The Protagonist System
360 Power Plays

Susan nearly chewed off her own hand trying to keep herself quiet as I spent half of the lunch period eating her out. She had been genuinely surprised I wasn't lying about wanting to do that with her, especially with her thoughts about how she didn't believe she deserved it and Gail should have been there in her place, because she was a much better person than her.

Those were the reasons I had chosen to get it out of the way first, actually. Instead of going to the cafeteria and spending half of the period eating and giving Susan the chance to beg off and switch places with Gail, I'd taken her to a rarely used janitorial supply closet and went down on her.

As Susan enjoyed her fifth orgasm just as my set aside time with her came to an end, she still couldn't believe it had happened to her. I made short work of cleaning her off with a handi-wipe and a dry cloth, then I put her panties and her pants back into place. When I tried to help her stand, she couldn't get her legs to work right.

We both exchanged looks before we started chuckling. Susan because she liked having the proof it happened and me because I hadn't taken her physical reactions in mind when I had planned it out. I sat back down beside her to wait for her to recover and she hugged my arm.

“I should have stopped at four.” I said and she gave me an odd look. “We're not going to have a lot of time left to eat before the bell rings.”

“Oh! I thought you meant...” Susan stopped talking and looked away from me.

“Hey, now. Don't think like that. I only stopped because of the time constraints.” I told her and she blushed. “I'd carry you to the cafeteria if the attention we gained was worth it, and it's not.”

Susan nodded and turned her head to look straight ahead as she rested her head on my shoulder. “You know, everyone in the school knows you do things like this.”

I couldn't let that comment pass without responding appropriately. “You mean like what everyone knows about you?”

Susan blushed and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then I guess that means we're in the same boat, so I'll do what you do. Smile knowingly at everyone, ignore the ones that are rude and don't matter, and give my attention to those that do.”

Susan lifted her head from my shoulder to look at me. “Really?”

“It's worked for you.” I said and smiled. “Also, there's only a week and a half left to school. Who cares what other people think? We're probably never going to see them again after we graduate.”

Susan looked surprised for a moment and then smiled, too. “You're right.”

“Of course I am. It's my middle name and you can call me 'Right' from now on.” I joked and she made a snort sound and laughed.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, then Susan made a grunt sound and used my arm as a brace to stand up. Her legs weren't weak and shaky anymore and she pulled me up by the arm. She still used it like a lifeline as we left the storage closet and we passed several students in the hallway that had already eaten.

There were only 20 minutes left for the lunch period when we entered the cafeteria and the entire place seemed to fall silent as we walked over to the counter where the food was served. I offered to pay for hers, of course, and she thanked me. We walked over to the table her friends were using and all of them were staring holes through us.

“We didn't go all the way.” Susan said, which carried across the quiet room and almost echoed off the walls. She blushed and didn't say anything else as she sat near the end of the table. I sat beside her, if only for solidarity's sake, and the noise and conversations picked back up at the other tables.

“Now you have to give us details.” Gail said, or ordered really, and Susan glanced at me.

“It's okay. You have to brag to your friends after that.” I said with a smirk.

“Are you going to?” Someone else asked.

“I would if I had any friends left.” I said and she looked surprised. “We had a falling out and they never apologized, so I didn't forgive them and now it's way too late. Even if I end up going to college and it's the same place as them, I doubt we'd see each other at all on campus.”

“Why?” Gail asked.

“We have different interests and goals.” I said with a shrug. “We barely have any classes together and this is high school. With the way college schedules work, if we signed up for the same courses, we still might not get the same teacher or the same time slot.”

All of the girls at the table looked at each other with determination.

“We are totally showing up to register at the same time.” Gail ordered and they all nodded.

Susan and I ate fairly fast, since we didn't have a lot of time left, and the bell rang. I didn't share any afternoon classes with any of them, so I said goodbye to them in the central hallway.

“Call me.” Susan suddenly said when I started walking away.

“I have work this afternoon and might not get home until late.” I warned her.

“I'll be awake doing homework anyway.” Susan responded.

I nodded and walked to my next class as the other girls praised her for being so forward. The rest of the afternoon passed by without incident, except for a few longing looks from a few of the girls. One redhead had been rubbing her thighs together for a while, too. Was she edging herself as she imagined I was going down on her?

I left the school when the end of day bell rang and found an empty alleyway, then stepped to another one in Arlington and changed into my Atlas persona. I flew over to the gates and the guards there greeted me and checked my ID. I was allowed inside and went over to the side entrance I always used. It opened before I reached it and Agent April Howsam was there waiting for me.

I laughed when she held out an 8x10 picture of me with my shirt off and a black marker. “I'd be happy to give you my very first signature.”

April beamed a smile at me as I signed my name to the bottom corner, so it didn't ruin the picture. I thanked her for all her hard work and we kept talking as she led me to Cecil's office. Carol saw us and held up her own copy, so I had to borrow April's marker and signed hers as well. She buzzed the office door open for me and I thanked her.

I went inside and spent a few minutes debriefing with Cecil and he told me about the equipment they modified for The Giant to allow me to take him with me out to harvest that asteroid. I had to stop off at the White Room to pick it up and had to laugh when they turned off the light generator and I saw the giant fish-bowl helmet and large air tanks.

“You guys have really outdone yourselves.” I praised them and patted the clear glass. “This thing is great!”

“Hold on, is someone actually praising us for a job well done?” One of the scientists asked. “It's a miracle!”

That had a lot of the other scientists crack up and laugh.

“It's a thankless job to thank people and I'm happy to do it!” I proclaimed and struck a hero pose and gave them a bright smile, which made them laugh more. “Did the head honcho tell you about my secondary ability?”

“We were briefed.” Another scientist said as she walked over to me. She had dark brown hair pulled back in a very tight ponytail and wore glasses. “Do you mind if I observe?”

“Is using scientific equipment covered by that open question?” I asked and kept the bright smile on my face.

She raised her eyebrows at me. “You understood the implication?”

That earned another laugh from a few of her colleagues.

“I'm not just a pretty face and a fantastic physical specimen, Dr. Justine Neiman.” I said and posed again.

“Humble, too.” She said and her lips twitched briefly into a smile.

“Heh.” I said and dropped the exaggerated act. “Dr. Sinclair is lucky to have you backing him up.”

Her eyes dropped to my broad chest for a second and she looked up at my face. “Quite.”

The scientists laughed again, because they knew she understood what I was implying.

“I should tell you to stop hitting on my girlfriend.” D.A. Sinclair said as he walked over to us. “I doubt it will make any difference, however.”

I smiled at him and placed a hand on his shoulder for a moment before letting it go. “I'll flirt a little, because it's difficult to ignore someone with both intelligence and beauty, as you very well know.”

He gave Justine a glance and saw her face slightly red. “Agreed.”

“I will never do more than that, because it's disrespectful to both her and you.” I said and they both nodded. I turned my head to look at Justine and used a thumb to indicate the giant helmet. “I assume you have as many scanners and detectors as possible pointed at this thing?”

She nodded, as did a few of the other scientists. I smiled and walked over to the thing to place a hand on it. Since I had a multitude of powers, it was easy to simulate what I had told Cecil my storage power was like. I used gravitational waves and 'shrunk' the thing down to an infinitesimal size and then stored it.

There were a lot of beeps, a couple buzzers, and an alarm, then every single scientist scrambled around to look at various monitors and all of the data they had just gathered. Neither Dr. Sinclair nor Justine were immune to this behavior and were just as excited about it.

“I'll pop by later to help design a few new sensors and detectors.” I promised and walked towards the door as the White Room reappeared around me. I left there and went to the side entrance to the GDA and walked back over to the gate.

The guards let me out and told me to have a good day. I waved and flew up into the air to a good height and flew at subsonic speeds to the warehouse facility that had been modified for The Giant. I had to admit that the guys Cecil had working for him did a great job. The oval office was huge and The Giant looked really happy as he sat behind the desk and played with some toys.

I knocked on the giant door and flew up to open it. “I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Astronaut President. I'm here for our scheduled consult and flight out to Jupiter.”

“WHAT?!?” The Giant gasped. “They weren't joking about that? I thought they were joking!”

I landed on his desk. “No, sir. Your job is real, this place is real, and we have a lot things to do to have fun...” *cough!* “...I mean, we have real work to do as we smash up asteroids that are dirtying up your command area.”

The Giant beamed a smile at me. “We're doing that, too?”

I pulled out the giant helmet and air tanks and he gasped. “We just have to get you fitted properly and I'll fly us right out into space.”

“YAY!” The Giant cheered.

*

Cecil watched the live footage with a smile as thousands of tons of raw materials, precious metals, and rare isotopes were gathered by his newest project and loaded into giant cargo containers.

“BEING THE ASTRONAUT PRESIDENT IS AWESOME!” The Giant yelled and his huge fists smashed into the mountain-sized asteroid that Atlas was holding still for him and hundreds of pieces broke apart. If Atlas hadn't braced it, both The Giant and the asteroid would have flown off into space after a hit like that.

“Remember, this is supposed to be work! We're being paid a lot of money to do this.” Atlas said.

“WE'RE BEING PAID?!?” The Giant yelled and he started laughing as he continued to smash apart the whole thing with even more enthusiasm than a moment ago.

“Damn, kid. You're playing him like a fiddle and he's working even harder.” Cecil said, proudly. “I wish I'd thought of this scheme years ago.”

His phone beeped and he hit the button. “Yes, Carol?”

“Your 4 o'clock will be here in a moment, sir.” Carol answered.

“Thank you. Send him in.” Cecil said and hit the button again.

The door buzzed a moment later and The Immortal walked in wearing his weird-looking hero suit. No matter what the PR department wanted him to change into, he refused to alter what he thought was an iconic look.

“Have a seat.” Cecil said and left the large display playing the live footage.

The Immortal gave the screen a look and his face changed from blank to a frown. He sat down and kept staring at The Giant pounding space debris like he had pounded his face and chest.

“I'm happy to see you've recovered so quickly.” Cecil said.

The Immortal tore his gaze from the screen and lost the frown as he look at his boss. “Am I approved for active duty?”

Cecil gave him a pointed look and hit a button to turn off the screen. “We need to have a talk about procedures and how to handle certain situations.”

Immortal sighed. “We couldn't wait for Bulletproof to show up to give us another heavy hitter. The Giant was already rampaging and we had a hard enough time corralling him. If we had waited, who knows what the death toll could have been, not to mention the collateral damage.”

Cecil pulled a report out of the stack and slid it across the table. “We do.”

Immortal looked down at the folder and didn't open it. “I don't want to know how much worse it could have been.”

“Yes, you do.” Cecil said and sat back in his chair. “Go ahead and read it. It's quite enlightening.”

Immortal gave him a disbelieving look and picked up the file folder. After a few minutes, he closed and and gave Cecil a flat look. “I don't believe it.”

“That's the thing about arrogance. It's quite difficult for someone to admit that solutions to problems that others come up with might just be better than what they come up with themselves.” Cecil said and folded his hands together on his stomach.

Immortal bristled and sat up straighter. “I was in charge and...”

“I suffer from this problem myself.” Cecil interrupted him and Immortal closed his mouth. “I can honestly say that it didn't occur to me to actually give in to the unreasonable demands of a villain and let them have exactly what they asked for.”

Immortal stayed quiet as Cecil turned the display back on.

“The Astronaut President is having fun working for us, is making tons of money, and no longer has any desire to fight, cause havoc, or leave his very spacious office.” Cecil informed him. “We tried to give him a bedroom and he refused. He actually sleeps in a nest of giant canvas tarps underneath his desk.”

The display changed and showed the giant oval office and the bed and pillow under the desk.

“You wouldn't believe how many normal pillows are inside that thing.” Cecil said with a chuckle and turned it off.

“I don't see how this is relevant.” Immortal responded.

“That's why I wanted to talk to you, because it is relevant. You are a man that holds a grudge and I am ordering you to drop your plans of revenge on The Giant.” Cecil said, his voice stern.

Immortal almost growled. “He beat me bloody and broke nearly all of my bones!”

“Yes, he did.” Cecil said and leaned forward to frown at him. “What he didn't do was smear you across the pavement, or stomped you into paste, or pulled your head off.”

Immortal lost his angry look and his face went blank. “You're bringing that up now?”

Cecil nodded and sat back again. “The Giant easily could have made sure you couldn't revive and he didn't. He fought you with respect and didn't maim you or gave you any permanent injuries.”

Immortal kept his face blank, despite his feelings.

“He really is an 8 year old kid that was changed into a monster. He didn't choose to be like that and he doesn't understand a lot of things. Treating him like the child he is, simply never crossed my mind. Now it has and I need you to understand that it has to cross your mind as well.”

By the look on the Immortal's face, Cecil knew it wasn't going to be that easy for the ancient man to accept that his normal rules of engagement needed to change.