Super Powereds: Year 3 (73 page)

                “It makes sense,” Alice said. “They went after Vince with electrical attacks because they didn’t know he could absorb them, at least at first. Sims kept trying to punch you, even though you were tougher than all of them. They don’t seem to know what our abilities are.”

                “Hmm. I suspect we will not have it so easy on future exams,” Chad speculated. He paused as, on screen, Camille managed to sneak up on the next Sim and power it down without a fight. “In the real world, Heroes are well-known and almost certainly tracked by criminals. This is the sort of advantage we would only have at the beginning of our careers.”

                “I wonder if they did it on purpose, so that anyone who doesn’t realize that will be caught by surprise the next time we take a test like this,” Vince said. He’d begun to understand that being in a constant state of uncertainty was evidently part of their training. After seeing the sort of situations they’d be facing, he could appreciate his teachers for building that into the curriculum.

                “Wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” Roy said. His eyes followed the small Super as she came upon a third guard. This one managed to get a punch off, but Camille grabbed on to its fist and forced it to power down. She seemed to be having trouble breathing when she stood back up, however, after a few moments, all signs of the injury vanished. “That healing ability comes in damn handy.”

                “It does,” Mary said. “I just hope it will be enough.”

                The others wordlessly agreed with her, as they watched Camille meander through the halls. She didn’t know it yet, but she wouldn’t find any more Sims filling the guard role. In every match, the numbers were randomized, placing some in the halls, while others waited in a central room. For those with no stealth, like Roy, having a high number of concentrated enemies was a good thing, but to the physically frail ones, it presented a large challenge. In that, Camille had gotten unlucky.

                She had six Sims all standing around in a room, waiting to beat the hell out of her.

136.

               It didn’t take a brilliant mind to figure out that if there were only three Sims in the halls, then there had to be six waiting in the central room. Camille possessed more than enough intelligence to make that deduction, and as she surveyed the familiar hallway for the third time, she arrived at that inescapable conclusion. She’d actually found the entrance to the main room already, but rather than going in, she’d double-checked all the hallways first. Once the brawl began, her worst enemy was a Sim attacking from a distance. Plus, deep in her heart, she’d been hoping to encounter at least one more, so that her cluster number would be five. That hope slowly wasted away as hall after hall met her with felled opponents and empty space. In the end, there was no denying it: she was going up against six Sims simultaneously.

                By her count, four would be yellow-light Sims, and two would be red-light. Since her ability could harmlessly take down any of these opponents without registering a kill, that meant the lights would only affect her prioritization of targets. She pulled the dagger into her left hand and took a throwing knife in her right. The reds had to go first. If she could manage that, she should at least be able to post a decent score.

                Camille crept up to the room’s entrance and peeked around the corner. The Sims were spread out, but not overly so. There was a small group of three not too far from the door—one red and two yellows. If she could get to them first, taking out half the threats in the room, it would make handling the rest far easier. The trick would be to close the gap. Her same bluff wouldn’t work, they’d all dodge in different directions, making them harder to hit. No, for this one, she was going to have to lean on a classic.

                Clutching the throwing knife loosely in her hand, Camille leaned through the doorway and whipped it across the room. It landed in the far corner, pinging off the wall and making a modest ruckus. The Sims eyes all instinctively turned toward the sound, and Camille took off, running toward the group as quickly as she could. As she sprinted, it occurred to her for the first time why running seemed to be such a sizable foundation of the HCP regime. In each of their exams, every student ended up doing a hell of a lot of it. She was grateful for all that training, though, as her legs pumped, speeding her across the rough, concrete floor. Camille was a flurry of bare footsteps and whipping short hair. She was as fast as she could hope to be.

                She just wasn’t fast enough.

                As she neared the group, the red-light Sim turned around and noticed her. If it had struck visibly, then she might have had time to dodge it. Unfortunately, this one replicated the abilities of an earth elementalist, and it activated remote machines beneath her feet. The concrete shattered as she was flung skyward, a large chunk of rock jutting up from where she’d been standing. Camille came down hard, fracturing her hip bone so badly it nearly took away her breath. Before she could recover, the red-light Sim was staring down at her, its large robotic hands raised high overhead as it prepared to crush her delicate body. The knife was gone, sent careening into who-knew-where when she was tripped, and the Sim had on thick boots and dark pants. Without any way to touch its outer shell, she was as helpless as a human.

*             *             *

                “Get out of there, lil girl,” Roy said, fists clenched tight as he stared at the screen. “Roll, jump, do something.”

                “They won’t actually let that thing hurt her, right?” Alice asked.

                “Terrance got beaten half-senseless before they called his exam,” Mary reminded her. “They want to give us the chance to recover before they say we’re out.”

                “She’s going to be fine.” Vince was watching the screen so intently he may as well have been trying to light it on fire. “Camille can do this. I know she can.”

                He’d barely gotten the words out when the Sim finally struck, bringing down a pair of hands so large that when they hit Camille, they obscured her completely. There was a
thud
, a muffled scream, and then silence.

*             *             *

                Broken sternum. Bruised spine. Ribs too shattered to account for. Hip still fractured. God only knew what kind of damage to her organs. The pain, oh fucking hell, the pain. She nearly blacked out, then had to push down the blood-filled vomit that was clawing its way up her throat. Camille was a crushed, broken, bloody mess.

                But she was smiling.

                Her red-toothed grin came not from any sort of sadomasochism, but because she’d managed to grab that big, dumb, powerful red-light Sim’s fist with her hand when it came down. It’s bare, unclothed hand. She didn’t have long until the other Sims realized something was wrong, and she needed to be back in fighting shape. Beneath the unexpected protection and concealment of its massive metallic hands, Camille began absorbing the damage out of her body and into whatever strange space her ability kept it in. There wasn’t nearly enough time for a complete recovery, but the bones reformed as if they’d never been pulverized, and her organs slid back into their proper places.

                Around her, she heard the soft scuff of feet moving toward her. The others were coming to see what had happened. That was an unexpected bonus, a silver-lining to the cloud of horror she’d just suffered. For the briefest of moments, her head swam, and suddenly, she felt like she was eight years old and curled up on the ground again. She was small, she was scared, and she was surrounded. But she wouldn’t let today end like all those days in her childhood. Now, things were different; she understood that some evil wouldn’t back down until it was stood up to. And this time, she wasn’t waiting for some mysterious young boy to come along and save her. This time, Camille would be the one standing up.

                The sounds of movement finally came to a stop, and Camille struck.

                In one motion, Camille rolled out from under the frozen fist, pushed off with her arms, putting her into a runner’s stance, and vaulted up from the ground at the nearest Sim she could see. It was a yellow-light, one that clearly hadn’t been expecting a downed opponent to suddenly jump at it. It raised its arms in defense—beautiful, bare metallic arms that Camille grabbed on to as if she were snatching a life-raft while stuck at sea. The Sim immediately powered down, and Camille realized there was another right by it. Without pausing to think, and still hanging off the first Sim’s arms, she delivered a quick kick directly to its temple. Only as it was powering down did Camille realize that this one had been letting off the glow of a red-light.

                She dropped to the ground, spinning on her heel and facing the remaining three yellow-light Sims. For the first time since she was under the large Sim’s fists, she allowed herself to breathe. This fight was far from over, but three yellows was a damn sight better than six total.

                “All right boys, who’s up for a little tag?”

137.

               When Camille stepped back into the room, the dark streaks of blood staining her face and hair were the only signs of what she’d endured in the exam. Even her body was masked, thanks to re-donning her usual uniform. Gone was the brutal woman who had managed to slay a cluster of six Sims using only her touch. Instead, she was the girl the whole class had thought they knew, smiling meekly as she walked back over to Violet and Thomas. She was going to need a very long shower when this was all said and done, but otherwise, she couldn’t have been happier with the showing she’d managed to put on.

                It was Dean Blaine’s turn to draw a name, and he did so easily, as there were only two slips of paper remaining in the jar. With quick hands, he snared one, pulled it out, and announced the name.

                “Rich Weaver.”

                Rich stepped forward immediately, a smug smile on his face. He’d been awaiting a situation like this for the past two years. The HCP had all these little tests and trials pitting him against unlikely circumstances, all designed to obscure what he considered a person’s real capability. The truth of the matter was that Rich believed his ability to be the most useful in the entire class. Sure, Chad and Roy could punch through concrete, and Shane could call up his little shadow attacks, but Rich could lock down opponents with nothing more than a single glance. Who could possibly defend against a thing like that? Of course, there were exceptions, like Chad or Dean Blaine, but it was to be expected in the world of Supers. That’s what the rest of the team would be for—batting clean-up on the few anomalies.

                “Do you require any weaponry?”

                “Just my staff.” Rich patted the weapon he’d buckled to his back, though he didn’t imagine he would actually need to use it. He’d drop the whole gang without lifting a finger. Still, Professor Cole was a terrifying woman whose class he was in until the end of the year. No need to insult her by leaving his weapon behind.

                “Very well, then. Follow me.” The two headed out of the room and into the stairwell that all the students, save for Mary, had already walked.

                “This is going to be a cakewalk for him, isn’t it?” Alice said, turning her attention to the monitors. “Like Selena’s enchanting, all over again.”

                “Perhaps, perhaps not,” Chad said. “Rich’s ability is very potent. It may be one of the more powerful I’ve ever seen in terms of real-world application. Unfortunately, he is keenly aware of that fact and often gets lost in the sense of superiority it provides him.”

                “It’s a damn useful power, but it don’t mean shit if the person using it can’t keep his head in the game,” Roy summarized.

                “Especially if one of the Sims manages to take him by surprise,” Vince added. Unbidden, a slight smile came to his mouth as he recalled Nick using exactly that strategy the year before. He wondered how his friend would have done on this exam, if he were still around. Surely he’d have come up with some outlandish and unexpected tactic for victory, all while shooting off his mouth at inappropriate moments. Vince missed Nick dearly, and looked forward to seeing him that night. Perhaps they’d tell him about their day, and he would be relieved not to have had to undertake the grueling task.

                If nothing else, at least Nick could revel in the fact that his time enduring such tests and trials had passed.

*             *             *

                Nick and Nicholas emerged at the same time, a fact which both had come to expect by this point. The memory they’d walked through was the most recent one before the divide, the only one from Lander they’d gone into: blackmailing Rich into hypnotizing Vince so that he could let his real power out. Nicholas had been a bit shocked by the experience—this was one Nick had never had the chance to give him notes on—but for Nick, it had been a rather pleasant memory. He was proud of what he’d pulled off that day; not just of what he’d accomplished, but of finding the strength inside to put a friend’s well-being over his own.

                The tunnel had ended, and now they were in an open, frozen landscape. Though the floor was snow and ice, neither had difficulty moving as they walked. Around them was an oddly familiar sensation, something almost impossible to pin down, yet inescapable at the same time. Nick couldn’t have placed it easily, but Nicholas was far more accustomed to the feeling this place provoked.