by Hayes, Drew
Making the impossible seem mundane was simply what Nick Campbell did.
288.
“Dean Blaine. We’ve got an unscheduled teleport onto campus.”
Part of him had wondered if it was overkill to keep a comm in his ear during Intramurals, but as Professor Baker’s voice alerted Dean Blaine to the surprise arrival, he was exceedingly grateful he’d bothered with the precaution. As the Heroes in the room milled about, waiting for the next fight to start, Dean Blaine tried to hide his tension. There were many reasons someone might teleport to Lander that didn’t involve an assault on campus. Hell, it might just be a civilian Super visiting a friend; it wasn’t as though teleportation was illegal. Even as he worked to convince himself, however, Dean Blaine didn’t believe it. This was another attack, another attempt on the HCP, and this time when the dust settled there would be-
“Teleporters located. It’s Shimmerpath and some friend of hers. She says she needs to speak with you or Graham as soon as possible.”
Unexpected relief surged through Dean Blaine. Just Shimmerpath. That probably meant something was up with Globe. Clarissa wasn’t the type to “pop-in” unannounced, but even that situation was far preferable to another army invading Lander. “Let her know I’m with Graham, about to oversee the final match of Intramurals. If she wants to wait in my office, I imagine I won’t be long. By this point, all cards are on the table so the fights tend to be brief.”
“I’ll pass on the message,” Professor Baker replied. It had been tempting to bring her down here to see how Intramurals was run, but the truth was that deans had little role in this part of the competition, aside from the one he’d played for Chad. Having her running the defenses not only gave her better training, it also put Dean Blaine at ease to have someone competent and trustworthy at the helm.
The screens above the massive, dark pane of clear material lit up, but this time they weren’t alone. Light began to flicker on in the depths of the seemingly empty window as well, illuminating the final field of battle. Lesser matches had the random field element added in to keep students on their toes, but the final bout always took place in the same location: a simple combat cell like the students were used to, only far larger. The consensus was that a battle for championship should be focused on the skills of the students, rather than what variables they could spin to their advantage. Across all the HCPs, every year there were only two students who would get to stand in that cell, where so many fights between future Heroes had taken place over the decades. It was a privilege not even Dean Blaine had received.
“Dean Blaine? Shimmerpath is requesting to speak with Professor Pendleton, since you’re unavailable.”
“That’s fine, but unless her friend has Hero credentials it will just be Shimmerpath. Anyone else can wait above-ground. This isn’t the day to flaunt security protocols.”
“That seems to be fine, she says she just wants to pass on a message.”
A message? One she wanted to hand off so quickly that she couldn’t wait for one match? Maybe this was more pressing than Dean Blaine had realized. It didn’t change much, he still had to be here, but he made a mental note to find out what was going on as soon as Intramurals ended.
At that moment, with the dark window finally lit, displaying the massive cell behind it, Victor stepped to the front, signaling that the fight was about to begin. Dean Blaine glanced across the room to Dean Jackson, who paused his chat with Titan to stare right back.
Lander versus Sizemore. Not the first time they’d gone up against one another in the finals, although it had been a while. And if things went the way Dean Blaine was expecting, this would be a fight they’d be talking about for years to come.
* * *
Clarissa was less than thrilled at being told to wait in an office, but her team had been the ones who decided to act on Intramurals day without letting Blaine know what they had planned. It made sense at the time: the further they could keep someone like him from this, the better a chance he wouldn’t be swept up in the fallout. Still, the idea of sitting in a chair while her enhancement wore off and her friends fought for their lives was more than Clarissa could stomach, so she made the call to hand the jump drive over to Sean and get back to the fight.
It took all her self-control not to sprint down the halls, compromising with a quick-walk that drew a few stares but didn’t get her stopped by anyone with questions. Navigating to the gym, a place she could have found in total darkness thanks to years trudging there during her own HCP days, Clarissa forced herself not to burst in. She’d already been briefed that Sean was with the non-competing kids, relaying results. Poking her head in, as calmly as she could manage, Clarissa loudly cleared her throat.
“Professor Pendleton, could I speak with you outside for a moment?”
Sean, who was standing in a room of students that seemed to be working out pretty hard on a day off, did a double-take when he saw her. Unlike Blaine, Sean absolutely knew where she was supposed to be, and he almost tripped over himself getting out of the gym.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Following orders.” She grabbed his arm and yanked it forward, putting the jump drive in his palm. “That’s the data. Just the data. The others are still working on the rest. It was decided that, even if my team fails, some truth should escape. Get that somewhere safe, then give it to Blaine or Graham when Intramurals is over. I can’t wait around; the others still need me.”
Clarissa released his arm, turning to go, but it was Sean’s turn to do the grabbing, his thin hands gripping her shoulder. “Not alone you don’t. I’m coming too.”
“Sean, your place is here.”
“My place is wherever I can help my family the most. If they’re that close, if she’s in reach, I can’t not be there.”
“Sean, this isn’t open for discussion…” Clarissa’s words trailed off as a group of DVA agents turned down the hall. They were all running, sprinting really, and for a moment Clarissa thought she was caught. Instead, the DVA agents raced past, all of them yelling orders into their phones. She didn’t catch much, but the few words she made out were hardly encouraging. Phrases like “sudden attack” and “middle of nowhere” were good hints that the assault had finally been noticed, but it was one word that confirmed her suspicions. A DVA agent was trying to whisper into his phone, but he was an expressive fellow, which made reading his lips all-too-easy.
There was no doubt about it; he’d definitely said the word “Globe.” The DVA knew something was happening. They knew, and they’d have to respond. Suddenly the situation wasn’t quite as clear-cut as it had been moments prior.
“Find someone to cover for you,” she instructed. “I have to talk with Joan. Be fast. Once we decide what to do, we’re doing it, with or without you.”
289.
Big and empty. Perhaps not ideal, since it offered Vince little cover against Conrad’s ability to manipulate the floor, walls, and ceiling. Then again, would fake shops or small patches of trees really make much of a difference when his enemy was attacking with the environment itself? If anything, that would only give Conrad more projectiles to toss around. Besides, Vince rather preferred it like this. The same general area as what Alice and Chad had been stuck working with. This way, if he managed to win, Conrad would have no excuses. It was just the two of them, power versus power.
“Welcome competitors. This time, I’ll be handling your intros, since you’ve got better things to keep in mind.” Victor was standing in front of the giant clear window, his back to the competitors as he addressed the viewing room. “From Lander, we have Vince Reynolds, a Close Combat major with no Hero name chosen. From Sizemore, we have Conrad Booker, a Control major who will be operating under the Hero name Seismic. You’ve all gotten to see these fine young men put on dazzling displays of power, strategy, and determination in their first three matches. Now we see who will emerge from this year’s Intramurals as the champion.”
Victor turned around, faci
ng the clear material keeping him safe and staring out to the two competitors below. “Vince, Conrad. Your match begins now.”
Conrad was probably expecting Vince to run. It would have been a tactically sound move, racing about to make himself a harder target. The trouble was, Vince knew how well that worked for Chad, and unlike Alice, Vince didn’t have the ability to fly. Jumping around might buy him an extra few moments, but eventually he’d have to land, which meant coming down into Conrad’s waiting rocks. When he looked at the situation calmly, it was obvious that within the first few seconds of the match Conrad was going to catch him. There was no avoiding it. Rather than waste stamina, Vince stood in place, waiting for the ground to swallow him whole. Either he could beat this technique, or he couldn’t.
It didn’t take Conrad long to notice Vince was standing still. Hands of stone burst forth, gripping Vince across his arms and legs, dragging him quickly down. Vince let them, feeling his body sink deeper. When his belly button had sank past the floor, the time to act finally arrived. With a concerted effort, Vince let loose a blast of kinetic energy through the stone around him, sending dust and bits of debris flying into the air. It was messy, but the ruined rocks could no longer hold him in place as he climbed, slowly and deliberately, out of the hole.
“Sorry, Conrad. I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to capture me. Feel free to keep trying if you want; I’ve got enough kinetic energy stored up to do this for days.” That was, in truth, probably an exaggeration, although shattering the ground had taken a relatively minor amount of the kinetic force Vince was holding. He could do it a lot more before that well ran dry, but the goal was to not bother. If he could make Conrad think it was a waste of time from the start, it would force Conrad to turn his attention to other tactics, which would hopefully allow Vince to move a little more freely.
“Not able? Just because I’m being gentle doesn’t mean I’m incapable of using force.”
That was all the warning Vince had before the ground completely opened under him. It was the same trick Conrad had used on Chad, turning the floor beneath him into a pit. Vince fell quickly, absorbing his landing and lifting his hand upward, even as the stone around him rapidly shifted, sealing him off beneath the floor. The speed and precision of the technique were both impressive; in a stretch of mere seconds Vince had gone from standing in the cell to being buried without a shred of light peeking through.
The trick was rendered somewhat less impressive by a giant blast of rubble shooting up from the ground like a geyser of rock erupting. Moments later Vince leapt out, landing easily and turning back to Conrad’s position. He was still trying to think of a good line to shoot back with, but immediately realized there was no point. Conrad was nowhere to be seen; he’d slipped away beneath the ground while Vince was distracted. Right… Conrad wasn’t some dumb bruiser. He thought tactically and responded to new developments. He’d probably known the bigger pit wouldn’t work on Vince, it was just a distraction creating time to slip away.
“Hiding already?” Vince called. It was a blatant stab to the ego that he didn’t expect to land, but at the moment he couldn’t think of anything better to yell.
“Against the mighty champion of Lander? Of course.” It felt like the voice was coming from all directions, as though it were spitting out of the very walls themselves. Maybe Conrad could project his voice through them or had set up some kind of echo chamber. How he was doing it didn’t matter, but it did confirm that sound was a method Vince couldn’t use to track his enemy down. “You put on a good show. Too bad you, like most other Supers, need a target to fight. Maybe you should have let Lucinda win. At least she had the possibility of suffocating me. That is, if I even still have lungs.”
Taunts. Conrad knew the other students had speculations about how far he could take his power. If he could fully transform into stone, Vince wasn’t sure there was any way to win this fight. As it stood, the ideas he had were half-formed at best. Vince was still debating on the next move when a fist made of rock shot out of the ground, on a crash course for Vince’s knee. Springing mid-chat was a good idea, it stood a better chance of catching an enemy by surprise. Sadly for Conrad, Vince was a little too accustomed to sudden attacks thanks to his training. The stone fist landed directly against the knee, and then merely halted without imparting any damage.
“Sorry Conrad, you’ll have to try something other than brute force. That is, if you even have something other than brute force.” It felt good to throw the taunt right back in Conrad’s face, but Vince readied himself as he spoke. The first few exchanges of the match had made Conrad’s offense look ineffectual. If he had the ego most people with his kind of power did, that wouldn’t be sitting well. The opening phase of the fight would come to an end quickly. Conrad wouldn’t let this stand; he’d want to show the world that he could hurt Vince, that this was a real battle.
The hand shot out of the ground at incredible speed, stopped just before it would have careened into Vince’s jaw. Opening wide, it stretched out, wrapping around Vince’s face to cover his nose and mouth before winding down around the base of his neck. At the same time, Vince noticed a sudden pressure on his legs, something jutting into the back of his calves, before it rescinded.
“You want something new? Fair enough, it’s the finals, you deserve that. Wish granted, Vince. You’re being suffocated; in a minute or so you’ll pass out. Now you could blast that away, no problem, like I’ve watched you do already. But the second you try it, I’ve got stone spikes ready to stab you through the legs. Even kept them a few inches away, since you only seem to blast things you can touch. Good luck concentrating after that one. Everyone knows most absorbers can’t take in and expel energy at the same time, and based on your earlier fights, you’re no exception. I guess the real question is which do you choose? Lose now, painlessly, or struggle and lose a minute later with bleeding legs. Doesn’t really matter to me. I get the same outcome either way.”
On the ground in front of him, Vince saw the dirt sink down an inch in a crescent shape, followed by a pair of circles slightly higher up. A smiley face. Conrad had formed a smiley face on the ground, just as an extra twist of the knife. If Vince had any lingering doubts about how badly he wanted to beat Conrad, the smile on the ground washed them away.
Now he just had to figure out how the hell he was going to pull that off.
290.
Conrad had either merged with, or hidden himself in, the stone of the combat cells. A twisting formation of rock was slowly choking the air from Vince, easing him toward unconsciousness. The moment he blasted it away, he was going to take two strikes from rock spikes waiting near his legs. And even if Vince somehow got out of that, he would still be utterly vulnerable while Conrad remained unseen and untouchable. Vince was no stranger to bad situations, and even he had to admit this wasn’t looking great.
The lone upside was that Conrad seemed content to run out the clock on Vince’s air, so no more attacks were coming at the moment. That gave Vince a few precious seconds to think. There had to be a way to get out of this. He might have enough of Thomas’s energy to make a shield, but that was a resource Vince couldn’t replenish. If he relied on that to beat this technique, sooner or later he’d run out and be back in the same spot. Absorbing was no good; the rock was physically constricted around his neck and face, taking away its kinetic force probably wouldn’t change the fact that it was still smothering him. Even if that did turn out to help, Vince would be stuck in place, unable to stop absorbing without finding himself in the same dilemma. At that point, it would probably count as a capture.
Blasting the bindings on his neck wouldn’t work… wait, wouldn’t it? Conrad had tried to make Vince think that idea was off the table, but that didn’t make it true. Yes, Vince was going to take a blow to the knees as soon as he knocked away the choking rocks… but what if he wasn’t there when the attack landed? After all, he occasionally shot fire with both hands. There was no real reason he couldn’t discharg
e one energy from other parts of his body at the same time.
Although Vince lacked the ability to carve smiles in the ground, he managed a small grin of his own just before he struck. Vince fired off powerful blasts of kinetic energy from two points of his body: his head and his feet. The rock-collar shot off as Vince tore into the air, the stone scythes meant to pierce his flesh slamming harmlessly into the ground. Vince was surprised to realize he’d blown the soles off his boots again; apparently he’d put more into the jump than he realized. Air whipped by his face as Vince scanned the cell, desperately searching for any clues as to Conrad’s whereabouts. No sign of Sizemore’s champion, although he did see the walls twitching slightly.
Just in time, Vince remembered that Conrad could turn rocks into projectiles and started absorbing in mid-air. Seconds later a stone thudded softly off Vince’s back, kind enough to transfer its force to him before tumbling harmlessly to the ground. Several more followed before Vince landed, although they’d already slowed by the end. Conrad had seen it didn’t work and was no doubt switching strategies.
“I think I’ve been making this too easy on you. What we need here is a shift in terrain.”
Before Conrad’s echo had fully faded, the change began. Stone spires began shooting up, just as they had for Alice, only this time they were sharper, more jagged. The floor itself was changing too, spikes thrusting upward, ready to slice through the first careless foot that tread upon them. All around Vince, the cell seemed to be growing rocky teeth of all sizes. Complete and total alteration to the battlefield in less than a minute. Frustrating as Conrad was to face, Vince had to admit he was glad the guy was on the side of the Heroes. A power like his would be able to save a lot of people.
