1.13 – They call me the combiner (Or something like that)

Nathan looked at the screen, drinking in the hellscape that became of the front yard of Ako Academy. Several dozen people stood there, all wearing black and red, looking over the school with genuinely uninterested expressions on their faces. At least from those who didn’t have their expressions covered up under a mask, which wasn’t a lot of them.

Three people stood in front, as if baiting an attack that Nathan knew wouldn’t come. He could click the attack button himself right now; it was one of the options, at least, but he burned himself several times already back when he started playing My Super Hero Life.

No, his character wasn’t strong enough yet, and it was still just the second year. His allies would be far too weak to attack the organization, at least for now.

Several dozen loops through the video game, and he knew most of the skill sets of his opponents like the back of his hand. This was the single most baiting opportunity that was there, all of the villains standing in front of the main character. It basically screamed at the player to press on the attack, and theoretically, it should be possible to win, but Nathan hasn’t managed to win the fight in this passage yet. He hadn’t even come close.

He pressed retreat, and took his companions through the side hall of the academy, exiting through a window. The action sequence turned into stealth. It was still entertaining, but Nathan grit his teeth as he did so. One day he would beat this passage. He swore it.

He would destroy Red Lily this time around.

Of course! Red Lily. How could he have forgotten? They were the main villains of the game. He even knew that Vermilion Strike was one of their most prominent members, and then he forgot their name. The fact that they began attacking in the first year of his new life, though they had never attacked at the very first, very second day of the school year. Their first event happened after the second year’s tournament, which was a year and spare from now.

He opened his phone, writing all of this down. These memory games were beginning to annoy him to a great extent. It wasn’t like this info would have helped him much, but if the reality followed the video game more, then he would know at least some events before they happened.

“Damn those Red Lily bastards. First, their attack in Kyoto. Then they killed so many superheroes, and now they just kill so many “. Alicia said, with a hint of sadness in her voice, “How dare they?”

“I don’t know, Alicia. Some people are just evil.” He said after a moment of silence. That was all Nathan could say. “But I hope that they will pay for what they’ve done.”

But without the main character here, who would step up to destroy them? Nathan certainly didn’t feel powerful enough, and he didn’t feel confident, especially now when his life was at stake.

More than anything, he wanted to go through the list of abilities, but he would leave that for home.

The rest of the travel home was mostly spent in silence, both Alicia and him considering the consequences of today. No emails came from the academy so far, but the news outlets were already capturing the situation at large. Several hundred students died around the country, most of them from the most prestigious classes. A few other bombs got defused, and a lot of the students got saved because of the superheroes at the scene, yet the damage was already done. A nationwide tragedy.

Nathan didn’t even know who to blame, and that wasn’t because he locked something in his memory this time around. It was just because he knew he didn’t know who the main leader of Red Lily was. They were the main villains back in the video game, and there were some prominent faces from in between them, but there wasn’t anyone who stood out as the de facto leader of them all.

Their disbandment in the game consisted of clearing out their strongest fighters, like Vermillion Strike, or somebody else who stood at the forefront of the organization. After that, the focus was on getting some of the actual strong heroes there to deal the final strike. It was one of the criticisms Nathan had for the game: no matter what he tried, he couldn’t get in on the final action himself.

They arrived at the house, and Alicia parked just where the car started today.

She sighed, looking at the house before she shook herself and got out of the front seat.

“You seriously fine with me crashing at your house?”

“It is a bit weird, I suppose, but as I said, you just owe me.” She said, a small smile forming on her lips as she headed towards the front door.

“Yeah, but aren’t you afraid? I’m a guy, you know?”

“And you got into Ako Academy, and your ability is practically useless, placing you in the F-Class. You just take punches well?”

“That’s not all I do.”

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“Sure, buddy, whatever helps you sleep at night. All I’m saying is I don’t really get any bad vibes from you except that you’re a bit of a moron.”

“Hey, that’s unfair. At least I don’t have an emotional support teddy bear for an ability. Hey!” She punched his shoulder once again, though she couldn’t hide her smile.

“That was a good one! Anyway, I just don’t really care, but it feels nice for this house not to be so silent all the time anyway.”

They stepped inside the house, and Nathan had to once again remind himself to take his shoes off before they had a quick coffee. Alicia excused herself and went into her room.

That suited Nathan just fine. He still had a whole catalog of abilities to look over.