current state of emptiness, voicing its thoughts with a loud rumbling that would’ve alerted guards nearby… if there were any. So far, all the life he’d encountered were planted in chic minimalist pots, and he wasn’t even sure if they weren’t plastic.
‘I wonder if they have an evil cafeteria or an evil break room, maybe grab some food on the way out.’ He thought as he smacked his belly, trying to shake off the tension and the nervousness. And the hunger.
He peeked into a door right before the exit. ‘Evil locker room, well, I guess they have to change into their evil science outfits somewhere.’
As he started heading to the exit, he paused, turning around to go back to the locker room. He remembered an important problem he had to address before even starting a serious attempt to sneak out.
‘They better have non-evil clothes in there.’ He thought, opening the door and locking it behind him.
----------------------------------------
Martin tapped his foot, looking back and forth between his holowatch and a simple shack in the middle of a wholesome-looking piece of farmland. Time passes by slowly when there‘s nothing to do, and it passes by even slower when there‘s nothing you can do. Right now, there‘s something he wants to do.
“It‘s been ten minutes, Lightspeed. Chill out.” A cheerful voice rang beside him. A girl, wearing a skin-tight costume-slash-dress made of blue flowers and leaves, stood underneath the shade of a tree. She looked towards him through the intricate masquerade mask littered with motifs of flowers, sending a grin towards him with both her eyes and her lips.
“You ever get tired of saying that?” He spat annoyedly before giving a sigh, leaning on a tree beside him as he turned to his partner.
“Never.” She spoke, still sporting the grin. “You should try it, get some catchphrases loaded up for when you‘re on camera or in public.”
Martin gave her an amused smirk. “Yeah? Got any suggestions, then?”
The woman scratched her chin, pouting cutely while deep in thought. Suddenly snapping her fingers, she turned to him with an excited look in her eyes. “You could be like ‘let me shed a light on your predicament’. Before you smack them around.”
He shivered, imagining it. “I‘d get swallowed up by the ground from the cringe if I say that.”
“What about ‘let me brighten your day’ when you save someone?”
He rolled his eyes. “You remember I‘m not an Elementalis, right? I don‘t actually use any kind of light whatsoever?”
“Your superhero name’s a scam, scammer.” She puffed her chest proudly.
He chuckled, knowing he had nothing to say against that. “I thought of it on a whim. We had ten minutes left to submit a name or get a penalty in the exam, so I pulled it out of my ass.”
“How’d that get by your PR team?”
“They liked it enough to keep it. Plus I was already using it to sign everything related to Lightspeed anyway.”
She crossed her arms. “It does sound cool, I guess. But still a scam.”
“Cooler than yours though, Frostbloom.”
“I‘d say mine is cooler. Literally. Get it?” She said while wiggling her eyebrows at him.
“Ugh.” He groaned, shaking his head lightly.
He looked back at the farm, the air of impatience coming back as he wondered what was taking so long. The deployment said it was an urgent mission, but this seemed far too lax so far. All they‘ve done is come here, hide, and wait.
It didn‘t help that this was essentially their first official mission.
“They said there are hostages, right?” He grumbled, his mood back down from amusement to annoyance.
“Maybe they’re still planning. There are hostages, it wouldn’t be good to just bust in there Lightspeed style.”
“I’m fast enough to take them by surprise.” Lightspeed mumbled.
“Look, Rainier said ‘The Big D’ was going to get someone to help.” Frostbloom informed him and shrugged, playing with a blue flower on the ground.
“Please never call him that ever again.”
“Why? I thought it sounded cool. Like kinda gangsta.”
“You sound like someone‘s grandma.”
“Bah,” she plucked and threw a flower at him, “you‘re just jealous you can‘t think of cool stuff like me.”
“You’re running out of puns, huh.” He said, sending a mocking smirk towards her. Two dots in the sky behind her caught his attention, speeding up towards them. “Head‘s up. Someone‘s coming.”
Frostbloom stood up, turning to follow his line of sight. A cool air swept over the area as a flower slowly bloomed from beneath her feet, spreading a layer of frost on the ground and grass around them.
Lightspeed started blurring, crouching down into a stance.
“Stand down. They‘re with me.” A voice startled the two.
In front of their eyes appeared a man in a full black skin-tight suit, fading into existence like he was stepping out of an invisible closet. If it was just a normal black-suited individual, the duo would’ve already attacked. Thankfully, the man had the decency to plaster his motif on the top of his forehead, a gigantic letter ‘D’ in full yellow and gold.
“Destructoman, sir.” Frostbloom stood straight and immediately dispelled the flower. Lightspeed did the same.
“Just Destructo, Frostbloom.” He nodded and turned to Martin. “Don‘t attack, both of you. They‘re here to help.”
“Who are they, si- I mean, Destructo?” Frostbloom asked.
Before Destructo could answer, the two people who were flying towards them landed behind the black-suited man, stepping down on the ground without a whisper of wind nor shaking of leaves.
One of them was a bear of a man two heads taller than Destructo. He had on a set of casual clothing; a flowery shirt with an open chest, a pair of khaki shorts, and some rattan slippers. All in all, he looked like an ordinary civilian on a vacation, if it wasn‘t for the fact that his head was a literal brain with sunglasses inside of a jar.
‘Brainmatter.’ Martin recognized the supervillain from old articles.
His heart beat faster as he sensed his gaze on him. He glanced at Frostbloom who was only staring curiously at the man’s brain-head, blissfully unaware of how the man’s simple ‘prank’ almost collapsed the economy if they hadn’t made Oracle in secret.
The other one, ducking behind Brainmatter, was much smaller, almost a head smaller than Frostbloom who was already someone short for her age. He had on a large puffy coat and a pair of pajamas for trousers. However, just like Brainmatter, his head was more peculiar in that it was an alarm clock.
“These are the new kids you were talking about? How lucky for your first mission, huh?” Brainmatter spoke, the brain in the jar oddly moving as if to simulate mouth movements. “Nice costume, girl. What‘s your name?”
“F—frostbloom, sir.” She stammered, not expecting the attention.
“Hah, sir, stop that. You‘re making me feel old.” He laughed.
“You are old.” Destructo stated before gesturing to the man. “Lightspeed, Frostbloom, this is Brainmatter. He‘s a Sovereign-level supervillain.”
Frostbloom froze and Brainmatter just waved his hand like it was no big deal. “Ex-supervillain. I‘m retired, so don‘t worry about me popping up and ruining your day. I don‘t punch down either, that’s just rude.”
“I brought him here to check something, in exchange for a favor.” Destructo explained.
“What favor?” Martin furrowed his brows, frowning.
Heroes and Villains teamed up in unusual times, more frequently during a Hatching, but this wasn‘t unusual nor were superpowered animals involved. It was just the typical hostage rescue, at least that‘s what the briefing said.
‘Unless it isn‘t just that?’ He thought, suspicion building up.
“Ah, take my sponsee with you!” He stepped aside and pushed the clock-headed kid forward. “Introduce yourself, kid.”
“I— uh— Hi. I‘m Timebender.” He nervously introduced himself.
The novice hero duo were surprised at how young the kid seemed. They glanced at one another for a moment before turning to Destructo, their eyes clearly beaming out the message ‘please explain’ towards him.
“Brainmatter has already scanned the facility, confirming the kidnapped kids were transferred here. Unexpectedly, there seems to be a lack of superpowered individuals in the facility. And even more unexpected is the fact that they‘re horrendously understaffed for the size of the facility.” Destructo explained, giving a piece of paper to the two. On the paper was a map, a blueprint of the facility they were about to infiltrate.
“Paper?” Forstbloom asked out of instinct.
“Old man is old school.” He explained, pointing to Brainmatter.
“Technology is poison.” Brainmatter nodded. “Back to the facility, there’s really only a few reasons I can think of why they’re like that. It’s either a lizard tail or, much less likely, it's a trap and someone much much stronger than me is hiding inside there.” Brainmatter interrupted. “Although I keep telling this glorified eraser here that the latter just isn‘t possible. Someone that strong won‘t need traps.”
‘Glorified eraser?’ Lightspeed smiled awkwardly and Frostbloom tried her best to turn her chuckle into a cough.
“It‘s still a possibility.” Destructo steered the conversation back to focus.
“An unlikely one. What‘s more likely is that they dumped the kids here to hide their scent since you started looking for them. You’re a scary man, if you didn’t know.”
“The point is: the kids are here, and you need to get them out.”
Martin’s eyes twitched at the word ‘kids’.
“But—”, Frostbloom started, “—why can‘t you just do it yourselves?”
“Ha! We can, but that leaves nothing to do for weaklings like you three.” Brainstorm said and patted Timebender‘s head. “Things at low rank should be done by low rankers.”
“We will be keeping overwatch, as a precaution. But do not take that as you being completely safe. Remember, you two are just Rank 3. Know your priorities and pull back when you need to. This is a real situation and you should treat it as such.”
“The three of you ready up, they‘re about to have lunch.” Brainmatter chuckled, taking out a lawn chair from who-knows-where before laying down on it. “Go on Bender”
“It‘s Timebender.” The kid growled.
“Bah. It‘s too long, is what it is.”
The two heroes moved to the side as Destructo and Brainmatter slowly faded from their sight. They glanced at Timebender who was awkwardly standing around and scratching his arm.
“Can we trust this kid?” Martin asked when they were out of Timebender‘s earshot.
“I dunno. But we can trust the ‘D’-man.” She shrugged. “Plus, it‘s kinda novel, you know? Our first mission is to team up with a villain. Imagine how they‘ll write the comics about this.”
“Fine, but keep an eye on him. Just in case.” He nodded, turning to the now-approaching Timebender.
“H—hello.” Back to his timid self, Timebender waved lightly at the two. “I‘m Timebender.”
“Lightspeed. Frostbloom.” He introduced themselves. “I‘m fast, she‘s chill. What can you do?”
“I— uh—” He glanced to the side, presumably where his sponsor disappeared. “I can make people… weird.”
“What do you mean?” Frostbloom lightly backed away.
Timebender hesitated for a moment before explaining. “I can change someone‘s perception of time. It‘ll last depending on how big the difference is.”
“Wait, so when you say weird…”
“I can turn up their time perception and make them move like they’re in slow motion.”
Frostbloom smirked, already imagining how people would look like when she slapped them with their time perception altered. Martin, on the other hand, was thinking of how to utilize the unexpected synergy with their powers.
“Hm… okay, here‘s the plan.”