Super Powereds: Year 3 (2 page)

An unsteady step forward confirmed that he could at least still walk under his own power. Good. As long he could keep going, he hadn’t lost. The deal was still in full effect.

It wasn’t a complicated bargain—neither party was that sort of thinker. George had merely made him a proposition, once his seeming captive had awoken: Vince was free to go at any time, and if he ever reached a point of injury so great that he couldn’t continue, he would be transported to a hospital and abandoned. The flip side was that, if Vince was able to beat George, even once, then George would willingly return himself to jail. That alone might have kept Vince going, but then George had added a cherry to the top of the offer. If Vince beat George, he got more than returning a fugitive to rightful incarceration. George would also take him to see his father. With that carrot dangling in front of him, Vince never, even once, considered giving up. George could taunt him, beat him, and ridicule him all he wanted. Vince wasn’t quitting. And if he could at all help it, he wasn’t going to lose by injury either.

The silver-haired young man took two more weary steps forward, drops of sweat falling from his forehead into the damned dusty ground, and charged.

*              *              *

Mary jumped slightly at the sound of a tree being shattered into kindling. She’d gotten lost in her book and hadn’t noticed when Alice switched her training. Looking up from the depths of the dense tome, she noticed her blonde friend had moved toward the edge of the clearing for this round of practice.

Alice’s face was furrowed in concentration as she focused on reversing, then intensifying, the flow of gravity in a defined area. The small tree she was staring at began to shiver as one of the natural forces of the universe was suddenly thrown out of whack. A quick sweep of her hand removed a lock of sweaty hair from Alice’s eyes. She’d been training for a few hours, alternating between using her body and her power, and if she followed the routine she’d established, it would be several more hours before she was done. If Mary had feared allowing her to come would fill this silent sanctuary with chatter, those worries had been unfounded. Whatever Alice was going through, she’d evidently found more solace in training than talking. Not to say she was unfriendly or aloof, merely constantly occupied.

The tree tore from the ground as the upended gravity proved to be too much for even strong roots to struggle against. It drifted into the air lazily, the powerful pull reduced almost immediately to a sense of weightlessness. It had taken Alice two weeks to get a sapling out of the ground, and another three days before she’d been able to keep one from flying off into the air. That had been some time ago; the tree currently suspended in mid-air was far larger than a mere sapling.

Alice took hold of both ends with opposing gravitational forces, pulling them tight and bringing its drift to a stop. She’d wasted more time than she cared to admit trying to fine-tune this trick to the point where she could actually pull the tree in half. No matter how much she put into it though, she was never able to conjure enough force to overcome the structural integrity of one of Mother Nature’s oldest designs.

Another prodigious cracking filled the air as the tree shattered at its center, then fell to the ground. Alice couldn’t pull them in half, but she could now add a third pull of gravity in the middle. Once it was pulled tight, not even a mighty oak could overcome the laws of physics.

A quick walk to a new target—a few feet away—began the cycle anew. Alice would do this for some time longer, working hard at focusing her mind on singular tasks, learning to blot out all other thoughts, all other distractions, all other curiosities. Learning to blur out everything but the task at hand.

Especially things related to her parents.

*              *              *

Hershel stretched backward, listening to the soft pops from his spine as it crackled, giving him blissful but all too short relief. He’d gotten better at lifting with his legs—that much had been necessary to avoid serious injury—but even after several months of work, he still hadn’t quite managed to eliminate using his back entirely. That meant, by the time he was ready to change into Roy, his body had acquired quite a number of throbbing aches and pains. And that was on the good days. Sometimes, he didn’t even get to turn into Roy, which meant the pain persisted through the night.

With a mighty haul of effort, Hershel yanked two pails loaded with feed up from the ground. Grunting and snorting came from the stalls, all reinforced with a myriad of metals designed to keep the altered animals contained. They worked well, for the most part. There had been an incident or two, but from the way everyone else shrugged them off, Hershel had assumed it was par for the course around here. Of course, after the first one, he began keeping an emergency container of whiskey on him at all times. Hershel was easy-going, not stupid.

“Hurry up!” Gus yelled from the arena. “We need you to check the saddles before tonight’s show!”

“Hurrying,” Hershel called back, throwing his already pained body into motion. This hadn’t really been the sort of training he was anticipating when he asked his mother to find him a teacher, but if the protesting in his muscles and smaller waistline on his pants were any indication, it was certainly yielding results.

Roy was less optimistic about their situation, but then again, what was new about that?

*              *              *

Sean Pendleton looked around the room anxiously. It was strange; there was a time when he’d have been filled with comfort to see so many masked faces perched atop flamboyant costumes. Then again, he would have been wearing one as well. Nothing so ostentatious, obviously, as Subtlety Heroes tended toward more muted color schemes. When Sean had been Wisp, his outfit was done in black swirls and soft grays. It didn’t have built-in armor, like many of the others, so it was thin enough to wear under street clothes when need be. The mask and gloves he’d been able to carry, but the real issue had been the boots. Those boots were a pain in the ass. Not that any of that mattered anymore. Wisp was gone, and Sean was dearly hoping no one recognized his lean face as the one that once been under a mask.

There were other people in regular clothes dotted amongst the Heroes. Some were liaisons for the Hero community, some served purposes best left unspoken, some were lawyers kept on retainer in case they were needed, and others were people who had walked away from the spandex and action some years earlier. Among them were Mr. Transport and Mr. Numbers, talking to a petite woman and a large man, both wearing suits that matched their own. Another un-costumed individual, Dean Blaine, walked through the room and sat in an uncomfortable folding chair next to Sean. Both of them were now facing the stage, a moderately sized, elevated platform with a white screen hung behind the podium.

“Feeling awkward?” Blaine asked.

“How could you tell?”

“Let’s call it Hero’s intuition.”

The others were filtering into their seats as well, an unstated yet understood signal telling them the presentation was about to start. Sean noticed a few of his fellow Lander professors among them, though he was less familiar with the clusters of Heroes they were speaking to. That was understandable; one always had a deep connection with the fellow graduates of their class. It was impossible not to, they’d scrapped and battled and trained alongside one another until only they were left standing. That sort of experience bonded people in a way that was nearly unbreakable.

Even when one might fervently wish to break it.

“Thank you all for coming,” the keynote speaker said, stepping onto the stage and taking his place at the podium. Charles Adair had also come out of costume, choosing a fine gray suit instead of The Alchemist’s attire. Blake Hill was a few steps away, adorned in the deep black shades of his Black Hole costume. Though they were not the ones who had called and organized this gathering—at least, not officially—they had been recognized as the people most suitable to lead it, given their relationship to the subject matter. Sean might have been able to think of people who knew the subject better than Blake Hill, but Charles’s expertise was beyond reproach. Not that many people here knew why.

There was a gentle electronic hum and an audible clicking sound before the screen behind Charles filled with a familiar image. It had been all over the news in the past weeks, the subject of many round table discussions and piles of speculations. It was of a man perched atop a floating hunk of rock, a woman at his side, and a recently freed prisoner at his feet. He was the reason they were all here. He was the problem that warranted the collective attention of as many Heroes as possible.

“As you all know, my former teammate, Globe, revealed himself to be alive some weeks ago with the very public jailbreak of Relentless Steel. Since he was kind enough to make his identity public before his retirement, I can tell you this prisoner’s real name is George Russell, and he was an educator in the Hero Certification Program for many years.”

The room murmured. One Hero going rogue was bad, but a teacher was far more dangerous. A single Hero would only have in-depth knowledge about the identities and weaknesses of his graduating class, and possibly a few Supers who’d been in class years close to him. A professor would have that same data on every Hero he’d ever taught.

“Yes, the implications here are very serious. Yet, bad as they are, the reemergence of Globe is still a higher priority,” Charles continued. “Most of you know that he turned on us, his teammates, after murdering Intra, and that we were only barely able to defeat him, thanks largely to Black Hole. We thought we had triumphed; however, it now seems we were wrong. For any of you wondering how we could have made a blunder of that scale, let me say this: that thought alone tells me you’ve never had any dealing with the man called Globe. And that is largely why we have called this conclave. If you go up against him, it is imperative you know what you are dealing with.”

The clicking sound came again, and now they were staring at the same man, but decades younger. His face was lean, his mask crisp, and his eyes shining with pride. Sean recognized the photograph; it had been cropped from their graduation picture. He knew that Intra was next to Globe on one side, and Shimmerpath was on the other. Three people down, one could find Zero and Raze, then one more over and Wisp’s smiling face would beam back at them. It had been an unspeakably happy day.

“Globe was the top-ranked graduate in his class. No small feat any year, his was especially impressive, given the quality of Heroes that came out along with him. It has been referred to by some as The Class of Legends, and while the name is hokey, I urge you to take it seriously. The graduates of that year’s class were of exceptional power and skill, and Globe handily trumped them all.”

Sean wondered how Blaine felt about that. It had been closer than some people thought. Most believed Intra to be Globe’s main contender, but Zero hadn’t been too far behind either.

“As to how Globe managed to come out on top, that’s part of what we’ll be going over. His ingenuity, his resourcefulness, his determination, and the largest factor in his, or any Hero’s, success: his power. I know there has been much speculation on what, exactly, Globe can do, given the variety of abilities he demonstrated during his tenure as a Hero.”

There were rapid clicks as a series of images flashed before them: Globe, holding up a hand to stop a giant robot’s impending fist. Globe, walking unscathed through a river of lava that parted before him. Globe, holding a bus overhead with a single finger as he calmly knocked back a bolt of destructive energy.

“Many have theorized that Globe was a telekinetic the likes of which had never been seen. Others believed he had an ability that randomized, giving him different gifts on different days. As is policy, his true talents were kept secret, just as his identity was. Since he was believed dead so soon after becoming a criminal, this data was never declassified. However, given the extenuating circumstances, we have received permission to educate you all on the actual nature of Globe’s ability. I wish I could say this was meant to be helpful, but in truth, I’m just hoping it helps you stay alive.”

The slide clicked again, this time, showing what appeared to be a bastardization of DaVinci’s “Vitruvian Man”. A human silhouette was in the center, with a carefully measured radius encircling him.

“Globe’s ability was area manipulation. His body exuded a field that allowed him to control his surroundings. I don’t mean minor things, like moving objects or melting butter. Globe’s control was total, down to the molecules. He could sunder the very laws of physics. He negated energy, he changed chemical compositions, he could even render all other Supers in his field powerless. Or use their bodies to do what he wanted. When it was studied originally, one of the researchers dubbed Globe’s ability ‘The God Field.’ That term is more accurate than any other I’ve heard associated with his power. To all things in his sphere of influence, he was effectively God.”

If the news of George’s profession had drawn the frantic murmuring of nervousness, this revelation drew something far more terrifying: silence. Each Hero in the room was comparing their own ability to the one just described, trying to think of a way to overcome it. The lack of outburst meant all of them were coming up empty.

“The obvious limitation to Globe’s power was that it only applied within the field he emitted. At graduation, his sphere was estimated to be around sixteen feet in any direction from his body. Just before his supposed death, it was around twenty. The growth rate slowed as he aged, however, it did continue to inch forward over time. We have to assume this trend has continued in the years he has been hidden. It also bears noting that, since the field seems to emit from his skin outward, Globe’s physical body was not encompassed by it, meaning he had no more control over his body than an average human. Aside from that weakness, his power is limited only by his concentration. We believed we had bested him thanks to the pain Intra inflicted by cutting off his arm in their fight. And, on that note, there have been two recorded Supers Globe could neither control directly, nor suppress the powers of. One was Intra, whose own ability was believed to overpower Globe’s in regards to his body.”