Chapter 6
Thursday
February 7th, 2019
Being on campus again after an eventful past few days had seemed almost like an anti-climax, but Aaron had already spent a hell of a lot of money on tuition fees, and it would be quite a waste of if he were to just slave off in his room all day just because a symbiote had fuse with his brain stem.
Oi, I heard that ya know.
“I didn’t think that necessarily as a bad thing.” Aaron dropped his voice to a whisper half way through his sentence when he received a curious look from the blonde walking in the opposite direction. He had to check that he didn’t look too insane talking to himself, well, not himself, in public.
Ya know, ya could talk in your head, so you don’t look a little cuckoo.
‘Like this?’
Ya got it! Good job ya dense egg.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He didn’t get a response to that, and shrugged it off, as he opened the door to his cosy seminar room.
The course that Aaron had taken wasn’t the most popular in the campus, not by a long stretch. There were only 20 students, and that was at the start, he wasn’t sure if they had dropped out or just didn’t bother showing up to these things, but there were only about 15 regular attendees to actual classes and field trips. He didn’t mind the smaller group, it allowed for easier engagement with the course, he felt that if he enrolled in a subject with hundreds of students in his year, he would get lost in the flow of it a bit, and that was a little scary, being just a face in the crowd.
Aaron took his usual spot in the back right hand corner of the fairly non-descript room. A screen for the projector in the front, and four rows of chairs extending all the way to the back. He was ten minutes early to the class, so only he and another guy was here. He didn’t know what the other guy’s name was, he never talked and seemed more caring in sitting in the corner staring into space. It’s kind of what Aaron imagined people who took too many hallucinogens acted like on a daily basis. He had that sort of look in his eye that someone who’s brain was a little scrambled by outside influences.
Says you.
‘Unlike the drugs, mine didn’t get scrambled by choice Cora.’
Maybe not, but I’m sure the outcome may be the same, your third eye will open Aaron.
‘That sounds horrifying, I don’t want a third eye to open on my forehead.’
Not literally ya dunce.
Aaron rolled his eyes and reached over to his backpack to take a sip of water, only to grasp at thin air. This was fairly typical for Aaron Holt, everytime he left the house, he would always forget something at some point, of varying importance. The benefits of arriving early and being on good standing with the professor is that Aaron could take a few liberties at times, so, he set his bag down, and left the seminar room to find a vending machine, where he could get some hydration.
If one thing Aaron could fault about the design of the Woodford Campus was that whoever designed it seemed to be placing amenities at random. In particularly, the Sciences building that Aaron found himself in, whoever designed it decided that scientists didn’t need basic necessities such as food and water within the building itself and one would have to walk across to the central cafe to actually get food. Or, one could go to the back of the building which looked dodgy as all hell to get to the only vending machine in the area. Because science students had to work for their water I guess.
There was a reason this area was considered dodgy. Of all the areas that the University had invested into modernising, this area certainly wasn’t one of them. More reniscient of one of those dark alley ways in those superhero comics from America, it was apparently meant to be an unloading point for some trucks delivering science stuff, but that had fallen out of disuse. Well, disuse of its ‘official’ goal.
Speaking of the place’s new use, Aaron rounded the corner to the back of the building and quickly trudged over to the vending machine, which was the only place in this place that was even remotely in the 21st century. He noticed two hoodied individuals rather hovering towards the darker end of the ‘alley’. He couldn’t hear their conversation, nor did he really want to get into their business. The only people here were definitely not to be messed around with and Aaron took the message, inserting in a few coins to get his water, and minded his own business.
Or at least, that was the goal, because after a few seconds of trying to get the machine to release the bottle, Aaron felt a little poke at his back, and he immediately froze, whether it was out of instinct, or…
Don’t turn around.
Aaron didn’t dare move, especially as whatever had touched his back gave him a much sharper poke, even breaking the plane of his hoodie a little bit. He got the message, he thinks he’s being mugged right now.
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-what are you doing here?! S-say something! Y-you’re hear to r-rat me out aren’t y-you?”
Aaron held up his hands and shook his head, which he wasn’t sure why he did, whoever was mugging him couldn’t see his face behind the hoodie.
“I’m just here to get a drink, Jesus, let me go, I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“You’re RATTING ME OUT! I j-just know it. I KNOW IT!”
“Calm down, please just calm down, don’t do anything that you’re going to regret.”
“The AUTHORITIES say that. I kn-knew it! I need to get rid of you, before they TAKE ME!”
The druggie let out a feral scream and drove his hand forward, and Aaron was ready to feel the intense pain that came from knife entering flesh.
Not on my watch.
The knife stopped as it hit a protective barrier against his skin, almost causing the cheap blade to bend and snap right there, but the symbiote material mainly caused it to bend a little. Evading certain death, Aaron couldn’t help but smirk a little, especially as he felt the mask start to cover his face.
“You should have just left me alone, now yer in for a world a pain!”
As the stiletto boots finished forming, the combined force of symbiote and Aaron delivered a spinning roundhouse kick to the chest of the paranoid druggie. It was meant to be a gentle kick, but the kick instead sent the druggie through the fence, and crashing into the bus stop on the opposite end of the street that the fence separated the drug den alley from the public.
Maybe, Aaron hoped, that no one had seen what had just happened.
A few screams and sounds of crashing maybe hinted that some people had in fact witnessed it.
“I think there was too much power in that kick, Cora.”
No shit, Poirot.
“Fish? Why are you calling me a fish?”
That’s a poisson! We don’t have time for this right now! Let’s get outta here before we get caug-
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” Cora could only do a metaphorical eyeroll as a red-headed and well, red themed hero, fell out of the sky and landed with an elegant style on the ground in front of the symbioted pair. “Do you have any idea the damage that you have cost?”
Look what you’ve done now ya dense piece a shit!
—------------------------------------------------
Steph didn’t have a class today, but it didn’t stop her from being on campus, or well, being on campus to do her side job. Steph had taken position on top of the library, and was hovering in the hair in a sitting position, munching on a tuna melt sandwich. Even heroes needed their breaks after all, and Christine would really get on her skin if her ‘bio readings’ showed that she hadn’t had a balanced diet. She hadn’t had fish in a while, so, balanced diet and all, the decision was obvious.
She kept an eye on this area because there were a few dark spots around campus surrounding the library. Areas neglected by the university. The area between the Library and the new Student Union building was one. It was quite impressive that in the gap between two modern buildings that couldn’t be more than 5 years old, there was an area of pavement so cracked that it looked more in place in Pompeii or Herculeneum.
Then there were the various delivery spots behind buildings such as the two Sciences buildings, now abandoned, now more used as places for drug deals. Steph didn’t intervene in these, it was out of her jurisdiction. She had intervened once in this and was told off by her superiors and Detective Lind. That was the job for the cops to bust. Not that they did much use with how much the things were spreading around campus.
As she went to finish her sandwich, she heard a loud sound, sounding like metal crunching, immediately followed by a loud crash of broken glass. Then quite a bit of screaming, a lot of screaming in fact.
Her eyes immediately scanned to the street down below, and the origin of most of the sounds. The bus stop wasn’t that busy at this time, which was a good thing, since the glass and metal structure was crumbled in a heap. Also laying on the floor next to the broken stop was a hooded student, who looked worse for wear, grabbing his chest and coughing quite intensely, she could almost make out some blood coming with the coughs. People were already on their phones so that person would have an ambulance.
The metal fence that divided the street from the science “alley” had a massive hole in it, the sound of the metal crunching was probably this fence snapping, as the steel had completely snapped in the middle. Standing in the alleyway, that she couldn’t make out complete, was a black clad figure, who didn’t seem to be moving, but was standing, just perfectly still.
Steph flew up quickly into the air and over to this alley way, to confront the individual she thought was the one responsible for this. Only when she got closer that she got a glance of the long brown ponytail, the form fitting outfit, the rather short skirt, and the thing that seemed to catch her attention the most. The mask, that swirled in a familiar pattern. The black biological matter at the scene of the car explosion. This was the person. This was the one responsible who had nearly put Aaron in danger.
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” She yelled out as she let herself fall to the ground, catching herself with a graceful landing. She pointed a finger at the individual, who seemed more surprised than anything, taking a step back. She couldn’t really tell expressions when the person’s face was covered by a mask. “Do you have any idea the damage you cost?”
She was prepared to take this causer of destruction down.
—-------------------------
Aaron was a little confused as to what to do. He had after all, just punted a regular old dude through a metal wall and a few glass panes. Secondly, he was seemingly confronted by a hero, who seemed to want to fight him. This wasn’t good. Maybe he could run.
No good, she looks quite fast, and can fly, ya can’t.
‘Much good these powers are giving me then Cora.’ Aaron sighed, and tried to look as unintimidating as he could, which admittedly, he thought, wasn’t hard with his height.
“I, look, that guy was trying to stab me, I just merely defended myself.”
The red-headed hero raised an eyebrow, and gave a sideeye to the destruction off to the side.
“Was it really necessary for you to maybe severely injure him? That seems a bit over the top for ‘self defense’, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know my own strength, that was my bad.” Aaron let out a slightly nervous chuckle, before taking a step backwards. He firmly stopped when he saw the hero summon a spear out of thin air and aim it straight his head.
“I don’t know where you are going oh unnamed villain, but I’m going to need to stop you.”
“You can’t just go around calling me ‘unnamed villain’, and I think that’s a little unfair. I’ve not done anything that bad yet.”
“....You nearly killed a guy and nearly blew up a block of streets.”
“That second thing wasn’t me! That was Cora!”
Snitch!
“....Yeah I’m not buying that at all, you’re going to blame some poor lady now.”
“She’s not a poor lady! She’s a menace!”
“Enough talk! I’m going to take you down now.” The hero promptly threw her spear at the symbioted pair, and was rather stunned when Aaron plucked the spear out of the air, catching it just as it was about to hit his face. He then threw the spear to the side, only catching it evaporate into nothing the moment it hit the floor.
“Now I’m not sure the strength of this thing but I think I fancy my skin as being pretty strong. And look, that’s rather forward from you, I don’t even know your name.”
The hero narrowed her eyes slightly, before frowning. She’d never met anyone like this before, such a bizarre character. But she relented nonetheless.
“The name’s Skylark, and I’m in charge of this area, to deal with people that regular old people can’t deal with. People…” She pointed again. “Like you. And what do you go by? A fair trade, name for a name?”
“My name is A-” Don’t you even dare give her your real name you idiot.
Skylark raised an eyebrow at that pause, and was a little confused as the symbiote let out a nervous chuckle.
‘Erin. My name is Erin.’
“.....You know giving away your real name is a dead giveaway right.”
“It isn’t my real name!” You’re such a stupid fuckin’ girl, now let’s get out of here and cut the small talk!
Aaron looked upwards, and looked back over to the hero, shrugging. “Sorry about this, but you’re probably gonna need to bring your A game to stop me.” He had no idea where this confidence came from, but he could just feel it oozing through his veins, maybe Cora had something to do with this
Aaron raised his hands up and summoned for any object to emerge out of his gloves. He felt the symbioty gloopy material start to form something extremely heavy in his hands, and it must be quite the sight since Skylark’s eyes were widening slightly. As he felt it stop expanding, he afforded himself a smile, this was quite the thrill actually.
“Later chicken.” He threw the object at Skylark. Which turned out to a literal goopy real sized bus. It struck the hero in the face and sent her crashing through another end of the wall. After a few seconds, a distant crash seemed to signal that the trajectory of the hero had been stopped, probably by another wall.
“Whoops. Cora can you get us out of here?”
My pleasure, ‘Erin’. Aaron could almost hear the smug laughter in Cora’s voice, he’d have to ask her about that. He felt the control from his body get wrenched away, as Cora quickly scaled the building, walking up it, before hopping from building to building
You know, maybe causing some damage might not be so bad with the power he has. Aaron might have to take it all back. Maybe even the skirt was worth it. He could attempt some real change with these powers.