Hero Super

“Erased?” Calvin echoed, looking back at the blank page with nothing but Lonnie’s name.

“Here’s what an empty file should look like,” she flicked another file towards him which immediately opened right next to Lonnie’s 'file’.

“This isn’t— is this mine? Why did you… mine’s not blank,” his brows furrowed as he read the disturbingly detailed five-page file that she sent him. He already read it before, and it didn’t have too much on him, but it still felt creepy.

“It might as well be, you don’t have anything before six months.”

“But it’s not blank.”

“That’s my point. Your history of just half a year is already that much.”

“I know, I get it,” he closed both files and sat down on his bed. “So, his record is erased? What does that mean?”

She looked at him with a deadpan face, “What do you think it means? People erase things when they’re hiding something.”

“Or when they fuck up. Like when I was starting out with painting.”

“Your colouring books are different from a network scan, Cal.”

“Rude,” he rolled his eyes, “but that’s my point. I feel like you’re jumping to conclusions just because it’s right in front of you.”

“You just don’t get how unusual it is that there’s nothing on him. It’s not even that it’s redacted or anything. Mine’s redacted,” she sent a file to Calvin which was basically a book filled with black bars, “that’s what it looks like. Hundreds of pages, but it’s not blank.”

“Might as well be,” Calvin muttered. “It’s still… I don’t know, Quinn.”

She crossed her arms and squinted towards him, “Still what?”

“I don’t think he’s it— I don’t know, it feels too convenient?” Seeing as she didn’t reply, he sighed and explained himself. “We’re stressed and anxious… everything literally just happened not even a day ago— I don’t think it’s been half a day ago— it just feels like something that fell out of the sky while we were trying to find something, you know?”

She stayed silent and ruminated for a moment before giving a light nod, “Fine. Let’s talk about it again tomorrow. Just keep it in mind for now.”

“Nowhere else to keep it,” he joked before wearing a serious expression. “Did you tell Ina yet?”

“No,” she shook her head.

He frowned, “Why not?”

“Like I said before, we’re keeping it between the two of us for now.”

“Us and whoever you called to arrest the terrorists?”

“Safer that way. And it probably won’t take too long anyway. For all the flaws that she has, my mother is rather meticulous when it comes to doing her job... although—”, she paused and frowned, her brows scrunching as she started looking through Calvin as if lost in thought.

“Please don’t just stop talking in the middle of the sentence like you’re having some foreboding realization that’ll foreshadow bad shit that’s going to happen in the future yet you’ll somehow ignore because 'it’s nothing’.”

Quinn returned her attention and squinted at him, “You say weird things sometimes, Cal.”

“Just— please keep talking.”

“It’s noth—”, she rolled her eyes as he shot her a look, “—it’s just, there’s a lot of things happening outside right now. People are busy. Heroes are busy.”

“Busy enough to ignore a couple of dangerous villains where their children are?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just telling you now, we still need to be careful.”

“Maintain the same level of anxiety and paranoia, got it.”

She ignored his quip and deactivated the 'cone of silence’ tech, “And clean up your room. It’s a mess in here.”

He groaned dramatically, “Yes, mom— oof.”

“Shut up or I’ll replace your bed with a crib,” she threatened with a smile after throwing a pillow at his face.

The girl soon walked out and left Calvin in the middle of his own messy room. He laid back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. There were no thoughts in his head, the singular train chugging through his mind completely derailed by Quinn’s visit, dragging him back to reality after his moment of solace of having been immersed in 'self-improvement’.

“Haah… I feel tired,” he muttered with a sigh before grabbing the pillow his friend threw at his face. “Heh, seriously? Pink? I swear I never see pink outside of her room.”

Out of a newly formed habit from the past few minutes, he rested his hand on the wall behind him and then used [Jumper] to throw the pillow across the room and into the mess on the floor.

“Actually, how far did I get?” He muttered as he willed a particular window open.

Super Evolution

Jumper

Path of Absorption Path of Repulsion

Path of Control

Super Help

Jumper - Path of Repulsion

31/10,000 object thrown

0/500 objects thrown beyond 100 meters

0/250 objects thrown beyond 500 meters

0/50 objects thrown beyond 1 kilometre

“Damn… it’s hard to get right,” Calvin sighed, his adrenaline getting extinguished further by reality. 'I can’t just throw it, I have to let [Jumper] itself carry the force.’

He initially dashed back to his dorm room, the most private space he had, seeing there were only three paths in the evolution. Even seeing the amount of requirements didn’t deter him at first, still riding the adrenaline from the fight with Lonnie, which resulted in his currently messy room.

'One step at a time,’ he reassured himself, 'at least one path is already done.’

Super Help

Jumper - Path of Absorption

617,142/100,000 newtons of force mitigated

780/250 instances of impacts negated

736/100 instances of gravity-based impacts negated

“Holy shit,” he couldn’t help but blurt out in disbelief despite seeing it for the second time. 'Was it really that much? Did Ina really throw me around that much? Actually… it’s not surprising.’

The number was actually more believable if he put it into context. They’d sparred nearly every day for six months, and for the first half of those six, he really was getting thrown around just by virtue of how often she went berserk and casually threw him to the air every chance she got.

Didn’t help that he liked to jump up in the air to dodge her charges.

Closing that path, he turned to the next one. The one he was actually dreading despite his elation from earlier.

Super Help

Jumper - Path of Control

0/1000 two consecutive jumps of equal strength

0/500 three consecutive jumps of equal strength

0/100 four consecutive jumps of equal strength

0/10 five consecutive jumps of equal strength

0/10 remain out of contact with any surface for ten seconds

0/1 remain out of contact with any surface for thirty seconds

'Zero. Out of all the times I’ve used it, I never even jumped twice in a row using the same amount of force? Goddamn’ He let out an annoyed tsk, yet he was somewhat excited. It was less vague than eating a 'perfect’ dish, so there was that.

'Still… I probably shouldn’t do much until this headache goes away,’ he thought to himself, closing the window. “I need to sleep.”

With a simple thought and a second of wait, the bottle of [Dreamless Drops] appeared in his hand.

'Two drops should be two good night’s sleep, right?’ He joked to himself before dismissing the dumb idea and taking one drop. “Now we wait—”

His holowatch vibrated multiple times in quick succession. Immediately, he opened it and saw a few messages from an unusual contact.

Batty sent an image

Batty sent an image

Batty sent an image

Batty sent an image

Batty sent an image

Batty: h

“Every fucking ti—”, he managed to cuss before blacking out.

Martin narrowed his eyes as he continued scrutinizing every minutia of detail displayed in front of his face. The security footage playing on the holographic panel reflecting against his eyes showed every single available footage from cameras that caught even a single glimpse of a particular point of the academy— the statues of the Seven.

Or, more particularly, the place where two of his temporary students were supposedly assaulted.

He’d been pouring through the footage for an hour now, which would’ve been a couple of hours if the security team didn’t need to be convinced by his pure intentions to procure the footage. Why they immediately suspected that it was for amoral means was quite fishy, especially since they knew who he was.

“Make a note: investigate the security team. Yellow— actually, orange-level. They might be in on this.” he spoke to his holowatch which let out a small beep of affirmation after. 'It’s not likely they’re involved… but it might be a lead.’

As he continued speaking to himself, his attention went towards the hologram, his hand reaching over to manipulate a small controller and turn the footage back a few minutes before the incident.

The hologram showed a small-ish park in the middle of a big-ish park. An odd choice if one really thought about it, but no one really thought about it other than the ones paid to think about it. As long as there was green, a couple of trees, and plenty of space to loiter, no one questioned its existence as a park.

This particular one, the small-ish one, was, to Martin’s displeasure, surrounded by three-meter tall hedges that looked like they were shoddily maintained. The leaves were too thick, the branches sprung out from everywhere, and the entire hedge was likely a few meters taller than it should be.

Additionally, or 'subtractionally’ if one was to continue with the trend of negatives so far, every single one of the cameras couldn’t so much as catch a glimpse of what was behind the hedges.

Martin’s brows furrowed before he held his holowatch up again, “Make a note: investigate architect tinkers and landscape planners. Orange-level.”

He let that thought go as he started focusing, watching, with the eyes of a hawk— albeit a rather tired, stressed, and annoyed hawk— for anything he missed the first time he poured through the footage.

It was nearly midnight, with nothing suspicious so far, at least until two eye-catching students came into the frame: one punched him in the face and the other lit the screen like a pink neon sign.

A few minutes after they went inside the small park and out of sight of the cameras, every single person still in view of all of the cameras started walking away. It didn’t happen all at once, but just enough to look suspicious given what was supposed to happen.

“Make a note: suspected telepath. Request a psychiatrist… wait, check first if the Academy has an in-house psychiatrist.”

He let the video continue playing, glancing at the time on the corner every now and then.

Minutes passed.

And they passed some more.

And some more.

“I can’t,” he sighed and hit the fast-forward button.

It wasn’t until an hour later in the footage that there was a change. Calvin and his pink friend walked out nonchalantly, nary a crease on their clothes or a ruffle in their hair.

He rewound the footage, watching the previous hour once more. Not a single movement was caught in the motion detectors, and not a single colour changed in the footage analysis. It literally was almost like a slice of time stretched out in the video, up until the two left.

Martin’s brows furrowed further as he looked to the side and checked the report. The altercation reported didn’t happen. At least, not in the footage.

'They can’t be lying, Sky himself would’ve gone here if it wasn’t for those breaches in the outer wall. Plus, Memo’s in a damn coma…’ He let out a sigh as the obvious conclusion came to him. He raised his holowatch and started speaking again, “Edit note about the security team. Make it red-level. Add another note, request for a data tinker. Red-level.”

After making those notes, he thought for a moment before promptly disconnecting his holowatch from the Academy’s network.

While he doubted that his personal Vanguard-class holowatch would be compromised in any meaningful way, it’s better to be safe than sorry. They might still be able to track his movements more closely, or if they have their own data tinker, intercept any form of communication he makes through the network.

“Damn it. Filing those requests is going to be such a pain,” he whined, “so much paperwork. Ugh…”

“That’s why I retired, honey,” A voice from behind jolted him up from his seat.

“Who the f—”, he turned around, hands in a fist before sighing in relief after seeing the spine-tingling bestial grin on the person’s face. “I almost punched you.”

“Pft—”, the person chuckled, “you’re not as fast as you think, Martin.”

“It’s been five years. I’ve gotten faster, Max,” he said as he sat back down and stared at the woman.

“Max? Not even Maxine? Five years is all it took to get all that respect out of you, huh? You used to call me teacher,” She teased, walking next to him and leaning against the console. “I can’t believe you told me I was your hero.”

Martin’s eyelid twitched as the metal groaned under the sheer weight of the woman, “You’re not even a hero anymore.”

“I retired, honey, not regressed.”

“Was there anyone back in HQ?” He asked, refocusing the conversation on more important matters.

She shook her head lightly, “Only staff. Everything else looked abandoned. Dorm rooms, training rooms, lounging rooms, everything. Even the betting bars are empty.”

“Betting bars?” He echoed, brows furrowing as he turned to her.

“Yeah, betting bars. There are normally at least two or three people there on off days. Now, there’s none. Even the bartender was gone.”

“Drinking and betting inside the HQ is a violation.”

“Ah, you didn’t—”, Maxine covered her mouth, “—you didn’t hear anything from me.”

Martin rolled his eyes, opting to ignore that, “How about the beetle? Memo?”

“Gizmo’s in the nerd wing and I dropped the girl off in good and quiet hands, as you requested. What happened to her anyway? Why not just get her to HQ?”

“That’s what I was about to check,” he answered, pointing to the cameras. “But I don’t think I’ll find anything here. Network’s probably compromised— the Academy’s, at least.”

She leaned over and glanced between the screen and him, “Someone fiddled with the cameras.”

“That, or it’s been bugged since the first day,” he added. “But it’s sloppy.”

“Has to be. Even you found them out.”

“Basically, the only thing I can confirm from the report is that they went in and out of the place at the time they said they did.”

“And the three girls?”

“I haven’t checked, but I doubt it’ll be in there. They seemed prepared,” he noted. “Like you said, sloppy. But somehow… prepared?”

“Like toast burnt on one side.”

“Who burns toast just on one side?”

“I use a skillet, honey,” she shrugged, “nerds didn’t catch them?”

“Nerds haven’t seen the footage. Not yet,” he said, shaking his head, “Academy’s and independent network. Not even Oracle would be able to snoop through this place without getting explicit permission from the admin.”

Martin sighed in frustration. It was hard enough to investigate discretely on his own, but to have to do it without any of the useful tools from the Vanguard network— it was absurd.

Maxine tapped the console in thought before offering a solution, “Ask Sandra?”

“Sandra?” He asked, tilting his head from the unfamiliar name.

“Sandra. She’s the top dog of this place.”

“You mean… Principal Alexander?”

“Who else?” She chuckled.

“But he's... she's— you know, never mind,” he shivered as Maxine gave him a wink. “I already thought of that. Unfortunately, 'the admin’ is technically a collective group made up of all the deans and department heads in the Academy. Principal included.”

“Politics,” she shook her head.

“It’s better to just go and get things done first.”

“And apologize later,” she nodded with a wide grin, smacking his back with pride.

Martin coughed to hide his surprised yelp, “That’s how you taught me.”

“I did?” She asked, thinking to herself for a moment before giving him a shrug. “I taught you a lot of things… but I don’t think I taught you to let yourself get socked by your own student, did I?”

He groaned, “That wasn’t what it— how did you even know about that?”

“Celebrity heartthrob-turned-superhero, who was the childhood crush of many of the current students of the academy, is supposedly teaching a course in the newly-built Academy, gets his face caved-in by a student in an 'activity’,” she grinned, setting the context, “Honey, news like that is going to spread like melted butter on burnt toast no matter which side you put it on.”

He covered his face in frustration, “I should never have signed up for that TV show.”

“There’s a video, honey. Look.”

She tapped on her holowatch a few times before flicking something on it towards the big holographic screens Martin was using.

He raised his head and peeked through his fingers, feeling his stomach already grabbing a shovel and digging a ditch inside his own guts to crawl into. It was a video of yesterday’s 'game’, from the point of view of one of the students. Blurry, sure, but unfortunately not enough to blur his stupidly eye-catching face getting punched.

If that wasn’t enough humiliation, he could see annotated messages popping up on the side. Some mocked him, some defended him, but most just enjoyed the solid hit.

“Where’d you even get this?” He asked, taking back control of the screen to close the video.

“Here,” Maxine flicked her finger again.

Immediately, a network node that was the source of the video popped up. It looked like an ordinary video-sharing node, except most were filled with content starring students and staff of the campus.

“What’s this?” He asked, scanning the video thumbnails and tapping on one curiously titled 'Our New Friend Uses His Power On Grass. You Won’t Believe What Happens Next! (Prank) (Gone Wrong) (Watch Until The End)’.

It was a video of a gardener slipping on grass.

“It’s something made by student nerds from the nerd department. I use it to share footage of arena fights, but most kids upload funny stuff on it. Duels are rarer now that class is on so I just scroll through them in my free time, but I don’t understand some of them. Look at this one,” she tapped another video, “it’s just a fake head on a toilet shooting lasers and they’re cackling as they try to flush—”

“Wait a minute, what’s this one?” Martin changed the video to one that caught his attention. “Zero zero one four five— what’s with the title?”

The video changed into one showing a couple of students practising with their superpowers in the park.

One of them was a partial elementalis, she was creating balls of water in the palm of her hand before juggling it with a couple of other balls with dubious proficiency. Occasionally, she’d mess up and throw a ball a bit too far for her to reach. The other student, a thin boy, would then open his mouth and inhale in its general direction.

He doesn’t ever get enough power to get the water balls in, but it was practice.

“Cute,” Maxine muttered, grinning menacingly in the background. “The boy’s could be trained to be something interesting…”

Their superpowers were curious, and how they practised even more so, but it wasn’t what caught Martin’s attention. What made him open the video was its quality— it looked like shit.

“Why is it blurry?” He started asking out loud. “And the camera angle, it’s so high up. It’s practically looking down.”

“It’s probably security footage, honey. They always have jumbled numbers as file names,” Maxine shrugged.

“I figured, but why is it blurry?”

“Maybe the camera’s cheap?”

“That’s not it,” he shook his head. “Even cheap ones aren’t like this.”

“Now that you mention it—”, Maxine scratched her chin as she started evaluating the video more closely, “—it looks like one of those old CCTVs.”

He turned to her, obviously asking to elaborate with his stare.

“Security cameras, from way back before everything went 'smart’. They were blurry, grainy, and broken… generally a pain in the behind to sift through so I just never bothered when I was in active duty. I don’t remember more than that, but I know they’re not in the network.”

“The network?”

“Any network. They’re too old, but they’re robust. Something about being wired or something?”

“Analogue!” He clapped his hands in excitement. “They don’t digitize their outputs so data tinkers can’t access them even if they’re literally right in front of them. It’s virtually un-tamperable.”

“I don’t think that’s a word, honey.”

“I need to look for the archives… there’s got to be archives. I mean, it’s analogue, the storage is physical,” he started muttering to himself. “I just hope it’s on campus.”

“There’s a chance it’s not?” Maxine asked almost sarcastically.

“I don’t know. If the security is this well thought-out, it only makes sense to keep it in a different place.”

“Then it’ll be on campus. You overthink, Martin. Not everyone does. At least, not enough. I’m betting it’s not as well thought-out as you think it is,” she said while gesturing to his head, “you’ve seen the lengths they go through to make what’s theirs theirs. Whoever’s in the admin council or whatever it is, they’re going to put all their eggs in the same basket if it meant no one else can touch them. Like I said—”

“—politics.” He nodded. “But if it isn’t?”

“Then cross that bridge when you get there,” she shrugged, “better to look where you can see first.”

“I see,” he nodded.

“Just ask around, you’ll probably find it within the week.”

“The week? Campus isn’t that big, I’ll find it in a day.”

She smirked at him, “Whatever you say. Just let me know if you need more help.”

He nodded, “Thanks, teacher.”

“Oh, now that I’m offering to help it’s back to teacher?” She said with a small snort. “Good luck with hero-ing, kiddo. I’m off.”

Martin couldn’t even reply before the woman disappeared like a popping bubble. He sighed, half thankful and half nervous that she needed to offer her help with something like this. HQ must’ve been really desolate for her to do that.

He turned back to the grainy footage, the next step already clear in his mind, “shouldn’t take too long…”