Super Powereds: Year 1 (61 page)

“It’s to my understanding that that’s supposed to be part of the fun,” Mary said.

“Then I’ll look forward to it.”

“That makes two of us. Good night, Hershel.”

“Good night, Mary,” Hershel replied. He very much wanted to kiss her in that moment, standing there in their dorm common room, the memory of the ocean still fresh in their minds. Instead he pulled her in closer and squeezed her tightly into a hug. Roy would have gone for the kiss, of that Hershel had no doubt. But Hershel wasn’t Roy, and tonight, for the first time in a very long time, Hershel was happy about that fact.

They released each other and parted, going back to their respective sides of Melbrook and into their rooms. Mary was surprised not to find Alice waiting to hear all about the night out. Had she been less preoccupied through the week and kept better tabs on Nick, then Alice’s absence might have been anticipated. As it was, Mary went into her room and reluctantly headed for the shower. Much as she loved the smell of the night ocean on her, it was hardly hygienic to go to sleep with so much salt on the skin.

* * *

Nick and Bubbles arrived about an hour after Hershel and Mary.

“This place is really nice!” Bubbles remarked as they entered the common room. “And there’s only, like, five of you? That is so cool, how did you swing getting into a dorm like this?”

“Just good luck,” Nick told her. “As I’ve heard it was originally built for faculty; however, they weren’t so receptive to living on campus with students, and, well... waste not, want not.”

“Still, it’s super nice. I mean, I love living with L-Ray and all, but you guys actually have a kitchen. Plus it’s so secure and off on its own, it’s, like, a totally different world and ugh now I am so jealous,”

“This is just the central area. Maybe next time I’ll show you what the rooms look like,” Nick said.

“Next time?”

“Assuming you want to see me again, yes.”

“Oh yeah, I totally want to see you again, what are you doing tomorrow?”

Nick laughed. “The rest of my weekend is sadly already spoken for by homework. I’ll call you later in the week and we can work out the best time for us to go out.”

“Sounds awesome!” Bubbles said. She then realized the level of her volume and the lateness of the hour and dialed it down a few degrees before she spoke again. “Tonight was really nice. Thank you for taking me out.”

“Thank you for being my company. And driving,” Nick added on.

“I guess I should be getting back then.”

“Indeed, but we’ll talk soon.” Nick assured her. They walked back out the front to the front door, which Nick graciously held open for Bubbles. Once they were in the brisk night air, she turned around to thank him one last time. Before she had the chance, Nick’s hand ran lightly up her cheek and behind her ear, drawing her face close to his. The kiss caught her by surprise for a moment, then she melted into it.

They broke apart eventually, Nick planting a final kiss on her cheek, as if he was signing his name.

“See you soon,” Nick said, pulling away.

“Mmmhmmm,” Bubbles replied, her tongue still adamant about staying in make-out mode and not surrendering itself back to the mundane task of talking. In this Nick had accomplished something a multitude of teachers, parents, and friends had failed to accomplish. He’d rendered Bubbles speechless.

Nick stepped back into Melbrook and shook himself a bit mentally. It’d been a while since he had physical contact with a beautiful woman, and the first time he’d ever done so in his current persona. He should have held back a bit more. This Nick shouldn’t be quite so adept a kisser. He made a mental note for next time. It would likely be all right. If his skill level decreased Bubbles would almost certainly just assume her memory of the first kiss was rosily remembered due to the hormone cocktail most people knew as romance.

He walked down the hall and stepped into the empty common room once more. All in all the night had gone well. The girl never stopped talking, but Nick had excellent selective attention so he’d manage to stave off annoyance most of the evening. She provided excellent visual stimulation as well, to which he was never averse. Most importantly, Alice was nowhere to be seen, meaning she had either gone to bed or was talking with Mary. Either way, she wasn’t concerned with Nick Campbell, which was precisely how he wanted it.

Nick opened the boys’ side door and stepped in, greeted by Hershel and Vince, who were already discussing Hershel’s date. The door swung shut behind him on the common room, now empty once more.

* * *

On this particular occasion (and countless other, less relevant, ones before it), Nicholas Campbell was wrong. Alice Adair was neither asleep, nor talking with Mary, nor even in Melbrook at all. She was currently floating high above the Lander campus, clad in an enormous jacket, ski pants, and face mask to protect against the cold and the wind.

She’d dipped down momentarily when he and Bubbles had come home, not enough to make out words to but enough to see the show. She’d also seen Mary and Hershel arrive earlier. She thought about how she should probably be down there, talking with Mary and making sure everything had gone okay. She would do all that, too. She would just do it tomorrow. For right now Alice was floating through the air, truly enjoying her power for the first time since she’d gained control of it.

In a way it was a surreal experience. When she was Powered, happiness had always been what sent Alice airborne. Tonight, though, she was melancholy. Everyone was hooking up and becoming romantically involved, yet she was lagging behind. There was a fear snaking through her heart, one that said at this pace she’d find herself alone once more. She tried to calm it away, but it was persistent. It reminded her that even Nick had met someone. If he could get a date then it was only a matter of time until everyone was caught up in their budding romances. So she’d decided to get out of the house. Normally this would involve a drive down the highway. Tonight, though...

Alice rotated slowly in the air, staring up at the nighttime sky. It was breathtaking, the vastness of space made all the more real by the empty air beneath her. It was both humbling and inspiring. Alice drank it in, letting the wonder suffuse her. She knew she had to go in eventually, and she would. She’d shower to warm herself up, sleep late in the morning, then take Mary out for a girls’ breakfast to hear all about the night. She’d face her slowly-growing fear of solitude by strengthening the bonds with those she found herself caring for. She would tackle everything facing her.

Just not this moment.

108.

Monday, as the freshmen finished their first two hours of gym, the combat class began heading toward the stairs while the alternative class moved to the empty side of the room. This had been their pattern since the new system began, so it was a surprise when Coach George moved between himself and the doorway to the stairwell, instead waving the students back.

“Not today, you little eager beavers,” Coach George said. “Line up with the alternative class.”

The students exchanged a few confused glances, but by this point Coach George’s most important lesson (Do what you’re freaking told and shut up) was starting to stick. They jogged over and lined up alongside the rest of the class.

“Today we’ll be introducing you to another kind of training, this one useful to Supers of all types,” Coach Persephone said once everyone was in place. “We’re going to work on ranged techniques. Expect to do this about once a week, though the exact day will be changed as George and I deem necessary.”

“Now,” Coach George said, stepping forward and taking over. “Some of you have powers that lend themselves to ranged attacks, some of you have powers that will lend themselves to it with a little teaching, and some of you have jack shit in that department. We’ll be splitting you into three-man teams based of which of these groups you fall into and getting you going in shooting range rooms. We won’t be supervising much, because this part is really simple. There will be targets. You will shoot said targets. New targets will lower, rinse and repeat until we come for you. Get into your teams as I call your names.”

The class barely had time to glance at their friends before Coach George’s barking voice filled the air.

“Smith, Griffen, Riley!”

Mary, Alex, and Adam all hustled toward the area and stood in a trio.

“Reynolds, Dixon, Wells!”

“Campbell, Reid, Weaver!”

And so it went until everyone had been crammed into a three-man unit, after which the coaches led them down the stairwell to a new level. This one looked like nothing so much as a honeycomb of rooms. At each room a team was deposited with the same instruction: “Find the weapon that works best for you, shoot as many targets as you can, don’t stop until we come get you. You’re being watched.”

The rooms were stocked like a riot control officer’s wet dream. All variety of pistols loaded with rubber bullets, shotguns equipped with beanbag rounds, even a net cannon leaning in the corner. There were weapons of more lethal force as well, everything from throwing knives to hatchets. Most curious were the items that seemed to have no place in these rooms at all, like the sack of steel ball bearings or the roll of cloth bandages.

As for the targets, they amounted to what seemed like a very in-depth, well-funded carnie game. The targets popped out periodically from a shifting spectrum of cardboard buildings that acted as cover. The lights would pulse when a shooting session had commenced, alternating between blinding flashes and utter darkness. There would be minute-long breaks between these periods when reloading was expected to occur. The situation as a whole was frustrating, annoying, and left most of the students with a headache that would persist for the remainder of the day. The exercise bore fruit, though, as some discovered they had talent in this new form of battle, while others were finally able to showcase the skills they’d already developed.

* * *

“Booyah!” Allen yelled, a bolt of green energy leaping forth from his hand and exploding against the cardboard cutout of a shadowy villain. Small burning chunks rained down on where the poor target had once stood, the only remnants of an inanimate object taken before its time.

“Not bad,” Amber admitted, stepping up to the front. “But still amateur hour. Watch how it’s done.” Amber closed her eyes and raised both hands, her middle fingers pressed against her thumbs. Her lips pursed and a low, almost undetectable whistle leaked out. The lights could flash all they wanted; Amber didn’t need her eyes to make these shots.

From Vince’s perspective, what happened next was inexplicable. Amber was still for a moment, then she began snapping her fingers on both hands. With each snap another target, often barely emerged from its cover, would explode into pieces. The lights stopped flashing after a mere twenty seconds of this, presumably because the system had to load more cutouts for them to shoot at.

“Wow,” Vince said. He’d assumed he would be paired with other Supers sporting ranged abilities, but he hadn’t imagined he’d see anything like that.

“Respectable,” Allen said grudgingly.

“Thank you, thank you,” Amber said, opening her eyes and taking a few bows. She then glanced back at the wreckage that remained from her assault. “Sorry about that, Vince, didn’t mean to hog your turn.”

“I think it’ll be okay,” Vince said. “I’m sure there’s plenty more where that came from. I have to ask, how did you do that?”

“Ranged is sort of my thing,” Amber said excitedly. “I control sound waves, and those can be deadly, even over a distance.”

“Hang on,” Allen said, stepping up. “You’re telling you did all that with sound? I call bullshit, I didn’t even hear anything.”

“Of course you didn’t hear anything, Dumb-dumb,” Amber said. “When I snapped my fingers, it generated a sound wave. I amplified and focused that wave on whatever target I wanted to blow up.”

“Then we should have a really loud noise if you were amplifying it,” Allen pointed out.

This time it was Vince who corrected him.

“Sounds don’t work that way. What we perceive as ‘hearing’ is a wave coming in contact with our ear drum. If she was sending the whole wave to an individual spot then there wouldn’t have been anything left to reach us.”

“Very good, Vince,” Amber said. “You hit it right on the head.”

“I still don’t think I get it,” Allen said.

The lights began to flash once more.

“I can explain after class,” Amber offered graciously. “Right now I think it’s Vince’s turn to blow some shit up.”

“Um, thanks,” Vince said uncertainly. He had drained quite a few lighters recently, but he had a suspicion that if he didn’t finally use the electricity Coach George had mandated, he would be lectured about it at very loud volumes. Besides, this actually was a good learning opportunity. Up until now he’d just been absorbing from the battery, then recharging it at the end of class since powers had been off limits during close combat. Vince already knew how to shoot fire; today he could see how good he was with lightning.

Vince stepped up to the center area where the others had shot from. The lights started pulsing and shadowy targets began to emerge and retract. Vince took a deep breath. Fire was wild, always aching to be let out. Shooting it wasn’t hard, all you really had to do was take aim and let it run free. He figured electricity was pretty similar in a lot of ways, so his best bet was to try the same methods he’d developed for fire.

Vince focused on one of the center targets and raised his right hand. What happened next was pieced together by the remaining film footage, accounts from Amber and Allen, and analysis of what remained from the shooting area.

The consensus was that Vince raised his hand, and what sprang from it was something that resembled a tree made of light. The initial bolt of lightning got halfway to its target before several other bolts arced off it, heading in different directions. From those more bolts arced off, and so on and so on. This all happened in less than half a second, so to the mundane eye it merely appeared as if Vince had conjured a massive blast of lighting going in nearly all forward directions (it was exceptionally fortunate that Amber and Allen were behind him) that struck simultaneously the target, the cardboard buildings, the walls, and nearly every instrument that moved the cutouts, arcing through their wiring and into the power grid for the room.