Part 7
I mentally reviewed the outline of the differences I'd picked up for our world studies project. I'd found some really good stuff, kinda basic and rushed, but it was only day one right?
Certainly doing better than my personal 'superhero' project anyway. I hadn't even finished my costume and I almost blew it already.
Gah... this was going to be even harder than I thought it was wasn't it? I hadn't exactly been low balling it in the first place either...
At least practice went well. Translating technical knowledge to actual skill was going to take a while, but it was a big help. If I kept at it and managed not to get caught before I was ready, I might actually build myself up to something approaching a useful level in only a couple of weeks.
The main issue was going to be dialing my powers back from 'weak but lethal' to something a lot more suitable for incapacitation. I had ideas for that. There was a spellcaster's trick called 'spell pulling' that could let you render the formalized magic of wizards and sorcerers nonlethal at the cost of about half its impact. Turning the 'wasted' energy into a sort of... buffer. A lot of it was a conceptual thing that honestly didn't really make sense outside of magic. Flames that should ignite and consume instead just... well 'baked and lightly charred' came to mind. It still hurt, but you lived through it with little to no permanent damage. It let someone good at the more 'blasty' end of magic kick the crap out of someone without crippling them or leaving them buried in the ground.
Which was good, because as a Warlock I was a lot more limited in my selection of arcane tricks and most were of the 'blasty' type.
The issue was, that even adapting the technique to my stuff... I couldn't really afford to lose half my impact against people with my attacks as weak as they were.
Luckily there was a trick for that... which... I... really should not be focusing on right now.
Damn it, why did this stuff have to be so awesome?
Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I took the rest of the way to school at a jog. It would be good physical conditioning, and well.. I was kind of late enough already.
Not too late to grab another coke at the cafeteria before heading to the front office to check in though. The grouchy looking secretary sitting there giving me a blank, disapproving look as I signed in.
Yeesh dude. He didn't have to assume I was just skipping for the hell of it. I mean I kind of was, but still.
A thought hit, with all the gang activity in Winslow... okay yeah now it was making a bit more sense. That was probably as much 'chastisement' as he could actually give to most people actually. Never knew when some dumb kid wearing colors would actually try and live down to the shit he was talking.
Maybe when I finally reached a workable level I could patrol a bit around the school? Might make people try to act a little more civil... I mean people would do the math fast and figure out I was a student quickly, but...
I grimaced. Bright red hair wasn't exactly common in the mostly blond Brockton Bay. If you also factored in my build, that would narrow shit down a lot.
Maybe I should invest in a wig? Or at least put more work into getting a helmet. Not the most heroic looking yeah, but better scary than dead right?
And I was letting my head get sucked into superheroing again. Shit.
School work! Glorious school! How wondrous and magnificent that I could not help be but enraptured by thee?
I let out a groan of frustration as I made my way to my locker and started separating stuff out. I just needed to go find my lab partner and get stuff done. Then I'd have all of drama to worry about the important stuff.
The bell rung.