We enter the laboratory. Inside are about twenty large square tables. Each large square table has nine boxes- five large ones and four small ones. At the very front of the laboratory is a raised floor with a similar table on. Professor Vorsichtiger steps up onto the raised platform.

"As you see, here at the Student Training Institute, we have many, many laboratories. Today, Heroics trainees and System Physics students will both be working together to assemble some basic combat devices. These are standard ones that I have taken apart myself. I also have instruction booklets on assembly for each of them. You can find the tools you need for assemly in these smaller boxes."

"Lets see. We will have eight people per table, I think. You can work in groups of two. Yes."

So people start moving towards tables and forming groups.

"Arg! Hey, Arg! Here!"

someone taps on my back, and I turn around and see two girls.

"How's Kyte doing? He took the time off to do his task?"

"Misa! Yea, he's on... almost six hundred? I think he said?"

The one who tapped my back is a freckled ginger by the name of Misa Thorpe. She lives near Kyte and me, and takes the System Physics program here. She had brown eyes and curly red hair that went down to her shoulders, and wore a similar tracksuit to the one I was wearing. Her tracksuit was green, however, as all System Physics students had green suits.

The colour of the student's tracksuits was dependant on the program they did here.

"Were the monitors helpful?"

"definitely, although you might not get them back for a while."

Misa lent Kyte two monitors for his task. She's pretty techsavvy.

I turn to the other girl, whom I haven't met before.

Judging by the colour of the other girl's tracksuit, she must also be from the System Physics program. On her tracksuit was the name "Stephanie Britt". She had blue eyes and long, straight blonde hair. If she was wearing a dress, I might have mistaken her for foreign royalty and knelt.

That would be embarrassing. But she could definitely pretend she was a royal with that look.

"Stephanie Britt. A pleasure to make your aquaintance."

She holds out her hand.

I hope I'm not meant to kiss her hand here, right? Like, her hand is sideways, not face down, so it's in a handshake position. But would it be a breach of etiquette to do so? No wait, she isn't royalty in the first place. At least, she hasn't introduced herself as royalty. So I think I'm fine to shake it.

"Hello. Im Argus."

I choose to shake her hand, since it feels like the safer option. Given that I'm not being given any distainful stares, I think that was the correct option. I feel a bit embarassed now.

Lets pretend I never had that dilemma.

We find a table and stand next to it. Coincidentally, I see another two familiar faces.

Two people I sparred with yesterday, in fact.

Alice Thorn scans over the three of us with the same cold stare I felt from her yesterday.

The other person standing next to Alice was Jabez Porter. He was slightly shorter than Alice, with blackish hair. He looked very thin, but not unhealthily so. There was no one else round the table that I could see, as there wasn't quite enough people to fill all tables up.

My spar with Jabez yesterday wasn't particularly noteworthy. He floored me several times, but he wasn't as rough as Alice or Mido was.

Jabez spoke. I felt it while sparring with him yesterday, but he seems to be very well mannered.

"Since there's six of us here, and nobody else seems to be coming, should we make introductions then start?"

Wait six? I count five.

I count again. Theres Myself, Misa, Stephanie, Alice, and Jabez.

Who's the sixth?

A familiar, rowdy voice sounds from right below me.

"Down here, Stewart."

I feel an elbow hit my stomach, and see a tangle of orange hair below. It belongs to none other than Mido Gimmel.

"Ehem-eugh. Ah." I cough as I feel the impact. "Sorry, Mido I-"

But then I decide to shut up before I say something stupid. Mido simply rolls his eyes.

As Jabez suggested, we all introduce ourselves, then Stephanie open one of the large boxes on the table and starts speaking.

"We should focus on assembling the items box-by-box. That way, we each get to work on all the different Mechanisms, and Misa and I can help you out if you four have difficulty on somthing."

It sounds like a reasonable answer, and we all agree.

Inside the first box is a set of stun guns. The stun guns can incapacitate a normal person up to about 20 minutes, but for those with a tough body, the stun might not have an affect at all. Still, even if someone is only stunned for ten seconds, thats enough time to restrain them with handcuffs or other means. Hence they're pretty useful for heroes, albeit not what one might expect a hero to use.

We each take one one set of parts per two people, and one set of instructions each.

I read over the instructions, but get stopped at the first page.

We should have twelve of piece E.

Piece E resembled a stiff wire that looked like a stripey noodle in an L-shape.

But we have thirty-six of Piece E that I see. Wait. Piece F also looks like a stripey noodle. Whats the difference?

I stop for a minute and carefully examine the stripey noodles. They have the same thickness, size, shape, and colour.

"Stewart. Whats taking so long there? Let me see."

I show him the wires, and point at the instructions manual on the table.

"Twelve of these should be piece E, and twenty-four of these should be F."

Mido takes them from my hands and examines them. After a short inspection, he returns them to me.

"Nope, I got nothing."

I turn to Misa.

"Misa, look at this for a second-"

I explain to Misa as she examines the wires.

"Oh. See here?" She points to two pieces of wire. "This wire is black, with yellow stripes."

I nod.

"And?"

"Well, this one here is yellow, with black stripes."

"Oh! Thats the difference!"

I return to reading the instruction manual. It takes a minute to fully process what Misa had just said.

"Misa"

"Yes?"

"How can you tell which one is black with yellow stripes and which is yellow with black stripes?"

So Misa explains the difference to me. Upon closer inspection, the ends of the wires are different colours. One wire has black endings, and the other wire has yellow endings.

I start putting the electronics into the gun, carefully and slowly.

Ok. Wires in like this, yes?

I start connecting the seperate components together with the various wires needed.

And now, second wire from transformer into wire to negative electrode.

I connect two yellow and black wires together.

But then a large "Bzzt" accompanied by a flash emerges from the wires.

I jump slightly, and cover my eyes with my hands.

"Aye! Easy, there! What are you? Blunder-man or something?"

Mido groans, with his head ducked under his arms.

"Sorry!"

After my eyes re-adjust, I look carefully at the stun gun that's in mid-assembly.

Oh. Both these wires are yellow with black stripes. I need one of each instead.

Whoops. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to connect the trigger to the battery first.

Without many further mishaps, we complete the Stun guns and move onto the next box.

As we get to work on a set of grapple guns I start thinking about this morning. I feel like the subsystem gave me a task, but I wasn't paying proper attention.

While trying to recall what happened- speak of the devil- it appeared.

The Subsystem appeared before me. It "spoke" in a robotic, child-like voice, as well as displaying visual information as if I were at the system user interface.

Not that it was actual sound. Just information being sent as if it were sound.

-THE SUPER VILLAINY SYSTEM-

[Task : Rob a store.]

[Progress: Incomplete]

[Reward: Moderate increase in tenacity.]

Moderate? Moderate!

"Yo! Blunderman, be careful!"

"Ahah. Sorry, Mido."

I accidentally knock some screws onto the floor. Whoops. I should pick those up.

The system doesn't really give data numerically, so people don't get +1 tenacity or +1 speed or something. Instead, you usually see terms such as "miniscule", "small", "moderate", or "large". I think it's something to do with the relative capacity of the physical body, so a strong person would benefit more from strength boosts compared to a weak person, because there is more muscle mass to work with or something.

however, people have tried to numericalize them. Because thats what people like to do.

The result is, if this were something like a game, and "miniscule" represents something like a +1, "small" would represent +10, and "moderate" would represent +100. "Large" would then be a +1000.

I finish Picking up the screws and put them back on the table.

Of course, thats a very rough estimate. The point is, its a good reward. The problem is the task itself.

When It says "rob a store", does that mean steal the cash in the till? Maybe shoplifting counts?

No, focus. It doesn't matter what counts. It's wrong. Don't fall for it.

But I recall the message from yesterday.

If you don't, the world will end...

It can't be serious. I should just ignore it.

But if it is serious, are you going to let the world end just because you didn't want to shoplift?

"Earth to blunderman! Earth to blunderman! Are you there?"

"hmm?"

"Pay attention!"

Mido gives me a few components, and instructs me what part of construction he wants me to do.

"Got it."

After thanking him for the pieces, my mind sinks back into thinking about the subsystem.

I mean, you could just take an item, steal it, then after the task is done, return inside and apologise. You could pass it off as an accident. You simply forgot you picked it up and came back to pay for the item.

Yes, and in the future, I can use the power I gained to help people. I doubt anyone would mind in the long run.

A grappling hook fires from a halfway-consructed grapple gun, and slides right into it's second half over by Mido. Parts slide across the table as Mido yells at me yet again.

"Blunderman! Watch it!"

"Sorry!"

I re-wind the grappling hook into the gun, and help Mido pick up the parts that had been scattered around.

man, I really need to get back to focusing on this.

I push my thoughts on the subsystem matter into the back of my mind and carefully screw the remaining pieces of the grapple gun in.

While doing so, a "bang" sounds from the across the table.

I look over and find smoke rising from Alice and Jabez's grapple gun.

I'm glad I'm not the only one messing up.

Although, thinking about it, that's pretty sad in its own way.

Jabez sighs.