Hero Super

A large spherical ball of rubble.

The aftermath of destabilizing a space expanded through dimensional stretching by means of an eruptive release of prodigious amounts of kinetic and potential energy accompanied by a vehement manifestation of light, sound, and radiation.

I.e., expanded space goes boom from the inside, resulting in the ball in front of her.

“There’s no memories in this place.” She sighed, knowing the headache if she even tried caressing her power.

“Explain.” Sky asked, his stern tone full dripping with impatience.

She looked to him and the two other heroes behind him tagging along, Lightspeed and Frostbloom. All of them weren’t in uniform right now, although Sky rarely was, but it didn’t mean they weren’t on duty. In fact, what they were doing right now was beyond that.

“This is where the expanded space was, not where the people were. This place—”, she gestured around, “— has not touched a sliver of human consciousness since it was made. I need to use my power inside the room.”

“Even with these two here?” He pointed to the pair behind him.

“They haven’t been here either. They would’ve been enough if the room was intact, but… well…”

“Damn.” Sky crossed his arms, tapping his foot while looking at the rubble.

“What about the hallway, Memo?” Lightspeed suggested.

“It’s too liminal.” She muttered, shaking her head lightly.

“Meaning?”

Memo sighed. “My power works by anchoring ambient wisps of consciousness that are byproducts of cognizant and alert individuals who have occupied the space for a certain amount of time.”

“Small words, Memo.” Frostbloom massaged her temples.

“I can only access memories in memorable places.” She summarized. “Hallways aren’t likely to be memorable. Unless there’s a person who is constantly guarding the hallway, or someone dies in it, or someone somehow has a trauma involving hallways, there’s no chance of it.”

The four in the room turned quiet, an understanding they all had to try and brainstorm an idea on their own.

Memo turned to the remnants of the room. It was unlike any other devastation she had ever seen. The bomb inside the expanded space could only have been something that’s strong enough to actually demolish a building this size.

‘They were smart.’ She thought, examining the debris. ‘If they bombed from the outside, the HQ would’ve had defenses for that. They’d scratch a wall but nothing too hard to rebuild. Instead they bombed it from the inside.’

“Cameras?” Frostbloom asked.

“All wiped. Security team says nothing happened from their end.” Sky answered, his tone snappy.

Lightspeed scratched his chin speaking out an idea he had since earlier. “Memo, what about the elevator?”

“What?”

“Can you use your power in the elevator?”

“Again, too liminal. No one thinks elevators are a memorable place.” She sighed.

Frostbloom’s eyes widened, bursting into a guffaw as she realized what Lightspeed was thinking.

Sky and Memo looked at her, then traced her line of sight towards Lightspeed. He was scratching his cheek, sending menacing glares towards Frostbloom beside him.

“You said trauma would be fine, right?” He asked almost sheepishly.

Memo’s brows raised, looking at the embarrassed speedster. “…no? You?”

“Can it be done, Memo?” Sky intervened before they got rowdy.

She thought for a second, shrugging in uncertainty, “how often do you use it?”

“The one closest here? Not as much.”

“Then probably.”

“Probably?”

“Probably is good enough.” Sky beckoned them.

It was only a short walk to the elevator, practically just a few rooms past the destroyed conference room. Sky opened up a console on the elevator and put it in maintenance mode, making it stay on the floor they were currently on.

“Okay, come on. You too, Frostbloom.” She beckoned the two inside.

“Me?”

“You were together when you came, right?”

“I guess.”

“Good, then that’s more for me to anchor.” Memo said then started pulling on her power as the two got inside.

The haze of misty consciousness was too much of a cacophony of faded colours, like fingerprints on a rusted bike in the middle of the woods. It was too hard to see without a guide. Fortunately, there were two.

“The trauma is faint, but it’s there. It’ll do.” She frowned.

“…” Lightspeed said nothing, only sending another glare to Frostbloom who was stifling a chuckle.

She waded through the stream of time and memories, passing through unfamiliar strings of thought, until one pair had shone in tandem with the two beside her. With elation, she quickly waved her hand and pulled the strings, along with every other string that she could beside it.

Other consciousness within hours of when the two were using the elevator the prior week. With those consciousness, she tracked down the clearer ones, the ones from this morning, when the supervillains attacked.

She clenched her hand and released the memories into the air, letting a haze of colours fall down and blanket their surroundings with a blurry filter.

“Sepia.” Frostbloom muttered, taking out her holowatch to take a picture.

“Get out so we can see their faces.” Memo said, pushing the two out.

They walked through the haze and looked back. The open elevator disappeared, replaced by a closed one with a sepia filter.

She turned her hand, pulling on her power to fast-forward the memory to the closest consciousness. The elevator opened with a ding, making Lightspeed flinch.

“They’re the students from the workshop!” Frostbloom shouted with glee.

Memo grinned, “I knew I could do it.”

“Keep going forward.”

They cycled through the memories— Lightspeed and Frostbloom speaking out as the faces of students they recognized came into view.

“Just start from the end.” Sky spoke, his foot tapping the ground faster.

Memo sighed and did as he asked, showing the final consciousness first. The haze changed and the image of twins appeared, both wearing loose jogging pants and a baggy turtleneck

“That’s the Instructor. Allen, I believe.” Lightspeed supplied.

“And his twin brother, I assume.” She was about to flick to the next consciousness when Frostbloom spoke.

“No? That’s his power. He can duplicate.” She tilted her head.

Memo looked at the haze, seeing two distinct strings of consciousness, one in each Allen.

“No? I’m pretty sure they’re different people?” She turned back to the two.

The pair of heroes looked at each other then turned to Sky, who was already typing away on his holowatch. His brows started creasing, a deeper frown appearing on his face as his fingers moved in ephemeral speed.

“Sir?” Frostbloom broke the silence.

“He’s missing.” He flicked his finger and showed them the report. “Since four days ago.”

“That’s how they got in… a super with shapeshifting?”

“Possibly. It’s a lot more than we’ve gathered so far. Good job. Let me know if you find anything else, I need to go somewhere.” He quickly walked away, his steps determined for an unknowable reason.

The three turned to each other, then at the elevator that still had a blanket of haze on it.

“What now?” Memo asked.

“We can go through the other people you can see in the memories?” Frostbloom suggested, walking to the front of the elevator. “Help with checking which students were there yesterday.”

“But we already have a list.” Lightspeed gestured to his holowatch.

“Won’t hurt to make sure.” Memo shrugged. Her power was already up, may as well use it.

She flicked to the next consciousness, the group of people that came before the two impostors. Two girls and one guy.

“Three more students.” Frostbloom took another picture.

Memo flicked to the next one when she felt a hand on her shoulder. “What?”

“Go back to the previous one.” Lightspeed’s chest beat like a drum.

“Okay?”

The three appeared once again in the haze. Lightspeed stepped through, scrutinizing the guy in an uncomfortable distance. He tilted his head; left, right, and backwards, as if trying to see every pore in his face with every angle imaginable.

“Frostbloom.” He spoke, staring towards her.

She was staring at the guy as well, turning to Lightspeed with a knowing stare. “I know. It’s him.”

Memo, annoyed at the two speaking in riddles, started to ask. “Who?”

“Calvin.” Ina called out to Calvin who was busy trying to hogtie the unconscious man behind them.

“What?” He growled, looking towards her as he annoyedly tried to stretch the inflexible man to tie both his arms and legs with the ripped strips of pants they got from him. “This fucking—”

“Just tie up his hands, we’ll lock the door on our way out anyway. That tinker won’t be able to go out without any of his tech.” She said, gesturing for him to come. “Look, I found a map in his watch.”

Calvin released the man’s legs with a thud, doing as Ina suggested and just tying his arms behind his back with a double-knot. He shoved the man to the side, an urge to kick him for not going on a diet and making this easier for him..

He jogged over to Ina’s side, who had projected a map on the floor using the man’s holowatch.

“What the hell am I looking at?” Calvin’s eyes hurt at the layout.

“I know.” Ina groaned. “It’s like whoever made this place was compensating for something. It’s big, it’s a mess, and it’s mostly empty. I mean look here, this is where we are—”, she pointed to a corridor on the far corner of the entire map, “— and this is the only room in the corridor that they’re using. This random room is a storage room.”

“It is some kind of storage.”

“The kind that stores kidnapped supers.”

“I’d hardly call us supers”

Calvin looked at where she pointed, then traced its distance to the symbol of a green guy going through a door, “they really put us in the back end of the entire place, huh?”

“It’s a long way from the exit, yes, but that’s good.”

“How is that good?”

“It means we can go through every room to look for the others.” She traced a route with her fingers, showing him no corner unsearched. “Efficient.”

“And dangerous.” He argued. “You’re good at fighting but they’re super. I’m barely a super myself. As you said, we only got lucky with that creepy fatso because he was a tinker.”

“What else can we do? We can’t just go straight for the exit?”

‘We can.’ He thought briefly before shaking that idea away. “We need to look for something that can help us. Our stolen stuff, an armory, or whatever. Did you look for it on the map?”

“What do you think?” Ina’s lips curved into a deeper frown.

“Have you tried sending messages through it?”

Ina gave him a sigh, “It’s on its own network. Meaning, they only receive and send messages with each other.”

“Typical introverted villains.” Calvin muttered.

The two of them stayed silent, both in thought of what to suggest for a better plan. Calvin was frantically trying to think— he knew how dangerous people in Villainopolis are. The motorcycle-head that crushed him just a couple of weeks ago didn’t even have a super power. He just had good gear and a good punch.

“Messages.” He muttered, then looking towards Ina with an idea. “Can you look through them? See if they talked about an armory or whatever?”

“I can try? But it’ll take a minute.” She, having no idea what to do herself, started tapping away on the holographic display. Within a second, she stopped, “or not?”

“What’d you find?”

“That this guy’s a greedy dumbass.” She flicked the display.

Porto: hey

Porto: whered you put the stuff we got from the kids

Tecchy: Here

Tecchy: The workshop nearest where the powerless are

Porto: why put it so far

Tecchy: Its the closest to me dumbass

Porto: show some respect

Porto: i am a tinker

Tecchy: I’m sorry

Tecchy: Sir dumbass

Porto: hey

Porto: going to raid the far workshop later

Porto: asstech said they put the pockets there

Porto: you up?

“Convenient.” Calvin muttered, looking towards the map projection beside them. He traced the hallway until he found the room labeled ‘Workshop 2B’, “it’s there, then?”

“No other workshop closer than that.” She nodded.

“How about the others? Any messages about them?”

Ina tapped away on the holowatch again, “not much. Just an announcement that they’re here. And a party for the successful kidnapping…”

“Fucking assholes.” Calvin muttered through gritted teeth. “So they are here.”

“What, did you think they’d kidnap just us two?”

“Fair point.” He flattened his lips, remembering the two of them were officially both powerless. No point kidnapping just them. ‘But then again, she is rich.’

She nodded. “We can go with your plan, head to the workshop first then just adapt while we go.”

“Sounds good.”

The two got up and went towards the door. Ina was brandishing the rolling pin, readying it in a stance behind Calvin. Calvin pepped himself up, trying to cool his nerves, before finally twisting the knob. He carefully opened a gap, peering through to look for any guards or the like.

He opened the door further and checked both ends of the grey hallway, turning back to Ina with a nod after seeing they were both empty.

The both of them went out of the room, closing it behind them and latching a bar that locked the door close. With another signal, they both started sneaking towards their destination.

Calvin had the holowatch, and consequently the map. There was no tracker showing him where they were, but by a stroke of luck, his past life was filled with enough video games that the minimap on the holowatch was more familiar than usual.

“Wait!” He whispered as they reached an intersection.

He peeked out the corner with the smallest bit of his face he could peek out. He ducked back, looking towards Ina.

“Someone’s there.” He warned.

Ina pushed him aside to peek as well. “One guy. Sleeping.”

“That’s still someone.”

The ‘guard’ was sitting by an intersection they needed to go through. As far as he saw in the map, the corridor was empty, so it stands to question why the man was there.

“Hey, can you color us the same color as the floor?” Ina asked.

Calvin got what she was getting at and pulled on his power. The two of them turned into grey people, along with their clothes. He frowned, the pure color grey was visibly noticeable compared to the textured cement.

He pulled on his power again, adding dark and light imperfections to make it look more natural.

“Still doesn’t look right….” he muttered.

“Good enough, we need to hurry.” She pulled him by the wrist and they continued on.

They walked as sneakily as they could, barefoot on the cold stone floor barely tapping softer than a baby’s touch. Each room they passed, they peered through the glass window on the door or opened it slightly at Ina’s insistence.

They neared the man who was just sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair.

Calvin signaled to Ina a question by slicing a finger across his neck. Ina responded with a hasty shake of the head, then just nodding towards the direction they needed to go.

“Why?” Calvin asked after they got through.

“Old guy. Old means longer time using their power.”

“So he’s strong?”

“Haven’t you seen any movies?”

“Too busy being poor.” He muttered. He technically wasn’t poor anymore, but he’d gotten used to using it as an excuse. “Let’s just keep going.”

Finally reaching the workshop after a few more empty hallways and emptier rooms, they stopped in front of the windowless double-doors. As per usual, Calvin peeked through by opening a slit in the door.

Music came from inside, along with humming from whoever was the room’s occupant.

“Shit.” He whispered, closing the door and backing away. He turned to Ina who had the same frown as him. “What do we do?”

She pushed him to the side and gently opened the door, shushing him with her finger and curling it towards her as a sign to follow. Calvin gulped, but stuck close as she entered the room.

Calvin looked around the room as quickly as he could, trying to find their stuff. The place looked like a regular workshop, a medium-sized room with a long worktable on one half of the room. Cupboards and walls of tools and tech were scattered in no distinguishable order.

‘Lots of cudgels. They really like cudgels.’ He thought, seeing a barrelful of the medieval-looking weapons with weird stuff on the ends.

Calvin also spotted the same stun gun that knocked him out before, only this one seemed to have been disassembled and missing a few parts. ‘Fucking stun gun.’

Ina quickly pulled on his wrist to follow and the two of them hid behind a crate. Ina peeked over and ducked, nodding to Calvin to do the same. Calvin peeked and saw the burly man humming away to an unknown song.

The man was facing them, but luckily his eyes were closed as he was listening to music. Hands behind his head, laying back on his office chair with his feet up on the worktable, he looked pretty relaxed.

‘Time to take advantage of that.’ He thought, and from Ina’s eyes, so did she.

Ina signaled him to wait. She sneaked to the front of the man, looking down at him with dark eyes and a heavy look. She raised the rolling pin and smashed it down.

“Ha, you think I didn’t notice you?” The man turned to fog and reformed behind Ina, putting her in a chokehold before she could turn around. “I don’t know how you got out, or why the fuck you’re gray, but you really though you could knock me out? You? A mundane little girl? Heh, I’m going to have some fun with you befo—”

Bonk.

“Fuck!” The man stumbled forwards, feeling his head turn hazy and a current through his body.

He turned around and saw Calvin standing there, a stick in hand. In a fit of rage, he sent a punch to the kid’s chest. “You fucking—”

Calvin had already put the stick in front of him in anticipation, but he secretly pulled on his power at the same time. An [Impervious Pebble] appeared in front between the stick and the man’s fist, blocking and crushing the punch coming at him.

“Ah!” He screamed in pain as he felt his bones crack.

Bonk.

The man stumbled forward towards Calvin's direction, hitting the pebble with his forehead. Ina had stood up and rushed behind him, smashing the back of his head with the rolling pin.

“Ugh—”, he groaned, his head feeling more and more dizzy from the concussions. He tried to swing back at the girl, but his fist met only air as she ducked beneath him.

Bonk.

The man collapsed, convulsing on the floor as if he was electrified. Calvin had smacked him in the head for a second time.

Ina fell to her knees as well, launching into a coughing fit as she held her reddened neck. Calvin offered a hand which she took and pulled herself up.

“Thanks.” She nodded, massaging her throat. Her eyes went to the man on the floor. “Is he dead?”

“Don’t think so.” Calvin kicked the man who let out a low groan.

“What’s that?” Ina looked at the stick in his hand.

“A stick. Got it from the barrel over there. Probably tinker tech.” He said knowing it really was tinker tech.

Super Help

Stun Stick

A stick strapped with an imitation of a reassembled stun gun, designed to knock out and electrify anyone hit on the head. Effects diminish with target’s durability.

He raised it up, looking at the haphazardly duck-taped portion on the blunt end. “I think it electrified him.”

“Can I borrow that?” Ina asked, her hand held towards him.

Calvin looked at her with a raised brow, handing it over to her without question. She took it, tested its weight, then violently smashed it downwards on the man’s head. The man convulsed again for a few moments before stopping.

Ina continued smacking the man’s head and letting him convulse until she was satisfied.

“Thanks.” She nodded, returning the cudgel.

Calvin swiped away the Super Equip screen that popped up and looked at the man, wincing at the wisps of smoke coming out from him. “Remind me never to make you angry.”

She smiled sweetly at him, “I won’t.”