Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel

by Scott Olen Reid

  Cyrella was a comic book my dad collected when he was a boy. They’ve been out of print for decades, but I read all my dad’s comics from when he was growing up. “Oh, I think I’ve got a few more years left before hanging up the cape,” I say. Better to let him think of me as a middle aged super. Using the term, “hanging up the cape” is another way I’m dating myself to be my dad’s age. Capes went out twenty years ago and no one in my generation says that.

  Offering me an out, he says, “Why don’t you pull your team out while you still can. Before you get anyone else on your team killed like the girl back at the compound.”

  That’s bull. He won’t let us go. He's an arrogant SOB. And, he already knows about what happened at the compound. He is pissing me off talking about Sparks, though. That stings as I am feeling a lot of guilt about her right now.

  This guy doesn’t know me, though. I’m not the type to get pissed off and lose control. I’m more the type to take my rage and weave it into an ice cold noose that I am going put around his neck.

  Leaving isn’t an option, anyway. He won’t let us take the kids, even if he did let us leave. “I don’t think so. See, I’m going to have to answer to her in the next life and I won’t be able to face her in the next life if I don’t have your head on a pike in this one.” This is another dated reference, this time to an old super metaphysical order, the Valtyr, roughly based on some vague Norse Mythos. They believed supers would see their teammates in the afterlife and have to answer to them if you failed them in this life. I really don’t want this guy figuring out who I am outside of my armor. Truly, I don't. So, he can expect more bullcrap the more we talk.

  “So, is it to be to the death?” He asks, eyebrows raised. The slight surprise he is showing is phony, and not accompanied by any concern on his part. He does not expect to lose this fight. Hell, I’m not sure he expects to break a sweat. Or, if he has ever broken a sweat during a fight.

  “Only to victory, and be what it may.” I reply, with a traditional response of the Omega Corps. Another old superhero team from way back that was copied by supers for a few decades after they were wiped out in an explosion when they assaulted the base of Dr. Nucleos.

  I beat my shield with my war hammer three times to signal the beginning of the battle, gladiator style, and break into a trot toward him. The Gladiators were a super group from…, well, you get it. I might be overdoing the age old references a bit, but this guy scares me.

  “You can call me Wagner.” Is the last thing he says before changing direction towards me, pronouncing it in the German, “VAUG-nur.” I guess he styles himself some kind of composer.

  Chapter 65

  Rather than barrel into each other we both break down into fighting stances as we come into range. He’s doing a passing job of a loose fighting stance, which is a little concerning. He's also not running in wild where I can surprise him, which is also a little disconcerting. Most Class 4 strongmen don’t bother learning to fight, because they don’t have to. The ones that do are deadly — if they have the speed to take advantage of their strength. Without speed, they really only have grappling. Grab the opponent, break the opponent. Done.

  I break down into a fighting stance I learned from taking lessons with a shield and war hammer from a German weapons master I used to spar with. You just can’t beat the Germans when it comes to beating the hell out of each other with medieval weapons. I’ve been planning on a war hammer and shield to fight with in my suit for years. Ever since I read my first epic fantasy novel of a half-orc barbarian warrior named Ka-Dor. He was a badass who equally beat the dog snot out of heroes and evil doers alike, and a small part of me has wanted to be him ever since.

  Anyway, my old master developed a modernized version of the teachings of an Italian fencing master, Filippo Valdi, from his treatise, De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi. I’m no master, but the training was exceptional, and I put a couple hours of practice in several times per week of what I learned from him.

  We circle each other and adjust our stances a number of times. Him trying to get closer to rush inside my guard, and I am trying to keep him at a distance with the reach advantage of my war hammer. Wagner’s eyes are shifting constantly from my footwork, to my war hammer, to my eyes, to my center mass. I know what he is looking for, that little opening. That momentary lapse. Just enough for him to step inside, so I gave it to him.

  Wagner gives himself away as his eyes widen just before he breaks for the opening I’ve given him. As he comes in, it looks like he is going to get inside my guard, and inside my shield, but I step to my right (my weapon side) and pivot as I sweep my war hammer for his legs. Wagner sees my maneuver just the slightest bit too late, and catches the head of my war hammer on his hamstring. It doesn’t flip him off his feet the way I want, but it does give a nice meaty feel to the impact. I hop step back out of his reach as he grabs the back of his left leg and hops out of range. I could see the pain in his face, briefly.

  He shakes his leg a few times and says, “Ow. That hurt,” is all he says and begins to circle me again as if he'd never been hit.

  Rather than let him circle me and put my back to the others fighting, I parallel his walk and keep him between us.

  “You’ve some skills. Not a lot of power, but enough to leave a bruise, I suppose,” is his backhanded way of complimenting me.

  C'mon, you sorry bastard, I'll give you something to praise me for, I'm thinking, but not saying. No need to piss him off.

  It raises my confidence a little, though, seeing him feel some pain. The swing wasn’t the wallop I put into the hit on Welcoming Committee when I hit him in the head last year, but it was decent. It would have torn the leg off a Class 1, and pulped the muscle and bone of a Class 2. This guy can take a hit. But, him whining about it makes me think he doesn’t do much real fighting. The kind you do off of a sparring mat. Dreamweaver says he’s the most powerful telepath she’s ever seen from our fight before, so he likely has never even needed to use his hands in a real fight.

  I shift my eyes to look at the fight going on by the busses. Dreamweaver has joined the fight, standing on the top of the bus next to Hit Point. I don’t like that they are so close together, but the two they are fighting don’t seem to be able to take advantage of it. Dreamweaver is using her force blasters and I can see in my HUD that she still has her shields and neural neutralizer activated. The two they are fighting are still trying to break through Granite’s defense and shrugging off Hit Point and Dreamweaver’s attacks. They’re not making much progress, though, as Granite is shifting and churning the earth they are standing on back as fast as they are moving forward. It’s like they are in an earthquake while on a treadmill.

  I spent too much time looking at the other fight and the distraction almost costs me. Wagner can’t see my eyes through the visor in my helmet, but he might have detected my head move a little out of line from where it would be if I was watching him. In a fight with an experienced opponent, even a movement of a fraction of an inch in head or posture can give away information that can be used against you. Wagner rushes me, starting from flat footed, to bursting into a full on bull rush.

  I’m as flat footed as he was. If it wasn’t for the extra distance that separates us, I would never have been able to react at all. As it is, he is nearly on top of me when I get my shield up in between us. My war hammer is useless as I don’t have it in position to take a swing and it is out of line enough I cannot thrust it into his chest to arrest his momentum.

  Wagner hits my shield and I can feel his strength pushing me back, and down. He is high on me, being taller, and my being crouched as I take his impact. Normally this would be good, but now it puts me in a position of strength versus strength, and I do not have any momentum, and not nearly enough strength. Even with the leverage advantage, his Class 4 strength against my, albeit powerful, Class 2 strength, isn’t even a close contest. It’s more like a toddler trying to hold back an NFL lineman. I’m pushed back and my legs buckle.

>   Wagner reaches over the top of my shield to grab my head and I duck down further and raise my shield as best I can. Knowing the war hammer is doing me no good, I drop it. Wagner’s middle and legs are exposed as my shield is up in his chest and covering his head and arms. Seeing the opportunity, I charge my force blaster with a quick thirty percent charge. I don’t want to wait long enough for any more as I’m not sure it won’t all be over by then.

  I discharge my force blaster into his stomach with my hand pointed to make the narrowest beam possible. It won’t knock him back as much as an open palm would, which is what I should have hit him with to get him off me, but it is enough as I hear the air rush out of his lungs and he is lifted off the ground a good six feet.

  I snatch my war hammer back up and leap back from him as he comes down in a pile on the ground where we were.

  Wagner is back up in a split second, but stops himself from coming at me right away. Rubbing his stomach, he once again says, “Ow.” This time followed by an ominous, “I think I may have to kill you.” There, I’ve done it. I’ve pissed him off.

  I’m pretty sure my forehead is breaking out into a major sweat right after he says that. Not that I wasn’t sweating in my armor already. My stomach clenches, and I don't even want to respond. What is there to say? Sorry? I’m thinking too much. This isn’t like fighting Welcoming Committee. That fight did not have much on the line. And, that fight didn’t come right after one of my team was killed.

  This guy scares the crap out of me, which any Class 4 should do to anyone not also a Class 4, or higher. My confidence is shaken. Why, though? My suit is doing what it’s supposed to and evening up the odds as long as I don't get into a grapple or strength contest. Like the one I just had. I’m just not sure I can put this guy down for the count. I glance again at my team and wonder if it is better if I just keep him engaged until they can come help me, or if that wouldn’t actually make things more dangerous as they’re a lot more squishy than I am right now. With his speed, they wouldn’t be able to keep at range from him.

  The realization hits me. Damn, I have to win this. And, I’m going to have to do this alone. They will just get themselves killed fighting this guy. Carly was lucky she lasted as long as she did.

  It’s pretty clear I’m defensive right now. He’s just standing there, rubbing his stomach, and looking at me, while I’m down in a fighting stance, shield held out in front and war hammer half-cocked for a strike. I look like I’m waiting for him to come take my head off.

  That has to change, but I decide to keep a defensive look about me just a little bit longer in hopes I can surprise him when I switch to the attack. He’s too far away right now for me to make a move on before he can react. So, I need to wait until he closes the distance on me. I don’t have long to wait.

  Giving his head a twist to get the kinks out, then giving his arms a shake, Wagner’s expression no longer looks amused. Now he looks pissed off. I know he’s coming and he’s going to come hard when he does. As soon as he finishes shaking out his legs, he squats and lunges toward me with a twenty foot leap before hitting the ground running for the last ten feet. It’s fast, but it’s also about what I expect. He’s got no finesse, like most Class 4s and 5s. I raise my shield but don’t stay directly behind it, shifting my body to the right. I drop my war hammer once again to free up my right hand.

  Wagner opens up his arms in an attempt to grab me, shield and all. I slip under his left arm, leaving my shield for him to grab if he wants to and release it, then move behind him. I can see the shock in his eyes as his head twists to see my helmet come up behind his arm over his shoulder as I move in. I started charging up my force blaster in my right forearm before he even made his leap. I’m not going to have much of a shield for the next few seconds, so I better not screw this up.

  Wagner starts to twist as I bring my hand up, pointed for the narrowest beam, and place it in the middle of his back. His twisting takes his spine out of the line of my fire, but I’ve run out of time to line up the shot. I am at 72% charge when the blast goes into his kidney. I think it might be just as good. I can feel his flesh rend and tear as the narrowly focused blast of energy discharges its massive force into the side of Wagner’s body. He reacts like any prize fighter would when they catch a brutal punch in the kidney, lifting up his toes and trying to pull his body away from the impact, but like them, he does not have anything to push off from to move away and I have my free arm braced around his neck to hold him tight to me. The blast doesn't toss him as far as it would if I had used an open palm, but that was not my goal. It was a kill shot, pure and simple. The narrow focus is meant for cutting and penetrating rather than pushing. I’ve got my shield arm now wrapped around his neck and I’m holding onto him for all I am worth. Even so, he is nearly torn from my grasp as the discharge rips into him. It is like trying to hold onto a rocket launching.

  I have a brief moment of thinking of the physics of the system as it appears I have managed to lift both him, and myself, off the ground. We fly a good ten feet in the air from the blast. How’s that possible? I’m thinking it’s like lifting yourself up with your own bootstraps. Not really possible, but if you try really, really hard….

  Focusing back on the situation at hand, I recharge my force blaster as we come down. Wagner is in agony and his body has gone rigid. I know I penetrated his flesh, but I can’t tell how deep, or if it is just the shock effect. I see my charge rapidly going up to forty, fifty, sixty percent, over the next few seconds. Wagner has not made another move on me, but is twisting in my grip, writhing in agony. I’m on top of him on the ground and my shield and arm are pinned under him. If he shakes off the attack for even a moment, he can grab onto my arm and rip it off. Then again, he could rip something off accidently as well and not even know it. When my force blaster reads 97%, I discharge it again, this time into his solar plexus, pointed up into his chest. Pressing my pointed hand against his soft flesh in the v-shape of his ribs, I feel on my shield hand as it rips through his body and through his back with the discharge. His flesh rends, and I can feel his spine part as my hand pushes into his back and into the cavity where his heart used to be. The back blast completely covers me in blood and gore. The ground didn't allow any give, so he takes the full brunt of the discharge. My shield hand, still behind his back, is numb and I wonder if I blew it off, too.

  It’s as close and personal of a way of killing someone as a knife fight could ever be. I feel his upper body tense, even as his legs go slack. A guttural gasp of breath leaves his body, followed by a shudder. His hand is on my shoulder and he squeezes my pauldron armor plate into a death sculpture of his agony as I hunch down my shoulder trying to get it out of the way of the crushing armor plating. He stays rigid, and for the first time in the fight I can feel a pressure against what’s left of my recharging repeller field that I can’t identify, but it’s coming from Wagner. The repeller field power in my suit shows ten percent, then twenty percent, in the scrolling up it normally does as it recharges, but then stops and starts to go down, back to fifteen, then seven, then two percent. I leap back from Wagner, ripping my arm from under him and leaving my shield behind. 1%. I keep backpedaling and the power in my repeller field hits 0% momentarily and I’m lifted and thrown through the air. My shield is not just down, my neural neutralizer that works through my shield is down. Wagner just hit me with some kind of telepathic and telekinetic death scream explosion. I can’t tell how far I'm thrown as I look at the stars while sailing through the air. My natural mental defenses feel like someone dropped a building on them and my mind is in a vice. Fortunately, as I’m flying, I am aware enough to see my repeller field strength begin to go back up in its usual rapid manner. I'm going to need it when I hit the ground. If I ever do.

  When I hit, my repeller field is up to thirteen percent, but immediately goes back down to zero when the thing I impact is a very large tree. The impact jars me to my teeth and my head snaps back and impacts the trunk. Bouncing off the tree, I spin
like a top and continue my travels along a new trajectory into the ground. Impacting for the second time, this time into the tall grass. My repeller field reads three percent for the second impact, but I don’t know that. I’m not sure why I was keeping track of my repeller field power, it’s not like I can do anything about it. Morbid curiosity, perhaps? It may be the engineer in me wanting to evaluate the suit’s performance. I’ll have to check the logs later as I’m not sure what it reads after I hit the ground as I promptly black out. Maybe I should run two power supplies in my suit, I think, but not until I wake up.

  Chapter 66

  I’m not sure how long I'm out, but when I wake, I turn my head and open my eyes to see my team surrounding the double clenched duo of Anvil and his Class 4 opponent. They are still trying to squeeze the life out of each other, neither seeming to have any luck. Hit Point rushes in from behind the other guy and pulls the cap off his head. A couple seconds later he begins shaking his head and screaming, “Noooo! Get out! Get out! Get out!” Putting on a burst of strength as he panics from the telepathic assault I’m sure Dreamweaver is putting on him, he lifts Anvil in the air and I can see Anvil start to lose his hold on the guy. Fortunately for Anvil, it only lasts a moment before the guy goes completely limp and collapses. Anvil, still gripping the guy and straddling his body, eases him to the ground.

  I can’t hear what he says to Dreamweaver, but he is not happy, whatever it was. Dreamweaver holds her arms out to her side and shrugs in response, then points at the guy as if to say, “I took the guy out, what are you complaining about?”

  I drop my head back to the ground and look at the stars. The Milky Way is showcased in its full glory in rural West Virginia sky. There is almost no light pollution or smog and the air is crystal clear tonight. I don't wonder where the famous "smoky" part of the smoky mountains is. Wait, are these the Smoky Mountains? Are they in West Virginia? I honestly don't know right now. I’m not sure I ever knew. But, I think I am beginning to get my senses back.