Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel

by Scott Olen Reid

  The four still standing start to make their moves. The biggest is more than twice the size of any of the others and broad as a bear. He’s wearing a full length, black leather, trench coat and heavy black boots. He jumps out of the open side of the building and gives me a big toothy grin. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s a strong man, but I’m not seeing much in the way of speed as he jumps down. Speed guys can’t really hide their speed, it’s too hard to move that slow, so I’m hoping he’s all muscle and no zoom. One of the others, a woman with her hair up in a bun with chopsticks and purple locks framing her face, is wearing a bright yellow, three-quarters length, open coat, with purple camo pants, and corfram shiny combat boots. A sure sign of too much manga in her diet. She must be the one who blew out the doors and wall as she’s pulling all the material into a ball in front of her.

  I’m pretty sure she’s a telekinetic, and she’s about to launch the ball of debris at me. So I blast the ball of material with a fist blast from my force blaster and blow it up in her face. None of it touches her, but a bunch of it hits the two already screaming people on the ground, and leather trench coat guy gives her an annoyed look as he’s blasted from behind by the exploding building materials.

  “Hey! Watch it!” He yells back at her.

  When he turns back to me he’s greeted by my war hammer in a full overhand swing coming down on his skull, which he promptly blocks. Turns out he's not as slow as he looks, and he may also be stronger. My war hammer slams off his arm that is now protecting his head. Using the momentum of the deflected blow, I spin and swing my war hammer around to build up momentum and sweep his legs. This he doesn't block and he flips head over tail with a deep booming "Gah!" I have a bad feeling about this guy, so I reverse my swing again and bring down another overhand swing onto his skull that gives a satisfying "Crack!" of hammer hitting head.

  It smashes him into the ground and he’s sprawled out. For about a second. I quickly back away from the strong man as he immediately sits back up and glares at me.

  Holy crapola! This guy's a Class 5 strong man. He has to be. We are so screwed.

  He looks at me standing over him, and, if I wasn't wearing my helmet, he would know I already know how screwed we are. So he wouldn't have had to say, “You’re gonna pay for that.” Which is exactly what he says.

  Aww, damn. “Granite! I need you!” I yell as loud as I can, then add for effect, “Now!” as I keep backing up as fast as I can. The telekinetic launches a newly reformed ball of debris at me and I just manage to get my shield up and it explodes in a cloud of wood, glass, and insulation.

  Granite has two walls up on the barracks and is moving around to do the other side when he hears my call. He and Hit Point both come tearing across the open area and Hit Point is about to start throwing things at the telekinetic, “Stop!” I shout, “Anything you throw at her will only come back at us. Leave her for me,” I tell Hit Point. “Granite,” I point at the Class 5 and am backing away, “I need you to bury that guy as deep as you can get him!"

  Granite hesitates and looks at me, questioning the odd order I've given him.

  I lose it and scream at him, "He's a Class 5!” which comes out distorted and barely understandable through my helmet speakers.

  Granite's eyes bulge and I'm glad I don't have to explain it any further, so I turn back to assess the situation and account for all of the villains. I don't want any more surprises.

  Granite starts heaving earth on top of the Class 5 and covers him up. It is immediately thrown off by the strong man, only to have more piled on by Granite. "Keep him occupied," I tell Granite.

  Wondering how long it will take Granite to bury that guy, or get buried by him, I make a dash for the telekinetic. As I run I feel myself getting pushed back, so I activate the neural neutralizer modulator into my repeller field, and the feeling goes away. The telekinetic’s eyes widen as she realizes she's not affecting me, and she starts to look around rapidly.

  I see a broken beam lift off the ground and start floating towards me. I’m pretty sure it is meant to be used on me by the telekinetic, but I don’t give her the chance as I give a quick twenty percent blast at her as I close in. At the same time my repeller field flares with electricity from one of the others still in the building who is still standing. The last two had just been standing there, which was fine by me up until now.

  My repeller field holds up, but I can feel my teeth start to vibrate in my head from the electricity interacting with my repeller field. I think all the bones in my body are starting to vibrate. "Woah!" Slips out as the feeling is pretty intense.

  The amount of lightning flowing between me and the lightning elemental ramps up into a solid mass of brilliant arcs and flashes. My visor goes dark to protect my vision, something I had not set it to do earlier against the fire elemental.

  Warning lights in my HUD tell me my repeller field is quickly being overwhelmed and I swing my shield up to put it between us. My shield includes a strong insulator, and it buys me the time I need to dive at the subfloor of the building and break through to the underside of the building, putting the floor between me and the elemental.

  Sitting up under the building is difficult. I’m sitting on bare earth and my head bangs against the floor above me where I’m sitting in the crawl space beneath the building. I'm not thinking about it, or anything else, though as I become fixated on stopping the now painful vibration in my teeth that doesn't seem to want to go away. Giving up on feeling my teeth ever again, I realize I can’t stay there and have to get back into the fight. So, I start looking around for an exit. It’s pitch black in there and my HUD, which has automatically added heavy filters during the lightning attack, is adjusting back to low light. It takes a few seconds I don’t have to get my vision back, so instead of waiting, I low crawl across the ground as fast as I can in the direction of the opposite side of the building until I ram into the other side and tear through.

  Chapter 61

  Before me are the backs of five supers that are majorly engaged fighting Dreamweaver, Anvil, and Sparks.

  I can tell my team is losing. Anvil is in front being pummeled on by two heavies, while an ice elemental closer to me is trying to freeze him into a block of ice. Dreamweaver is using her telekinetic power to block the wall of bullets coming from two assault rifles being fired at her team by the two remaining hostiles. And, Sparks is down on one knee, bowed down holding her chest. They need me and I spring to action.

  I raise both hands without getting off the ground and discharge a pair of forty percent blasts from my fists into the two guys with the assault rifles. Both of them are thrown through the air, one into a nearby tree to the satisfying crunch of breaking bones, and the other is thrown into the darkness to I don’t know where. I hear a squelched scream come from where he went, however. This takes the pressure off Dreamweaver who reaches into her pouch and draws out two throwing daggers and throws them at the ice elemental. She adds a significant boost with her telekinetic power to the knives and the two blades sink into their target’s chest up to the hilts and he goes down.

  As Anvil shakes off the cold, the two strong men look back at the likely dead ice elemental. They are already aware of the two with the assault rifles being taken out as they passed by them as they flew through the air from my blasts. Both look from the ice elemental up to me as I come at them. The one I am facing turns towards me, while the other goes back to fighting with Anvil. I know they are tough, but they can’t be any tougher than Anvil, or it would have been over for him. So, I dial up my force blaster to eighty percent and do something I have not done before. I use my pointed hand at point blank, discharging a narrow beam into the chest of the one I’m facing. The force rips through his chest and blows out his back. The man is dead instantly. Anvil and the other strong man trade blows and both turn in mid swing as the blood, bones, and pulped meat of my victim is blown all over them. Anvil doesn’t show any surprise. I suppose he is already playing for keeps with his teammate, Sparks, h
urt. He doesn't hesitate and follows through with the swing he was beginning when my opponent was killed. Anvil's opponent drops to one knee in seeing his companion killed instantly. I’m sure he didn’t think that kind of thing was possible considering the guy likely could have taken a shotgun blast to the chest and come away with no more than a rash. Anvil drops in behind the guy and puts him in a choke hold while I rush over to Sparks.

  Sparks has fallen on her side. Her eyes are open and there are tears running down her cheeks. Her eyes are glassy and her mouth is hanging open as a deep breath leaves it. There are multiple bloody holes in her chest from the assault rifle bullets. There is nothing I can do, but I am still down on one knee and rolling her onto her back to check her wounds. "No, no, no, no," was all I can say as I turn her over.

  Dreamweaver touches my back, “She’s gone, Theo. We can’t stop now. Come on.” Her first three words have compassion and hurt in them. The last six are hard as steel.

  I look up to Carly and can’t see her through the face shield on her armor, and I can’t feel her mind touching mine. I am lost. Alone in the moment. I just killed a man, and he isn't even a thought in my mind. Only my teammate. My responsibility. Only she matters. "No," is all I can say as I look up at Carly.

  Dreamweaver is mentally much stronger than I am and smacks me in the back of my helmet with her gauntlet and yells, “MOVE! NOW! ”

  I shake my head, not because her smack hurts, she could have smacked me with my hammer and it wouldn’t have hurt. I shake my head to clear the emptiness, if that makes sense. I need to focus on my course. My path through this. I can’t think about Sparks right now. Turning off my neural neutralizer circuitry, I immediately feel the strong telepathic emotions coming from Carly. It is something I have not felt before from her.

  I jump back to my feet and run to the main building's back entrance. My people are still in danger and could end up like Sparks. The door to this side of the building is still intact, so I blast it with my force blasters and pile through the door on my way back to the other side. Dreamweaver follows while Anvil puts the finishing touch on taking out the second strong man. I don't know if he will kill him or just choke him out. I don't care.

  Moving through the building and blasting open walls where there is no opening and where closed doors stand in my way, I move back to the other side where I left Hit Point and Granite. I don’t see anyone else in the building until I come through the last door that is already open and leads into the rooms where the outer walls have been blown out. I can see Granite is still piling earth on top of the Class 5 strong man and has also built a wall up between the building and where he is standing. Laying on the ground in front of the building is the lightning elemental with a large throwing knife sticking out of his chest.

  The strong man is screaming in frustration and cussing Granite and telling him what he is going to do to him once he gets his hands on him. We’ll have to make sure, for Granite’s sake, that doesn’t happen.

  Hit Point is in her own duel. Her with a pair of khukuri knives like the Nepalese Gurkhas use, and her opponent, the manga girl gone ninja, of all things, with two short swords that are twice as long and look like they came out of a ComicCon convention. The blades are jagged, with half guards, and stylized circle cutouts that are whistling as they pass through the air in blinding fast, coordinated swings. Hit Point is doing all she can to fend off the attacks and is being pushed back continuously. Her opponent may be a little faster, but they otherwise look evenly matched. I am more concerned with helping Granite, so I point at Hit Point and tell Dreamweaver to help her. Dreamweaver, reaches out a hand and the manga girl gone ninja’s movements slow to a crawl as Dreamweaver switches to using her telekinetics to try to hold the ninja in place. The ninja is too powerful to stop completely with telekinetic powers and is fighting them with her own telekinetic powers, but at least now she is moving at closer to Class 2 speed. Hit Point sheathes one of her khukuri’s and grabs a blob of something out of a pouch behind her lower back and throws it in the face of the ninja. The blob attaches itself to the ninja’s face and encases her head.

  When the blob hits her face, the ninja forgets everything else, drops her blades, and struggles to rip the blob off her face. Hit Point then reaches back into a side pouch on her combat backpack and pulls out another wadded up mass and throws it at the ninja. The wad expands into a steel net with a small box attached, wraps up the ninja, and proceeds to electrocute her. Hit Point moves in and secures her and somehow touches the blob on the ninja’s face to make it release. The ninja is still jerking and twitching from being electrocuted. Another one down.

  I see this only paying half attention as I am trying to see how I can help finish the fight between Granite and the Class 5. I don’t see anything I can do, except get in the way, so instead I suggest a change of tactic, “Granite, open a hole underneath the son-of-a-bitch and drop him in it."

  Granite gives me a quick look and I can see his concern of being killed get replaced by a smile he might live through this.

  "Keep it opening as deep as you can go and I’ll make sure he goes down it,” I tell him.

  With that, Granite opens a large hole underneath the Class 5 and the strongman goes from trying to throw off earth from on top of his head, to trying to stand on air. He falls into the hole, screaming he’s going to kill us all the whole way down. Thrusting his hands and feet into the walls of the hole, the Class 5 stops himself from falling to the very bottom of the hole opened up beneath him.

  I can’t let him climb out and he has to go all the way down, so I move to the edge of the hole and begin blasting the walls wherever he tries to grab on, and the great ape falls into a hole so deep I can no longer see him. I turn on my IR imager and am able to see his body heat at the bottom of the hole, tearing into the walls and trying to climb his way out.

  I yell down to him, “Stop trying to climb out or we’ll fill in the hole and see how long you can hold your breath.”

  The Class 5 stops what he is doing and looks up at me with what has to be the ugliest damn face I have ever seen, “I’m going to kill all of you,” he growls. His voice is chilling with its controlled rage and even conviction of this foregone conclusion. I’m guessing no one has ever heard similar words from him and lived.

  I pick up a big dirt clod and drop it down on him, “No, you’ll stop what you’re doing and not make any more threats or I’ll end you right now.” This guy has never lost a fight, or even been challenged in a fight, in his life. I doubt he will get a skinned knee if he falls out of an airplane. How he manages the next couple minutes is going to determine if he lives long enough to learn some humility.

  “Try it, punk! I'll squash you like a bug!”

  He makes his choice, “Granite, keep opening that hole beneath him. Make it as deep as you can.”

  Granite grimaces, knowing what I am asking him to do, and hesitates.

  Looking over to him, I repeat the order, “Granite, open the hole. He needs to go as deep as we can get him or he’ll just dig his way out and kill us all.”

  Nodding in understanding, and without losing the new grimace on his face, Granite opens the hole even deeper. I have no idea how deep it becomes, "Now pile the dirt on top of him," I say, "But, don't pack it in." I'm surprised I am still hedging towards letting this guy live until I realize I was only saying not to pack it in for Granite’s sake. Let him believe I’m not trying to kill the guy. He’ll sleep better.

  Granite fills the hole with dirt rather than closing the hole. That way it isn't solid bedrock collapsing on him. From under the mound of dirt we hear yells for a moment until they are muffled by the dirt. The yells have a little desperation in them that wasn’t there a minute ago.

  Granite is looking at me like I just killed his cat, so I ask him, “Can you move the dirt off the hole? We’ll give him one more chance.”

  I can see the relief in Granite’s eyes. He’s tired, but holds up long enough to reopen the hole and I look down into t
he deep, dark hole. I can’t see the Class 5 at the bottom, but I can hear him screaming and tearing at the walls. He's back to threatening us and telling us what he is going to do in tearing us limb from limb as he is scrabbling to climb his way out of the hole. Granite is dripping sweat from his face as he keeps the earth at the bottom of the hole churning to prevent the Class 5 from getting oriented so he can start climbing the walls.

  I suspect jumping out of the hole is not an option for the strong man as he isn't moving very fast. He just doesn’t have enough fast twitch snap in his legs to make it out by leaping. He is more like a press in a machine shop, able to press hundreds of thousands of pounds, but at a slow speed. This strong man is the human version of the press and isn't that much faster than a baseline human.

  I turn on my IR in my suit’s HUD again and can see him in the bottom of the hole, around a hundred thirty feet down now, “Hey!” I yell down. He stops and glares up at me, starting to say, “I’m gonna…,” before stopping himself.

  That’s better, I thought. “If you stay down there until we are done without trying to escape, I won’t fill in this hole and you can climb out when we leave. Deal?”

  “I’m going to kill you! You’re a dead man!” He yells back.

  I shake my head and turn to Granite, “Fill it up,” and walk away. Listening as I walk I can tell Granite is staring at my back just by the fact no earth is moving. I have to let him work it out on his own, though. He may very well be killing a man who looks helpless. But, he’s not. Not by a long shot. That guy gets any opportunity at all he will kill all of us without even trying. We are just lucky we have Granite here to keep piling earth on him so he can’t function.

  When I reach the wall surrounding the barracks, I finally hear earth moving back into the hole. Granite has made up his mind. Sometimes being a superhero calls for you to be just as ruthless as a super villain.