Hero Super

Bastion's Central, literally the central part of the entire city that was more or less circular in shape. It held different hubs that are vital to the city; transportation, emergency services, tech, and even the buildings that catered to management of superheroes.

It's often described as the metaphorical beating heart of the city, from where electricity, products, and money are distributed to-and-fro the other districts in the inner and outer cities.

Sam describes it as the 'golden shit-spoon of the toilet bowl that is Bastion'. Calvin has still yet to decipher what he meant.

He and Ina were riding a bus towards their destination. The bus was, like everything in the entire city, built differently from the other cars and trucks whizzing past them. The one looked like it was built in the Victorian era back on Earth. It even had a second floor.

'Slow as hell.' He thought, despite it being unmistakable faster than the buses back on Earth. However, compared to the other vehicles whizzing past them, it was slow. 'Still. It's free. Hooray public transportation.'

Ina kept quiet on the bus, minding her own business and just sitting at the aisle seat, staring at her holowatch. Calvin felt a wave of jealousy. Sam, despite the generous pariah that he believes himself to be, was too stingy to give him one. It was one of the reasons he was working at The Marina.

"Get up, we're here." She suddenly spoke, tapping him on the shoulder and breaking him out of his silent cursing of Sam.

Calvin shook his head back to attention, looking out of the bus briefly to see where they were before following her out.

Getting down the vehicle, he was immediately greeted by the sight of a ginormous complex. He couldn't see either end of the entire building without turning his head, that's how large it was.

He estimated that it spanned at least ten hectares from left to right. The building itself wasn't too tall though, most others around it dwarfed it by more than half, but they couldn't compare with the sheer enormity of its total area.

'Jesus Christ how rich are the people in Central?' He thought back to the dingy apartment he was bunking in. The complex in front of him could probably fit more than a thousand of it without problem.

The building's shape reminded him of a waning moon, if the moon was a plushie and its sharp edges were rounded out. Like a concrete giant, it curved and embraced a central park that was lightly filled with greenery and heavily populated by stone statues.

On the front of the building, above the glass walls that covered its face, was a large symbol that meant alpha in his previous world. He wondered briefly of its meaning before Ina snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Stop gawking like a tourist, we're going to be late." She grabbed his wrist, dragging him away again.

"Where are we going?" Calvin asked, although he could guess.

"A conference room on the fourth floor." She answered.

As was what happened earlier, Ina dragged him by the wrist towards the entrance of the U-shaped building. Her footsteps tapped in increasing rhythm as they passed through the scenic path of the park at the heart of the complex, as if she was trying to run away from the statues glaring down and judging them.

Having virtually little time to explore as he wanted, Calvin put a mental note to visit this place in his own time. It felt like a pretty cool place to go for a walk, especially in the evenings. At this time, however, the park was sparsely populated, with only people dressed in the same blue and white uniforms sweeping the grass and trimming the bushes.

In no time at all, they had arrived at the entrance. Calvin felt somewhat nostalgic as the place pulled on his memories on Earth, before his symptoms had gotten too severe. It looked like a mall.

The lobby itself was reminiscent of the central part of a mall. An open space that displayed all the floors above them, with a glass ceiling to let in natural light. Staff and visitors milled about and hung around, making the place much livelier than the park in front.

They went up to the large circular desk in the center of the room.

"Two visitor's passes." Ina demanded immediately as they got into earshot.

The staff wearing a white uniform showed a practiced smile. "May I kindly inquire upon the purpose of your visit or any specific areas you plan t-"

"Aspiring Heroes Workshop. Fourth floor Conference room 13B." She interrupted her.

'Aspiring Heroes Workshop?' Calvin echoed in his head, the thought of a workshop for budding heroes was wild to him.

The woman's eyelid twitched, but she coolly let it pass and pressed a button on her table. A sheen of light appeared on the desk in front of Ina, materializing two white round pin buttons with a large letter 'V' on it.

"Have a good day." She smiled as Ina grabbed the two pins.

"Wear this on your chest." She handed one of the pins to Calvin before walking off.

Calvin followed her hurried steps towards the nearest elevator.

She pressed the button to call it down, spamming it as fast as she could like it would make the elevator any faster. As luck would have it, the doors opened with a ding, just a few seconds before Ina could smash the button to obliteration.

Calvin stepped in, freezing his steps as a certain memory played out in his head.

"What are you doing?" Ina asked after entering the elevator, seeing Calvin frozen just at the edge.

"Uh, nothing." He shook it off, walking in.

She looked curiously at him but didn't ask, either from respect of his privacy or genuine disinterest. Calvin had his bets on the latter, seeing as so far they really hadn't talked much in the half hour they've travelled together.

They got to their floor, the ding making him flinch again but he pushed through trying to be nonchalant. His stomach ached and remembered, though.

Through a maze of unexpectedly cold and relatively empty corridors, he followed the girl's purposed steps until they arrived at a pair of double doors.

"13B." He muttered, reading the plaque beside the door.

Ina looked at her holowatch, breathing a sigh of relief as she looked at the time. "Three minutes early. Nice."

"Punctual, huh?" He smirked.

"I made a bet." She mentioned briefly before grabbing the door handles. She paused, turning to him with a question, "by the way, are you a super?"

"Uh... no?" He lied unconvincingly.

Ina judged him for a moment but decided not to pry. She pushed the two doors open with a dramatic flourish before entering nonchalantly.

"Huh?" Calvin blurted out in surprise, the inside was less mundane than he thought.

With the distance between the doors they passed by in the hallway, he expected a high school classroom-sized room to greet him, not a high school gymnasium-sized warehouse. It was only missing two basketball courts to really look like one.

Calvin peeked his head into the room, looking left and right before peeking back out. "Sure. Super rooms. Makes sense."

"Ina! Here!" A girl with bright pink hair waved towards them.

"Come on." Ina tapped his shoulder, jogging on to the girl.

They both entered, Calvin started scanning the people rather than the room. There were around twenty other teens in the room, their ages ranging from 'where are your parents' to 'can I see your ID please'. Most of them sent glances their way before returning their attention to their friends or their wrist.

'Is this what high school feels like?' Calvin felt a bit giddy thinking that.

Approaching the pink-haired girl, they were met with her infectious enthusiasm as she charged towards Ina and tackled her with a tight but warm hug. Ina responded with a light embrace of her own before gently prying her friend off.

"We were just together earlier, Quinn." She said in an annoyed tone but the smile on her face betrayed her.

"But you skipped half the day again! You didn't even come with me on the way here!" She complained with a fake pout before returning to a happy face as she glanced at Calvin. "By the way, who's that?"

Before she could answer, another girl walked towards them with a frown on her face. "Yeah, Riverstone, who's that?"

"This," she gestured towards him, "is Calvin. Calvin, pink girl is Quinn. Frown face is Regina."

"Hello?" Calvin waved awkwardly, to which Quinn responded with an energetic one of her own. Regina just nodded.

"I won the bet." Ina grinned.

"Bet?" Calvin asked.

Quinn, approaching to stand beside him, thankfully provided context. "Regina made a bet with her to bring someone else other than me to the workshop. Oh, I like your shirt."

"Uh, thanks?" He looked down, pretty sure he was still wearing the plain white shirt. 'Can she smell tinker tech too?'

"It's really hard to find plain shirts nowadays. It's like everything has to have a brand of some other super! Really annoying!" She complained.

Calvin laughed awkwardly, unused to the instant friendly atmosphere of a stranger. He turned to Ina and Regina, who were arguing about their bet.

"Our bet was for you to bring another friend. You probably never even met this man before." Regina complained, glaring towards Calvin.

"Hey Calvin, you're my friend right?" Ina looked towards him with pleading eyes.

Calvin looked between the two girls, mentally weighing consequences and rewards.

"How much money was the bet?" He asked the delinquent.

"A lot of money." She answered with a knowing smile.

Calvin turned to Regina with a nod. "She's my best and closest friend in this world."

"No she's not."

"Yes I am." Ina crossed her arms. "Pay up."

Regina looked at them before sighing. "Fine. Let's go."

"Come! Let's get you registered." Quinn now dragged him by the arm, following the other two.

Fortunately for Calvin, registration didn't involve anything more than writing a name on a logbook and a name tag. He wrote Calvin in both, not bothering to manufacture a new last name to cover his identity. They wouldn't find him anywhere in the system anyway.

"What are you waiting for? Write it." Ina was looking at Regina who looked to be struggling with moving the pen to write on the name tag. "You know what, give me. I'll write it."

"No! I'll do this." Regina grit her teeth and wrote her name, albeit at a snail's pace.

Calvin looked towards Quinn in confusion.

"They were betting two thousand dits and who gets to use their nickname. They're both called Ina, you know?" She snickered.

'Two thousand?! That's more than thrice what I'll make in her family restaurant!' He widened his eyes in surprise. 'Goddamn it. Eat the rich.'

"So, Calvin, how'd you get dragged here?" Quinn asked, breaking him out of his inner salt.

"I work at her parent's restaurant." He admitted.

"Ha! Of course." She grinned, looking at Ina's back. "I've known her for a long time. I'd know if she had any other friend than me."

The door swung open once again, snatching Calvin's attention away. In sauntered lazily was a man, a doppelganger by his side, both carrying the same lazy stride and rhythmic steps that sounded so synchronized that it rang out at the same time and merely doubled the volume.

They walked lethargically towards the logbook. One of the twins glanced at the logbook while the other scanned the room, both somehow sighed and shook their head lightly in an eerily synchronized manner.

"Come on, we don't have all day." The one on the right, now carrying the logbook, spoke. "Come come, sit on the ground."

Calvin followed Quinn and Ina to sit on the ground somewhat to the left of the twins. The others started walking towards them and sat around them, which unfortunately meant they were near the front compared to them.

The man waited for the twenty-four of them to gather in front of him before the both of them waved their hands, summoning a pair of chairs in front of them, presumably from a pocket.

"So welcome to the Aspirant Hero Workshop, where the ordinary turns into the extraordinary blah-blah. You all already know the speech." The one that spoke waved his hand lazily before sitting on the chair alongside his twin. "My name is Allen. You can call me Al. Or you can call me En. Whatever you want."

He gestured towards his twin. "This here is my assistant, also Allen. Allen, say hi. Hi." He let out a chuckle from his own joke. "Anyway, let's get the obvious questions out of the way. No, this is not my twin, this is my power. I can duplicate myself. No, I don't have an identity crisis. No, my duplicate doesn't try to kill me to be the original. Yes, I have tried kissing myself. It was very unpleasant. And, finally, no, I haven't and I never will do that. Shame on you for even asking that question."

A few of them chuckled at his antics, Calvin included.

"Okay, so let me explain the workshop. This'll be like any workshop ever. We get to know each other, get to know our powers, get to know how to use them, and more importantly get some free snacks on the way out.

We'll do some combat training, some discussions on superhero ethics, demonstration of powers, all that nifty stuff to cram into your head so you can decide whether or not to actually commit to this job."

He took out a stack of brochures from his pocket and passed it around. "Written there's the itinerary for the workshop. It'll be four days of all of you and all of me, just talking and doing hero stuff. You can skip days you're not interested in, it's up to you, but I definitely recommend coming everyday."

'Day 1: Registration and Orientation, Day 2: Combat and Gadgets... wow, this is a whole thing.' Calvin briefly skimmed the brochure as he received it, chuckling at how mundane this actually compared to the fantasy he had of superheroes. 'This actually feels like it's a legit job.'

"Those who actually finish the four day workshop get this badge saying you graduated from the AH workshop. It's absolutely useless and actually kind of tacky, but it's something. You also get one of these," he summoned a mug that had 'I survived a workshop' on it, "a commemorative mug to, well, commemorate. I actually recommend doing this just for the mug. It's a nifty little thing. And look, if you press this button you can stir the inside automatically."

He pressed the button to show it off towards a group of uninterested teenagers. He grunted, seeing their reaction, mumbling to himself about the youth not heeding the wisdom of their betters.

"Anyway, enough about that. Today is just introductions. I already introduced myself so you all go ahead. Let's start with you." He pointed towards a boy at the edge, a few people away from Calvin. "Keep it short, like I did."

"Want to bet someone has a telekinetic power?" Ina asked Quinn in a whisper.

"You know I never bet with you." Quinn pinched her arm.

"Calvin?" Ina looked towards him, asking for the bet.

"I'm poor."

"I'm giving you half of the dits I got from Regina."

"I'll take it. But no bet." He wasn't about to waste newly earned money.

"Tsk. No fun around here." She crossed her arms in annoyance.

The boy Allen pointed to walked up to the front with a confident gait, chest puffed up and all. He brushed his brunette locks aside and smiled brightly, bowing towards them as a first greeting. "I extend my greetings everyone. I am Alden Croftweld, son to Mius and Tiffany Croftweld of the Cr-"

"We don't need your entire life's history Alden, just get to your power if you have one."

His smile faltered before returning. "My inherent capability affords me the extraordinary capacity to effortlessly reproduce the effects of any action I undertake at my volition, and not just once, but with an inherent and limitless capacity for repetition."

Allen looked like he was deciphering his words before giving up. He waved his hand, summoning a yellow practice dummy that reminded Calvin of the poor dolls used to test how a car handles crashes.

"Go ahead," he gestured to the doll.

Alden got into stance and threw a straight towards the doll, knocking it back a few inches without toppling it over. Nothing happened for a moment before Alden struck a pose, raising his hand like a magician revealing a trick.

Another sound of impact rang out, the doll moving backwards again in a way similar from before.

"So you can repeat punches." Allen sighed, turning to the others. "I'll say it again: Keep it short, will you guys? Next."

The next one, a girl named Anne, showed off a power that lets her jump twice her height. The other girl next to her could speak directly in their ears, although it strains her voice.

Ina came next.

"I'm Ina. I haven't awakened powers yet." She spoke. Short and unsweet, she didn't even bother to stand up to show her face to everyone.

Allen raised a brow. "We get one or two powerless each session so you'll be fine. You can even come back after you get your power. Get two of the amazing mugs I showed you earlier."

He beckoned the next girl, Ina's only friend as far as he could tell.

Quinn got up and giddily jumped to the front, waving excitedly towards them. "Hello! My name is Quinn, you can call me Queenie. And I can make anything I touch vibrate."

She walked towards the dummy and tapped its chest. A gratingly annoying sound rang out, sounding like a phone vibrating without rest. The dummy's visage blurred, the constant vibration making it nudge and slide towards seemingly random directions. She tapped it's chest again and it stopped.

"Ha! I bet you get some use out of that!" A boy from the back shouted before his face met the commemorative mug Allen threw towards him. "Ow!"

"Stop your crass jokes. We have a kid here." Allen warned, his eyes gesturing towards the shortest boy in the class.

The boy in question, picking up on his glance, spoke with indignation. "I'm almost eighteen."

"You're what?" Allen scanned her up and down in disbelief. Even Calvin did. He looked not a day older than thirteen years old. "Uh, well, cheer up? You can sit now, Quinn. Glad to have you here."

Quinn harrumphed, glaring at the crass boy before stomping back to her seat between Calvin and Ina.

Now it was his turn. Calvin took a deep breath and stood up, not expecting himself to be slightly nervous from the attention. He flinched slightly, seeing all eyes on him, before shaking his head slightly to throw away the anxious thoughts.

"Uh, hi. I'm Calvin. I'm also powerless." He spoke, bowing slightly before sitting back down.

"Another one, huh. Well, glad to have you here, kid. Next." Allen gestured to Regina.

Regina stood up and introduced herself as well. "Regina Myscroft. I prefer to be called In-", she paused, her eyes turning to Ina with a glare, "ahem. Regina is fine. My power lets me summon crows made of ink."

With a simple gesture, black blots materialized in mid-air, dripping down a viscous liquid with a horrifying squelch. A loud caw came as the ink splatters below the blots moved like squirming goo and coalesced into a slimy visage of a crow. The crows started flying around, becoming less goo and more lifelike before Regina cancelled her ability and let them fade away into a black mist.

"Spooky." Allen remarked with a whistle. "Myscroft, huh."

"Sir?"

"Nothing, you can take a seat. Glad to have you here. Next."

The next few people stood up and introduced themselves and their powers. Some were generic, like punching stronger and shooting flames. Others were peculiar, like being able to create cutlery from thin air and throw them with complete accuracy.

The small almost-eighteen-year-old boy unexpectedly had the telekinetic power that would've won Ina some money. Albeit it was relatively odd as far as telekinetic powers went, as he had to actually be touching something to control it with his mind.

Calvin heard Ina let out a tsk as the boy demonstrated.

The crass heckling boy from earlier, who introduced himself as Jaxton, demonstrated that he could elongate any part of his body to a certain limit, to which Quinn returned his earlier sentiment by repeating his remark back to him. Quinn also consequently received a mug to the face.

"Okay, with introductions out of the way, let's start with grouping you guys up together for an exercise. Five minutes, four teams of six. Go."