Free Trainee Superhero (Book One) by C. H. Aalberry Page B

shoot.”
    Small Talk flicks my helmet open and
shoves a piece of rubber into my mouth. I bite down on it twice and
the cannon thunks loudly right next to my ear, lobbing an egg
shaped grenade forward. It bursts into a bright storm of
lights.
    “That will disable most things for a few
seconds, but the ammo is pretty volatile and since it’s stored on
your back-”
    “-I can’t turn my back on the enemy?”
    “Exactly,” says Brat , sounding mildly
impressed that I’d worked that out so quickly.
    The egg launcher holds eight charges and has
a decent range. It’s easy to use, but not exactly exciting. Small Talk shows me how to fly and fire, then we set down
next to a second row of black boxes that contain close combat
weapons of all sorts and sizes.
    Small Talk hands me a short sword. The
blade is bright in his hand, but falls dark as soon as I touch it. Small Talk takes the blade away and passes me an axe, but to
no success.
    “Lame,” says Brat .
    The larger maces are too heavy for me, and I
nearly take my own arm off with a morningstar. We work our way
through dozens of weapons with no luck. There are over a hundred
weapons sitting in the metal crates and but only one or two work
for me.
    I suck as a superhero.
    “Saucer, kid, you are terrible at pretty much
everything,” says Brat .
    “Quiet,” says Small Talk , and hands me
a small knife on a long chain.
    I swing it a few times and hit myself in my
foot. Small Talk takes it off me pretty quickly after
that.
    “Let’s do the artificer testing before I die
of boredom,” says Brat .
    I think I hate Brat , but I’m so tired
of failing at weapons testing that I hand the nunchucks I’m trying
to Small Talk and start to walk away. He grabs my arm and
stops me.
    “We are done when I say so.”
    He starts handing me more exotic weapons,
strange glowing things that rest on my hands but don’t seem to do
much more than pulse and use energy. There are green whips with
minds of their own and white-hot daggers on long flexible rods. The
weapons mostly do what I want them to. I’m particularly fond of a
set of giant metal crab claws that bind to my arms and snap open
and shut with quicksilver speed.
    “So you are good enough with the weird ones.
At least that makes you interesting,” says Brat . He sounds
even less interested in me before, if that was possible.
    “Fine,” says Small Talk and points me
to another crate.
    There are a couple of big discs in the crate. Small Talk waves at them and they start to float. They look
a little like the ones Past Prime is famous for.
    “Artificer test,” drones Brat , “this
one won’t take long.”
    “Can you control the discs?” asks Small
Talk .
    I think about the discs, trying to control
them with my mind. One of them falls out the air and the other
bounces into the air and flies off into the distance. Brat laughs unkindly.
    “Very few people can artifice,” Small
Talk says.
    I already knew that, but it doesn’t make me
feel less disappointed. Being able to control my own army of
golem-warriors would be fun.
    “Shield test!” shouts Brat eagerly.
    “Go stand there,” orders Small Talk ,
pointing to a wide metal plate sitting in the sand.
    I walk over and stand on the plate, stamping
on it a few times. It sounds solid. The plate starts glowing and
suddenly I can’t move my feet.
    “Uh…”
    “Set,” shouts Brat eagerly.
    Small Talk walks up to me and gives me
the once over, checking my shields and power source. He pats me on
the shoulder in a comforting way and closes my visor.
    “Are you paying attention to me?” he
asks.
    “Um… sure… but why can’t I move?”
    He walks over to a box, picks up a large
handgun and shoots me right between the eyes. My shields stop the
bullet, but I still flinch.
    “Ouch,” I say reproachfully, although it
didn’t really hurt.
    “And?” Small Talk asks.
    “Fine. Continue,” says Talented
Brat .
    Small Talk empties the rest of the
clip right between my eyes.