Professor Why's Academy for Extraordinary Youngsters

Heroics 112: Take your daughter to work day III

                Me and Situ had been hanging out for some time at this point, and I didn't think about it much prior to this, but we, in perfect synchronization, uttered out the same glorious phrase.

"It's an Eigen Plot!" we said with absolute glee.

For the uninitiated, an Eigen Plot is a term to describe a plot perfectly designed to allow the different team members available to shine, and realistically, these kinds of things were hard to come by. Imagine, for a second, your superpower is talking to Kangaroos. Realistically, in most modern settings, that power would be relatively useless. However, if there is a poacher in the Australian outback, suddenly that power dwarfs anything but the most planet shattering superpowers. Many superheroes choose to focus on one area of the world in particular, where their powers can be most useful as a result. In a setting where more and more heroes are available, however, the odds of a relatively mundane superhero having a part to play become less and less. It was practically a miracle that all the professional heroes and all our more competent classmates were either preoccupied or woefully unqualified to deal with the threat before us, and here we were, the two perfect pieces to this puzzle. I tried not to smile, but I totally smiled.

Our task was twofold. We needed to rescue a girl from a freezing cold lake, requiring someone who has a high degree of cold resistance (Allycard, Summer or Me), and wouldn't zap a little girl to death, provided she survived (literally just me). On the surface, we had an opponent who could reflect superpowers, which means she's incredibly power, except versus someone who didn't have those. Me and Situ actually high fived as I took off towards the water, discarding unnecessary clothes along the way, and Situ assumed her "I'm going to break some limbs today" stance that I saw a dreadful amount during training. Fists protecting the face, wide stance, weight shifted to the front of her feet, pointy elbows ready to strike low and unfair blows on the opponent. Situ never once claimed to be a fair fighter.

We were perfect. Then motorcycle helmet pulled out a police baton out from some kind of holster behind her back. That's... not great, but Situ practiced fighting against armed opponents. It wasn't until it crackled with electricity that we had a problem. Mask girl stood still for a second, then jolted around Situ and headed straight for me.

She knew. Crap.

Situ tripped her on her way over. The baton went tumbling across the ice.

"Go for the girl! I'll take care of this inconvenience." Situ said, punching a solid crack into the glass on the left side of helmet girl's helmet as she stood up again. Situ's hand was bleeding, but she looked pretty happy with herself.

I took a huge gulp of air and jumped into the water. My hunch was right. I wasn't cold at all, but the whole air issue was going to be a big problem. I looked around, and found June laying down at the bottom of the lake. Tentatively, that was either good or bad. Corpses float, right? I kind of had to figure out swimming on the fly. It's not that different from flailing, but there's like a directionality to the flailing. This incredible technique meant that I was going at a snails pace under a sheet of ice to rescue a little girl at the bottom of a pond that was like 20 feet deep tops, one miserably slow foot at a time.

Up above, things were going a bit worse. Assuming her goal was to finish the job and murder June, mask girl had two win conditions. Electrify the water, or electrify Situ and wait for me to come out. Situ had two win conditions as well, but they were a bit more difficult. She either had to keep mask girl occupied for the entire duration of me thrashing my way down to catch a little girl, or actually win the fight. Overhead, I could see their feet dancing along the ice. Mask girl's light footsteps really contrasted against Situ's steady stance and hops from left to right. Situ always bragged about Muay Thai as the ideal martial art, but I could see a situation in which she was wrong. Situ, despite being smaller, was cracking the ice. Little by little, she would wear out an area, then skip around to another area. As long as they were testing the waters, mask girl totally had the upper hand.