Lord-Campione
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Chapter 013: Coming of Age
🕑 Added 2024-11-22 05:24:50 +0000 UTCTen years.
That’s a hundred and twenty months, three thousand, six hundred and fifty days, eighty-seven thousand and some six hundred hours.
So much time has passed since Ethan caught that darn bullet and woke up living the average chronically online bloke’s wet dream…the one that does not involve multiple anime girls and the power to manipulate time and space.
No, he was awake and alive in one of the most troublesome, deadly, unreasonable and completely batshit insane verses ever drawn into pages, animated in screens and shoved down people’s content-hungry throats with a good serving of random propaganda and little to no thought given to those powers calling and lore-delving topics the fan would sure as hell obsess over down the line.
The one verse with the cosmic friend chicken, Pre-Darwinian focused sand fucker with the most Chunni name out there, a genocidal tinkie winkie somewhere in Outer space and fucking Scott Summer being currently alive which was in itself a bloody crime against humanity.
Ten years pretending to be something he was not…until he was.
Ten years of paranoia-fueled grinding and a focus and dedication only someone who tasted that vague feeling of impending doom could relate to.
Learning, physical conditioning, telekinetic training.
Day in and day out.
His small childhood frame grew stronger, and bolder. Through genetics and plenty of soup, he now towered above his peers, his sixteen-year-old body more muscled and developed than it had any right to be without some freakish condition.
Comic book logic.
From grade school to middle school, he toiled, secretly causing no less than twenty-eight unfortunate incidents involving Peter Parker and generally ending with the latter’s humiliation.
Ethan couldn’t even remember why he was torturing his ‘friend’ at this point, but it was so entertaining that he couldn’t care less.
. . .
The bell rang, signaling the start of a new year at Midtown High, and Ethan Cain strolled through the halls like he’d done a hundred times before. A crowd of more or less awkward teenagers going about their day, boys chatting about this and that new movie, dorks planning their next tabletop RPG session with some jocks acting out their latest bout of glory.
He reached his locker, spinning the combination in silence.
“Ethan! Wait up!”
He heard the familiar voice before he even saw the mop of brown hair hustling his way. Peter Parker, ever the excitable one. Ethan suppressed a sigh. If there was one person who made his new life more complicated than it needed to be, it was Parker.
Scrawny, round-glasses-wearing Penis Parker, as one blonde-haired teenager enjoyed calling him.
“Hey, Pete,” Ethan greeted with his usual calm, turning just as Peter slid to a halt beside him, panting slightly.
Boy did that kid need to hit the gym.
He could almost see his bones through that bland light blue shirt, kept open to show a white tee. And under those cargo pants were legs as frail as twigs, the lad has skipped every single leg day.
“First day of high school, huh? Crazy, right?” Peter huffed, leaning against the lockers. “I mean, it feels like just yesterday we were running around the middle school gym, dodging dodgeballs.”
Ethan quirked an eyebrow. “For you, maybe.”
Peter chuckled, not catching the faint sarcasm. “I mean, come on, man! Midtown High! This is where all the big stuff happens! You know, science fairs, lab access—"
“—and a lot of homework,” Ethan finished, giving Peter a sidelong glance. “But sure, exciting.”
Now the yet-to-be Spider-Man-with-a-hyphen wasn’t wrong.
Midtown was one of the best high schools in the country, partly due to the sheer amount of money being pumped into it by the various companies in New York who in turn benefit from a buttload of interns and fresh, easily impressionable brains who will cherish the memory of those field trips and special lectures by top scientists all the way through college until they end up designed bombs for Star Industries, new and exciting computer programs for Frost International or some so-expensive-you’d-rather-die biomedical equipment for Oscorp.
Those kids who were lucky enough to be in that zone, and thus have the right to study there by law, or those with enough academic or athletic baggage to earn a spot through hard work and talent.
That, and those kids whose parents were more than happy to throw a couple hundred grand at the school’s general vicinity to get their seed to study the right way, without all the trappings of private schooling and the posh echo chambers called boarding schools.
Build up character, they’d say, living and studying with the poor working class masses and seeing their honestly pathetic lifestyles, to experience it without compromising the overall quality of their education was a great investment.
And the PR? Man, to die for.
Charles McRichSchmuck could bang his secretary on live tv and it still wouldn’t erase the goodwill he got for sponsoring the education of the less fortunate and protecting Muricah’s future.
Well, Muricah’s future was currently gossiping about some random cheerleader’s teenage pregnancy, a topic less interesting than Peter’s ramblings, so Ethan still focused on him instead of paying attention to his other ‘friends’ in the hallway.
He just hoped he didn’t bang that girl.
Peter wasn’t fazed either, perks of being a min maxed human with poor senses and a tunnel vision so bad it’s no wonder he ended up pulling a Kakashi on Gwen Stacy.
He just kept going on and on about his expectations and plans, where Ethan’s participation was taken for granted.
Fair given that they did generally work together when possible, something that has nothing to do with Ethan realizing how utterly pathetic his intellect was compared to the natural talent of the bright Peter Parker, and thus decided that it couldn’t hurt to pick his Spidey brain apart and capitalize on his ideas.
Maybe one day he shall become the Edison to Ethan’s Tesla.
Now that would be great.
“Speaking of which, have you seen the new lab? Mr. Warren’s gonna be running it. State-of-the-art equipment and—" Peter committed the capital offense of interrupting his jubilations, now that’s just plain rudeness.
Ethan thus cut him off with a wave of his hand, not missing the slight hurt in the other boy’s face, even if it lasted a mere second.
“I’ll check it out later.”
Peter, still bubbling with energy, gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “You’re impossible, dude. You could be more enthusiastic.”
“Enthusiastic isn’t my style,” Ethan replied, giving Peter a small smile. He slammed his locker shut, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. “I’m more... practical.”
So practical in fact that he spent his free time acquiring capital from some very generous donors downtown, people so kind that they even allowed him to practice his telekinesis and martial training on them.
There was still some good left in this world.
Peter laughed, not quite realizing the honestly messed up context behind Ethan’s words. “Okay, Mr. Practical. I’ll catch you in class.”
As Peter ran off to who-knows-where, Ethan took a moment to breathe. He didn’t dislike Peter anymore—well, not exactly—but their dynamic was exhausting.
That slight itch that demanded that he mess with the spider was still there, ever so strong, of course.
They want to torment him with childish things such as making him drop his drink all over his crotch through a bit of telekinetic shitfuckery, to act as horrendous as stealing the current object of his infatuation.
Some would call it perverse.
They would be right.
Did he care? Not one bit.
‘Still would murder Paul if he ever shows up,’ He thought.
He wasn’t a monster, after all.
…Not that much of a monster at least.
Putting aside thoughts of violent torture inflicted upon the cursed avatar of some thrice divorced comic book writer looking to satisfy some obscure fetish and continue the tradition of pissing off your own audience with frankly baffling creative decisions.
Ethan scanned the hallways, students filing into classrooms, chattering about their summers, about who’d changed the most, who got taller, who got hotter, who got pregnant and how quickly the teenage father disappeared from the neighborhood.
He wasn’t interested in any of that…for the most part, but it did give him a chance to observe. A soft flicker of telekinetic energy brushed against his senses, a habit he’d developed to keep himself sharp. No one ever noticed—the fine control was too subtle for anyone to pick up on. Just a little nudge here and there, enough to manipulate things without raising suspicion.
A spilled drink here.
A harmless bump there.
A nipple-twisting session for the unlucky hillbilly prick who thought bullying a literal wall of muscles was somehow a good idea just because he got good grades and hung out with nerds.
“Hey, Cain.”
Ethan’s eyes darted to the voice. Flash Thompson, all muscles and too much confidence, sauntered over with his usual smug grin.
“Flash,” Ethan greeted with the same indifferent tone he used for everyone who wanted something he wouldn’t give.
A voice honed through countless attempts at ignoring telephone salesmen, hours spent canceling various subscriptions, and months listening to teachers who never started a business try and teach him business courses.
He could already sense what this was going to be about.
“You gonna join the football team this year? We could use someone like you,” Flash said, leaning in as if they were buddies.
Which they kind of were…sorta…vaguely.
Flash spent years trying to find his way, going through many phases and many sports with various haircuts to go along with them. The same years Ethan spent building up various muscles and trying to get as much experience and workout-given stress relief as humanly possible.
Some overlap was bound to happen.
And if there was one thing that could bring together men, then it was sports.
“I’m sticking with swimming.” Ethan resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Swimming.
And martial arts at the dojo four times a week.
And boxing every weekend.
And some street fighting to turn a busy schedule into nightmare mode.
Hours spent studying for school, life, and turning the most generic power into absolutely broken hax was just the cherry on top, the final blow to an already hellish existence.
Ethan loved it.
“Swimming? Come on, dude. You’re jacked. Football’s where it’s at. You’d dominate out there.” Flash made a face, with good reasons.
They had a hell of a time shredding rival teams apart in the one year Ethan spent as a linebacker, something the blond quarterback longed to relive.
He felt for him, but the grind comes first.
“No thanks,” Ethan replied evenly, “I’m already busy enough as is.”
And it was true, who said that the life of a transmigrator was easy?
“Whatever, man,” Flash huffed, clearly irritated but not willing to push further. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
Flash strutted off, leaving Ethan alone once more. He resumed his walk down the hall, heading toward his first class.
. . .
The physics classroom was already half-full when he arrived. Students were settling into seats, some chatting, a few nerds and preps flipping through their textbooks with the most dorky of all preparing notes before their very first class in an effort to impress an overworked and likely overqualified teacher.
Ethan slipped into the back row, choosing his usual seat by the window because fuck you, that’s the only seat worth having.
If he had a Gamer system, then it would sure as hell end up giving him some perk with +10 Luck and +20 Charisma at the cost of half his Wisdom and a permanent Lack of Common Sense debuff which comes with a violent tsundere attracting aura.
His name wasn’t Ethan Ethanson however and he lacked world-breaking power.
As he unpacked his notebook and pens, a voice called out beside him.
“Mind if I sit here?”
Ethan looked up, surprised.
Shoulder-length blond hair and pretty blue eyes that held just enough mischief to make a man lose himself stood there in front of him, smiling in that friendly, casual way she always did, wearing another set of her consistently stylish outfits that were attractive without showing much flesh courtesy of one helluva protective father.
Captain George Stacy’s daughter, upper-middle class, ridiculously smart, and easily the most composed person he’d met at Midtown so far.
Ladies and gentlemen, Gwendolyn Stacy.
The first time he saw her, it took him a record five seconds to get over his Marvel inner fanboy who happened to be very cultured, and three seconds to take her appearance in, notice and appreciate that she looked nothing like Emma Stone.
Two more seconds to realize he got caught staring then brushing it off like a champ, owning to it and giving her an easy smile before
That was a year ago, by now the shock factor had worn off and he could almost ignore how unreasonably prettier the women in this world could be.
Almost.
Then again, she just so happened to be a cut above the rest.
“Go ahead,” Ethan said, gesturing to the empty seat next to him.
“Thanks,” Gwen replied, sliding into the chair. “How was your summer?”
“Quiet.” Ethan shrugged.
She chuckled softly, now that was a nice sound.
“That’s one way to spend it. Mine was... well, less quiet. Spent most of it working on my own little projects.” She said while removing her stuff from her bag, lining the pencils so that they are perfectly straight in an adorable display of minor OCD.
“Your creepy spy drone thing?” Ethan guessed that certainly had left an impression when he heard her pitch it as her school projects for extra credits.
“You remembered. Yeah, I’ve been trying to build a prototype. Something more efficient, with a longer flight time.” Gwen’s eyes lit up, selectively ignoring the creepy part, or rather accepting it.
“One that won’t end up malfunctioning and burning Mrs. Benson’s hair?” He asked, hoping to fluster the blonde.
“That’s the plan,” She nodded, picking at her nail nonchalantly, “And it was just a wig, she really should just get over it.”
He chuckled at that, that one teacher had it out for the engineering nut from that day on, never missing an occasion to make Gwen’s life harder.
“Sounds ambitious.” He amended, any further teasing would be cruel.
“It is,” she admitted, pulling out her own notebook. “But you know me, I like a challenge.”
He did not, in fact, know her, but that likely wasn’t the point.
It might just be their longest interaction thus far, now that he thought about it.
Still, Ethan nodded.
“What about you?” Gwen asked, tilting her head ever so slightly, making a few strand of hair fall sideways.
“Nope. Mostly reading. Physics, coding, stuff like that.” He answered, and tried not to think about how cute she just looked, instead focusing on his own summer.
‘Breaking skulls and taking wallets, trying to lift a car with my mind, mapping out the turf of local gangs and collecting intel on them for future uses.’ This part was left unsaid for obvious reasons, he had folders upon folders filled with information that would make any self-respecting cop salivate.
Obtaining through a mix of scaring the daylight out of regular thugs and practicing some advanced interrogation tactics involving a levitating wet rag and their respiratory systems.
He might even make some bigger cash selling it, if he only knew how.
“They say you’re a pretty good computer wiz, even better than your friend Peter,” She said noncommittally, but the way her smile widened told him she was getting something she wanted.
Either that, or she was having fun talking to him, but being paranoid didn’t hurt.
“I try,” Ethan replied honestly, “He’d beat me if he put in a minimum effort, he’s always been more into biology or theoretical math and physics.”
And that was true, Peter devoured subjects whose mere title gave him a headache, something he once considered unfair but now accepted as a mere fact of life.
Pete’s brain was just better at this.
“Uh-huh,” She nodded, still smiling though he saw a hint of concern etched on her face, “He’s a smart cookie alright, but you shouldn’t sell yourself short. I’ve been meaning to ask you if–”
cough cough
They were interrupted by the realization that sometime during their discussion, the class was filled and the rest of the students were seated in various states of bad posture, with a shining bald head leaning against the teacher’s desk looking at them with little to no amusement.
“Oh don’t mind us, I could always take the class elsewhere if you two aren’t finished.” Mr. Warren said blandly, prompting a couple giggles from their classmates.
Gwen blushed, stammering an apology that only made their fellow students more amused. He couldn’t blame them, cute girl being embarrassed beat calculus any day of the week.
“Sorry sir, it won’t happen again.” Ethan said when the gloriously bald man looked at him.
It sure as hell was a good start for the year.
He always knew this year would be much, much more interesting than the rest of his time in this brave new world.
He wasn’t wrong.
