31 - Repercussions

As soon as Post-Launch Day North American History ended. I declined another offer of coffee from Avan and headed to the SUB for breakfast instead.

I thought about last night as I munched on my cereal and played around on my phone. I’d had to really cake the make-up on to hide my black eye, but more importantly, I had no idea where I’d be able to find an Episode for Sara-N-Dipity, and I only had a couple of days. I typed ‘Superhero Online Episode Dating’ into my phone, just in case someone had built a ‘dating app’ for superpowereds to fight each other through, but if anyone had, a quick search couldn’t find it.

“Damn. That would have been really convenient,” I mumbled to myself.

“What?” Su-Bin slid into a seat across from me and set a plate full of syrup-drowned waffles on the table.

“Oh,” I started, locking my phone, “I’m just, uh, mulling over an algebra problem for tomorrow.”

It was the wrong lie. Su-Bin perked up. “Oh yeah? I tutored middle-and-high schoolers back before college. I could probably teach you some tricks.” She cut into her waffle, took a gigantic bite, then struggled to chew while I snorted at her.

“That’d…that’d be great,” I said between laughs. It really would be, too. I’d been meaning to ask her once everyone fell into a routine. “You can come over to my place sometime. You help me, and it’ll get you out of your dorm room for a while.”

“Oh, thank fucking god!” Su-Bin exclaimed. “My roommate has a boyfriend, and she keeps having him over. I think they’re grosser than normal to get me to leave. The problem is that it’s working.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, boys, right?”

“Honestly, I don’t mind him. But she’sdriving me insane!”

I listened to Su-Bin vent about her shared space for a while while I ate. Then, when she wound down, I cleared my throat. “Are your classes really empty today?”

“I mean, yeah, it’s Monday. No one goes to early classes on Monday if they’ve been partying. And, from your eye, you had a rough weekend. Let me guess. Ran into a lamp post? Got hit by a frisbee? Those things are menaces! Maybe a rogue scooter ran into you?”

“No,” I laughed. “Even for Monday, though, it feels weird for half my post-Launch Day history class to be missing.”

“Half on the second week? That seems like a lot,” Su-Bin said. She ate another gigantic bite of waffles.

“Yeah. I mean, we’re just talking about stuff everyone knows, so maybe they figure they don’t need to be there for it?” I hadn’t read the syllabus all the way through, but the class seemed laid out by unit. The first unit was the nuclear launches, ilneat intervention, and heroic negotiation by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, whose country had disappeared from the map while she watched from space.

“Teaching Assistant Smith cares so much about history, but we’ve all heard it before,” I said. “I want to get to the good stuff we only skimmed or learned from early major league reruns. We’ve all seen the Man vs. Nature Episodes—“

“I haven’t.”

“Really? Mega-Tom vs. The Bees? Soldier of Fortune vs. Grizzly Number Seven? Father Thyme vs. Kudzu-Zilla?” That last one had been wild.

“Nah. I don’t really like superheroes,” Su-Bin said. “But go on.”

I blinked. She’d slapped me. Not, like, across the table, but with her words. How could she not like superheroes!? “Okay. Most of us have seen the Man vs. Nature Episodes or the Power War Saga, but my high school classes just covered up to Launch Day. They said everything after that was either ‘current events’ or ‘ilneat relations,’ and god, that class is boring. So I don’t get why people aren’t interested in what happened after Launch Day.”

“Your high school teachers were right,” Su-Bin said around her waffle. “Everyone lived through post-Launch Day. Teaching Assistant Whatshername is probably the oldest person to think of Man vs. Nature or the Power Wars as history. I mean, I lived through the Second Power Wars in Tokyexico City. I was just a toddler, but I was there.”

I raised an eyebrow and pondered. If I’d been born in Tokyexico or one of the big cities, I’d have grown up watching the Power Wars from my bedroom window, not seeing them on TV. It really was current events, and suddenly, the class’s emptiness made much more sense. I told Su-Bin that, and she nodded.

We chatted for a while about her classes and set up a time tomorrow after Ilneat Relations to tutor me in Algebra, but soon enough, she needed to get going for her pre-calculus class. I finished my soggy cereal and returned to the week’s most important task; finding an Episode.

I could try a pick-up Episode like Fursona had said. If I just traveled nearby, surely some little leaguers would be starting something. But that ran some risks. What if I ran into Playpen Patrol or one of the little kids’ stars doing an Episode? I couldn’t beat toddlers on my way to the minor leagues…could I?

Nope. If I got into that, I’d have to lose, even if they were villains.

I thought about solutions the whole way back to my place to get transformed. And there just…weren’t any safe ones. I really needed an Episode app. Or maybe TUSSA had some resources I could use.

◄▼►

Doctor Jackson paused the Episode with Tapdance mid-move, a collapsing skyscraper behind him. He’d been dancing up a storm, and The Yorkston city center looked terrible. The tremors grew every time his feet hit the ground until the city started tearing apart.

“Today’s lesson is on collateral property damage since that’s something some of us seem interested in causing,” Doctor Jackson said sternly once we’d found our seats. I looked down, embarrassed, but Theseus and Gourmet just grinned. “And on how heroes and villains can use their codes of ethics to minimize it. Tapdance is a good example of why heroes need codes of ethics as much as villains. Now, let’s watch the villain in this scene—because, believe it or not, Tapdance is the hero here.”

She pressed play.

The villain catapulted in on a ridiculously oversized dirt bike. “Tapdance, stop!” As the rider skidded to a stop, asphalt and dirt shot everywhere. The bike’s tires seemed to shred everything they touched.

“No! You’ll tear this city apart, Outrider! I have to stop you!”

“Look around you! The city’s gone! You ruined everything! You ruined my home!” Outrider shouted. She revved her engine and shot straight toward Tapdance. As she flew past, she grabbed the hero and pulled him off his feet.

“Stop! Breaking! Yorkston!”

Tapdance tried to get to his feet, but Outrider turned her dirt bike every time and flipped him away from the ground. She drove between half-ruined buildings, carefully avoiding whatever undamaged bits of the city she could.

Doctor Jackson pushed pause.

“Tapdance had no code of ethics. With a Power like his, one that’s a city-leveler, he desperately needed one. Conversely, Outrider had always been a minor leaguer. But her code of conduct forced her to limit collateral damage—an important thing when her Power shreds whatever she rides over. Why did she include that in her code?”

“Because she didn’t wanna win,” Theseus said, kicking back in his armchair. “Duh.”

“Theseus, you’re being a Theseu-ass,” Fursona said. Gourmet snorted key-lime yogurt out her nose.

Doctor Jackson stared at Theseus and Fursona until they both had the courtesy to at least look ashamed. Then she cleared her throat. “Anyone else?”

“Wasn’t Outrider a local villain? A minor leaguer in the Yorkston area?” Punch asked.

“Yeah, she would have had an incentive to keep her hometown as intact as possible. I mean, she couldn’t rule over a shattered wasteland, could she?” The Crumb added. “If I were in a position to take over Tokyexico, I wouldn’t want it burned down.”

“Correct. In comparison, Tapdance didn’t have a home. He was a wandering hero, one of the Ronin heroes after Launch Day whose homes weren’t salvageable—or at least weren’t salvaged. Still, if he’d had a code of conduct and followed it here, both his path and Outrider’s would have been much different. They switched sides after this Episode. Outrider’s actions prevented billions in damage, and Tapdance had proven he was willing to go too far.

“Now, consider property in your codes of conduct—but remember, if you can save a life or you can save an empty building, always choose the life. Break.”

We all dragged the La-Z Boys into a circle. “Anyone else get the feeling this lesson’s aimed at you, Theseus?” Fursona asked.

“Shut up,” Theseus said. “Alright, by right of conquest, I declare myself president of this group. And my first decree is we’re actually working on this assignment this time.”

“Whatever, Theseu-ass,” Gourmet said. “That was brilliant, by the way. You may have been a pushover during the Episode, Wombat, but at least you’ve got banter down.”

“Enough,” President Theseus said. He crossed his arms. “You two heroes. What do you think?”

“Uh, don’t…break stuff?” Fursona asked. When we laughed, they crossed their paws over their pouch and pouted.

“No, that won’t work,” I replied. “Look at Theseus. Based on last night, he hasto break stuff to use his power. And I broke a lot of stuff in my finale Episode with Professor Panic, so even heroes need some flexibility.”

“Don’t forget I eat stuff,” Gourmet said.

“Yeah, and Gourmet eats stuff. I hope that wrestling doublet gave you a stomachache!” I said.

“Didn’t feel a thing. I have guts of iron!”

“Ladies, marsupials, can we please focus?” Theseus asked, scowling.

“Okay, okay, what if we put in somewhere that we avoided nonessential property damage and tried to save structures when we can?” I asked. “That’d give us flexibility.”

“But then we’re right back to the Mister Felsic problem,” Theseus said.

I groaned. We were four class periods into Superpower Ethics, and our code of conduct was going nowhere!

Code of Conduct: September 4

• We will not endanger harm threatenendanger civilians Extras needlessly

• Destruction of non-government residential non-corporate/non-government property is to be kept to a minimum not necessary not okay

• Medical Extras are off limits. Healing heroes should only be targeted if involved in the fighting are a low priority target are not a target unless they directly engage

• Property damage must have a point be for a purpose be directly related to the Episode’s goals

◄▼►

Fursona sprawled across the chaise lounge in my secret base/dressing room, tossing a bouncy ball up in the air and catching it with both paws over and over. “So, are we finding an Episode? There’s gotta be a short out there with our name on it.”

“I think we need to find Honeycomb,” I said.

“What? But she’s gotta be the weakest hero in Tokyexico!”

<Magical Girl Honeycomb is currently five hundred and second out of five hundred twenty-three. She outranks you by three places right meow, Fursona.> Tails said. I repeated it so Fursona could hear.

“Really? That’s some bullshit!” Fursona stood up. “How does she outrank me?”

<She’s been superheroing for almost three years. Her growth rate is slower than yours, Understudy, but without the small-town excuse.>

“That hurts, Tails,” I said jokingly. Then I shook my head. “No, we don’t need her for her strength. We need to help her find and beat Jumper, and we need to do it in the next two-and-a-half days. Otherwise, we’re out of time.”

“So, we find Honeycomb, she helps us find Jumper, and we beat the snot out of her the next time she tries an Episode?” Fursona nodded slowly and moved their neck like they were cracking it. The sound they made came from the modulator, though. What a goober!

“I’m in. Let’s go find Honeycomb.”

◄▼►