[October 25, 2042]
Needless to say, Pascal Clermont’s life had taken a turn recently.
While any outside observer would take one look at the circumstances of his life prior to arriving at Otter Manor and determine them to be both extraordinary and horrifyingly dramatic, Cal himself had always thought of his own life as fixed and determined: something that could have only ever happened one way. Therefore, there was no need to get anxious or depressed by the way that things had turned out, for in his mind, they only could have happened in the way they did.
That said, Cal had a certain expectation when he had arrived at Otter Manor of attaining a kind of banal normality, one that had been immediately shattered after he had walked into his room and discovered an annoying ghost. The moment had reset his expectations of how his university life would turn out. Cal had once confided in Ram, as they sat together in the library, that his only true talent was acceptance. And accepted he had. Ghosts? Why not — people from all over the world had reported supernatural phenomena for hundreds of years. People from a sort of fantasy world or something? Well, after all, he had seen (and spoken with) the giant golden sheep himself, so denying the facts of the matter didn’t seem particularly productive. Robots? A harder pill to swallow — because technology, if unpredictable, typically moved in linear fashions — but also not impossible, though he would never admit that to Mel.
To put it another way, Pascal Clermont was the ultimate nullifier of the extraordinary, the unlikely, the impossible. Through his calm actions and pragmatic reasoning, he robbed it of some of its inherent power. Through acceptance, he leveled the playing field of the world.
Aren’t you scared of anything? Mel had once asked him, a few days after they had met. The answer to this question was, simply: of course. There was something very particular, very ordinary that Cal couldn’t stand with a fiber of his being. But it was a banal thing, his weakness. He was the sort of person only rendered useless, inept, or overcome in a very particular kind of situation. And so the bizarre situations that he had increasingly found himself in didn’t bother him in the slightest.
All this to say, in a long-winded way, that Cal didn’t particularly react with surprise when a costumed figure crashed down the front windows of the store and crashed into a mounted display of cans.
Cal had been, as he typically did after school was over, shopping for dinner that evening. He had wanted to cook something special — lasagna maybe — and had just been reaching for a can of tomato sauce when the costumed hero barreled through the glass. He caught the blur of movement out of the corner of his eyes, a blur of the uniform’s colors: the blue spandex with red accents on the chest and arms. Even in the instant Cal had to register what was happening, he recognized the figure — how could he not? The figure was a topic of conversation on television nearly every time he watched the news with Aina, explaining to her names and concepts she didn’t understand about this world.
It was the masked vigilante who was the talk of the town in Extremis City: Shining Hope Guardian.
This was what Cal realized in the first millisecond of action. In the second millisecond, he saw something else, something more abstract, a blur that caught the light of the organic diodes that were stitched upon the ceiling of the store. Something had been vaulted as Shining Hope Guardian slammed through glass, display sets, and shelves: a piece of wood — or perhaps aluminum — caught partly by the falling arc of the figure and propelled by the incredible momentum; now the object spun and whipped through the air and struck Cal right across his temple.
The world blinked.
There was shouting somewhere, terrified shoppers fleeing the scene as quickly as they could. Cal couldn’t. Instead, he heavily kneeled on the hard epoxy, still holding in his left hand the small bag of groceries he had been collecting. With his right, he strangely reached for the can of tomatoes again, but now he could not reach. Cal paused, confused. Then he felt the side of his head with his right hand.
Wet and slippery. A little uneven. There was red tomato sauce on his fingers when he withdrew his hand to study it.
Cal closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Focus, he thought.
The thoughts now came clear and automatic. He was bleeding. Quite badly. Probably not anything deadly to be concerned about, but it would be a miracle if he didn’t have a concussion. What to do next? Move, first of all, get to a place away from the chaos, reassess, call a free ambulance using one of the city’s many citizen-accessible emergency services. Yes, he should move. Stand up.
Cal got shakily to his feet and immediately fell sideways. The food items in his bag scattered on the floor and his head hit the ground wound-first. He felt a strange numbness come over him.
Meanwhile, Shining Hope Guardian was clambering to their feet, wiping dust and wood shaving off their costume. Any normal person would have had nearly every bone in their body broken from the impact of flying through a window at such incredible speed, but Shining Hope Guardian seemed barely dazed. They looked around, face obscured by the large blocky helmet that they wore, the visor dark and opaque. When they saw Cal lying on the ground, they let out a high-pitched squeak (the sound slightly muffled by the helmet), and sprang into action, crossing the floor and turning him over onto his back.
“Sir, sir? Can you hear me?” said Shining Hope Guardian, in a female, strangely familiar voice. “We need to get you-”
The voice broke off and a horrified shudder went through the hero’s body. “Wait,” came the voice again, small and trembling. A gloved hand slowly touched Cal’s cheek, and then felt the blood coating the side of his head. “Oh no… oh no…”
Cal turned his head slightly to look at the figure bending over him and the figure turned their helmeted head towards him in turn. A moment of silence passed as Shining Hope Guardian squeezed Cal’s hand firmly, as if trying to transmit a message through the contact.
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Then Cal spoke in a steady but delicate voice, his eyes fixated on a space a dozen feet or so away. “Turn around,” he croaked.
Immediately, as if activated by the words themselves, Shining Hope Guardian jumped to their feet and whirled around. Another suited figure, this one large and vaguely mechanical looking. They wore a black, bulky suit with sharp edges, and out of their head sprouted two horns that resembled those of a beetle. It would have been completely ridiculous looking if not for the legitimate intimidation that was created by the figure’s size and strength.
The beetle-horned figure strode into the store through the hole that had been created in the front-facing window, the tiles cracking slightly under the pressure of the feet. He walked with a dramatic preformativeness, a red cape flapping behind him, until he came to a pause in the middle of the store with his hands on his hips.
He pointed boldly at the figure standing in front of Cal. “Shining Hope Guardian!” He proclaimed loudly in a condescending voice. “My greatest foe! You cannot run from my dark vengeance!”
“Hey, wait!” Shining Hope Guardian stretched out a hand, as if in truce. “Beetle Boss, hold on for a moment! This is getting out of hand!”
“Bah,” Beetle Boss flapped his red cape in disdain. “I wouldn’t have thought you a coward, Shining Hope Guardian! Surely a small tumble such as that wouldn’t be enough to wind you? Now come, let us duel, your brightness versus my darkness, and see who the greater champion is! We shall battle across the streets and stars of this pathetic world, until nothing is left but the-”
“Beetle!” Shining Hope Guardian exclaimed in a pleading voice. “I’m being s-serious! Listen to me! Please… Someone is hurt.”
Beetle Boss tilted his helmeted head slightly as if confused. There were two white and round accents of color on the helmet, as if to stand in for insect eyes. “What?”
“Look! It happened when you threw me through the building!”
Beetle Boss leaned forward slightly, as if noticing for the first time that Cal was laying on the ground. He didn’t respond for a moment, and then his voice came again, robbed of all its energy. “Oh… oh no. I- I wasn’t intending to-”
“Never mind, help me!”
Cal didn’t see the rest of the scene play out, in fact, things had been swimming in front of his eyes for a while. Darkness trickled like a thin stream into the corners of his vision, and then began to pool.
Cal woke up on the lawn expanse outside Otter Manor. It was warm for October: the sunlight was catching off the waves of the bay and leaving a soft warm film on Cal’s face. There was no wind. Somewhere near a bird made a chirping noise.
Some dots of blood dotted the green grass beside his head.
“You moved me,” Cal said to the costumed hero who was kneeling beside him.
“Was that a good idea?”
“Eh?” Shining Hope Guardian flinched, seemingly unaware that he had woken up. “W-what do you mean?”
“Isn’t it bad to move someone who might have a concussion?”
A pause. Then a high-pitched exclamation. “Oh no! Is that true- I need, wait-” Shining Hope Guardian stood up in panic, unsure of what to do.
Perhaps it was because of the hit he had recently taken, but something about the movement stirred amusement in Cal, and he began to smile widely.
“D-don't smile! It’s not funny, Cal- I mean, sir.” Shining Hope Guardian pumped their arms in frustration and distress. “I need to get Aina- but wait, oh, I’m still wearing-”
They made a movement like they were about to take off their helmet but stopped dead upon realizing something, leaving their hands awkwardly placed on the side of the helmet. They had been rendered paralyzed with indecision. Observing this, Cal’s brief smile faded and he leaned his head against the grass, trying to not pay attention to the painful throbbing that had begun on his temple.
“It’s okay, Ram,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. “You don’t have to be careful. I already know it’s you.”
Cal couldn’t see behind the opaque visor of the helmet, but he could imagine all too clearly the look of panicked incredulity on Ram’s face.
“What?” Her voice said, still muffled cutely by the helmet. “What are you talking about Cal- sir? I’ve… never heard that name in my life.”
“Ram, I can recognize your voice. Okay? So you’re the vigilante of justice I keep hearing about on the news? I guess that makes as much sense as anything else.”
The voice beneath the helmet deepened. “My voice sounds like this.”
“No, it doesn't, Ram. You can take off the helmet.”
Shining Hope Guardian still didn’t move.
“Ram,” Cal said, trying to sound comforting despite the pain building in his head. “You know me, right? Remember what we talked about in the library. It’s my greatest skill, I can’t be surprised. This doesn’t…” He winced. “This doesn’t change anything. Absolutely nothing is different. You’re the same person, the same girl — my friend. And I’m sure all the others will feel the same way.”
There was another pause, until finally, Ram kneeled back down beside him and removed the bulky helmet to reveal her face. Her face was red: both from sweat and the tears that had begun to pool in her ears.
Her voice cracked and her brown eyes widened in emotional pain. “I- I hurt you.”
“No, you didn’t. It was an accident. You were being a super cool hero and trying to protect people from danger, right?”
She wiped her eyes, clearly distraught, clutching Cal’s hand roughly. “I hurt you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I-” She shook her head, stood, and clapped her cheeks. She had realized that she could no longer delay. “I need to get Aina. Cal, wait here! Don’t move! I mean, I already moved you, but don’t move any more!”
Cal couldn’t imagine a single reason why getting Aina was necessary at this moment, but he listened to Ram’s instruction as she dashed across the lawn, still wearing the majority of her superhero suit — or whatever the technical term was. She had left the helmet on the grass, the top-heavy visor leaning into the ground.
Cal looked at it for a long moment, attempting to keep his breathing steady as his temple hurt.
A robot superhero. Fighting supervillains in the city. Why not? Why the hell not? None of it mattered anyway.
Besides him, his shadow stirred, then settled back into stillness.