A super-being has killed Scion! Fortunately all this mysterious being wanted to do was either...
Endslayer Training 101 [Worm/Slenderman/Assassination Classroom]
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A super-being has killed Scion! Fortunately all this mysterious being wanted to do was either become an Endbringer, or teach a class of students for one year. One or the other.
Now the PRT scrambles to fill a class with young Parahumans while plotting the pseudo-Endbringer's downfall.
The new class is going to face challenges, there's gang members and murderers mixing with heroes and vigilantes. Mutants and monsters mixing with cyborgs. A class like this would need a special teacher to keep them in line.
Fortunately, they have one.
A Worm/Slenderman/Assassination Classroom cross that seeks to blend the three with as few seams as possible, although some details have been altered for easier merging.
Index
1.1 Exfoliation
1.2 Braiding
AN: I didn't want to just re-write Assassination Classroom with super powers, so we have a slightly different teacher, with different abilities and weaknesses, which will result in quite a different story.
Korosensei is pretty powerful, but in a world with actual superpowers I could see his speed being overwhelmed in a couple of ways, so he gets a bit of an upgrade. Also I'm pretty sure that people who've faced the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, or Endbringers would look at someone like Korosensei and laugh, so he's a bit more frightening in this incarnation.
Secondary AN: I've been trying for a while now to keep writing H+ Mayhem, Cheese Flambe, or even my Sleeper quest. Nothing's flowing. Sorry. I don't know if I'll be able to finish this one or not, but maybe you'll get a few laughs and some fun reading along the way.
Now the PRT scrambles to fill a class with young Parahumans while plotting the pseudo-Endbringer's downfall.
The new class is going to face challenges, there's gang members and murderers mixing with heroes and vigilantes. Mutants and monsters mixing with cyborgs. A class like this would need a special teacher to keep them in line.
Fortunately, they have one.
A Worm/Slenderman/Assassination Classroom cross that seeks to blend the three with as few seams as possible, although some details have been altered for easier merging.
Index
1.1 Exfoliation
1.2 Braiding
AN: I didn't want to just re-write Assassination Classroom with super powers, so we have a slightly different teacher, with different abilities and weaknesses, which will result in quite a different story.
Korosensei is pretty powerful, but in a world with actual superpowers I could see his speed being overwhelmed in a couple of ways, so he gets a bit of an upgrade. Also I'm pretty sure that people who've faced the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, or Endbringers would look at someone like Korosensei and laugh, so he's a bit more frightening in this incarnation.
Secondary AN: I've been trying for a while now to keep writing H+ Mayhem, Cheese Flambe, or even my Sleeper quest. Nothing's flowing. Sorry. I don't know if I'll be able to finish this one or not, but maybe you'll get a few laughs and some fun reading along the way.
Last edited:
1.1 Exfoliation
- Location
- Australia
"Do it. We'll split the money with your dad, and if you survive… the bullying ends, you'll have proved yourself," Emma said, passing me the grenade.
I looked at it. It didn't look… fake, it looked real, military grade, almost tinkertech. They said that the bullets and blasts wouldn't actually do anything to us. Something about how they only effected proto-Endbringers, but they'd also told us to be careful with the guns, knives, and especially grenades that they'd… handed out.
Alexandria had spoken to us in person, made us sign non-disclosure agreements. Apparently they were airtight. Emma had asked if her dad could read hers, and that just plain hadn't been an option. They would literally use a cape to erase my father's memories if I told him.
Would they also erase my father's memories of me if I died? I mean, it would kind of be bad PR if they found out that an Endbringer was allowed to teach a class full of students. Probably. It might be for the best even, he'd been so broken after mom's death.
Perhaps I could… no, seriously, a bunch of bugs wouldn't be of any use against someone who'd fought Scion, let alone killed him.
I took the grenade, looked at it for a long moment and then bent to take off one of my shoelaces.
"Ten second fuse until detonation. Exactly ten seconds, I looked it up," Emma said, grinning.
She knew she had me. She was probably going to make me kill myself, and yet she was smiling. It… really hurt to see that. Probably more than it should have, I should be used to it by now. I put a couple of bugs on the second hand of a clock, and counted as it moved. It gave me a pretty good idea of how time was passing even as adrenaline suffused my system and the world seemed to slow down.
I threaded the shoelace string through the grenade, tied it around my neck, and then took a deep breath. My art project was quite big, I fished it out of my bag and clutched it to my chest, then I pulled the pin on the grenade. As a last second inspiration, I pulled the odd, Tinkertech knife I'd been given from the holster at my belt and held it in one hand, behind the art project.
Seven seconds left.
A strange calm overtook me, and I found my breathing and heartbeat surprisingly steady as I walked into the classroom, not hurrying, simple smooth steps.
"Sir, I have something for you to look over," I said, getting close to our teacher for the first time, putting just the right amount of fear into my voice.
He was a tall, pale man. His face was completely white and featureless, like a simple dome mask, but I was pretty sure it was his actual face. He didn't have eyes, a mouth, or lips. No noticeable ears either. He wore a simple, professional blue suit with a red tie, and thin white tendrils danced out of his back, always moving. You could sort of tell his emotional state by them, I think, although I hadn't observed him enough yet to get a handle on anything more than what I assumed was 'irritation' when one the class members answered incorrectly, and… I'd hesitate to call it happiness exactly, but whatever it was he felt when we actually paid attention to his lessons.
Not that anyone wasn't paying attention exactly, just less to the lesson and more to the being that Alexandria had personally warned us was planning on becoming an Endbringer. We'd all seen the hole in the moon. We'd all wondered why it hadn't crumbled onto our planet and caused cataclysmic events, or why there hadn't been huge tidal problems. Now… we knew. It was were Scion died.
Right now the tendrils danced in what I assumed was, if not happiness, then perhaps satisfaction. Our teacher, who insisted we call him Slendy, had been trying to get students to start opening up to him all day. He'd insisted we come to him with any problems with our homework, and here I was, doing just that.
Of course, he probably knew that there were other reasons, he might even be able to see the knife, but Alexandria had explained that to us. It was part of the rules, allowed, encouraged even. Not many of us had gathered the courage to try just yet, but he hadn't exactly hurt those who had. Humiliated at worst, polished fingernails, forehead bops, chiding and teasing.
It kind of bothered me that Emma had been one of the first to stand up and shoot the monster. Her aim was crap, but still, I'd thought bullies were supposed to be cowards.
Three seconds left.
"It's my art project, I'm pretty sure that I've messed up the perspective, but there's some parts I really don't want to redraw…" I began, then I dropped my art project and swung at him with my knife.
I wondered if Emma would really share the money with my dad. Probably not. She'd betrayed me before. If this worked it wouldn't matter. I'd have killed a mini-Endbringer. Taken revenge for the world's first hero. I'd have saved tens of thousands of lives.
He caught my wrist with a tendril easily, locking my knife in place. I smiled at him ruefully, a child caught trying to play a trick on their parent, and stepped forward.
Around my neck the grenade exploded, and all my world was…
Vomit?
I expected pain or something as a torrent of black poured from Slenderman's none existent mouth. His face? This… I felt… kind of a little bit cold, but not unbearably. I couldn't see anything, couldn't move, but I was fine physically.
"YOU!" Slendy said.
I struggled to move, I struggled to push against whatever was holding me, and all of a sudden it was gone. I looked around to see a jagged mass of some sort of black crystal scattered around the classroom, quickly evaporating. The grenade had apparently gone off, because I could see a small chunk of mangled metal among the debris, but the black crystal had contained it, somehow it had gotten between my skin and the grenade, and between the grenade and Slenderman, saving both of us from the blast.
Slendy was turned away from me, looking at Emma and Madison, who were standing in the doorway of the classroom, completely frozen.
I'd never seen Slenderman's tendrils take on quite that level of activity before. I amended my mental notes that this was probably what he looked like when he was angry.
"YOU WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS!" he said.
His voice had a naturally hollow quality, probably something to do with not actually coming from a mouth, but it was really booming right now. It made my ears hurt, and Emma recoiled, stepping back into Madison, who'd simply frozen in terror.
Slenderman blurred briefly. I caught a glimpse of his form elongating, stretching away out into the corridor, then he was back, and he was holding two license plates.
"MY AGREEMENT WITH YOUR GOVERNMENT MAY PREVENT ME FROM HARMING YOU, BUT YOUR FRIENDS! YOUR FAMILIES! EVERY OTHER HUMAN ON THE PLANET IS A HOSTAGE TO YOUR GOOD BEHAVIOR!"
He handed one of the plates to Madison, and her face paled. The other went to Emma, and she frowned.
Apparently she'd never bothered to memorize her dad's license plate number. I had, it made avoiding her easier if I knew his car was dropping her off, and it was a fairly common make and model, so sometimes I got the car confused with another.
Emma finally realized what Slenderman had meant, gulped, tried to get something out and choked on it. I felt a sort of rueful joy that she was the one facing the monster's wrath, then I noticed another number plate at my feet, and my blood ran cold.
Would dad be able to drive home without one of his license plates? Driving without a license place was illegal, would he get in trouble for that? Was I really worried about him getting a fine when…
No, focus, Madison had managed to gather herself.
"You… you told us to try and kill you though!" she squeaked.
Slenderman's tendrils slowed down a bit, and I got the sensation that if he had teeth, he'd be gritting them, getting himself back under control.
"Yes, and I am perfectly fine with you trying to kill me. What I am not fine with, is you nearly getting one of your classmates killed to do so. You are to work together as a team, fight me together."
He leaned in close to Emma's face, and with a certain amount of satisfaction I noted that there was liquid trailing down her leg.
"It's the only way you'll be a challenge," he hissed.
I winced. Yeah, as if any of us could really take on this guy. Our class right now was tiny, just me, Emma, Madison, and some guy named Theo who'd already left.
Still, the classes had been shuffled around, schedules rearranged, students moved in and out. In about a week all the Wards would be transferred into this class, along with New Wave's kids and a couple of Wards from out of the state. Armsmaster and Dragon were literally 'designing' a student. The E88 had volunteered Rune and Othala, and the ABB, not to be outdone, had volunteered Oni-Lee's son, who was yet to trigger.
A lot of the class were transferring in from other schools, a lot of people in the class were parahumans, and Alexandria had explained that several were second generation capes who might trigger. Unfortunately… when Slenderman gave his ultimatum to the world, he'd specified a class of twenty five to thirty students, and after every single parahuman who fit the requirements in the Bay and a couple from out of it were added… there had still been slots to fill.
Or at least that was why Alexandria had apparently put us in this class.
Personally I blame my own luck for dragging Emma and Madison into the class with me, one class through the whole school year, instead of a variety of different classes, and naturally all three of my bullies were going to be in it.
Although for some reason Sophia wasn't going to start attending until next week.
Naturally the class was going to be held at Winslow, why wouldn't it be? The school was big enough to keep the monster happy, but it wasn't like anyone important actually went here. Most of the students were in one gang or another, and could be written off as collateral damage.
The class itself was a little bit different. I don't know how well protected we were exactly by this 'deal,' but the Protectorate had apparently decided to commit some fairly powerful out of town Wards. Apparently to 'test himself' Slenderman had promised that he would allow assassination attempts from every class member, even parahuman ones, and apparently his only retaliation would be 'grooming.' Whatever that meant.
The parahumans had to be Wards age though, and they had to be going to school, and Slenderman had insisted that most of them had to come from the actual city the school was in. He'd only allowed two intercity transfers, someone called Weld and someone called Flechette.
I cautiously stepped over the black, crystallized vomit, and wondered how often Slendy could do that. It had been fast, but it had flowed… almost through me? Manton limited perhaps? No, not even Manton limited, it hadn't effected my clothes. Did he not really vomit, but actually project a beam from his mouth that turned all air in contact with it to black crystal? That actually made more sense, it had sealed me completely, skintight, then shattered after a few seconds. I'd have to write that down, make a complete catalog and list of his abilities.
"Keep that in mind," Slendy said, stepping back to the front of the classroom with one long, extended step.
He didn't move like a human, he… stuttered, from one place to another, using his spatial warping and incredible speed to simply appear wherever he wanted to be. When he took his time it was visible as sort of lurching, jittering gait that almost hurt to look at, because it simply didn't follow the laws of reality that I was used to seeing.
Emma and Madison broke and ran, but I stayed, nervous energy filling me.
"You know, if you really want a challenge you should consider giving us a full list of your abilities and any potential weaknesses," I said slowly.
The tendrils started to wave with what I identified as satisfaction, and while I couldn't see it, I could almost feel his teeth peeling back into a wide, terrifying grin.
"Oh no Taylor. You may consider that YOUR challenge. Things aren't fun if you don't work for them," he said.
"If you say so sir," I said, half bowing and moving towards the door.
"Please, call me Slendy," he repeated.
"Of course, Slendy," I said from the door, then I turned around and he was right in front of me, in the corridor.
I let out a strangled meep of shock and took a deep breath as his elongated fingers flickered towards my face, some sort of green gunk on them.
"Now you have tried to kill me Miss Hebert, and I do think I should take my revenge for that before you leave," he said.
I gulped, took a step back, but I didn't actually manage to get any further away from him, the step somehow carrying me nowhere.
Don't worry Miss Hebert, this is going to clean out those pores of yours nicely," he said.
…
Ten minutes later I was on the bus on the way home, my face wiped clean and surprisingly free of blackheads. Non-greasy skin actually felt pretty good.
I took the license plate out of my backpack and looked at it on the bus home, ignoring the looks other passengers were giving me. What they thought simply didn't matter anymore.
I looked at it. It didn't look… fake, it looked real, military grade, almost tinkertech. They said that the bullets and blasts wouldn't actually do anything to us. Something about how they only effected proto-Endbringers, but they'd also told us to be careful with the guns, knives, and especially grenades that they'd… handed out.
Alexandria had spoken to us in person, made us sign non-disclosure agreements. Apparently they were airtight. Emma had asked if her dad could read hers, and that just plain hadn't been an option. They would literally use a cape to erase my father's memories if I told him.
Would they also erase my father's memories of me if I died? I mean, it would kind of be bad PR if they found out that an Endbringer was allowed to teach a class full of students. Probably. It might be for the best even, he'd been so broken after mom's death.
Perhaps I could… no, seriously, a bunch of bugs wouldn't be of any use against someone who'd fought Scion, let alone killed him.
I took the grenade, looked at it for a long moment and then bent to take off one of my shoelaces.
"Ten second fuse until detonation. Exactly ten seconds, I looked it up," Emma said, grinning.
She knew she had me. She was probably going to make me kill myself, and yet she was smiling. It… really hurt to see that. Probably more than it should have, I should be used to it by now. I put a couple of bugs on the second hand of a clock, and counted as it moved. It gave me a pretty good idea of how time was passing even as adrenaline suffused my system and the world seemed to slow down.
I threaded the shoelace string through the grenade, tied it around my neck, and then took a deep breath. My art project was quite big, I fished it out of my bag and clutched it to my chest, then I pulled the pin on the grenade. As a last second inspiration, I pulled the odd, Tinkertech knife I'd been given from the holster at my belt and held it in one hand, behind the art project.
Seven seconds left.
A strange calm overtook me, and I found my breathing and heartbeat surprisingly steady as I walked into the classroom, not hurrying, simple smooth steps.
"Sir, I have something for you to look over," I said, getting close to our teacher for the first time, putting just the right amount of fear into my voice.
He was a tall, pale man. His face was completely white and featureless, like a simple dome mask, but I was pretty sure it was his actual face. He didn't have eyes, a mouth, or lips. No noticeable ears either. He wore a simple, professional blue suit with a red tie, and thin white tendrils danced out of his back, always moving. You could sort of tell his emotional state by them, I think, although I hadn't observed him enough yet to get a handle on anything more than what I assumed was 'irritation' when one the class members answered incorrectly, and… I'd hesitate to call it happiness exactly, but whatever it was he felt when we actually paid attention to his lessons.
Not that anyone wasn't paying attention exactly, just less to the lesson and more to the being that Alexandria had personally warned us was planning on becoming an Endbringer. We'd all seen the hole in the moon. We'd all wondered why it hadn't crumbled onto our planet and caused cataclysmic events, or why there hadn't been huge tidal problems. Now… we knew. It was were Scion died.
Right now the tendrils danced in what I assumed was, if not happiness, then perhaps satisfaction. Our teacher, who insisted we call him Slendy, had been trying to get students to start opening up to him all day. He'd insisted we come to him with any problems with our homework, and here I was, doing just that.
Of course, he probably knew that there were other reasons, he might even be able to see the knife, but Alexandria had explained that to us. It was part of the rules, allowed, encouraged even. Not many of us had gathered the courage to try just yet, but he hadn't exactly hurt those who had. Humiliated at worst, polished fingernails, forehead bops, chiding and teasing.
It kind of bothered me that Emma had been one of the first to stand up and shoot the monster. Her aim was crap, but still, I'd thought bullies were supposed to be cowards.
Three seconds left.
"It's my art project, I'm pretty sure that I've messed up the perspective, but there's some parts I really don't want to redraw…" I began, then I dropped my art project and swung at him with my knife.
I wondered if Emma would really share the money with my dad. Probably not. She'd betrayed me before. If this worked it wouldn't matter. I'd have killed a mini-Endbringer. Taken revenge for the world's first hero. I'd have saved tens of thousands of lives.
He caught my wrist with a tendril easily, locking my knife in place. I smiled at him ruefully, a child caught trying to play a trick on their parent, and stepped forward.
Around my neck the grenade exploded, and all my world was…
Vomit?
I expected pain or something as a torrent of black poured from Slenderman's none existent mouth. His face? This… I felt… kind of a little bit cold, but not unbearably. I couldn't see anything, couldn't move, but I was fine physically.
"YOU!" Slendy said.
I struggled to move, I struggled to push against whatever was holding me, and all of a sudden it was gone. I looked around to see a jagged mass of some sort of black crystal scattered around the classroom, quickly evaporating. The grenade had apparently gone off, because I could see a small chunk of mangled metal among the debris, but the black crystal had contained it, somehow it had gotten between my skin and the grenade, and between the grenade and Slenderman, saving both of us from the blast.
Slendy was turned away from me, looking at Emma and Madison, who were standing in the doorway of the classroom, completely frozen.
I'd never seen Slenderman's tendrils take on quite that level of activity before. I amended my mental notes that this was probably what he looked like when he was angry.
"YOU WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS!" he said.
His voice had a naturally hollow quality, probably something to do with not actually coming from a mouth, but it was really booming right now. It made my ears hurt, and Emma recoiled, stepping back into Madison, who'd simply frozen in terror.
Slenderman blurred briefly. I caught a glimpse of his form elongating, stretching away out into the corridor, then he was back, and he was holding two license plates.
"MY AGREEMENT WITH YOUR GOVERNMENT MAY PREVENT ME FROM HARMING YOU, BUT YOUR FRIENDS! YOUR FAMILIES! EVERY OTHER HUMAN ON THE PLANET IS A HOSTAGE TO YOUR GOOD BEHAVIOR!"
He handed one of the plates to Madison, and her face paled. The other went to Emma, and she frowned.
Apparently she'd never bothered to memorize her dad's license plate number. I had, it made avoiding her easier if I knew his car was dropping her off, and it was a fairly common make and model, so sometimes I got the car confused with another.
Emma finally realized what Slenderman had meant, gulped, tried to get something out and choked on it. I felt a sort of rueful joy that she was the one facing the monster's wrath, then I noticed another number plate at my feet, and my blood ran cold.
Would dad be able to drive home without one of his license plates? Driving without a license place was illegal, would he get in trouble for that? Was I really worried about him getting a fine when…
No, focus, Madison had managed to gather herself.
"You… you told us to try and kill you though!" she squeaked.
Slenderman's tendrils slowed down a bit, and I got the sensation that if he had teeth, he'd be gritting them, getting himself back under control.
"Yes, and I am perfectly fine with you trying to kill me. What I am not fine with, is you nearly getting one of your classmates killed to do so. You are to work together as a team, fight me together."
He leaned in close to Emma's face, and with a certain amount of satisfaction I noted that there was liquid trailing down her leg.
"It's the only way you'll be a challenge," he hissed.
I winced. Yeah, as if any of us could really take on this guy. Our class right now was tiny, just me, Emma, Madison, and some guy named Theo who'd already left.
Still, the classes had been shuffled around, schedules rearranged, students moved in and out. In about a week all the Wards would be transferred into this class, along with New Wave's kids and a couple of Wards from out of the state. Armsmaster and Dragon were literally 'designing' a student. The E88 had volunteered Rune and Othala, and the ABB, not to be outdone, had volunteered Oni-Lee's son, who was yet to trigger.
A lot of the class were transferring in from other schools, a lot of people in the class were parahumans, and Alexandria had explained that several were second generation capes who might trigger. Unfortunately… when Slenderman gave his ultimatum to the world, he'd specified a class of twenty five to thirty students, and after every single parahuman who fit the requirements in the Bay and a couple from out of it were added… there had still been slots to fill.
Or at least that was why Alexandria had apparently put us in this class.
Personally I blame my own luck for dragging Emma and Madison into the class with me, one class through the whole school year, instead of a variety of different classes, and naturally all three of my bullies were going to be in it.
Although for some reason Sophia wasn't going to start attending until next week.
Naturally the class was going to be held at Winslow, why wouldn't it be? The school was big enough to keep the monster happy, but it wasn't like anyone important actually went here. Most of the students were in one gang or another, and could be written off as collateral damage.
The class itself was a little bit different. I don't know how well protected we were exactly by this 'deal,' but the Protectorate had apparently decided to commit some fairly powerful out of town Wards. Apparently to 'test himself' Slenderman had promised that he would allow assassination attempts from every class member, even parahuman ones, and apparently his only retaliation would be 'grooming.' Whatever that meant.
The parahumans had to be Wards age though, and they had to be going to school, and Slenderman had insisted that most of them had to come from the actual city the school was in. He'd only allowed two intercity transfers, someone called Weld and someone called Flechette.
I cautiously stepped over the black, crystallized vomit, and wondered how often Slendy could do that. It had been fast, but it had flowed… almost through me? Manton limited perhaps? No, not even Manton limited, it hadn't effected my clothes. Did he not really vomit, but actually project a beam from his mouth that turned all air in contact with it to black crystal? That actually made more sense, it had sealed me completely, skintight, then shattered after a few seconds. I'd have to write that down, make a complete catalog and list of his abilities.
"Keep that in mind," Slendy said, stepping back to the front of the classroom with one long, extended step.
He didn't move like a human, he… stuttered, from one place to another, using his spatial warping and incredible speed to simply appear wherever he wanted to be. When he took his time it was visible as sort of lurching, jittering gait that almost hurt to look at, because it simply didn't follow the laws of reality that I was used to seeing.
Emma and Madison broke and ran, but I stayed, nervous energy filling me.
"You know, if you really want a challenge you should consider giving us a full list of your abilities and any potential weaknesses," I said slowly.
The tendrils started to wave with what I identified as satisfaction, and while I couldn't see it, I could almost feel his teeth peeling back into a wide, terrifying grin.
"Oh no Taylor. You may consider that YOUR challenge. Things aren't fun if you don't work for them," he said.
"If you say so sir," I said, half bowing and moving towards the door.
"Please, call me Slendy," he repeated.
"Of course, Slendy," I said from the door, then I turned around and he was right in front of me, in the corridor.
I let out a strangled meep of shock and took a deep breath as his elongated fingers flickered towards my face, some sort of green gunk on them.
"Now you have tried to kill me Miss Hebert, and I do think I should take my revenge for that before you leave," he said.
I gulped, took a step back, but I didn't actually manage to get any further away from him, the step somehow carrying me nowhere.
Don't worry Miss Hebert, this is going to clean out those pores of yours nicely," he said.
…
Ten minutes later I was on the bus on the way home, my face wiped clean and surprisingly free of blackheads. Non-greasy skin actually felt pretty good.
I took the license plate out of my backpack and looked at it on the bus home, ignoring the looks other passengers were giving me. What they thought simply didn't matter anymore.
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- Location
- California
He shaved all her off her body?
- Location
- Australia
Exfoliate has a couple of meanings, in this case it means.
-wash or rub (a part of the body) with a granular substance to remove dead skin cells.
If my sisters makeup kit is anything to go by, it's also supposed to get rid of blackheads and prevent pimples from forming.
You know... when I first thought it up I though that smashing Worm and Assassination Classroom together was a stroke of genius, but this doesn't seem to be gaining much traction.
Was it just the cold meds talking or something?
-wash or rub (a part of the body) with a granular substance to remove dead skin cells.
If my sisters makeup kit is anything to go by, it's also supposed to get rid of blackheads and prevent pimples from forming.
You know... when I first thought it up I though that smashing Worm and Assassination Classroom together was a stroke of genius, but this doesn't seem to be gaining much traction.
Was it just the cold meds talking or something?
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Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
That was funny. And very optimistic. I wonder what Slaughterhouse 9 would try....
globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
That word plus kids is bad...
That word plus kids plus slender, shudders, yeah no.
Good chapter! Does everyone know everyone's power? Are the Wards and villains in costume?
- Location
- Net Slum Tartarga
I liked the chapter, but I can see why someone wouldn't. Personally, I read Worm for the elegant, internally consistent world-building, and Assassination Classroom out of confused amusement and later the characters. This fic sort of exists in a middle ground that doesn't have any of those things. Would be less of an issue in a crack fic, but Taylor's narration seems to take itself too seriously for that.
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QuietlyObserving
The Railgun That Walks Like a Bear
- Location
- Here.
It does get a bit slow at times, but it's surprisingly touching, especially towards the end.
oakgem217
Connoisseur of Power Fantasy
- Location
- The Moon
Assassination classroom was about the teacher helping "failure" children of the "failure" class grow into good people through use of assassination metaphors. I don't know how you could pull that off with work characters, but I look forward to seeing you try.
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
Very weird, but sure?
- Location
- America
Well it just became more interesting on Sufficient velocity. 
Fabuzer
The Almighty
- Location
- Milan, Italy
Nah, it's good and the concept is interesting. It's just that most people prefer to read an AltPower fanfic where Taylor gets some new power and completely changes personality as a result. I'm not saying that all AltPower fanfics follow this formula, but at least half of them do.
I'm also a fan of your OC story (there aren't enough of them) "H+ Mayhem". Watched, both of them.
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
My main criticism would be that Emma and Madison seem shoe-horned in. And Taylor listening to them and suicide-bombing a dangerous cape seemed very OOC.
Fabuzer
The Almighty
- Location
- Milan, Italy
Well, Taylor did make stupid decisions at the beginning. She fought Mister Escalation Lung as a debut, infiltrated the Undersiders and actually thought that she would get away with it and the Protectorate would hail her as a hero, etc.
Basically, she can do pretty reckless and suicidal stuff if she believes she has a chance. Key word being believe. If she gets recognition and actual praise for it, all the better. Not to mention that Taylor started as suicidal and even if she doesn't notice it, her choices may be influenced by this impulse.
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
Sure, I'm not denying that, but NOT Emma and Madison. That's just too much of a stretch to me. And why are they even there?
Sorry for my shorter and less eloquent posts, I'm on a phone.
EDIT: To elaborate a little on what I meant about Emma and Madison, are we the readers to just assume that they are capable of triggering, and that's why they're there? That would mean that they would have to be the only other students in the entirety of Winslow capable of triggering if the class has a total of only four people. It just seems out of place...
Again, not going to fault the author if that's what they want to do with it, but it just seems like a way to keep tormenting Taylor without any good explanation. Not to mention her going along with the plan of, "Listen to the person who betrayed/bullied you and tried to make you think you're scum with their crazy 'kill yourself via grenade on the extremely slim chance it'll do something' plan."
There's no way in hell she would have trusted that Emma would give her half of the bounty to her Dad, too.
I dunno, that's just my rant about it.
Last edited:
I'll see where this is going
- Location
- Australia
Oh, that's not why they're in the class at all. Stick it out one more update, you'll see.
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
1.2 Braiding
- Location
- Australia
I was woken up by a pebble hitting my window.
Weird dream. I thought, sitting up and wondering who on earth would want to get my attention. I'd been dreaming that I met Alexandria, and that for some reason she'd made this Slenderman guy our teacher.
I looked out the window and saw a pale, white face without features staring at me.
Less than thirty seconds later Dad was pounding on my door, asking if I was OK.
"Fine dad, sorry, I just was woken up by a bug flying into my mouth," I lied, hurriedly getting dressed and hiding the mask that Slendy had given me.
"I figure I may as well start my run a little bit early, since I'm up," I told him.
The sun had risen, though only just.
"Be careful," Dad said.
I was still in the process of making my own mask, so the one Slenderman had given me would have to do for now. It was a pretty basic black domino mask, and it wouldn't really hide my identity, but I had been briefed on this. Alexandria had said that our class was under something called 'Truce.' Everyone in it was supposed to put aside their personal goals in the face of an overwhelming threat. Any information that Rune or Othala learned while they were part of the class was supposed to be kept top secret.
It was going to be really weird taking a class with two Nazi's.
I got up, ate breakfast, got dressed, generally got ready for the day, then jogged towards the bus stop.
Slenderman wasn't waiting exactly, but he appeared beside me when I arrived there, making me jump.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Not really, no, but I suppose I'm as ready as I can expect to be. You'll need to drop me back in about an hour so I can see Dad before he goes off to work," I said.
"That can be arranged, follow me," he said.
He vanished, and there was a distinctive… thing… in the air where he had been. A sort of warp, or shimmer. It looked wrong, and trying to get my head around it hurt, but I took a deep breath and stepped into it.
The scenery changed. I wasn't at the bus stop anymore, I was somewhere in the boat graveyard, sand was around my ankles and half buried rusty metal was littered all around me.
"Will you be fighting today, or just watching?" Slendy asked.
I looked at him, tall, imposing, and I wondered if my bugs might be useful.
Actually, did he know my power? I didn't see why he would. As far as I knew I'd been chosen for this class at random.
"Watching, if you don't mind," I said.
He nodded, and gestured to a small group of other students.
"They are watching as well," he said. "you may join them."
"Um, thanks," I said, stepping towards the group.
It consisted of two boys, one I already knew was Theo, the other was thin and wearing glasses, and the last was a girl, a blonde with a skintight suit and a domino mask.
"I mean, I could try and build something now, but I've only made one pair of shoes so far, and they don't even make me that much faster than a normal skater," the thin boy was saying, he stopped as I approached, and the blonde turned to eye me critically, then held out her hand.
"Hi, my name's Lisa, what's yours?" she asked.
"Taylor, Taylor Hebert, um…" I said, growing uncomfortable. I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to tell them my power or not. Could Slenderman hear us here? What was it safe to discuss.
"My name's Trevor, the shy fellow is Theo," the skinny boy said, pointing out Theo, who waved. I felt kind of bad for not mentioning I already knew his name. Now he probably thought that I'd forgotten it.
"I guess you're power isn't useful in this instance? Or are you second generation and expected to Trigger?" Trevor asked.
I froze. Was it really one or the other. Did I tell them I was chosen at random, or did I tell them about my power. Did I know these people, they didn't seem to fit behind the masks of any of the Wards.
"Her power isn't useful, and she's been misinformed about this whole thing. They told her she was chosen at random," Lisa said.
Trevor winced.
"Yeah, they told that to me as well, I didn't buy it for a second. I'm a Tinker, I planned to spend at least a couple of months building tech before I went out in costume, but they found me anyway."
"They've put some pretty seriously powerful Thinkers to making this class," Tattletale said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to find ever single cape eighteen or under in the Bay."
I frowned.
"But… Emma, Sophia and Madison…" I said.
Lisa frowned.
"Well, I managed to get a glance at our lesson notes, and I know that Emma and Madison are supposed to be part of one of our tests… Sophia though…"
She glanced at me, and then looked over at where the Wards were gathering. Slenderman was still bringing people in.
"Look, we were asked to hand these out to the newcomers anyway," Lisa said.
She gave me a simple sheet of folded paper, which she'd stuffed along with dozens of others into the pocket of her jeans. I unfolded it.
'Class Roll,' it said, I started to read it, and got to the eighth name before I started to feel like throwing up.
I forced myself to read to the bottom, and then I sat down on the ground with my legs folded. Lisa, no, Tattletale handed me a lighter.
I hadn't even known there were that many parahumans in the city, let alone parahumans who were still going to school.
Absently I lit the class role on fire, and carefully put it down on the sand to burn once it was well lit.
"They're bending the rules a little bit, Grue, Triumph, Laserdream and Shielder are all almost out of the school system. Triumph passed his final exams with flying colors last year, they're just making him repeat anyway," Tattletale said, eying me critically, then shaking her head.
"I'm sorry, normally I'd be able to tell, but I'm saving my power for watching Slenderman fight. What's your power Taylor?"
"Bug control," I muttered.
Trevor frowned.
"I don't see how that's going to help us, I'm not sure he has vision to block, and his body is pretty much invulnerable to everything except those knives and bullets that Dragon whipped up. Something to do with destabilizing the specific set of physical laws he maintains internally, or something. Anyway, keep fairly quiet about it and we might be able to surprise 'Mr Slendy' with it later, for now I'm just hoping my identity hasn't been blown for nothing."
"I can think of a few uses maybe, depending on her range and level of control," Tattletale said, looking around as more teenagers arrived though those weird distortions in space.
"What exactly is going on?" I asked. "Slendy told me that there was a training exercise happening today, but he didn't give me any specifics."
"Huh, you were kept out of the loop. It's pretty simple, we're going to try and kill him," Tattletale said. "He's agreed not to hurt us, so he can't meaningfully fight back, and he's agreed not to run away from the class either, so basically we can just keep hitting him with stuff until we've found out what sticks. Considering the collateral damage if we went all out in class he's agreed to hold a 'supplementary lesson' here, where it doesn't matter much if things get damaged," she said distractedly.
"Most of the class is going to be fighting, but I haven't made any decent tech yet, Theo doesn't have powers yet, and Tattletale is a Thinker, she'll get more actionable info by watching at a distance. There might be some others who aren't going to be fighting that come in later," Trevor said.
I nodded, that made a certain amount of sense.
I turned around to see the gathering group of capes. I recognized Aegis, Vista, Clockblocker and Kid Win, I think the one in armor was Gallant, and I noticed Shadow Stalker, Sophia Fucking Hess, glaring at me.
Most of the rest of them weren't that familiar to me, and I made a mental note to start doing some research as soon as I had the opportunity.
A large boy, probably nearly a man was shouting at a younger black girl. She was nearly my own age and dressed more normally, though still wearing a domino mask. The boy was wearing motorcycle leathers and helmet with a skull painted on it, the whole getup released black smoke, and it was kind of impressive, though not really scary.
I'd spent all of yesterday trapped in a classroom with Slenderman, my bar for scary was set pretty high right now.
The girl shouted a bit more, and then stomped over to us, glowering.
"Can you believe that prick!" she yelled at Tattletale. "He says I can't fight! Like throwing smoke at the monster that killed Scion is going to do any good!"
Tattletale sighed.
"He wants what's best for you Aisha," she said tiredly, handing the girl another folded sheet of papwer with the class roll on it.
"Seriously?" Aisha asked. "You're just giving these out? Why are we even using masks then?"
"Because Slenderman asked us too, for both questions. I can't read him properly, but I think it's supposed to be some sort of team building thing," Tattletale said, starting to sound annoyed, I got the impression she didn't like not knowing things.
I wondered what her power was? Maybe the PRT had managed to convince Slenderman to let more students from outside the city enroll, and she was an out of town Ward that I'd never heard of. I was guessing Thinker, given what little I knew.
I smiled at Theo, who like me had sort of tried to melt into the background as Aisha started haranguing Tattletale.
A young girl arrived, she couldn't have been more than about eleven or twelve, she crossed over to our group, huffing in annoyance.
"0.000031 percent chance they can actually beat him," she said.
"Never tell me the odds!" Trevor yelled.
He looked around as we stared at him.
"I'm sorry, I thought she was doing a Star Trek thing. We're not doing a Star Trek thing?"
The young girl shook her head.
"No, just telling you their chances. It should be a good show though, and the odds of Slenderman actually hurting them are very low. My name is Dinah, can I have the class roll please?"
We all muttered our own names, introducing ourselves.
Across from us, in the fighting group, things were starting to get interesting. One girl in a large, cheap plastic dog mask had three dogs at her feet and they were growing, bone and muscle forming unevenly over their bodies. Another girl was going around tapping submerged sheets of metal or large chunks of rock, and then pulling it from the ground until it was floating around her as a defensive screen. Kid Win had some sort of giant cannon floating over his shoulders, and he was tapping hurriedly on his keyboard.
"May I have your attention please," Slenderman said.
When an S-Class threat asks for attention, he normally gets it. We turned to face him.
"Thank you. No doubt the Protectorate has briefed you on me, and what this class entails," he said.
Well apparently they'd briefed just about everyone else. They had apparently been unwilling to tell me they knew I was a cape.
"Know that there are a few additional rules that you will need to follow. First, no fighting your classmates. You are here to kill me, and if I find that you are directing your attentions towards someone else in this class your punishment will be…" he paused, and god damn Slenderman could make a pause scary, "severe."
He looked around again, and I noticed that he paid particular attention to Shadow Stalker and the girl who had rocks and metal sheets floating around her. Was I not the only one who hated Sophia?
"If we are clear on that? Good. Now the next rule is this, you have two people in this class who have neither powers nor the potential to trigger. These are the 'Investigator' students listed on your class roll, a roll which they will not be given. Both of them are naturally nosy, socially gregarious, and will doubtless be trying to find out your cape identities. Do not let them. For every cape who's costumed identity is unknown to these two at the end of the semester, I will perform a forfeit, willingly wounding myself during our end of semester confrontation," he said.
I had noticed that Emma and Madison weren't here. I had kind of hoped that the PRT just found enough capes to push them out of the class. This was going to be annoying.
"What about those of us who have a public cape identity?" Glory Girl asked, floating up to get attention.
"Raise your hand Miss Dallon, not your body. You and the rest of New Wave can be considered to have already failed this particular test, show off your powers in front of the class investigators at your leisure," Slenderman said.
Glory Girl's hands clenched into fists, and her face went red, but she slowly lowered back into the small crowd of parahumans.
The one in armor, who I was pretty sure was Gallant, raised his hand.
"Mr Stanfield, you may speak."
"I also have a couple of questions. Firstly, they know the rest of the class is going to be mostly capes, and they know the general shapes and dimensions of the Wards. In a group as diverse and compartively small as ours, that probably means we're going to have our identities guessed," Gallant said.
"It would not be a test if it was not difficult. You are also forbidden from telling the investigators about this test." Slenderman said calmly.
"Secondly, I was wondering if this is really OK. You've promised not to harm your students, and the nature of this assignment means that those two are going to be socially excluded," Gallant said.
"That is why there are two of them. I am sure they will cope, they both have friends outside the class. Miss Hebert, your question?"
With shock I realized my hand was up, and I wondered why it was in the air.
"Just, um, wondering why those two specifically? I mean, you had the choice of everyone in Winslow, right?"
"Aside from their previously mentioned social skills and naturally inquisitive nature, yes. There are many people in this group still to Trigger. Miss Barnes and Miss Clements have already caused one trigger. I have hopes that they will cause more."
I frowned, was there something special about someone that can help them trigger parahumans? Like… a carrier for a virus who was immune themselves maybe?
For some reason Tattletale hissed when Slenderman said that, in face everyone who's face I could see looked at least a little bit put out.
I wonder why? Was I missing something?
"For now those two rules will be all. An obvious amendment to rule one, do not cause friendly fire. You may try to kill me all you wish, but attempts that put the lives of your fellow class members at risk are to be punished severely. Yes Mister Newman?
Aegis had raised his hand, and he looked almost calm as the abomination focused it's attention on him.
"I just want to clarify one last time… you're not going to hurt us, right? That's part of the agreement."
"Nothing worse than flesh wounds, Panacea's assistance will not be needed, although she may offer it to those with bruised pride perhaps. Now, before we begin those who wish to watch may take the Warp to a good vantage point," he said, gesturing.
Space bent, and a shimmering… thing appeared. My mind hurt looking at it and the couple of bugs that flew into it didn't help matters, their current distance from me changed in a way that bent my understanding of reality. Tattletale looked at it critically, then stepped into it. She appeared on top of a cargo container about a hundred meters away. Trevor followed her, followed by Aisha, Theo, Dinah and myself. I tapped my foot on the hollow metal and noticed that everyone else seemed to be sitting down on the edge of the cargo container.
Tattletale sat down next to me while Theo sat on my other side, a little further along, giving himself plenty of space. Trevor sat on the other side of Tattletale, Dinah sat on the other side of Trevor, with Aisha.
In the distance, much more quietly I heard Slenderman say 'you may begin,' and chaos erupted.
It was kind of like watching a cat try to catch a laser pointer.
"Well… I think I can see why the PRT was so sure that this was going to be a year long task," Tattletale said.
"Um… yeah. Do they really expect us to… kill him?" I asked.
"Nah. Spoilers, but all they're hoping we'll do is distract him for the next twelve months. They've got dozens of Tinkers and Thinkers on this, and they're hoping we'll gather enough data that at the end of the year they'll know his weaknesses, maybe take him out with Triumvirate or a specialized Protectorate strike squad of some kind," Tattletale said.
Trevor had pulled a pair of binoculars from his backpack, and the fight was moving further away from us. Tattletale stole the binoculars from him.
"Hey," he said.
"You were thinking of putting your hand on my leg, this is revenge," Tattletale said, putting the binoculars to her eyes and gazing at the fight.
"I was not," Trevor said, coloring.
"Whatever, I'll give them back later," Tattletale snapped.
I watched for a few more seconds. It often looked like someone was going to get close. Shielder would put a bubble of forcefields around Slenderman and then shrink it, or Laserdream or Gallant would nearly tag him with one of their blasts.
Always Slenderman vanished a split second before he was actually touched, no matter how fast Glory Girl flew at him, or how well Rune tried to block him off with rubble, he always got away.
Teleportation as well as spatial warping maybe? Teleportation coupled with danger sense? Or maybe superspeed and senses that didn't just show him what he was facing? Or was his spatial warping just that overpowered?
Then like a switch had been flipped, Slenderman stopped playing evasion.
"Did he just…" I began.
"Well, technically for Aegis having his intestines ripped out does count as a flesh wound," Tattletale said distractedly, "but the way he wrapped them around Clockblocker's helmet does not speak well for his respect for our mental health."
Clockblocker bent over, and I got the impression he was retching inside his helmet.
Nasty.
Flechette had her bow stolen, then she was thrown bodily into Panacea, who had mostly been standing on the sidelines, waiting to heal anyone injured. Laserdream was snatched from the air and thrown into Grue. The girl riding the giant dogs was plucked from the back of the largest and thrown into the girl with the floating debris cloud, somehow stretching around and through the dense screen of rubble.
"Oh hell, the bastard's a Shipper," Tattletale muttered.
"A shipper of what?" I asked.
"He's not even good at it, Flechette does not have anything like the right psychosis to match with Panacea. Sure, there's the meet cute thing, and that throw was masterful, their lips met and everything, but you can't just throw someone at someone else. They need chemistry, setup…" Tattletale said, ignoring me.
Vista vanished, completely buried under a small mountain of stuffed toys. She was the one who got off easiest, which made me feel a little bit better about poor Dinah. At least Slenderman was willing to be fairly lenient with the younger ones.
The fight continued for a while. It was fast, and I missed most of the action. It ended with Slenderman wrapped Aegis and Browbeat in the remains of another shipping crate. They were the last ones standing.
I was… honestly kind of disappointed. A lot of the beach had been destroyed, but no one had even touched Slenderman. He hadn't even used that strange black vomit again, just his movement powers and huge strength.
"Is that everyone we have?" I asked.
"No, Hatchling hasn't been finished yet, and they're still making sure Garrotte's containment unit works properly," Tattletale said absently, biting her lip. She was watching Slenderman, who was currently putting Shadow Stalkers hair in pigtails, while she tried to kill him with several crossbow bolts and a knife. He dodged every time, and he was halfway done when she went into her shadow state and ran.
He distorted, then suddenly he was braiding Glory Girl's hair instead. She tried to punch him. Predictably her fist distorted, bending around his head like a noodle.
He finished, then vanished, reappearing behind a half buried shipping canister that Shadow Stalker was using as cover, then finished her pigtails.
Somehow the pigtails set of the hokey mask quite nicely.
Vista finally dug herself out of her pile of stuffed toys, then frowned in concentration.
Watching her bend space wasn't nearly as hard on my brain as watching Slenderman do it, it almost looked natural in comparison for her to take a few quick strides and join us on top of the shipping container.
"I think we might be in this for the long haul," the young hero said, "at first I wasn't going to bother, but if Slenderman keeps his word… I'm going to need a way to keep my identity secret."
Dinah nodded, putting her hand out professionally for Vista to shake.
"Right, you're thinking that one of us needs to dye our hair? Would you like me to go blonde, or would you like to go brunette?" Dinah asked.
"I sense an opportunity to give makeup advice!" Tattletale said, leaping to her feet.
I looked down at the carnage again. The young capes were getting it up, clutching heads, arms and various other parts, and in one case letting vomit out of their helmet, but Aegis was the only one seriously injured, and he seemed… completely and utterly OK with that, so he probably had a healing power or something.
This… this was crazy, and I kind of felt insane just for watching this debacle, but… maybe this class wouldn't be so bad after all?
Weird dream. I thought, sitting up and wondering who on earth would want to get my attention. I'd been dreaming that I met Alexandria, and that for some reason she'd made this Slenderman guy our teacher.
I looked out the window and saw a pale, white face without features staring at me.
Less than thirty seconds later Dad was pounding on my door, asking if I was OK.
"Fine dad, sorry, I just was woken up by a bug flying into my mouth," I lied, hurriedly getting dressed and hiding the mask that Slendy had given me.
"I figure I may as well start my run a little bit early, since I'm up," I told him.
The sun had risen, though only just.
"Be careful," Dad said.
I was still in the process of making my own mask, so the one Slenderman had given me would have to do for now. It was a pretty basic black domino mask, and it wouldn't really hide my identity, but I had been briefed on this. Alexandria had said that our class was under something called 'Truce.' Everyone in it was supposed to put aside their personal goals in the face of an overwhelming threat. Any information that Rune or Othala learned while they were part of the class was supposed to be kept top secret.
It was going to be really weird taking a class with two Nazi's.
I got up, ate breakfast, got dressed, generally got ready for the day, then jogged towards the bus stop.
Slenderman wasn't waiting exactly, but he appeared beside me when I arrived there, making me jump.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Not really, no, but I suppose I'm as ready as I can expect to be. You'll need to drop me back in about an hour so I can see Dad before he goes off to work," I said.
"That can be arranged, follow me," he said.
He vanished, and there was a distinctive… thing… in the air where he had been. A sort of warp, or shimmer. It looked wrong, and trying to get my head around it hurt, but I took a deep breath and stepped into it.
The scenery changed. I wasn't at the bus stop anymore, I was somewhere in the boat graveyard, sand was around my ankles and half buried rusty metal was littered all around me.
"Will you be fighting today, or just watching?" Slendy asked.
I looked at him, tall, imposing, and I wondered if my bugs might be useful.
Actually, did he know my power? I didn't see why he would. As far as I knew I'd been chosen for this class at random.
"Watching, if you don't mind," I said.
He nodded, and gestured to a small group of other students.
"They are watching as well," he said. "you may join them."
"Um, thanks," I said, stepping towards the group.
It consisted of two boys, one I already knew was Theo, the other was thin and wearing glasses, and the last was a girl, a blonde with a skintight suit and a domino mask.
"I mean, I could try and build something now, but I've only made one pair of shoes so far, and they don't even make me that much faster than a normal skater," the thin boy was saying, he stopped as I approached, and the blonde turned to eye me critically, then held out her hand.
"Hi, my name's Lisa, what's yours?" she asked.
"Taylor, Taylor Hebert, um…" I said, growing uncomfortable. I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to tell them my power or not. Could Slenderman hear us here? What was it safe to discuss.
"My name's Trevor, the shy fellow is Theo," the skinny boy said, pointing out Theo, who waved. I felt kind of bad for not mentioning I already knew his name. Now he probably thought that I'd forgotten it.
"I guess you're power isn't useful in this instance? Or are you second generation and expected to Trigger?" Trevor asked.
I froze. Was it really one or the other. Did I tell them I was chosen at random, or did I tell them about my power. Did I know these people, they didn't seem to fit behind the masks of any of the Wards.
"Her power isn't useful, and she's been misinformed about this whole thing. They told her she was chosen at random," Lisa said.
Trevor winced.
"Yeah, they told that to me as well, I didn't buy it for a second. I'm a Tinker, I planned to spend at least a couple of months building tech before I went out in costume, but they found me anyway."
"They've put some pretty seriously powerful Thinkers to making this class," Tattletale said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to find ever single cape eighteen or under in the Bay."
I frowned.
"But… Emma, Sophia and Madison…" I said.
Lisa frowned.
"Well, I managed to get a glance at our lesson notes, and I know that Emma and Madison are supposed to be part of one of our tests… Sophia though…"
She glanced at me, and then looked over at where the Wards were gathering. Slenderman was still bringing people in.
"Look, we were asked to hand these out to the newcomers anyway," Lisa said.
She gave me a simple sheet of folded paper, which she'd stuffed along with dozens of others into the pocket of her jeans. I unfolded it.
'Class Roll,' it said, I started to read it, and got to the eighth name before I started to feel like throwing up.
I forced myself to read to the bottom, and then I sat down on the ground with my legs folded. Lisa, no, Tattletale handed me a lighter.
I hadn't even known there were that many parahumans in the city, let alone parahumans who were still going to school.
Absently I lit the class role on fire, and carefully put it down on the sand to burn once it was well lit.
"They're bending the rules a little bit, Grue, Triumph, Laserdream and Shielder are all almost out of the school system. Triumph passed his final exams with flying colors last year, they're just making him repeat anyway," Tattletale said, eying me critically, then shaking her head.
"I'm sorry, normally I'd be able to tell, but I'm saving my power for watching Slenderman fight. What's your power Taylor?"
"Bug control," I muttered.
Trevor frowned.
"I don't see how that's going to help us, I'm not sure he has vision to block, and his body is pretty much invulnerable to everything except those knives and bullets that Dragon whipped up. Something to do with destabilizing the specific set of physical laws he maintains internally, or something. Anyway, keep fairly quiet about it and we might be able to surprise 'Mr Slendy' with it later, for now I'm just hoping my identity hasn't been blown for nothing."
"I can think of a few uses maybe, depending on her range and level of control," Tattletale said, looking around as more teenagers arrived though those weird distortions in space.
"What exactly is going on?" I asked. "Slendy told me that there was a training exercise happening today, but he didn't give me any specifics."
"Huh, you were kept out of the loop. It's pretty simple, we're going to try and kill him," Tattletale said. "He's agreed not to hurt us, so he can't meaningfully fight back, and he's agreed not to run away from the class either, so basically we can just keep hitting him with stuff until we've found out what sticks. Considering the collateral damage if we went all out in class he's agreed to hold a 'supplementary lesson' here, where it doesn't matter much if things get damaged," she said distractedly.
"Most of the class is going to be fighting, but I haven't made any decent tech yet, Theo doesn't have powers yet, and Tattletale is a Thinker, she'll get more actionable info by watching at a distance. There might be some others who aren't going to be fighting that come in later," Trevor said.
I nodded, that made a certain amount of sense.
I turned around to see the gathering group of capes. I recognized Aegis, Vista, Clockblocker and Kid Win, I think the one in armor was Gallant, and I noticed Shadow Stalker, Sophia Fucking Hess, glaring at me.
Most of the rest of them weren't that familiar to me, and I made a mental note to start doing some research as soon as I had the opportunity.
A large boy, probably nearly a man was shouting at a younger black girl. She was nearly my own age and dressed more normally, though still wearing a domino mask. The boy was wearing motorcycle leathers and helmet with a skull painted on it, the whole getup released black smoke, and it was kind of impressive, though not really scary.
I'd spent all of yesterday trapped in a classroom with Slenderman, my bar for scary was set pretty high right now.
The girl shouted a bit more, and then stomped over to us, glowering.
"Can you believe that prick!" she yelled at Tattletale. "He says I can't fight! Like throwing smoke at the monster that killed Scion is going to do any good!"
Tattletale sighed.
"He wants what's best for you Aisha," she said tiredly, handing the girl another folded sheet of papwer with the class roll on it.
"Seriously?" Aisha asked. "You're just giving these out? Why are we even using masks then?"
"Because Slenderman asked us too, for both questions. I can't read him properly, but I think it's supposed to be some sort of team building thing," Tattletale said, starting to sound annoyed, I got the impression she didn't like not knowing things.
I wondered what her power was? Maybe the PRT had managed to convince Slenderman to let more students from outside the city enroll, and she was an out of town Ward that I'd never heard of. I was guessing Thinker, given what little I knew.
I smiled at Theo, who like me had sort of tried to melt into the background as Aisha started haranguing Tattletale.
A young girl arrived, she couldn't have been more than about eleven or twelve, she crossed over to our group, huffing in annoyance.
"0.000031 percent chance they can actually beat him," she said.
"Never tell me the odds!" Trevor yelled.
He looked around as we stared at him.
"I'm sorry, I thought she was doing a Star Trek thing. We're not doing a Star Trek thing?"
The young girl shook her head.
"No, just telling you their chances. It should be a good show though, and the odds of Slenderman actually hurting them are very low. My name is Dinah, can I have the class roll please?"
We all muttered our own names, introducing ourselves.
Across from us, in the fighting group, things were starting to get interesting. One girl in a large, cheap plastic dog mask had three dogs at her feet and they were growing, bone and muscle forming unevenly over their bodies. Another girl was going around tapping submerged sheets of metal or large chunks of rock, and then pulling it from the ground until it was floating around her as a defensive screen. Kid Win had some sort of giant cannon floating over his shoulders, and he was tapping hurriedly on his keyboard.
"May I have your attention please," Slenderman said.
When an S-Class threat asks for attention, he normally gets it. We turned to face him.
"Thank you. No doubt the Protectorate has briefed you on me, and what this class entails," he said.
Well apparently they'd briefed just about everyone else. They had apparently been unwilling to tell me they knew I was a cape.
"Know that there are a few additional rules that you will need to follow. First, no fighting your classmates. You are here to kill me, and if I find that you are directing your attentions towards someone else in this class your punishment will be…" he paused, and god damn Slenderman could make a pause scary, "severe."
He looked around again, and I noticed that he paid particular attention to Shadow Stalker and the girl who had rocks and metal sheets floating around her. Was I not the only one who hated Sophia?
"If we are clear on that? Good. Now the next rule is this, you have two people in this class who have neither powers nor the potential to trigger. These are the 'Investigator' students listed on your class roll, a roll which they will not be given. Both of them are naturally nosy, socially gregarious, and will doubtless be trying to find out your cape identities. Do not let them. For every cape who's costumed identity is unknown to these two at the end of the semester, I will perform a forfeit, willingly wounding myself during our end of semester confrontation," he said.
I had noticed that Emma and Madison weren't here. I had kind of hoped that the PRT just found enough capes to push them out of the class. This was going to be annoying.
"What about those of us who have a public cape identity?" Glory Girl asked, floating up to get attention.
"Raise your hand Miss Dallon, not your body. You and the rest of New Wave can be considered to have already failed this particular test, show off your powers in front of the class investigators at your leisure," Slenderman said.
Glory Girl's hands clenched into fists, and her face went red, but she slowly lowered back into the small crowd of parahumans.
The one in armor, who I was pretty sure was Gallant, raised his hand.
"Mr Stanfield, you may speak."
"I also have a couple of questions. Firstly, they know the rest of the class is going to be mostly capes, and they know the general shapes and dimensions of the Wards. In a group as diverse and compartively small as ours, that probably means we're going to have our identities guessed," Gallant said.
"It would not be a test if it was not difficult. You are also forbidden from telling the investigators about this test." Slenderman said calmly.
"Secondly, I was wondering if this is really OK. You've promised not to harm your students, and the nature of this assignment means that those two are going to be socially excluded," Gallant said.
"That is why there are two of them. I am sure they will cope, they both have friends outside the class. Miss Hebert, your question?"
With shock I realized my hand was up, and I wondered why it was in the air.
"Just, um, wondering why those two specifically? I mean, you had the choice of everyone in Winslow, right?"
"Aside from their previously mentioned social skills and naturally inquisitive nature, yes. There are many people in this group still to Trigger. Miss Barnes and Miss Clements have already caused one trigger. I have hopes that they will cause more."
I frowned, was there something special about someone that can help them trigger parahumans? Like… a carrier for a virus who was immune themselves maybe?
For some reason Tattletale hissed when Slenderman said that, in face everyone who's face I could see looked at least a little bit put out.
I wonder why? Was I missing something?
"For now those two rules will be all. An obvious amendment to rule one, do not cause friendly fire. You may try to kill me all you wish, but attempts that put the lives of your fellow class members at risk are to be punished severely. Yes Mister Newman?
Aegis had raised his hand, and he looked almost calm as the abomination focused it's attention on him.
"I just want to clarify one last time… you're not going to hurt us, right? That's part of the agreement."
"Nothing worse than flesh wounds, Panacea's assistance will not be needed, although she may offer it to those with bruised pride perhaps. Now, before we begin those who wish to watch may take the Warp to a good vantage point," he said, gesturing.
Space bent, and a shimmering… thing appeared. My mind hurt looking at it and the couple of bugs that flew into it didn't help matters, their current distance from me changed in a way that bent my understanding of reality. Tattletale looked at it critically, then stepped into it. She appeared on top of a cargo container about a hundred meters away. Trevor followed her, followed by Aisha, Theo, Dinah and myself. I tapped my foot on the hollow metal and noticed that everyone else seemed to be sitting down on the edge of the cargo container.
Tattletale sat down next to me while Theo sat on my other side, a little further along, giving himself plenty of space. Trevor sat on the other side of Tattletale, Dinah sat on the other side of Trevor, with Aisha.
In the distance, much more quietly I heard Slenderman say 'you may begin,' and chaos erupted.
It was kind of like watching a cat try to catch a laser pointer.
"Well… I think I can see why the PRT was so sure that this was going to be a year long task," Tattletale said.
"Um… yeah. Do they really expect us to… kill him?" I asked.
"Nah. Spoilers, but all they're hoping we'll do is distract him for the next twelve months. They've got dozens of Tinkers and Thinkers on this, and they're hoping we'll gather enough data that at the end of the year they'll know his weaknesses, maybe take him out with Triumvirate or a specialized Protectorate strike squad of some kind," Tattletale said.
Trevor had pulled a pair of binoculars from his backpack, and the fight was moving further away from us. Tattletale stole the binoculars from him.
"Hey," he said.
"You were thinking of putting your hand on my leg, this is revenge," Tattletale said, putting the binoculars to her eyes and gazing at the fight.
"I was not," Trevor said, coloring.
"Whatever, I'll give them back later," Tattletale snapped.
I watched for a few more seconds. It often looked like someone was going to get close. Shielder would put a bubble of forcefields around Slenderman and then shrink it, or Laserdream or Gallant would nearly tag him with one of their blasts.
Always Slenderman vanished a split second before he was actually touched, no matter how fast Glory Girl flew at him, or how well Rune tried to block him off with rubble, he always got away.
Teleportation as well as spatial warping maybe? Teleportation coupled with danger sense? Or maybe superspeed and senses that didn't just show him what he was facing? Or was his spatial warping just that overpowered?
Then like a switch had been flipped, Slenderman stopped playing evasion.
"Did he just…" I began.
"Well, technically for Aegis having his intestines ripped out does count as a flesh wound," Tattletale said distractedly, "but the way he wrapped them around Clockblocker's helmet does not speak well for his respect for our mental health."
Clockblocker bent over, and I got the impression he was retching inside his helmet.
Nasty.
Flechette had her bow stolen, then she was thrown bodily into Panacea, who had mostly been standing on the sidelines, waiting to heal anyone injured. Laserdream was snatched from the air and thrown into Grue. The girl riding the giant dogs was plucked from the back of the largest and thrown into the girl with the floating debris cloud, somehow stretching around and through the dense screen of rubble.
"Oh hell, the bastard's a Shipper," Tattletale muttered.
"A shipper of what?" I asked.
"He's not even good at it, Flechette does not have anything like the right psychosis to match with Panacea. Sure, there's the meet cute thing, and that throw was masterful, their lips met and everything, but you can't just throw someone at someone else. They need chemistry, setup…" Tattletale said, ignoring me.
Vista vanished, completely buried under a small mountain of stuffed toys. She was the one who got off easiest, which made me feel a little bit better about poor Dinah. At least Slenderman was willing to be fairly lenient with the younger ones.
The fight continued for a while. It was fast, and I missed most of the action. It ended with Slenderman wrapped Aegis and Browbeat in the remains of another shipping crate. They were the last ones standing.
I was… honestly kind of disappointed. A lot of the beach had been destroyed, but no one had even touched Slenderman. He hadn't even used that strange black vomit again, just his movement powers and huge strength.
"Is that everyone we have?" I asked.
"No, Hatchling hasn't been finished yet, and they're still making sure Garrotte's containment unit works properly," Tattletale said absently, biting her lip. She was watching Slenderman, who was currently putting Shadow Stalkers hair in pigtails, while she tried to kill him with several crossbow bolts and a knife. He dodged every time, and he was halfway done when she went into her shadow state and ran.
He distorted, then suddenly he was braiding Glory Girl's hair instead. She tried to punch him. Predictably her fist distorted, bending around his head like a noodle.
He finished, then vanished, reappearing behind a half buried shipping canister that Shadow Stalker was using as cover, then finished her pigtails.
Somehow the pigtails set of the hokey mask quite nicely.
Vista finally dug herself out of her pile of stuffed toys, then frowned in concentration.
Watching her bend space wasn't nearly as hard on my brain as watching Slenderman do it, it almost looked natural in comparison for her to take a few quick strides and join us on top of the shipping container.
"I think we might be in this for the long haul," the young hero said, "at first I wasn't going to bother, but if Slenderman keeps his word… I'm going to need a way to keep my identity secret."
Dinah nodded, putting her hand out professionally for Vista to shake.
"Right, you're thinking that one of us needs to dye our hair? Would you like me to go blonde, or would you like to go brunette?" Dinah asked.
"I sense an opportunity to give makeup advice!" Tattletale said, leaping to her feet.
I looked down at the carnage again. The young capes were getting it up, clutching heads, arms and various other parts, and in one case letting vomit out of their helmet, but Aegis was the only one seriously injured, and he seemed… completely and utterly OK with that, so he probably had a healing power or something.
This… this was crazy, and I kind of felt insane just for watching this debacle, but… maybe this class wouldn't be so bad after all?
zamin
The Watcher in the Dark
Yikes. I have a feeling that Emma and Madison aren't going to be very popular in this class.