"Can you please take this a bit more seriously?" Marcus growled, clearly annoyed at his partner who was waving to the crowd with a massive grin on her face. Eris ignored him and proceeded to blow a kiss to some random person in the crowd, though he couldn't tell who. 'I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Just getting her off her ass to train was a bigger struggle than the entrance exam. How in the world does Alex deal with her constantly? He must have the patience of a freaking saint,' he thought bitterly. Turning his eyes away from his teammate, or cheerleader if she had her way, Marcus glared across the field at his opponents. They were an odd pair, to say the least. The boy, Liam if he remembered correctly, walked solemnly beside his partner, his eyes drooping as if he were on the verge of sleep. 'Wonder what those stitches around his neck are. Part of his Quirk?' The girl on the other hand, really rubbed him the wrong way. Much like Eris, she was waving to the crowd and smiling, though hers seemed more polite and reserved compared to his partner's arrogance. The look in her pale violet eyes, however, shone with an emotion he'd come to attribute to his loud-mouth, hot-tempered classmate Clara. An odd mixture of disgust and thinly veiled anger.
"So, what's the plan? Want me to take stitches while you go and woo the princess?" Eris asked. The fact that she was actually addressing him for once certainly caught him off guard and it took a moment for him to answer her query.
"Actually, I think we should stick together for this one. We don't know what our opponent's Quirks are which could cause us some issues." Eris frowned and tilted her head to the side, an action she seemed to do quite frequently and that Marcus had quickly noticed made her look like a dog. He refrained from mentioning the comparison however, feeling that his partner might not find it as humorous as he did.
"I thought you said something earlier this week about finding out their Quirks… or something, I dunno. Did that not go over well for ya?"
"Actually, I asked you to try and figure out their Quirks. You said 'sure, sure, I'll get right on that' and then went straight back to playing on your phone." The girl pursed her lips and appeared poised to answer when something small and sharp pierced the skin of her forearm. Marcus didn't even have time to swear before several of the sharp objects, which looked to be some sort of barbed hook, sank through the thin, heat-resistant fabric of his jumpsuit and pierced his chest. While not the most painful experience he'd experienced, Marcus still grunted when the wires connected to the hooks pulled taut, their barbs keeping them implanted. The boy recovered quickly and glanced down in slight bemusement at the sight of his attacker. Half a dozen six-inch tall metal figures sculpted in the appearance of armored warriors, each with a strand of pale blonde hair tied around their necks.
"What the fuck?" Eris cried as several more of the warriors crawled out of the sand behind her and launched their own harpoons into her lower back, each making a slight pinging sound once it entered her flesh. She quickly produced a long, black rod from her wrist and used it to smash three of the little automatons. Marcus meanwhile, turned his attention on the smirking blonde girl standing a dozen meters away, while her partner was nowhere in sight.
"She's the one behind it."
Kindra Kingsly
Her Quirk: Animate
By tying a strand of her hair around any animalistic or humanoid object, she can breathe life into them. If the hair or figure is broken, though, she'll suffer the backlash.
"Our Quirks aren't the flashiest, nor the best combat wise. However, I believe you'll find us quite stubborn," Kindra said arrogantly as she flicked her wrist and several more of the figures emerged from the desert sand beneath their feet. Marcus winced as he tore several of the hooks from his back and kicked away the little men.
"Jeez, someone's a bit full of herself," Eris commented. Marcus shot her a glare before quickly dodging another round of fire from the golems.
"Stay on alert! We still have no idea where her partner is!" He shouted. Eris nodded, annoyed, and looked back down as another one of the soldiers attempted to stab at her ankle with its other arm, this one equipped with a sharp pair of tongs. Instead, its head was separated by a thin and sharp offshoot of black bone that shot from the girl's calf. The figure's body shivered for a moment before crumpling to the ground. It could have been just her imagination (her's had a habit of messing with her from time to time) but as the puppet collapsed Eris saw the briefest flash of a grimace on their opponent's face. The brunette turned and used the staff of black bone to smash another trio of charging figures before turning her attention back to their master's expression, which again wavered slightly. 'Wait, she gets hurt by her Quirk too? Does it happen with every one of these little bastards that we kill? Man, I thought my backlash was bad,' she thought, glancing down at the small trickle of blood staining her exposed calf. "Oi, Prince Charming! Her Quirk works like mine, tak– gah!"
"Now, now, none of that." As she had turned to call out to her teammate, something latched onto her ankle and hauled her down to the ground face-first. Eris groaned and spat out a mouthful of sand just before another hand emerged from the dune and grabbed her by the throat. As her air supply was being cut off, she caught sight of her armless opponent from the corner of her eye. He stood several meters away and seemed not at all perturbed by the fact that both his arms were missing, nor the fact that one of his eyes was nothing more than an empty socket.
Liam Heartsworth
His Quirk: Fall Apart
Fall Apart: He can detach his extremities from his body, letting them roam free under his control. While he can detach his body parts, he cannot reattach them without the specialized gear kept in his first aid kit.
On the verge of blacking out from lack of air, Eris was seized by a third arm and yanked to her feet. The pressure on her larynx was suddenly removed as Marcus ripped it off and threw it behind them where it began to squirm and pull itself along with its fingers, effectively eliminating any dreams the brunette had had before the match of checking out the food stalls. "F-Fucking hell," she sputtered, her voice hoarse. Her partner gave her a look of concern, which surprised her as she'd become used to the annoyed or scolding looks he'd given her the past week, before raising his boot and slamming it down on the boy's remaining hand, which quivered and tried to wretch itself free. After a few seconds of struggling, and with the uneven terrain playing to its advantage, the arm freed itself and scurried back over to Liam, who glanced down at it mournfully. "The girl… she's like me. Her… her Quirk hurts her. Aim for the dolls."
"You good?"
"Y-Yeah, fine." However, she was not exactly fine. Not only was breathing difficult but her mind was still a bit shaken from nearly being strangled by a disembodied arm of some freaky-looking dude with one eye. Her partner didn't need to know that at the moment though, so she took a shaky breath and stood straight up. "I'm gonna need to wash the taste of sand outta my mouth once we win."
"Confident, aren't we?" Liam murmured, his voice sounding hollow. The boy still hadn't moved to pick up his two arms, which lay at his feet like flesh-colored snakes, and seemed to be in no hurry to. Marcus scowled and began to turn his head, perhaps looking for their second opponent. Eris wouldn't get a chance to ask him though, as their sallow-skinned opponent started running at them head-on with what remained of his arms, roughly everything above his elbow, raised in a defensive posture. Marcus moved forward to meet him but his teammate's arm shot out just in time to shove him out of the way of an attack from behind them. Kindra, it appeared, had used their momentary distraction to rush at them from their rear. It was only by luck that Eris had spotted movement in her peripheral vision and reacted on instinct. Kindra, having missed her opportunity, threw out another half dozen of the small metal men and backed up to her teammate, who scowled at her. "Wonderful sneak attack."
"Oh hush, stubby. Here's your damn eye," the girl growled, tossing the organ to its owner. Liam brushed off a few particles of sand before carefully storing the eye in the medical pouch attached to his hip. Suddenly, Kindra cried out as the six golems were easily dispatched by Eris, who'd smashed them into scrap metal with her black bone staff. Marcus used this moment to attack, aiming for the armless Liam, who was too busy attending to his teammate. Marcus' first punch made solid contact with the boy's cheek and sent him reeling, though he quickly recovered and nearly caught his opponent in the chin with a reverse roundhouse kick. Without his arms, the boy stumbled slightly on his landing, which was the only opening Eris needed to kick his legs out from under him. With nothing to brace himself, the boy's back collided with the uneven ground. If not for the little resistance given by the sand, Liam figured he'd have had the wind knocked out of him. Thankfully, the terrain once again played to his favor as he quickly recuperated and leapt to his feet. Just as quickly, however, Eris was on him again, swinging her bone staff wildly, giving him no time to relax and forcing him on the defensive. Kindra, still slightly dazed from the backlash of her Quirk, struggled to stand straight and glanced uncertainly at her struggling partner. "Crap, crap, crap. I'm almost out of golems. I could use Fluffy but I can't keep him active for very long."
"Who's Fluffy? Another one of your minions?" Marcus asked. With her attention diverted elsewhere, it was almost as if her enemy had risen from the sand. Kindra shrieked and scrambled back, trying to put distance between them. Unfortunately for her, her opponent was faster and easily pinned her to the ground, using one of his hands to keep her wrists in place, while her awkward position and the sand making it hard to get traction prevented her from struggling.
"Kindra!" Liam bellowed, his moment of inattentiveness giving Eris an opportunity to crack him across the face with her staff. The blow was hard enough to make his brain rattle around his skull as he hit the ground face-first. He flipped over onto his back, only to see a very sharp object just centimeters from his nose.
"Damsel has been eliminated!" Ms. Whittaker shouted into her megaphone, causing Liam's head to whip over in the direction of his teammate, her hands tied together and face buried in the sand. The boy's eyes then drifted over to his arms, he hadn't been focusing on making them move towards the battle and thus they were too far away to drag their way over before Eris either knocked him out or tied him up. 'Damn you, Kindra. I told you to use Fluffy from the start. It was the only way our plan would've worked. You better not've messed up my eye too bad."
"I surrender," he said solemnly, meters away his hands raising lethargically. For some reason, the boy couldn't bring himself to feel satisfied with his loss, no matter how hard he'd tried, nor how good he'd done. He didn't accept Eris' hand to help him up (how did she think he was supposed to grab it, with his teeth?) and ignored both his enemy's words of encouragement and his teammate's spiteful glare. He simply walked over to where Mrs. Holl had already collected his dismembered arms and followed her into the medical tunnel. 'Damnit. My one chance to show I'm not useless and I go and screw it up.'
Purpose of a Hero
"Well, guess we know who we're fighting next," Nathan said nonchalantly, his head resting on one of the stainless steel tables set out in front of the large television screen in the Preparation Room. The boy was shirtless while his childhood friend examined the freshly bandaged cuts and the black and blue bruises marring his upper body from the fight with Hazel.
"Good for them. I was worried for a bit there. Eris isn't really… well, she's honestly not the best at teamwork. I know Marcus is always trying his best though, so I guess they had that going for them. I suppose he has some experience with bad teammates from dealing with Oliver all the time. I wonder why Eris was such a problem for him?" Melody replied, poking a particularly nasty looking bruise, making her partner jump and hiss in pain. "Don't be so dramatic."
"M'not dramatic. Don't give me that look, I'm not! Ugh, so how long until our next match?" The redhead looked over her shoulder at the posted schedule. While each of the fights was given a half-hour time frame they had been moving fairly quickly so far, with only Clara's eclipsing fifteen minutes.
"Depends, we're going to be the second match of the second round, so I'd say around… four hours?" Her announcement caused the blond to groan loudly and turn his head away from the T.V. to glare at one of the room's simple gray walls. "Hey, this just means we have plenty of time to study the competition and relax before we have to fight again. With how you usually are I'm shocked you aren't jumping for joy at getting a chance to be lazy, especially on a Saturday."
"Yeah but our fight's still got my adrenaline pumping! You can't tell me that you aren't just as hyped as I am. You've talked about nothing else all week!" He proclaimed. Melody flushed and shook her head.
"Of course I'm excited. We finally get a chance to put all those weekends we spent training to good use. Unlike you, however, I can't just go from one battle to the next. Even with Mrs. Holl's recovery pills, my head is still splitting. Another fight like that right after this one and I'd have passed out in the first few minutes." In truth, her head felt like someone had smacked her with a sledgehammer. When she'd told the nurse about it, she'd only received a quick 'Just a side effect of using your Quirk too much, it should die down' before the woman had rushed off to help, oddly enough, a pair of upperclassmen Melody had recognized. One was the boy with springs in his legs whose father had died in Yonkers (that had been the talk of the school for several weeks afterward) and he was completely covered in bee stings, courtesy of the second boy, Dominick's quiet friend, Hector.
"Ah, yes. That is something you mentioned having to work on in our last Search and Rescue class."
"Oh, hey Lyon. Grab a seat," Melody said in greeting as her ever-smiling classmate sauntered up, sitting down across from Nathan, who glanced at him warily. However, the boy seemed unperturbed and simply nodded at the bruised feline. For a moment, there was silence as the two males seemed to be sizing one another up until Melody, very discreetly, poked Nathan's largest bruise and moved to sit beside him, ignoring his pained grunt. "So, how's your week been? Have you enjoyed the festival?"
"Hm, I must say it was nothing like how I envisioned. The food was particularly… well, unhealthy and those, oh what are they called? 'Games of Chance'? Well, I found those to be quite misleading, many of them gave you no chance to win at all," the boy said, appearing somewhat disgruntled at the memory.
"They're designed to be difficult, if not entirely impossible to beat. Nathan here almost tore some poor upperclassman's head off because he kept losing," Melody remarked mockingly, giving said blond an unimpressed look.
"That seems slightly dishonest."
"They gotta make money somehow, right?" Nathan replied, speaking up for the first time, though the tone of his voice made Melody give him a bemused look. If she were being honest with herself, she didn't know what was going on with Nathan recently. Ever since they'd come to the Forge he'd been slightly more aggressive and closed off, not nearly the outgoing and social boy he'd been in middle school. He would get in moods like this almost anytime someone else would join the two of them, even if he himself didn't notice. 'I should ask around with some of his classmates, see if he's like this around them. Granted, I could just be making a big deal out of nothing. This is Nathan afterall, biggest drama queen I've ever known. I just hope it doesn't affect his mindset in our next fight. I don't wanna lose because of his big head.'
"And this is a well-known practice?" Lyon asked, snapping the redhead out of her thoughts. Looking exasperated, her friend sighed and nodded in response. For a brief moment, Lyon's ever-present smile dropped and he brought a hand up to grip his chin in contemplation. "In that case, why would the masses still fall for such a trick? That certainly is strange. I suppose it is in line with what I've observed so far. Most tend to overlook facts for… what could be."
"What the hell does that mean?" Nathan asked, looking bewildered.
"Well, in this example the average festival-goer knows that these games are rigged against them and that know with almost certainty that they will lose, yet they focus more on the infinitesimal chance of victory. It's quite fascinating if you stop and think about it."
"Dude… I have no fucking idea what you're talking about."
"Nathan, language! The next match is going to start soon, save the philosophical debates for later," Melody scolded, smacking her partner's exposed bicep. On the television screen, four pictures appeared with a small blurb of information for each competitor beneath them. While she recognized the faces of her classmates Rylee and Oliver, the other two were a complete mystery. She knew nothing about the olive-skinned girl with a simple white mask covering her face and she only knew one thing about the boy. "That's the top student in your class, right?"
"Yeah. Damien Chase, he's a bit of a creep. Always appearing out of the shadows and looking like he's on death's door. Once you get to talking with him, a very rare occurrence mind you, he's kinda weird. Like, a mix between laidback and way, way too intense. I haven't seen him and Saroya go at one another yet, so this could be interesting. Your classmates are gonna have a rough time keeping up." Nathan finished his explanation just as what looked to be a section of a dark, abandoned warehouse emerged from the dark pit below.
"So, he is the one closest to me in class rankings then?" Lyon asked if possible his smile growing wider. Nathan gave him a cautious look and nodded slowly, which made the boy chuckle. "Very interesting. I look forward to the day I get a chance to fight him myself."
Purpose of a Hero
Oliver hated this. The crowd, the national coverage, being forced to participate in something his friends and teachers were so excited about and called a 'great honor'. The glamor, the gladiatorial combat, and especially the fact that he had to miss out on a Saturday for this made him sick to his stomach. While outwardly, his partner seemed just as off-put as he was when they stepped out of the tunnel and into the midmorning sun, his experience with the boy had taught him that any sickness he was experiencing was from his reclusiveness. Then… there was her. Throughout the past week and especially the morning of the competition, and ever since he'd outwitted her in one of their training simulations, Rylee had taken to either glaring at him from across the room or, if she were forced into conversation with him, speaking in short, clipped sentences. Now, as fate would have it, she'd have a perfect chance at revenge. "Alright, what's our play?"
"Stick together, use the terrain to our advantage. Let's get this over with quickly so we can rest up for the next round," Damien said lowly, his eyes scanning the decrepit building before them. Not a terrible plan, though Oliver could see no less than a dozen ways it could go terribly wrong. He sighed mournfully and began following his teammate, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the low light of the building. Once they did, he began to make out furniture similar to what one would see in any office but seriously decayed and falling apart. Water dripped from the ceiling, possibly from a broken or cracked pipe, and the floor creaked with every step they took. "Careful, this place is falling apart."
"Oh great. Just what we need. Hopefully, the steam girl doesn't blow a gasket and make this whole damned thing collapse on top of us," Oliver commented sardonically. Damien nodded with his assessment and closed his eyes for a moment, hummed thoughtfully and pointed towards a nearby wall.
"They're on the other side. Moving slowly and staying a few meters apart."
"Probably trying to avoid an easy capture from us. Our Quirks are right for it. I suppose you want to just bust down the wall and attack head-on, yeah?" Oliver asked, already knowing the answer before his teammate nodded. The man was annoying like that. When they'd first started working together (after no small amount of threatening from Marcus to actually leave the dorm and train), he'd pegged his teammate as someone similar to him, able to think without being a reckless neanderthal. However, he was soon proven wrong. For all his strength and apparent intelligence, Damien was just as battle-hungry as every other wannabe Hero at the Forge. So, after a bit of discussion and with no other option available (though he did like the idea of surrendering like that walking corpse from the last fight), Oliver stepped over to the wall and reared back his fist. His partner had deemed the wall structurally unstable and easy to knock over or breakthrough, from the looks of it anyone with a functioning mind could tell he was right, so the Rubberband Quirk user should have had no issue. Like most things though, it didn't go exactly to plan. The moment his fist connected with the wall a white hot pain shot up his rubber limb and he pulled back his now mangled and clearly broken hand to cradle it against his chest.
"Oliver! Damnit, when'd you get here?" Damien shouted as something in Oliver's mind clicked and the wall he'd punched transformed into a sturdy steel support beam. 'Shit, I was so focused on Rylee wanting revenge. Fucking hell I'm an idiot,' he thought as he glared at his opponents. While Rylee looked just as pissed as ever when around him, the other girl just smiled triumphantly as the red glow to her eyes dimmed.
Saroya Sawyer
Her Quirk: Visual Hallucination
Her Quirks gives her the power to modify the visual sensory information of a person's head while their brain is processing it. She makes them see what she wanted them to instead of what their eyes observe. However, she has to be able to see her target.
"You think I'd forget about you being able to find us, Spooks? Not a chance," Saroya said confidently. Damien scowled at the nickname before raising his hands, at which point the black-haired girl quickly looked at Rylee who immediately exploded into a cloud of searing hot steam. As Oliver had predicted, the building was in such bad shape that the floor beneath them collapsed, plunging the four fo them into an even darker basement. Always the quick thinker, Oliver's non-broken hand extended and wrapped around the same metal pillar he'd punched while under the effects of his opponent's Quirk. This allowed him to lower himself much more gently to the bottom floor than the other three. Though he couldn't see in the pitch black, he could head three thuds followed by pained groans as they hit the concrete floor. "Well… ugh, that sucked."
"He can't use his Quirk now though, so that's a plus," Rylee replied, sounding fairly winded herself. 'If I remember correctly, producing that much steam all at once is pretty exhausting for her. They were counting on that combo working to get us into a place where Damien couldn't use his Quirk and where I'd be unable to see or use one of my limbs. If this wasn't such a fucking bother, I'd almost be impressed,' Oliver thought bitterly as he neared the floor. As quietly as he could, he touched the floor, retracted his extended limb, and tried to focus his hearing. He had no idea where Damien was but from the varied pained sounds and sharp intakes of breath as they stumbled over the rubble, he could tell the girls were somewhere to his left. Cursing his teammate for disappearing, he quickly and silently moved toward the sounds of his enemies, reasoning that if his teammate hadn't been killed by the blast he would have the same idea. As he got closer and closer to them, something in the distance caught his eye. A small light, most likely on the complete opposite side of the room. 'This is gonna suck.' Resigned to what he had to do, lest he get chewed out by Marcus and his teachers, Oliver's arm shot out, extended to its full length and slammed directly into one of the girls, he couldn't tell which. Then… he ran, making as much noise as possible to try and draw the girls towards him. By Rylee's incensed screams and the pounding of footsteps other than his own, he figured he'd succeeded. 'That girl's Quirk shouldn't be able to activate if Damien's intel was right. She's got no clear sightline.' He then swore under his breath and had to leap to the side at the last possible second to avoid a blast of steam from Rylee, whose swearing and yelling gave him a very hard time pinpointing the telltale hiss of her steam holes activating.
"Just a bit closer," he muttered to himself, the faint light now only meters away. He could see the large hole in the side of the building that was allowing light to pour through and, for the first time since they'd entered the arena, could hear the roaring of the crowd. He was only six feet away from the edge of the light's reach when another blast of searing hot steam impacted on his back, throwing him off course and slamming into a moldy wooden desk that crumbled under his weight. He had only seconds to roll out of the way of Rylee's next attack before using his leg to extend out and kick her in the chest. The next thing he knew, the light was gone and he was lying at the edge of an abyss. His chest heaved in momentary panic before he heard a hiss and dove into the side. 'It's her Quirk, moron. Get it together. Where the hell is Damien? That asshole better not have died.' Still caught in the hallucination, Oliver swept out his fully extended leg in an arc, which seemed like a good idea (he managed to knock one of the girls off their feet) until his foot crashed into a large, heavy item and stopped. He once again heard the hiss but this time was too slow to avoid the cloud of steam that engulfed him. His skin immediately burned in the scalding fog and his extended limb began to shrink. His pained yelp was joined by two more, though they were obviously more surprised than pained. All at once, the illusion dropped and, while the steam was still burning him, he saw both girls suspended in the air, half of their bodies obscured by darkness. "It's… about fucking time."
"Sorry, had to wait for an opening," Damien said as he stepped out of the shadows, his arms held aloft and his hands clenched into fists. "Besides, you can't have shadows without light."
Damien Chase
His Quirk: Umbrakinesis
Damien can bend shadows to his will, using them for offense, defense, or even transportation. However, if he overuses his Quirk he can become deathly ill.
"Damnit!" Rylee growled as she shot steam and struggled to break free. Meanwhile, Saroya's eyes were covered by a thin strip of shadow, not allowing her to use her Quirk. Oliver limped his way out of the steam and almost immediately Damien broke into laughter.
"W-What the hell?"
"Please shut the fuck up."
"Yo-You're so short!"
"Exposure to heat makes rubber contract. Shut the fuck up and tie them up already, I wanna go take a nap."
Purpose of a Hero
Heyo, sorry for the wait (again) but I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I'm going to have maybe one or two more of these double fight chapters over the duration of the tournament. As always, big tanks to Hiatus for his beta work and a pair of reminders that 1. Villain, Upperclassmen, and Pro Hero submissions are still open (I need a lot of all three but upperclassmen are the most immediate need) and 2. If you like this story check out the friggin Discord, it is awesome. Lots of fanart of the characters and a really fun community. Anyway, let's get to the preview and then…. More Q&A!
Next time on the Purpose of a Hero:
Chapter 32: Memorized
Q&A: Marcus McPherson and Oliver Ferdinand
What's your favourite sport? If you care at all in this age of quirks.
Marcus: "Sport? Uh… Well, I guess it'd have to be boxing, 100%. Ain't that right buddy?"
Oliver: "...yes, don't remind me. Oh, and for your information, you are the one that enjoys beating the crap out of each other nine times outta ten."
Marcus: "Pfft, yeah right, you're the one always insisting on increasing our monthly sparring matches-"
Oliver: "I want you to decrease them, not increase them you bird brain!"
Marcus: "Sure Ol, we all know you love fighting. What's the next question?"
Oliver grunts.
Who is stronger between the two of you?
Marcus & Oliver: "Me. Hey!"
They start fighting like idiots until the interviewer steps in to ask the next question.
What is your impression on your class? What students do you have your eye on? What student would you least want to fight?
Marcus: "They're mostly okay in my book, I guess? I haven't paid much attention to most of them. Being honest though? I don't like Seismo's kid." Marcus suddenly speaks in a much darker tone, with a stone-cold deadpan, "She sucks."
Oliver: "Disregard him, he's got a knack for irredeemable douchebags. Our class is pretty average, with the exception perhaps of our top four—get off me you insufferable oath!"
Marcus interrupts him by playfully trying to strangle him with his hood
Oliver: "Anyways, the only person I'd like to fight is that steam brat. My arm was stiff as a stick for 2 days, so I'm looking forward to returning the favour."
How many upperclassmen do you believe you can beat? (How bout that?)
Marcus: "Upperclassmen? Well, I can't really answer that until I've fought them, duh. Do you know any of our seniors, Ol?"
Oliver: "Don't know, don't care."
Oliver shrugs while slumping down on his seat.
Who's your favourite hero?
Marcus: "Definitely Alchemist. Nothing's more badass than dismantling entire traffic jams against unsuspecting villains!"
Oliver: "I don't idolize heroes. Almost every hero is either creepy, a social recluse or total freak. Only hero I've ever 'tolerated' is Seismos."
Marcus: "Heh, speak of a sour grape."
You two seem close, how long have you known each other and how would you describe your relationship?
Marcus: "Well, we've been friends since middle school. I used to fight a lot with my classmates and most often won, so no one wanted to fight me anymore. Then this bitter troublemaker transferred in and immediately wanted to pick a fight. It goes without saying, he didn't enjoy that day as much as I d—Ooughf,"
Oliver got tired of his partner's anthics, stretching his arm into the air and letting it drop like an anchor on his head.
Oliver: "I think you've run your mouth enough for now. Can we get this over with?"
Did girls in middle school think you were "together"?
Both: "Huh?"
To Oliver: How did you even pass?
Oliver: "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?,"
Oliver grunts, a bulging vein making its way towards his forehead.
"I just did the theory test, and then the practical like everyone else. If your actual question is what did they make me do in the practical, then too bad, I'm not in the mood to tell you."
Did you dye your hair or is that natural?
Marcus: "My hair started turning gray when I was still a wee lad, but according to my mom I was born with auburn hair."
Oliver: "My hair has always been like that. What a weird question."
Would you want to start a cult revolving around yourself?
Both: "..."
Are there any hobbies or skills you would like to pick up in your 4 years besides heroics?
Marcus: "I've always been a sucker for cars, although I'm actually more interested in the engines that propel them. I've actually got a motorized bike, but the prefects haven't let me take it out of the school workshop since I brought it here."
Oliver (yawning): "...I just play chess,"
Oliver starts to fall asleep.
Marcus: "...And sleep, like the lazy bastard you are."
Oliver: "Suhre…."
Oliver slumps into his chair instantly, almost comparable to a dead man's corpse.
To Marcus: Is there a limit to the amount of power you can absorb?
Marcus: "Well, not that I've ever encountered. I tend to absorb attacks in their entirety, but if I feel like my body's getting too hot, I repel part of it to a random direction to loosen up the impact. You could compare it to a manually operated emergency valve, if you wish."
To Marcus: think you can build your own support items?
Marcus: "I tend to design and describe in detail what I need, but I don't actually make the gear. You could call me the blueprint maker, heh. Engineering the stuff is just not my forte.
Do you have any embarrassing pictures/videos/stories of each other?
Marcus: "Well now that you mention it, there was this one time where Oliver and I were eating at a Friday's. Oliver ordered this really, really big steak, all covered in spices and the likes. Immediately you could tell he was having trouble eating it, so I challenged him to see who could finish their dish first and he took the bait. He spent a whole 50 minutes in the restaurant bathroom, I practically had to drag him out of the damn place. Best laugh I had in years!"
Oliver jerks his head up and changes positions in the seat, while snoring.
Have you guys ever jump a gorge duke boys style?
Marcus: "Don't know what that means, but it sure as hell sounds cool."