Hero Super

“Balls…” Calvin muttered.

He was sat in the middle of a large empty training room, his eyes staring at multicoloured spheres floating in midair that were swimming in a lazy sloth-like manner around him— as spheres usually did. The spheres periodically changed colours, courtesy of Calvin’s [Colour Control]. The drain was nearly negligible now, much lower when he first got the power. And even back then, it was already a small drain.

“Effort… and efficiency? I forgot how it goes.” He spoke to himself, Ina’s words echoing only faintly on account of her screaming them while she bashed his head in. “Forging effort to efficiency? No—”

“Practice is the forge from which effort is hammered into efficiency,” an old voice interrupted his thoughts. “Hitman said that.”

Calvin turned, finding the wrinkly old man at the door still wearing a bathrobe loosely, “Hitman?”

“An old hero from Vanguard’s early years. You should read about him, great man,” the old man explained. “Enough of that, stand up.”

He did as he instructed, as he had done in the past six months, “Are you going to talk about power evolutions now, old man?”

“Stop calling me old man, I have a name.”

“But you’re also an old man, old man.”

“An old man about to whoop your ass if you don’t stop.”

“I just— you don’t really look like a Ron,” Calvin said.

“What do I look like?” The old man asked, brow raised.

“An old man— ow!” Calvin curled and stumbled forward, one of the coloured balls behind him flew straight to the back of his head. “Hey!”

Ron ignored him. “We’ll go through the exercises one by one.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. Now, first exercise,” He announced, controlling the balls using the console on the wall. “Red.”

The grey spheres floating around like lethargic bubbles suddenly stiffened up, whizzing to position in a blink lining up into a grid of balls equidistant to each other. With a simple pull of Calvin’s [Colour Control], all the spheres in the room turned into a vivid crimson.

“Blue,” Ron commanded, and he made it so.

“Pft.” Calvin stifled a laugh at the juvenile joke he couldn’t help but remember.

They continued the exercise for a handful more colours until the old man signaled him to stop. With another press of a button, the balls started to move laterally.

“You still good?” Ron asked.

“I can do this all day,” Calvin answered, quoting the freedom captain.

Ron scoffed, “We’ll see. Second exercise, go again.”

“…” Despite being annoyed at his tone of voice, Calvin acquiesced and started using his power again.

Whether he admitted it or not, the old man’s instructions were really helpful to him. Despite his words basically amounting to suggestions about exercise routines to train his [Colour Control], it was likely a far cry from what he would’ve thought of practicing by himself. There was a clear difference between bumbling around and trying to train your superpower’s metaphorical muscle and doing so under the guidance of someone experienced. The difference was much more clear comparing [Colour Control] with his other powers.

’Should I have shown him [Impervious Pebble] instead? I wonder what would’ve happened…‘ He thought idly while they kept going through exercises like it was a gauntlet.

By the end of the last exercise, the room was now filled with spheres zipping in the air at untraceable speed, turning into multitudes of different colours as Calvin did his utter best to comply with the old man’s specific instructions with increasing tempo. His added point in Super Mind was what made it possible to actually see the spheres, however, he couldn’t fathom how the old man could follow something he could barely trace.

’How strong is he?’ He thought, narrowing his eyes at the old man.

“Stop,” Ron said. Both Calvin and the hundred or so balls fell to the ground into a heap of lifelessness. “You said you could do this all day?”

“Figure of speech!” He shouted.

His body wasn’t hurt in any way, nor did he feel any fatigue. At least physically. As far as he’d guessed, it was his Super Spirit that was taking the hit based on what he theorized the three super attributes seemed to do. Body for body stamina, Mind for mental stamina, and Spirit for spirit stamina; He wasn’t tired, and his head didn’t throb, but he felt empty inside— hence the theory.

“Whatever the case, you’re pretty good, kid. For someone who only awakened— what, like six months ago? The results of your efforts are showing. There’s probably only Central City kids that can match your power usage,” Ron nodded, scratching his chin like a proud sage.

“Yes, I’m amazing, aren’t I?”

“Keep licking your own ass, why don’t you?”

“It’s kissing. Gross old man— ow!”

“Honestly,” the old man ignored his glare, “I really did think you were just peacocking your progress. You were asking for a harder exercise practically every week. Colour me surprised.”

“Colour,” Calvin smirked at Ron who returned a look of non-understanding, “never mind. When are you going to tell me about power evolutions?”

Ron stared at him for a moment, “There’s good news and bad news.”

“There is?”

“Yeah, choose.”

“Bad news first.”

“You probably can’t evolve your power,” Ron told him without pause.

Calvin stared at him with pause, “What?”

“You probably can’t evolve your po—”

“No, no. I heard you the first time, I just— what do you mean I can’t evolve my power?”

Ron shrugged, “I mean just that, you can’t.”

“Stop being purposefully vague old man—”, a ball hit the back of his head, “—ow! Fuck! Stop that! I’m going to have a concussion.”

“You can’t because there’s probably nothing to evolve. That’s the good news.”

Calvin squinted at him, sighing frustratingly, “Can you please explain it clearly?”

Ron breathed deeply, “If I’m correct, your power’s a Full Elementalis.”

“Meaning?” He gestured for the old man to move along.

“First, what do you think an Elementalis is?”

Calvin stopped to think for a moment before coming up with what he knew, “A stupid word to describe a power that can control something.”

“Half right,” Ron nodded.

“Which half?”

“It is a stupid name.”

“So the wrong half.”

“Being an Elementalis, specifically a Full Elementalis, means your power is dominion over a specific element. It doesn’t matter what element it is, you have more than just ‘control’ over it.” He explained with hand gestures to emphasize. “You own it, so to speak.”

“So… I can’t evolve because there’s nowhere to evolve?”

“Probably.” Ron corrected.

“Why probably?”

“Because I’m just around ninety percent sure you actually are a Full Elementalis and not an overly diverse Partial.” The old man said, gesturing with his hands in the air. A moment later, a dusting of crystalline powder appeared from his hand, piling into a mound of white stuff on the ground.

Calvin’s eyes shook, staring at the powder, ’Is that…’

“No, it’s not drugs.” Ron interrupted his thoughts.

“…I didn’t say anything.”

“It’s salt. I’m a Full Elementalis and that is my ‘domain’. A Partial one of the same element, at least to my knowledge, wouldn’t be able to just make a mound of salt appear like this. It would be more like this—”, he gestured again and made a white cube of salt appear in his hand, “—a cube or a sphere, something much more specialized and specific than just salt.”

He remembered a few people from his hero workshop months ago, “Like an earth wall or a water curtain?”

“Precisely, they’ll have domain over that, but nothing else. An earth wall will always be an earth wall, small or big.”

Calvin looked curiously at Ron’s control over his power. It made sense, in hindsight, given the help he’s been given. The old man was a powerhouse in one way or another, and it wasn’t an impossibility that he was a retired hero— or villain for that matter.

He pried his gaze away from the salt, “So I probably am a Full Elementalis based on the fact that my power isn’t specialized?”

“I imagine a Partial of your element would only have domain over one colour, or maybe just one pattern,” Ron said with a nod. “It’s hard to know for sure, but that’s what it looks like to me.”

“Then is this it? This is all I can do?” Calvin said disappointedly.

“For now. That’s the quirk of our types, we don’t evolve, we discover.” Ron started walking to the center of the room, “Come, fight me.”

“What? Why?”

“It’ll be easier to show you.”

Calvin squinted, his momentary hesitation replaced with curiosity over the old man’s prowess, “Don’t send me to the hospital?”

“You’ll be fine,” Ron smirked.

Calvin cracked his neck before lowering his stance, staring at the old man with wariness. It’d be stupid for him to underestimate him, so he went all out at the start, only using one power of course. With [Colour Control], he went with his usual trick of changing the entire room into pure whiteness, along with himself, achieving pseudo invisibility.

“Hooh, so that’s how you use it,” Ron nodded appreciatively.

“It’s the only move I can use in a fight,” Calvin admitted before rushing towards the old man.

“For now.”

He circled around, trying to flank Ron. He dashed from the side, sending a kick to the old man’s feet to test the waters.

Without flinching, the old man raised his foot, dodging Calvin’s leg. Despite not expecting it, Calvin didn’t relent, spinning his body to send a high kick towards the old man’s face.

The old man leaned back to dodge, “You like kicks, huh.”

“Wha— how?” Calvin blurted out, flustered for a moment.

He pulled back, raising his arms in a boxing stance before dashing back in. He sent a flurry of punches, all of which were dodged by the old man with simple bobs and weaves. Calvin felt frustrated, feeling like he was fighting an eel rather than a person.

“What? That’s all?” Ron smirked, turning his head towards him.

His eyes widened, “How can you see me?”

“Stick your tongue out.”

“Ew— no.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Just do it.”

Putting aside his apprehension, Calvin stuck his tongue out for a moment. “This tastes… salt?”

“All around us. I can feel where you are.” Ron gave him a proud smile. “It’s an application of two ‘discoveries’, but you get the idea.”

Calvin returned all colour in the room, looking oddly around him. There was a thin cloud of white in the air, presumably the salt Ron had spread out to find where he was.

’That’s clever.’ He thought, fanning the air. “So you discovered this? How is it different from evolution?”

“It’s more like finding out you have a third arm, rather than growing a third arm— our is discovered, hence the term,” Ron explained.

“So it’s already there… what else do you have?” Calvin asked with excited eyes.

Ron chuckled, “Since you asked, come. Punch me. I won’t dod—”

Calvin sent out his fist with no hesitation. The old man took a few steps back from the force of his knuckles hitting the bridge of his nose.

“You—”

“Woah. It felt like I was hitting a wall.” Calvin muttered, looking at his hand. It was red.

Ron coughed, his eyes twitching in annoyance but he still answered, “Look at my skin.”

Calvin walked closer, squinting his eyes at the wrinkly old man’s face, “You put a layer of salt on top of your skin?”

“Hard salt.”

“It felt like a brick wall.”

“Very hard salt.”

Calvin rolled his eyes, “I don’t think I can do something like that with my power. It wouldn’t make sense…”

“You think mine makes sense? I used to think that too, back in the day. But then—”, the old man tightened his hand, a knife of pure white appeared floating above it, “—I stopped thinking that and discovered I can. Unlike power evolutions, which involve luck and constant practice, ours is merely comprehension about the possibilities in our domain.”

“Just out of curiosity, how does power evolution work? The normal kind, I mean.”

The old man scratched his cheek, thinking for a moment before giving a response, “Normal power evolutions rely on two things I mentioned already, luck and effort. Both can evolve a power by themselves, but you can’t really train luck so most go through effort.”

“Okay, that explained nothing— ow! Stop hitting me with balls!”

“I wasn’t finished,” the old man glared at him, “also I hit you with salt.”

Calvin turned around, finding a sphere of salt on the ground, “That hurts more than the balls.”

“Power evolution is like a dam— effort builds up water on one side until it overflows and breaks through. Of course, the size of the dam is variable, no one knows just how much water it would take a particular power. There are cases where a lifetime of practice and mastery results in nothing, but that’s where luck is involved.”

“They just practice and their powers evolve one day?”

“There’s nuance to it, and it still varies per power, but that’s what it boils down to.” Ron nodded.

“It’s that simple?”

“I said there’s nuance. Some powers have other requirements, and they’re not easy to find out. Most people just ‘feel’ what they need when the time comes, but it still only comes once the dam is overflowing.”

“That seems… unfair,” Calvin muttered.

“It is, to them,” Ron gave a knowing grin. “What do you think is the record for the most amount of evolutions a power has gone through, in all of history?”

“They can evolve more than once?” He asked rhetorically. “I don’t know, ten times?”

“Five times,” he answered, showing him five fingers, “Hitman, remember him from the quote? He went from being able to hit people a meter away to being able to hit inner selves, powers, even through spacetime.”

“That’s why his name is Hitman? Apt name, if nothing else.” Calvin said, putting a pin on the name to look it up later.

“The man was the epitome of effort, patience, and talent… and yet he only went through evolution five times, the same amount of times the average Full Elementalis unlocks a discovery.”

“That makes— wait, the average? That’s…”

“Unfair?”

“Obscene.”

Ron chuckled, “Somewhat, but our powers don’t get unfair or illogical power ups, not always anyway. We’re not busting down metaphorical dams of increasing size, not like them. Discovery’s difficulty spikes not with every new facet, but with how complex each one is, so while we do get more variability it isn’t always more powerful or useful than what we already know. Look at this—”

The old man started doing a magic show once more, summoning streams of salt from his palms and controlling them to dance in the air. With another thought, the streams coalesced, forming into different objects of varying complexity, from simple three-dimensional shapes to complex geometric structures.

“You’re just showing off now,” Calvin muttered, watching the salt dance.

“This was one of the simplest discoveries most with our type of power has, Manipulation. The other is Creation, when I made the salt appear from my hands,” Ron’s words took Calvin’s attention. “They look cool, but they're not strong. At the end of the day, it’s still just some salt flying in the air. And not just that, we still have to go through mastery of new facets of our powers, much more than they do.”

“That's simple? What’s a complex discovery then? The salt skin?”

“No, that’s an application of a couple of simple discoveries too, this one is complex—”, without pause, Ron turned pure white, “—transformation. Took me a long time before I was able to become pure salt.”

“There’s a joke in there somewhere,” Calvin said, walking closer. “What happens when I hit you?”

“You can tr—”

Calvin jumped and spun, sending a kick towards Ron’s temple. Unlike what he was expecting, Ron’s head disintegrated into a cloud of salt. Before he could panic, the salt coalesced back into a head that was smiling smugly towards him.

“Can you at least pretend to hesitate?”

“That’s amazing,” Calvin muttered in admiration. “Can I do that too?”

“If you’re asking me whether or not you can use your power to do something similar, then maybe? I don’t know what discoveries you’ll make, it’s your power. There will be similarities, but ultimately our domains are different from each other.”

’Ina’s gotta have ideas I can try.’ Calvin thought, thankful for his power-obsessed friend. “Where do I even start?”

“Somewhere simple,” Ron walked towards the console and summoned two balls to float near them, “turn one of them red.”

Calvin nodded, pulling on his somewhat recovered spirit before using the power. “Next?”

“Move the colour to the ball beside it.”

“What? Like this—”, he turned the red ball grey and the grey ball red.

“No no, move it. You’re just using Creation again. Move it, find the feeling.”

“Like, right now?”

“It’s the most basic of basics, Cal. If you can’t do this, then you’re probably not a Full Elementalis and I’d have wasted that explanation.”

He gave Ron an annoyed glare before turning to focus on the spheres. ’Move, how do I move it…’

He stared for quite a while, trying to find something that could help with moving the colour. All the powers he gained so far had a very simple process of control, just exerting his will like it was an arm to flex. This problem of having to discover a new facet of his power was troubling, he had no experience nor knowledge to pull from.

’How did I even start controlling my powers?’ He started thinking. ’That white light, everything clicked immediately whenever I absorbed it from a flask. Damn it— where do I even start looking for something to flex?’

“Glare a little more and that sphere might get a hole,” Ron broke him from his thoughts. “Got a problem?”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with what you know.”

“With what I—” Calvin paused his sass, staring back at the sphere. ’With what I know…’

With a thought, the sphere started flashing red and grey as he continuously activated [Colour Control]. It started slow at first, with him trying to feel where the flexing metaphorical muscle was at.

’There!’ He exclaimed in his mind after finding a faint feeling of ‘something’ inside of him.

The flashing sphere upped in tempo as Calvin tried making the faint and vague feeling of the muscle more pronounced. It started working as he kept it up, although to the detriment of his already fatigued spirit. Nevertheless, he persevered.

And succeeded.

“Woah.” He muttered.

“What?” The old man asked.

Calvin ignored him, focusing on what he grasped. It was the whitestuff, the thing that gave him his powers. He could feel it inside him, along with five others floating around in the void of wherever they were. In hindsight, it was obvious that they were there, and he was almost amazed he never tried feeling them out.

’So… what do I do with this?’ Calvin asked himself, willing the whitestuff of [Colour Control] to stretch as he changed the colour of the sphere back to red. ’So stretching it like that makes it change the colour how about this—’

He started experimenting, getting the feel of the newly discovered process to activate his power. It was subtle, but he could feel precision when he was using the power using the whitestuff instead of the metaphorical muscle— which was probably just the same thing, just more instinctive.

Eventually, he figured something out as the colour red started wiggling on the ball. He massaged the power, trying to find the feeling again.

“There…” He muttered, seeing the colour wiggle once more. Latching onto it, he prodded full force on the power, making the colour jump from one sphere to another with a significant drain on his spirit. “Haah… there! I did it!”

He looked towards Ron who was staring at the spheres with a stoic face.

After a moment of silence, he turned to Calvin, “I didn’t think you actually could.”

“What?” Calvin’s mouth gaped. “Then what was the point—”

“To make sure you learn that it isn’t that easy. But apparently… you’re a goddamn monster, Cal.” The old man looked at him, his eyes narrowing as he stared.

Calvin felt his cheek warming up, an uncontrollable smile blooming on his face, “Well, it wasn’t that easy.”

“Wipe that smile off, you look stupid,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. Although a small smile could help but curve from his lips. “That’s just the easiest discovery, there’s much more so don’t get conceited.”

“Thank you,” Calvin said sincerely.

“It’s my job, Cal.”

“Can I ask for exercise for the new discovery?”

Ron chuckled, “I’ll have Vince send you a list.”

“What next? Any more basic discoveries I can get right now— ow! How are you even controlling these balls?”

“Salt,” Ron answered succinctly, “and no, that’s something I was going to warn you about. Focus on mastering what you have on hand first, else you end up with a bunch of facets that are ultimately useless.”

“Yeah, but just a clue? For the future?” Calvin pushed.

“No,” Ron waved him away. “It’s about time you went, I need my sleep.”

“You sleep in the morning?”

“I sleep whenever I want.”

“Old man privileges—”, Calvin ducked, feeling a sphere pass by where his head was at, “—ha! Hit me once, shame on— ow!”

The old man left the room and Calvin followed after. He didn’t push the old man for more, there was already plenty to work with for a long time with regards to his powers. The fact that he could sense the whitestuff was the most crucial thing he learned today, more so than the new facet of [Colour Control].

“I’ll see you later, Ron.” Calvin nodded to him, heading for the door.

“Hmm…” Ron hummed, letting out an annoyed tsk before shrugging. With a wave of his hand, he summoned a small vial and produced a similarly small white crystal inside. “Catch.”

Calvin turned around, seeing a blur suddenly hit his face with a crystalline ring, “Ow! What the hell?”

Ron smirked, “I did say catch.”

He glared at the old man before bending down to pick up the vial, “What?”

“That’s a clue. Since you might show your ugly face here again if I don’t give you one. Just don’t forget to master Manipulation first before moving on.”

He couldn’t quip back nor pay attention to Ron’s words as he was intently looking at the solid crystal of salt inside the vial. Not just because of the implication, but also because of the panel that just popped up.

Super Equip

Super Buff: Smelling Salts detected. Equip?

Yes No