It was a long and boring day at school, and time felt like it had come to a standstill. While others daydreamed about their idols, imagining the best possible experience they could think of, Mason sat in silence—his mind blank, disconnected. The lecturer's words faded into background noise, never making it past his ears.
He was in a completely different dimension of his own.
Then it came, the final bell that marked the end of classes for the day.
The students rushed out of the classroom in an instant, feeling no remorse to the poor lecturer that just finished educating them.
"What a day." Mason slipped his hands into his pockets as he stepped out of the classroom. With his aunt busy at work and nothing else on his schedule, the only thing waiting for him at home was his favorite RPG—a small escape from a day that had offered him nothing but silence and stress.
Then he remembered, his little scuffle with his girlfriend at the start of their day.
"Ah that's right, that." He realized he might have overreacted—just a little. But who could blame him? His scars were more than just old wounds, they were reminders. A reminder that told a story, a painful lesson etched into his skin that will never truly fade away.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolled through his contact list, and tapped on Vanessa's name. As the call began to ring, he hesitated for a moment, unsure of what he'd even say, how he was going to apologize for overreacting.
But there was no response, just a voice mail that kept saying one thing over and over again. "Hi, it's Vanessa. I'm currently unavailable right now, so leave a message!"
He kept dialing her number but it kept going straight to voicemail. "Why does it keep going straight to voicemail?" He gave up after a couple more tries, sliding his phone back into his pocket with a loud sigh.
"We might not be in the same class, but we attend the same freaking school, why the hell would she leave her phone in voicemail?"
He left the school grounds, taking his usual route home—the one he liked most. It wasn't just quiet and familiar; it was also the path the ice cream truck usually took around this time.
It was a small comfort at the end of a long, draining day.
BIZZ BIZZ
As he walked down the streets, his phone vibrated in his pockets. His face lit up, and he immediately reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone thinking it was Vanessa.
As he raised his phone to his line of vision, he sighed softly, a little disappointed at his expectations before picking the call.
It was Mike.
[Mason: Hey man, what's good?]
[Mike: DUDEEEEEE! HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEWS!?]
[Mason: No, and I don't want to.]
[Mike: YOU HAVE TO SEE IT NOW!]
[Mason: If it's going to be something about Lady Impulse or any other hero saving a burning building or something like that, I rather get hit by a bus.]
[Mike: It's nothing like that! Just check the news!]
Mason heaved a heavy sigh before swiping his screen up and typing in the URL for the Nova City News.
The page loaded instantly, and at the top of the feed was a live clip.
"BREAKING: New Superheroine Appears in Downtown Heist."
He tapped it, and the screen filled with shaky footage of a woman in bright orange tights, moving with speed and precision as she disarmed a group of masked robbers outside the Nova City's bank. Her punches were sharp, her movements fluid, almost like she had been trained for this all her life.
"Ladies and gentlemen it seems we have a unidentified hero in Nova City!" The reporter's voice echoed from the helicopter over the scene. "There's no official registry match yet, but this mystery heroine just took down three armed suspects in under thirty seconds. Could this be the dawn of a new light here in the Capital Of The Awakened!?"
Mason raised an eyebrow. "You've gotta be kidding me, another one?" He muttered to himself, watching as the heroine dodged a plasma beam mid-air and slammed a robber into the side of a van.
[Mason: Dude wtf?? I thought I said no heroes.]
[Mike: Heroes? No that's not it, you must have gone to the wrong channel, go to the Daily Nova news live feed NOW!]
[Mason: Oh, my bad man.]
He swiped up his screen again and typed in the URL for the Daily Nova News.
This time, the homepage loaded with bold red text flashing across the top of his screen.
"BREAKING: METEOR SIGHTED—ON COLLISION COURSE WITH NOVA CITY."
His eyes widened as he tapped on the live feed. A shaky aerial shot from a news drone came into view, capturing a fiery object tearing through the upper atmosphere, trailing fire and smoke behind it like a comet from hell.
"Authorities have confirmed an unidentified meteor is descending rapidly toward Nova City." The reporter's voice was shaky, most likely from the fear of staying in that vicinity where the meteor was.
"Authorities suggest impact within the next three minutes unless intercepted. The Heroes Association are yet to respond to this looming threat, leaving the greater question, where are the heroes?"
Onscreen, people could be seen gathering in panic, looking up at the streak in the sky growing brighter with each passing second.
[Mason: Now that's something you don't see everyday, a meteor? That's wild.]
[Mike: DUDEEE DYG!? NOVA CITY IS MOVING CRAZY THESE DAYS!
"Hm?" Mason stuttered, noticing something in the distance up in the air. It appeared like a streak of light, approaching him rapidly at a great speed.
"Huh, that's funny, it looks a lot similar to the meteor in the news." Mason stared at his phone, his eyes locked on the burning meteor streaking across the sky in the news feed. At first, it felt distant—just another disaster report, just another day in Nova City.
But then something clicked.
His eyes widened in sudden realization.
"Wait..."
He lowered his phone, and in that instant, the world around him lit up.
A blinding glow engulfed the street as the sky above cracked open with light. The meteor wasn't coming.
It was already here, and it was right above him.
"Shit!!"
His instinct took over.
The ground trembled beneath Mason's feet as a deafening roar filled the air. Without thinking, he hurled himself to the side, just as the fiery blur tore through the sky and slammed into the streets with a thunderous impact.
The shockwave hit a split second later—violent and unforgiving. Glass shattered from nearby buildings, and a burst of heat swept over him as he hit the ground hard, rolling across the pavement. Behind him, the meteor collided with explosive force, sending little debris and flames into the air like a volcanic eruption.
Dust and smoke billowed all around, but Mason stayed low, heart pounding, lungs burning. He was lucky, he just barely escaped being obliterated.
[Mike: Mason! What was that!? Mason! Are you alright!?]
Mason coughed violently, the excess dust and smoke filling his lungs with each breath he took.
"I'm fine, nearly got hit by that shit, I need to go before any more surprises happens." He cut the line, slipping his phone back into his pockets and dusting his clothes immediately.
"Damn it all, so much for those "heroes", ignoring something as important as a freaking meteor crashing into the city. I gotta get out of here before the press gets here."
Before Mason could leave, a bright light from within the crater created by the Meteor caught his attention. "Hm? What is that?"
He closed his nose, slowly approaching the crater carefully and vigilantly, after all this meteor came from outer space, who knew what kind of danger or even virus it could bring.
As Mason got to the edge of the crater and the dust cleared, his eyes widened in disbelief as a bright light reflected off his eyeballs.
"W-what is that?"
What he gazed at wasn't the meteor or at least a fragment of it, infact it was nothing related to it at all.
What he stared at, was a wristwatch, but not just any watch.
It laid in the center of the smoldering crater, untouched by flame or debris. Sleek and metallic, it pulsed faintly with a soft blue glow with a touch panel.
It looked decades—maybe centuries—beyond anything Mason had ever seen in his life, it looked... Futuristic.
Mason let out a soft, disbelieving chuckle, the sound shaky and hollow. He slapped his cheeks lightly—once, twice, then again—like he was trying to jolt himself out of a dream.
"Nah I'm not doing this, I'm not doing this Ben 10 ass shit." He turned around immediately and left, but just as he was leaving, the watch vibrated, almost as it it was affected by some magnetic force.
The next second, it flew off the ground in a flash and strapped itself tightly around Mason's left wrist.
"AAARHGHH!" Mason let out a sharp, frustrated groan, yanking at the strange device now clamped tightly around his wrist. The sleek metal had latched on seconds after he touched it, locking into place like it belonged there.
"Get off me!" He hissed, pulling at it with all his might.
But then.
CLICK!
A hidden mechanism activated, and a small, needle-like spike extended from the underside of the watch and drove itself into his wrist with surgical precision.
"Agh!" Mason cried out, staggering backward as pain shot up his left arm. Blood trickled briefly along his skin before the device absorbed it, the interface lighting up instantly with a new pulse of energy.
[Testing blood sample...]
[Blood sample successfully tested!]
[Comparability rate - 99.9%]
[Beginning binding process...]
[Successfully binded!]
An interface shot up from the panel of the watch, displaying strange holographic panels with several inscriptions on it.
"What the hell is this!?]
[Ding! You have unlocked the Antihero System!]
[The Antihero System is now fully operational.]