Summer Days [Kasty Doherty]

Kasty was the weird guy who, despite only taking one class each quarter this year, was taking summer classes. And was entirely happy with the fact; where most students on campus lamented the fact that hours of their day had to be spent in class or on classwork rather than living the free and exciting life of a college student on break, Kasty was ecstatic to be coming to class. He adored class; it was the singular time he could just sit for an hour and do nothing but listen without feeling like he could be spending his time on other, more important things and growing restless and distracted. He couldn’t sit down and watch an hour long television show, but he never seemed to tire of class or the work assigned from it.

This did not hold true with all classes; he’d dropped out of the math class he’d attempted to take the first quarter - for one because he found himself unable to handle two classes with his extracurricular activities - but also because he found it utterly impossible to concentrate on and learn the material when he could be, and in his mind should be, doing said extracurricular activities. it appeared as though this strange phenomenon occurred only for history, granted he’d only taken three classes prior to this one, all of which were the same subject.

It was day one of summer quarter and Kasty was beyond ready for his next history class. He’d heard good things about this class, and better things about the professor. His mood as he entered the classroom was high.

Picking one’s seat was crucial in the first few days of class. After a week or so, whatever seat one had chosen was all but cemented for the rest of the quarter; not because of the professors enforcing anything, but because of the habitual nature of the students. People would pick their seats and stick to them, even hovering over students of previous classes despite other open spots so as to claim their particular seat. So, as Kasty scanned the many open seats and the few people to have arrived at the classroom before him, he knew he had to chose wisely.

He wasn’t quite sure why he decided to take the seat beside the stern looking guy with a foot on him at least and enough muscle to probably break the seat he was sitting in with a punch. A whim, perhaps? Something about the guy felt oddly familiar in a light and distant sort of way, and with no other “sit here” signs cropping up to guide him, Kasty made his decision.

Setting his light backpack down on the ground besides his claimed desk and dropping into the seat, he looked up at the guy beside him. “Name’s Kasty.” He greeted friendly, extending his hand. “So we’ve gotten ourselves into a summer history class, huh? I wonder how full this room’s going to get before class starts.”

That was weird; when Kasty heard the guy speak, he felt like he had heard his voice somewhere before. It was something like he’d run into the narrator of an audiobook he’d been listening to, though he knew that couldn’t be the case.

Familiar voice or not, he was just glad not to be ignored. He’d had that happen before, where he tried to make conversation with someone who looked nice and gotten back only brief “uh huhs” and “sures”. “Yeah, not many people take summer courses, let alone history.” He chuckled. He was about to ask the guy for his name and reasons for taking the class when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He was expecting some kind of shopping list or request from his aunt as he dug it out of his pocket. Instead, a news alert awaited him. He’d set his phone so that every time a news story with some relation to super broke, it would go off and he’d be forwarded the story for all of his reading displeasure.

“Pandaemonium again. Looks like they tried to take down another large corporate building.” He said, skimming the article. “They were driven off, but roads are closed, five are injured, and damages are estimated to be in the millions.” He clicked his phone off and slid it back into his pocket. Folding his arms, he sat back with a bit of a slump in his chair. “It’s a wonder our economy hasn’t folded in under itself yet. Or that our hospitals aren’t overflowing.” He left out the common bit about politicians passing laws to help build defenses against supers. He’d heard on the news about a new initiative, the latest in many crazy initiatives proposed by many nearsighted politicians, someone was trying to push related to that. As always, he found some stark disagreements with it. No one seemed to have any good ideas as to what to do. Nor did those who were causing all the trouble. “What even do they think they’re accomplishing, attacking office buildings?” He sighed.

“Grant, then?” Kasty repeated. He was somewhat surprised by Grant’s answer. Not in the negativity of it - most people would agree that damage and hurt people were bad, but in the depth of it. It seemed like a lot of people just stopped at “it’s bad” and put the issue over in a corner because it wasn’t directly affecting them. People were good at doing that. “I couldn’t agree more. It’s bad enough to destroy buildings. It’s hard on the owners, the workers, the taxpayers - anyone besides the builders, basically, but like ninety percent of the time with the Pandaemoniums, their reasoning begins and ends at ‘because we could’.”

The classroom was beginning to slowly fill, and as the desks got increasingly less vacant, the top of his felt increasingly more so. Turning sideways in his desk, he pulled his backpack into his lap and began rummaging through his bag for his things. “Like, have you heard about that Aurora Disco? I swear, with her it’s like a monster of the week show, where the monster is whatever person’s pissed her off the most recently.” His notebook and folder were easily enough retrieved, but his pencil had fallen out of its usual pocket into the depths of crumped papers and plastic wrappers that had contained dry food and thus were of no immediate need to be thrown away (and thus never were). And then he realized he hadn’t checked the contents of his bag this morning. For just a moment, a small plume of blue and white feathers were slightly visible within his bag. He quickly closed his bag. Of all the things to leave in the wrong place... He’d been running a little late, and so habit had him assume it was packed as normal and he’d just grabbed it and ran for the bus. He glanced around, wondering if anyone saw. He really hoped not.

“So,” He began again, pretending like he hadn’t just jumped like he’d seen a tarantula in his bag, “do you keep up with super news?”

He did? The smile on Kasty’s face grew. Not the most energetic response ever, but it was a start. He didn’t often get to talk about supers while on campus with the normal students who were on campus, and, even if it was only a “sure, I guess”, he was going to take the opportunity. Supers would be discussed and this acquaintance would be made with the power of common interests.

Kasty dug blindly through his bag, eventually coming up with a pencil. He placed it on his desk and the bag on the floor. He got off lucky this time - he was going to have to be more careful in the future. “Yeah? You got any favorite supers to follow?” Kasty asked.

It was probably an odd response to look really happy after a simple response like that, but Kasty couldn’t help himself. He was practically glowing. “Oh, good one. Not a lot of people seem to know about him.” He said, trying to sound like he was talking about an obscure anime character rather than like he was on the receiving end of a compliment. It worked only to a mild degree.

Some might be off-put by the lack of any kind of length to Grant’s responses, but Kasty felt like he’d become fairly skilled at chatting with people who didn’t talk all that much. Used to it, even. So, though he hadn’t been asked, he answered his own question for the sake of conversation.

“I like that Stunt Double fellow. He’s always got that air of heroicisum around him, doesn’t he? Even though his powers aren’t especially destructive or deadly, or immediately seem threatening, he doesn’t seem like he’s intimidated by anything. There’s also that wolf dragon super. You don’t see much of them on the news - or, at least I haven’t found much - but despite not being part of a faction, they’re always helping people and stopping crime. That’s gotta be hard when one doesn’t have teammates to rely on.” He paused. He had lots of material to talk about; it was hard to pick. One more subject came to mind, however; one he couldn’t leave out. “But, have you heard about that Titan guy? The news likes to take a lot about how so and so Bulwark blew up so and so plaza over some small-time crook, but you don’t get any of that with Titan. It’s difficult- has got to be difficult to stop people who are causing havok like the Pandaemoniums without causing it yourself. I’ve got a lot of respect for someone who can pull that off. Plus he’s got this cool and reliable persona. Doesn’t talk much, kinda like you.” He added, musing.

It’s a really funny feeling, when someone reminds you of someone else you know. Pointing out Grant’s lack of speaking brought to attention a number of other similarities to another person, like the more than a foot Grant had on him, the wall-like build, and his voice wasn’t dissimilar. No, there was no way. He was probably just looking too hard, straining himself to see patterns and likeness where there was none.

“Take it as a compliment.” Kasty chuckled, settling back in his seat. It was probably a bad call, making a touchy subject for many more personal like that (and he mentally slapped himself for the slip), but he hadn’t meant it as an insult or anything. Kasty was having a hard time getting a reading on him, but he hoped Grant hadn’t seen it as such.

He was about to try to come up with another conversation topic when his phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a news story; a breaking news follow up to the one just a few minutes prior.

“The Pandaemoniums have regrouped and are heading further into the city.” He muttered, reading the scrolling headline of the live video. “They number at at least twenty, three confirmed to be supers.”

He glanced at the clock. Class would be starting any minute here, but things got nasty when Pandaemonium came back for seconds. There was always tomorrow to come, right? He smiled at Grant as he began shoving his things back into his bag. “Something came up. Thanks for the chat, but I think I’ll have to miss class today.”

Throwing his backpack over his shoulder, Kasty ran out of the classroom, nearly running into the Professor as he entered.

He had to hurry and get to his locker before they did too much damage. He had his mask with him already, at least, and it was possible his sword would teleport to him without him needing to seek it out. He mentally calculated how much time he estimated it’d take for him to get from here to the gym lockers, then from campus to the location given in the news report, factoring in his teleportation on the later trip-

Kasty visibly jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Grant? Why would he follow him out? He knew it was a little unusual to leave class in a hurry, but it wasn’t like he was a stranger to suddenly up and ditching, and he always talked with his professors before the quarter started about it. He’d never been actually stopped before.

“Er, family matters.” He said a little too quickly. “It’s cool, I’ve got it under control. Sorry to worry you.”