Tag Archives: Immortal

Arc 7.9: Demo

Demo: Part 2

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It wasn’t going to be the good kind of awesome though. It was kind of awesome you get when all the people who hate you go into one corner and you wonder what they’re going to do when they come out.

To be fair, it wasn’t everyone who hated me. Jody wasn’t on their team.

Not yet anyway.

Over the loudspeaker, Lee said, “Blue Mask. Group 1.”

That was interesting, I thought as a guy who could almost have passed for Zorro walked up to their group. “Almost passed” because he had a blue mask. The inside of his cape was lined with blue as well—upping the number of capes I’d met who actually had a cape to two.

He carried a rapier.

I barely had time to process that when Lee said, “Slugger, Group 1.” Continue reading Demo: Part 2 →

Arc 7.9: Demo

Demo: Part 1

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I half expected Turkmenistan to erupt in torrents of blood and destruction by Sunday night, but it didn’t. Nothing happened. That didn’t mean I wasn’t trying to stop it though.

I considered sending an email explaining everything to Agent Lim, but didn’t when it occurred to me that anything that went to Lim’s email address might be permanently archived by the government. Instead I sent him an email saying that something of potentially international importance had come up, and that he should talk to me or Dr.Nation as soon as possible. Continue reading Demo: Part 1 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 6

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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.

Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 6 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 4

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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 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 3

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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 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 2

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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.”

Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 2 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 1

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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.

Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 1 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 10

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I gave the ship more speed, but not to the point where I risked damaging the engines.

On one of the screens appeared the words:

[There is no sign of pursuit, but their passive scanning systems should have no trouble tracking us back to Earth.]

“Oh?” I thought about that. “Let me know if there’s any sign of action.”

I glanced back toward Lee and Vaughn. “They won’t really do anything right? They like the Heroes League. They feel like they owe us.”

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 10 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 9

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“No idea,” I said, “except for the last ship they’ve all left people in our system, and I’m using ‘people’ pretty loosely so I can include the machines.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that a small ship had left the “pirate ship.” It shot off at high speed, and disappeared behind Earth. I didn’t see any signs of battles, but on the other hand, could I have?

Vaughn watched the small ship disappear. “Huh. Could be that one.”

Haley shook her head. “Maybe.”

This wasn’t getting easier. “Lee said something that made it sound like he expected it would be pirates, or at least look like pirates.”

Vaughn turned his head toward me. “What do you suppose he meant by that?”

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 9 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 6

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We didn’t have time to say any more about it as I let the ship float into the landing bay. I kept my mind on coming to a full stop, turning on the external anti-gravity to use what little gravity there was, and also lowered the landing gear.

Behind us, the force shield went up, followed by huge doors rolling out of the floor and shutting, and finally their artificial gravity slowly turning on.

That gave me more gravity to work with, meaning that I didn’t have to use the maneuvering rockets inside the bay. Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 6 →