Chapter Seven
Screaming Muscles
I'm not sure it ever occurred to me how much exercise was involved in training to become a superhero. I mean, I knew you had to be, like, not out of shape and stuff. But I never really thought about doing any of the work until I actually, you know, had to.
It was three weeks since I received my acceptance letter and I was on my brand new morning run. Almost every morning since I got the letter, I've come out and started running about a mile to build my cardio. I'm not sure how effective it was, but I've also started working on my diet and lifting weights. I think I was noticing improvement, but no amount of improvement will make up for how drained I feel after every workout. I'm also constantly sore, like every fibre of muscle in me is crying. I'm really not sure if that's normal, I've never done exercise like this before.
After what seemed like hours, my run came full circle back to my house and I basically threw water at my face, hoping enough would get into my mouth I wouldn't die of dehydration.
"God damn it…" I whispered to myself. Like I said, this exercise thing was pretty new to me, so all of this had me questioning whether I really wanted to go through with it. The internet said that the beginning would be the hardest part, so I kinda hoped I'd have gotten used to it in the few days I've been running. In hindsight, it wasn't even close.
I groaned as I sat down on my porch steps, checked my pulse, and looked at the Fitbit the school gave me as a tool to monitor my workouts. I'm not sure what I was doing but I'd seen it and movies and didn't wanna look like I didn't know what I was doing. All I knew was my heart was beating like crazy and the watch picked up on it. After verifying that I was indeed out of shape, I continued with my workout and grabbed an old jump rope to help keep building cardio.
This was the start of about four months of training on my own before school started in August. Like I said, if I wanted to become a hero I needed to start about six months ago. But I guess the second best time is now. Three weeks ago I forced myself to get out of bed at five in the morning to stretch, run, and otherwise build my cardio, and then in the evenings I'd do push ups, crunches, and attempt pull ups.
Really, though, all of this was kind of futile if I didn't learn to fight. I'd been in fights before, if you could call them at. Let me tell you, I'm an expert at getting my ass kicked, so I'm not a stranger to taking a hit, but I honestly never learned to throw a punch. One week ago, I started looking at options in my city for martial arts classes. There were almost too many to choose from, so I narrowed my options with a bit of research about what fighting styles some heroes use and which are the most practical. I landed on a few different classes that taught Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga, Judo, Aikido, and oddly enough boxing, which I really didn't know was a style. There were less of those than, say karate, but apparently it's not that practical in real life, which basically means Karate Kid was a bunch of bullshit and I was lied to. All of these classes seemed to be adequate for what I wanted to learn, so after another week of doing my new workout, I decided to go downtown and talk to the people running the classes about me joining.
The first few classes I entered seemed promising. I stayed and watched some sessions and was greeted by the instructors, but when I told them about my being quirkless, I was turned away immediately. They seemed to just outright have a policy that you needed a quirk to join the class. At first, I was convinced I'd find a class that would accept me eventually, but after I visited a Kali class, which I'd never even heard of, but I was getting desperate, I decided to do a bit of research, where I struck gold on an MMA gym near me that offered classes on a variety of different fighting styles, taught by someone I knew would have to accept me.
I basically sprinted over, but when I entered the place was dark and looked like everyone had left, so I wandered into what looked like an office. Nobody was in, but when I was about to leave a note with my phone number, I heard yelling from upstairs and something falling onto the floor with a thud. I backed out of the office and spied a concrete stairwell across the room that contained a boxing ring and an octagon similar to what you'd see in the UFC. I lightly jogged over to the stairs and took them two at a time, eager to talk to the owner. I came to the top of the stairs and saw a big red door, which I opened and came face to face with the man I came to see.
"Who the hell are you?" He asked. I had to crane my neck to see him, but he looked exactly how I remembered. At the moment, he was wrapping his hands in tape, and he looked pissed, but I was still smiling at him.
"I'm Emmet. I'm here to ask about taking a class here?" I said, the same line I'd been rehearsing in my head all day.
"I'm not taking students. Get out." The man said.
"I thought you might say that, but I have money and-"
"I'm especially not taking in entitled brats who barge in off the streets wanting to learn martial arts like a game and show off." He said sternly. Ouch. That kind of hurt.
"I know you." I said desperately, before he kicked my ass down the stairs. "And I know you know me. Your name is Nathan Lee, you're forty-five, your quirk makes your bones extremely dense so they can't be broken and you're extremely strong, and you were friends with my dad, Charlie Blake."
I hadn't seen him since I was a toddler. He helped my mom get back on her feet after my dad died. He was also who helped my dad train to become a hero, when he was trying for that. As soon as I said that, the look on his face turned from what you'd see on a total stranger's face, to what you'd see on an old friend's.
"It's good to see you, Emmet, but I'm still not taking new students. I can put in a good word for you at-" Nathan said, scratching the back of his head.
"I'm not going to another class, I need you to teach me." I argued. "You, who knows what it means to be a hero and what it takes to become one. I know my dad couldn't become a hero, he didn't make it, but I'm already one step further than he was. I'm not gonna be the strongest, or the fastest, I'm not gonna be the best at any of this, I won't even be close, but that's exactly why I need to work twice as hard. Everyone tells me I can't do it, if you teach me I'll be one step closer to proving them wrong and doing what my dad couldn't do. I need to become a hero, so I need to learn to fight and hold my own, and I need you to show me how."
Nathan paused.
"I also have money." I finished. Nathan smiled and turned around.
"You're a little asshole, you know?" Nathan laughed. "Just like your dad."
I smiled.
"Soooo…?" I asked as I took a step forward.
"Step into the dojo." Nathan told me. I jumped into the air and pumped my fists.
"Bitchin'!" I exclaimed. "Thank you so much, man."
"Okay, first of all watch your mouth in the dojo." Nathan said as he grabbed a pair of gloves and some bandages. I nodded. "Second, you will call me Sensei Lee."
I furrowed my brows, but nodded again.
"Third, don't thank me yet, I haven't taught you anything. You're your dad's kid, which means that you may have inherited what I like to call the 'little bitch' gene. You said you're working twice as hard as everyone else, you better make damn sure you are or you are out of here."
"Yes, Sensei, I thought you said watch your mouth." I asked.
"Do as I say, not what I do." He threw me a pair of gloves and some bandages, which landed at my feet. "This isn't gonna be easy. I'm gonna give you a few rolls of those bandages and show you how to wrap yourself up. This is going to be very intense on parts of your body you don't usually use, and those offer support to those areas."
"Okay… Isn't Sensei usually used for like, karate instructors and stuff?" I asked as I picked up the stuff he gave me.
"I guess. I've just always wanted a student to call me Sensei." He was a lot more joke-y than I thought he'd be. I imagined he'd be more gruff and hardened.
"Are we going to do a lesson today?" I asked as he threw me a roll of red tape.
"Yep." I suddenly realized how terrified I was when my stomach started rolling with anxiety. "I'm going to show you some things today and then on Wednesday you're going to come here after school for your next lesson. In fact, you'll be coming in every Wednesday, Friday, and Monday."
"Oh…" I muttered. "Alright."
After rummaging through some things around the dojo for a little bit, he came back to me with a padded helmet I see used sometimes for stuff like this. He placed it on the floor next to me and held up the roll of tape in front of me before kicking my foot.
"Shoes off." I did as he said and kicked my shoes away. "I'm going to put this tape on your hands and wrists so that it compresses the bones and tissues so you don't break yourself."
He grabbed my left hand and demonstrated how to wrap my hands and then had me to my right hand. He seemed satisfied and then told me to put the pair of gloves on. They were fingerless and padded, but I felt goofy in them. It wasn't helped at all when he put the helmet on me.
"Don't they make you wear mouth guards for sparring?" I asked.
"Usually. I don't have any." He patted my shoulder and motioned for me to follow him onto the mat, where he sat me down to show me how to wrap my arms and legs. After he did that, he helped me up and got into a fighting stance I hadn't seen before. His weight was on his back leg and he leant backwards slightly, and his front leg was raised up, so only his tip toes were on the mat. Then his guard came up, with his fists above his head and his forearms and elbows in front of his face. "Square up."
"Uhh-"
"Do a fighting pose." I nodded and put up my guard like I'd seen in movies and planted my feet. "Try to hit me."
I hesitated, but took a step forward and got ready to throw a fist. Before I even knew what was happening, Nathan had me on the ground. I didn't even process what had happened. I hit the mat hard, but the padding kept me from being taken out of commission.
"What the f-" I started.
"Language." Nathan interrupted and stood up. "If I wanted to, I could have you in a choke hold, but that was just a demonstration. That was Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, specifically that move was an outside sweep takedown."
He helped me get up and then proceeded to show me exactly how he did it, and then proceeded with showing me some more beginner stuff.
I got home late that evening, covered in so many bruises my mom thought I'd been in another fight. I told her about having signed up for classes with Nathan, which calmed her nerves, but I could tell she was getting anxious about me learning to fight. I explained to her that I was going to stay safe, and that when school did start up, they'd teach me even more. This was just the beginning of me being able to protect myself against many different types of opponents with different quirks.
That night, I showered and headed to bed early so I could squeeze in my run before school the next day, but it proved more difficult than anticipated. I was excited to continue training with Nathan tomorrow. I'd never been excited to work out before, but I was starting to acclimate to it, little by little. I could feel my stamina increasing, and my weights started to feel lighter, even if only a little. I got excited that this would pan out, and I'd be ready by August to start the real training they'd make me do at school. For the first time in a while, I believed in myself.
But I didn't get too excited. I remembered the whole reason I started this journey. I've got a job to do.
As I expected, the next few months of my life were basically hell. Just when I'd get adjusted to a training regimen, Nathan would switch it up on me and give me a new schedule. Lucky for me, though, I'd kept to my daily morning run almost every day and slowly they extended. I started at a mile, which seemed nearly impossible for the first few weeks, but now I'd run at least five kilometers every morning. For the first time in my life I didn't wind myself walking up stairs, I could run a mile hardly thinking about it. I'd also lost about thirty pounds, replacing a lot of my more chubby areas with muscle that I'd never had before. I still wore baggy clothes, so no one could really tell, but it made me feel a whole lot better.
My classes with Nathan had me improve a fair bit too, and they were the cause of a lot of my improvements. As time went on, he'd kick my ass, sure, but he'd kick my ass a lot less worse. I knew how to fight back a lot better and some of the stuff that I couldn't even come close to doing was just second nature. I was more athletic than I'd ever been, but I was still more average than most people I know that I'd consider athletic, after all it'd only been four months. Four months to anyone else would probably be nothing, but to me it was astronomical.
The rest of the school year passed without much incident. I got picked on just as much, but Nathan told me not to use any of the stuff I learned on them. I was kinda angry about that, but I learned to live with it and they eventually got bored of me because I wouldn't get physical with them. I hung out with Deacon a lot less too, and eventually we just drifted apart. I spent the last few months of eighth grade alone a lot. Sonja never reached out either. I don't know if I really wanted her to. On the last day of school in May, I was happy that I could maybe put the rest of my school years behind me and start fresh, which is exactly what I did.
It was Monday, August twenty fourth at this point, two days before school started, and it was time to visit the school, meet my teachers, and get acquainted with the campus. Because of this, I'd met with Nathan early in the morning to do my lessons. After which, he bought us both breakfast and we ate in his office. I mean, I say ate, he got us both protein shakes. I've had a lot of those in the past few months.
"I'm proud of you, kid." Nathan told me as he rose his protein shake like a glass for a clink. I clinked him and laughed. "I'm serious. Your dad and I used to train like this all the time, I taught him everything he knew."
"My mom said he was too soft to fight." I said after a long sip from my shake.
"Oh he was." Nathan laughed and shook his head. "He sucked at it. He was enthusiastic, he just never really wanted to hurt anyone."
"What was he like?" I asked. My mom had always told me about him, but I'd never heard from anyone who wasn't her. Nathan pointed at me.
"A lot like you. He came into my dad's gym when he was about, ehhhh, a year younger than you are now." Nathan told me. "He told me that he was gonna be an amazing hero like Zero Man, or Zip Guy, something like that. I'm not very into heroes myself. I was new to this whole thing, maybe twenty one. My dad didn't wanna teach this weird thirteen year old how to punch people, so I did. He was super into it, knew all of the techniques, he just wasn't the best at doing them. He really just wanted to help people. I loved him. Knew him for eleven years. Miss him every day."
"Yeah, me too." I said, even though I never really knew him.
"You really are a lot like him. You got the same look in your eyes he did. You walk the same, you talk the same. He'd be proud of you." Nathan said, smiling. He then checked his watch and sat up in his chair. "You gotta go, it's nine, your thing is at ten."
I downed the last of my protein shake and stood up to leave.
"I'll see you on Wednesday, Sensei." I hollered back as I left the gym, faint tears rolling down my face. I jogged home and found my mom in the car waiting for me with all of my things I'd packed in the back seat to be brought into my dorm from the night before. I hopped into the front seat and we headed to the school.
It was silent most of the way there, and then my mom broke the silence.
"I talked to Nathan the other day." She said. "He told me you were improving a lot."
"Yep." I said. I'm not sure mom was really as supportive as she seemed to be before I'd actually gotten into Pathfinder. It felt like she almost didn't actually want me to go. I tried to talk to her about it once, but she got mad at me, so I haven't pushed it.
The ride was silent the rest of the way. The school wasn't quite attached to Imperium, but it was close. It was an older building that Imperium didn't use anymore, and I could see the dorms were also unattached to Imperium's. Pathfinder had its own individual fields for sports and training, which were smaller, but seemed just as functional. The dorms for my school were housed in a long two story brown brick building with dark tinted windows, surrounded by trees. It almost looked like an old doctor's office, or maybe an office building. Outside of the dorms was a small parking lot, unattached from Imperium's, which was much larger. In the lot were about twenty-ish cars, and there were a few kids about my age with their parents getting out of them and shaking that weird scruffy man's hand I saw at the entrance exam.
"This looks nice." My mom said, trying to sound peppy, as we pulled into a parking space next to a kid my age with huge blue bird wings on his back and feathers for hair. I tried to open the door, but I accidentally hit his wing.
"I'm sorry." I said. He smiled.
"Don't worry about it, man." He said as he walked around the car with who I assumed was his dad and up to the man, who motioned for them to walk into the dorms. I guess he was a classmate. It was also weird for someone to talk to me and not be super weird towards me. I felt fresh. But also stinky. I wish I'd changed out of my workout clothes. I was wearing basketball shorts, compression tights, and my shirt that I'd been sweating in all morning.
I waited for my mom to get out of the car and I walked slightly ahead of her to the man from the entrance exam, who was dressed in a suit that seemed cobbled together. The pants were clearly a size too big for him and his jacket was unbuttoned. Not only that but his tie was hastily put on, and his shirt was untucked.
"Emmet, I remember you from the exam!" He exclaimed, holding out his hand for a handshake. He sounded just as gravelly as he did the last time I saw him, but much less angry. I shook his hand and stepped aside so my mom could do the same. "I'm Brutus, I'll be your homeroom teacher this year."
"Can you tell me a bit more about this school?" My mom asked Brutus, who turned to her.
"Hey, I'm gonna go check out the dorms, I'll see you in a minute." I said to my mom as I walked into the building. She gave me a weak smile and kept talking to Brutus. I sighed and opened the door to the dorm.
Immediately upon opening it I was hit with a wall of cold in the large foyer. There was a large waiting area with couches in the back of the place and hallways on either side of the front door. On the other side of the room on the right side wall was a staircase leading upstairs to another two hallways on either side of the building, and underneath the stairs was a kitchen. I could hear other people in the building, kids my age, and their parents. I walked forward towards the kitchen where there was a guy looking in all the cupboards, no doubt looking to raid it.
"Sup." I said nervously to him. He looked around the cupboard and smiled a goofy, toothy grin. He was very tan and had sandy colored hair that matched with his outfit, a sleeveless shirt, board shorts, and flip flops.
"Hey, man!" He grabbed my hand and shook it. "I'm Tanner."
His energy was infectious, it made me smile too.
"Emmet." I responded. All at once, any sort of stress I had faded away. If everyone was as nice as him and the bird guy were, this would be a breeze.
"Have you seen the dorms yet?" Tanner asked as he unwrapped a granola bar and took a huge bite out of it. "They're pretty cool, I didn't know we'd have to share, but they're still alright."
"No, I haven't yet, I just got here." I admitted. Tanner finished the granola bar and offered me one. I declined. He ate that one too.
"You wanna go see them? The boy's ones are upstairs." Tanner told me, gesturing above us. I nodded, following him as he walked to the stairs with a spring in his step. We walked past the bird guy when we came out of the kitchen and he nodded at me, so I nodded back. "So what's your quirk, man?"
Tanner asked as we walked up the stairs and passed a really cute girl with red hair, who looked at me and smiled, making me extremely nervous.
"Uhhh, don't have one." I said, louder than intended. Tanner looked back at me when he got to the top of the stairs, mouth agape. I was prepared to hear him laugh at me, but he didn't.
"You can probably kick my ass up and down the block if you got in here without a quirk, and I thought I was cool. You're a badass." Tanner told me and led me over to the boys dorms, which were marked with pieces of paper indicating who was staying where. There were a lot more rooms than there were students, so the hallway stretched a lot longer than it needed to, and the hallways on the other sides of the building were completely empty. I paused before following him. I was still kind of processing what I'd heard, but I snapped out of it quickly when a girl spoke almost directly into my ear.
"You're blocking the stairs." I jumped about a foot into the air and stepped to the side to allow the girl to pass. She was much shorter than me, and wore extremely dark clothes, a black hoodie, black shorts, black fishnet leggings, and studded combat boots.
"I'm Emmet." I blurted out without thinking. She eyed me up and down, which made my heart nearly stop.
"Amy." She trotted down the stairs and basically threw open the door to the outside, where she met with a guy she kissed on the cheek and walked away with.
"Emmet, I found your room!" I heard from down the hall. Tanner poked his head out of a door and ushered me over. I hesitated for a second, looking out the window, before walking down the hall to Tanner. I walked past a few rooms with more of my classmates and their parents, all of which seemed to be ten steps ahead of me and decorating their rooms. When I got into my room, Tanner was talking with another boy, presumably my roommate, who was pulling things out of boxes. "I don't know, I'm more of a Golden Titan guy myself. Captain Celebrity is too much of a boy scout."
Tanner was in the middle of a conversation, which must have been spurred on by a Captain Celebrity poster my roommate hung on the wall.
"I really don't know how you can say that." My roommate said, nodding at me when I walked in. "Golden Titan is a douche, do you remember the time he created an AI that almost destroyed the world?"
"Yeah, but then he stopped it." Tanner argued.
"With the help of Captain Celebrity and the Iron Legion." My roommate continued. Tanner scoffed.
"What do you think, Emmet?" Tanner asked. I shrugged.
"I'm more of an Ultraviolet Nightmare guy." Tanner looked satisfied with that answer.
"Ultraviolet Nightmare is cool, but after his fight with Velvet Buzzsaw I really lost interest." My roommate said. "I'm James, by the way."
"Emmet." I said to him. Tanner then stepped forward and walked to the door.
"I need to finish putting all my stuff in my room, I'll talk to you guys later." He said on his way out. I suddenly remembered I had to do the same thing, so I told James and exited the building and headed to the car. My mom was still taking to Brutus so I asked her for the car keys and grabbed my boxes.
When I was closing the door and holding the boxes, however, I noticed across the parking lot some yelling. I looked over and saw Amy from earlier step out of an old Camaro and slam the door, followed by the guy she left with getting out of the driver side and slamming his door. I heard them argue, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. After a few seconds, Amy walked off and he got into his car and sped away. The whole thing left me feeling uneasy, but I couldn't exactly drop everything and check on her, so I carried my things back inside.
But that wasn't the worst of things. On my way in, I noticed a very familiar bright red Hummer at the opposite end of the parking lot. Shivers ran down my spine as the headlights flashed at me, as if whoever was inside knew I was seeing them. And that's when I knew Voss really wasn't done with me.
And that's my longest chapter yet. I busted this out in about two days after having a huge bout of writers block and a huge storm that knocked out power in most of my state for about a week, but I think it paid off. If you liked it, tell me what you thought and I'll respond to your reviews. This is the start of the school year and where things are gonna get very interesting, so make sure to follow and favorite, I promise I've got big plans. Also! If anyone reading this may be interested in being my beta reader, I'd really love to hear from you, so PM me if you'd like.
