The Dionysus Club pulsed with music and strobe lights. The dance floor in the center pit undulated like waves, while other patrons watched from the bar or from tables and chairs around the outside. All around was a bastardized mix of industrial décor, purple neon, and palm trees.
Lock prowled the perimeter of the dance floor, scanning the crowd and listening to the chatter of security in his earpiece. All the while, he did his best to ignore the haze of boys, sweat, and cologne that hi...
2023-04-10 12:36:31 +0000 UTC
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[Theme Song — “Hātofurusurottoru” by Gunpowder Audition — Full Throttle Heart, season 1]
[Montage of Truck-kun fighting the Undead Legions of Liquid Shadow]
We spend our days dreaming
Stirring in our sleep
Driving through our lives!
Full of octane gas
Open throttle (we’re gonna crash!)
Can’t stop this feeling...
2023-04-06 12:32:38 +0000 UTC
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“Evasion successful,” TINA announced.
Within the cocoon of the Fast-Response Drone, Emmett breathed a sigh of relief. The rumbling around him slowed as the drone entered the tunnels beneath Belport. Soon it stopped and opened up on the catwalk of the armory. Emmett hopped out and watched Clara do the same.
Clara groaned and stretched her arms over her head. “That sucked!” Emmett nodded, reflexively glancing away as her bodysuit was stretched tight.
He didn...
2023-04-05 13:17:10 +0000 UTC
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Serenity flew back to Summit station number three, an unmarked mid-sized office building on the upper end of Belport’s Eastside. She didn’t know if Hunter was behind her. She didn’t really care.
She needed to meet with her superior officer.
Even as Serenity flew, she was reaching out via psychic link. With any luck, she could meet with Ryder before Hunter asked too many questions.
The scanning system read her biosignature and a hidden door opened on the third level. Se...
2023-04-04 13:05:30 +0000 UTC
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Emmett stood frozen, staring out the window at the cape hovering just outside.
Clara didn’t lower her weapons. “State your names first.”
A second shadow rose up beside the first, and Emmett thought he heard a man scoff. But the woman outside replied, “My name is Serenity and—”
The man interrupted, “I am the Ninth Wielder of the magical Ring of Shelok, but you can call me Hunter Nine.”
Serenity added, “We’re with 3rd Summit segment of Belport. We jus...
2023-04-03 12:36:35 +0000 UTC
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The surgery on Emmett’s arm took a little over half an hour.
Even though Dr. Venture hadn’t mentioned any risks to his prosthetic, Emmett was still anxious when the metal sheathing was reattached and the pain blocking diodes were removed. He wasn’t fully convinced until both he and Venture worked on making the adaptations to his mods.
The tools felt just as dexterous and familiar to Emmett as they had before. Compared to having his arm splayed open, it felt more like enginee...
2023-03-31 13:15:54 +0000 UTC
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Between Emmett’s excitement for his quick-connect system and his senioritis, Emmett’s Friday classes positively dragged. It took all his willpower to focus on his lectures that morning.
‘Just two more months’ had become Emmett’s mantra.
Life after college would be a whole new set of problems, but anything would be better than this.
Emmett’s first class, Product and Process engineering, ended with Professor Quinn reminding them that their rough s...
2023-03-31 12:40:24 +0000 UTC
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Lachlan had been ready for a quiet Thursday night in when he got the text:
UNKNOWN 10:36 PM: Immediate assignment. Report to testing ground.
So much for that.
~
Lock jogged the West End streets of Belport, past Gnosis’s sprawling headquarters, until he reached a set of unmarked buildings that looked like storage warehouses. He walked between the buildings to a secret doorway. Hidden sensors scanned his tracking chip, and the door slid open....
2023-03-30 20:59:02 +0000 UTC
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Venture brought out two more modifications. The first was a thin metal box a little under a foot long and the second was a short cylinder. Emmett recognized them immediately as the impact shield and the concealable pistol. Venture set them on the table, and Emmett tried to hide his unease at the sight of the gun.
“So, what are we starting with?” Venture asked, looking at Emmett expectantly. When he didn’t answer right away, Clara nudged him with her shoulder.
Emmett opted to...
2023-03-30 13:08:07 +0000 UTC
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Emmett and Clara met Dr. Venture in the biolab—section 006. Compared to the rest of the bunker-like aesthetic of the lab, the biolab looked almost like a hospital room. Except that the sterile white walls of the room were almost completely hidden by a jungle of empty glass tanks and tubes of bubbling liquid that twisted like vines.
This was where he woke up after the Champion street attack—the first place Emmett saw when Venture brought him back from the dead.
Even though it h...
2023-03-29 21:44:15 +0000 UTC
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Emmett walked out through the last corridor by himself.
A few twists and turns later, he stepped out into a large, cavernous room. Darkness receded as he entered, light emanating from the square tiles that covered the walls, floor, and ceiling. Each changed color, giving the impression of a wave of white rippling across the room.
Emmett stood alone in a gigantic white room, some three hundred feet square. Of all the things Emmett had seen in the last three weeks since becoming a s...
2023-03-29 13:06:56 +0000 UTC
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On Thursday morning, Emmett hit the snooze twice on his alarm. By the time Emmett actually got up for class, he was running late. He grabbed a granola bar and his backpack.
He did so quietly, so he didn’t wake up his roommate. Lock must’ve gotten in late last night.
Emmett sighed. It was good they’d gotten to hang out Monday. They’d both been so busy with work that they rarely got to just hang out like they used to.
It definitely hadn’t gotten any better on Emmett...
2023-03-28 19:40:18 +0000 UTC
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Athena used her forcefields to smash the van and the remaining crates. Then Emmett followed her back up to the roofs, using her invisible platforms instead of his broken whip.
They sprinted away from the scene across the skyline of Belport. Despite their blistering pace, Emmett kept both hands on his hoodie pouch to keep the vials from jostling too much. When they were ten blocks away, they slipped over the edge of an apartment roof and rested on a fire escape.
Athena wiped the bl...
2023-03-28 12:32:05 +0000 UTC
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The sun was setting over the skyline of Belport, and superheroes were running across the roofs.
Emmett Laraway was one of them.
Emmett ran across the rooftops, leaping across alleys with superhuman agility. Even now, Mutagen-A was changing his cells, making his bones denser, his muscles stronger, and his organs more efficient. He even healed faster. Not even the winter wind bothered Emmett, though he still wore a dark hoodie and a black mask.
Almost a month ago, Emmett had w...
2023-03-27 19:44:06 +0000 UTC
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Dr. Venture leaned on the table of the hub in section 004. He’d given up on work for the day, and was reviewing drone footage from Clara and Emmett’s run in with Porcelain and Lock.
There were several interesting moments, including Lock being affected by Emmett’s noise makers and disadvantaged by the smoke—if only momentarily. But Venture had watched through the entirety of that night several times, but kept coming back to what Lock said to Emmett…
The camera view was ...
2023-03-27 14:25:27 +0000 UTC
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Monday morning classes went alright enough, in that Emmett managed to stay awake for them. Dr. Venture’s reassurance about success at being a super only lasted so long, and multiple times Emmett wished that someone had invented sleep in a bottle.
Lock texted while he was in his first class, and Emmett replied between classes.
Lock 10:04 AM: Hey you good?
Emmett 10:43 AM: Yeah. Stayed at Marianne’s place.
<...
2023-03-26 21:59:35 +0000 UTC
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Emmett didn’t go back to the apartment that night. More Fast-Response Drones arrived on scene to evacuate Clara and Emmett and take them back to the lab.
Apparently, their fight had attracted the attention of lower members of the Summit of Heroes. Clara and Emmett had just escaped before they arrived to cordon off the area.
Emmett was glad to be cocooned inside the drone. It was dark and quiet, and he was safe. No one saw him while quiet tears fell.
He couldn’t get the i...
2023-03-26 16:11:55 +0000 UTC
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The double doors burst off their hinges. The force sent the doors cartwheeling across the warehouse’s giant room. They slammed into the opposite wall, half-embedded and sticking out.
Fast-Response Drones shone spotlights through the upper windows, highlighting the lone super. They stood in the entrance, clad only in black. It was an outfit much like Emmett wore—black mask, hoodie, and pants. Though the hoodie was torn, revealing rippling muscle beneath, the man wasn’t bleeding fro...
2023-03-25 23:33:03 +0000 UTC
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There was a slight lurch as the Fast-Response Drone stopped. The mesh inside loosened around Emmett, and a moment later, the doors opened. Cold night air rushed in, and Emmett grit his teeth.
It took Emmett a moment to get his bearings, but he stepped out onto a roof in the warehouse district. Nervously, he adjusted his mask and looked around for Clara.
She materialized beside him a second later, clad in her gray exosuit.
Dr. Venture had briefed him on the plan on the flight...
2023-03-25 14:21:36 +0000 UTC
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Dr. Venture stared at the wall monitor, watching the view from Clara’s exosuit camera and the view from the Fast-Response Drone intently. It was nearly to Emmett’s apartment and would pick him up momentarily.
“Don’t forget what we discussed,” Venture said.
A moment later, Clara responded over the radio. “I won’t.”
“Maintain a one block perimeter, but wait to engage until Emmett and the other drones are in position. I’ll brief him en route.”<...
2023-03-24 19:06:09 +0000 UTC
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By the time they finished the makeup tutorial, it was 3 A.M. Saturday morning. Clara suggested he stay the night in the med-bay, but Emmett wanted nothing more than to get home and sleep in his own bed.
So Clara sent Emmett home with a small bottle of foundation and concealer, as well as makeup remover and cotton balls. Clara instructed him that if he ran out, he could just take the bottles to the nearest drugstore and get replacements. The last thing she gave him was a replacement fold...
2023-03-24 14:14:21 +0000 UTC
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Emmett had no desire to be confined to a hospital bed again. Despite the dull pain all across the front of his body, he sat up on the edge of the bed.
Meanwhile, Clara and Venture stared at him with tired, apprehensive eyes.
Emmett smirked through his bandages. “You know, being a super isn’t as glamorous as people say.” When neither of them laughed, he asked, “Was it worth it, at least?”
“Yes,” Venture replied. “But first, tell us about what you saw while you...
2023-03-24 01:00:23 +0000 UTC
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In Emmett’s mind, he’d never left the abandoned warehouse.
There was another flash of light as a duplicate of Porcelain detonated. Emmett managed to cover his face in time, but pain seared the front of his body—his arms and chest. Through the haze of light and dust, he saw circuitry between the cracks in his enemies’ white skin.
…That wasn’t right. Porcelain wasn’t a cyborg. At least, there was no record of her being a cyborg.
But Emmett had been wrong before.<...
2023-03-23 10:50:47 +0000 UTC
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Clara spun around, using a mixture of punches, kicks, and kinetic blasts to dispatch duplicates of Porcelain. Her targeting HUD flashed red in the corners of her vision, alerting her to duplicates trying to strike her from behind.
Meanwhile, Porcelain retaliated with her own punches and kicks, which clanged against Clara’s exosuit so hard that she could feel the impact through the metal and diffusion mesh. Then there were the explosions—Porcelain’s two main powers were cr...
2023-03-22 18:08:42 +0000 UTC
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Emmett sprinted after Clara to the armory, section 004, feeling like his heart was beating in his throat. Not only was he finally getting to go after Porcelain, he was going to see the armory.
Despite his super speed, Emmett felt like he was chasing Clara through a dream, like he was moving through water or syrup. He barely heard Clara call for TINA to prepare her suit.
They ran through familiar twists and turns as the layout of section 004 mimicked the halls and hubs of neighbori...
2023-03-22 14:19:58 +0000 UTC
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Emmett and Clara spent the day training in the Gray Room. Any other day, it would’ve been a nice change from the earlier—getting lectured by Dr. Venture about the nature of trust, waiting, and finding answers. The Gray Room should have been cathartic.
It was for one of them, at least.
It was Clara’s opinion that Emmett should spend his time training against as many different powersets as possible. So, each time Emmett and Clara’s robot started fighting, Emmett found himsel...
2023-03-21 19:45:17 +0000 UTC
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Emmett barely slept at all Thursday night. Between everything that happened with Paragon and Amarque’s accident downtown, then talking with mom on the phone, and waiting for Lock to come home, Emmett was a mess.
Emmett heard his roommate finally come home around three in the morning, and Emmett must have fallen asleep shortly after—
Suddenly, daylight seared his eyelids.
Emmett rolled away from the light and grabbed his phone. The first thing he noticed was the alert ...
2023-03-21 12:40:47 +0000 UTC
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Truck-kun drove through the dark forest, its tires deftly weaving around trees and over their thick roots. Its headlights pushed aside the oppressive darkness and the rumble of its engine pushed aside the stifling quiet.
It had left the body of the dire bear behind, and tried to do the same with the memory of the short but brutal fight. In that respect, Truck-kun failed.
It wasn’t the first time Truck-kun had slain an animal. Before this, there were bunnies, birds, and even a de...
2023-03-20 18:41:17 +0000 UTC
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Paragon. Savior of the World.
His presence alone was enough to send villains running. He was nigh-invincible and his strength was without limit. Fast enough to catch bullets and outrun missiles. His eye rays burned hotter than the center of the sun.
The first time Emmett saw Paragon was when he was five-years-old. He and his family had been huddled in front of the TV—Emmett and his older brother Darryl sitting on the floor as close as they could. Mom and Dad sat on the couch beh...
2023-03-20 10:59:47 +0000 UTC
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Emmett managed to push himself up on shaking arms and legs to face his enemies across the alley.
Green Mask leaned against the wall, arms crossed overtop of his dark green tracksuit. “You sure you’re up for this?” the rail-thin man asked his counterpart.
Skull Mask—Zanté—stood in front. His old denim jacket creased around his muscles. He nodded to Emmett, his platinum blond flicking with the movement. “I’m still not sure how this punk got one over on me.” Zanté r...
2023-03-19 17:11:26 +0000 UTC
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