1.1 – Flunked

Nathan Brody wasn’t a superhero.

Hell, he was a lot of things, but definitely not anything super. Most of the adjectives one could connect to him were neutral at best. With a few exceptions, at least, which he supposed were a bit better.

Still, he didn’t let that get him down this morning. He shifted to his kitchen, which was basically just a small stove next to his bed, and got the kettle running to get his morning coffee. He pointedly looked away from his bedside table and the letter placed right beside the framed picture of his late parents. The seal holding the envelope closed was a bold red shield, one half striped, the other marked with a single cut-out star. The logo of Stony Brook.

It arrived yesterday. He knew what was inside without opening it. As long as it wasn’t opened, the news could be either good or bad! Kind of a Schrodinger’s envelope, as he dubbed it.

Opening the cupboard, he reached for the jar with instant coffee, and as if there was some divine being intent on messing with him today, it was empty. He gripped the jar, sighing loudly.

No. He wouldn’t let this make him angry. Definitely not. And he definitely didn’t feel the urge to throw the jar on the ground with all his might.

Without further ado, he grabbed his bag, threw a water bottle in and left the small room that he called home. Straight to work it was, even without coffee. Maybe he could grab something to eat on the way.

It didn’t use to be this way. As much as he hated it, he was a student too. Keyword was, because he probably wasn’t anymore, thanks to some classmates who apparently needed to take their stress out on someone. The fact that Nathan didn’t talk to anyone much probably made them think he was an easy mark. Nathan could take the occasional comment or a shove coming from nowhere if he saw his classmates at a party.

But actually attacking him? It felt childish, first off. And they seriously picked the wrong target. Nathan never did any martial arts, but he was taller and better built than most. Happened to be in some fights in… the past. And the three guys that jumped him hadn’t. And as much as they liked making fun of him for reasons unknown to him. Probably just felt like they needed to put the poor guy down to his rightful place. They were seriously wrong if they thought he wouldn’t ever fight back.

He stopped at a crosswalk, remembering that there was a Starbucks on 42nd street, when suddenly a 12-year-old girl started sprinting down the same crosswalk from his side.

She didn’t see the truck that was coming far too quickly, or she at least didn’t pay enough attention. Before his mind could even register exactly what had happened, Nathan sprinted forward, dashing like a madman. The way he acted on instinct surprised him too, and he arrived just in time to shove the girl out of the way.

Not fast enough to not get hit himself. Pain shot through his body like electricity, so sharp and immense that it drowned out any other thought. Before he could cry out in agony, the feeling faded, almost as quickly as it began.

His vision focused on a leg lying next to him, and his mind struggled to connect the sight with the fact that it was probably his. Then, consciousness slipped away, and the world went black.

Nathan opened his eyes again. Surprisingly, he wasn’t lying on the road, bleeding out onto the asphalt as he had expected. Instead, he was standing on a much cleaner street than he’d ever remembered seeing in New York. His head felt foggy and confusion seized him completely.

The air smelled of flowers, and upon a glance up, he realized that he was standing under a cherry tree, the flowers currently in full bloom.

Wait… full bloom? But it was fall in New York. Shouldn’t there be fruit? Did Larry the local hobo eat them all? He used to do that sometimes.

It was beautiful. Far more than he ever imagined a tree could look, so much so that he had to admit that the pictures that he saw on the internet didn’t do the flowery petals justice.

Wait. Why the hell was he under a cherry tree? Wasn’t he just run over by a van? Or a truck or whatever. Where was he, anyway?

Finally, he took a moment to look around and realized that he was, in fact, not standing in a dirty side street in the middle of New York anymore. The skyscrapers of the city were instead replaced by two or three-story buildings, much cleaner and with a completely different style of architecture. No longer was he surrounded by glassy walls or hologram ads on every corner. Well… there still was that, but to a much lesser extent. And there was so much greenery around! Far more than he was used to, at least.

On his other side, there was a rock and steel fence, and beyond it was a building that he somewhat recognized, though he couldn’t quite tell from where. It was definitely a school, but he had never been on this street before, had he?

This all felt like a weird dream. What the hell is going on?

He looked around and saw people walking about, and that’s when he realized that this was indeed a completely different country. The people around him were, for the most part, Asian, and several young people were walking towards the gates to the school, wearing a very distinct Japanese uniform.

Okay, yeah, this is a dream. Or maybe the afterlife or whatever else my mind decided to fabricate.

He once again looked at the school, and finally, his memory clicked. He recognized the school because he had seen it before. It was from one of his favorite video games, a visual novel that he played through several times during one of his summer breaks.

My Superhero Life.

As visual novels often were, it was a romance visual novel, one with several heroines that the player could date. As much as he hated to admit it, he lacked any experience in the dating department. Or romance, really. He hooked up with girls, here and there. But he never managed to land anything long-term. And the video game provided him with some dumb fun for several hundred hours with all of its branching paths and action sequences. It let him pretend for months on end.

But then he had put it away and didn’t think about it much, not for the past several years. With university starting, he had to focus more on other things, like actually trying to study and ignoring his idiot classmates. Studying finance wasn’t hard, and yet those idiots managed to mess up so often that he wondered how they even got there. But he knew the answer; nepotism.

And yet, despite Nathan getting kicked out of the school and him getting run over, here he stood. He finally took a look at himself, to the best of his capabilities, of course, and found that he was wearing the same uniform as the people around him. It honestly looked a bit like a suit, completely black with a red undershirt. He liked it quite a lot, but there was no way to know how well it fit him without checking a mirror.

So wait, like, that’s it? Am I just in a video game? Is this the afterlife? Is this even my own body? It does feel the same, at least.

He wanted to think a little bit longer, but that’s when the bell sounded from the school, so loud that he heard it even from where he stood. A pink text window opened in front of his eyes, translucent yet solid enough to be able to read the text.

Quest Started

Goal: Achieve a happy ending. 0/6

Time until failure: 3 years

Tutorial Objective: Attend Class

Time remaining: 4 minutes 25 seconds

What the—?

The timer continued going down in front of Nathan’s eyes. A memory followed. Failing to complete a given quest usually meant that the player would die and would have to restart. Something told him that he wouldn’t get to restart here.

No time for thinking; he had to move, now. He started walking toward the Academy gates. Though he was quite familiar with the structure, it seemed different now that he saw it in three dimensions compared to the two he had seen years ago. Hell, it was just an image before, with only some of the areas shown on the screen.

Normal visual novel behavior, but now, seeing all the students walking to and fro in all directions, it was something else entirely.

What class am I even in? He wondered once again, walking toward the entrance. He had to find out soon. This quest, this tutorial, he wasn’t quite so sure about what it meant, but he didn’t like the idea of finding out what the punishment for failing it was.

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He walked on through the gate and found himself in a hall with even more students than he ever thought possible to find in just one place. There were hundreds of them, all of them outfitted in the same uniform that he was wearing, but all of the students had a specific flair to them. Some even had vibrant hair; others were far too muscular to qualify as normal humans, or at least normal human students. Mechanical parts on others. Strange modifications to their uniforms. The strangeness went on and on. Some even had vibrant-colored skin!

His memory was jogged once again as he was reminded of the setup of this visual novel that he played several years ago. This wasn’t a normal life setting. It was a superhero-setting visual novel. The main focus was still romance, but that wasn’t the only focus. There were also parts where the game switched into action sequences and those changed the course of the story as well.

Does this mean I’ll meet the main character as well? But… I was the main character. What will his name even be? Problems for later. I have to find a classroom now.

Thankfully, there were a few large boards with a huge sign saying “New Student Classrooms” right opposite the entrance. Already, there was a small crowd of people looking at the names written on them, but most of them only glanced at the boards for a second before moving in another direction.

He walked closer, gently pushing some students out of the way so he could take a look as well, but honestly, most of them were so much shorter than he was that it was no problem at all. It wasn’t like Nathan wasn’t tall before, but compared to the students here, he definitely stood out even more now. Quickly glancing at the papers, he scanned them from top to bottom.

1-A, 1-B, 1-C, nothing. He was beginning to lose hope, or perhaps thinking that his name would be different from his real-life name, before finally his eyes settled on his own name and the class he’d be in.

1-F

Weren’t the classrooms separated by the power of the superhero trainees? Wasn’t the F Class the worst?

As if to confirm his suspicions, the name right below his own stood out to him as well.

Class 1F

….

Nathan Brody

Alicia Banava