prismatica | video | un: nightwing96

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video | un: nightwing96

Who gave me superpowers?!

[The camera flips from Nightwing's masked face around to a doorway. The door is lying on the ground, ripped clean off its hinges because Nightwing was in a hurry.

It's his first Sanguis...]

I'm not Superman! I don't want to be Superman! No offense to the big guy, but I've been working my whole life to perfect my acrobatics, my detective work, my martial arts, and now-- all of that-- is just going to waste?

[He is not Superman, but he's starting to feel like Superboy circa five years ago.]

Whatever. Now I have to figure out the exact extent of this stupid, stupid development so I don't accidentally kill somebody.

Who's got some heavier-duty doors I can rip off? This one is a good standard control. Actually, I have no idea what the control for this experiment would look like, just that I want to be gathering a lot of data.

[In other words, who wants a fight?]

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I get only superpowers and it fades ten minutes after the last point of contact with the person. The only thing that remains is my understanding of how the person's power works.

Is there any effect on the person? I only ask because Parasite, the guy I'm familiar with-- he seems to actually drain people's abilities, leaving them extremely fatigued. It's usually confused with flu symptoms.

But I'm willing, and grateful. Somebody else mentioned magic can come along with this moonblessing and while some of my best friends deal in mystic arts, it's just not me.

No, there's no adverse effects. I go to a school for people training to be professional heroes, and when I've used my power on schoolmates during training exercises, they've been able to run around and use their powers the same as always.

[Huh.]

Then we're in the same line of work-- though we don't have schools for it. But the superhero community I'm part of is sort of like an extended family-- estranged in some places and close in others, but for the most part, everybody knows somebody and we're all big on apprenticeship and looking out for new kids.

When can we meet up? And, if you don't mind my asking, where are you in your, uh, education? I just went solo a few years ago, but I've stayed close to my mentor and my old friends.

[He'd been wanting to find out what other worlds had heroes in them, and even thought about posting to the network to ask.]

I'm just nearing the end of my first of a three year training program. I have my provisional license. It essentially means I can work alongside fully licensed heroes, but I'm not supposed to act on my own unless an emergency comes up and there aren't any fully licensed heroes around to deal with the situation.

[He pauses for a moment, and decides there's one critical aspect of his world that he hasn't explained yet, which explains why hero schools exist.]

In my world, about eighty percent of the population has some sort of power now. About six or seven generations ago, powers were much rarer. But with such a large segment of the population having powers, you can see why formal programs would be developed. Even the entrance exams are quite stringent. There's both an academic portion and a combat portion.

[Nightwing whistles.]

Dude, the most we ask for is parental approval. My team does our best to offer training, but we're vigilantes by default, even if the Justice League does have a U.N. charter.

[Would he be considered the equivalent of 'fully licensed?' Nightwing wants to think so.]

If you don't have anyone else you consider 'fully licensed' nearby, I'm willing to take your calls. If you need the help. I've been doing this since I was nine, and I like to think I'm pretty good.

[Not always good enough, there are people he wishes he could have saved, but...

For all that he's against having powers of his own, he has superpowered friends, and he's fascinated by this development that's being described.]

What caused that?

[He won't learn how humans on his Earth develop superpowers until about a year and a half from his pull point, so...]

Do the people without powers still get to, you know, take their shot?

[Because he's usually one of those. He gets by with fancy acrobatics and fancier tech.]

Good on your leaders for working out a program, though. Though I wonder what recourse there is for people who fail these exams. That wouldn't stop them from having powers, right? Sounds like a villain origin story...

People who have no powers are allowed to apply and take the entrance exam, though they are at a disadvantage in the combat exam portion. Rather than fighting other people, we had to fight giant robots. The examiners would award points both for defeating the robots and rescuing other people from the robots, so there would be a chance, but...

[Well. Like he said, it's a disadvantage.]

My school has four divisions. The hero program, the support program for people who make items for pro heroes, the business program for people who intend to work behind the scenes to help with managing finances for heroes, and the general studies program. We have a sports festival that's televised nationally, although we're the only school in the country that does it. People in the other three programs have a chance of being able to transfer into the hero program if they perform well in the sports festival.

Would an EMP emitter be considered cheating? That's how I handled that a few years ago.

[Ignoring the fact that his superpowered BFF told him how to build it-- it wasn't his powers that gave him that knowledge. In fact, it was his knowledge (and recklessness) that gave him powers.]

It is actually really, really embarrassing how much I want to get my non-powered friends together to take that test.

And forget what I said earlier-- not being a superhero because you failed a sports festival is the real villain origin story.

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video | un: nightwing96

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