All of the 10th grade heroics course students were gathered in their classes as they watched the announcement of the next internship.
On the projection, Techno was talking.
“And so, after most of last year and the recent training done while fully armored, the tech division has properly upgraded all costumes with the growing changes of each student. Furthermore, we’ve also been developing support gear for everyone. Where before most students only had vague ideas and weapons, we’ve been developing many different gear to strengthen and bring out your power. Furthermore, with the bounty system producing money and funding, we’ve been able to secure higher quality material for everyone.” he said and from the back wall, the wall started to open up and many suitcases popped out.
They were very familiar to them as they were the same design as the one they got at the camp trip.
Everyone naturally had a number and they each went and got their own.
Robin smiled as he opened up his. Like everyone, there was a note which talked about the differences.
“Put the helmet on to view the video feed about the suit.”
“As expected of Techno.” Robin said and looked for it but frowned as he found no actual helmet.
He had to ask Chasm Might.
“It’s this thing.” He said taking out a pair of headphones. “Put it horizontally along the back of your head.” He said.
Robin felt weird calling this a helmet but put it on and after putting it on his ears in the right position, the gear adjusted comfortably to his head and suddenly extended a visor over his entire field of vision.
“Hello Mr Harison, I hope you like the new helmet. I've taken the liberty to reduce the mass of that bulky piece of trash you used before but kept all of it’s capacity and even enhanced it, all without needing to connect it with a wire. The main reason is because you honestly don’t need head protection yourself. Your hardened state already changes your outward appearance quite sufficiently for protection so I found that you didn’t need a biker's helmet for that.” Techno said in the video before it changed to a robotic model wearing a very cool looking suit.
“Now, I've looked at the parameters of your suit before. It was quite impressive that you were able to get vigilante class memory fabric to deal with your spring style. That said, you had to remove that from the elbow down because of your rapid expansion and pull back as the suit could not follow the speed. To be quite honest, even strongman level memory fabric would not handle your constantly increasing speed of expansion, however, it isn’t like there has never been people like you. With your recent blood test and getting similar elastic analysis technology from Captain Stretch I was able to synthesize a new breed of memory fabric based on your own body composition. It has as much elasticity and range as your body with the same speed of retraction while also being highly resistant to friction and tearing. Naturally it is memory fabric so after you produce your spring, it will contour out from the compressed spring.” the robot with higher extension arms and legs punched and retracted at very fast speeds showing how the clothes warped and contracted.
“Unlike the old suit that used nanotubing to transport liquid nitrogen, since you’ve developed your method for dealing with that, I took that dangerous element out of your suit as you can see with the lack of the back pouches. This makes the suit lightweight and much more flexible since you do not have to worry about extendable nanotubes. Now for the support gear.”
Techno brings out a pair of boots.
“Considering the fact that you generally use spring style to move and not all cities have swing posts on them, I've developed these pulse boots. When you move, channeling any form of internal power through them will allow them to produce a cushioning energy field around them allowing you to use a lot of strength on buildings, concrete or asphalt without causing damage. That said, there is a limit to it but going above it will only just start forming cracks. The benchmark is set to roughly a score of 150k on a punch machine or roughly 50k kilos of force. From the speed and pressure you produced during your last two weeks of training your movement control at high speeds, you would need to be in your enhanced state with heightened blood pressure to reach close to this when just moving around.” he said and put them aside and brought out a set of gauntlets.
“Naturally we can’t do without these. I've designed them off strength based powers. These are pressure gauntlets. They are segmented with pressurized internal pumps which compress upon impact before releasing everything moments later. I got this based on your improper spring usage originally which caused a second impact and this should give you a boost. The material is highly absorbent of blunt force. Thanks to your club’s high income, I was able to get rarer grade 3 material that most energy user Braveman use because of your absurd parallel channeling actually putting a huge burden on any strong man class material I tested. It is well within the capacity to handle even your Titan force if need be and will not easily break, though it does cost a pretty penny so be aware of that.”
After that he went on to explain a few of the more technical things in his suit as well as aesthetics that can be worked out. In the end, his main suit was still a full body suit with the gauntlet and boots while his tool belt contained minor space distortion gear which carried different support tools like gas bombs, hacking tools and the works for breaking down large groups of organized crime within a small area.
The visors also had a highly advanced night vision setting so he could completely knock out the power to a place and safely work from the dark.
“This is so much more high tech than I thought.” Robin said as he took off the visor by pressing a button on the side and put it down and took the gauntlet and looked at it and tried to press it and he had to use a lot of force to find one of almost 10 segments being pressed down and moments later a strong whoosh came and pounded back.
“Well damn…” Robin said, almost losing grip of it after feeling the knockback.
Everyone was doing the same for a little bit.
“Alright, I know everyone is excited but everyone already has their assigned area that they will be going to today. Your bags are already in the buses and you can check out your suit on the way.” Chasm Might said.
Everyone was excited and packed up the suitcase and took it outside.
That said, Robin held a strange one. While many students had numbers that matched with a bus, he couldn’t find his and shockingly couldn’t find it even after the buses left while none of the teachers actively helped.
When it was done, only him, Silk and Marcus were left.
“So… what the hell happened?” Robin asked.
“Like I know.” Silk said and turned his own note and found they had the same thing. Robin looked and tried to rub it with his nail but it didn’t come out so it wasn’t a scratch card so they waited and about 5 minutes later, a new bus appeared. That said, this wasn’t a transport, instead it was an extremely expensive looking camper bus and stopped in front of the three before the door opened and Chasm Might stood there.
“Good, it seems none of you got on another bus by accident.” He said.
“What is going on?” Marcus asked.
“You three are with me this time. Most of the heroes have picked a small number of proteges and naturally as Robin’s master, I want to teach him as well but also feel the dangers of what being a hero means. You two are his rivals as well as some of the strongest physical fighters in your grade so I know both of you will reach up high as well. Come on and get in, we have a long drive ahead of us.” He said.
The three looked and climbed aboard the luxurious bus and there was a driver there that greeted them with a nod before closing the door behind them and the bus started moving.
Inside were two shockingly different scenes. The bus was a two floor bus and the top was a living area but when Chasm Might showed them the first floor, they were shocked to find a literal mobile base.
“What is this for?” Robin finally asked.
“Welp, we are out of ear shot. First I will explain this bus. It is something Techno made for the heroes or braveman who have taken specific charge of certain students as well as accepting special jobs to do but requires mobility without being able to be tracked.” He said.
The three were confused and he called them to grab a seat upstairs. He took up a coach and the others were around on different seats.
“Tell me, what do you children know about the current state of security throughout the American union?” he asked.
Naturally the three couldn’t say much though Marcus spoke up because of his family's larger connections to information.
“From what I know, the union is in a pretty stable state at the moment. It’s honestly gotten better on the north american east coast since the incident with Time Tempest and the other criminals.” Marcus said.
“Only on the surface.” Chasm Might said.
“Huh?” the three said.
“The east coast has definitely improved, especially in the sphere around Richmond because of how many active heroics teachers we have and the number of hero sidekicks are around thanks to our calls but that is only for the immediate area.” He said and next to him he pulled out a keyboard and pressed one button.
The windows instantly darkened like someone had added stronger tint and the ceiling opened to a large screen which showed a continental map before it began to show red and blue areas.
“The blue areas on the map are security level.” Chasm Might said.
“Woah, why the hell is 70% of the continent red?!” he asked.
“Exactly the case. As you know, the hero academy is giving special attention to the cultivation of military and police personnel, this isn’t some random occurrence. It is a dedicated plan of the nation to cultivate new, loyal and just talents.” he said.
Robin frowned, “Sir… are we going to spend the internship hunting down corruption?” Robin asked.
Chasm Might grinned and nodded, “Exactly. At present, the industry known as heroics has saturated the nation and, as many of you know, the number of people being born with problems in their genetics is surprisingly high, it tends to breed a lot of criminals. With the expensive heroic industry acting as a supply chain of weaponry for people, among those in heroics are also mercenaries that do jobs for political figures.” He said.
They all frowned when they heard that.
The map pulled to north america before the north east coast. The colors spread again and from Richmond, a deep blue spread to what should have gone all the way to New York but it barely surpassed maryland.
“Wait… shouldn’t the crime rate have drastically dropped up to New york?!” Silk asked.
“That is the point of this. The vacuum created by the eradication of nearly 10 crime lords from New York down to South Carolina is already being filled in.” He said and the map pulled to New York and several projectors appeared around the area and suddenly holographic images appeared beyond the screen.
“At present, we’ve identified a massive infection in just the New York political structure from state level down to the public police officer.” He said.
“Why isn’t the government doing anything?” Marcus asked.
“Even heroes can’t move against political figures without proof. Although we have discovered connections throughout the entire thing, we don’t have actual proof of any of it. Of course, we are already aware of the structure of the entire system of organized crime in the state and those spreading out to new york state, pennsylvania, connecticut and rhode island, the main areas where this corruption is coming from trying to extend down over virginia to the carolinas that are also empty at this time.” Chasm Might said.
“Structure in organized crime. How does that work?” Silk asked.
Chasm Might smiled and pressed a button and the holograms vanished and the screen changed.
“Presently the system is simple. Governor, mayor, senators, basically the legislative branch holds roughly 70% of the money in this system. They ‘sponsor’ certain criminals to do jobs for them to build a following and hire more men to do their dirty work. The governor of the state and the mayor of the city are also the ones who hold command of the police chief of staff who are in this. We’ve not been able to confirm if they are willing or not but that doesn’t stop them from accepting bribes which is likely done to increase the control. The bribes naturally go down the line of command to normal officers and naturally the police have their own buddy system which pushes out good cops for the bad ones.” he said. “With the political structure controlling the police, they naturally can’t freely arrest their suboridants and those arrested are soon released unless the incident is too big.” he explained.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“This is hurting my head, what are three kids going to do?” Silk asked.
“It's not just us four but it is also not an army and we don’t need one. Common police officers, especially shitty ones like these, already have a hard time reaching the strength of vigilante even with support gear made for common people. Techno naturally doesn’t sell his weaponry on demand much less his power suit technology so police tend to react to search and rescue while we do the heavy lifting. We’ve got a few ally investigators and infiltrated personnel in the police with hidden mics and more just trying to obtain merit into this structure when possible. What we are going to do is shake up this structure.” He said.
He began to type and pull up several political figure’s images.
“These are the current people we have identified in the legislative branch that are in this and are the ‘funds’ behind the schemes. As such, Techno has been tracking all their bank transactions including what they try to hide outside of the country. Of course he has already hacked into most of those places so what we will be doing is transferring all their money into the American national treasury. Upwards of roughly 70 billion dollars back in public coffers.” He said.
Instantly the three boy’s jaws dropped.
“When that is achieved, you can guess how desperate these people will be to regain any kind of money. They will lose funding to be able to bribe and make their crime business harder to deal with. It will destabilize the entire structure so they will have one of two reactions, the smart ones will likely think this is heroes moving and instantly give up and escape, the second will think about trying to get more money and so they will start to plan things like bank heists, stealing armored trucks and basically any method to regain funds. We come into play by following and capturing groups and obtaining information and their connections.” Chasm Might said.
“But capturing them, the police are still on the side of the political figures so they will get a way out.” Robin said.
“Who said anything about turning them into the police? Heroes work on the federal level. When we finally move, the FBI and Military Police are the ones that are taking them into custody, not local police. Attempted disruption of hero and federal level investigations will be probable cause to arrest any local police or even senators.” He said with a smile.
The three looked and frowned, “What about crime lords at braveman or higher?” Marcus asked.
“I’m well aware of that and through investigation, we will naturally try to find out the most important locations such people go and I will personally see to those.” He said.
“Sir… Is it okay for you to be in a place as densely populated as New York city?” Silk asked.
This drew everyone’s attention but he continued.
“As the leader of the American Union’s Execution division as well as the man with the most widespread and unfocused physical strength, is it safe?” He asked.
Hearing the question, he actually smiled. “I would have actually rejected this if it was before but I've had a breakthrough in the usage of true qi. My power is constantly rising but my control is skyrocketing even faster and catching up. This is a test of my capacity to use this power properly without causing such massive large-scale destruction beyond necessary.” He said.
Silk looked excited when he heard that. He had True qi as well but clearly not as dense as his teacher but he spoke nothing more of this.
“We aren’t going in there flashy about our presence. We don’t want to have every person on guard about our presence which is why we are going to station the bus outside and will conduct heroic work by moving in and flying in there.” He said.
“Heh, hey rubber punching bag, did you hear that? You need to fly in.” Marcus taunted.
“I should say that to your fatass. I want to see how all that fat is going to get off the ground.” Robin instantly retorted.
“You don’t even know how to fly! Everyone knows you need the rock to use Titan force but you personally asked to leave it behind.” He said.
“It’s called psychic levitation you jackass, read about it a bit. It is an easy to use trick, especially after I succeeded in making my life essence and psychic energy flow naturally through my body.” Robin replied, narrowing his eyes at him.
Marcus snorted, “Levitation my ass. I've learned actual flight with Ki. Even my size has compressed more and all that compressed mass has made my strength skyrock. I'm already at almost 800 strength as a result. Soon I'll pass the four digit mark!” he said.
“Alright you two, enough of that.” Chasm Might said. “Stats aren’t everything Marcus. It is impressive that you’ve entered an overall bloom and all but don’t forget that you still need to be cautious because your strength has radically increased so you might find yourself not having full control.” Chasm Might said.
“I’m aware.” He said.
“Alright, that’s all for the time being, go try on your suits and see how they fit and work. I'm sure they aren’t limited to just being only armor and a few gadgets, this is Techno we are talking about.” Chasm Might said and had the three go relax and check out their new gear.
The screens and projectors all turned off and closed while the tint returned to normal and allowed light inside. The three boys found they were already nearing the highways and felt the bus start to speed up to highway speeds while they headed down.
Unlike changing in a room with girls, although the three of them didn’t care to change among each other. It wasn’t much different than changing into PE clothes anyways and that was done daily.
At the same time, when they undressed, the other two stared each other down while flexing, trying to look more buff.
“Hey, if you two stupid monkey keep doing that and aiming for muscles, you are going to end up alone.” Robin said.
“Shut up!” They both shouted and looked at him and snorted, “Skinny ass, besides being defined, you’ve barely got any weight to you.” Marcus said.
“Like I need that.” Robin said and opened his suitcase and took out the suit and found that it was a few sizes larger.
He didn’t know how to put it on and it had no zipper until he tried to stretch the neck and remembered that everything extended. Zippers were liabilities in their case so he pulled it open and his legs through before pulling it to the arms.
It was still baggy though but he figured there was something for that so he put the headset visors.
“Connect to the suit.” He said.
“Connection successful, size adjusting.”
Instantly the suit started to tighten from the neck to the feet and became a perfect fit for him like a second skin.
He took the boots and after looking, he sighed when he realized everything was built to function through the visors and unlocked the boots and put those on before putting the belt and finally the gauntlets
Both of those came up near his elbow but it did not hinder his rubber ability as he wrapped his arms and he felt the fabric come off from the compressed area and solidify.
Then he hardened his body fully and checked the size and was happy that it was designed with the mass expansion for both.
For Silk, he got basically a Punk Biker costume but the back wasn’t stitched since the suit was totally new so his sister had not touched it.
Robin and Marcus looked at his back and chuckled and he naturally noticed and scowled at them.
For Marcus, after some thought to the aesthetic and after some thought to his slowly forming fighting style, they had to actually go through a lot of historical or aesthetic planning until he got martial art style clothing.
It was an expandable armor suit on the body with his hands and feet free while a similarly expandable martial artist monk style clothing made of high resistance material was on top of that. He honestly wanted to go bare chested but he wasn’t durable enough to handle a bullet to the chest even when all that mass was compressed to the intense density he found his transformed state to be in.
On his back he had them stitch his family clan seal on the back to show his origins.
“At 4 meters tall, you’re giant but how is your speed?” Robin asked.
“Hmph, I've been getting faster with training. Don’t think I don’t weigh like a 25 meter tall giant ape. At the moment I'm focused on increasing just dexterity, agility and endurance while training my Ki. Hopefully I can eventually remain my own size or close to it when I transform and not be limited inside buildings.” He said and put on the top part.
“Did Techno provide extra tools?” He asked.
“Yeah.” Marcus said and finished wrapping the sash before taking out a pair of fingerless technological gauntlets that went up halfway to the elbow but didn’t restrict his wrist movement.
He put that on and opened and closed his fists, “Lethal mode.”
The next moment the gauntlets opened up and sharp spikes appeared on the knuckle and front of the fist. It also seemed to open a rig and the sound of gas being ejected came out.
Robin was curious but didn’t ask but Marcus said it anyway.
“If you're curious just ask.” He said.
“Okay… does that have a double impact?” He asked.
“Yeah.” he said.
“Mine too. It seems that it is a generalized setting for all strength types. I really pity any fucker that gets in the way of our punches after this.” Silk said as he put on a strangely shaped biker helmet that covered most of his face.
“What… the fuck is that.” Marcus said.
“I had to think of something so that I could fit my pompadour. I can’t help the shape my hair takes. That’s why I went with the name Punk Dog.” he said.
Yep, the top half of the helmet was a dog and on his hands were fingerless black gauntlets like Marcus’s.
“That is so stupid.” Marcus said.
“I know but it did give me more options since I have more space to work with instead of a small headset like you guys. The interior of the helmet is lined with the best shock absorbent material while the exterior has some of the durable grade 2 material. Even if you guys punch my head, the helmet won’t break and I only have to feel the pressure which my neck can more than handle.” He said.
“How strong are we talking?” Robin asked.
“Well… with the 0.5 cm thickness, a common military issue sniper can only dent it, not that normal headshots work on me anymore.” he said.
“Huh? Did something happen?” Robin asked.
“Well, after I trained and formed True Qi, remember when I had that week where I was actually chewing through any iron I could get?” He asked.
“Yeah… that is hard to forget.”
“Well, my body was actually digesting that shit because I was severely iron deficient. The cause was found that my skeleton was evolving and had turned into 20% raw iron at the time. Mr Might took me for a week at that time and actually taught me how to forge my own body with Qi. It was hell but I actually learned to melt down my own bones and remake them. The result is that the bone blended into processed metal. I've had… 6 similar crises and my bones are already mostly metal mixed with my bones' biological matter. I've had to buy several traits at the suggestion of the system to preserve my health and adapt to this. It’s why my endurance grew so fast and you guys hurt your hands so much when you punch me.” he said.
They both felt their brows twitch because they hadn’t expected for his entire skeleton to be iron now. Originally it was just his hair and they assumed that there were some other parts but to think about the entire skeleton.
“Hey, wouldn’t that mean your bones rust? Doesn’t that cause poisoning?” Marcus asked.
“What do you think the traits were for? My body naturally prevents oxidation. Oxidation of my bones is treated as dead cells and it is naturally processed out. In return I have to have a diet of iron to replenish that but it isn’t that much.” he said.
“How’s it going down here?” Chasm Might said and walked in.
He looked at each of them but they were just as Techno had instructed.
“Hmm, systems, activate any hidden features?” He said.
“Energy fist activated.” Robin’s suit said and suddenly his gauntlet changed a bit and suddenly it activated several different things.
“Oh, your gauntlet did change. What is it?” He asked.
“It said energy fist.” Robin said.
“Oh, channel your internal energy into it, then.” he said.
It was the same for everyone and Robin looked and the system instantly showed the entrance point so he channeled his Psychic energy into it.
“Psychic energy identified, activating psychic blade mode.”
The gauntlet changed a bit and opened and closed a few things as psychic energy appeared channeling before two pronounced blades of psychic energy came out about 20 cm out.
“Huh?!” everyone exclaimed when they saw that.
“Well Techno sure went all out this time.” Chasm Might said looking at it.
“This is a psychic blade.” He said and focused more psychic energy and it kept growing up to half a meter before stabilizing and forming a dangerous cutting edge.
For Marcus, he channeled Ki and his gauntlet changed a bit and formed an opening in the middle of his palms.
“What the fuck, this thing just said Ki blaster!”
Silk did the same with his and True Qi channeled through the gauntlet and shockingly he formed energy fists around his own like you see in anime.
Robin looked shocked before withdrawing his psychic energy and putting his Life essence.
“Life essence identified, activating buster fist.”
The gauntlet began to change drastically as it pulled several segments of the pump fist and built it over his fist making them double in size but it had more surface and actually revealed a gravity gem that doubled the weight of his fist.
They looked at him after it took two forms and knew what they wanted and after withdrawing and letting the fist return to normal, he channeled titan force.
“Titan force identified, Atlas fist setting activated.”
Suddenly all ten pump segments began to change until it looked like a totally different model of gauntlet. It was also smaller and went just over his wrist as all the material had changed.
Robin couldn’t tell the difference but as he channeled Titan force through it tubes lit up and the fist fully powered.
“Damn… it's called Atlas fist setting. It seems to be something special but I can’t tell. Can this thing support two energies at the same time?” he asked
“From what I heard, it should be able to.” Chasm Might said and Robin withdrew his Titan force and channeled both his psychic and life essence energies.
“Dual energy activation, activating energy blaster mode.”
Like that, the gauntlet changed into full blasters that were charging with the reaction of the two energies.
“Oh man, that bastard went and did something crazy again.” Chasm Might said and asked for details on it.
“Let’s see… the main chamber channels an amount of energy supplied into something akin to a fusion reaction producing a powerful burst of metaphysical energy. Huh?! There is even a merged setting for a Blaster cannon in case I add Titan force as well! What the fuck!” Robin shouted.
“That man, he put a half tested weapon in the hands of someone for field testing again.” Chasm Might said.
“Huh?” The three said.
“Techno is known for finding curious powers, technology and techniques and making more advanced technology based on that. In this case, he based it off of your parallel channeling and the immense power that it produces in your pumped state. He believes that the reaction in your acupoints is the main source of this power your body displays. He likely got a few skilled people to combine the energy in a gun and figured out the trick and made a mobile model in the form of your gauntlets. That guy, we need to test to see if it is safe or not for your own safety.” Chasm Might said. “For now this was just a test run to make sure everything is running right, go through the works of your support gear but don’t do anything too crazy on the bus.” he said
They nodded and also began to check if the boots had anything or other pieces of gear, especially the gadgets and most importantly, the superpowered shackles and the tool belt with the space technology.
After a bit they changed back and each of them took a corner and did their own things or training. It was a long drive of over 6 hours so they tried to relax because they didn’t know what they would meet when they arrived.