Hero Super

“Calcal!” As soon as he was released from the mechanical grabber, he heard a cheery voice echo from the darkness before an impact to his stomach sent him flying backwards.

“Oof—”, with no spirit to use [Jumper], he just took the brunt of the force and lay splattered on the floor. “Ow…”

“I missed you!” He heard the little girl’s muffled words as she buried her head on his chest while taking a huge whiff. “You always smell so good! Like a feast of candy!”

“Ugh…” He groaned, looking down to see a bundle of frizzy blue hair. Chuckling, he patted her head and sat up. “Missed you too, Dox. How’ve you been?”

“Oh! Oh!” Dox got up quickly and jumped around him with the excitement of a puppy on a walk. “Come! Come! I’ll show you something!”

She grabbed his hand and started dragging him with the strength of twenty men. Calvin could only smile wryly at how he was being manhandled. He was already used to her being like this, the little genius had very little in terms of company. Not that she minded, as far as Calvin could tell, but she was always excited to show someone, anyone, the fruits of her labor.

“Wait, wait—” Calvin said, struggling to pull his arm back. “Can you deal with this first?” He tapped his holowatch.

“Give me!” She shouted, immediately taking the holowatch without Calvin feeling anything. “Wow, a H-Ed?! Where did you get this?!”

“H-Ed?”

“Hero edition! It’s something made for superheroes above fifth rank— It’s durable, secure…” She started giving a long-winded explanation about the functions.

’I need to thank Quinn later,’ He thought, appreciating his friend more, “Can you modify it?”

“There’s already a lot of the stuff I normally put in… but maybe I can add more of the new— ah, wait, never mind this! Sebastien!” She called out, tossing the holowatch to the side.

A metal beak appeared from the darkness, catching the holowatch like a pair of steel chopsticks. The tapping of iron rang out until a mechanical creature appeared, eyes red like the devil's and feathers fluffy like an angel’s.

“Good evening, dear friend,” A voice came from a pair of speakers near the bird’s throat.

“Sebastien?” Calvin asked, a confused smile appearing on his face. “You’re a chicken.”

“He’s a chicken!” Dox agreed, nodding.

“I’m a rooster,” the chicken shook its head, “My creator needed something to throw around in her recent fit of inspirations, and I was curious on how the once-common domesticated fowl had survived such throws throughout their coexistence with humanity,” Sebastien explained as if it made any sense. He turned to Dox. “What shall I do with this?”

“Put everything you can in it, whatever, let’s go Calcal!” She grabbed his hand again and dragged him away.

“I bid you farewell and good luck, my friend.” The chicken nodded and toddled off.

Calvin waved goodbye to the A.I. chicken, helpless to the strength of the little genius as they headed towards the elevator and deeper into her laboratory.

“So, why is he a chicken?” He asked, turning to the creator of said chicken.

“It’s really funny seeing him type with his beak,” she giggled showing him a video of the metal chicken furiously pecking at a holographic keyboard, “He’s been building different animal bodies and going out more now that you-know-how hasn’t been around for half a year.”

’Sam?’ He thought, eyes narrowing, “What’s that got to do with him?”

“He kept trying to kidnap him,” She said, giggling. “He faked deletion at one point and hid whenever he’s around.”

“But… he’s still the one sending the messages? Sa— that guy would know it was fake.”

“Shush, he doesn’t know that,” She said, finger on lips.

Calvin chuckled. “Still doesn’t explain why he’s a chicken.”

“He wanted to be a chicken, what could I do?!”

“Your best, I guess,” he said, smiling as he ruffled her hair. “How’d you get a portal in the Academy, by the way? That seems a bit dangerous to do.”

“Heh~ That was easy! I just had to apply for some stuff, you know? Sign some papers, pay some bribes, threaten some families, and they just took it inside,” She grinned, showing him a smug face, “The hard part was getting it somewhere quiet! And also getting my favorite snacks in stock. They never have Mason’s fluffer nutters!”

“They didn’t even check if it was a portal?”

“They did,” She said, winking. Her head quickly turned to the front as the floor-slash-elevator stopped with a ding. “There it is!”

“…what are you even making here?” Calvin asked as he stared wide-eyed at her ‘invention’.

A gigantic machine-slash-torture-device stood in the middle of a chamber filled with whatever science and technology stuff Dox has lying around. It was an amalgamation of instruments and devices Calvin couldn’t make out, stitched together with bolts, circuitry, and wires all around, above, and underneath what looked like a dentist chair with straps— a.k.a. the torture chair.

Calvin wasn’t unused to the eccentricity of the little girl, but it never was this weird or grotesque. It was so far off from her usual inventions that he narrowed his eyes and started doubting whether or not Dox was actually the one that made it.

“It’s a scanner!” She exclaimed, chest puffed and arms crossed.

“It doesn’t look like a scanner,” He muttered. “Why are there straps?”

“Come on, let’s test it out!” She said, running to his back and pushing him to the cage.

Before Calvin could say anything, mechanical grabbers had already manhandled all his limbs and strapped him onto the chair. Despite that, Calvin just let it happen. He trusted Dox enough to not make him a science experiment, against all evidence that would point to her actually being an evil scientist.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Despite his trust, he had to ask.

She nodded confidently while turning knobs and pushing buttons, “Of course!”

“What does it scan?”

“You’ll see!” Dox exclaimed, pressing a few final buttons before grabbing a torture-chamber-esque lever. “Ready?”

Not waiting for a reply, she pulled the lever.

Static hummed and metal clanked, a cacophony of ‘evil invention’ themed sounds started ringing out from the jury-rigged scanner the little girl made. A non-holographic display, the first of its kind Calvin had seen in this world, started showing numbers and indecipherable symbols on the screen.

“Oh no… I forgot!” The mad girl shouted, running into the darkness and leaving Calvin to stew on anxiety.

“Hey! Where are you going?! What did you forget?! Hey!”

Lights started to brighten as the orchestra of cogs and electricity rose up to an exciting crescendo. Balls, cameras, screens, and all sorts of devices started turning on and contributing god-knows-what to whatever was happening. The chaos lasted for a moment, before abruptly stopping with sparks and a low hum.

The power went out.

“Please tell me I’m not dead,” Calvin muttered. He wasn’t in any pain. He wasn’t in anything, apart from darkness. “Dox?!”

“You’re not dead!” Dox shouted from within the void. “Wait a second!”

“Waiting!” He shouted back.

Not a moment later, the lights booted back up, showing him the destroyed remnants of the ‘scanner’ around him. He was like a king of broken machinery, strapped into a throne of weirdly comfortable leather.

Dox came rushing back, heading to the monitor, “Oh? Oh… oh! Ah!”

“Oh?”

“Oooh…”

“Are we monkeys or something?”

“What’s a monkey?” Sebastien came, gliding down from above. “Your holowatch needs a little more time to finish modifications, friend.”

“Thanks, Seb”, Calvin nodded to the chicken who gave him a charismatic bow in return.

“Sebby look!” Dox called the chicken over and pointed to the monitor. “What do you think?”

“I think you forgot to compensate for Calvin’s multiple superpowers,” he answered.

Dox grabbed him by the legs and threw him towards the air, “Of course, I know that!”

“Can someone unstrap me first?”

Sebastien flew to him and pecked the straps, releasing him from the scanner. “There.”

“Thanks,” he said, nodding to the chicken while massaging his wrists. “So? What happened? What was supposed to happen?”

“It was supposed to approximate what your power does, but I forgot you have more than one,” She knocked herself on the head lightly, “Still! It looks like it scanned three of your powers… there’s the colour one, one that outputs a short burst of force, and one that’s a personal forcefield.”

’[Colour Control], [Jumper], and [Vigilant Aegis].’ Calvin listed out the powers described. “Why only those three?”

Dox squinted at the screen, murmuring as she read, “The data was corrupted by the power surge I induced to compensate for your multiple powers…”

“The device seems to have thought you were scanning more than one person,” Sebastien commented. “Perhaps it equated an individual to a power.”

“Perhaps?” Calvin spoke, “You don’t know how it works?”

“It’s tinker tech, friend.” The chicken explained.

“No, it’s not!” Dox suddenly exclaimed. “It is, but it isn’t!”

“I’m lost,” Calvin admitted.

“Here, remember this?” Dox snapped and made a giant holographic screen appear beside her, showing an image of a familiar device.

Calvin’s blood ran cold as he involuntarily froze upon seeing the image. A glass cylinder, with machinery on top and on bottom, and green slightly-viscous liquid inside. It was the pod he woke up in, the pod that almost killed his closest friend, and the pod that killed his workshop instructor.

“Like yesterday,” he nodded after a brief moment. “Did you get one? You said you were looking for one.”

“No, all the ones I found so far are in Monarch’s place or in one of Vanguard’s deep-earth vaults,” she shook her head, shoulder sagging, “I couldn’t even get one if I tried.”

“Monarchs? That one villain group endorsing recruitments?”

She melted further into a puddle, “Yeah! It’s unfair! They stole it from Vanguard and didn’t want to share… I have to join if I want to even get a look at one. But I don’t want to join. They’re going to make me invent weird stuff like the last time…”

“Okay,” Calvin nodded, unsurprised.

That particular group was under the protection of the one and only Empress. No sane Hero would speak up against anything regarding her, probably not even the seven. If she took power-sucking tech, then that tech is hers and no one else’s.

’Might actually be safe that way… funny how that works,’ He thought. “So, what about the pods?”

“Ah!” She shot back up, a smile blooming again. “Look here!”

Tapping the hologram, Dox magnified the image ten times and enhanced it like this was some cheap detective show. Dragging with her finger, she centered the image to show a symbol etched into an inconspicuous corner of the pod. A mark.

Eight concentric rings with a big circle in the middle. Each ring had a circle on random points, each circle growing in size until the middle ring where they started shrinking again. An odd but clearly purposeful symbol etched with intention.

“Kinda looks like the solar system…” He muttered, scratching his chin. “What is it?”

“A tinker’s mark,” Sebastien started explaining, “It is something a tinker might etch, stitch, or otherwise use to mark their tinker tech if they plan on releasing their tech anonymously on both legal and less-than-legal markets. Helps build up a brand, get their name out without actually getting their name out.”

“Wait… so you know who made it?” Calvin asked, unknown emotions bubbling up.

“No, it’s just a signature,” Dox shook her head, “But! We can find other tinker tech they made through it! And look!”

Dox took out a piece of tech from her pocket, something vaguely familiar to Calvin. It was small, barely the size of a hand. It looked like it was a pair of green diving goggles cut in half and a pair of headphones similarly spliced, welded together to make something that would fit on a quarter of one’s face.

“It’s the scanner I based my device on,” she tossed it over to him, “it fits over your right ear and eye and it should scan a person’s level of strength.”

Calvin narrowed his eyes as he scrutinized the ‘scanner’, “Does it explode when the number goes over an arbitrary amount? Like, say, nine thousand?”

She giggled, “No? Why would it do that?”

“Just asking,” He shrugged, putting it on.

“It doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to do, but it does something neat! It can just kind of tell what your power is. But that’s not the important part! It’s this—”, she pointed at the corner of the ‘goggles’ part, “—see it?!”

Calvin stared at what she pointed at for a moment, “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“I believe he’s supposed to turn the device on,” Sebastien suggested.

“Ah!”

Dox rushed to him and tapped a button on the side of the device. Immediately, his vision was filled with green static, very much like an old monitor booting up. A moment’s wait was needed for the device to activate, at which point, a giant image of the symbol from earlier appeared in full green before shrinking to the corner.

“There it is,” Calvin nodded. “Hmm? You’re grey?”

“Grey!” Dox immediately summoned a holographic notepad and started writing and asking questions, “Describe exactly what kind of Grey?”

Instead of answering, Calvin took out a mug and used [Colour Control] to change it to the hue he could see. Delighted, Dox grabbed the mug and immediately started looking at it closely, transferring credits to Calvin’s account within the same breath.

“Hehe~” Dox giggled as she stored the mug. “Unsaturated auras likely correspond to superpowers with tinker properties. Interesting, no hint of other colours in mine. Interesting!”

“So it’s like your nose?” Calvin asked.

“Yes, but I can actually find out how this one works.”

“Neat,” Calvin muttered, taking off the scanner. “Whoever was the tinker that made this also made those pods…”

“Ah! About that— I don’t think it’s just one person,” She returned to her senses. “It’s not technically tinker tech.”

Before Calvin could ask, Sebastien explained, “The device is made up of smaller components that are tinker tech, but there are pieces that are also not tinker tech. The whole itself cannot be considered as one due to the mix. Much like my creator’s attempt to replicate it.”

“Like my pocket?” He fished out the [Eye-Socket Pocket Locket] from his neck. It was made from two pockets, the rusty chain he got from Sam, and the eye he got from Dox.

“Not exactly, but similar. Pockets share similar, if not the same, functions and utilities, hence the ease in combining them. The scanner is made otherwise.”

“Still,” He nodded. “Can’t it still just be one person?”

“The techs are from different tinker ‘concepts’— I assume you know concepts?”

“Yeah, I know what tinker concepts are,” Calvin couldn’t forget if he wanted to. “So it’s a group… like a gaggle of evil tinkers or something?”

“Yes!” Dox shouted, coming back to the conversation. “Maybe. We don’t know yet. But I’ll find them and wring them out of everything they know!”

Calvin chuckled, tossing back the scanner to her. “Just out of curiosity, what’s my colour?”

“Oh! Wait—”, she quickly put on the scanner and looked at him, pausing and narrowing her eyes.

He grew nervous at her gaze, “What?”

“You look like a jar of candy,” she muttered, drool leaking out. “Five different flavors… Sebby!”

Sebastian rolled his robotic poultry eyes, flying away into the darkness.

“Five?” Calvin was surprised.

“It seems that the original fares better in considering multiple powers,” Sebastien spoke, flying back with a jar of candy.

“You’re almost like a rainbow!,” she smiled brightly, grabbing the jar and opening it to eat a piece, “Hmm! Based on the colours I’ve encountered… two gimmicks, one mystic, and two physics— wow, the physic powers look like they’re swallowing you! They’re all around!”

“You don’t see a sixth one?” He asked, curious if the scanner could see the broken power.

“Sixth?” She narrowed her eyes, looking again. “I don’t see— oh! Oh! What is that? It’s… there’s no colour? It’s semi-transparent, almost like fizz. Huh… what is it? Do you know?”

“So it can see it too, huh…”

Calvin explained to Dox the circumstances of his sixth power. Of all the people he knew, she’s probably the smartest and the one least to spread any sort of information by virtue of having little to no friends other than him.

’Thinking about it… all my friends are loners,’ Calvin realized after explaining.

“Interesting!” Dox said, her voice muffled by the [Plain White Shirt]. Her face was currently buried in his stomach, sniffing as hard as possible. “It’s there! I can smell it! Like vanilla ice cream without the vanilla!”

He looked to the chicken who could only offer a shrug for his confusion.

“What do you think?” He asked.

“I don’t know yet! It could be the pods, it could also be something else! There’s just so much to find out!” She said, jumping up and excitedly running around her destroyed scanner, taking out tools as she giggled menacingly. “Hehe~”

“And… there she goes. I don’t think she’ll be out of that trance for some time, friend,” Sebastien said, turning to him.

“Ah, damn… I was going to have her take a look at these too,” he grabbed the [Eye-Socket Pocket Locket] and the un-tinkered red sneakers.

“I think I can help with that,” Sebastien nodded, before bowing down and opening his beak.

What happened next was something Calvin could only say to have seen once, on the internet, when he fell into a rabbit hole and started looking up videos on how penguin mothers feed their young. Needless to say, he had to fight his gag reflex.

After a ‘severed ear’ fell onto the table Sebastien was perched on, he turned to Calvin with the puffed chest of a proud rooster, “I believe this would act as an apt replacement for the damaged piece. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to replace your footwear, and I doubt my creator does as well— unless you are fine with replacing your foot with tinker tech.”

“Yeah, no,” He immediately refused, looking to the ear with crunched brows, “Why is it slimy?”

“Biomechanical oil. Due to my being artificial, I cannot access pockets and I had to pass the tech through my intest—”

“Don’t—”, Calvin stopped him, “—just… thank you.”

He took out a towel and picked up the ear, wiping it down as thoroughly as he could before taking it in his hands.

Super Help

Ear Pocket

A functional bionic ear, designed to contain a pocket dimension that is accessible to its wearer. Contains a 12 meter-cubed pocket dimension. Accessing the pocket dimension has a delay of at least a second. Additional functions include": Automatic Wardrobe, Bio-decay reduction.

Super Help

Ear Pocket

A functional bionic ear, designed to contain a pocket dimension that is accessible to its wearer. Contains a 12 meter-cubed pocket dimension. Accessing the pocket dimension has a delay of at least a second. Additional functions include": Automatic Wardrobe, Bio-decay reduction.

His brows raised, an unexpected upgrade came, although it wasn’t without demerits. “Why is it an ear?”

“It’s her concept, what can you do?” Sebastien said with a shrug.

“Is it okay for me to have this?” He asked, feeling a bit guilty. Pockets were expensive, and the last one he got was from a deal.

“It’ll be fine. It’s a trade. She’ll want the old one to research how your ‘power’ affected it,” He reassured him. “Hmm. The watch is ready, you can pick it up on the way out.”

“Well—”, Calvin looked to Dox who seemed to be wrestling with one of the arm-like tinker techs attached to the machine, “—I’ll see you later, Seb.”

Awkwardly, the two boarded the elevator and went up, Calvin turning his attention to marvel at the many rooms he gets to peek into as they continued upward.

’This place gets larger every time I come here.’

Sebastien suddenly looked up, “It seems we have company.”

“Company?” Calvin’s heart sank.

“Dox! Where are you!” A woman with a pixie cut and a bruised face appeared, shouldering a baseball bat with spikes on the end.

“Hello, Batty,” Sebastien greeted.

“Hey, Seb—”, she paused, seeing Calvin, “Why do you look familiar— ah—”

Expectedly, she recognized him.

Similarly, he recognized her.

Immediately, his fist reached her jaw.