The Acrobat (novel)

The Acrobat is the first novel of the FJM Shared Universe series. It focuses on the adventures and origins of the titular hero. It was fully published on Wattpad on January 22, 2017 exclusively in Polish. The action is set between October 2014 and January 2015.

Synopsis
Philip Turner is a young man working for the Daily Szczecin newspaper. One day, he finds out that he possesses an incredible power. Using the given opportunity, he decides to become a superhero and protect his city from dangers.

That way, he's journalist at day and a masked superhero under the moniker of The Acrobat at night. Supported by his friends - Steve, Igor and Greg - Philip fights various villains and becomes the powerful defender of Szczecin, as well as the whole Poland.

However, with great power there must also come great responsibility. Philip has to make it through various problems caused by the second identity, as well as, obviously, fight off the villains - the revenge-driven scientist, One-Armed Man, a living werewolf, Wolf-Man and the leader of a robots army from another world, General John.

The novel belongs to FJM Shared Universe, a series about Polish superheroes.

Act I
Philip Turner is an average citizen of Szczecin, who is bored by his life, but maintains a good heart. One day, he comes across a couple attacked by a street thief. Philip gets into a fight with him and, to his surprise, wins. After coming back home, which he shares with his best friend Steve, he tells him about his achievement. Coincidentally, Steve has been visited by his college friend - Igor Possible. He's come there just to talk about Phil. Having access to certain classified files as a policeman, he discovered that Phil is the possessor of a powerful hereditary gene, making him a Superhuman.

He then tells the men about the presence of Superhumans - people gifted with powers, who have often become superheroes and protected the world with their abilities. He gives a few examples and together they come to the conclusion that Philip possesses the power of superstrength, as he has beaten his opponent with an unbelieveable strength. They instantly decide to begin Phil's training, so he could become a modern superhero. Meanwhile, at the Goleniów airport, five scientists - Edmond Unary (CEO of The Unity coroporation), Gregory Enius (co-creator of the company), Leonard Ame, Steven Upid and arriving from the USA John Smith - meet. The five had been researching of the parallel universes for a long time and to prove their existence, they said to unite for a shared projects - building a portal, leading to another world.

Act II
Two days after discovering superpowers, Philip, along with Steve and Igor, travels to Tokyo. Steve tells them about a master of martial arts known widely in the Eastern Asia, Master Cheng, who would be the perfect person to train Phil for a warrior. After arriving in Tokyo and sleeping over one night, they go to Master Cheng's Martial Arts Academy. Although he declines to help at first, he is eventually convinced. Soon, Phil goes through a hard, a few weeks long training. Meanwhile, in Szczecin, in The Unity facility, the scientists arduously work on the portal. During one break, Greg overhears a conversation between Leonard and Steven, which seemingly suggests that the two plans on using the portal for bad purposes. He tells Edmond about this, but he laughs from him, with Leonard and Steven, who have entered the room, joining.

After three weeks Phil, Igor and Steve return to Szczecin to finally bring the Project: The Hero of Szczecin to life. Over the next week they prepare a base for Phil in a recently found cave under his house, and come up with a moniker - The Acrobat, as thanks to his punishing training Phil became able to do nearly impossible stunts. He also makes himself a suit and modifies his car, mounting wings and a jet engine, so it could be able to flight. He also adds a weapon arsenal.

Soon, as The Acrobat, he goes on a trial road around the city. He even takes part in a spontaneous race with some other driver. During the race, he tries out the flying function and after winning, he tours his town from the sky. Meanwhile, in the Niebuszewo district, Phil Turner's boss, Stephen Dudzik, comes across a bandit on his way home. The criminal demands money, but due to his greediness, Stephen escapes. The criminal chases him, before the police gets to him. Eventually the two ends up on top of Stephen's building. Fortunately, flying over them, Acrobat spots the scene and quickly jumps in, saving his boss from the thief. Subsequently, he turns the bandit over to the police, revealing his name. Next day, the trending topic in the whole city is nothing else than the appearance of a superhero. Everyone is astonished by him and wants to find out more, including Phil's friend from work, Olivia Fridayton, who decides to interview the hero one day.

The same day, the scientists at The Unity finish the building of their portal, powered by a mythical artifact - The Reality Crystal, found a few days earlier during an expedition to Bździszewo, where it was located. The honourable move is done by Edmond, who as The Unity's CEO activates the portal. The scientists wait for anything to happen, while proudly looking into the vortex linking two universes. Suddenly, a few robotic animals jump out of the portal and turn out to be robots able to transofrm into any creature. Steven and Leonard, who indeed have bad intentions, decide to use it to somehow take over the world. At the same time, the security gets into the portal room and robots jump at them, while causing havoc with laser rays. The chaos is spotted by the journalists in the Daily Szczecin building, among whom is Phil, who instantly goes on another action as a superhero.

When he arrives at The Unity building, he immediately makes a makeshift bunker from tables for the scientists and goes to fight the Robots. Steven and Leonard watch it all smiling, when the machines capture the two and smash them, as they don't want to cooperate and conquer the new world by themselves. While the hero continues to fight, John notices one of the robots sneaking on him. He immediately acts and jumps at the machine. Unfortunately, the robots use this and drag him back to the portal. Seeing that, Edmond also attempts to stop the robots, which respond with a fire. They burn down Edmond's hair and rip his right arm off to weaken him. The Acrobat runs to help the scientists, but is only able to save the CEO of The Unity, as John is kidnapped. Because of that, Edmond gets mad at the hero, argues with him and swears to get revenge.

Over the next few days Phil feels remorse about his failure, but after Steve's motivational speech, he changes his attitude and comes back to hero's duty. Meanwhile, Edmond goes through several treatments. His arm is replaced with a mechanical prosthesis and the man once again swears to avenge his friend. After few days Edmond, who has taken the alias One-Armed Man, along with newly hired henchmen, attacks multiple banks at once to get The Acrobat's attention. He is successful and the hero shows up, trying to speak to his senses, but he doesn't listen. Eventually a big battle on Kościuszko's square takes place. After the fight, most of the henchmen are arrested, but One-Armed Man gets away. Acrobat meets Commisioner Albert Oaksley and establishes cooperation with the Szczecin police. Meanwhile in Universe-699, the Robots explain to John why they kidnapped him. It turns out that they have been searching for a leader, who would lead them to conquer other worlds and John turned out to be a perfect fit. John refuses, but Robots don't care and conduct an operation against his will. They turn him into a cyborg with a reprogrammed brain, who later takes the name of General John.

Several days pass and after going to Greece and finding the mythical Werewolf Crystal, able to turn people into beasts, One-Armed Man returns to Szczecin and starts looking for a person to transform into a werewolf. He comes across a forester, Walter Huntsman, and immediately transforms him. He takes the alias Wolf-Man and becomes dependant on One-Armed Man. He also immediately gets a task - to kill The Acrobat. Next day, when Phil and Steve check the recent news, they find out about the kidnapping of the city council conducted by One-Armed Man, as well as his threats of blowing up a building. He agrees to let them go only if Acrobat turns himself over. In that case, Phil instantly suits up. The hero arrives and One-Armed Man sets the council free, but still wants to explode the building. Subsequently, he runs away, as The Acrobat is attacked by Wolf-Man. After a brief fight, the hero attempts to disarm the bomb. He succeeds, but doesn't notice the werewolf, who set himself free, running towards him and they fall from the tenement. Fortunately, his fall is softened by Wolf-Man and Acrobat only breaks his leg.

Ten days later, Phil goes on his first action since then, which is only a reconnaisance mission, due to his condition. He decides to solve the case of a hooded figure spotted recently around The Unity building. When he gets to the location, he teams-up with the security team, who since the incident has guarded the facility with an increased focus. Together they go to the portal room, where the Reality Crystal is located. There, they stumble upon the hooded man, who turns out to be Gregory Enius attempting to preserve the crystal on his own before the evil Edmond would lay his hands on it. At the exact same time, the building is visited by One-Armed Man and Wolf-Man, who also want the artifact. Greg explains everyone that it is unstable and should not be used. Then, the crystal causes a few shockwaves and ultimately opens the portal again. It's exited by General John and the Transforming Robots army. Another battle starts and the police, with Steve and Igor, also joins. In the end, the villains run away.

As Christmas gets closer, Philip invites Greg under his roof. While preparing for the holidays he also has a fight with the villains in a shopping center. Finally, the Christmas Eve comes. Philip organizes a supper attended by Steve, Greg, Igor and his brother, Nate. After a while, the quality time is interrupted by the villains, who show up at Phil's doorstep. It turns out that they have located The Acrobat's base and found out it's located beneath the neighbourhood. Phil immediately shuts the door and orders everyone to run. Then General John breaks the door down and gets inside. A battle for the house begins, but is interrupted by Phil's intrusive neighbour - Curt A. Twitcher. Eventually Steve and Greg get the fight outside, while Phil suits up in The Acrobat suit.

Following that, a chaos on the street breaks down. Wolf-Man is riding around on his motorcycle, turning people into werewolfs with the Crystal. Acrobat, Steve and Igor bravely resist the beasts, but eventually Steve is turned into one. They want to continue fighting, when the hero notices One-Armed Man entering his helicopter and taking Greg. He immediately calls for his Flying Car and starts a chase after them. When he catches the chopper and jumps inside it, he takes down One-Armed Man, but he manages to escape on the parachutes with his goons, leaving the hero and Greg abandoned to their fates. Acrobat quickly frees his friend and jumps out as well, landing in the Oder. After getting out of the water, he turns the scientist to the medics in a nearby ambulance and goes back to his district himself to end the faceoff.

After the holidays, Philip describes the whole battle in a Daily Szczecin article, which grants him a rise. Soon, Stephen Dudzik gives him a new job - to interview Acrobat together. After a brief thought, Phil decides to contact his good friend, Gabriel Gajewski, master of metamorphosis. The interview goes smoothly, although Gabriel is slightly injured by the villains who decided to attack at that time. After a later meeting, they notice that that "Acrobat" looked different and decide to discover his real identity and decide to find Igor, who's known for his cooperation with The Acrobat.

Act III
After the successful interview and a rise, Phil throws a party, which is attended by his parents, sister and all his friends. After the party, Igor goes home, but he stumbles upon the villains by his car, who want to get Acrobat's identity from him. Igor resists, which causes him to be attacked and severely injured. He gets hallucinations, which make him shout his friend's name. The villains run away, leaving the hurt Igor. A while later, he is found by his friends, who call the ambulance. In their lair, the villains find out who Phil Turner is and think of a later strategy. However, Edmond isn't certain of his actions and starts to feel remorse, as his whole motivaton came from the kidnapping of John, and now he was back. There was no reason for him to be bad anymore, yet he decided not to reveal it to his allies.

Two weeks after getting the information from Igor, the villains capture most of the people close to Phil - Steve, Greg, Gabriel, Olivia, Stephen and Curt, besides Igor, who is found unconcious in Philip's living room by him. They send The Acrobat a video, in which they give a condition: if he doesn't show up, they will throw his friends down from the PAZIM roof. After a while, the hero arrives, but is quickly trapped too. General John breaks the deal and leads Steve to his death. However, he gets out and frees himself, as well as everyone else. A huge battle begins and is joined by Wolf-Man in a giant mecha shaped to his likeness, powered by the Reality Crystal. The werewolf opens a giant portal in the sky, from whom hundreds of Transforming Robots fly out. One-Armed Man, still uncertain of being a villain, turns against John and joins the hero and his allies. He explains The Acrobat what has to be done to stop the giant robot from functioning. The hero then climbs up the mecha and captures the Crystal. Then, a fight for the artifact begins, with it jumping between one person and another. Eventually it's caught by Edmond, while John points The Acrobat with laser gun. He has nowhere to run, standing on the edge of the roof. Suddenly Igor shows up and saves his friend, sacrificing his life. Motivated by their friend's death, the heroes continue fighting even more bitterly. Acrobat is fighting John, Steve shooting the robots and Greg attacking them, flying around on his own jetpack. Meanwhile Edmond closes the portal. When he comes back to friends, they're surrounded by the robots and John decides to reveal The Acrobat's identity to the citizens gathered around the building. He's stopped in the last minute when Acrobat knocks him down, getting access to the cyborg's internal memory and deleting all the mentions of Phil Turner. General John indeed forgets about his identity, but is still able to fight and battles Edmond for the Crystal. Finally a robot intervenes and catches Edmond, flying around with him. Yet, Edmond damages it and they directed towards the ground. Edmond most likely dies and the heroes turn John and Wolf-Man over to the police. After the action, many reporters want an inteview with The Acrobat, but he gets through the crowd, finding his friend Olivia and decides to make her dream come true.

A few days later Olivia gets a promotion and then, along with Phil and Stephen goes to the cemetery, where the funeral of two heroes - Igor and Edmond - is held. Philip gives a speech, after which the statues of the fallen are revealed. After the ceremony, he goes with Steve and Greg back home. It turns out that Edmond's body was never found, so he could still be alive, but was considered dead due to the height he fell from. Instead of the body, the only thing that was buried was the only remaining part of him - his old arm. Subsequently Greg says that he sold many weapon projects to the army, which gained him a lot of money to rebuild the company. He immediately packs into his car and reveals that he is moving to Cracow. He then takes his leave and drives away, while Phil and Steve go to the cave, where they discuss about the recent events and prepare for the new missions of The Acrobat.

Epilogue
Master Cheng is watching the news broadcasted on the TV Region 16 channel, with a discussion about The Acrobat being held with the citizens of Szczecin. After a while, he turns off the TV and says to himself "Well, Mr. Turner... You did good.", flawlessly figuring out hero's identity.

In another scene, Philip Turner goes to the market and is preoccupied with mundane shopping, when he is approached by some teenager. He introduces himself as Michael Foot and reveals that he is also a Superhuman, as well as he comes from the future and is his great grandson. Shocked Philip loses conciousness.

Main

 * Philip Turner/The Acrobat

Secondary

 * Steve
 * Igor Possible
 * Edmond Unary/One-Armed Man
 * John Smith/General John
 * Gregory Enius
 * Walter Huntsman/Wolf-Man
 * Transforming Robots
 * Stephen Dudzik
 * Olivia Fridayton
 * Curt A. Twitcher
 * Albert Oaksley
 * Steven Upid
 * Leonard Ame

Episodic

 * Gabriel Gajewski
 * Master Cheng
 * Jacek Wróblewski
 * Oscar Froster
 * Jacek
 * Wacek
 * Nate Possible
 * Dobrawa Twitcher
 * Michael Foot/Flare

Trivia

 * The first version of the novel was completed in June of 2015, but over a year later, the author decided to rewrite and polish it.
 * The primary version took place in the same months, but other years - 2013 and 2014.
 * The initial version had only 110 pages.
 * Originally Gregory Enius was supposed to have a much smaller role. He would only be the only major scientist who didn't turn evil after the Unity incident. He didn't appear after the fight in The Unity building. Only in the second version, he became The Acrobat's ally and received a much bigger role in the universe.
 * It is the first novel in the FJM Shared Universe, as well as the first part of The Amazing Acrobat Trilogy.