Novels2Search
Of Time, Past and Future
Chapter 4 - Congratulations, You Survived Your Suicide

Chapter 4 - Congratulations, You Survived Your Suicide

During the brief moment of utter confusion that followed the explosion, Alden made sure to let his body drop to the ground as if he had been hurt by one of the fragments of the wall. No one paid attention to such an action, considering that vision was still obstructed by dust and that they were rather more preoccupied with the reason for the wall’s destruction, that being, two individuals now fighting in the middle of the room, one of which had been thrown immensely fast previously and had been the cause of the explosion, yet had started to fight again shortly after with no apparent injury, with just a second of disorientation.

The two individuals were dressed rather characteristically as comic book characters, more specifically, as Superheroes and Supervillain. Despite not being able to see the fight from his prone position, the young man knew that the one who had previously been thrown through the wall was dressed similarly to a rather famous Superhero of Earth, their red and blue costume being only complemented by dashes of gold and silver among the hard edges of it’s design, with a deep blue cape floated behind them from the force of their fight.

Their opponent, on the other hand, was the perfect image of the stereotypical villain. Dressed in a slightly distasteful combination of black, grey and blood-red, alongside a large dark trench coat covering most of their features, they looked extremely edgy. The way both of them fought was also extremely familiar for anyone familiar with comic books. The Superhero seemed to be a rather classic example of a flying brick, being able to fly and showing super strength, speed and toughness, using their own body to fight. The villain, on the other hand, fought in an expectedly edgy way, by summoning magic-looking circles using a liquid that looked suspiciously similar to blood in order to summon all manner of monster, demons and supernatural effects.

Alden remembered how entranced he had been with the fight on his first Tutorial, his young mind back then obsessed with comic books and games, to the detriment of his social ability, leaving him too excited to think clearly about the situation. That had been his first major mistake in his last life, and had been one of his biggest regrets. This time, he promised himself, he will accept no such a thing. He would do everything perfectly, from start to end.

All while he thought of this, the intense fighting continued, their clashes sending waves of air and dust flying. Some of the other humans participating in the Tutorial had finally snapped out of their disbelief at the situation. One poor soul even tried to shoot the edgy looking villain, only receiving a glare when the bullet flattened again the trench coat and being thrown to the side of the room by a nearby tentacle from one of the magical portals.

After this, the others wisened up and simply tried to keep the maximum distance possible from the fight. Alden, in particular, had made a very strategic choice in regards to where he would let his body fall and was partially hidden behind a pile of rubble, where neither the superhumans nor the summoned monster would pay any attention to him.

The fighting continued for a good five minutes but, perhaps predictably, the supervillain started looking more and more tired as time passed, while the superhero looked no worse for wear. Finally, after receiving a particularly strong punch straight to the chest, the supervillain decided that enough was enough and summoned a larger than normal magical circle under them, from which they preceded to disappear, evidently teleporting somewhere else, but not before leaving some final words to the hero.

“You may have won the fight this time, Lux, but you shall lose the war! This is not the last time you shall see the Scarlet Demon!”

The Supervillain exclaimed, before promptly vanishing in a cloud of scarlet smoke.

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“Dammit! I’ll catch you next time Demon, I’ll make sure of that!”

The Superhero(-ine) exclaimed, frustration evident in her voice. Alden was sure that anyone would be frustrated if they had to fight that edgy loser more than once. Still, he didn’t let that thought distract him. It was now time for the most important part of his plan for the tutorial.

After speaking, the heroine simply took a long, deep breath and closed her eyes, seemingly to calm herself, before turning to the inhabitants of the room she found herself in while fighting.

“So, could any of you explain why a group of heavily armed people were meeting in a hidden room, minutes away from the most populated part of Ace City?”

She asked, and an intimidating pressure pressed down on the other people of the city despite the superheroine’s sweet smile. After seeing how strong she was in the earlier afraid, they were afraid to anger her but they had no idea how to explain their situation. Worse yet, they quickly discovered that they were unable to talk about their Earth, their previous lives or even the Tourney, that brought them here. With that, they were unable to provide any satisfactory answer and they were quickly rounded up by the heroine and left to wait for the arrival of the police, where they would be properly interrogated about how they acquired their illegal weapons and what their intentions were and where the injured ones from the fight would be treated.

With that done, the superheroine turned to one of the corners of the room, hidden behind some of the rubble from the broken wall and completely empty.

‘Strange’ She thought. ‘I could swear I saw someone over there. Am I wrong? It could have been one of Demon’s defeated minions, but…’ She continued, trying to remember exactly what she had seen during the chaotic fight. When she couldn’t get anything more concrete, she simply shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, I’m sure it isn’t anything important, regardless.’ With that, she waited for the police to arrive and bring away the suspicious individuals she found, before flying away from the area through the broken wall that left to the outside of the building, in search of more evil-doers to fight and defeat.

Had she been a bit more attentive, she might have noticed that the dumpster located right below the broken wall of the building looked to have been recently disturbed, as if something heavy had been dropped into it. Fortunately, she wasn’t, and so a young man managed to escape from being arrested by the police, hidden beneath the trash.

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Challenger Status

True Name: Alden Eldridge

Mask: The Sage

Title: None

Race: Human (Variant-3 Species, Carbon Lifeform, Animalia)

Class: None

Ability: R̶̸̷̵̵͔̣̠̙̞͒̂͗̅̄e̷̶̴̴̶̢̥̤̖̹̍̾͌̕͝b̶̸̷̷̶̖̩̩͉̖̅̂̄̐͝ĭ̷̴̵̷̴͉̟̩̯̭̄͗̐̚ṟ̴̴̶̵̵̺̺̘̼̀̆́̑̌t̴̴̵̸̵͉͓͖͓̥͛̊̉͗͗h̶̸̶̷̴̛͓̥̼͇͉͑̓͐͠ (Warning! Conflict in Ability! User has pre-existing Ability! Please contact Tourney Organizer!)

Legacy: None

Enlightenment: Undiscovered.

Stage: None

Health: 94%

Stamina: 91%

Under Status Effect: Malodorous (Charisma divided by 4)

Challenger Characteristics

Might: 3

Dexterity: 4

Endurance: 3

Senses: 5

Will: 10

Charisma: 2 (8 / 4)

Soul: 10

Arcana: 5

Ethereal: 10

Challenger Skills

None

Challenger Attachments

None