In no time at all month's passed to the point that no one could see and winter came with it filling the world with snow and alongside it the return of the heroic course students of Jackson county public highschool.

Dozens of buses filled the cleared driveways and it was possible to see fire or ice ability users walking around melting or moving snow that had been building up on sidewalks and paths while the students and teachers descended.

The teachers were totally different from the time they left. Every one of them was immensely stronger having grown under the heavy hand of the four main teachers. Under the intense training, every last one gained the strength to be regarded as Strongmen, they didn’t have the license because it came with duties to the public they had to do along with control of local forces. They were just teachers but they had the proper strength to act as official strongmen.

In gamer terms, the previous teachers that left were all level 30 to 40 upon arriving at the camp but the ones to walk out were between level 60 to 80.

For the children, almost all the elite classes left with at least level 10 but now the average was level 25. After properly testing their strength, Chams Might had confirmed that Vigilante tends to be above level 20. Leveling up wasn’t as easy as it sounded, they had to grow naturally and train their stats more and more as time went on to increase levels.

It made stats seem redundant but it can’t be forgotten that stats under the gamer space had the capacity to alter genetics. Rubin was the clear proof of this because once his Hardening and Strong Rubber body fully merged, his combat efficiency increased immensely and he also learned many different tricks when blending his power with Titan force.

Honestly, the pressure that the elite class gave the teachers made them work even harder to not be shown up by them. Most of the elite classes were between level 20 to 30.

To understand the strength, the average stat of level 20 is roughly 120 points.

Even those who were physically weaker were at least able to fight physically against vigilantes now and stall.

Walking off the bus, Robin smiled as he walked and got his bags with great ease and stretched after the long ride.

Shoji was just behind him, “You must be excited to finally get home.” He said.

“Not so much.” Robin said. “I do miss my family but…” he stopped but he didn’t say much else and the others understood.

After getting his bags, he walked to the back of the bus where an add-on piece was attached and a giant stone was attached and was being unhooked.

When it came loose he touched it and it released a faint glow and began to levitate under his control and he moved it away from the bus. “Want me to take you home?” he asked.

“No… you tried that initially, remember. They don’t want to do anything with my rocks anymore since they have only caused problems for our family.” he sighed.

“Then I’ll take you home so you don’t stay alone.” he said, walking while it floated above them.

“Need help?” Milo asked.

“Nah, I’ll walk, it is probably faster since you have to get an attachment.” Robin said.

“If you say so.” Milo said and they bumped fists while Lola gave him a hug and Robin walked towards the open field and put the suitcase attached on his back before extending his arm and wrapping the rock once before starting to spin and spin the massive rock and letting the weight take effect and extended the reach for more momentum before turning towards his house and releasing it. The rock instantly lightened but the forward momentum continued as if it had all its weight going that way.

The flew rapidly and Robin quickly shot his arm and grabbed the rock but instantly jumped allowing his body to be taken while he channeled Titan force to ‘drive’ the momentum covering no small amount of space as he flew and after a bit he began to descend and springboarding off he spin the lightened rock and sent it flying and doing the same trick while in the air and continued until they reached close to his house and headed down and he reversed the trick and reduced the momentum making it dip down but before it could crash it stopped and levitating and he jumped down and controlled it to levitate.

He looked around and walked towards his house and gently placed the atlas stone on the front lawn before going to the door and ringing the doorbell.

He could already hear the laughs and when the door opened, it was his little sister.

“Robin!” She shouted and jumped on him, happy to see him.

The two younger brothers jumped from their seats and ran over to join in the hugs and soon they were made to get off and he dropped his bags and his mother hugged him.

“It’s only been 2 months but it feels like forever. Look at you, you’re so much bigger.” Judith said.

“A lot happened but I’m great.” he said and walked to his father and was pulled into a big hug.

It was all happy except for one thing and that was Ruth who forced a smile.

He just looked and gave a small nod but when he looked at the exposed arms, he knew that she hadn’t been lazy, both of them obtained enhanced rubber bodies and hers was even stronger and possessed stronger tensile strength than normal making her grow her physical strength if she worked hard.

“Hey bro, did you develop any unique ability, also why are your arms unwrapped? Don’t you walk with them wrapped anymore?” Jason, Robin’s youngest brother, asked.

“I don’t need it, look.” he said and pulled the sleeve back and they suddenly saw it twisting from the elbow until it reached the hand and it spun like a twister until it stopped.

“Wow! Your rubber control grew a lot!” the boy said.

“Not just that, it's pretty big news but the problem I had which the oil was helping resolve, it finally fixed itself because of one of my club mate’s abilities which is a gamer ability and it helped fix my ability. Now I can even do this without problem.” he said and suddenly his entire body hardened and showed off how even his wrapped rubber didn’t pressure him.

“Huh! Your problem was fixed?! How did that happen?!” Ruth exclaimed.

Robin forced a smile and looked outside, “I had life force deficiency, because of the big rock outside that filled me with a special energy, it kept stimulating my life force while i trained and kept using the gamer system and finally it made my life force change into a more condensed form and changed throughout my body fixing the problems.” He said as his body returned to normal. His fist spun as his arm unwound.

“Let’s not talk about that son, you’re finally home so let’s enjoy our Christmas like a family.” Isaac, his father, said, trying to relieve the tension.

He just nodded and took out a small box for each of his younger siblings and looked for a moment before tossing a wrapped packet to Ruth.

“I didn’t really have access to a lot while at a training camp but after I asked, Mr Might helped me prepare some really good strength training equipment. It’s the same thing I’m wearing now.” Robin said, showing off the bracelets on his arms.

They each opened it and they looked at the bracelets.

“Training gear?” Judith said.

“Yep, these are gravity bracelets, the kind super strength people use but their weight is pretty low but it can double the gravity you feel so for you guys who want to grow up to be heroes, I tried to help you out earlier with these. They were a super big help for me and now I have actual vigilante strength because of training for 2 months with this stuff.” he said.

He saw their faces and grinned, “Don’t want it? I’ll take them back then?” he asked.

“NO! They are gifts!” they all said together.

He laughed and patted his sibling’s and walked inside while taking his bags upstairs and undoing the gravity bracelets.

In the living room, Ruth opened her packet and there was a note inside “If you want to keep up with pure strength then give up but since you grow tensile strength these should help at least. The other three have x2 weight but this one has x3, they are very heavy and affect anything strapped to your body and back.” it said.

Ruth looked and smiled to herself as she put away the note. She likely would only have a rival relationship with her brother in their life. As long as there are people who will make fun of them, there isn’t going to be any kind of good relationship. The reason he gave her this was probably to try and minimize bullying she might face if he surpassed her.

“There is no way you will pass me.” she muttered and put the bracelets away in her bags.

When she looked, Judith was grinning at her and got near, “You totally miss hanging out with Robin don’t you.” She teased.

“No.” She said stoically but the little girl knew her sister better than she knew herself and sneaking behind the girl she began to tickle her making her almost fall over and the two sisters played around before the rough housers that were the brothers jumped in.

When Robin returned downstairs he saw his parents trying to split them up.

“If you brats don’t want me to wrap your fingers and legs into knots you will get up!” he shouted.

The two younger brothers looked and instantly they pulled back their arms and extended fingers and quickly jumped off and assumed an innocent appearance.

As for Judith, she teased Robin with her eyes and he grinned.

“Come on, get off of Ruth.” He said.

“Make me.” She said.

He grinned and bent over and she looked and instantly paled as she tried to get away but he was quick as he grabbed her leg and casually held her upside down and removed her winter socks and just lightly ran his nail on her feet making her scream and kick but he was like a wall.

She even bent over and grabbed his arm to try and hold it but he was infinitely stronger than her.

Surprisingly, her other leg was grabbed by Ruth.

“Payback.” she said and began to copy Robin and the two tortured Judith until their parents said that it was enough and they put her standing but she kicked them with her hardened leg as hard as she could.

Neither of them dodged and she complained for bullying her like that.

Robin let her get a few kicks and that was about it as he walked to the kitchen. “I’m starving, is there anything to eat?” He asked.

“Dinner's almost ready so just go sit down.” his mother said.

“Son, come sit down, tell us about your training. Ruth was doing the same and telling us about the kind of training she did over the last 2 months.” His father said.

He nodded and began at the start of the camping trip causing them to be in awe by the strength that a true hero could exert to tame so many monsters and make them help train.

Besides just taking a beatdown to train his hardening and heat tolerance and running with the rock to train his body and energy sensitivity, they had other things such as control training.

Among everything, Robin naturally mentioned the biggest weakness of rubber abilities.

“Mr Might said that the biggest weakness in our ability as a whole is the slow expansion and return of our limbs. It is good for restraining, something really good for heroic work where catching is better than nearly killing but even with my control and freedom with my ability greatly improving once my hardening was fixed, it doesn’t reach the freedom that everyone here can. Of course I could do that if I trained to do it but Mr Might said it was just a waste of time.” He said.

“Huh? Why?” Judith asked.

“It's because my power is a strength type, the weakened strength that most rubber heroes have, I don't have that weakness. My hardening nullified the loose muscle fiber that most rubber powers have. It is why I have to add force to extend. Instead training for me was figuring out a way to extend and retract really fast. I think my training only worked because of the energy I get from the Atlas stone.” he said.

“How does that work?” His mother asked curiously.

“It’s a little strange to explain since none of you have internal energy and probably won’t be able to unlock the ability either. The simplest way I can think of is explaining how I used to fight. I used to harden my body to cause my arm to extend in full faster right?” he asked.

“Right, you developed that to counter the lack of control and extension.” His father said.

“Right, well i still do the same thing since i fight in my hardened state but when I figured out a way to channel titan force in a way which enhances that aspect of my body so once i let go, I fire my first at bullet speeds and it instantly returns. When I first did it my fist flew at nearly 300 km per hour but when I refined the process, it made it almost break the sound barrier and is nearly too fast for normal people to see.” he explained.

“Huh? Why does that move sound familiar?” Thomas asked.

Robin smiled and took his phone and connected to the television and pulled up a relic of an anime. One piece is among the few anime with a rubber hero which matches the characteristics he worked with and he showed off one of the best arcs when the main character forced blood in his blood vessels to gather and force his heart to pump blood faster for a short time.

He had once asked Captain stretch, as a child, if it was possible but when he asked Mr Might he said it was but it was too painful of a process. Naturally he showed the anime to the man and all the many unique methods.

Many of the strange things he either called impossible or required specific powers to achieve. For instance, captain stretch actually uses the later developed method of launching his arms in one piece to extend very fast. The truck he had stopped when they were kids had been using the folding method in which he literally opened his bones and muscles with rubber control to launch his fist so fast after the truck and hold and lift it up. That said his power allowed it because he could change his bones into an easy to mold material which reduced pain.

Also, his own rubber was tire density making it nearly impossible to fill up to that degree so he developed adaptations.

The most important thing for this to work came in the form of slowly developing kinetic vision that he was starting to form as he developed his brain. It allowed him better control of the arm.

The younger siblings were excited to see this and eventually they got Robin to fire it off upwards.

Outside in the back he made his arm twist until it was full extension but it was compressed to normal size and looked like thick black wire. Slowly white energy flowed over the arm he bent his body and aimed upward and pulled back and swung.

BANG!

All they saw was his forward movement and a blur before his arm was back and the wrapping was undone and he let go of his hardening and laughed.

“That’s about it but it is a little annoying that it fully undoes the spring so it takes a short charge up to fire again but I think I kind of gave my alias a new meaning when someone calls me Black Bullet.” he said laughing.

Ruth and their parents were shocked but the younger ones were bright eyed.

“Wow… I never thought I would see an actual blindingly fast punch. I knew there are people who can move faster than sound and their movements are nearly invisible but to think my own son would pull that off in front of me.” his father said.

“Ahaha, it’s pretty hard to travel at this speed because I’m still getting used to it but Mr Might has been helping with that.” Robin said.

“How?” His mother said.

Robin laughed and Ruth was the one to reply with a frown. “Mr Might is moving at superhuman speed while he beats you up, isn’t he?”

Robin just laughed, making them all shocked and scratched his head, “Actually, Chasm Might, Heatwave and Moonlight are doing that to me and most of the elite class in turn. The only difference is how much force they put into their attacks. For me they attack with force of someone between strongman and braveman but they make sure to not add any internal force so that it doesn’t bypass my rubber abilities defensive capacity which can’t block energy force transmitted by internal power.” he said.

They were all shocked and looked at Ruth who was frowning.

Robin stopped laughing when he noticed his family looked at him strangely, “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Why is Chasm Might focused so intently on you?” His dad asked.

“Well… he took me as an apprentice like Heatwave, Puppeteer and Moonlight. It isn’t just me though, he is actually pretty focused on quite a few people in our school. Marcus, Silk, Kevin, even Milo actually got a lot of attention once he was able to get a magic book from undead, Lola after she managed to merge with a minion the first time, there were several people from the normal heroic classes which was elevated to elite when his powers suddenly bloomed from a combo of the gamer space and the heavy training. Now that I think about it, a lot of people underwent blooming as their power’s capacity suddenly expanded, though not a lot of people were put into the four elite classes.” he explained.

“I see, it's good that he isn’t being harsh like that to only you so it means it is just how everyone trains.” His mother sighed.

“Yeah, he said it is to train our reflexes and sense of danger in case we ever face someone super fast. It helps that it stimulates my growing kinetic vision but I’m still a ways away from being able to move at a super speed continuously but I can still do bursts. The only problem is the collateral caused by it so I plan to move like how I did before and swing around.” he said.

He walks in and they soon return and after a bit of talking Ruth took her turn to recount where she had gone and what she went through.

The training was to fight the weaknesses of rubber powers like heat and cold while she personally trained her physical strength harder than others. She has taken her Pink whip, alias much more seriously and has been working hard and has recently learned to whip her arms and break the sound barrier with her claws.

When done against any enemy, it was not a peaceful attack. At present she was mostly training whip punches and using the forward force and whiplash to produce a lot of force into her punch but it goes without saying that her claws in her suit were the main gear.

Eventually dinner was ready and the others went in while Isaac pulled him aside for a moment.

“Robin, I know you and Ruth aren’t on the best of terms and I know you are trying to keep things as casual as possible for us and your brothers. We are hoping to go on enjoying the town a bit like a complete family and hope that you could maybe hold any resentment.” he said.

“I will, I don’t want an awkward new year either and ruin Judith, Thomas and Jason’s fun. Don’t worry, as long as Ruth doesn’t start it I won't continue it.” He said quietly.

His father smiled and they went to eat dinner. After that Robin took the chance to take a much needed bath and finally went to rest in his room.

Ruth’s room was not with him anymore, it had been moved to the guest room all the way back when she was recruited by Captain stretch.

He took the time to unpack his clothing and with it was the heroic suit. They were allowed to keep it so that they could respond to any sort of occurrence. The tight suit also worked well as casual wear when the additions weren’t included and normal clothing could go over it without much hassle.

Still he took them out and could smell the stick from all the sweat. He had stopped using the oil when his deficiency died. Lily confirmed that it was useless.

He picked up his suits and after making sure everything was alright he took a small packet of cleaning goods stored in the suitcase made to clean it.

He dumped just the main jumpsuits and put just a single bag of the cleaner before letting it wash and dry it like normal clothing.

After that he went back and took out the boots and gloves. He removed a few clips and they opened up and he put them on the side, took a sanitizing spray and then took it to the bathroom sink to wash it off and left it hanging over the bathroom to drip dry.

Funny enough, Ruth’s boots and gloves were also there but since she was already home it was easy to guess that her suit was clean.

After doing the full cleaning he packed the suitcase up and dropped into his seat in front of the pc and decided to forget heroics just for a day and just enjoy himself the rest of the night.

The next morning, after picking up and storing the armor pieces and taking a morning bath, Robin went out with his siblings for a run. Ruth decided to follow as they put on the gravity bracelets.

You can expect an equal or even stronger effect on these less trained individuals as the boys dropped to the ground while Judith was holding her knees to support her weight.

Ruth was okay since she was much stronger but she knew it was a lot of weight.

“So heavy!” Thomas said.

“It’s not kiddo, that is just x2 gravity, after a few days you will quickly adapt so suck it up.” Robin said.

“Oh yeah, how much weight do you have?” Thomas complained.

“These bracelets were just upgraded in weight for me so I am feeling it as well. It’s pushing x5 gravity on my back. Only thing is, my muscle mass weighs 120 kilo and I am able to easily lift over 2 tons already.” he said. “So technically, while wearing this stuff, I weigh 750 kilos.” he said.

“Wah! No way!” Thomas said.

“Alright, stay sitting there then.” Robin said as he took his bracelets off and switched Thomas’s. To say nothing else, the boy was completely stuck to the ground unable to move at all.

“Help! It’s… crushing… me!” He cried out and Robin smiled and casually lifted his arms and deactivated the machines and put them on himself again.

“Believe me now?” He asked.

“Yes…” He said, nearly crying.

“Chin up little man, you’re going to get strong as well if you just put the effort into it.” he said and helped them up while Ruth pushed herself up.

“So how are you going to weight train?” Judith asked curiously.

Robin did look at the rock in their front yard but he then looked at the streets, particularly the trees and knew it would be hard to run through the area with that massive stone. Although there were no more exposed power lines that once populated the streets above, trees and flora now filled their space.

He began to calculate the weight with the extra gravity before he set up 400 kilo weights to carry. It should be said that once things leave the ground and are supported by the user’s body, the gravity takes effect so 400 kilo instantly increases to 2 tons as he lifted the weight and put them on his back and sighed.

“It’s a little above my max but no pain no gain.” he said, groaning.

“What is your max?” Judith asked.

“About 2,600 kilos. I know thanks to a gamer's ability.” he said.

“Wait! That means you're carrying 150 kilos more with your body weight!” Judith said.

“Don’t worry, I’ve faced much harder weight lifting challenges in these two months than just a small amount like that.” He said.

“Small…” Thomas said, confused.

It was almost half the weight that powerless professional body builders could bench.

He was saying that this was a small extra.

“Come on, we are burning daylight.” He said and had them pull their weights on but they had to test their max with much smaller weights. In the end, the three were limited to just 50 kilo of extra weight distributed through their body while Ruth had 150 but all this was amplified and they started to run like this.

Half way through, when they stopped to drink water Jason asked something, “Bro… why do your feet let out a small glow each time you step and why do i sometimes feel heat radiating from your body.” He said.

“The white light is Titan force, I’m using it to disperse my heavy weight so that it doesn’t break the streets. The heat is my Life essence, the higher form of life force that was the cause of my deficiency before. I don’t actively use life essence like titan force but i have learned to switch out.” he explained.

Ruth was curious when she heard this.

“Why?” Jason asked.

“Well, I still can’t carry around the stone effectively. Also I don’t know if I will maintain this power once I completely finish developing the stone.” He said and explained what Mr Might had told him Mr Atlas’s power had been. “In this case, I’ve actually had times during my training where Mr Might has fully trained me on Titan force and forced me to use Life Essence. It is natural to my body and I activated it naturally so it just takes a bit of getting used to. It also helps that internal energy like this can bypass defense like a rubber body.” He said and held his finger and gave his brother a flick to the head.

“Ah!” Jason shouted holding his head after feeling actual blunt force.

“How do I unlock that!” Judith said excitedly.

“I unlocked it because of a lot of coincidences, if I didn’t have Titan force I probably wouldn’t have done so this early.” Robin said but explained how Kevin’s ability worked.

“I want to visit and use all my built up potential! I want to get some kind of natural energy so I can become strong like you!” Judith said.

“Calm down Judith, I know you’re excited and all but it isn’t easy, don’t get your expectations high on being able to unlock it. Not every person ‘requires’ it and not every person ‘can’ unlock it. It is especially rare for people among our power type to unlock it. I probably achieved that as a result of my deficiency and the gamer space stimulating that particular recovery method for it.” Robin explained.

Ruth was on the side looking at her own hands and felt her beating heart. “What does Life essence feel like?” she suddenly asked.

Robin looked confused as he saw her touching her chest.

She looked at him, “Particularly when it was first forming.” She said.

The siblings fell into silence as Robin wondered and sighed, “It felt like someone injected magma into my blood.” he said.

She nodded and thought for a while, “Can you do me a favor… I want to visit your gamer friend… I feel like I might have started to form life essence.” She said.

“Can we go too!” the kids said.

The three were starry eyed wanting to meet Kevin and he sighed and just looked at Ruth a moment before getting up. “If mom and dad aren’t going to leave or take us somewhere early in the morning, I can check to see if Kevin is available.” He said and lifted the weights up. “Let’s not stop for too long.” he said and they all groaned as they got up and went after him.

They got home exhausted and they headed off to take a shower in turn while Robin confirmed with his parents. They had two weeks for the end of the year holiday so they didn’t have anything planned. Most of it was Christmas and new years.

“Oh, do you want to go to your friend’s house?” his mother asked.

“Yeah but I still need to check if he is available but… um Ruth wants to visit Kevin.” He said, forcing a very weak smile.

His father smiled and pulled him into a hug, “Just don’t argue with her okay, I know you both have your troubles but just remember that she is your sister and she isn’t above the problems she faces, just like you.” She said.

The argument they had when they sparred during their first internship came to mind and what she said but the difference between meeting expectations while living with fake friends when compared to constant bullying and being called the defective half, it was difficult to say which is actually the more difficult.

With the parent’s permission he called Kevin to check with him.

“You want to come over?” Kevin asked.

“Yeah… my siblings were hoping to tap into their potential and… my twin sister seems to be forming life essence so she wants the system to help to do it.” He said.

Kevin was quiet for a bit before asking, “Is it fine with you that I help her?” He asked.

“Yeah, I’m doing it more for my little brothers and sister, she is just tagging along.” He said.

“Alright… I’ll send you my address, you can come by for lunch if you want.” He said.

“Great.” Robin said and soon got the address. Robin asked their father for a lift and he was happy enough to take them since they were all hoping to go.