3/1/2023
Gotham City
Currently working away in his room at home is Erik, who has just finished an invention for himself. Basically, he made himself a cellphone with no data plan or anything, however it could ride the waves that bounce off satellites and radio towers in order to function like a real phone. After all he now had a friend, he could talk to as well as act like a normal teenager for now.
Erik had spent a few days on this along with studying for the Legends Academy exam today. He focused his mind and body in order to at least have a fighting chance in this exam. Tommy was an excellent and kind teacher, but Erik knew that he hardly tapped into a fraction of the morphing grid's power and that might bite him in the butt later, but this was the best he could do for now.
Anyway, the phone isn't too big or too small and has a standard black color. Honestly Erik only really grabbed a small, broken tablet and reworked it a bit as well as replacing the screen in order to produce this new phone.
"Erik honey. You're going to be late if you don't hurry." Kim said from outside his room door as Erik wiped his forehead a bit with a satisfied smile on his face.
"I know. I'm getting ready mom." Erik said as he had already cleaned himself up when he first woke up and now, he just had to get dressed, which he did and now sported a brown T-shirt underneath a red blazer with jeans and sneakers on his feet, his keys, wallet and phone were in his pockets and his backpack was placed on his back before he headed out to take the school exam.
Erik hopped onto a city bus and soon pulled up at the testing site, which was at Gotham's Shadow Stadium. Erik and several other teens had to wait in lines until the stadium doors opened and everyone piled into the stadium and took their seats in the stands and front row. In the center of the stadium is a large stage with one person speaking with the help of a microphone in hand.
This person was the number one ranked hero of earth aka Superman himself, dressed in his standard red and blue outfit with the super 'S' on his chest.
"Greetings everyone, there are a total of two hundred people here from various walks of life. I'm afraid to say that most of you won't be passing this test, but you shouldn't give up if things don't work out. These tests are designed to push you and make you think as well as testing your physical abilities or the powerful gifts you have gained.
Some of you don't have superpowers and that is more than fine. Having powers doesn't make you a hero, what makes you a hero is what you choose to do and the content of your character. Now each of you will be given an identification tag that holds a number, this tag will be what allows us to track your location and it is important that you don't lose your tag.
If you do, we can still find you, but you will automatically fail the exam. Other applicants can't take the tags from you either or that will cause them to fail. The exam is also broken up into parts or categories if you prefer. However, if you feel overwhelmed then you can choose to stop taking the test. There is no shame in that, if you push yourself too far and end up hurting yourself or others, that will only cause you more pain than our tests are meant to deliver.
Finally, there is to be no fighting between applicants outside of a designated category, such as power sparing. If you fight other applicants for any reason, you will fail the exam." Superman explained before everyone in the stadium felt a rush of wind fly past them and they each had a baseball sized badged placed in their hands.
"Those are your identification tags. Please put them on, so we can begin. Or if you don't feel like you're ready for the exam you can leave them off and opt out. Again, there is no shame in leaving." Superman said as the majority put the badges on their chests before they suddenly saw a bright light in front of their eyes as the willing applicants have all been transported to a different location.
1
"That was weird." Erik said to himself before looking around and noticed the area that he and the other applicants had been sent to. For miles there were rocks, dust and what looked like sci-fi levels of technological buildings and locations.
"Greetings applicants. I am Martian Manhunter, and I will be in charge of this first section of the exam. You have been transported to Mars but not the same Mars as your universe. Through the use of Mother-Box technology, we have become able to teleport and visit other parallel universes and this universes Mars is barren of martial life.
I won't go into details, but your first objective is to make your way through this large ancient Martian compound and enter the Forge. Maps can be located throughout the compound on various walls and structures. Now you may begin." Martian Manhunter spoke telepathically to everyone, and a few people were a bit confused while others rushed into the complex through the various entrances.
"I guess I should start getting a move on." Erik said, as he was one of the last to enter after hearing some other applicants screaming. When he entered the compound, he saw that several people had been trapped in what looked like some kind of foam containment gel, but the thing was that the people were gone and only left person sized impressions in the foam.
"What the heck?" Erik asked as he also saw what looked like humanoid, Terminator-themed robots on the ground that had been broken by various powers and had what looked like strange guns in their hands. "I'd better play it safe." Erik said before he started moving down a hallway before seeing some action. At the end of the hallway are three of the bootleg Terminators firing the strange guns which had now proved to Erik that the guns were made to fire the containment foam and that foam was aimed at a girl.
This girl is wearing a light blue tracksuit and pants with short red hair on her head and she is dodging the containment foam before getting close to one of the robots and extended one of her hands towards it and when she grabbed it, the robot was surrounded by a crimson energy field that seemed to eat away at the machine before turning it to dust before she tried to evade the other two, but she got tagged by the foam shots and was now encased up to her neck in the foam.
"I suppose I can't just ignore this." Erik said to himself before he focused and ran towards the robots. He knew he couldn't outpower them or anything, but he could electrify them. Frankly that was the best Erik could hope for since he could only morph once a day and that would be it.
He didn't want to waste a morph this early on. So, when they started firing foam at him, Erik used his brain and power as he focused his electric abilities into his feet as he jumped onto the wall and actually managed to run on the wall thanks to his magnetized feet. He managed to get close to one of the robots and jumped off the wall, onto the robot and gave it a nasty shock by sending electrical currents into the robot's body.
The robot did short circuit before Erik rolled out of the way after grabbing its foam gun and not only dodged the foam attack from the other robot, but Erik pointed the gun he took and pulled the trigger and fired foam at the robot and covered it in foam from head to toe.
"Wow…That was awesome. I gave myself a fifty-fifty chance of achieving magnetism like this, but I guess my electricity is a bit stronger than I thought. Or maybe the magnetic properties are easier to manipulate then I thought." Erik said before he moved over to the girl and touched the foam that encased her. "Hold on. This might be a bit shocking."
The girl gave Erik a deadpan expression for his terrible pun as Erik focused his electrical power to run through the foam and after a moment the foam started to crack before it shattered like glass and the girl became free.
"Thanks." The girl said bluntly as Erik saw her Asian features despite her red hair that probably came from a Scottland descendant.
"No problem. The name's Erik and it's nice to meet you." Erik said to the girl who gave him a stern look for a moment.
"I'm Kallen." Kallen said back before she started to walk past the fallen robots.
"Hold up a sec." Erik said before catching up to the girl. "I think it would be easier if we worked together on this."
"I'm a solo act." Kallen said back bluntly making Erik respond with a deadpan expression.
"And how did that workout for you?" Erik asked before Kallen stopped walking and raised her hand near his face and generated a red energy field around her hand that moved around like flames.
"Watch it." Kallen warned in a serious voice as Erik took a step back.
"I'm just saying that dozens of people are probably trying to do a solo hero thing and in this kind of environment, that isn't practical or wise. If you don't have help, you'll just be putting yourself at more of a risk in the short and long run. So, it would be better to form an alliance with someone, at least until the exam is over." Erik said back before Kallen lowered her hand for a moment with a heavy breath.
"You make a good point." Kallen said in a sour tone before turning to look down the path they were walking. "We work together for now but if you think about sending me to the wolfs to get the advantage, I'll make your life hell."
"Noted and don't worry about that. I'm here to try and be a hero after all." Erik said back as Kallen rolled her eyes before the duo made their way through the compound, finding some but not much resistance from the foam shooters, since several were taken out before hand by the other Metahuman applicants.
"Damn." Kallen cursed as they came up to a door with an electronic display next to it.
"I don't suppose you know the code?" Erik asked as Kallen put her hand near the electronic display and melted the glass to expose the wires, which she started messing with until the door opened. "You know how to pick electronic locks made by aliens?"
"The tech is alien but its roots are similar enough to some electronic stuff back on earth. Then again, I'm not sure were even on Mars. If we were, there wouldn't be any oxygen." Kallen said back before the duo entered the room and saw two branching hallways to choose from.
"Which way should we go?" Erik asked as Kallen crossed her arms in thought for a moment.
"Not sure. Either way its going to be a gamble. A lot of these hallways loop around while others split off into other sections of the base according to some of the maps I saw." Kallen said back.
"If you saw a map, then shouldn't you know which way to go?" Erik asked as Kallen looked back at him.
"This is place has weird maps. I'm lucky I was able to understand anything about it at all." Kallen replied sharply before Erik looked down both hallways before voicing his opinion.
"Okay we should head down the right path." Erik said back.
"Why?"
"Because it's the safe pick. Looking at both hallways make them seem the same but as I looked down both of them. I saw a faint number of footprints on the left side while this right pathway is untouched." Erik said back wisely and shocking Kallen a bit.
"I didn't see any footprints."
"That's because you aren't used to working around certain metals. Some metals hold footprint imprints while others don't have any signs of being messed with at all. This metal has faint outlines of the footprints, so at least one or two people went through this tunnel twice, given how the footprints overlap four times over." Erik replied with a smile.
"Your pretty smart huh?" Kallen said before she started walking down the right pathway, with Erik following her. "Is that a part of your superpowers?"
"Nope, I'm just a student of metalworking. My power is electricity. What about you? Your power seems like it's something destructive, but I can't figure out what it is." Erik said back to the attractive girl as he tried not to focus on her rear end while she walked in front of him.
"I generate and control radiation. I can't give people cancer by the way so don't ask. Anyway, I can destroy a lot of stuff with the concentrated radiation I can create. I can also make shields with it to protect myself." Kallen explained as Erik listened to the girl before they soon came up the exit of the tunnel and when they did, they saw that they were outside of the building and were in front of a small maze-like path made of rock and electronic gates.
"This place is confusing. A maze right after the first maze?" Erik asked in disbelief. "If this was a videogame it wouldn't get a good rating."
"I agree but we can't exactly complain, and it doesn't look like anyone has been through it yet." Kallen said before she went and made her way into the maze as Erik ran behind her and the duo proceeded to try and make their way through the maze of walls.
"We need a key." Erik commented as they came up to gate that Kallen couldn't hack or melt through, since something about the materials in the gate were nullifying her powers.
"That means we have to go to a different section of the maze in order to get the key." Kallen said with a groan before they made note of this section before diving back into the maze before finding another exit, which was a cave entrance.
"This is getting ridiculous." Erik said before they made their way through the cave tunnel that was lit up with florescent rocks that hung from the ceiling and when they came to the end of the tunnel, they saw what looks like a rectangular bar with what appears to be a large barcode on the front of it.
"This must be the key." Kallen said as she picked it up and the duo made their way back and went back to the gate and put the key against the gates locking mechanism, which unlocked the gate and allowed the teens to pass and when they did, they saw a large terrain of destroyed robots along with what looks like another sci-fi building in the distance.
"This is a warning to all participants that haven't reached the goal yet. There are roughly ten minutes remaining. If you don't reach the exit within the ten minutes, you will fail the first part of the exam."
"No time to hesitate I guess." Erik said before they walked passed the terrain and the ruined robots before they came up to the building and got in to see many of the other participants in the distance, which showed that the majority entered the building through a different entrance point, that seemed to be a massive and open hatch in the wall as a few other people made their way into the building, through that entrance now.
"I guess this means that our alliance comes to an end." Kallen said as the duo made their way to join the crowd.
"It doesn't have too. We can still be teammates for the rest of the exam if you want." Erik said back to the girl who looked him over once again before replying.
"If we have to work together, then I'll help you out." Kallen said before they integrated into the crowd before the remaining time came to an end and Martial Manhunter appeared in front of the large crowd.
"Congratulations applicants. There are ninety-one remaining applicants after eliminations from the drones as well as a few applicants breaking the rules or respectfully asking to be sent back home." Martian Manhunter said to everyone as a few people looked around noticing just how short the numbers had gotten. "This was a test of stress within a hostile environment as well as adaptability and being able to form teamwork in times of need. The next test will be less stressful and simply requires all of you to remain seated and fill out some paperwork."
The students all listened closely and intensely before a few of the student's tags glowed a small yellow light.
"Test takers will be separated into colors. When you see your tag glow, you will make your way down the corresponding hall and take a seat within one of the open classrooms. Supplies have been supplied for you. Simply answer the questions to the best of your abilities." Martian Manhunter said before the next phase of the exam started and Erik made his way down the blue hall and took a seat within one of the classrooms.
The teacher in the classroom is a slightly popular but equally low-key hero, known as Multi-Morph. He is in his hero outfit of a yellow trench coat over a protective chest piece along with reinforced pants and boots with a full mask covering his head and face, as the mask looks to be a smiling face emoji.
"Greetings everyone. This paperwork is difficult, and it is timed so do your best and try not to rush or cheat. This isn't automatic pass or fail, this is simply a test of your knowledge. Begin." Multi-Morph said before Erik grabbed the pencil on his desk before going to work on the decently sized booklet of paperwork on the desk.
A lot of the subjects were based around school subjects, with some modern events and hypothetical problems mixed in. Such as what happens when two conflicting powers make contact in a volatile way, which seems easy, but it is a trick question because it doesn't specify what the powers are or the situation and environment. Meaning that the question was testing your instincts and intuition or ability to think on your feet.
'I hope Kallen and Tsu are doing ok with this test.' Erik thought to himself, since he did know a fair bit of information and was getting the questions done at a decent paste.
2
Kallen
To say that the exam was tough would be an understatement. Now, Kallen wasn't dumb in any sense of the word, but she was easily getting her butt kicked by this test of various questions, which made her think back to her school exams she took to graduate.
The questions are equal parts difficult and frustrating to the girl and she was dangerously close to throwing in the towel when the test started talking about theoretical physicals and advanced college programming, however someone beat her to the punch and got up before speaking to Multi-Morph.
"I give!" The boy said loudly. "These questions are impossible."
"Are you sure?" Multi-Man asked.
"Yes. I don't understand anything that these questions start asking after page five. The questions even go beyond what a normal person or a metahuman would actively know. There's no way I could do any more of the questions without having to cheat." The boy admitted and two more people stood up with him in agreement.
"Isn't it a bit early to be throwing in the towel?" A new voice asked as everyone turned to the entrance of the classroom like space and saw another hero. The rated M hero known as Stardust.
Stardust is wearing a form fitting leotard that was a bright pink color with various white stars dotting the outfit along with a large pink heart in the center of the chest. Her skin is fair, and she is wearing white knee length heeled boots with elbow length white gloves, her hair reaches her shoulders and is a dark blonde color and she is wearing a black domino mask.
"Then again, this test must be too hard for such inexperienced students. I bet none of you really thought about how tough the exams must really be. But on the flip side, the other students seem to like it rough and aren't willing to give up yet. It's a shame. I would have loved to tutor such cute and impressionable students." Stardust said in her usual teasing manner before the quitters sat back down with blushes before admitting that they no longer wanted to quit.
"Stardust can you please stop giving these students the wrong ideas about being a hero?" Multi-Morph asked in a dry tone.
"Relax Multi-Morph. It's not my fault teens of both genders only think with their lower parts. All I'm doing is giving them motivation to take the test and a chance to be tutored by me. Just me and a few students in the field sounds like fun." Stardust said back with a coy smile before leaving the room with an extra sway of her hips.
The woman had an hourglass figure with the confidence to rival supermodels and her powers let her easily become well known and feared by a few villains in the world.
"All of you continue with your tests and ignore the comments that Stardust just made." Multi-Man said in a stern voice as the students went back to their testing and soon enough the time limit came and the students all moved out of the testing rooms and once again gathered in the large area as Stardust, Multi-Man and Martian Manhunter came up in front of the gathered students.
"All the testing is done and will be looked over. Now under normal circumstances we would have more tests but due to the difficulty of this test we have decided to simply allow each of you to return to your homes and have no more tests. Your combat abilities have been seen during the first test, so sparring would be pointless. Now allow me to explain that this isn't really Mars and instead is a complex illusion set up with my powers as well as some technological assistance. So, all of you, good luck and hope for the best." Martian Manhunter said before the world around everyone started fading away into darkness and when the light came back, everyone saw that they were still in the stadium and never moved in the first place.
The students that got eliminated are long gone though, so there was a lot more space in the entire stadium and Kallen simply looked around before spotting Erik nearby and talking to what appeared to be a frog girl.
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to thank him." Kallen said to herself before she got up and made her way over to Erik and the girl.
Erik
"The test was pretty tough for you huh Tsu?" Erik asked his best friend after they had just exchanged numbers for the first time.
"Yeah. The heat was intense for me but thankfully sweatshirts and pants hold water, so my skin stayed hydrated." Tsuyu said back as her sweatshirt and pants were a bit sweaty and stuck to her skin, but that proved to be a good thing for her because it kept her from getting hurt by the heat they experienced mentally, which somehow affected their bodies.
Martian Manhunter was no joke when it comes to telepathic abilities apparently.
"Erik. Can I have a word?" Kallen asked as she came up to the duo.
"Sure. Tsu this is Kallen. We helped each other out during the physical part of the exam." Erik said as he introduced the girls to each other.
"It's nice to meet you Kallen." Tsuyu said back with a smile, making Erik smile as well.
"Likewise." Kallen said back politely to Tsuyu before looking at Erik. "Erik I wanted to say thank you for helping me and sticking with me. If we both make it into the school, then I hope we can form another alliance and help each other out."
"Cool. Before that, why don't we exchange information, so we can stay in contact?" Erik asked Kallen who raise an eyebrow in response.
"Is one girls' number not enough for you?" Kallen asked in an almost bored tone of voice making both Tsuyu and Erik blush a bit.
"No, I didn't mean it like that." Erik quickly said before Kallen started laughing.
"Relax I was just joking. I'll text you or something." Kallen said causally before she exchanged numbers with both Tsuyu and Erik happily and sure enough the teens went their separate ways.
3/7/2023
Gotham City
It had been a few days since the entrance exam and Erik wasn't sure how to feel about it, since the results of the exam would be sent in the mail soon. Now Erik is having a bit of fun as he is training in the park with Tsu as usual but this time, they managed to get Kallen to agree to train with them since it's fun and helps them exercise and stay on their toes.
Each teen is dressed in a tracksuit, and they are practicing martial arts skills or at least Kallen and Erik are, since Tsu is taking a break while sitting on a wooden bench while watching the two teens spar against each other.
"Ha!" Erik let out a loud battle cry as he sent a kick Kallen's way, that she easily ducked under before hitting Erik in the chest with a quick and powerful jab, which made him stagger back a bit before Kallen followed up with a kick of her own that was aimed at his side. The kick landed and Kallen did pull back some of her power, but the kick still stung as Erik bent over and held his torso.
"Damn your good." Erik said with a bit of a chuckle.
"I've been trained in martial arts since I was a kid. What about you?" Kallen asked with a smirk on her face.
"I'm still in training. My teacher is saying that I'm making good progress, but I obviously still have a long way to go." Erik replied before getting back in a ready stance. "Now, let's go another round Kallen. This time I'll beat you for sure."
"Tough talk coming from a rookie. But I won't let you get a win that easily." Kallen said before she rushed Erik with jabs slow enough for him to react as he dodged and parried the strikes before trying to counter but in return. His strikes were dodged and counter, but Kallen was faster and got Erik in the chest with several open palmed strikes, which pushed him back a bit before he raised his arms to block.
Kallen took that moment to pull back before stepping into a side kick, which landed on Erik's arms that he held up for defense and once again he was reminded of the skill difference between himself, and Kallen as Erik was knocked onto the ground with a groan.
"I think Kallen wins that round Erik." Tsuyu said as she hopped over to Erik and helped him up.
"Yeah. Your really are the real deal Kallen." Erik said as Kallen felt her pride swelling in response to the compliment.
"Like I said. I've had a long time to practice and hone my skills." Kallen said back before the trio each sat around a wooden table and relaxed a bit. "So, you two just come out here to exercise together?"
"Yup. It's fun and we can push each other to do better. Working out is a lot easier when you have a partner to train with." Erik said back as Tsuyu nodded her head.
"Yup. It hasn't been too long, but it's been long enough for us to fall into a routine." Tsuyu said to Kallen who thought about what she should say next.
"What about training with your powers?" Kallen asked as Tsuyu and Erik looked at each other for a moment before looking back at the spiky haired red head.
"Well, Tsu can practice with her powers but since my powers revolve around electricity. I can't exactly practice against her, without giving her a nasty shock." Erik said back as Kallen raised an eyebrow at that.
"Then how did you do that wall running thing during the exam? You've had to had at least practiced with your powers before you could pull that off." Kallen said as Erik shrugged.
"I just know the limits of my powers and mass magnetism would require a lot of practice but magnetizing my feet was simple enough. I did the math in my head, and I gave myself a fifty-fifty chance of pulling the move off and luckily enough I did. However, doing it repeatedly would mean that most of the time I would definitely fail. My powers just aren't strong enough to do that kind of thing consistently." Erik explained calmly to both his friends.
"I feel like you're not giving yourself enough credit Erik." Tsuyu said to her friend who shrugged.
"Maybe, but I still would like to practice more. Hopefully we can get into the school and be able to push our powers to the limit." Erik said with sincerity.
"I'm sure we'll make it in. We did our best and all that. The only real problem would be the results of the written part of the exam." Kallen said back.
"True enough. That test was pretty difficult, and it put my brain power to the test." Tsuyu said as she put a finger on her chin as she thought back to the exam day.
"At least you two didn't have to worry about a pervert breaking into your classrooms." Kallen muttered, which caused both teens to look at her in a bit of shock. "Don't ask." Kallen muttered again and looked down as a blush formed on her face.
"Well, this was nice, but I've got a important project to work on. So, I'll text you both later." Erik said before leaving both girls as he headed home and entered his room in order to finish working on his project.
Erik had several talks with Tommy in the morphing grid and explained that Erik could sustain a longer morph and achieve it multiple times if he had a morpher as a focus point. So, for the past few days after the exam, Erik went to work on designing a morpher after seeing the different types of morphers within the morphing grid.
Eventually Erik designed the best morpher he could. The morpher operated by being the middleman between Erik and the morphing grid and would only work for him and it would also have a few extra tricks after Tommy gave it a few updates in the morphing grid.
The morpher was oval shaped with belt like bands around it, as the morpher went onto his right forearm. Near the top of it was a chamber for the power coin that Erik could manifest at will and it was protected by a line of glass. Below the coin were several buttons, like an old school cell phone and Erik designed the morpher to activate via a passcode that only he knew.
5-5-3-5
When Erik typed in the code, it would activate the morpher and he would morph. The result mattered when Tommy looked over the morpher in the morphing grid and did…Something with it, in order to truly make it a morpher.
Now Erik put it on his right forearm near his wrist and it felt natural as a rainbow color washed over it for a moment before Erik slid his hand over the morpher he designed and felt a sense of accomplishment from it.
"Congratulations. The Chrono Morpher is fully online and connected to the grid. I'll explain more about what it can do, but right now, I think you just want to enjoy the moment." Tommy said telepathically to Erik and Erik couldn't help but agree.
3
Moon Orbiting Earth/Dark Side of the Moon
Resting on the dark side of the moon, that couldn't be seen by the people and protected by dark magical wards is a massive castle. Walking through the castle were more of the strange monsters that Erik first fought when he first morphed.
In the throne room of the castle and sitting down on a large chair is a man but no ordinary man. This man is wearing metallic armor connected to his skin and nervous system and his head is incased in a protective container that was tinted black. He has a fit build and is dressed in a black and white tuxedo suit and pants with brown dress shoes.
This man was thought to be dead back on earth, and he let them think that for a while. This man is simply known as All for One or at least that is what he used to be called before he killed the hero All Might and absorbed the power of One for All. Becoming a being of unmatched potential and power after years of absorbing various powers from other Metahumans, he simply sat on his throne on the moon. Unknown to the world and completely isolated, except for the Nomu's he created.
He was actively creating an army to take the world by storm. He could do it himself but with so many 'Heroes' running around, he was more than ready to stay still and focus on growing his forces and building more than enough strength to completely bulldoze any resistance that he would face.
"Strange…It seems that an unknown power has appeared. A power that I don't understand…Interesting." All for One said as his clairvoyance gave him information about a new power emerging that could rival him. His power didn't give him many details, but it told him that this power could grow in strength and potentially put a stop to his plans.
If he was a movie villain, he would have thrown everything he had at the world early and say 'Give me what I want' or something like that, but All for One isn't a movie or cartoon villain who spoils his plans for the heroes. This power was more of a curiosity to him, instead of a threat and he would enjoy seeing the power grow and fall into nothingness when he crushed it underfoot. But that was for later, for now he has an army to manage.
END!
A/N: Okay a new chapter done ladies and gents. The plot is getting thicker, and things are happening differently than I originally planned. All Might is dead and All for One has absorbed the power of One for All. And he detected the power of the morphing grid. So, who knows what will happen now.
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