Deep in thought after his farewell with Ron, the old man from the Training Hall, Calvin stepped out of the decrepit apartment building— forgetting to even wave goodbye to the stoic Vincento. His gaze was glued to the vial in his hand, his mind wandering between the two newly discovered things about the Super System and about superpowers as a whole.
Super Equip
Super Buff: Smelling Salts detected. Equip? Yes No
’This obviously isn’t Tinker Tech and the old man isn’t a tinker, not by a longshot— so Super Equip doesn’t only apply to Tinker Tech? Or are Full Elementalis just that flexible?’ His thoughts paused, swiping away the panel before bringing up the vial to scrutinize it against the sun. “I know smelling salts isn’t actually salt… is that the clue? I wonder what it does… besides the obvious. I know I’ve taken pain relievers and other meds. They don’t get a Super Buff panel, so why are you special?”
There were currently two wolves fighting inside of him; one was infamous for killing cats, and the other is born from the little gamer goblin in his brain that keeps whispering for him to hoard all consumables in case he needed them for an emergency(like a boss or some bullshit platforming puzzle with spikes and traps).
After a few seconds of battle, the gamer goblin wolf won.
Calvin took a last look at the salts before pocketing them. He started walking, thoughts swimming through the mess of new information in his head. ’Smelling salts— he made a discovery that gave his powers something akin to buffs, I guess. Can I also do that with [Colour Control]? Make people blue and sad? That would be fun.’
He started digging deep into himself, back to the headspace where he saw the whitestuff that was the powers he absorbed. There was an itch inside of him that wanted so badly to experiment immediately, to push and prod at the newly discovered and apparently more efficient way of using his powers.
’No. Oracle might be watching, damn creep.’ His eyes narrowed, suspiciously looking towards whatever looked like it could be a camera.
He continued being lost in his own mind, feet on autopilot until his trains of thought were rudely derailed by crystalline barriers suddenly rising up from an intersection.
“Damn…” Calvin groaned, looking around to see the same frustrated faces.
“Again? It’s the second time this week.”
“Must be those damned Monarchs.”
“Mommy, is there going to be a super?!”
“…” He ignored the muttering of the gallery, feeling annoyed by their subtle excitement.
Vehicles started honking and the people around him started cheering as blue trucks suddenly came up in droves, forming a barricade in front of the crystalline barrier. Uniformed staff started running out of trucks, pushing people back a fair distance away for their own safety while informing them of the situation.
He looked around confusedly, the crowd’s behavior unusual to him until he remembered where he was. “Inner city… of course.”
Despite literally being a wall away from each other, the difference between the two cities’ reaction towards an oncoming super fight was a stark contrast. The defenses erected were not just strong, they were also see-through for a better view. The staff policing the people were more polite and accommodating, giving much more helpful directions for those who needed to move on with their day.
‘Oh, it’s the new organization from the news.’ Calvin thought, recognizing the staff. ‘Civilian Safety Solutions, I think.’
‘C.S.S.’, three letters printed prominently on both the front and the back of their blue uniforms. One of the recently-made third-party organizations that were tasked to handle the grunt work whenever the supers wreaked havoc in the streets(which was recently happening fairly often), both before and after they caused traffic.
The citizen’s reaction was also one of the more prominent differences between Inner and Outer cities. Rather than sport surly faces or frowning brows, they had on ear-wide smiles and pool-ball eyes while cheering and whistling in excitement like it was an event in a concert.
’Fucking mun—’, Calvin stopped, surprised at his thoughts, ’—what the hell, Calvin?
“Apologies for the inconvenience everyon—”
“Who is it? Is it one of the seven?! Is it Megaton?!” A kid excitedly interrupted the uniformed staff.
He chuckled in response, “Sorry, kid. It’s Rockstar this time. She’s still a fourth-class hero though! I’m sure you’ll like her.”
“Aw…” The kid visibly deflated which the staff gave another chuckle to.
‘Rockstar?’ Calvin turned to the staff, recognizing the name. “Who is she fighting?”
“Ah— a couple of new villains from that weird machine group that was causing a scene this morning. They’re still not officially named, but—” He answered patiently, looking to his holowatch for something. “—where is it. They’ve been calling themselves something—”
As if to answer the man, a big ball of metal scrap came crashing down like a meteor into the middle of the intersection. Expecting a large bang, most people covered their ears— but none came. The ball floated above the road, lightning and static snapping beneath before it finally landed with a low thud.
With an engine-like hum, the ball started rumbling before finally exploding into bits of iron flinging everywhere. Buildings unprotected by the barriers were hit hard, but super architecture being what it is, all were still upright with small-ish craters on the surface.
In the middle of the crater, where the ball exploded, stood a pair of similarly clothed people brandishing a wrench in each hand. They wore something akin to what electricians would wear, a grey suit that covered every inch of skin, a blue construction helmet with rubber nettings like a beekeeper’s hat, and of course, a pair of sneakers.
“The Dynamo Twins of the Mean Machines are here to kick some hero ass!” They announced in sync, raising their wrenches and shouting excitedly like some cartoonish B-lister villain.
A chorus of boos came from the crowd, with some even trying to throw whatever food they had up and over the crystalline wall. Calvin almost wanted to join in, just so he could say he’d done it before. Unfortunately, he already cooked and ate the eggs.
A cloud of smoke and sparks suddenly bloomed from thin air, appearing opposite the villainous twins. Rays of coloured light shone through as notes from an electric guitar started playing a heart-pumping tune. Music played, tension built up, and the silhouette of a person with an afro and a guitar shone through the mist, bringing their fist up in the air.
“Are y’all ready to Rock?!” A woman’s melodious voice came through, modulated and powerful.
“Yes!” The crowd answered as they cheered.
“Star!” She shouted as her hand flew down the guitar, producing an electric tune that sent an earthshaking shockwave, blowing away the smoke and the dust.
Rockstar came in, chewing gum and adjusting the star-shaped shades on her head. She ran her manicured fingers through the afro on her head before grabbing the hems of her studded leather jacket to pull it straight, flashing the grunge shirt underneath.
“Y’all ready for this?” She asked, pointing to the Dynamo Twins with her guitar pick before strumming her guitar once more.
Four boulders shaped as musical notes materialized behind her, each note the size that would get you thinking ‘those are big’, floating in midair for a moment before suddenly shooting towards the twins. With an earth-shaking impact, the rocks slammed into the villains and sent dust flying into the air, effectively blanketing the scenery in a layer of dust.
With another strum of Rockstar’s guitar, the dust blew away and cleared the air. Unexpectedly the twins were unharmed, holding hands and vibrating like squirrels who drunk too much coffee.
“Ha! Is that all you’ve got, Cape?!” The twins laughed and shouted in sync, like typical creepy twins in horror movies and cartoons.
A machine-like rumble started ringing out from the pair, in a tune similar to one of those assholes revving their engines up at 2 AM. The air vibrated, and a field of electricity started sparking from underneath the villains, expanding outwards and forming a dome that covered a five-meter area around them.
“Resist all you want, you’ll still taste the music!” Rockstar started playing a song, summoning and sending boulders of notes towards the twins.
Calvin rolled his eyes. ’Here we go with the puns. They always have puns.’
Unfortunately for her, the rocks were ineffective. Boulder to stone to dust, each note turned ineffective as it tried smashing into the barrier made by the twins. Whatever it was made of, it was pulverizing them quite finely.
A mocking laugh came from the two, and their engine-like vibration started turning up a notch. “Let’s amp it up!”
’I swear, it’s like they have a script.’ Calvin thought, swearing he heard a groan from the crowd behind him.
His attention was caught by the glow of static building up between the villains. An instant later, the static stopped and paused frozen before lighting shot out like a lance towards Rockstar.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Thankfully, the hero had her guitar prepared in front of her like a shield. The stone-like instrument absorbed the damage, letting out broken notes as it smoked from the damage. A closer eye could see Rockstar wasn’t completely unharmed, with traces of burns and redness in the hand that held out the guitar.
“Ha! You can’t stop the music!” Rockstar shouted, recovering from the attack and standing up straight.
The three battled it out again, like a steadfast mountain fighting against the thunderous clouds. Light and rocks shot towards each other, with the former gaining an expected advantage as Rockstar’s enormous boulders failed to penetrate the barrier— the villains were winning.
At the climax of their battle, the hero’s hands were starting to shake from pain and fatigue while the twins let out a cackle of joy at the sight. “Time to pull the plug, Rockstar!”
The air hummed as sparks of static started getting generated by the twins. Shaking air, vibrating debris, and all sorts of telltale signs of a final attack were coming from the twins, helpfully signaling the staff to prepare.
“Deploy the barrier!” One of the CSS staff holding a megaphone shouted.
“Barrier’s already deployed, sir.”
“Ah—then, deploy the second barrier!”
“Second barrier’s also—”
“Just fucking add another one!”
The staff rolled her eyes, pressing a button on a clipboard-like holopad in her hand. Instantly, another metallic wall rose up from underneath the ground, going as tall as the tallest building in the area. With a shimmer, the metallic surface changed back into a glass-like structure, quieting the complaining pedestrians as they started seeing the battle happening once more.
“The lengths they go through to for PR.” A man beside Calvin spoke with a mocking chuckle.
One glance was enough to see that the man was from Outer City, his contemptuous gaze towards the situation was more than enough for a clue, if the disheveled suit, worn-out case, or the faded leather shoes didn’t already make it obvious.
“They waste tax money on shit like this instead of actually making prisons the criminals can’t escape from.”
“Escape— did those two escape?” Calvin asked, curiosity nagging him. “They look a bit… young.”
“If they aren’t now, they will be later. Then they’ll escape, and that’ll happen again. Vicious tax-money-wasting cycle.”
Calvin turned back to the fight in front of them.
Rockstar’s still strumming a tune, building up the tempo in both the music and attacks, her musical notes flying in the air akin to cannon fire. There was a bit of envy inside Calvin, remembering his pebbles were just that, pebbles.
‘It’s okay… they will evolve. [Impervious Boulders]. One day.’ He comforted himself.
The boulders Rockstar shot out expectedly disintegrated in mid-air, leaving her helpless against the twins.
“Fuck… I’m going to get yelled at again.” The man beside Calvin grumbled, turning around to swim through the cheering crowd and find another route through.
Calvin looked at his watch wondering if Quinn and Ina were awake at this time, “it’s still kinda early.”
“They’re going to explode!” Someone in the crowd in earshot of Calvin shouted, pointing to the twins.
Just as he raised his head to look back at the commotion, a white flash blinded him. “Ah, fucking—”
The twins, as the random crowd-person had so helpfully described, exploded.
Calvin looked away, covering his face with an arm. A feeling of static ran through his skin, and from the looks of the other people around him, they were feeling it too. Despite the multitudinous amount of barriers between the crowd and the fighting supers, it seems the Dynamo Twins were strong enough to affect them even just slightly.
“She’s not looking too good,” Calvin muttered, turning back to the fight. Rockstar was bloody and battered, holding her broken guitar in front like a shield.
“Oh shit— it worked.” The twins spoke incredulously, looking at the hero in front of them with wide eyes. “Ha! You see this Monarchs?! I know you’re watching! I can kill a cape whenever I wa—”
“You fucking little shits!” Rockstar bellowed, grabbing her guitar by the neck and brandishing it like an axe.
‘Oh, so no more puns. Must be getting serious.’ Calvin thought.
She jumped up in the air, raising the guitar high in the sky while simultaneously summoning numerous amounts of musical notes behind her, almost blotting the sun. With a swift swing downwards, she brought down her guitar like a headsman’s axe and shot every note forward with the whistle of bullets and the force of mortar fire.
“Get rocked!” She bellowed with a distinct growl in her tone.
‘There it is.’ Calvin chuckled.
Rocks fell, static danced, and dust flew in the air, obscuring the climactic finisher done by the hero. From within the cloud came a bassy note, blowing the dust into the air for a third time.
Dramatic gasps and boos came from the crowd as they saw the twins were still mostly unharmed. Fatigued, but unharmed.
“Ha! It looks like that’s all you have.” They grinned, looking at Rockstar. The two synchronously raised their hands towards the hero, “This one will shock you!”
This time he definitely heard the crowd groan.
Energy started to visibly gather in the twins’ palms, a dangerous rumble started reverberating along with their increasing level of vibration. The static building up around them started to affect the rocks and even the barriers, making them flicker as they kept charging whatever move they were pulling.
“This seems dangerous,” Calvin muttered, looking at the staff panickily making calls and shouting orders to get the civilians out of the area.
Most of them were too busy recording videos with their holowatches to back away. Including Calvin, who was planning to show the video to Ina when they met later.
Rockstar stabbed her guitar on the ground, strumming a chord that reverberated throughout the asphalt around her. A moment later, stone barriers that looked like music sheets were erected from the ground, forming hundreds of layers of defense between the hero and the villains.
“I don’t think that’s enough,” Calvin whispered, looking at the disintegrated remains of the previous volley of stones. ‘Should I help? No, she’s a goddamn cape, why should I—‘, he froze, disturbed at where his train of thought was heading. “What the hell, Calvin?”
While he was lost in his own thoughts and hesitation, the Dynamo twins let out a roar. “Take this!”
With their bellow, the explosive energy they were gathering in between them gushed out, initially like a sprinkler shooting everywhere before they started controlling and focusing it into a beam. The sheer destructiveness was no match for the barrier— at first.
“Holy shit!” Calvin cursed, looking up at the building sliced through by the laser. “Get out of the way! Run!”
He heeded his own warning and started pushing people out of the way of the rubble that was threatening to come down. Unfortunately, not everyone was paying attention. Calvin zeroed in towards someone too shocked to move. He recognized them— it was that one kid who was excitedly asking the staff earlier about who the hero was going to be.
“Shit!” He cursed, looking up at the debris and then back down at the kid.
Without thinking, Calvin used [Jumper] to quickly appear beside the kid before deploying a net of [Impervious Pebble]s above them. He felt a great drain in his spirit, almost emptying it out with how tight he had to make the grid of pebbles above. It wasn’t for naught, though, as he heard the crash of rubble hit the pebbles, protecting him and the kid.
He waited a couple of seconds before dashing away with the kid in his embrace, just before the pebbles disappeared and made it much more unsafe. After a few meters of distance, he quickly dropped the kid and lay on the ground, gasping in the air as the spirit fatigue started bleeding through his physical and mental stamina.
“Are you okay?” He asked the kid while panting on the ground.
“W—what happened? Where’s my m—mom?” The kid asked.
“Where did you last see her?” Calvin asked and sat up, his heart dropping at his cries.
“Behind! She was— mom!”
A woman came running, “Luke! Oh my god— you’re alright! Thank god, you’re okay! Thank you so much—”
Calvin gave her a simple nod his attention already taken by the surroundings. Adrenaline was running in his veins, just enough for him to stand back up and sharpen his focus. He started looking for anyone else in danger, ready to force himself to use the pebble again if needed. Luckily for him, the CSS were a particularly competent bunch, most of the civilians were already getting escorted out of the danger zone, including him.
He ignored the staff trying to push him to the back, his eyes squinting to look through the dust that covered the hero and the villain.
“Holy…” Calvin muttered, eyes widening. “Is she…”
The staff followed his gaze, mouth gaping and face paling. She immediately pressed a button on her holowatch, “Rockstar’s down! She’s down! Fuck!”
They couldn’t pry their eyes away from the kneeling figure of a person where Rockstar was supposed to be. Half her head was gone, along with a part of their upper torso and their entire right arm. Whatever was left was burnt into an almost unrecognizable crisp.
There was a brief moment of panic among the staff before the man who looked like their leader stepped up on top of a truck, “Get your asses in order! Take out stunning techs fifteen and thirty-two and prepare for the barriers to go down!”
A few of the staff calmed down, all of them started grabbing two pieces of tinker tech from their pockets. One was a gun and the other was a baton, both seemed to be made by the same tinker judging from the design.
“Is tinker tech cheap these days?” Calvin muttered, seriously wondering.
“Our company has our own group of tink— why are you still here, sir? Please back away, we’ll take care of this.”
Calvin ignored them again, watching warily from the back as the now-broken barriers slowly went down. There was a palpable silence in the air as everyone anticipated with bated breaths, pointing their guns towards where the twins were seen last.
“Fire!” The leader shouted as soon as the barriers went down.
A volley of red-feathered darts shot out, heading towards the twins whose gaze seemed to be glued to the hero they felled. Just as the darts were about to arrive, a sheep-covered blanket appeared in the way, blocking all of them with an odd metallic ringing.
“Hey now, that’s no way to treat a winner.” A man flew down from the sky, smiling widely as he addressed everyone.
Calvin noted the starry-night onesie and the fishbowl on the man’s head, immediately recognizing the man. “Daydream…”
“Hey! Someone knows me!” He waved to Calvin who flinched. “Sorry guys, I need to take our recruit here. I’ll make it up to you later, bye!”
After saying that, Daydream quickly grabbed the twins and flew away, prompting the staff to break out from their fearful daze and start making some calls. Calvin’s eyes followed the supervillain flying away, a heavy feeling building up in his chest as he turned back to look at Rockstar’s corpse.
“Sir! Please leave now,” The annoyed staff was now trying their best to push him.
“Huh— oh, yeah, sure,” Calvin muttered distractedly, turning around and walking away as he stared in midair, a bit dazed from the event. “A hero died? In Inner City? Has that ever happened before?”
In his six months in this world, there was never a case of a hero, or even a villain, actually dying from one of their ‘exhibition stunts’ they perform in the streets. At most, they were horribly maimed, but no deaths. Never deaths.
’I should ask Ina, she’d know.’ He thought, raising his holowatch. “Wait— I’m still recording?”
He checked the video, watching it from start to end to check everything that happened. His upgraded holowatch was able to take a video of the entire event, and with Dox’s upgrades it recorded everything in a 360 perspective— everything was included.
“Should I—”, He tapped his foot for a moment before deciding.
> You sent a file
>
> Me: Early morning super fight
>
> Quinn: what’s that
>
> Quinn: oh
>
> Me: Rockstar and the Dynamo Twins
>
> Quinn: ina stlil sleeping
>
> Quinn: ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁(ᴗ_ ᴗ。)
>
> Quinn: who?
>
> Me: Hero died.
>
> Quinn: WHAT
>
> Quinn: HOW
>
> Me: Big laser. Watch the video.
Quinn stopped replying, assumedly she started watching as he said.
Calvin turned back to the scene of the event, watching as the devastation was quickly getting handled by the CSS. Various tinker tech and powers were being utilized, clearing the debris and replacing the battered streets. Rockstar’s body was nowhere to be found, probably taken away as fast as they could to avoid gawkers like him.
He squinted, thinking how he was going to get through. He could wait a few minutes for the way to be cleared and the traffic to continue walking, or he could take a detour through the next block and avoid that place.
In the end, the decision was easy. Calvin started walking away, steps heavier as his thoughts swam in dark places.
----------------------------------------
“What?! Rockstar’s dead?!” Rainier exclaimed, spewing out potato chips as his greasy fingers scrambled to grab the holopad handed to him. “How? I thought she was only handling a couple of newbies that scattered from that failed hostage situation? Angry Engines or something?”
“Mean Machines,” The woman in front of him corrected, brushing her white hair to the side as she gave him a shrug, “And she was. Newbies had bite.”
“How is that— she’s a fourth-ranker?”
“Just keep watching, fatass.”
“What do you think I’m doing, dumbass?”
Rainier looked closely at the video playing the fight between the two parties, glancing briefly at the betting odds he opened in his holowatch. There was an immutable difference between the odds, so much so that even he felt there was no point in betting such drastic differences.
“What the hell? Oracle analyzed their powers just this morning. This morning… they shouldn’t have been able to disintegrate rocks!” He complained while gluing his eyes to the fight. “I mean she should’ve had a bad time, but this was different from predicted— from what Oracle predicted. Look, she’s already battered—”
“I fucking know, okay? No need for commentary dipshit. They're saying it's probably some drug, or the kid was just really good at hiding it until now.”
Rainier put the holopad down, “Who was supposed to be on rescue again? Was it Goldfist?”
“Goldfist’s not from Central, he’s not gonna pay for rep like this. He’s a straight arrow, despite the thug-look he’s trying to go for. No ivory tower up his ass.” The woman rolled her eyes. “It’s Golden Time.”
“It’s golden spoon up the ass, moron. And yeah, I get them mixed up, okay? A lot of ‘gold’ heroes out here.” Rainier grumbled, pausing as he got to the laser attack. “Holy shit, how’s that possible?”
The woman shrugged. “Beats me.”
He double-tapped the holopad, dragging the video up in the air. With a few gestures over the console, he turned Vanguard’s third-floor break room into a holographic movie theatre. In the middle of the room was a three-dimensional re-creation of the video using the different angles recorded from multiple holowatches in the area.
“So those twins—”
“Apparently they’re not twins. It’s just one kid.”
“Duplicator?”
“Yep— and he evolved early. Got an electricity thing going on. Apparently, he can build up a charge by passing it back and forth between himself and his duplicate then release it like a hot potato. It doesn’t look like he has a limit with how many times he can bounce the charge outside of how tired he gets.” The woman explained.
“That’s fucking massive… the charging thing, that wasn’t in the file,” Rainier spoke, watching the laser play out in slow motion. “Background?”
“Oracle’s still working on that. Whatever we had, it wasn’t right.”
“We’re going to have overtime, aren’t we?” He grumbled and dropped the holopad on the table, sighing in frustration. “And I lost the goddamn bet. Fuck—”
“Hey, your fault. Boss told you guys to stop that.”
“It was a sure thing, I just wanted some beer money.”
“You earn more than enough for beer.”
“You can always earn more,” Rainier whined. “Ugh… now that golden asshole’s going to look for us for a refund.”
“Not our problem, you can just get another hero to play patsy,” The woman spoke apathetically.
“It’s the third time in half a year, it’ll be our problem once—”, he paused, feeling a message come in through his watch. “Ah fuck, I gotta go, I’ll see you around Marc.”
The woman waved him away, grabbing a tissue from her pocket to wipe the grease off of the holopad. As soon as Rainier left the room, her attention focused on the video in front of her. With a few gestures in the air, the holographic display reoriented, pointing away from the two juvenile supervillains and towards the juvenile crowd.
Seeing a familiar kid watching the scene, she smirked and muttered, “Calvin, what are the chances?”