Steelheart (Worm commission) 1 (Patreon)

Homeroom could get fucked. Arcadia could get fucked. This entire city could get fucked. Throw in the rest of Earth Bet for good measure. It didn’t fucking matter, not since she’d… Amy pushed that thought aside, lest she start spiraling again. She’d done that too much already, to the point that it had started to cut into her time at the hospitals.

Taking a breath, Amy turned her gaze instead to the rest of the class. Homeroom wouldn’t start for another five minutes or so. Thus, everyone was still fucking about, ignoring the way the world seemed less vibrant, less bright, less everything. Just like they had for the last twenty two days. Cold hearted sons of bitches didn’t care, didn’t even seem to notice.

Mr. Rothford came in, making the class quiet down and pay attention. The stern teacher looked over the class, not saying a word for several minutes. Until the bell rang, and he sat down at his desk.

He read through the standard, day to day announcements, not bothering to call roll, the man having used the time that the class was quiet to do so mentally. At the end of the same pointless, bullshit announcements, he said, “There is a new transfer, I expect you to treat him well. Mr. Anderson, please stand.”

There was the sound of a chair moving, and Amy turned in her seat to look at the walking posterboy for the E88 as he stood up in the corner seat. He shuffled in place awkwardly before muttering a quiet, “Hello.”

“Thank you, Mr. Anderson,” Mr. Rothford said, the new guy sitting back down.

Amy didn’t know what the new guy was so worried about, it wasn’t like Mr. Rothford was going to treat him nearly as bad as the other guy who said ‘Mr. Anderson’ that way. Just thinking about that pretentious and overblown movie had Amy rolling her eyes, if your entire premise relies on impossible AI technology, it’s a shit premise.

Homeroom was soon over, with there being no more announcements or any other shit to go over. Up next was the class with the fancy shmancy, leftover name that could be better described as ‘Study Cape Bullshit’ and save everyone a lot of time. Whole lotta shit that she already knew due to, possibly, being a fucking cape.

Really, you’d think being one of the most famous capes, let alone open capes, in the city would give her a pass on doing this kind of shit, but nooooooooooooo. She still had to go through this pointless shit show of a class. Whatever fucking Merchant blend of the week Arcandia’s administration was on when they made that decision was clearly some really potent crap.

Mrs. Owens, the gray haired bitch who clearly couldn’t cut it at the low bar of teaching at university level and so was thrown to the utter shithole that was high school education, gave her fake cheerful spiel of welcoming the new shit who probably kissed the ground that Kaiser walked on. Then, when giving the new class assignment, decided to showcase the kind of shit decision making that embodied the people who thought interacting with hormone junkies on a daily basis was a good idea.

“This is a group project; Amy, you’ll be working with Victor. John, you’ll be…”

Amy blamed the lack of coffee that morning for how long it took her to figure out just who the fuck Mrs. Owens was talking about. Because it took her a while to put together ‘no student named Victor’ and ‘new guy’ to ‘new guy is named Victor’ instead of ‘Mrs. Owens is trying to make me join the Empire.’

“Hi, I’m Victor,” the new guy said as the class broke apart into the assigned teams.

Having a closer look at him, Amy could admit that she’d been just a little harsh in her initial assessment. He didn’t look like the poster boy for the Empire, he looked like a twink parody of an Empire poster boy. Come to think of it, pad the chest, widen the hips, and he’d…

“Amy,” she grunted, sitting down across from him and forcefully derailing the train of thought that had been forming in her head.

Twink Boy started to ramble some crap about Case 53s, which seemed not-boring enough to serve as the topic of their group project. A focus on their influence on popular culture helped narrow it down, and the rest of the class was spent with Amy doing her best to suppress the urge to render him mute with the brain of a dog.

He was entirely too cheerful, especially with his smile, it was like he thought the world was sunshine and rainbows. That amount of cheer and bubbliness, especially in someone who didn’t have anything worth looking at up top, should be illegal. What made it even more annoying was that from the few times their skin touched, she could tell he wasn’t on anything. Not even caffeine.

That realization made Amy want to give him colon cancer. But it was the second realization that Amy got from reading his biology that helped her resist the temptation. Specifically realizing that Twink Boy had both a Corona Pollentia and a Corona Gemma. Meaning that he was a cape, even if Amy hadn’t heard anything that would suggest that there was a new one in the Bay. He probably hadn’t debuted yet, which put her in a bit of an awkward position.

New cape, her age, meant that she should aim him towards the Wards. The Unwritten Rules on the other hand rather strongly suggested that she keep her mouth shut. But, then again, the Rules hadn’t done shit for…

Again, Amy forced her mind to derail that train of thought, focusing instead on the here and now. Even if the here and now was a stupid project that she was even less interested in than knowing exactly what sort of shit some random Merchant overdose had.

[hr][/hr]

My first day at new school, in a superhero world that didn’t have multiverse crisis events every year, had gone pretty well, I thought to myself. Most of the students seemed alright, my partner on the group project, Amy, was pretty cute, if grumpy. Though I couldn’t help but wonder why she was wearing hoodies that looked to be three sizes too big for her, at minimum.

Letting out a sigh as I came up to the suburban home that my ‘mother’ had moved us to. The woman was distant at the best of times, and was also the only parent I had in this life. I made my way down to the basement as soon as I entered the house. If she lived up to form, she’d be passed out drunk on the couch, mumbling sleepily about the douchenozzle who, even seventeen years after being tossed to the curb, she was still obsessed with.

Once I was in the basement, I stripped down. I’d ruined enough clothes playing around with my power to know that I didn’t want to waste some clothes that I actually liked. Breathing in, I held my breath for a moment, before letting it out, rectangular, overlapping metal plates growing out of my skin and covering my body as I did so.

I hunched over, my height shooting up well over a foot, my body now resembling a mix of featureless knight armor and featureless sci fi power armor. There were no holes in it, but I could still see through some sort of power shenanigans. The metal plating that covered me had a rainbow sheen to it in the light, like a puddle of oil on the road. I let out a sigh of relief, the sound echoing slightly inside my helmet. Keeping the armor in wasn’t quite like tensing a muscle, more like holding an odd posture. I could do it, I could do it for most of the day even, but letting the armor out always felt like there was less weight on my shoulders.

The best way I could think to describe it was that the armor itched, when it wasn’t out. Keeping my armor in was bearable, but if I went too long without manifesting it I started going crazy. The longest I’d gone was three days, and that was in the process of moving to Brockton Bay from New York. By the end of it, I was just about ready to kill someone, only managing to hold it in until I reached the basement when we first got to this house while the real estate agent showcased the rest of the house to my mother.

Shaking my head, the metal shell making noise but nowhere near as much as one would expect, I pushed all of my ruminations about my power to the side and walked over to my backpack. Picking it up, I pulled out my homework and got started on it. Math was first, then I’d do my assigned reading for History. After dinner, I’d head to the library and start doing research for the group project with Amy. Ah Geometry, such a cruel beast you are.

[hr][/hr]

There was a crunch of breaking bones under my armored hands, blood and brain matter oozing between my fingers. I glared down at the fool who threatened my Mistress, my Goddess, his corpse now hanging limply from my grasp.

“Well done, my knight,” Mistress purred from behind me, strutting forward as I tossed aside the body of the man I’d once looked up to. “First Alexandria, now you bring me the body of Legend? I am touched.”

“Anything for you, Mistress,” my voice said, as I turned to face her. Her hand, so much smaller than my own, pressed lightly against my arm as I knelt before her. A wave of reverence, of pure worship filled me as I looked upon her.

“Anything, you say?” she cooed, a single, perfect finger lightly tapping against her chin. “I think… there’s a cute brunette who’s had her eye on you. I don’t like that.”

She pointed to my left, where a freckle faced girl in an oversized hoodie stood. Without needing another command, I reached over, grabbing her with both hands, and…

My eyes snapped open and I threw myself to the side of my bed, vomit coming up well before I could even think about making a run for the bathroom. It flew into the bucket at the side of my bed. As I heaved up the remains of dinner, a part of my mind was grateful that I hadn’t decided to forgo keeping the bucket at the side of my bed.

As my body stopped heaving, I got out of bed, grabbing the bucket as I stumbled to the bathroom. First up was getting the taste of puke out of my mouth, then pouring the earlier… emissions into the toilet and flushing them down. I sighed, annoyed.

I was hoping that I wouldn’t have that nightmare again, it hadn’t shown up since we left New York. When I first woke up in this world, and learned about the fear and suspicion surrounding human Masters, I was disappointed. I loved X-Men in my first life, and Professor X was awesome. But now, after having encountered a Master who played with my mind?

A shudder ran down my spine. Just the thought of being near one again freaked me out. Shaking my head, I checked the time, and grumbled upon seeing that it was five thirty. Too early to be up, but too late to get some more sleep. With various frustrated noises, I cleaned out the bucket and then started getting ready for school.

“Victor?” my mother’s voice slurred from the edge of her room. “Why’re you up?”

“Bad dream,” I answered, “Go back to sleep.”

She grumbled, heading back into her room, and I made my way downstairs. I wasn’t hungry, not after the nightmare, but instead found whatever this world’s version of 7Up was. Just like my first life, it helped settle my stomach, so it would suffice for something approaching breakfast. Unlike most people my age, I was looking forward to school, it gave me a chance to think about something other than how I’d almost been made into the zealous pet of a monster in a woman’s skin.