“Go ahead,” I said. “We’re not saving space for anybody.”
Even if we had been, there were plenty of spaces on either side of us. Gordon sat down.
He’d loaded his tray down with breakfast food–french toast, eggs, sausages, bacon, hash browns, fruit salad and a chunk of beef.
Evidently he was one of those supers who needed more food than average.
People were talking about Turkmenistan the next day. Around noon, Haley and I were sitting in the compound’s cafeteria with Camille, one of Haley’s friends and a Heroes League recruit. We’d taken the van to Castle Rock’s Catholic church—St. Francis of Assisi.
I still wasn’t sure if that had been a good idea.
We’d gone as ourselves, and not in costume. All it would have taken to blow our identities was pictures placing us near the very well publicized Stapledon summer program while the Rocket wasn’t appearing much in Grand Lake.
Still, the Castle Rock church was on the list of churches that the program said were safe, so we went.
Don’t ask me what made them safe. Given the program’s reliance on mental blocks for it’s students, I probably wouldn’t be happy to know.
Gunther glanced back to the field, and then turned back toward everyone watching him. “But here’s one of the major things you need to get out of this. Fairness is completely irrelevant. This is combat. Fairness is for games. The whole situation is unfair from the beginning. You’re all a bunch of heroes in training. Chances are, you’re not trying to kill them, but they are trying to kill you. Sure, some of them won’t be. Many, even. No matter how many jewelry stores a guy breaks into, he may still have a set of morals that means he won’t kill, but you know what? That doesn’t matter.”
Despite his topic, Gunther managed to sound slightly amused.
Calvin flew toward us in the air in a leap that had to be getting extra force from the wind behind him, and he wasn’t alone.
Cindy and Paula jumped after him.
It didn’t work out as well as any of them would have expected.
A beam of iridescent light hit Calvin in the air, surrounding him with sparkles that kept on glowing as he flew toward us.
Gunther continued, “The paintbot rounds stand in for the suit’s lasers, and for the explosive rounds which take out most people. Non-lethal rounds are perfectly allowable for this fight, Rocket. Captain Commando, your gun counts as a laser for this. Paint them with light, and you’ll take them out. The sword works too, but don’t turn it on.”
Gunther took in the group of us standing together. “Here’s how this will work: each group fights until there’s a clear winner between the two of you. You’ll need to think about how to do that, but I’m not going to give you time to talk about it.” Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 4
Several people stood up. None of them looked as impressive as the elite Cabal soldiers we’d fought–the reserves. Nearly immortal, constantly regenerating, they were incredibly strong and extremely tough as well.
Fighting people you could barely hurt who also regenerated had always seemed particularly unfair to me.
The Cabal had other soldiers too. They weren’t as tough, but they had a wider variety of powers. Maybe I was seeing their descendants?
Gunther looked them over, and said, “Any of you who can’t lift more than 20 tons, please sit down.”
None of them sat down. Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 3
I glanced up at the red, rocky cliff to my left, thinking about how I’d have to run into the parking garage to get to the truck, and walk back.
It wouldn’t be too bad once I got the Rocket suit, but, it looked like a long walk from here.
Turning back to Gunther, I said, “You realize that we’re tired, right? Dr. Nation’s program is all about unpredictably stressing us to the breaking point, and maybe a little past it.”
Gunther nodded. “I’m counting on it. That means you won’t be able to fight for long, and you’ll have to use quick, efficient takedowns on anyone you fight.”
“Takedowns? Who are we fighting?”
Gunther grinned, revealing white teeth. “The toughest people in the first year class–at least on paper.”
Here we go. You know how I’ve been talking about the Kickstarter, and how it would be up on Wednesday. Well, it’s Wednesday. Now I’ll grant you that I’ve been trying to finish this thing since May, and so you might not have been expecting to see it after all this time.
Nonetheless, the moment has arrived. I’ve finally gotten so sick of editing the video that I’ve put up the Kickstarter anyway. Seriously. That’s what’s been holding this up. This is version number four. It’s still got noticeable problems, but there’s a time where you ignore the problems and take a step forward.
This is mine.
Oh… One more thing. According to Kickstarter, 90% of a project’s donations come from people already connected to the project owner.
That’d be you. You, and my friends and family anyway. So, no pressure, but, if you feel maybe a little pressure, well, that would help. The Kickstarter will go on for a month, ending on November 14, 2014.
This is the link if you want to click through or even promote it (please do):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zoetewey/the-legion-of-nothing-powers
For those of you who are more impatient, you can watch the video right here on my own site:
On Saturday morning, we gathered at the compound’s athletic fields. They had two football/soccer fields with tracks running around them. The first year students gathered in the middle of one and the second, third, and fourth years gathered in the other.
The first years seemed to take up most of the middle of their field, but that wasn’t really true. It wasn’t just them. Adults in costume (both superhero and medical scrubs) were scattered throughout the crowd.
I recognized what they were doing from last year—entry assessment. The program was getting a baseline of their abilities. They’d set up a walled room on one end of the field. I wasn’t sure of the material, but from here it looked like stone.
I didn’t know what kind of powers they had to work with, but an awful lot of powers had the potential to kill if they weren’t contained.
“No kidding?” I shook my head. “Well, I guess we heard her telling him that he needed to get to know well known supers. We’d probably qualify for that even if we hadn’t done much of anything ourselves.”
She glanced toward where I assumed that they were. It was too dark for me to tell at that point.
Haley frowned. “I get it. I heard her too, but isn’t it messed up? People are worth more than how useful they are to you.” Continue reading Fame: Part 4