by Simon Archer
I slammed him against the wall again, and this time, I made sure he hit his head pretty hard. Not actually enough to concuss him, but enough that he’d have a headache for the next few hours.
“You think Matt’s gonna save you, you disgusting pig?” I snarled in his ear, done with his bullshit. “He’s got a sister. Cares about her more than anything. You start acting like an ass around every woman you see, you won’t have many friends.”
I held on for another long moment, just to make sure the point was drilled into his meaty, thick skull. Then I let go, and Brad, his face crimson with humiliated tears in his eyes, opened the door and ran right out of it. I was tempted to catcall after him but held back. There wasn’t a point in reducing myself to his level.
“Skipping the first day of class isn’t going to look good on his record,” Andie scoffed, “but fuck ‘em. Thanks, Nick.”
I rubbed at the back of my head, immediately uncertain when my eyes fell on Kara’s timid posture, half-hiding behind Andie. I had scared her. I’d definitely scared her.
“I’m sorry, Kara, I—” I began, but she cut me off.
“No, no,” Kara squeaked. “Don’t.”
Panic almost set in, and I immediately glanced at the door and considered running too. Maybe I should have let it go. I was too violent, too much like my—
That’s when Kara closed the distance between us and took my hands in hers. She looked up at me with loving ice-blue eyes, and I felt the world snap back into place again.
“Hey, stop that,” she whispered, a little more confident now. “I’m not made of glass, you know. I’ve just... I’ve never had anyone do that for me before. It was very sweet. Thank you.”
I glanced from her to Andie and back again. “R-Right. Uh. I mean. You’re welcome. It was no trouble.” Those incredible blue eyes were soft and kind, loving in every possible way. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve them, she could have taken care of Brad herself if push came to shove.
Kara’s hands warm in mine, and I cleared my throat. “I know you can defend yourself,” I went on, still a bit annoyed about Brad’s lack of maturity. “I didn’t mean to take away from that. But you both deserve better, and I’ll be damned if he tries that ever again. I don’t care, I’ll snap his goddamned—”
My thoughts shattered when Kara kissed me on the cheek. It was a sweet and gentle thing, her lips gone before I fully registered the action. I blinked at her and struggled for words.
“Thank you, Nick.”
“Right, well. It’s hard to be threatening when you do that,” I joked.
She pulled away, and her warmth lingered behind. My hands tingled where she’d taken them a moment ago. I held one to my cheek and traced a finger where she’d kissed me. It was the first one we’d shared in any sense since... well. It had been a very long time.
Chapter 7
Suddenly chipper and confident with that one simple action, Kara walked onward. She waved at City Master, who was looking at us from a platform near some other mysterious door. He’d clearly witnessed the entire exchange and had done nothing about it. Hard to say if that meant he approved. It could also mean he was harboring his judgments for later.
Andie’s hand slipped into mine while we both followed Kara to the gathering class. “Thanks for being you,” she said quietly. “I chose well.”
I chuckled softly, rolling my eyes at her. “You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” She smiled. It was a faint little thing, marred only by a slight tone of unhappiness. “Kara doesn’t talk about it, but she’s suffered a lot. It’s in her eyes.”
“I think we both did,” I said and nodded. “She’s the same girl she was before, but a little quieter now. She was... never really the same after Mom died, you know? And when I fell out of contact, I guess she thought I’d be mad.”
“She’ll recover. She’s already started to bloom,” Andie said with confidence. “In the meantime, her self worth could use a buffer. It does a girl a lot of good to know that she has friends who will have her back. So... thanks.”
I nudged her with my shoulder and smiled again. “Thanks, yourself.”
I glanced back toward the heavy wooden doors as they swung open for the Barbur twins and Jack. Brad was hiding behind his brick-laden comrade, and Matt looked about ready to murder me. No doubt Brad had spun some kind of lie just to get his vengeance. I tipped my chin toward them to show Andie.
She whistled softly. “There goes the hope he was gonna go cry in the bathroom for the next few hours.”
I sighed and joined Kara, who was waiting with Eric and the other students for City Master to begin his lesson. There was a light shining on the big black door behind him, and most were glancing at it, curious to its nature. When he saw me, Eric squirmed through the crowd of classmates and gave me a wave. Kara followed him and flashed a little smile my way.
“Nick, look!” Eric gestured at the door with both hands, a look of wonder all over his face. “Rescue class!”
He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, so excited that I could see little sparks race along the blue streaks of his hair. He tried to high-five me, but I saw sparks running along his hand as well and darted out of the way with a grimace.
“Sorry, man,” I said with a nod to those sparks, “but you’re, well, at full charge.”
“Yeah, you’re pretty pumped today,” Andie said with a laugh.
Eric shook his hand to try to stop the sparks, but they continued on without him. He grimaced as well, but that didn’t hold his attention for long. Bouncing again, he jabbed a finger towards the mystery door a second time.
“Sorry, Nick,” he said as he bounced. “So what do you think’s behind the door? Maybe another obstacle course? Who are we rescuing? You know, in Heroes Unlimited edition one-hundred-and-five, there was this really interesting case where Judgment saved someone with a fork, like, just a fork, no powers, no—”
“That’s fascinating stuff,” I interrupted him and chuckled a little. I gently clapped Eric on the back to let him know that I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. A small spark connected with my hand when I did, and I winced at the feeling of electricity jolting through my fingers. All things considered, Eric was fantastic company. He was just a real handful sometimes.
“Did you practice those meditation techniques we talked about?” I added. “You’re sparkling more than Brad’s personality.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Mom, and I made a ton of progress. But seriously, Nick, aren’t you even a little curious about the fork? It’s awesome.”
“Focus, young padawan.”
Being the only guy in the male dorm who actually didn’t mind my company, Eric and I had ended up spending quite a bit of time together this first week at Valcav. I decided that if he was going to be even a junior member of our current team, he really needed to work on his powers a bit more, and so I suggested meditation to help him out. It had worked for me initially while gaining better control over my own and seemed a great idea at the time.
But getting Eric to focus on anything for more than two-to-three minutes was a real challenge. He didn’t really understand the concept of inner peace, either.
Eric rolled his eyes again and snarked, “Yes, Master Gateon.” He sucked in a great big breath, held it for a second, then released. The sparks were still dancing all over his body. He bounced on the balls of his feet again. “Better?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Not even the slightest. You’re hopeless, buddy.”
Eric closed his eyes and tried again. It was like watching a little boy try to contain the excitement before Christmas morning, and Eric peeked out at the door again, his whole body vibrating with anticipation. Andie snickered and joined Kara and me where we waited by the platform.
From it, City Master towered above us like a monolith, silent and stoic. He steepled his fingers, took a deep breath, then scanned the classroom with dark eyes. They fell on me the same amount of time as everyone else. I
was quite happy with this, to be perfectly honest. It was nice to know at least one of the faculty was willing to treat me as an equal.
At long last, he opened his mouth to speak. “Today, you’ll begin your physical training into the complicated endeavor that is a rescue. As each of you knows, rescues by their nature are unpredictable, and the villains involved in them are even more so.”
He paused on someone behind me as he said this. I heard the grind of Jack’s bricks and suspected it had to do with someone in Matt’s group.
“If you are performing a rescue, you are delving deep into enemy territory,” he continued. “The villain knows the battlefield and has often set traps in anticipation of you. Unless they are able to scout ahead, the only thing a hero knows going in is the stakes. An innocent life on the line, and a villain willing to play with murder just to catch your attention.”
City Master held up a finger, his expression thoughtful. “But why? Why bother taunting the hero in the first place?” The class was silent, and City Master sighed. He gestured at all of us with an eye roll. “That was a question you were supposed to answer.”
It was Brad, still hiding behind Jack, who raised his hand. We all turned to look at him when City Master gestured him to speak.
“To fuck with the hero,” he said, glaring at me again. “It’s psychological warfare.”
I couldn’t help but snort a little and nudged Andie with my shoulder. She shared the same expression, Brad would know the answer to this one.
“Indeed, Mr. O’Connor.” City Master tapped his own head. “Psychological warfare. Sometimes, many times, in fact, a villain doesn’t care about being arrested. Sometimes, they’re so far gone they only care about the moment. They want to see you burn, and to do that, they’ll go straight for your spirit. They’ll try to break it.”
He gestured off to his left, where the door still waited. “Each time you enter, the course will be different and set up into scenarios that match real-world occurrences with similar stakes. Unpredictability is a factor here because it is a factor in the real world.”
City Master then swept an arm over at us. “In each scenario, one of you will play the hero and try to rescue our victim. The other will play the villain and attempt to stop them, then the roles shall be reversed. You will be scored on both attempts. The villain enters first and has a five-minute grace period. The hero must navigate whatever traps the villain chooses to set and then rescue the victim wherever they are. Combat is not necessary. This isn’t a battle sequence, this is a rescue class. Your priority is the life in danger.”
He clapped his hands once and looked us over again. His eyes settled on me this time. “Mr. Gateon, you’re fighting Mr. Barbur. Gateon, you will be playing villain first.”
Andie nudged me with her shoulder. “You’ve got this, Nick. Kick his ass.” On my other side, Kara smiled by way of support.
I wasn’t happy to play the villain whatsoever, but City Master continued his roll call without waiting for protests. Andie would be fighting Kara, and Eric would be fighting Kristen. Oddly enough, Jack would be fighting Brad which was strange given their vastly different power sets. Kara and Andie were one thing, but Jack was about as opposite as one could get to Brad.
The set up didn’t seem exclusive to supportive versus offensive power sets which meant this really wasn’t a combat course. It was generally considered bad taste to pit supportive against offensive types in combat scenarios because offensive types usually had an unfair advantage. The two were generally meant to complement each other.
“Alright, Gateon,” City Master urged. “Through the door. Formulate a plan and make it quick. The timer starts when Mr. Barbur walks in after you.”
Walking through the door was like walking into an entirely different world. It was an apartment or a house of some kind. A glance out the window told me we were on the ground floor, but that couldn’t be right. The layout didn’t make sense, given the scale of the gym behind me. Illusions, maybe?
But everything felt real enough. I traced my fingers along the fabric of a modern black couch. It sat before a small plasma television and a matte black coffee table laden with various knick-knacks. The house ran down a hall to what seemed to be bedrooms.
When I explored a door on the left, I found a kitchen area with pots and pans waiting on a cold stove. There was another door to the back of the house or what I assumed to be a house. I was trying to rationalize the space in my brain, but nothing about it made any sense.
The backyard lawn was a crisp, emerald green, too green, and the sun that shone down on me had an odd lack of warmth about it. Illusions, then. Were Mindbender and City Master working together on this one?
I heard a Southern drawl, and my eyes darted upward. “Hey there, sugarplum!”
Dangling from a three-story drop was Adelaide tied by a thick rope. It connected to the roof of an imposing steel building. I knew in my head that it was all a trick and Adelaide wasn’t actually in serious danger, but still, my heart skipped a beat when I saw her.
“Are you okay up there?” I called out
“Don’t mind me, sweetie!” she cooed. “You focus on your task now, ya hear?”
Upon closer inspection, I found various levers and switches hidden around the place. When I tested them, I was surprised to discover that many triggered traps that were terrifying in nature and likely lethal to anyone but Matt himself. There were ones that spit fire, blades, even poison at the intruder. It’d make sense that City Master would adjust the traps based on the rescuer’s abilities, and Matt did have a healing factor that had yet to be truly tested.
From what I'd seen thus far, he could brute force his way through nearly anything with enough persistence, and he certainly didn’t lack in the stubbornness department. But if he was ever going to improve on the field, he needed to learn his limits. Matt might hate me with all the rage of a dying star, but he was Ice Bringer’s son. I knew potential when I saw it. I didn’t plan on going easy with him.
When Matt finally entered, I waited by the television near the entrance with my arms crossed. He scowled and marched toward me with his claws extended, paying attention to nothing else. It was the first mistake of many to come. The false bottom to the floor was obvious if he’d bothered to glance down, but he fell victim to his own anger once again. He was nothing if not predictable.
With a surprised shriek, he tumbled down a ten-foot drop and then screamed in pain. Concerned, I peered over the edge of the trap.
At first, I wasn’t going to add to the spikes down there, but Matt’s relentless attack on my character was getting very old, and there was a tiny part of me that wanted him to suffer just a little bit. When I found him impaled through the shoulder at the bottom of the pit, I couldn’t help but smile a tiny bit.
“You fucking coward,” he snarled as he thrashed wildly. “First, you attack Brad, and—” He groaned in pain as he attempted to free himself from the spike. The metal was slick with his blood, and he seemed to be stuck. “—and now this. They might think you’re playing, but I know you’re evil. I know it! You’re only here to take your education back to Inferno Island and serve your father like the bitch you are!”
I ignored his struggling at the bottom of the pit and placed my hand on the switch that would free him.
With a cold, dead tone, I asked, “Do you even know how long I spent there, Matt?” I didn’t wait for him to answer that. “Ten very long, very... instructive years. You know nothing about what I’m capable of and even less about what he would do in my place.”
“You fucking impaled me! I’d say that’s evidence enough!”
“Mm. And yet, you’re still talking.” I shrugged. “Maybe I should have cut your tongue out first. It’d grow back, so I’m sure City Master wouldn’t mind. I’m tired of hearing your incessant whining.”
“Fuck you, Nick!”
“If it were my father, he’d have filled that pit with acid and then blocked your exit with a force field. That’s
probably a weakness for you if you’re wondering. Strong, steady damage to counteract your healing factor... if it’s caustic enough, it might even kill you. You’d die slowly, and he’d take notes to the music of your screams.”
From the pit, I heard, “You’re disgusting.”
“And yet, I still grant you mercy. Weird how that works.” I hit the switch on the wall, and I heard metal slide back as the spikes retracted. Matt groaned in relief. Slowly, the platform rose to free him. Matt didn’t wait for it. He used his claws to gouge furrows into the stone walls of the pit and soon climbed out of it with a vicious snarl. I rolled into the kitchen and snatched a carving knife from the counter.
I held it and waited for him to charge at me, as was his pattern. The backdoor behind me was wide open, revealing a bright, sunny day in stark contrast to the tension inside the house. Matt was still very bloody from the spike, but his shoulder seemed completely healed now.
“You’re not gonna survive the year’s end, Nick.” Matt’s growl was guttural. He was becoming more and more the beast, and less and less the man. “I’m gonna find a way to make you disappear.”
“Aww.” I clicked my tongue and granted him an amused little grin. It was only half-fake because I knew he’d say that. He was getting too predictable. “Listen to those shallow little threats. All that posturing! What a brave boy you are!” I tapped my chin with my free hand, wide-eyed and mocking. “Wait a minute. Is this the part where you charge at me and bumble right into the next trap?”
Sure enough, he snarled and did exactly that. I rolled toward him, easily avoiding the blow. As Matt missed me, he tumbled through the back door, tripping wires which sent huge volts of electricity into his body.
He screamed in pain and writhed in the grass like a wild animal. I let him suffer for a few seconds, but again, I eventually freed him from the wires with another switch, and they retracted back into the house as if they’d never existed.
