The following day, I was woken up by a loud alarm. I didn't quite remember setting any alarms. I grudgingly stood up and walked to the mirror. I was in a blue dinosaur pyjamas, my eyes swollen due to excess sleep and my face a bit fatter. I sniffled and walked into the bathroom.
I came outside dressed in regular clothing. I headed for the living room. my walking step a testament to my tiredness. I pushed open the door and walked in. There were five people with Aspen and they were about my age. Three girls and two boys. I walked to join them and Aspen received me with an approving smile.
I sat down on one of the three seater chairs that already housed Sasha. Relaxing my back, Aspen stood up to address us.
"It's good to have all si---." He paused while using his gaze to count heads.
"Where's that girl?" A slight curvature in his brows showing slight anger. His aura began to expand choking everyone in the room. For a moment, I actually thought Aspen was just some adult with leadership abilities but with the area he was using to suffocate everyone in the room, he could be among the top strongest heroes.
A soft voice called from the corner where my room was located, "I'm here!"
Aspen mood suddenly changed from anger to excitement in a split second and clenching his fists together he replied warmly, "You're here, Tiana."
She approached us with a high demeanor and for a while the room was quiet as if they were respecting her appearance. She walked to an empty seat and made herself comfortable.
"It's good to have all seven of you gathered as a team, a team carefully assembled by the god of magic." He began, his mood back to normal.
"I believe you understand how many applications have been rejected just to have all seven of you gather here." He reminded.
"First I'd like us to introduce ourselves to Richard Grayson and in return, he'd introduce himself to us." He said holding an excited grin.
"I'm Sasha, I love books and hate staying with the crowd. My best thing to do is beat up people who molest women, nice to meet you Richard!" She ended with a cocky smile and I let out a weak smile.
A boy about my age gave an overconfident smirk, "The name is Ryder, and that's all you need to know."
"My name is Rachel, I'm a master at archery." Another girl said in a formal tone.
"Oh we're doing this." A girl with two hair colours muttered. Although no one heard her but due to my powers of sensing vibrations, I heard. "My name's Alpha-Omega, and yes I know you heard what I said." She could read minds too.
"Name's Finn." A blonde haired boy with a scar that ran across his left eyes said.
Tiana looked around hoping someone else would speak before her and when no one did, she remained mute. There was one other who had essentially refused to talk and had his eyes shut.
"His mane is Eric and her name is Tiana." Aspen said. I already knew her name but thanks to him I know all their names.
"He doesn't talk because of his powers." Aspen explained. I guessed his eyes were shut because of his powers too.
"My name's is Richard, Grayson." I said
"There are rules!" He said and just as he was about to state the rules, an alarm blared. It was a distress alarm from somewhere in the city. While the alarm kept on blaring, a tracer was automatically activated and the location of the distress was immediately tracked. All eight of us walked to the arranged television on the wall. We watched with glee as the tracker did it's work and at once a location was pinned.
I felt a rush of excitement fill me from down below. I stepped back slightly with overconfidence brewing in me.
"What are we waiting for then, let's suit up!" I said calmly.
For some reason, everyone turned to look at me and their looks weren't friendly.
"That alarm that just blared, it signalled a country level threat." Aspen began as we walked back to seat down. I was the one who was mostly disappointed which was evident on my face.
"There are so many threat levels of villains that project on our universe and we have high tech instrument that allows for us to measure them, so we don't send the scouts to the wrong battlefield." He said.
"It starts with town level, up till city level, country level, planetary level, galactic level, cosmic level, universal level, multiversal level, and finally outerversal level." He said and amazement clouded my disappointment.
"Over the years, we haven't had any threat bigger than cosmic level, until last year, when our scale meter suddenly rose to a universal level threat. It was the world reaper, General Eirwen." As soon as he said this, the room turned cold. The screams of my family as they got vaporized filled my ears. As their body got disintegrated slowly, my vision kept seeing them.
With the way the others stared as soon as Aspen mentioned him, I could tell that all of them had their own share of losses. They must have been traumatized the same way I was and had the same goal I had.
"The way he brutally massacred the people of earth, it was..." He paused to observe our faces.
"Anyways, about the outerversal level threat, there hasn't been any. The goddess Elsa on the other hand is believed to scale higher than the outerverse." He said and relaxed back while everyone's faces brightened up. As soon as he made mention of Elsa, my heart raced and my brain began to pick up fragments of memories that didn't seem to form anything. That name sounded familiar.
"Richard!" I was jolted back to reality by a call from Tiana. Everyone's gazes met mine and I sat transfixed to the spot. Everyone had a questioning look.
"What's the problem, Richard?" Aspen asked and I looked at him surprised at the situation. Why did it seem like I was forgetting something or someone. Why couldn't I picture what it was that I'd forgotten.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing. I just--- I just remembered something important." I said and quickly feigned a smile.
"If it's a country level threat, then doesn't that mean we can take it on?" I asked to try to ease up the tension.
"No! according to the authorities, I'm only allowed to let the super seven go into town level and city level only when and if it appears in our location." He replied and I relaxed back to process the information.
"And since the gates opened by General Eirwen the last time has been barely closed, we have more work on our hand than the incredible forces." Tiana added and Aspen gave her an approving look.
While we discussed, we heard a loud bang accompanied by whooshing in the sky. It was the god of Magic. The whooshing was followed by another on land, it was zoom. The incredible forces were already at work. I admired the heroism and courage they had and hoped to one day be the one outside fighting off enemies for the greater good of mankind.
"Once they're done, we need to go outside to collect clues from the ruins of battle." Aspen said and relaxed more, adjusting his position to a better one.
"Why don't we just go now and when they're done, we collect whatever evidence we need." Ryder insisted but Aspen refused.
"He's right, we might learn one or two things if we watch them fight." Tiana chipped in. Her smooth voice sweeping through the silence. Aspen was quiet for a while obviously waiting for another good reason to approve Tiana.
"Besides, we've never been in a real battle before and one day, we'll be taken out into the battlefield but if we go now, it increases out battle experience and makes it easier for us in the future." Rachael added and Aspen sat up slowly.
"No engaging in combat without authorization, no calling out to heroes, it will be regarded as a means of distraction and will be punished for and no taking pictures or videos." A serious tone emerged from Aspen.
"Yess!!" I muttered happily within me while clenching my fist. It was evideny that everyone was also excited.
"Suit up!"
Ever since I chose the path of heroism, I've never been this excited. Since I was young, I always admired the heroes as they whooshed past our cabin, headed to save the day. I would always mimic them and sometimes get injured in the process but that never stopped me. My intentions were clear from the very beginning and after the dark matter waves that granted me my powers, it only sped up the process.
The superjet that took us to the scene of the battle stayed suspended in the air while we skydived into an alleyway. From the looks of the surroundings, everyone had been evacuated. We could hear the sound of fighting in a distance hence we increased our paces to get the full spectacle.
As we walked, I couldn't help but admire everyone's costumes. Mine had been given an upgrade to, my suit could tell a person's power level, it could calculate how much electricity was in my body and how many I was dispensing. It also had the location of every of my teammates. There were other features I couldn't see physically since I wasn't given time to test run it's abilities. I admired the design of my teammates heroic costumes. It was well fitted at it matched their demeanor and aura, like Tiana and alpha-omega who got capes and Finn who had his suit's helmet sewn to the costume. The rest of us only had eye masks.
We finally arrived on scene and the magnificent spectacle welcomed us. All the incredible forces has one thing doing. Their leader, the god of magic was taking out the aliens incoming while zoom and golden wings were taking out the ones that trooped around. Archood, the archer was on a rooftop shooting down the ones that were airborne. Rhea, the one with the cosmic powers had her hand outstretched and was straining to bring them together. My guess, she had her telekinetic grip on both sides of the portal and was going to close it.
While we watched this beautiful fight scene, an airborne alien whooshed into the air and made for the city. Eldon was quick to sight it and because he couldn't abandon his position, he yelled to zoom, "One's headed for the city!!"
Zoom turned back and I did same. I sped into the fight scene and made for the alien on land. As I ran, I looked to my side and saw zoom running on the wall and his gaze was focused on me. I could tell he wasn't expecting to see anyone from the super seven and I too knew I wasn't supposed to be in the battlefield.
He shook his head, disappointed, before making me eat his dust. He sped ahead of the alien miniship and intercepted the alien, turning it to face my direction. I screeched to a stop burning my shoes in process. A warning sign appeared on the screen in the arm of my suit. The antigravity and anti-friction functions in the shit had been damaged due to the opening in my boots. I didn't care, i charged my body and created enough speed to climb a wall. With that, I sped to the closest building to my right and climbed the wall. I ran half way upwards and turned back gathering enough velocity to punch off the alien on the miniship.
The alien was disintegrated by my punch and zoom came to a halt just immediately. He must have enjoyed watching me fight based off his looks. He was impressed.
I heard a loud thud. The god of magic landed heroically in front of me. He had just cleansed the portal and his other teammates wet already making their way towards us.
"You're from super seven!" Eldon's gaze meeting the small "7" logo imprinted on the left side of my suit. My head was down and I was very disappointed in my actions.
"You shouldn't be out here for any reason! What if something had happened? Who would we have blamed?" His voice exuded anger.
"Who let you out of the building?" This time it was curiosity.
"I did!" I heard Aspen's voice from behind.
The heroes made way for Aspen and the team and he stopped a few distance from them.
"They shouldn't be on the battlefield!" Golden wings reminded and Aspen gave her a nonchalant nod.
"They insisted they'd only learn if they watched you fight." He defended.
"Under whose authorization?" Eldon asked and there was silence, his gaze meeting every single member of the team until he turned to me.
"And you--." My heart began to race.
"Shouldn't you be at school?" He asked.
"It's Saturday!" I replied and it dawned on him. He paused for a while obviously thinking of something to do to clear the awkward atmosphere.
With nothing more to say, he flew into the air and made a sky breaking exit leaving a Sonic boom behind. Golden wings spread her wings and with a few flaps, she was lifted into the air.
"Remain obedient." She said obviously to me right before she whooshed away.
"One of these days, I'll race you." Zoom said and sped off without waiting for my response. Rhea rolled her eyes and opened a portal and walked through it.
I was left in awe. I let out a bewildered sigh and turned to meet angry faces staring directly into my soul. If Aspen had a knife, he would skewer me right now.
"I made three rules." He reminded.
"I broke one." I defended and he smacked me hard in the middle of the head and Tiana let out a light chuckle
"You break one, you break all!!" Aspen yelled.
"But that's not the case, you were astounding out here. You were able to fend one alien without getting a scratch." Aspen commended and placed his arm on my shoulder right before grabbing my shoulder blades. I let out a loud cry as pain enveloped my entire body.
"You disobey me one more time and I'll rip out your skeleton!!" He said snd walked slowly away.
I placed my hand on my hurting shoulder and let out a sigh. I raised my head and something sped off the top of a building. I was sure my gaze caught something.
"Guys!" I called out but no response. By the time I looked back, they were already far ahead. I sped to join them.
Aspen bent down to inspect an already dead alien. He had a gasmask on and his entire body was armored. Aspen tore a hole through his clothes to reveal an arm. He brought out the arm and it had a bracelet on it and a tattoo was printed on the back of his palm. It was the tattoo of a dragon.
"A dragon--" I heard Aspen say.
"Is there anything special about it?" Ryder asked but Aspen said nothing.
Just as everywhere was getting to silent, I heard scarlett say, "Guy's, look!"
Her spear was pointed towards something. It was a man, his arms were glowing red.
"The incredible forces have all retired to base." Aspen said and stood up.
"Don't move from here." He commanded and leaped into the sky. The man maneuvered Aspen and in an instant, his grip had me sweeping the ground. He pinned me to a wall and just as he was about to rip my face off, he disappeared. Carried by Aspen into a building, the building collapsed.
There was silence first, then came shockwaves rippling in all directions. At once, Aspen was flung out of the rubble and into the ground with a thunderous thud. The figure calmly flew into the sky and stopped. We assembled ourselves shielding Aspen.
Tiana joined her fists together and her arm was filled with energy. Without hesitation, she flew towards the man suspended in the sky but got caught immediately. He was interrupted by an explosion at his back, Rachael had fired him an explosive arrow, and he let go of Tiana who immediately fired a blue energy beam into his chest. I sped to the other side where I suspected he would land in and charged my fist until it turned red. When he eventually appeared, his back was facing me. I capitalized and punched his back with all the energy I could muster. There was a blackout accompanied by him flying back to where he'd been attacked earlier. Waiting for him was scarlett who had taken a stance, her spear, carrying a reflection of the sun, she threw and out came shockwaves. If I hadn't stayed glued to the ground, I'd have been swept by the massive shockwave it carried.
Just before impact, the masculine figure disappeared and the spear landed behind me, emitting a high amount of energy. Overall, Aspen was impressed. This wasn't what anyone expected but it was worth coming out for. Aspen on the other hand felt as though his opponent had known his fighting style already.
"Let's head back to the tower!" He said.
"There's more to that guy than glowy fists."