Gacha God: All You Need is a Little Confidence (ch. 6) (Patreon)

"I can't believe they're making us go back to school. New York got invaded by aliens. They should totally just cancel it for the year! Er, well, maybe that would be a bit much. They should cancel it for at least a semester, though," Peter groused as he poured over my Air Treks on a busted up desk that had seen its best days long before Peter found it. His room was pretty sparse except for when it came to tools -- a single mattress spring bed, no real decorations of any kind…

Then there were just shelves and a nightstand that were overflowing with tools and half finished projects. I learned that Peter had something resembling a side business of finding old electronics that other people had thrown out, refurbishing them, and then pawning them. Or giving them away. The projects that he had now were ones that he was missing a part for or had found something more interesting to cobble back together.

I was currently reclined on his bed, looking up at my phone and scrolling through a news feed. "It's been a couple of weeks. Those that need it will get it," I remarked. It had been two weeks since the invasion and things were starting to normalize. During those two weeks, Shield had been cleaning up any trace of alien tech. There was a bit of a stink about it too, because a lot of construction workers were booted off city contracts. It was only after they were gone that reconstruction efforts could begin.

People were freaking out about aliens -- a lot of hate groups sprung up on account of how we had been invaded. So, kind of justifiable, really. More people were freaking out about Shield, though. Shield's existence had always been something of an open secret -- if you’d dealt with them, then you knew about them, but if you hadn’t, then you wouldn't. People had been shocked to discover that there was a massive multinational secret service that had bajillions of dollars.

But that shock was wearing off ever so slightly. Now people were settling in the new normal that they found themselves in. Too early to tell how it would go, but at the very least, the Avengers were popular. Tony Stark handled the merchandising and probably made another trillion dollars already because he was selling toys, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and so on. A portion of which would go into relief efforts. Well, he said all of it, but I had my doubts.

New York needed it too. Hundreds of millions were done in damages to the city, but that number was a little inflated given the battle in Downtown New York. Still, a huge chunk of the city suffered at least a little damage. Enough to cause problems. The final death toll was also announced. Six thousand people had perished during the attack, eight thousand more were injured. Given that New York was home to like eight million people, that was hardly anything at all.

The Avengers got the credit, naturally. That was until about three days ago when the footage of me fighting Loki -- with the audio suspiciously removed -- surfaced on the internet. Ned said that he didn't do it, and I believed him. So, not sure what the game was there, but Audacity was popular for the moment. Enough so that people were just assuming that I was a Secret Avenger. Like the redheaded lady that could move things with her mind, or laser eye guy were also Secret Avengers.

"I kinda miss school," Ned spoke up, sitting in a beanbag chair that he brought over with his laptop. "Do you think Flash is going to keep bothering us?" Ned asked, his gaze sliding to me.

Peter shook his head as he held up the battery pack for my Air Treks. "I don't think so. Probably," Peter hedged, sounding uncertain about it. He also looked to me.

"I don't go to your school. If he bothers you, then give him a smack," I told them both, shrugging my shoulders. It wasn't like I could fight all their fights for them, and even if I could, I wouldn't. People needed to stand on their own two feet. Both Peter and Ned proved that they could. I understood that standing up to someone wasn't exactly easy for normal people. I recognized that I was an outlier. But it was easy. "If he doesn't learn the lesson, do it again. Wash, rinse, and repeat as many times as applicable."

Ned laughed while Peter smiled to himself at my rather direct approach. He set the pattern pack down, "These things are crazily advanced, Sebastian."

"Are they?" I questioned, finding myself curious.

"Way advanced. The router for each wheel can generate as much as two hundred pounds worth of torque for a grand total of eight hundred. Sixteen hundred with both skates -- a muscle car generates, like, four hundred. Total. However, it’s gate kept by weight restrictions to make sure you don't fly off the moment you put them on. By my calculations, you're only getting about a tenth of what you could. The battery pack… I don't know. I can't really tell without cracking it open, but if it was normal, then it should be about as big as three car batteries," Peter explained while he reassembled my Air Treks.

Ned perked up, "Cool." He decided, nodding to himself. "Can I have a pair?"

"They're the only ones I have," I answered, making Ned sigh. "Unless Peter can reverse engineer them?"

Peter frowned at my skates, methodically securing pieces and parts that he had broken down. "I could do it? Maybe? The battery pack is the biggest issue. Er, well, supplies would probably be the biggest issue. The frame for the skates seems to be a lightweight lithium-infused titanium alloy. Getting both lithium and titanium wouldn't be too difficult, but creating the alloy would be," Peter informed us and I saw hope bloom in Ned's eyes.

"I will do anything in the world to get my own pair of skates," Ned told us, and the scary part was, I think he genuinely meant it.

"Could you do upgrades to mine?" I asked, sitting up and dangling my legs off the side of his bed. Peter handed me my Air Treks and I went about putting them into my bag.

"Totally! I have so many ideas! I just don't have the materials. Or even the tools, really. If they really are the only pair, I don't want to mess them up," Peter answered and that was fair enough. One thing that I had learned about him in the past two weeks was that Peter was smart. The kind of smart that most people couldn't hold a candle to. His idea of light reading was papers on Gamma radiation or physics theories published by Bruce Banner and Tony Stark.

Even right now, I could see his mind churning over the possibilities. If I managed to get the supplies for him, I had no doubt that he could make something absolutely incredible with them. Which sounded awesome. I'm not even sure what my Air Treks could do, but the idea that they could do something was pretty neat. "Draw up a wish list and I'll see what I can do," I told him and Peter was practically vibrating from excitement at the prospect of working with advanced tech.

"Oh," Ned spoke up, bringing attention to him as he looked at his computer screen. His gaze flickered up to me for a moment before he shifted his laptop around. "Dude, you're on Shield's most wanted list!" He exclaimed in a stage whisper.

I cocked an eyebrow, "And how do you know that?" I asked him, more curious about that.

"Oh. I joined Rising Tide," Ned informed us like it was nothing. I had done my own research about them -- they were hacktivists that operated across the globe and had been the source for a number of leaks in the past couple of years. They didn't always leave a tag that it was then nor did they announce that they were going after a corporation or person, but a number of leaks were attributed to them. Big and small. "I had to hack Shield to earn my place since the programs that Rising Tide had got scrubbed. I just did it and now I got the invite, and apparently someone else already rehacked into Shield at a way higher level than me."

Peter looked absolutely betrayed, "Dude, you hacked a secret government agency without me?"

Ned seemed all too pleased with himself, "Sorry." He said, not sounding sorry at all. "But it's a good thing! I can be the guy in the chair that hacks stuff for you -- like doors to a secret base, or be like an eye in the sky through security cameras and stuff. It'll be so sweet!"

That did sound convenient for me. Not really sure what I would use it for, but it was convenient. "Are you sure about this Ned? If you get outed as a member of Rising Tide, something like that could mess your whole life up." I didn't want him doing that for my sake.

Ned offered a lopsided smile, "I'm sure. The whole alien invasion showed me that things are going to be different from now on. I don't just want to be someone that realizes that things are going bad when I see it on the news -- like Shield knew about Loki and the portal days ago, but they squashed the information so it never got out." He turned his computer back around, "Plus, being a black hat is so cool."

I smirked right back -- that's what I wanted to hear. "If you're sure," I decided.

"So, Sebastian, where do you go to school if you don't go to Midtown?" Peter asked, perking up.

"I don't go to school," I answered, making his brow furrow.

"You dropped out?" He blurted and I could hear so much judgment in his tone that he tried to keep in check but couldn't quite manage to.

I shook my head, "Nah, I never went to school in the first place. I've never even gone to preschool or a daycare," I told them. "I guess you could call me homeschooled." But that was a bit of a stretch. Wasn't like I had been learning trigonometry or social studies back home.

Peter seemed to process that for a moment before nodding, "Oh, cool." He muttered, realizing that he made it awkward. "Is your Dad a teacher?"

"By certain definitions of the word, sure," I nodded. That just seemed to confuse him. I was saved from having to elaborate thanks to a knock at the door. A split second later, proving that the knock was just a formality, Ben Parker poked his head into the room. He was a man in his late thirties to early forties with dark brown hair and blue eyes. I wouldn't have ever guessed that he was Peter's uncle if I hadn't been told.

"It's getting late, kids. Are any of you staying over?" He asked, sounding like he was cool with whatever.

I stood up -- it was a bad idea for me to stay over. The people in my building were mildly afraid of me for some reason, which kept them away from my stuff, but they'd go through it in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it. "I can't," I told them, reaching out a fist for Peter to bump. He seemed a little disappointed, but not surprised.

"I'll call my mom," Ned decided, accepting a fist bump as I left the room. Peter's apartment was a halfway decent one. A little on the cheap side, but they had stayed in it long enough that it felt homey.

"By Sebastian! See you after school?" He asked and I offered a wave.

"Probably," I told him. It felt good hanging out with friends, but I was worried that I'd end up dragging them into trouble. Shield was the type of organization that would put pressure on Peter and Ned's families if it meant working an angle on me. The government, Shield more so than most, had a lot of power and it could all too easily make life extremely difficult for people like May and Ben, Peter's family after the death of his parents.

Well, if they did that, then Shield wouldn't need to go looking for me. I'd start kicking in their front door.

"See ya," I waved them bye before stepping out of the apartment. May, Peter's aunt, wasn't there to my knowledge. Ben wished me a safe trip home before closing the door behind me, leaving me in the halls of the apartment complex that they lived in. Cheap beige carpet and cream-colored walls -- the building was a good twenty stories of dense population housing in the heart of Queens. I didn't frequent this part of the city, but I probably should have set up shop here instead of Hell's Kitchen.

But I was now invested in my neighbors' relationships. Richard and Debra fought like cats and dogs every night and it was poor man's TV. You know, if I was poor.

Striding down the hallways, I heard sounds drifting through the paper-thin walls and plywood doors. From kids laughing in joy to screaming their little heads off about something or another. There were some quick shouts of victory, curses, and so on. The building felt pretty alive in comparison to where I lived. However, it was as I reached the very end of the hallway, going to the elevator that would take me down, I heard a crash and some screaming.

"Stop it! Let me go!" A girl screamed, followed by more crashing.

"Philip, you're drunk! Get off of her!" Someone else screamed followed by a thump.

"Shut the fuck up! I come back to this?! Slaving away at work for my family for a whore of a daughter and her bitch mother?!" The guy shouted. Huh.

I came to a stop in front of the door and knocked at it. A few quick raps. They must have been pretty loud because the apartment instantly went quiet before I heard the stomps leading up to the door. It whipped open to reveal a man in his thirties, maybe late twenties. Blonde hair, green eyes, white skin that was a hideous shade of red. "Fuck off-" he started to snarl at me, right up until I punched him in the nose hard enough that it flattened in a spray of blood. Phillip, I'm guessing, wheeled back with a hand going to his face.

It was a perfect lead-up to the high knee that I delivered to his diaphragm after a few quick steps. It was damn near picture-perfect. Philip gasped, hitting the ground as he fought to breathe, but he couldn't quite get a full breath. I entered the apartment to see that it was currently a wreck -- broken glass on the floor, a shelf that had been flipped over, and what looked like a plate of spaghetti tossed against the wall.

What I didn't expect was to see Mary Jane kneeling near a red-headed woman that I'm betting was her mom. They looked alike -- red hair, green eyes, except for the black eye that her mom was sporting a long with a faded bruise on her cheek. "Oh, hey MJ. Didn't know you lived here," I remarked, delivering a powerful kick to her dad's ribs.

"Sebastian?! What are you doing?!" She shouted, her tone bewildered.

“I heard the fight and thought I should get involved,” I told her, looking down at Philip. “That changes things quite a bit. You see, I thought you were a random ass pissant that needed to learn that its not okay to beat the shit out of your family because… what? You had a rough day at work? Boss was mean to you? The traffic was pretty bad, so maybe that was it? I asked you a fucking question, Philip. It wasn’t rhetorical.” I smacked the absolute shit out of him to get his attention.

“I’m going to call the cops, you fucking psycho,” Philip snarled at me, going to punch me, but I beat him to it with a solid jab to his already broken nose.

“Here,” I told him, dropping my phone onto him. “Go ahead and dial. But let me ask you this -- do you think the police are going to get here in time to stop me from doing what I’m going to do to you? Because if you make this a pain in my ass, well… guess what? I’m going to take that out on you just like you were about to do to your family. How does that sound?” I asked him, snatching the phone and shoving it into his hands when he wouldn’t pick it up.

The anger in his eyes faded to a degree. Now he was scared and uncertain. He should be. He had absolutely no idea how far I was willing to take this and the answer was all the fucking way. I just couldn’t stand it. It ground my gears. It rubbed me wrong like sandpaper. People who puffed themselves up with violence or put other people down to feel good about themselves. It just… it didn’t make sense. I couldn’t understand it. I tried to, but I couldn’t.

“Sebastian, stop-” Mary Jane started, but I silenced her with a bloodied hand.

“No. I asked him a question, MJ. It’s very rude to not answer, Philip. I already know you need to learn some fucking manners, though, so maybe I shouldn't be shocked,” I told him, snatching the phone from his hand and then dialing 9-1-1 into the dial before presenting it to him to press the green button that could connect the call. “Well? Call the cops. Do it. Do it or I’m going to smack the holy hell right out of you.”

I could see his brain working over the issue and quickly came to the conclusion that calling the cops would be a bad idea for him. He was the one beating the crap out of his family. People might even call me a good samaritan for getting involved. I nodded, knowing that he made his choice, and as promised, I smacked the holy hell right out of him with a loud crack. His head snapped to the side from the force of it, and I knew he would be spotting a palm-shaped bruise. “Let’s try this again then -- why were you abusing your family?”

Philip licked his blood-covered lips and I did see shame in his gaze. Ah. So he was that type. The kind that would unload how they felt upon someone, feel bad about it afterward and buy them like a ice cream cone after, but it wouldn’t stop them from doing it again. “I… I… got… I got fired today.”

I smacked him again, “Wrong answer.” Mary Jane and her mom gasped at what he said, blood draining from both of their faces. I’m guessing that Philip here was a breadwinner for the family.

“What do you want from me?!” Philip snarled, a flash of anger in the pan.

I shook my head. Despicable behavior. “You got fired from work, yeah? That sucks. Never fun getting canned. I’ve never had a job, but I’m guessing it comes with a sense of failure. The thing is, though -- the thing that I just don’t understand… how does you getting fired lead to you trashing your house and harming your probably lovely wife and daughter?” I asked him, my lips thinning and my brow furrowing because I didn’t get it. I tried to. I really did. I just couldn’t connect the dots between how he got from point A -- A being he got fired -- to point B, him beating the shit out of his family.

Throwing up my hands in a futile gesture, I gave him a bewildered look. “Explain it to me. Use your words, man. Explain this shit to me,” I asked him, waiting a long second for him to do exactly that. “Really? Well, to me, it looks like you’re feeling insecure. Bad about yourself because of your failures and your inability to provide for your family because of social notions that the man has to be the provider. Then, in some fucking wild twist of logic, you’re using that bad feeling to abuse the people that you’re supposed to be providing for to make yourself feel powerful. There’s a certain power in violence, yeah?”

His lips thinned and he started shaking his head, in denial of it. The truth was a hard thing to face for other people. Not really sure why. The truth didn’t change just because you refused to look in the eye or wrapped it in pleasant lies. Why not just face it? Own it? It was just like Loki -- if he told the truth, maybe I might have some level of respect for him.

“The thing about violence, though,” I continued, my gaze going flat. “It’s a two-way street. If you’re going to use it, then you better make damn sure that you’re prepared for it to be used on you in turn. Now, normally, I would leave it at that. However,” I continued, my tone harsh, “I happen to be friends with your daughter and the situation does not fly with me. So, the next time I so much as think that you thought about abusing either MJ or her mom, I’m going to come here and I’m going to put you in the dirt. Do you understand me?” I asked him, my tone downright friendly.

Philip didn’t respond verbally, but he did offer a shaky nod. I could see it, though. He didn’t believe me. He was acting scared, and he was, but the moment that I turned my back he was either going to call the police or lunge for me. I couldn’t have that. Murdering Mary Jane’s dad would make things awkward between us. So, to drive the point home, I kicked him in the face hard enough that broken teeth clattered on the ground and he laid unconscious in a pool of blood that seeped out of his mouth.

“There,” I decided, looking to MJ to see that she was dressed up. “Going somewhere?” I asked her, ignoring the unconscious body of her father. However, it was her mother that answered.

“Just go,” her mother said, moving away from Mary Jane, making a hurt expression flicker over her face. “Just go, MJ. I’ll…” she sighed, pointedly not looking at me. She wasn’t thankful. Most weren’t, I found. Abused or not, there was still love there, even if it was a weird fucked up version of it, and it was never easy to see people you loved hurt. Even if they did deserve it. But, I didn’t particularly care. Wasn’t like I did it because I wanted a thank you.

“Come on, Sebastian,” Mary Jane muttered, and I guess I was going with her where ever she was going. Shrugging to myself, I followed her out.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Watson,” I waved by to her before closing the door with a click. I glanced at MJ, “You do have a key, right?”

“Let’s just get out of here,” MJ stressed, marching to the elevator. Her voice was thick with emotion, but that emotion seemed to be seething anger rather than tears. She slammed the elevator button down, stepped in, and buried her face in her hands as we made our way down to the lobby of the apartment building. The pleasant elevator music didn’t make the tension in the elevator any easier to bare, but it was on her end. If MJ wanted me to leave, I don’t think she would be the type to hesitate to tell me to fuck off.

We reached the lobby and I followed her as she marched out. It was only when we got on a bus that nearly left without us that she finally start lose her grip on her temper. “That piece of… you were right. He’s totally pathetic. The biggest fucking loser in New York and he always…” MJ kicked the seat in front of us, making the man seated in it look back with a scowl, but it faded when he saw how visibly upset MJ was.

“I want you to tell me the truth,” she snapped at me, reaching out and squeezing my forearm. “Is this some fucked up ploy to get in my pants or something?” She demanded to know, earning a slow blink from me.

“Nah,” I answered with little preamble. “That was completely separate from me wanting to sleep with you.”

My blatant honesty got a small laugh out of her, “Then what was that? Everyone… that whole floor knows about my dad. I mean, he’s not… he doesn’t do it every day, just…” she fumbled, realizing that she was making excuses for him, and getting frustrated with it.

“Are you asking why I got involved or why no one else did?” I questioned, making MJ bite her lip as we traveled through the city. I don’t think she had a destination in mind.

“Either. Both,” MJ decided after a moment, settling in her seat. Her skin was an angry red, but her eyes were bloodshot like she was fighting off tears.

“Most people have trouble with conflict and the consequences that it brings. I don’t,” I admitted. Conflict has never really been something I had trouble with. I was perfectly comfortable with violence. Consequences sucked, but they were what they were. If you couldn’t outrun them, and you had to deal with them, then take it on the chin. “I like to see myself as the consequence for other people's actions. Like your dad. Or the aliens. I take issue with losers making themselves feel strong and powerful at the expense of other people.”

MJ was silent for a long minute after that, processing it. “How can you just do that, though? I mean…” She trailed off, not sure how to phrase it but I knew what she was asking.

I offered a shrug, “My dad is a real piece of shit. Total asshole. But, he did teach me a lesson pretty early on that I’ve always taken to heart.” I told her, meeting her gaze steadily. “That was to believe in myself. And I’m not talking about having some faith that everything will work out or something. I’m talking about real belief. That no matter what the world says -- that you’re crazy, or you’re wrong, or the bad guy, that if you believe differently then believe it and don’t back down or apologize.”

I learned that lesson early on. It was the first one Dad had taught me and my siblings. It was a hard lesson in hindsight and a costly one for those that hadn’t been able to take it to heart. But it was one that defined me. I was who I was. I wanted what I wanted. I believed what I believed. The world telling me that I was wrong or mistaken for acting on those beliefs wasn’t a reason to not act. Not for me.

Ever since that lesson was driven home in my heart, I followed it in everything. I had no faith in anything else in this world except for myself. There was no opinion that I valued more than my own. Even if the world told me that I was wrong, if I believed that I was right, then that meant that I was right.

“I’m sorry, Sebastian,” MJ whispered, seeing me as a kindred spirit of sorts. We weren’t. I could say objectively that my father was infinitely worse than her own, but that would take some explaining that she wasn’t ready to hear.

“Nothing to be sorry about. It made me me, and I love me,” I told her and that earned a brief smile. She seemed a little less upset the further we got from the apartment building. The traffic started to pick up when we crossed the bridge leading out of Queens, and I saw signs of the battle. The roads were prioritized, and they were working on picking up the debris now that all the alien tech was gone. I’d say it was another two weeks before the city felt normal again. Though, it’d be months to repair all of the damage. “So, wanna tell me where we’re going?”

MJ shifted in her seat at that, before letting out a sigh. “I was going to meet up with the Drama club from school. They told me that the improv class that they were taking had a talent scout there,” she told me. “I wanted to get scouted. I’m going to be an actor. And a supermodel,” Mary Jane decided, cocking her chin like she was daring me to challenge her on it.

“Cool,” I agreed easily. I liked it. MJ had a goal in mind, and she was chasing after it. I knew she was in the Drama club at Midtown high, and the Cheerleading squad. I respected that. Everyone in this world had a fundamental and undeniable right to follow whatever they happened to believe in or a dream that they had. Couldn’t say that right wouldn’t come into conflict with others, but they still had the right to follow it. For better or for worse.

That got an honest smile out of her since she could tell that I believed it. I’m guessing that she didn’t get that a lot. “I just need to get scouted. I was trying to work with an agency, but those are expensive. And the one that I talked to initially was really skeevy,” she added with a frown. “I’m going to start with commercials and theater to build up my resume, so when I start going for bigger parts, so the directors and stuff see that I have acting experience. Then I’m going to land a lead role in a movie to start my kick-ass career, and I’ll capitalize on it by modeling.” I couldn’t say that she didn’t have a plan.

Then her expression wilted ever so slightly, “But we’re probably going to have to move. We could barely afford to stay in the apartment as it was. If dad lost his job, and… medical bills…” She added, sparing a glance at me. Hm. Now I felt bad. Not that I beat the shit out of her dad. No, that still felt solid. No regrets there. I did feel bad that it could impact her goals.

“Eh, let me worry about the money thing,” I decided, making MJ’s brow furrow as she gave me an odd look that was vaguely suspicious.

“What?” She questioned, frowning at me ever so slightly. “Just… let you take care of the money? Are you a trust fund kid or something?” She questioned, less receptive of the idea than I thought she might be. I think she thought it was charity or something.

“I’m not,” I told her. I left home with the clothes on my back and that was it. “But I want to help and I know how to get money pretty easily,” I told her. Could try lotto numbers. There was a powerball jackpot coming up that was in the hundreds of millions. I wasn’t old enough to gamble, but I could pay someone to cash the ticket in exchange for like a million bucks. Hardly any trouble at all. Winning the lottery was pretty easy when time travel factored into the equation.

“But why?” MJ stressed, looking for my angle. It was good that she was suspicious.

“Because I want to. MJ, it’s the only reason that I need to do anything,” I told her, clarifying and I saw it click into place for her. There was no ulterior motive because that was the only motive I needed. If I wanted to do something, then I would do it. I couldn’t care less how unfeasible or inadvisable it might be.

The bus rolled to a stop and this time, MJ stood up. She smiled down at me for a moment before leaning down and kissing my cheek. “That’s for being sweet,” she decided, pulling back. Then she leaned in again and kissed me on the lips -- a quick peck that hardly lingered, giving me just enough time to register that her lips were soft. “And that was because I wanted to.” She decided, flashing me a confident smile, the shaky emotion she displayed earlier shoved back down.

She looked like someone who was going to rock the improv group and impress the hell out of the talent scout. I smiled back before she quickly made her way off the bus, but I caught her stealing a glance at me as she walked off, a pleased blush on her cheeks. She disappeared into a building and the bus continued on.

I pursed my lips for a moment, considering how I was going to get the money. Lotto was a possibility… but when I saw a car speeding down the road, ramping up on the sidewalk hardly a few seconds after MJ had disappeared into the building, a man with a familiar gang flag hanging out the window…

I took out my phone and shot Peter and Ned a text. ‘Do you guys want to help me rob a gang?’

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

Peter: Absolutely.

Ned: I’ve been waiting for you to ask that.

Heh. This was going to be interesting.