“He leaps, and…he makes it!”
Enthusiastic cheers, dimly muffled by distance, come through in the old recording as the announcer energetically explains just how difficult it was for the hero on the screen to make that final jump. A dozen different angles spliced together with quick cuts show him pandering to the crowd with exaggerated bows and blown kisses. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d say this was some sporting event or one of those reality show challenges people used to watch—entertainment, and nothing more.
But no, this is the Hero Exhibition—an old recording from the third year they ran it.
It almost feels vulgar to watch.
“How did I ever think this was good?” I complain, accusingly pointing at the TV screen as though that could change the nature of the show.
“Seems fine to me,” Elias replies, munching on a popcorn kernel, “Are you sure you’re not just misdirecting your frustration?”
Him, Allacia, and I have been skimming through past exhibitions for the past few hours now in my apartment. It’s been over a week since Vermillion made the offer. Between training and hero jobs on the side, this is my first free day in forever—and for some reason I’m spending it on more work.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Allacia interjects, “You do tend to get rather argumentative about ethics whenever you have to do something you don’t want to. Remember the hero license process? You kept explaining how the recommendation letter was unnecessary if they also had an interview, right up until the moment Mrs. Ingram agreed to write yours.”
“And I was right,” I shoot back, “just as I’m right about this one. You guys have to see it, right? How the whole concept of a Hero Exhibition is so obviously part of the whole ‘keep the public pacified’ business? I mean, several people I’ve met have described hero/villain interactions as ‘theater,’ and that perfectly describes what I’m watching.”
Elias shrugs, stuffing another handful of popcorn in his mouth as the screen shows a woman with tentacles for arms enter the stage, “If I have to be honest, that’s the only government conspiracy I’ve learned so far that I actually think is reasonable. Killing people is horrible, but making them think they’re safe? That’s not nearly as bad.”
“It is when they’re lying to people,” I counter.
“No government in history has ever not lied to their people,” Elias argues, “Propaganda, classified information, suppression of scandals… Hell, even the idea of using entertainment to keep a populace in check is as old as Rome—panem et circenses and the like. Exposing secrets is a good way to change things, but sometimes one has to be careful how they’ll change things. That’s all I’m saying.”
I glower, but sense I’m getting nowhere. Looking for a little support, I turn to Allacia, prompting her with a look to enter the argument.
“Regardless of whether it's right or not it still doesn’t change the fact you have to participate,” Allacia provides, “Even if it wasn’t the best way for you to help enact change, you still promised to do so and we can all agree that breaking promises is wrong.”
I sigh, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I still have no idea what I’ll be doing though.”
Every hero in the exhibition is given several months advance to plan and expected to use all of it. Even if they completely wing their performance, most of them still require a lot of logistic support. We all watch as the woman with tentacle arms extends them outward to help her swiftly solve a maze built into the stadium—something like that, for example, might take weeks to produce. I have no idea what I’ll need, but if I wait too long to decide, I better hope it’s not too difficult to obtain.
“You know, a maze might not be a bad idea,” Allacia suggests, referencing the view on the screen, “You could show off your speed.”
“I run my best with a long, straight stretch,” I reply, “Twists and turns slow me down quite a bit. And it would probably become clear pretty quick that I don’t know how to solve mazes.”
“A trapped maze might work better,” Elias replies, “Your danger sense could tell you where all the traps are. It would certainly look a lot more impressive if you keep dodging.”
“I need to be in danger for that to work,” I point out, “That seems risky.”
The three of us are stumped, and for a moment we sit in silence, thinking.
“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!”
We all turn back to the screen.
“We’ve seen all kinds of impressive stunts today, heroes of all shapes and sizes, but you all know why you’re here. No hero could be as impressive as our next one, folks. I’m sure you all know who I’m talking about: The Hero of the Revolution, The Savior of the Country, The Golden Angel of the Angel’s City, Wings of Freedom himself—Jonathan Alston!”
A shiver runs down my spine as I watch him walk out into the arena amid frenzied cheers, eyes just as cold as I’ve always seen them. He doesn’t even blink as what must be tens of thousands of people begin chanting his name, so loud that even through the screen I can almost feel them. I’d heard a few times before that a lot of people like this side of him—those cold eyes have been known to entrance—but seeing it now simply reminds me of just how equally stoic he was when I saw him tear men in half.
He’s wearing his suit as he walks out—a sign, I’ve learned, that he believes the effort beneath him. He would’ve worn the military gear for anything serious. His wings are unfolded to their full length, or even bigger. I watch them gleam in the sun from a dozen different angles, as the cameras seem desperate to capture every side of him.
Then he bows, and a wide shot suddenly reveals that the entire time people had been rolling up a series of cannons which now surround him. Nearly a hundred men sit at two dozen or more massive guns—all of them labeled “ASA-14.” Anti-SAU artillery: early models, but still capable of punching holes in a foot of steel or more.
And then one fires.
The shot can be heard well over the sound of the crowd, and I even catch a soft yelp from one of the announcers. Immediately, everyone is quiet. We see the plume of thick smoke from the fired gun, and, seemingly having materialized from thin air, the massive golden feather from Jonathan’s wings that moved to block it.
It isn’t even dented.
Another shot rings out. Then another two in quick succession. Leaning in, the three of us watched in stunned silence as every gun in the arena fires before circling back around to the first. Twelve individual volleys are launched at him over the next four minutes of the old tape. Nearly three hundred shots—each one strong enough to blow me to shreds, even after a month of training with the Captain. Jonathan never once rises from his bow, or even flinches. Not until the shooting stops.
The moment the final shot quiets down, he rises once again to a fully standing position, and slowly and precisely walks off the stage. His most recently deployed feathers hover back to him slow enough for everyone to see. He says nothing. He barely even moves. The crowd doesn’t so much as make a peep.
It’s an overwhelming display of power.
The announcers are the first to recover, “A-and there you have it folks! Jonathan Alston, with his successful defense against over two hundred rounds of anti-SAU artillery! Truly amazing to behold! I’ll tell you what, I’m certainly glad he’s on our side!”
The crowd seems to regain their senses with the commentary, and a raggedy cheer begins, which quickly blooms into as fierce a cry as before. Though somehow, even through the screen, I swear I can almost pick up a discordant tone to the cry. Like there’s as much fear in it as hope.
A nagging feeling in the back of my mind says that’s exactly what he wanted.
Allacia clears her throat, “He’ll, um…he’ll be performing this year too, right?”
I nod, my eyes finally breaking from the screen, “It’s in Angel’s City this time. He always shows up when they do them on his turf, and, knowing him, he’ll likely be the showstopper.”
“He’s a difficult one to compete against,” Elias comments, “Exhibitions he takes part in are almost always sold out, yet word among heroes who participate is that those are still the worst years for engagement. They say for popularity seekers, it’s better to hold off your A-game for a different year—like when Apex or a city champion finishes the exhibition.”
Stolen novel; please report.
I sigh, “If only I were so lucky.”
Allacia claps her hands together suddenly, startling me, “Why don’t we take a break! No use just sitting around here moping.”
“And do what?” I ask, leaning back, “I’ve got nothing else going on.”
“How about a sparring match?” Allacia suggests, “You kinda owe me one, considering we haven’t had a round since you started training again.”
I hesitate briefly, and Allacia catches it.
“Why, are you scared?” She teases.
I stand suddenly, “Nope!” I lie, “Let’s do this!”
To be honest, I have no idea if I should be worried or not. The difference in power between Allacia and I has seesawed for as long as we’ve known each other. I started out ahead, then she got used to her power, then I started to reap the benefits of adaptability, then she started to reap the benefits of adaptability. The last time we sparred, I’d been on a losing streak for a good while and I did not manage to break it. Then again, that was more than half a year ago—I‘ve grown an absolute ton since then. For all I know, this time I’ll be the one on a winning streak.
Even so, we’re about to find out. The three of us hurry down to the sparring ring in the Bowl’s training room and square up. Allacia takes off her signature glass earrings and passes them to Elias, while I take the moment to stretch. Both of us are ready a moment later.
“Alright, ladies,” Elias begins jokingly, “I want a good, clean fight here.”
“No promises,” Allacia and I say in unison. She grins at me.
“Well, I tried,” Elias shrugs, “Ready…start!”
I leap forward, putting everything into a single stride as I close the distance between Allacia and I in the span of a blink. I dig my heel into the ground just enough so that my perfectly aimed fist wouldn’t just kill her, but it’s a mistake. Displaying quite literally inhuman reflexes, a bubble materializes in the path of my blow, causing me to dedicate all that force into just popping it, leaving Allacia entirely unharmed.
I duck left out of the way of her counter, but the bubble in her hand expands at speed even I can’t quite match, and the impact feels like getting struck with a boulder—something I unfortunately have some experience with. I’m sent careening back, somehow managing to stay on my feet, but with the distance Allacia now has room to throw a dozen small bubbles in my direction. Bubbles which stop being small just as they reach me.
I’m bowled over by an expanding wall of force, unable to do more than futilely attempt to push the bubbles off of me as they stop expanding. Blessedly, they shrink after a heartbeat, disappearing and allowing me to regain my balance—just in time for the next wave to arrive.
The deluge sweeps over me again, and once more I find myself struggling to fight back. The bubbles are doing little to no harm—even at their worst, they barely feel like punches—but the weight and force of them is preventing me from resuming the fight. At this rate, it’ll become a battle of attrition to see who can hold out like this the longest. Even if I win, that would hardly be a decisive victory.
Twice more the wave of attacks continues, with me getting more and more desperate and looking more and more like an idiot with each successive round. It’s then to my immediate surprise that the attacks finally stop. I recover, only to find Allacia standing before me, sweating and breathing heavily. With a start, I realize she’s run out of steam before I have.
I got lucky.
Not one to give up so easily, Allacia throws a single, smaller bubble at my head, but she's already given me too much time to recover. I catch it midair with ease, squeezing it as hard as I can as she attempts to make it expand, trying to get the most out of the failed attack. I keep squeezing until it pops.
“My turn,” I say. Then I charge her.
Allacia summons a pair of bubbles beneath her feet, riding their expansion to leap right over me, leaving me to tackle only the expanding spheres of force. I crash into them and turn back around as fast as I can, only to see another bubble thrown towards me. I catch it and pop it just like the last one, and charge again.
Allacia hurriedly summons another few bubbles into her hand in a desperate attempt to slow me down, but before she can throw them I’ve already crossed the gap between us and grabbed her by the wrist, stopping her. She makes them all expand in her hand, forcing both of us back. I see her raise her palm, and prepare for another attack—only to find myself falling backwards at an alarming rate.
I hit the floor of the ring with an audible thud, my foot having gone out from under me as I slipped on an extremely well-placed bubble. A genius move—but still a desperate one. Even so, it still works, and as I struggle to rise, Allacia slams an expanding bubble into my chin, throwing me back down to the floor in a daze.
She steps back, her heavy, wheezing breaths audible to the entire room. She’s plainly exhausted, but wrong to think it’s over. Disoriented, but still mostly fine, I slowly but surely return to my feet. We lock eyes, and I give her a questioning look. She merely shakes her head, and slumps down in exhaustion. I stand straight, rubbing the blooming bruise on my chin.
“I forfeit,” Allacia says between deep breaths, “You win.”
I walk over to her and offer out a hand to help her up. She takes it gratefully.
“It was close,” I reply, “Really close.”
Allacia waves dismissively, still struggling to catch her breath, “I’ve been running…on fumes since…halfway through…and even if I'd…had more stamina… was barely able to…do anything more…than keep you pinned. I wasn’t…winning that.”
The two of us step out of the ring, Elias rushing over a moment later to press a water bottle into Allacia’s hands and help guide her to a bench where she can sit.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” I opine, “I’ve always had the advantage in terms of power, but you make up for it with strategy. That trick with the bubble under my foot, for example—how did you do that anyways?”
Allacia finishes chugging down half the water bottle then gasps for a few more breaths before responding, “I was saving my bubbles from the start—making them smaller instead of popping them, hoping I could save some stamina or take you by surprise. That was the only chance I got to use one. It was lucky that you stepped on it—too lucky.”
“Not a bad move when you’re expecting a drawn-out fight,” I agree.
Allacia just nods gratefully, finishing off the bottle of water.
“Well, now that you two have had your fun, are you ready to get back to brainstorming?” Elias prompts.
“Actually,” I reply, “I had another idea that we might as well test while we’re here.”
Allacia and Elias look at me curiously.
“Elias, how do you feel about hitting me with your strongest attack?” I ask.
“What for?” He questions.
“I just want to test a theory,” I reply, “Well? Are you up for it?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he nods, and I beckon him to follow me back to the sparring ring. We take our positions in the center, and he cracks his knuckles—a gesture which contrasts the worried look on his face.
“I had a mantis shrimp tattooed a while back, but I don’t use it because it’s too dangerous,” he starts to say, “Are you sure about this?” As if to emphasize the point, he rolls up one of his sleeves, revealing the detailed image of a strange-looking arthropod.
“I have my danger sense,” I reply, “so I should be fine.”
Still with a worried look on his face, the tattoo on Elias’ arm begins to glow softly, and his arm almost seems to bulge a little as he squares up to punch. I take a relaxed stance, readying myself to dodge if need be. Sharing one last final look, I nod to indicate I’m ready.
In the next moment, my danger sense explodes.
I don’t even see his hand move. The pure, primal survival instinct ingrained into Superhuman simply takes control, and I’m moving before my mind can even formulate thought. I throw myself backward as Elias’ fist carves a path through the air towards my chest. I’m barely able to make it out of the way in time before his blow lands where I once was. But my body’s still reacting, and my hands come up between me and the space just in front of his fist as a secondary wave of force strikes me.
I’m thrown straight out of the ring. My entire body tenses to take the impact, but even so I’m completely blindsided by the sheer force of the attack. I land on a steel bench, my spine down, crumpling the thing inward as I come to a stop. My ears are ringing, and my whole body aches, but somehow, miraculously, I think I’m fine.
“Charlie!” Allacia’s horrified voice calls out to me as I groan, lying in a pile of torn steel on the floor. I see her rush over to me, her exhaustion forgotten as her concern takes over.
“Are you okay?” she asks worriedly, kneeling beside me.
“‘m fine,” I mutter, “Elias?”
“Doing better than you,” he replies having come over as well. I see him rubbing his arm, but much like Allacia, he looks more concerned for me than anything.
“Your arm?” I ask.
“Just numb,” he replies, “If experience is any indication, it’ll be sore tomorrow. This isn’t exactly something I can do very often—or at all, really, considering how even you don’t seem capable of taking a mantis shrimp hit.”
“You should be more worried about yourself,” Allacia interjects, “Are you sure you’re fine? Do we need to get Dr. Hennessy?”
I nod, then slowly force myself to stand, finding it difficult but not impossible, “I’m fine—can’t say the same about this bench though.”
“Nobody’s worried about the bench, Charlie,” Elias chuckles, “and anyway, did you get what you needed? ‘Cause you aren’t getting another chance.”
“Actually,” I reply, “If you don’t mind, I’d like for you to do that again.”
Both Allacia and Elias give me looks of deep concern.
“Her eyes look fine,” Allacia mutters, “No visible signs of a concussion…”
“She did have trouble standing,” Elias provides, “and she’s clearly experiencing some form of unnatural confusion.”
“I landed on my back, not my head,” I say, giving the two of them a dirty look, “Can you at least hear me out first before assuming I’ve gone crazy?”
The two glance at each other, “All right, what’s your plan?” Elias asks.
“I was thinking about what I could do for the Hero Exhibition,” I begin, “and started to piece it together during my spar with Allacia. You see, as I’ve pointed out many times, my greatest strength is probably my survivability. I’m durable, relatively fast, and have my danger sense in the worst case scenario. So, logically, that would be the best thing for me to show off, right?”
Allacia nods, following along so far. Elias looks deep in thought.
“So I was wondering how to do that, when I remembered what we just saw in the recording,” I continue, “Jonathan defended against anti-SAU cannons—probably trying to prove some point about how unstoppable he is or something. But what if I did that?”
“You would die if we shot you with one of those,” Elias points out unhelpfully.
“And a month ago I would’ve died if you’d hit me with that punch,” I counter, “I have three months until the exhibition. At the rate I’m improving, even if I couldn’t manage to tank a shot from an anti-SAU cannon, I may be able to dodge one. And what better way to practice than that attack just now?”
“What happened to not wanting to put yourself in danger?” Allacia asks, “This plan seems unnecessarily risky.”
I shake my head, “I can’t succeed without at least a little risk. Besides, you’re missing the one part of this plan that stands to benefit me the most. Don’t forget, Jonathan did this exact same thing before, for one of his earliest and most memorable performances.”
“So?” Elias prompts.
“So if I do the same,” I explain, “Then I can prove that, one day, I’ll surpass him.”
Allacia and Elias trade one last look, but I can tell I have them.
It’s time to start practicing.
