Chapter 22

  “Holy shit,” I muttered as I watched the man blink away into nothingness.

  “What-- what was that?” Mochi asked.

  “I think we just saw a wish,” I answered. “I think.”

  “What? How? Wait, isn’t he already a wisher?” She asked.

  “Yup, everyone in the Spin is supposed to be a wisher” I answered. “I guess it can happen twice.”

  “Oh.”

  This was big. We just had public verification of something people had been speculating about for a long time.

  But now we had proof that it was possible.

  Multiple wishes per person.

  The Heroes Union definitely knew about this and I would think the governments of the world knew about this as well, but it was strange that I didn’t.

  Huh.

  I started thinking.

  He had to have been a wisher. Everyone who participated in these types of sports were checked beforehand and we did our best to verify their abilities.

  If he was a wisher before the race, then that would mean that it was his second wish that led him to disappearing like that. It must have been some powerful wish, or it might be the nature of a second wish to grant this level of power.

  That made more sense to me. There were too many wishers for second wishes to be kept a secret, but if the wishers who got a second wish suddenly skyrocketed in ability, then that meant that only the best of the best would know about this.

  Major S’s and maybe even Major A’s.

  There were only a few thousand of those.

  That or second wishes were just impossibly rare.

  I watched as the feed quickly shut down and Motor Maniac, having managed to stay in their car this whole time, finally crossed the finish line.

  “See?” Mochi said.

  “Technically it was still INOS that won.”

  “Well, let's see him drive in the finals then.”

  I shook my head and leaned back into the seat, mind heavy with possibilities.

  Second wishes.

  The Heroes Union would definitely make a statement about them, if not now then later. This was a major world changing moment. And the Union had more or less, agreed to do it.

  The feed should have been on some kind of delay and they could have cut it off at any point, but they had let it play for some reason.

  A lot of people would think it was an accident, but the smart ones would figure it out.

  I could already see the wisher supremacist memes now. They would be posting, saying this proves that wishers just had a better character and strength of will.

  Most wishers hated wisher supremacists and it was only a small amount of the population but they did exist. They thought they were better. Some thought they had a stronger soul or better willpower. Others believed they were chosen by some higher being.

  It was all nonsense. They were just a little stronger or smarter.

  “Will this change a lot?” Mochi asked.

  “Yes, and no. I think people higher up the food chain already knew about this, but it will change a lot for the people down below.”

  “People like us?”

  “Yup.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  “Well, a lot of non-wishers are always trying to become wishers through some stupid strategy. Risking their life, injuring themselves, all that stuff. I think there will probably be some wishers who start acting like that as well, but nothing predictable.”

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Mochi howled.

  She did that when she got stressed. It was her coping mechanism.

  “But holy shit, the resale value for the Spin Circuit Finale is going through the roof-”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the sudden interruption but we are now airing the recorded battle between the Steel General and the BoZo Brothers. This fight has since concluded and was approved by the Heroes Union to be aired. Please enjoy the show. The merchandise for the associated heroes as well as villains will be available within the day.”

  The screen then changed to drone footage of the Spin, centering around the fight this time.

  “That was quick,” I muttered.

  I went online to the Heroes Union merch site and pre ordered myself all the hero and villain cards I could get.

  This was also a bit of a hobby, but it was also an investment. The advertising side of HU was one of its most lucrative. They brought in trillions per year, holding the rights to both every hero and villain image, whether the villain approved or not.

  And they were collectible, and based on this instance, extremely valuable. I already had an INOS card as I was a fan before he made his second wish. I had even pre ordered his specific race card earlier today.

  Within a few years it could be worth loads of money.

  “Look at that,” Mochi whispered.

  I put down my phone and watched.

  Two brothers, one with a red mask and one with blue, fell from the sky and onto a couple of robots.

  “Bo!” One yelled.

  “Zo!” The other responded.

  An infographic popped up on the screen, displaying the brothers' known abilities and their battle rankings. Each one of them was a Major A.

  Wisher rankings were strange and confusing. You had wisher rankings and battle rankings.

  A wisher’s ranking was entirely based on the ability of the wish, its rarity, effectiveness, and supernatural nature. But a wish that could, say, bring someone back from the dead for example would be considered Major S rank.

  But battlewise it was entirely useless.

  So some forum had come up with battle rankings, which judge each wish on its abilities in battle.

  Major S was considered continental, while Major A was about city wide. The rankings themselves didn’t make that much sense, but that was natural. You weren’t measuring something tangible after all, you were measuring supernatural power.

  But battle rankings were now commonly shown as they were more intuitive for the general public.

  The two brothers fist bumped each other and each pulled out a sword.

  Then, they ran.

  They were nothing special, just another enhanced from what I understood. Their basic physical abilities were immensely enhanced but nobody really knew if that went all the way to their intelligence or time perception.

  A fully enhanced individual like Tux could be extremely versatile. Tux could only become about fifteen times as powerful as a regular person and that was enough to make him a Middle B if not A level threat.

  These guys were different. High speed cameras, the ones that would have been watching the drivers, tailed and focused on them.

  They ran parallel to each other, sometimes converging or turning, but always with each other.

  A blur of blue and red crashed into the robots and the giants fell.

  Three, four, then eight.

  The two brothers stood on a pile of metallic corpses, one slouching, the other stretching.

  “Hey General,” the blue one yelled. “Anabell is a real looker man, you’re lucky you had for so long.”

  Then all the robots turned and zoomed in on them.

  “Who’s Annabelle?” Mochi asked.

  “His girlfriend, I think. She’s probably the reason he’s doing all this.”

  “What did she do?” Mochi asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  All the giant robots turned to the brothers and suddenly, they all gleamed red.

  “We hit a nerve?” The red one asked.

  “Oh we hit more than a nerve Zo, think we hit him right in the heartbreak,” the blue one replied.

  Then all the robots vibrated.

  “DO NOT SPEAK HER NAME,” they all said, their voices shivering with wrath.

  “You’re right, we’ll call her baby instead,” said red.

  “How about sweetheart?” Added blue.

  “SILENCE,” the robots hummed.

  “That’s a little patronizing, Bo.” The red one replied.

  “I thought we were trying to get him mad?” The blue one asked.

  “Still, she’s watching ya know. She probably still cares for him. Have a heart man, sorry Anne!” Said the red one.

  “Though I think we can make her forget all about him when we take her out to dinner tonight,” he added.

  The robots ran at them, some of them tripping on each other and getting ran over in the process.

  The brothers fist bumped and turned into blurs again.

  “Bo!” One yelled.

  “Zo!” The other replied.

  Then metal flew.

  I understood their strategy. It was simple but effective. Good villains stay alive by hiding and not being found but General Steel was extremely emotional. And they were making him even more emotional, and worse, they said she was watching.

  Not that she would see this, but that she was watching at that very moment.

  I would assume there were a few Holmes-types searching the crowd’s reactions right now.

  It was obvious what they were doing, but just because you saw the trap, it didn’t mean you could avoid it.

  I watched the brothers fight. They were strong, really strong. But more than that, they were in sync.

  One would cover for the others blind spots. One would throw themselves into vulnerable attacks, knowing the other was going to cover them.

  They fought like they were one person.

  Synchrony.

  One was the left arm, one was the right.

  When a robot attacked one, the other would slip out and cut it. When one attacked, the other would defend.

  And they weren’t even looking at each other. They just knew.

  “What’s their wish?” Mochi asked.

  “Hell if I know. But they’re connected, somehow.”

  Fifty robots later and the brothers were still standing.

  Then, all the robots went still.

  “Ladies and gentleman, the villain known as General Steele has been apprehended! I repeat, the villain known as General Steel has been apprehended. We have Bo the blue and Zo the red to thank! Say thank you to the BoZo brothers!!!”

  There was a sudden applause and a flash to the audience, who was still seated and clapping. We saw a man with his head and hands covered, handcuffed and being escorted out of the pews.

  “That’s him?” Mochi asked. “General Steel?”

  “Yup,” I replied.

  “That’s a little underwhelming,” she muttered.

  “Well his biggest security was not being known, and he threw all that away by being here.”

  “What a stupid man!” Mochi yelled.

  “Love blinds people.”

  “He should’ve stayed single then!”

  “I agree.”

  Mochi’s ears flattened.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she glared.

  I just smiled and leaned back into my chair.

  Second wishes, huh?

  That was new.

  That's a wrap on the Spin Circuit! Back to our regularly scheduled sulking super person/vigilante.

  Leave a rating/review and a follow if you can. It's the best way to help the fiction.