Jim’s PoV

It had been a week since Jim had found his super secret stash of helmets and things were looking up! Totally super secret and not just a screw up coincidental accident. Dead Jim probably came up with the idea to make it more dramatic! Yep. Sounded flimsy but Jim thought it was brilliant! Because Jim would never make a mistake like that. Totally.

The checklist was doing really good. Milly’s lab was up and running and he finally got all those dirty boots out of his inventory. Charlotte didn’t ask any questions when she woke up after fainting and the project was back up and running. He went to the supermarket and got captain Voss enough food and water to last a while. Scarlet pulled through and gave him his target. Apparently he was some big pharma guy who was feeling threatened by his potions.

What else was there? Oh yea! They were in the area for the island on the other side so they just had to do some searching. Once he found that he could do a very nice little sequence break. Well, he was already sequence breaking, but getting an airship this early in the game would be awesome! It was a secret airship. To get it you had to fight one of the super bosses of the game.

Jim was actually a little nervous about that. This super boss had a one hit kill mechanic. But when he looked into the lines of code from the original game it seemed just enough damage to kill any character with any equipment in the game. Which should put him out of reach of that attack. Hopefully.

What made this airship so special was the fact that it could cross the endless storm. The reason the continents hadn’t had any contact with each other was because the world was ringed by an everlasting storm. Following the normal storyline would eventually cause a good part of the storms to disperse, allowing progression to the other continent. Which he needed to get to if he wanted to collect all three of the artifacts.

However the beauty of the airship that he was looking to take was special. It could fly straight through the storm! Normally characters wouldn’t be able to reach the island until after the storm dispersing event, but when you had a pallet of pop tarts and a crew full of hungry sailors it seemed anything was possible!

Also Charlotte got Maria into school. Maria was well behind so her nephew Adam was even tutoring her. And then there was Officer Brady..

He was kind enough to remind Jim that he had a court date coming up soon. Jim offered for Gwen to wear a little bit more revealing dress on their next date if the charges happened to get dropped. Too bad it didn't’ work.

“Jim, It doesn’t work like that. I have to work with the prosecutor. He's the one to decide on what I should say and if the charges get dropped.”

Other than that everything was looking great! He was looking at himself in the mirror with his new getup. Wasn’t too bad. Okay it was a little bad, but hey, it worked.

When he already had something on his head that was not a specific item from that world it seemed like it didn’t count as a helmet. So when he put another helmet on by dragging it on top of his avatar it had interesting results. Looking at the results in the mirror… while it wasn’t exactly elegant it did the job.

Jim now had a bulbous looking head. The new piece of armor elongated and covered the helmet which would now provide him with normal eyesight when in cheating mode. His costume for tonight included gear that emphasized on agility and speed. He didn’t plan on doing any hiding tonight, he had a big pharma CEO to get more acquainted with.

Reporter’s PoV

April didn’t know why she got into financial news reporting. It was boring. But because it was boring the more ambitious people flocked away from it and that left room for her. She looked around and saw that her cameraman was almost ready.

Scanning through her note cards and doing a quick check in the mirror she was ready to start the interview. Mr. Chou was a bigshot CEO for NextWave Pharmaceuticals. But investors were getting nervous because there was a rumor going around that a super drug had been found. Of course that kind of news had been said in the past but there were a number of conspiracy theory nuts that actually put together a plausible list of information.

Today's interview was supposed to help calm investor nerves. It was basically a paid advertisement disguised as news. Too much financial news was like that. Hell they weren’t even in front of the research lab for NextWave Pharmaceuticals, they were in his private condo. Sometimes April wondered what was the point. Anyone who did a little digging on this interview would find it fishy.

It wasn’t even going to be live. Just a little piece that could be chopped up to make NextWave look good. If Mr. Chou happened to fumble any questions they would just reshoot the same questions. Still it was work. Getting in position the camera man started to hold up three fingers, then two, one, and finally a thumbs up.

“This is April from Financial News and I am with Mr. Chou from NextWave Pharmaceuticals. There has been quite the buzz going around about a new drug from a startup competitor of yours. Can you tell me anything about that?”

Sitting up straight the man said “It is true that one of our competitors has developed a promising new drug, but so far the data is very limited. If you look over the data from the FDA findings it was very suspicious. Not only was the trial length short but even the number of experiments conducted were very limited.”

“But looking over the data it seems to be very effective, no?”

Mr. Chou looked uncomfortable and said “Yes, but from our data this new lab doesn’t have a high capacity at all. It will be years before this new drug is made available to the public. In the meantime Nextwave is working on something just as promising and it will be available to the public in only six months!”

Wow that smelled like bullshit. Also something else was niggling at her so she asked a question that was off script, “How do you know about the production capacity for a competitor?”

The man looked angrily at her and said “That is not on the list of prescreened questions.”

Sighing she said “Fine. It’s not live, we can edit it out. Still people are going to wonder from your statement. Do you want to rephrase it?”

God she felt slimy. This was not reporting. As Mr. Chou was in thought she heard a crashing sound and looked behind her cameraman.

At first she thought it was an alien with it’s big wobbly head, but after a second she realized it was some kind of elongated helmet. Excitedly she hissed to her cameraman “Turn it there! NOW!”

Her eyes were filled with excitement when she saw that he had somehow punched a human sized hole through the outside of the building on the 30th floor. As the man finally made eye contact with her he said “Shit. Uhh.. sorry Mr. Chou. Didn’t know you had company.”

His voice was odd, some kind of synthesizer or something. With the awkward apology she felt safe enough so she rushed up and put a microphone in the man's face. She asked excitedly “Who are you! How did you break through a wall this high up?”

The man said hopefully “That’s not live right?”

April knew where he was going so she said quickly “Yep. You're live right now! What do you have to say to the world?”

After a few seconds he exclaimed “Hello World!”

She raised an eyebrow and he said “Always wanted to do that. Programmer joke. Sorry.”

Still he wasn’t reaching out to try to break her camera so she was happy. People were always a lot more polite if they thought she was live. She kept silent and noticed that Mr. Chou was slowly trying to edge away.

Then the man said “Dammit! How was I supposed to know a live interview was going on in his condo! Damn karma.”

“So, you're looking for Mr. Chou?”

Reluctantly he said “Yeah.”

“Why?”

After a few seconds of thought he said “Well this might be just as good. He was involved in that gang that attacked those two cops a week ago. He ordered two people to be kidnapped because he was trying to ferret out information about a new drug.”

This was a story! New superhuman going after a corrupt CEO? Sounded like a comic strip! Headline city! Score! Although it was probably a power suit of some kind maybe? April wasn't sure.

"So what exactly are you?"

The man struck a comically heroic looking pose and said "I'm a super genius!"

"No, like what can you do? I take it that you didn't just use a rocket launcher on the wall right?"

Happily the man took up a boxing pose and threw a punch at the wall. It disintegrated. The debris started to fall.

Then he exclaimed "Oh crap! There could be people down there! I blame you! You're fault! You asked me to!"

Nope. She didn't do it. Legal team will make sure of that! Still she went back to his previous statement and asked “Do you have any proof of Mr. Chou's involvement?”

Shrugging the man with the overly large head said “I don’t think you can call beating someone up till they give you names proof. Can you?”

Once that was said Mr. Chou started to bolt. Faster than she could see the man moved and had him by the collar. Pulling him off his feet with one hand he said “You got lucky. But piss me off again and I won’t care who's looking next time. Understand?”

The speed! What was that? She literally could not see him move! Before she could ask any more questions he was gone. Then Mr. Chou looked down at his pants and saw the urine stain. The urine stain which was being captured on camera.

Angrily Mr. Chou said “Give me all your footage! Now!”

April and her camera man looked at each other. Then an instant later they were running out of the door. Smartly her cameraman popped out the media and dropped the camera. Gold! This was going to be gold!

Adam’s (Charlotte’s Nephew) PoV

Adam was looking at his new school sadly. In hindsight he wished he hadn't moved from his special needs school. They were all so kind there, but after he was cured he felt out of place.

His closest friends were jealous of his fortune. He was happy he was whole for the first time in his life, but change came with it. While he was cured his stature was very small. Doctors said it was probably because his body wasn’t growing properly when he was sick.

But that made him the runt at a new school. A school that didn’t know and probably wouldn’t care that he had been a cripple only a couple weeks ago. But at least he found a new friend. Maria was a really smart girl but it looked like she missed out on a lot of schooling.

She was older than him but they were still in the same classes. After school he would tutor her and he was surprised at her quick learning. Maria was so tall too. Even among girls her age she was tall. When he started hanging out with her the bullying stopped for a time.

But Adam watched sadly as a group of boys walked over to his table at the cafeteria. Today Maria was taking a make up test that had been taken earlier in the year while at lunch. He was alone. Looking up to them he tried to put on a confident face and asked “What do you want?”

The bigger one in the middle smiled and said “Well lookie here. Don’t seem to have your new friend around you now. It’s been too long runt, how have you been?”

“Good. Really good actually.”

With a piggy smile he said “Well, that doesn’t seem right. A runt like you doesn’t have the right to feel good.”

As he said that the bully picked up his food tray and tossed it at him. Spaghetti sauce and milk covered the front of his shirt. He knew what he had to do. If he didn’t do anything then it would just keep repeating. It felt wrong to tell his parents about his new petty problems so he asked his aunt. She told him that if you don’t stand up to bullies, it will just keep happening.

With dread he stood up and balled his fist. But before he even stood up all the way the boy punched him in his face. Dazed he got up quickly and tried to throw a punch. He didn’t know who was more surprised when it hit, himself or the bully.

The bully rubbed at the minor scratch on his face and said “Well well, looks like we got someone to play with!”

As the fight started breaking out many of the kids retreated and formed a circle. A couple started calling out for a teacher, but it looked like it was going to take them too long. Adam tried to throw another punch but he was caught off guard by the bully's friend who was next to him.

While he was trying to throw the punch he got close and hit him in the ribs. And then once he was open all three started hitting him with punches. Curled in a ball there was nothing he could do.

But then he heard a meaty thump and the crowd gasped. Trying to cover his face and stand up he was grinning when he saw what was happening.

Maria was moving like a dancer and weaving punches and kicks at the boys. He noted that one of them was crawling on the floor with a bleeding nose. Adam got up and tried to help out in the fight, but Maria broke them all quickly.

Other students started calling out a warning “Teacher’s coming!”

Then the mob started to scatter. Maria took his hand and she pulled him outside.

He whispered “If we get caught outside we could get in trouble.”

Seriously Maria asked “Can you keep a secret?”

Confused Adam nodded.

Placing a hand on him it started glowing white. His eyes lit up. Magic! Real magic! All his pain from the fight went away!

Maria muttered “I wonder why Charlotte was so worried. People here seem really weak.”

Adam laughed. Somehow he didn’t think that was what his aunt meant. Sneaking back into school they went to their next class together.

"How did the test go?"

"Easy. All the stuff you covered was on it."

"Nice!"

Charlotte’s PoV

Charlotte was watching the news feed. The most ridiculous looking man with a bulbous head was making headlines on the news front. The newscaster slowed down the feed frame by frame and she watched. Most people were calling it a fake, but she knew. Damned Jim.

She really should have been more insistent about Jim spilling his secrets. But the word simulation kept repeating in her mind over and over. Did she really want to know for sure?

As she was watching the video again she got a phone call. Picking it up she said “What's up bro?”

“There was a fight at school and apparently Adam and Maria were involved. The school doesn't have a good phone number for Gwen, so I gave you a call.”

Rubbing her temples she realized that giving them Jim’s number to get in touch with Gwen was probably a bad move.

“I’ll make sure she gets the message.”

She looked at the so called superhero or supervillain again and shook her head. He really needed some fashion sense. And what the hell was up with his head?