Chereads / Era of Oddities / Chapter 11 - Outmatched

Chapter 11 - Outmatched

Ah, so a few of them noticed, huh? Not bad, not bad. This is the first time I've decided to do a test like this before. I'd like to see who already has good training and reflexes, to see how the recruits respond to emergencies. It looks like forty people noticed the situation on the busses, and five of those kids realized something was wrong at the initiation meeting place.

I set up a bunch of suspicious figures standing in the halls around where everyone is gathered, and then waited. Most people are just bored, waiting for me to make my appearance and welcome everyone, but a few decided to investigate. All of the people in the halls have been 'apprehended' by the students, and we've already taken those students to a separate room. I guess it's time that I make my appearance and begin the initiation, since that trial's been taken care of-

CRASH! Looking at the surveillance cameras, I see that one of the giant glass panes has been broken. However, there doesn't appear to be anyone outside the window, just a giant cloud. Surprisingly enough, though, there isn't any glass raining down on the students inside the dome. I rewind the security cameras a couple minutes, and watch the footage. I see a girl spinning in lazy circles in the air looking at the sky through the dome, being closely watched by Eagle, who appears to have noticed that something different is happening this year. Then, the girl stops. She looks at the dome, and tenses up. After that, she quickly calls down to Eagle and breaks the window, with Eagle appearing to be stuck in some sort of box.

I rewind the footage to see what the girl saw, thinking it was nothing because none of the pro heroes below saw anything. However, to my surprise, I see a quick flash in the sky. It only lasted a second, and I almost missed it. I slow down the footage, and pause it when I see the shadows pass by again. It looks like there's three of them, and they're flying towards the Iron plate on the glass dome where nobody can see them.

I'm impressed that this girl saw them. Even if she was looking straight at the sky, even most pro heroes wouldn't have noticed them. However, that feeling quickly faded when I took in the situation. None of the pros know that she's out there, and for whatever reason, she's restricting Eagle. These people are definitely dangerous villains, considering they know the location of the campus. This was not part of the drill, she could die right here and I can't do anything about it. If I send out the pros, everyone will panic and that will only make the situation worse. All I can do is sit here and hope that she can survive this encounter and protect everyone in the room below. I guess we'll just have to see how she handles it.

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I take a look at the people standing across from me as they turn to where I'm standing with  shocked looks on all their faces. There's three of them, one girl and two boys. They look like they're in their early twenties, all wearing black clothes. The girl has long dark black hair swooped to one side, revealing an undercut on the side of her head. One of the boys has short purple hair that swoops to the side nicely, while the other one has long straight blonde hair that is covering part of his face.

"Well, well, well look what we have here. Is this little girl really all the school could send out to stop us?" The purple hair guy recovers from his initial shock, and addresses his teammates with a mocking tone.

"Yeah, this is gonna be a piece of cake to deal with." The girl stares at me, trying to take me in. The blonde dude doesn't say anything, just nods in agreement, standing up from where he was cutting the hole in the iron. It doesn't look like he has a tool, so it must have been his oddity.

"Wait bro, don't you think it's weird that none of the people down below are reacting at all? Could it be that she was the only one who noticed us and didn't say anything to anyone?" The girl appears to have finished looking over me, and is now observing the situation before."

"You're right, maybe she's a rebel?"

"Either way, she's probably just a student. There's no way she can take us down."

"Mhm." That was the blonde dude again, he still hasn't said a word.

"Damn you, stop talking like I'm not even here!" I barely moved, still sitting relaxed on the cloud. I said that so aggressively that the villains had to look around to make sure someone else didn't say it.

"Wow, somebody's ballsy." Honestly, his hair kinda reminds me of a radish.

"I've had a rough day, I'm in a bad mood, and I don't feel like saving all of those stupid heros down there, but the students don't deserve to be put in harms way so here I am. I don't even wanna hear it radish top."

"Hahaha, she called you a radish! I like her, can we keep her?"

"Why? She's still one of the chosen, there's no way she doesn't wanna be here you idiot. Everyone wants to be chosen."

"Shut up. I don't know why people want to be chosen, the heroes just take us away without consent to spend our lives saving people and facing death everyday without a choice. Why would anyone want that?"

"Wow, she's crazy. No wonder she came out here without backup."

"Damn you, you don't know what I've been through."

"Woah, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"How could I kiss someone who's dead?" Everyone goes quiet after that last remark, the last shred of lightness in the conversation gone in an instance. 

The girl whistles. "Whoo, looks like she's been through some stuff, huh? She'd be a perfect addition to the team!" Blondie sighs, and gives a look at the girl that says 'again'? 

"We're surrounded by heroes, and they wouldn't let a new recruit be taken by villains."

"But nobody seems to know she's up here!"

"We don't even know if she'll be useful at all! So far she's only talked smack, but she hasn't done anything to us yet."

"Point taken and thrown out the window."

"Look, we just have to take her out and focus on the mission."

"But wouldn't it be good to-" I nearly knocked her off the side of the building, but the guy raises his hands and makes a portal that catches her and brings her back to where they're standing on the ceiling.

"I'm right here, stop talking like you can decide my fate just like that!"

"Damn you, you almost knocked her right off the building!"

"Your point?" As we talk, I begin building up a small ball of wind with the force of a tornado behind the portal dude. I can't trap the villains if he can just warp them out of the way.

"You could've killed her!"

"Dude, calm down, she didn't kill me, so it's all cool."

"You're too laid back."

"I can't help it with such a cutie standing right in front of me."

"Aw, so glad you think I'm cute. Anyways, what do we do about her?"

"Not you, numskull! I was talking about her! The blonde guy sighs, and then goes back to melting the iron panel. I can't let this keep going. I smash the ball of wind into the back of the radish's head, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. He begins to fall, but the girl lunges to catch him, reacting faster than any normal human possibly could.

"Damn, I almost killed him. He talks too much."

"Sorry, but I guess now I have to kill you. The girl said, her black beanie falling off as cat ears emerge from her head and claws and fangs grow larger than before, making them noticeable. I guess she's got a mutation oddity. This explains how she reacted so fast, I'm assuming she has the speed, flexibility, and reaction time of a cat. She leaps at me, trying to catch me off guard. I spin out of the way, but as she falls through the air, she wraps her tail around my leg, pulling me off my cloud.

Shoot. I can fly, but that would mean I'd have to save her, too. I try to knock her off me as we're falling through the air, but she hangs on tight and flips her body onto my back, claws driving into my shoulders. Ouch. That hurts. I react internally to the pain, expression neutral on the outside.

"Nya, that was such a boring reaction. Normally people scream when I cut them. That's a shame." Stupid feline. I catch us with a gust of wind, with her biting my neck violently, claws digging deeper into my shoulders. I shoot us upward, and begin to spin wildly in circles. I can handle it, since I've been doing it my whole life, but she isn't quite used to it. I see her eyes start to spin, and her face grows pale. She eventually falls off, claws and teeth tearing my flesh on the way down.

"Damn pussy cat, that hurts like hell." As she plummeted back towards the dome, blonde reaches out and catches her by the tail.

"NYAA!" He grunts and pulls her back in. "That hurt idiot!" He still doesn't say anything, just sets her down, motions for her to stay put and watch Radish Head, who's still unconscious, then turns toward me. He lifts both his palms, and shoots a hot red beam out of his hands. I dodge by a millimeter, the beam burning part of my ear. As I'm recovering, he sends another beam towards me, shooting far faster than I was expecting. I didn't have time to fully dodge, so I had to let it hit my leg. It burns through the side of my leg, leaving a big hole there. I'm bleeding a lot, they're way stronger than I can handle. I keep dodging the beams narrowly, but I can't keep going like this.

"Damn it, if I'm going down you are too!