Chapter Two or The first day of school...again
As first days go it wasn't that bad, the first guy to pick a fight was annoying more than anything else, and after one beating he left well enough alone, having come from a less hospitable world Thomas was astounded by the plethora of wealth so freely available to the students of this school, free clean water hot and cold, semi private bathing facilities, laundry facilities, hot tasty food in seemingly limitless portions, life in the H.I.V.E. is good!
Thankfully the faculty didn't seem to hold a grudge, of course they also didn't have alot to say either way they seemed all consumed with their duties, they didn't speak, they didn't smile they simply wandered the corridors calmly attending to their duties, which seemed to be cleaning, and general maintenance, repairing the damage that the students seemed to cause whether by accident or by choice, and the students it seemed that the variety was endless, some made of metal or stone, wearing robes or fine suits, some not even resembling humans, for the most part the classes seemed designed to show the students how to make best use of their abilities to commit crimes or to make themselves useful to others who wish to commit crimes, proper methods with which to take and hold a hostage, how to kidnap a target from a high security area.
Of course all of that was to take place after an orientation period, a period of time in which one of the faceless robed figures stood before him with many demanding questions concerning his abilities, their source, their limits and after the question answer portion of the interview came a small stint in a rather fun obstacle course, filled with tread mills and hurdles, and a few combat robots that admittedly caused some small concern for our hero, though that concern vanished when he hauled back and swung a somewhat uncoordinated but very powerful haymaker straight at its midsection and tore the mechanical man rather messily in half, then came the more hazardous portion of the obstacle course a trio of turrets popped out of the wall and started firing with no warning save the sudden flicker motion from the wall panels as they emerged, with reflexes born of experience and augmented synapses, Tom bent left, then right, and flung himself back to handspring to the opposite side of the room overturning a nearby table to use as cover, the turrets proved to be non-lethal as the energy beams failed to penetrate the thin barrier offered by the table, gripping a table leg in each hand he used the handy bit of furniture as mobile cover as he advanced on the wall mounted guns, three hard kicks later the wall turrets returned violently to their housing smoking and sparking in the walls.
Feeling satisfied with his performance he dropped the table and clapped his hands free of the dust and grime that had accumulated on them, the passive look from the robed instructors face however popped a little hole in his confidence balloon, after the introductory test he was ushered into several classes whose primary goal seemed to be infiltration, observation, and security system analysis, the former gave him a great deal of difficulty as laser alarm networks and multi stage triggering systems sounded alot more complicated than saying "the doors alarmed, but the case is alarmed as well". And then there was combat practice, oh glorious combat practice, duckin an dodgin and knocking the heads off robots, a novel experience to be sure, watching the other students in action was an awe inspiring thing, if only for the unusual methods involved, Jinx the purple haired Goth would simply stand in place or perhaps turn the odd cartwheel to avoid debris and energy blasts as her robotic enemies flashed purple and simply fell apart or exploded, Gizmo the bald midget, seemed to have blasters and explosives of all shapes and sizes, reminding Thomas painfully of the fact that his weapons had yet to be returned to him, Mammoth was brutally simple, smashing and destroying everything in has path without pause or consideration, true to his namesake he was a brute.
The school's reaction to him was a sort of disdainful neutrality, a few people approached him in odd ways, Billy Numerous was the most direct, simply walking up in a friendly group of four and offering a hand and an introduction with a wide grin, Thomas accepted the hand and gave a firm shake introducing himself as Thomas Maclandon, which caused Billy to laugh and explain that everyone here had a "Villain Name" something to identify them but keep who they really were anonymous should they decide to retire one day. Lunatic was the name assigned to him by the headmaster after that the hows and whys of this choice lay beyond Thomas' ability to reason so he simply accepted it as part of the ever increasing strangeness of this world.
Over the next month and a half Lunatic lost himself in classes and training, homework something he hadn't experienced before proved to be a difficult concept to grasp which caused his instructors no end of grief, his studies remained at a relative low curve as he struggled to acclimatize himself to this new place, his classmates didn't seem to interested in aiding him in this endeavor, well with the exception of his dorm mates, Kyd Wykkyd, Private Hive, and Billy Numerous, Kyd was defiantly the dorm mate he had the least in common with, simply put he was strange quiet, brooding, and he never spoke never laughed, he simply stayed in the room near the darkest corner or by the door as though expecting to have to leave at any moment, Billy seemed the most easy going interested in video games and almost any kind of sport, he was a team of one after all (well one that rapidly became hundreds) and he was generally a good sport, though he didn't like to lose, Private Hive or P.H. as he was called off duty was as intense as they come driven to succeed in all things he proved to be diligent in his studies and his training and some how managed to find the time to help Lunatic with his studies, and while he lacked the augmentation he managed to prove a challenging opponent, Tough, fast, and able to take a ton of punishment and while he couldn't dodged Lunatics attacks he was skilled enough to get that heavy golden shield of his between almost any attack thrown his way, all told life was pretty good for our erst while hero.
Gizmo fumed in his well lit room leaning over his work table taking apart the weapons of that snot eating muck sniffer, Brother Blood wanted to figure out how this stuff worked the rifle was easy enough, an elector magnetic particle emitter ,high end but nothing he hadn't seen before, the Knife was likewise simple a micro sonic generator that caused the blade to shift a fraction of a millimeter in rapid pulses allowing the blade to cut upwards of two thousand times per second, that in itself wasn't weird, the fact that whatever the knife was made of could stand up to that much vibration without damaging itself or dulling immediately was the issue, it was made of some kind of ceramic but denser and more durable than pressure treated carbon steel with one eighth of the weight, it required a weeks work and the destruction of a particle collider to acquire a sample that was viable, and a further week just to start identifying the molecular structure, to Gizmo this was unheard of his tech was the best there was and anything that worked better he could figure out in no time, it wasn't that the material was complicated it was just too damned durable, he sighed and rubbed his tired eyes as the sounds of intimacy started up again in Mammoth's room, crud! he mumbled, don't those two ever stop, he walked out of his room making his way to the cafeteria intent on drowning his exhaustion in coffee.
The lights in the halls were brighter than he cared for, not helping the throbbing in his skull, Billy Numerous and the muck sniffer in question, now calling himself Lunatic, ugh though Gizmo as they moved out of his way, he continued his grumbling way down to the cafeteria the faculty members accommodated his request for a pot of coffee and a mug, he made his way back to his room, and to the mind numbing task ahead of him after all Brother Blood had entrusted him to this task, and much as he hated it he hated to disappoint brother blood even more.