Hero Super

"-enty-nine, thirty, thirty-one..." Calvin looked at the girl looking at them with fascination in her face. "How many teeth do normal people have?"

"Thirty-two!" Dox replied with a big smile.

"Bad news, Sam. You're abnormal." He patted the man's back condescendingly.

"Fuck off." Sam closed his mouth, tracing his teeth with his tongue. "It felt like something's missing, alright?"

"You got punched once." Calvin leaned back on the couch, crossing his arms with a judging look towards the whiny man.

"He had tinker tech on. They all did." Sam grumbled. He began tracing his nose, checking to see if it was still misaligned anywhere.

"They did? I thought he was just a super?"

"Look at this." Sam grabbed the mask beside him, showing Calvin its cracked and almost crumbling exterior. "You think normal people could even so much as make a scratch on this? No, they can't."

"But supers?"

"If he was a super this wouldn't just be cracked. And we wouldn't be talking right now." Sam explained before turning to Dox, raising his hand accusingly. "What the fuck was that, Dox? I thought you said you got rid of the trackers?"

"I did! All the normal trackers that I know!" She raised her hand to mirror Sam. "I had no idea they were using other tech I don't know about! They were tracking it using ambient flux radiation-"

"What was the flask they were looking for?" Calvin asked before she got into another 'big science words' monologue. "They kept talking about it."

"I think it was the thing I was trying to open since last week! Let me show you...."

She sat up, looking towards the ceiling with a dazed face. Her hands went up and she started pressing invisible keys in midair, like a pianist handling multiple floating pianos. Calvin wondered what was happening for a moment before the floor the couch was on started to whirr.

The tiles depressed, and the entire room started going down into the floor.

"Woah." Calvin saw all the machinery underneath the facade, extra space littered with mechanical materials; cogs, wires, and random gizmos.

"Stop looking, it's embarrassing!" Dox blushed, running in front of him to block the view.

Calvin looked to Sam who shook his head lightly at her antics.

The floor eventually stopped going down, moving sideways instead until they reached a place that looked like a storage room.

There were devices, accessories, weapons, and various other objects on shelves all around the room. Just by the look of it, he somehow felt it wouldn't be surprising if all the items were tinker tech.

At the center was a floating cube that let out pulses every now and then, something that Calvin could only describe as some wizard magic shit.

"It's here." Dox walked to the center, on a table beside the floating cube. There was a box on the table, with no visible marking whatsoever.

"A box? What does it do?" Calvin asked.

"It's a box. You put stuff in it." Sam explained condescendingly. "I have a feeling I know what's in it."

Dox opened the box and took the object inside, passing it over to Calvin. He paused, seeing the object now in his hand.

He knew what it was.

"I knew it." Sam muttered.

"You know what it is?" Dox looked at Sam with glitter in her eyes. "How? I only knew because of the smell!"

"Well, it's a long story. What's happening with him?" Sam pointed to the kid.

Calvin stared at thin air in a daze, reading mindlessly what popped up in front of his eyes.

Super Absorb

Super Power: Color Control detected. Absorb?

Yes No

He repressed his greed and turned to Dox, "where did you get this?"

"Near a trash can! I thought stupid people threw it away because they didn't know what it was. So I grabbed it and started trying to open it. But it won't budge!"

"That was a smuggler drop." Sam explained. "I told you not to pick up random shit from the ground."

"It smells of power. Like a fruit salad with jelly and white wine." Dox's stomach growled.

"Because it is." Sam nodded. "Power, I mean."

"You know what this is too?" Calvin looked suspiciously at Sam.

"You forget how we first met?" He smirked. "I knew of it, even smuggled some out of the lab."

"Lab? What lab?" Dox asked.

Calvin looked to Sam who just shrugged and sent him a look that it was up to him if he wanted to tell her. "Around a week ago I woke up with no memories in an evil lab. I found two of these things inside there while I was escaping."

Dox furrowed her brows, "how did you know they have power?"

"I- well," he deliberated whether or not to tell them. In the end, he thought whatever risk revealing it was less than whatever knowledge he'll get from either of them. "-that's where I got the pebbles from."

He summoned a pebble to show them. Dox looked at the floating rock with incredible interest while Sam looked at him with raised brows.

"You absorbed the power?! How?! I couldn't even get it open after so long!"

I don't know. I just did." He shrugged, not sure how to explain the system.

"You just did?" Sam scoffed.

"I don't know. Maybe it's my power."

"That's impossible." He shook his head.

Calvin furrowed his brow at his instant remark. "Why? Hey-"

Before he heard Sam's answer, Dox started prodding and pinching his body while in deep thought. She raised his shirt, checked underneath his feet, and even tried to pull down his pants. Which he vehemently prevented.

After a moment more of thinking, she glanced towards Sam then towards Calvin. "Can you absorb that one too?"

"I can." 'And I want to.' He nodded, speaking the last bit in his mind.

Dox started pacing around, looking back and forth between Calvin and the flask. Eventually, her eyes twinkled, and she looked up and stared at thin air once again. Her arms moved like a conductor playing ten concerts at the same time.

The walls, floor, and ceiling whirred much more strongly this time, the panels started shifting and moving.

"Don't mind her, she'll wake up in a while." Sam reassured him. "You didn't tell me you got powers from this thing?"

"Would you tell me if you were me?"

"No," he smirked. "You said there were two?"

"Yeah, the other lets me know what all the ingredients in the food are."

Sam nodded before sporting an 'aha' face, "so that's how you cooked so well!"

"That and I'm just naturally talented."

"Sure, cheater."

"Then, you won't mind never tasting this cheater's cooking again."

"It's my ingredients."

"Then eat your ingredients raw. I'll buy and cook my own."

The whirring slowed down, the room they were in had expanded with another platform on the side.

Dox jumped up from her stupor and ran into the new space filled with machinery, flipping switches and cranking levers as she passed by. Machines started popping out of walls and the ceiling, pointing towards the center of the room.

"Come!" Dox blurred to Calvin's side and dragged his arm. "You see, I know I can't open the flask any time soon and I don't think you'd be agreeable to being kept against your will strapped down on a table while I worked towards opening the flask."

"You're right. About the being strapped down part. Don't like that. No." He nodded, thankful the little mad scientist had a little conscience.

She grabbed the flask from his hand and put it on a table to the side. She typed on the air again, making a small platform rise in the middle of the room..

"You're going to lie down there, I'll measure everything about you for a normalcy reference, then I'll give you the flask. On my signal, you can start absorbing the power!" Dox explained in a single breath. "Then I'll get my data, you get a power, then we all go home happy!"

"What's with all the-" Calvin gestured around.

"Recording equipment." She smiled. "Now come on! Lie down!"

"Hold on." Sam stopped Calvin. "What do we get out of this?"

"We?"

"I broke my nose."

"It's fixed now."

"But the pain and emotional damage will be with me for a long time." Sam shushed him with his glare. "Dox?"

"Hm. Fair compensation for proper work." She nodded sagely before pointing towards Calvin. "You! If you do this, you get a new power and we become the best of friends."

"Can I get a better pocket too?" He showed her the rusty chain pocket Sam had given him.

"Easily!" She offered her tiny hand.

"Deal." He took and shook it.

"And you!" She pointed towards Sam. "Get medical compensation amounting to four hundred and twenty-nine credits!"

"What? Just that?"

"Fair compensation." She grinned. "Now, let's start!"

Dox ignored Sam and started pushing Calvin onto the table. His apprehension turned to mild excitement as she mentioned to him an additional reward, out of earshot of Sam who was still making annoyed noises in the background.

"That much?" He whispered back, after hearing the figure she offered.

"Advancement in Exogenology is priceless." She whispered back with a grin. "Plus I need a new best friend, you seem more fun."

"Sure." He chuckled. "Do you know what power it is?"

"My superpower lets me smell other powers. So far, I can't identify exactly what powers smell like what food, but there's a pattern! Meats are more likely to be Physics and fruits are more likely to be Mystics! That's the only pattern though, and they get mixed together, like having pineapple on pizza. I don't know what it means right now, but I will, one day!" She pumped her fist. "Okay, now stay still."

She went to her devices and started fiddling with them. Calvin felt like a frog about to be dissected, now slightly regretting his rather rash decision to comply with the adorable but slightly mad scientist.

"You good there, Calvin?" Sam asked from the side, clearly laughing at the mild panic in his expression.

"Peachy." He grunted.

"You'll be fine. If you get hurt I'll ask for compensation and maybe refurbish the apartment." He gave an un-reassuring grin and thumbs up.

"Maybe refurbish your personality first."

"Okay! Normalcy reference complete!" Dox clapped. "Sam, give him the flask."

"Why do I have to be part of this?" He complained but nonetheless gave him the flask.

Calvin saw the prompt again, this time confirming the absorption with his mind.

Super Absorb

Super Power: Color Control detected. Absorb?

Yes No

Just like back in the lab, a white mist permeated the container, turning into a stream of white that danced around his hand and flowed into his chest. A feeling of being filled up came as the white mist continued to flow, until the fullness reached an apex and kept climbing.

He started feeling uncomfortable, a dread creeping up his spine. The feeling of fullness didn't come from his body, but from something more essential. Like his soul was being filled to full and spilling.

'What the fuck.' He cursed in his mind, opening up the status to find out what was happening.

Super Information

Super Name None Super Attributes

Super Status Alive, Bruised, Slight-Fatigue, Spirit-severance, Spirit Bloat(minor), Presence Reduction(Plain White Shirt), Body Enhancement(Plain White Shirt) Super Body 0 (+1)

Super Quest Road to Heroism II, A True Hero's Name Super Mind 0

Super Points 1 Super Spirit 0.5 (-0.5)

Super Powers

Impervious Pebble Gourmand's Instinct

Color Control

'What the fuck is Spirit Bloat?' He thought, hoping a help panel would appear.

Super Help

Spirit Bloat(minor)

The Super's spirit is filled to capacity with essence. This affliction inflicts weakness and discomfort on the body, and will continually worsen until cured or alleviated.

'My soul is literally cut in half and now bloated with powers.' He thought through the discomfort. 'Can I fix this now.'

He reread the description and immediately checked his status screen again. An idea came to mind as he remembered something. The floating super point he had saved was still there. 'The Super's spirit is filled to capacity? Let's increase the capacity, then.'

Super Information

Super Name None Super Attributes

Super Status Alive, Bruised, Slight-Fatigue, Spirit-severance, Presence Reduction(Plain White Shirt), Body Enhancement(Plain White Shirt) Super Body 0 (+1)

Super Quest Road to Heroism II, A True Hero's Name Super Mind 0

Super Points 1 Super Spirit 1.5 (-0.5)

Super Powers

Impervious Pebble Gourmand's Instinct

Color Control

A wave of relief immediately came to him as the discomfort disappeared. He looked towards Sam and Dox who were looking at him with eyes glinting with curiosity.

He raised the now-empty flask and tugged on his new power, willing it to change its rugged metallic sheen into a bright neon yellow. With a tired smile he chuckled, "done."

"Wow!" Dox rushed to him. More specifically, the flask. "Can I keep it?!"

"Sure." He nodded, passing it to her as he sat up.

"So, what's the new power?" Sam asked. "Make things bright yellow?"

"Change the color of things." He willed his plain white shirt to turn blue. "See? New shirt."

"Ha. You really just wanted to keep wearing that, didn't you?"

"It's really useful." He admitted.

"Can you turn stuff invisible?"

"Invisible isn't a color."

"Just try it." Sam gestured.

Calvin focused on his new power, prodding it to change the color of his shirt invisible. There was a drain in his energy, and a headache immediately presented himself. Unfortunately, there was no change in the color of his shirt, it was still blue.

"I don't think so." He frowned, a bit disappointed.

Sam frowned. "Well, that's fine. You might get a high-paying job with that. Are they permanent?"

He pulled up the description of the power.

Super Help

Color Control

Manipulate and alter the color of any object at will.

'That's rather simple.' There was no time limit, unlike the pebble. "I think so?"

"Hoho, can you turn stuff into gold?" He grinned, rubbing his hands together.

"No."

"Just try it."

"I don't want to."

"You're no fun." He scoffed at Calvin, turning to Dox. "Are we good, Dox? I want to get some sleep. It's been a long night."

"Interesting..." Dox muttered, her eyes reflecting the enormity of information she was looking at.

"I don't think she'll be responsive for a while. Let's just leave."

Calvin looked around. They were somewhere a few stories deep, at the center of her lab, with their entrance to the place being what was basically a giant elevator that only Dox could control.

"How?"