Finally?

"You ready?" asked Steve.

"Shoot." I said.

"Okay. Heads up." he said before throwing a baseball at my face, full force.

Seeing the baseball about to hit me, I used my PK to stop it right before it hit me.

"Nice." said Steve.

"Me next." said Andrew.

It had been two weeks since I told the two of them about their new ability and during those two weeks, we had been having fun with our powers.

From barely being able to move a pen to trying to stop a baseball before it hit us, the two weeks had been eventful.

Although it seemed to me like their powers were growing slower than they did in the movie. Not long after they got their powers they were able to fly, but at the rate they were going, it would take a few months.

But the even odder thing was my powers were growing faster than theirs. In two weeks, I was able to lift 50 pounds with ease while they were struggling with lifting 20 pounds. My best guess is that I had created systematic training for myself while they were just playing around.

It's like comparing a pro-athletes training regime to a kindergartner messing around during recess. One was designed for optimal results while the other was for fun.

Or maybe it was something else, but all I knew was that our powers were fun to use.

"Ready?" asked Steve.

"Yeah. Go for it." said Andre, readying himself to catch the ball.

"Okay." said Steve, throwing the ball.

SMACK

"Ow! Shit!" said Andrew, holding his nose which had just been hit by the ball.

"Oh shit, dude. You okay?" asked Steve.

"Fine. I think I'm bleeding a little though." said Andrew.

"My bad. Let's go inside to get you a tissue." said Steve while I guided Andrew inside Steve's house seeing as he was looking up to avoid the blood from spilling out.

"Sit down." I said, guiding him to the couch before he sat down.

"Why can you do it and I can't? This sucks." said Andrew, sounding nasally from holding his nose.

"You could've done it after a few tries. Don't get too hung up on things like that." I said, patting him on the back.

"I guess."

"Here." said Steve handing Andrew tissues and a cold compress.

"Thanks. You really put your strength into that ball, huh?"

"You asked me to!" said Steve.

"I didn't think you were that strong!"

"I'm the star quarterback."

"I'm going to be completely honest with you, I forgot about that." I said.

"So did I." chimed in Andrew, who now had tissues on both nostrils.

"Yeah well compared to having powers, football isn't all that interesting." said Steve as he sat down.

"You thinking of quitting?" I asked, noticing he had said that in a certain tone, conveying he was losing his passion for the sport.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"You shouldn't."

"Why?"

"Because even though we have powers, we're still human. We need money and food to survive. You being a quarterback, and a good one at that, is your meal ticket. And with your powers, you'll be an even better quarterback. The best even."

"That's cheating though." said Andrew.

"So? Athletes dope all the time to get a competitive edge. You just have a much better and more permanent way to do the same thing. You'd have to train your power to help you, but you have a clear path forward. And if you don't like football enough to go pro, you're still smart."

"That's pretty well thought out. You think about this stuff a lot?" asked Steve.

"The future? All the time." I said.

And it was true, even in my past life, I was one to wonder and worry about the future. It was something I had to do to survive with shitty guardians. I had to know where my next meal was coming from and how.

"So what's your plan for the future?" asked Andrew.

"Me? Tech mogul." I said, with a smile.

"Tech mogul? Yeah right." said Steve.

"I'm serious. I don't like to brag, but I'm pretty good at programming."

"Yeah, we know. You talk about it all the time." said Andrew, exaggerating.

"Which I've been meaning to ask you about. How did you get so good at programming? You've never mentioned it before." asked Steve.

"I was bored one day, like two or three years ago, and I stumbled upon one of those YouTube videos talking about programming. It piqued my interest so I tried it out and I was pretty good at it I guess. And I didn't talk about it because it used to be my guilty pleasure." I said, telling them the fictional backstory I decided on for my skills.

"Cool. So can you hack? Like in the movies?" asked Steve.

"Yes to the hacking, no to the movies. That's not really how it works. It's mostly just creating a program beforehand and just activating it. It's pretty much just one button."

"Aw, that sucks." said Steve.

"You both have things you want to do in the future, but I don't." said Andrew.

"Nothing?" asked Steve.

"No."

"How about cinematography? Or directing? You like using the camera don't you? Why not make it a career?" I suggested.

"Oh yeah. That seems cool." said Steve.

"You guys really think I can do that?"

"Sure you can." I said.

"Okay. Thanks guys." said Andrew.

"No problem. What are friends for?"

[Mission Available]

'A mission?! Should I say finally or already? I have to check the details before determining that I guess. But I should probably go first. Don't want to make any weird reactions while reading the information. I'll just say I'm working on secret programming or something. They'll buy it right?' I thought before taking my phone out to check the time as if I had somewhere to be.

"Alright, boys. That's it for me." I said as I stood up.

"Already? Why?" asked Steve.

"Let's just say I got somewhere to be."

"Where?" asked Andrew.

"My room. I'm working on a program and I want to get through a good chunk of it today. Coding takes a while you know." I said.

"Boo." said Steve.

"Bite me. You coming Andrew?" I asked since he rode with me.

"He's staying. We're going to practice some more." said Steve.

"I'll stay." said Andrew.

"Okay then. Later boys. Good luck with your practice."

~

Back in my room, I threw myself on my bed.

'Okay. No real stakes in this considering I can deny any mission I want, but I would like for the first one to be something easy. Like cleaning someone's house in another world. Let's check.' I thought before opening up The System and clicking on Mission.

[Mission]

World: ???

Difficulty: Easy

- Investigate what world you are in

- ???

Rewards

- 500 SP

- Random Item (Low)

- Random Ability/Skill/Talent (Low)

[Accept? Deny?]

'The world is withheld but the difficulty is easy. But investigating what world I'm in might be tedious if it's a mission. And the rewards are about what I'd expect from an easy mission. The Low in reward must mean it won't be a super strong skill like Gravity Control but something weaker like Parkour. Though that does sound cool anyway.

I'm doing it. Is time stopped in my world??'

[Time is stopped in Users world when on Missions]

'That's good. What about a time limit?'

[No time limit unless specified in Mission description]

'Okay. What if I spend 20 years in the Mission? Will I look older when I come back?'

[User will be exactly as he appeared when Mission was accepted]

'That's good. But what about my lifespan? Not my physical age, but my soul age I guess is what I'm trying to get at.' I thought with no response.

'Must be the same answer then. Okay. Let me get some supplies to put in my inventory before accepting. Don't want to be needing something I could've taken with me.'

~

'Water bottles, check. Food, check. Lighter, check. Matches, check. Flashlight and extra batteries, check. Extra clothes, check. KA-BAR that dad gave me as a present a few years ago, check. Baseball bat just in case, check. Spy watch, check. Okay, let's do this.'

[Accept? Deny?]

'Accept.'

[Good Luck]

And then I blacked out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AN

What world is it?

It's an easy one. Which is why the reward is a Low one. Someone mentioned the reward correlating with the difficulty of the mission and I had wanted to do that in the past iteration but I had already established the mission system by the time I wanted to do it so I'm doing it here.

Don't know how long he'll be in the mission world, but I won't make it too long either. Max 10 but probably more like 5. But more difficult missions will be longer obviously.

Also, the two-week time skips are because he's in high school. Nothing really happens when you're in high school. But I might make him drop out just to move on to another part of his life, or time skip to graduation. We'll see.