by Drew Hayes
At first, it seemed like Professor Cole would do nothing—she remained rooted in place despite the two hundred plus pounds of Roy Daniels bearing down on her. He was only a few steps away, close enough that he might have clipped her with his bat, when she struck. The cloth bandages around her arm snapped out, moving as quickly as a scorpion’s tail, grabbing Roy by his arm, torso, and leg, and hurling him over her on a crash course for the wall.
The impact registered, but Roy was largely unhurt as he quickly scrambled to his feet. In fact, he felt better than he had before the attack. He’d done his job; Professor Cole was finally showing them what ability she had. Roy didn’t exactly understand bandage manipulation; he merely trusted the others to make good use of the information.
By the time he reoriented, Professor Cole’s appearance had changed. Various weapons extended from her body, each with a hilt or handle firmly wrapped by those ever-present cloth bandages. She had a flail, two swords, and a hammer in her cloth grip, as well as a third sword held in her actual hands. The cloak on her back seemed to have flared out and extended further than usual; a detail that Roy filed away as probably important, but not something he could use at the moment.
A spiked chain flew at the professor from up high, moving so quickly that even Roy barely saw it from his vantage point. Professor Cole, however, had no such issue, easily knocking the attack away with one of her bandage-wielded weapons. Violet pulled the chain back up and glared down, clearly trying to piece together a new avenue of attack. Across the room, Will was holding his staff down low in a defensive manner, the wheels of his mighty mind turning as it processed the new information.
“If you all want to have any shot of impressing me, you’ll need to attack together,” Professor Cole informed them. “Otherwise, I’m afraid none of you will do well enough to earn a satisfactory grade.”
“Works for me,” Roy grunted, bringing his bat back at the ready. A charge wouldn’t work; he was assuming she could make a lot more of those cloth tentacles than she already had, which meant he’d just get flipped around more. No amount of muscle control would help him when she could grab his entire body. He was going to have to slug this one out up close and personal.
“Wait!” Will yelled, but it was too late. Roy was already pounding across the floor, bat at the ready. He pulled in close, then took a sudden leap forward, hoping to catch the professor by surprise. Rearing back as he came down, Roy slammed the bat at her, certain he could knock away any weapon she used to block with. After all, it was Professor Cole herself who’d told him that, in a real fight, power would win over parrying. Roy stayed vigilant as the swing came down, ready for any of the extended weapons to meet him mid-attack.
It was because of this that he was utterly unprepared for the shock of seeing Professor Cole’s cloak surge upward, coming between her and his bat like a flowing shield, suddenly turning stiff as he made contact. Roy expected the attack to be slowed as the cloak wrapped around it, maybe even for her cloak to somehow pull the bat from his hands. What Roy wasn’t expecting, couldn’t have anticipated, was what actually happened.
Roy’s extra-heavy bat, swung by a Super with incredible strength, bounced off the simple cloak as the blow was stopped completely. He was so surprised that he didn’t even notice the cloth tendrils that snapped out, grabbing his legs and throwing him across the room once more.
“What the fuck?” Roy sputtered as he pulled himself up for the second time. “I mean, goddamn, what is that cloak made out of?”
“My guess would be regular cotton, possibly with some of the extra-dense material you use as weights turned to thread and sewn in as well,” Will said. Roy noticed how close he was to his fellow student, and quickly realized that the professor had just used him for a ranged attack. Suddenly, Thomas’s trick in Close Combat seemed a touch less novel.
“No way is that thing made of cotton,” Roy said, hefting his bat to his shoulder.
“She’s a material manipulator,” Will replied. As they watched, Violet darted in for another attack, this time, getting up close and personal just like Roy had. Her drop attack missed by quite a ways, but it did succeed in making the professor dodge—the first time it had occurred during the fight.
“A material . . . oh, fucking hell. That’s why she wears all those clothes and cloth bandages,” Roy said, snapping to it at last. “You think her material is cotton?”
“It would be the only similar component in everything she wears. Based on what she’s shown so far, I think the material either has to be in close proximity to her or making contact with her skin for her to control it. Otherwise, she could have made our own uniforms attack us,” Will told him.
“So, she can use all that stuff on her like extra limbs; plus, it looks like she can turn the stuff hard and tough whenever she needs to defend.” Roy looked at his bat and noted a fresh new dent, right at the place where he’d tried to attack the professor.
“And that’s only what we’ve seen so far,” Will said. “Luckily, I have a pla—”
Will was cut off as Violet was hurled across the room, smashing into the wall next to them, only a few feet from the crater of Roy’s last impact. She hurriedly pulled herself up, just in time to hear the professor’s voice.
“All right, that should be enough time for you all to get adjusted. Now I’m going to start fighting for real.” Ends of bandages rose from her body, writhing in the air like thin white snakes. More and more kept coming; Roy lost count around two dozen, and the exact number no longer seemed relevant.
For the first time, they could see bits of Professor Cole that lay under the bandages, which, unfortunately, included the wicked grin that paired unsettlingly with the gleam in her eyes. Just as Roy was wondering how on earth he’d come at her, his concern was made pointless. Professor Cole rushed forward, bringing the fight to them.
192.
Roy’s first instinct was to leap away. It was the move that would keep him safe, and allow him to see just what the professor could do, now that she was taking things seriously. And, in truth, if his fight had been one-on-one, it would have been the correct decision to make. But as his calves coiled and he readied himself to jump, his mind flashed to his time training with his father last year. It wasn’t his job to jump away from the danger. It was his job to put himself between it and the other people on his team. Hit, and get hit. That was the role of the strongman.
Letting out a yell so primal it took even him a bit by surprise, Roy surged forward, meeting Professor Cole midway in her charge toward them. He barely had time to catch sight of Will and Violet’s shocked faces before he clashed with his teacher, taking a hammer to the head before he’d even gotten close enough to attack her.
“Cute,” Roy said, glancing at the thick metal weapon quickly moving around for another swing. “But it’ll take a lot more than that to hurt me.”
“Oh, trust me, I’m aware,” Professor Cole replied. A pair of cloth tendrils, each holding a dagger at the end, shot out from behind her back, weaving toward Roy. For an instant, he prepared to take them, trusting his endurance to absorb such a paltry blow, but as his eyes watched their trajectory, he realized the attacks were too wide. He wasn’t their target, which meant he couldn’t sit back and just see what happened.
Twirling his bat around, Roy used it for its intended purpose and took a swing at the dagger on his right. The professor tried to move it out of the way, but Roy managed to keep his eye on the target, and he smashed the dagger head on, shattering it on impact and sending the pieces flying all over. With no time to rest, he reached around and grabbed the cloth tentacle holding the dagger on the left, intent on keeping it from reaching Violet or Will. To his shock, the cloth immediately went limp in his hand, and then began weaving itself around his arm.
“Good instincts,” Professor Cole said. “Even in a situation this hectic, you found your role and committed to it. But you need to work on your situational awareness.”
Whistling filled his ears,
and Roy looked up, only to find the hammer he’d dismissed as useless barreling down at him. By his guess, the ceiling was at least forty feet high, and the cloth tendril holding the hammer had extended it all the way to the top. Now, it was being slammed down, gaining force with every inch it moved closer to him. Roy tried to jerk away and dodge, but the cloth gripping his arm held tight, as did the ones he hadn’t noticed snake out from the professor’s legs and grip him by the calves. She’d baited him into a trap, and he’d bit.
Roy braced for the blow from the hammer, but before it could land, a different force struck him from behind. It was Violet, who’d made herself dense enough to send Roy hurtling forward on a crash course with Professor Cole. There was just enough time for Roy to make out the flash of surprise flickering through her green eyes before he was airborne for the third time, as she flung him into the air rather than let him hit her.
Though he couldn’t see where it landed, Roy did hear the hammer’s impact as he hurtled into the concrete wall. He’d barely gotten to his feet before Professor Cole’s voice rang out through the chamber.
“Violet Sullivan has been eliminated by knockout.”
“Damn it, you crazy-ass density girl. You were supposed to be ranged.” Roy tightened his grip on the bat, anger beginning to quickly replace the guilt he’d felt at that announcement. He was the one who was supposed to be on the front lines; he was the one who was supposed to take the big blows. True, that last attack probably would have broken enough bones to bring him down, but that was his battle to fight. Roy was annoyed, and sad, and, more than anything, felt like he’d failed as a tank by needing to be saved, but none of those sentiments were any use on the battlefield. So instead, Roy just let himself get pissed.
“Hey, Will!” Roy’s voice carried through the air, grabbing the attention of both Professor Cole and his current teammate. “I don’t see us doing any good by wearing her down, so I’m just going to try and beat her one-on-one. If you’ve got any plans or smart guy inventions, use them while she’s dealing with me.”
“You sort of ruined the surprise by letting me overhear that,” Professor Cole pointed out.
“Nah, I was never counting on surprise in the first place. I just aim to be too much of a handful for you to worry about anything else.” With that, Roy undertook what he knew was his final charge of the fight. If she caught him again, he’d get another one of those sky-hammer attacks, and that would be the end of it. There was no more Violet to bail him out. All he could do was fight so hard that he made an opportunity for Will. Roy might not be able to be graceful, or brilliant, or skilled like so many of his other friends, but he could damned sure make a whole mess of trouble.
Roy knocked aside the first attacks without even slowing down, sending Professor Cole’s weapons flying away with single blows from his bat. As he drew closer, a web of cloth tendrils flowed around him, and it was all Roy could do to keep from getting snared again. He ducked, dove, and shimmied across the floor, sometimes only avoiding one of the cloth snakes by a few inches. By luck, talent, or sheer determination, Roy actually drew closer to Professor Cole again and had to parry more of her weapon strikes.
“For the record,” he grunted, sending a sword soaring to the ceiling, “I realize you’re going easy on us. I’ve fought a professor before; I know how powerful you all are.”
“It’s not that I’m going easy on you,” Professor Cole replied. “It’s that the goal of this fight, for me, isn’t to win; it’s to test how you all do. Coming out full-force wouldn’t make for much of an assessment, now would it?”
“Oh, I get the reason.” Roy leapt into the air, narrowly dodging a pair of cloth tendrils that tried to wind around him. “But it still pisses me off to have someone sandbag in a fight with me.”
“Perhaps one day, if you make it to Hero status, you can come back, and we’ll have a duel for real.”
“Nice offer, but I think I’d rather just beat you here.” Roy threw himself to the side, smashing away the hammer and a few tendrils, and opening up a clean shot for Will, who had been scampering about on the sidelines. Roy had no idea what the tech-genius was planning, only that he’d seemed to be looking for a line of sight on the professor. If Roy was wrong, then they were screwed, since he was now firmly in a place to be grabbed. But trusting your team was also part of being the strongman. He had to believe Will could accomplish something that he couldn’t.
The beam of light nearly hit Roy before striking Professor Cole directly in the chest. At first, it seemed like nothing happened, but then Roy noticed the slight drooping of all the cloth tendrils around him. He didn’t need the cue from Will; Roy knew an opportunity when he saw it.
Rushing forward, he reared his bat back with both hands and prepared to swing. She’d told them to come with the intent to kill, and Roy wasn’t about to disappoint, though he did aim for the shoulder, just to be safe. He moved with all the speed he could muster . . . but it was a heartbeat too slow. Just as he got within swinging range, Roy heard the thunderous rustling of countless pieces of cloth converging on him at once. Every part of him was engulfed, and he was hoisted off the ground, his strength useless against the firm but pliable prison binding him. He couldn’t see, and he could scarcely hear a thing—at least until the wrapping on his face began to fall away.
“Will Murray has been eliminated by injury,” Professor Cole announced. The last of the wrappings fell away, revealing Will slumped on the ground, arms dangling uselessly at his sides. “And Roy Daniels is eliminated by capture, though I can smack you on the head if you really need me to prove you’re out of this fight.”
“No, I can admit when I’ve been beat,” Roy said. He felt himself being lowered to the ground, where the bandages slithered off him and began wrapping themselves back around Professor Cole.
“You know, that might be the closest someone—besides Angela—has come to beating me in a long time,” she said, shaking her head as her face became less and less visible. “That beam of Will’s interrupted my central nervous system, and you capitalized without a second of hesitation. For a team that was thrown together, you did pretty damn well.”
“But we didn’t win,” Roy said.
“I meant what I said,” Professor Cole replied. “Get your certification, and the door is always open. I could use the practice, anyway. Now, get your team down to the infirmary; I’ve got another group of students to fight.” The excitement in her voice was palpable, a sentiment which Roy understood all too well.
193.
Alice glanced in the mirror, pulled her still-damp hair back into a ponytail, and decided that would have to suffice for the rest of the day. Sometimes, she liked to stop by the dorm and primp a bit after her HCP classes and necessary shower, but after an exam day, she was too wiped out to do anything but trudge up to the surface and deal with her last topside class. At least, with Subtlety only having finals at the end of the semester, it meant that her testing was over for the week, save for when she had to jump in on other people’s trials. She’d put on a good showing as well, not that anyone was particularly surprised. Alice wasn’t certain how she’d stacked up in terms of overall power against the rest of the class, but she was unquestionably one of the top Control students in her year.
Grabbing a backpack and pausing to tie her sneakers, Alice headed into the hallway, on track for the lifts. Her mind was still in a post-battle fugue as she made her way across the concrete halls, which was why she didn’t notice Angela’s presence until the older girl laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Gah!” Alice yelped and jumped into the air, though she didn’t float or linger, simply dropping back to the ground as if gravity held sway over her.
“Whoa, calm it down there,” Angela said. “I called your name twice.”
“Huh?” Alice’s heart slowed down quickly; it was almost unnerving how fast she adapted to shocks and surprises these days. “Oh, sorry. Just had my exam, so I’m a little out of it.”
“Happens to
the best of us,” Angela replied. She too wore a slight sheen and damp hair that spoke to time spent training, followed by a hurried shower. It was essentially the heading-back-to-class uniform for HCP students. It might have marked them as suspicious, if not for the fact that many students showed up in their pajamas, meaning people who had just showered were hardly the most eye-catchingly different of the lot.
“Anyway, tonight is the last chance for sign-ups on the rodeo,” Angela continued. “I wanted to see if you’d finally decided to come give it a go with me.”
“I’m still sort of on the fence about it,” Alice admitted. While it seemed like it would be fun, she wasn’t sure how comfortable she felt in that sort of spotlight. After nearly three years of trying to blend in and go unnoticed, any sort of mass attention made her feel uneasy. “Sorry, I know you needed a partner and everything.”
“It’s not a big deal. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll just join up with one of the other girls who asked me to be on their team. No hard feelings.” Angela gave Alice a soft punch on the shoulder, then started heading back down the hall.
“Wait, you had other options? I thought you were just asking me because you needed someone to sign up with you?” Alice’s words stopped Angela, who turned back around with a furrowed brow.
“Why wouldn’t I have other options? I do have my own friends, you know, many of whom work at the same bar as us.”