“Want me to fix your umbrella?”
Alden looked over at Konstantin. The Adjuster was sitting beside him, running his fingers through his dark hair, trying to straighten it out. He was breathless, red-faced, and sweaty—the same as almost everyone who’d taken part in the heroes vs. villains battle. Alden himself hadn’t realized how depleted he was until it was over.
Now both teams were sprawled across the bleachers. Most people were sitting slightly apart from each other. Emotions were still running hot for several of them.
The Strength Brute from the hero team had started cussing out the Wright before they’d even left the floor, and it was probably only the fact that the guy had high-tailed it out of the gym that had prevented a real fight. The Object Shaper was crying while Emma patted her on the shoulder. The Sandbagger was shooting death glares. She only spared a couple for Alden; Kon was receiving the bulk of them. Lexi was wringing the handle of his whip like he was imagining it was someone’s neck. He was glaring a lot at Kon, too, but to Alden’s surprise his ire wasn’t just for his brother.
He seemed to be mad at every single one of his own teammates and Alden’s as well. He wasn’t yelling at anyone, though. Just darkly stewing.
Kon was staring straight ahead, watching the latest batch of duelists.
Alden glanced down at his umbrella. One of the spokes was bent and poking out through the fabric, and of course there was the broken fishing line.
“I don’t think they’re going to make me fight much more,” said Alden. “But I’d appreciate it, just in case, if it’s not going to wear you out.”
“Hand it over. I didn’t get to show off my amazing powers anyway.”
“I think you showed off well enough.” Alden passed over the umbrella and the broken piece of line.
“It was when I nut punched my big brother, right?” Kon said with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“That was a memorable moment.”
“Probably extra memorable for him.” Kon held the umbrella across his palms and stared at it. “Now you get to experience my dolphin impression.”
“Huh?”
The other boy opened his mouth, and the weirdest spell chant Alden had ever heard came out of it. Many chants were purely sound—the vocal equivalent of weaving a pattern with the auriad. Some peppered in very old Artonan words Alden could occasionally recognize.
This one sounded…a lot like a dolphin trying to speak a foreign language. It was extremely alien, and surprisingly un-pretty. Artonan tastes didn’t always run in the same direction as human tastes, but their chants usually sounded pleasantly musical. This one was just strange.
And astonishing.
There was a cloud of glittering light around the umbrella, then its damaged spots rapidly repaired themselves. It suddenly looked like it had before the fight started.
“Let me do the fishing line next.”
“Are your vocal cords modified?!”
Kon looked surprised. “Most people are more interested in the instant restoration thing. Yeah, they are.”
“Bullshit.”
His brows drew together. “You think I was born speaking like a cetacean?”
“No! It’s just…I’m sorry. That was a positive ‘bullshit,’ I guess? I’ve never heard of an Adjuster getting body modded for vocal casting, and I think it’s cool.”
I’m so jealous I could scream. A human scream. Not a scream perfected for spell casting.
“Positive bullshit? Must be an American thing. There are only a couple dozen other Adjusters known to have vocal mods for some of their spells. My parents helped me look into it after I affixed.”
“It’s so cool.”
“You said that already.” He looked happy about it though. “When the System spat out a rare type-path opportunity for me, I was completely caught off guard. I was going to focus on spells that manipulate electrical energy. I’ve been planning to be an S-rank Adjuster since I was nine, and it was going to be perfect. But when the Contract offers you something you know is one of a kind, you have to take it. It’s a thing, right?”
“A thing?”
Kon nodded. “Yeah. Everyone knows that singleton paths, subclasses, or talents are usually higher potential. Sometimes they’re a flop, but most of the time, they pay off. It was just one starter spell, which seemed so ungenerous. But I took it, and the next thing I knew the System was like, ‘And here is your new alien voice to go with that spell.’”
That wasn’t something everyone knew. That sounded like something you only knew if all your friends and relatives were Avowed. “Can you make any sound an Artonan can?”
Kon shook his head. “Not quite. I’m assuming if the other spells in this category the System has stuck me in require it, I’ll get additional mods.”
“Awesome,” Alden breathed.
Kon grinned. “You’re really into my dolphin impression. Most people think it’s creepy.”
“I wanted to be an Adjuster so bad.”
The other boy tilted his head. “Then why are you a Rabbit?”
Alden didn’t know what to say.
“Did you just get super nervous and accept the class assignment as soon as it popped up? I heard sometimes globies do that.”
“Rabbit seemed like a really good idea at the time.” Alden was unable to think of another excuse for himself that would make sense.
“Well, your shield thing is cool at least.”
Kon picked up the fishing line and held the broken end to the piece still wrapped around the umbrella handle. He stared at it, performed the spell again, and the two pieces of line were reconnected.
“Thanks,” Alden said, targeting him before he handed it back.
“I hope the school is as enthusiastic about it as you are.”
“You sounded more confident this morning.”
Kon shrugged. “I’m confident the spell is capable of amazing things. And that I’ll get more spells that do similar stuff in the future. And that my rank gives me a big advantage. But I’m not quite as sure that the school will be willing to risk it. Just because it’s special doesn’t mean it’s going to be the right thing for hero work. Instructor Plim was really excited about it, but…”
“You have a skill, too.”
“Yeah. They might let me slip in because the skill alone has applications. Knowing the previous state of objects is an odd one to work with, too, though. So who knows?”
“You use the skill before the spell every time?”
“I have to,” said Kon. “If I don’t, it’s like my brain can’t conceptualize the exact state I’m trying to restore the object to. I can’t even trigger the spell impression to cast without it.”
They both stopped talking as a man with a bushy mustache approached them. “Kon,” he said, scrolling through something on his interface. “Are you all right with the interview on your schedule being brought forward half an hour? We’ve had some drop outs.”
“Sure.”
“Then I’m sending you the update now. Alden, is your skill still working? We have you listed as having hit your limit during that last fight.”
“I’m okay,” said Alden.
He was starting to feel tired. Approaching skill exhaustion was a strange experience now that he had an authority sense, and he didn’t have a chaos attack to occupy him. It wasn’t like the authority went away. It was almost like the world around him became resistant to it, and his authority itself became…less authoritative. Stiller. Unwilling to be moved by his will or to move things around him in turn.
“I can keep going until the end of the combat assessment.”
The man rolled his eyes. “You’re one of those, are you? You don’t know when skill fatigue will hit you, kid. Don’t just assume you're tireless because your talent hasn’t quit yet.”
Right. Act like a normal Avowed, Alden.
“I mean my skill was still working fine the last time I used it.”
“We’ll give you one more duel then. Toward the end of the session. If it completely quits on you, just yield. No penalties for that. It’s normal for it to hit low ranks in the last half of the combat assessment.”
He walked away.
“Ouch. He called me a low rank. The principal included us B’s with the rest of you in her speech this morning.”
“She was being generous. B’s are usually ‘high’ if you’re living in F-city and ‘low’ if you’re in Apex. You live between two worlds.”
“What happened to middle? Why can’t we be middles?”
Kon shrugged. “Maybe they’ll build another island when we get a couple million more people, and we can call it mid-city?”
“Mid-city?”
“B’s can hang there with the C’s. Feeling all superior. And then we mighty S’s can have two islands to look down on instead of one.”
“How long have you been an S-rank even?”
“About four months.”
“Does the System affix a massive dose of self confidence when it gives you that rank?”
“It’s just that I’ve been an S in my heart from a young age,” said Kon, holding a hand over his heart. “My parents are both A’s so there was always a decent chance.”
He looked over at Alden. “They’ll put you against an S. For your final duel.”
“It’s not random?”
“It’s semi-random. If it looks like you’re toughing it out all the way to the end of the assessment, though, they’ll make sure you get hit really bad at least once. If they can. It’s a thing.”
“A thing everyone knows,” Alden said.
“Exactly. At least one terrible match-up if they can swing it. For you, any S who isn’t me will do. And it won’t be me, since I’m not dueling. It was all private testing with Instructor Plim…except for me showing off my brother-punching skill just now.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
Kon shrugged. “You were cool in the fight. I thought you were way overestimating yourself when you said you could bonk the Shaper’s sandbags with your umbrella. But you bonked them really well.”
“My skill’s Level 3.”
Kon looked startled. “That’s nice. Did you hide out and train for a year before you showed up here or something? But I still wouldn’t have thought you’d just fling off those bags like they didn’t weigh anything.”
“They didn’t.”
“What?”
“They didn’t weigh anything.” Alden pulled his legs up and crossed them. “I should have realized…but I’m an idiot. I haven’t seriously used my skill like this before.”
“It would be uncommon if you had a lot of sandbag attack experience.”
“No, I mean I haven’t used it as a shield. It’s not…that hasn’t been its main function for me. I knew it would be a big thing for hero work. But up until now, it’s the preservation element that’s been important. Until the past couple of weeks, I usually really cared about keeping the thing I was carrying safe. So I’m geared to think of it that way. And I missed something incredibly obvious because of it.”
“What?” Kon asked curiously.
“I don’t feel the force of things that impact my preserved object. Physically.” He’d definitely felt every impact in other ways. “Impacts strain my skill. They make it reach the exhaustion point faster. I knew that. But if the magic takes the impact of outside things, it also takes their weight.”
“I don’t quite see where you’re going with—”
“The victims,” said Alden, staring across the gym without really seeing it. “Whenever I’ve carried people before, it’s been because they needed to be preserved. Their whole bodies. For their protection.”
“Have you had to do something like that often?” Kon said slowly.
Alden ignored the question.
“And people are heavy. I just got so used to thinking of people as heavy things I have to preserve. But for this exercise, we needed to move fast. That was more important. So I suggested you carry the first girl because you’re stronger.”
“Right…”
“You could have entrusted her gym suit to me instead. I mean, she could have.”
“You mean you could turn her suit into a shield?”
“Yes, but more importantly, she wouldn’t have weighed anything inside it,” said Alden, not even trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “She would be carried by the magic wrapped around my preserved object. From my perspective, she would have weighed as much as a gym suit. It might not have been comfortable for her. But I could have carried her all that way in one hand.”
Kon stared at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Alden paused. “I’m sure that it would have worked, but I guess the faculty would most likely have made us stop. I don’t know how the suits and the bands work together with each other and in conjunction with the magic on the gym. Preserving just the suit…it could have been really bad if something had hit her somewhere unprotected, and the gym couldn’t register it properly?”
“That’s a dark thought. Glad you didn’t try it and find out the hard way.” Kon stood up. “I’m off to be grilled by an interview committee. It was fun to play superheroes with you. It sent me right back to primary school. Only there was never a Rabbit in our superhero games. Even if you don’t get into the program you should come to that party at my house.”
“Are you having it even if you don’t get in?”
“Don’t jinx me,” said Kon. “And of course. It will be a consolation party in that case.”
“Thank you for the invitation.” Alden tapped his umbrella against his knee. “By the way…”
Kon looked over his shoulder.
“You probably didn’t have to cast your spell twice. You could have just done it once.”
The Adjuster might have been an S-rank, but that didn’t mean he could infinite cast his spell. Impressions could be exhausted just like skills. They used their own discrete portion of your bound authority in a similar way.
“What do you mean?”
“To repair the umbrella and the fishing line. You said you use the skill to read the object first. You could have used it on the umbrella and the fishing line at the same time.”
“They’re two different objects.”
“No they’re not.” Alden held it up. “This is one object.”
Kon frowned.
“Imagine the line was superglued to the umbrella. Or that it was made that way from the start. Maybe by some Wright who’s way too fond of multi-function tools. In that case you would have read it as one cohesive piece, right?”
“…right.”
“Just something to consider. Good luck in your interview.”
Alden watched him leave.
About twenty minutes later, he was called up for his final duel. The opponent was an S-rank speedster. He ran at Alden, dodged around the umbrella much faster than Alden could react to protect himself, and shoved him sideways into the barrier. Perhaps he was concerned about hitting a B-rank Rabbit in the torso, because he shoved Alden’s partially outstretched arm.
Pain flared. Alden could have sworn he heard something pop as his shoulder dislocated. He shouted, but it came out muffled as the speedster grabbed the back of his head and pressed his face into the wall.
For the first time all day, Alden felt fear.
Then the ten seconds passed, and his arm was completely fine. His panicked brain slowed down enough to realize the attack was already over. The S-rank was just pinning him to the barrier. He wasn’t even trying to be harsh about it. The other boy was only going for maximum efficiency.
It’s way worse when it comes at you so fast. It makes it so that you can’t even understand what’s happening.
His heart was racing. He would have dropped the umbrella if not for the wrist strap. His right arm was bent behind his back and held in a grip that didn’t budge no matter how he tried to twist.
“You good, pal?” the speedster asked in a Scottish accent. “Your nose all right?”
Fuck. I’m not sure whether this is sad, scary, or funny.
His nose did, in fact, hurt. The guy was smashing his face into the barrier too hard.
“You could crush me less,” Alden finally admitted. It came out sounding like, Oo cud cuff me leff.
The Scottish boy let up on the pressure.
“Sorry. You’re my first B. Didn’t want you to get a hit in from being too careless. I’m on a winning streak.”
Alden cleared his throat. “It’s fine.”
“I feel like I’ve been here all day pressing people into magic walls,” the other boy mused. “It’s not a fun way to spend time, is it?”
“It’s probably less fun for the people who are getting pressed into the walls, man.”
“Guess that’s why so many of them have left already, eh? Didn’t think that was the right choice even if the rules did say we could go whenever we liked after the first fight.”
“It’s definitely a trap,” Alden agreed.
“The locals didn’t start leaving until halfway through. Suits must be nasty. Haven’t taken a bad enough hit to feel it myself. Think they meant for that last Meister to get me good, but I beat her, too.”
“Sounds like you’re doing well.”
“I’m going to be a hero.” The boy’s accent was becoming heavier as he started talking faster. “I’ve always wanted to help people. I want to make a difference, you know? I never thought it would happen, but now it has! I’m going to be the hero I always imagined in my head. ‘If you can just run fast enough,’ I used to think, ‘you can save everyone, can’t you?’”
Alden stared through the barrier. It wasn’t quite invisible when you were being pressed against it. There was a fluctuation in the air. Beyond it, he could see the bleachers. They were nearly empty. Most of the people who weren’t currently dueling had already left, either to head to interviews, to move on to other assessments, or just to go back home and lick their wounds. And reassess their life choices.
“I hope it works out that way for you,” Alden said as the timer ran out and their duel officially ended. “I hope you get in, get your dream job, and it works out just like you imagined.”
The speedster gave him a confused look. “Thank you?”
“You too,” said Alden, saluting with his umbrella. “Good fight. It was informative.”
*********
Alden only had minutes between the last duel and his interview. It was barely enough time to change back into his normal clothes. He didn’t have to bother; plenty of people didn’t. But he wanted to make the best impression he could, and Sweaty Unitard Guy wasn’t that. He stripped and toweled off in the same shower stall he’d gotten dressed in a few hours before.
The morning had been so intense that time was behaving differently. It felt like it had been a week since he met Maricel on the bus. He hoped her own combat assessment had gone well. She’d been in the group that had done it right before his.
I wonder if they gave her sandbags to use. He wrapped his auriad around his wrist and covered it with the leather cuff bracelet. Actually, I wonder what stats she has. Now that I’ve met other beginner S-ranks, she seems outside the norm.
Maricel had been stronger and faster than Alden when they were practicing with the suits, but not stronger and faster enough. She couldn’t have sunk an S-rank’s worth of points into Processing, and Dexterity seemed like an odd choice for her. Maybe she’d gone for ultra specific enhancements. Or it was all in Stamina.
He threw on the green plaid shirt and stepped out to take a quick look in the mirror.
Decent. Now, don’t say anything dumb in your interview. And remember, you’re sure you want to be a superhero.
Often during the application process, especially when he was writing essays or answering questions about goals, Alden had felt like he was trying to time travel. Why do you want to join the program? Why do you think you’d make a good superhero? What does being a hero mean to you?
He had some answers to those questions, but they weren’t the answers anyone else wanted to hear. They weren’t shiny. They weren’t charming.
So he relied on Alden from a year ago instead. He’d had all the answers back then. And they were shiny. They sounded good in person and on paper.
He remembered them all by heart because he’d meant them for such a long time.
Is it still a lie if I’m just trying to copy a younger version of myself? The version they would have gotten to meet if I’d shown up on the island when I was supposed to?
It was. Of course.
I wonder what Hannah would think of me now.
She came to mind more often when he was on campus. Alden wanted to talk to her…almost as much as he wanted to talk to Boe. He wanted to tell someone the things he wasn’t willing to tell the other people who were curious.
If Hannah hadn’t died, he would have asked her if she minded him being different than the Alden she’d known.
Walking down the hall to the classroom where his interview was being held, he met Lesedi Saleh.
“How did your final duel go, Alden?”
“I lost really fast, Principal Saleh.”
She chuckled. “That tends to happen versus strong speedsters.”
She even knew who I was fighting l? Did the principal keep track of everything that was going on?
“What did you think of it?” she asked
“Of the combat assessment overall? Or the last duel specifically?”
She smiled. “The last duel. What did you think when you lost?”
“That I need to get faster.”
Belatedly, he realized that might sound flippant, so he added, “I know getting as fast as an S-rank speed Brute would be ridiculous. But I’d like to at least be able to keep up well enough to understand what was happening as it happened and respond in some kind of way.”
“I see.” The principal’s tone was friendly, but it didn’t reveal what she thought of his answer. “Thank you for all your hard work today. You’ve almost run the whole gauntlet. Good luck in your interview.”
She nodded to him, and they parted. A few seconds later, he heard her greeting another student heading into their own interview room.
When he arrived at the right spot, he took a moment to collect himself before he knocked.
The three interviewers were sitting at a table at the front of the classroom. The first thing Alden noticed was Skiff—Chicago’s very own Water Shaper. He stared at the hero in surprise.
Of course he was wearing his board shorts. He’d been wearing them the last time Alden had seen him, too. And it had been freezing then.
What are the chances that he’d be one of my interviewers? Is it on purpose?
Well…Skiff had always seemed to like all of the parts of hero work that involved hanging out with kids and teenagers. The fun, big brother PR stuff appeared to be his comfort zone. It stood to reason that he’d volunteer at his old high school, too.
Beside him was a petite, older woman who was somehow making a rhinestone-studded, emerald green pinafore dress look like a casual thing to wear. The third member of the group was a strong-jawed man with blue eyes and short, graying hair.
None of them were speaking to each other when Alden entered.
They seem kind of tense.
Maybe they’d argued during the last interview?
They all stood as he entered, and he shook everyone’s hand, starting with the man on the right.
“Torsten Klein,” he said. “I teach some courses here at the high school. Offensive combat mostly.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Hello, Alden!” said the woman, leaning across the table. “I’m not teaching at the high school, but we’ll see each other eventually. I teach at the university and advise Seniors who are finalizing their public personas. I just go by Colibrí. My hero name grew on me over the years, so I made it official.”
Alden shook her hand. It makes sense that the university faculty would be involved, too. Graduates from the high school hero track were automatically accepted to the university one, so there was no question about where you’d eventually be going to school unless you dropped out or were booted.
“And I’m Skiff. Or Lawrence is fine. I haven’t quite decided. You might—”
“Of course. It’s really cool to meet you in person!” He wasn’t even lying. It was cool to shake hands with someone he’d been watching on television for several years.
Boe would probably make fun of me. And remind me that the last time I saw this guy he was trying to figure out who had Chainer for the Velras or the anti-Velras.
Which team Skiff was doing a favor for that day when they’d walked past him at the consulate had never been settled.
Alden sat in a chair facing the trio.
“So! Tell us what kind of hero you imagine being in the future,” Colibrí said. “Take as much time as you need.”
Okay. So it’s that question. They’d asked it in both of the previous interviews. And it was the main subject of the essay he’d written. So it wasn’t like he couldn’t answer.
He could answer it so well, in fact, that he didn’t even have to think about most of the words coming out of his mouth. Battlefield support. The guy whose work makes the other heroes more effective.
Hannah’s dream.
For the first time, Alden added on a bit about how difficult he’d found it to be the only responsible party on Moon Thegund. He was assuming they were finally going to ask him about what had happened in this interview, since it had barely been brought up the last one.
“I know lower-rank sidekicks, and even hero duos, aren’t as popular these days unless they’re…”
He tried to think of how to say ‘just for the sake of the show’ without offending Instructor Colibrí, who seemed to be someone who was in charge of making the show more showy. “Unless they’re unique cases. But I think there would be a lot of benefits to having a dedicated partner and learning the ins and outs of each other’s power set. Working alone isn’t the ideal scenario.”
“That’s a wonderful point!” Colibrí said brightly.
“Do you know why so many superheroes operate on their own when it comes to higher level combat?” Instructor Klein asked. “You do see hero teams working together to fight regular crime. It makes for exciting footage if nothing else. So do you understand why an S-rank in pursuit of an equally powerful supervillain might prefer not to have help beyond the usual…which is to have other individually capable members of the hero team evacuate civilians, relay critical information, and block off access to the battle site?”
“It’s for a lot of different reasons, isn’t it?” Alden said. He ticked them off. “There’s the whole ‘What if I screw up and kill my partner?’ factor. Which I’m sure makes a lot of people just not want to deal with it at all. Then there’s the fact that you need to dedicate additional training time so that you understand how to fight alone and in a pair or team. Trust would be a huge issue; if you don’t absolutely trust your partner to do their job, then what’s the point? And…if the support hero is, for example, functioning in a way that makes it possible for the primary damage dealer to safely deal more damage than they would otherwise be able to…then an error on the support’s part means that their partner might cause much more harm to infrastructure and bystanders than they would have if they’d been working completely alone. It makes both heroes look bad, and it’s the support’s error. But people don’t understand. They usually blame the person in the limelight who dealt the damage, not the person in the background who was supposed to prevent it.”
Instructor Klein looked surprised. “Those are a lot of reasons. You’ve put some thought into it after all.”
“…I think it would be strange if I hadn’t. Given what I want to do. And other things.”
In an urgent situation, rushing because she couldn’t quite keep up with the pace of a fight, Hannah Elber had counted the number of floors on a building wrong. Because of that, Arjun Thomas had smashed through the side of it and into an occupied apartment across the street. That he hadn’t collided with Alden, or someone else, and instantly killed them was luck.
“Then why do you hope to become a support hero?” Skiff seemed to be trying to give Alden an encouraging smile as he asked. “I really enjoyed your essay by the way.”
“Oh. Thank you. It’s because heroes can work better in pairs. More good guys bringing more types of magic to a fight should be an amazing thing. The ideal situation is perfectly orchestrated teamwork. Just because it’s more difficult to achieve that ideal doesn’t mean we should give up on it and settle for the status quo.”
He felt good about that answer. It was so much more satisfying to give an answer that rang true. He tried to study the interviewer’s faces, to get a read on what they thought.
Skiff seemed to be in comforting cheerleader mode. It was probably his default. Or maybe he just liked Alden because of the Chicago connection.
Instructor Colibrí hadn’t stopped smiling since he entered the room. It was a great smile. It didn’t look fake at all. But it was confusing that it never faded.
And for some reason, Instructor Klein looked tired and resigned.
Not a fan of the support-focused superhero concept in general? Or of B-ranks going for it?
Support heroes, as he was describing them, were supposed to be able to take care of themselves well enough not to cause problems. Old-timey sidekicks were a thing of the past because they’d often been highly-killable low ranks.
“Next question!” Colibrí said, still beaming. “What active heroes do you currently admire? And why?”
Alden talked.
And talked.
He was on edge, waiting for the harder questions. They had to be coming. They’d rejected a ton of the returnees first thing this morning after a single, five-minute long interview. They must have asked something difficult. And Winston Reginald Heelfeather was wearing sunglasses because he was so scared of the “mind games” he claimed his committee had played with him last time.
However, as the time slot for his interview approached its end, they hadn’t asked him anything that was even particularly new. These were all questions that had been on the application or in previous interviews. Occasionally, Instructor Klein would ask him to clarify his opinions, which made him think a little.
But the questions were harder in the first interview. The formulaic ones on the B-ranks only, we-really-wish-you’d-reconsider-applying interview had been semi-hostile and stressful to answer because of it.
With two minutes to go, Alden was confused. I thought this would be deeper. I thought they’d want to really get to know me.
It said something to that effect in the admissions office email he’d read a hundred times—that prospective students should be prepared to answer more personal questions in the third interview.
They’ve got to be sitting there with everything I sent them pulled up in front of their eyes.
Maybe Body Drainer and Moon Thegund were considered too personal?
But wasn’t the point of this to make sure he had the right reasons for wanting to become a hero?
Alden hadn’t wanted them to ask if he had some kind of revenge-driven need to fight supervillains because one had killed his parents, but he’d expected them to. He had also been dreading detailed questions about how he’d earned the commendation. He was sure that someone idly saying the wrong thing about Kibby was his Achilles heel. Nothing had fazed him badly all day, but that definitely would have. He suspected that someone else overanalyzing and judging the harder decisions he’d made on Moon Thegund would have set him off in some way, too.
I brought it up myself because I just knew something along those lines was coming. Was I completely wrong? Do they not care about the commendation at all? Do they not care that I’ve been on the Triplanets until just recently?
Maybe Neha was mistaken, and he wasn’t getting the serious questions because he wasn’t a serious candidate at this point. They could have already decided he wasn’t good enough, or that he was too much of a risk with the messy personal history. And so there was no reason to ask him the hardball stuff.
That must be it. They’re not even asking me about being a Rabbit. That’s got to be the surest sign that they’re not taking my interview seriously at all.
Even if the darker personal material was off-limits, asking the superhero hopeful why he’d chosen nearly the worst possible class for superhero work was so obvious. They should have been grilling him about that one.
As Alden reached the conclusion that it was all over for him, this time around at least, he tried not to let his disappointment show.
I really did try hard. I know I’m not feeling it quite like I should, but I do want it and I didn’t slack off any…it’s fine. I’ll just spend a lot more time with Bobby at the gym while I wait to re-apply. I’ll go to Franklin High for a while. Maybe I’ll apply to the other two Apex high schools next time, too.
“Thank you so much for your time today, Alden,” Colibrí said. “It’s been wonderful to get to know you better. Do you have any questions for us before we send you off to lunch?”
So it was over. How anti-climactic after the intensity of the combat assessment.
Since it looks like I’ll be doing this again in the future, I guess I should ask…
“I was wondering if there was anything I should think about or do to improve myself? I know I’ll be getting evaluations from the people who were watching combat today, but are there other obvious things I’m missing right now that I should be aware of?”
“I think you’re on the right track,” Skiff said. “Just keep working and keep your chin up, and you’ll get there!”
Alden hoped his smile looked realer than it felt.
“You should think about what kind of impression you want to give off in front of cameras starting right now,” Instructor Colibrí said. For the first time since the interview had started, she seemed really intense. “Point placement is going to be so important for you as a B-rank. Rabbit hasn’t ever been seriously attempted in the superhero market, so you have options. But that only means you have to narrow your choices down that much more. The bouncing things you can do with your trait—”
So she’d at least seen some footage from the running assessment.
“—it makes me so happy. You may want to play into that. Speedy, agile Rabbit! And don’t neglect your Appeal. You have to make it work for you every step of the way. The System will just generalize it if you don’t make special requests, and no, no, no…that’s for amateurs. You want to be a professional, so you have to decide as soon as you can and start tweaking. Cute? Soft? Sexy? Ironically macho bunny?”
Alden stared at her. Her hand disappeared and reappeared from the front pocket of her spangled pinafore so fast that he didn’t even see her move. In a blink, she was holding out a hummingbird-shaped card. The foil letters on it showed her name, address, and school office hours.
“Call any time! Definitely before you affix that next Appeal point.”
I don’t want another one, though. Alden took the card because you couldn’t just not take peoples’ cards. But he found her a little frightening.
“When you start living on campus, we can—!”
“You want my advice?” Instructor Klein interrupted. Halfway through the interview, he’d crossed his arms over his chest, and he hadn’t removed them since. The body language there definitely wasn’t inviting.
Skiff’s eyebrows went up and he bit his lower lip as he glanced sideways at the other man.
“If you don’t mind?” Alden said.
“Your rank is bad for what you think you want to do. Your class may very well be insurmountable.”
“I think that’s an uncalled for assessment, Instructor Klein!” Instructor Colibrí said quickly. “I personally believe in the untapped potential of the Rabbit class. I can’t wait to see what Alden does with it.”
The other teacher didn’t even spare her a glance. “My advice is that you focus on leveling for the next couple of years before you even consider joining a hero training course. And do some research into other skill options for your class. If you can’t put together a list of known Rabbit skills and spells that will see you performing as well as other currently active B-rank heroes who are in their thirties and forties, then you should find another job.”
“Torsten!”
“After doing my own research into your class’s talent choices, I do not believe you have the potential to be a superhero. Thus, you attending Celena North High is a waste of your potential as a person. And it is a waste of our faculty’s time. I recommend that you enjoy a normal high school experience, learn your way around Avowed life, and then, if you are still determined to try this path in a couple of years, return and apply for the university’s hero program instead.”
He really doesn’t want me to come to school here.
It wasn’t that his words were a shock. But they were harsh on the heels of so much hard work today and such unexpectedly lackadaisical questions from the interviewers. Alden took a few seconds to collect himself.
“Okay,” he said at last. “Thank you for the super honest advice. You’re worried that one preservation skill isn’t enough to see me through an entire career?”
“It’s not enough,” he said bluntly. “One skill is not enough for hero work.”
Colibrí looked pissed off. Skiff was chewing on the end of his stylus.
“That makes sense,” said Alden. He was having an emotionally confused moment. His hands were death-gripping his shirt hem, because having someone tell you to your face that they thought you sucked and would be a waste of everyone’s time was…yeah.
But on the other hand…
He tried not to smile; he thought he might have a little anyway.
“Rabbit is a skill-based class. So the skills I choose are the most important thing. If Let Me Take Your Luggage is the only one in the class that’s really good for hero work, and it tops out at a low level, that would be a career ender.”
Instructor Klein uncrossed his arms and rested his elbows on the table. “That’s just a fact you have to contend with,” he said.
Facts are facts, Alden thought in Artonan. They don’t have to be fair.
He could practically hear Kibby saying it.
Oh, it was a mistake to think of her.
He was really smiling now. It probably looked like he didn’t take the Instructor seriously. That was bad. It was Earth bad and Triplanets unforgivable.
“I will consider that,” he said, forcing his face straight. “I will seriously think about what you said. Thank you for interviewing me.”
He shook their hands again. He hurried out of the room so that he wouldn’t lose his self-control and start laughing in front of them.
It’s not that funny, Alden, he told himself as he rushed down the hall to get out of earshot. This is serious. They think you stink. They’re not going to let you into their school ever, even if you did run across a moon and impress a Knight. Welcome to Earth. Where you are only a shitty B-rank, and an even shittier Rabbit.
He just kept going until he was out of the MagiPhys building and racing across the lawn. His legs were sore from all the weird running demands the coaches had made at the track earlier. It felt good to move anyway.
Why’d they even bother to make me hop around the track and fight an S-rank and come all this way if Rabbit was that much of a problem for them?
He ran down the paved pathway, jumped over the back of a bench, and took a seat. He leaned back and smiled up into the tree branches.
“One skill is not enough for hero work,” he said.
Then he did laugh. And he directed his growing amount of free authority to run along the edges of the affixation, to really feel the shape of what it, too, would one day be. Most of the hypersensitivity was gone. He still woke up in the middle of the night feeling wounded. He still fought it when he knew he shouldn’t. But right now…
“Hey, we did amazing today,” he murmured . “You worked like a dream. I’ll try to think up a better metaphor for us, like she told me to. Because you can be pretty cool. And you’re going to get big. And strong. And awesome.”
He considered the epiphany he’d had earlier.
“I wonder if we could pick up a car? That’s probably way too greedy at this point…but just think of how much luggage we could carry now.”
“Want me to fix your umbrella?”
Alden looked over at Konstantin. The Adjuster was sitting beside him, running his fingers through his dark hair, trying to straighten it out. He was breathless, red-faced, and sweaty—the same as almost everyone who’d taken part in the heroes vs. villains battle. Alden himself hadn’t realized how depleted he was until it was over.
Now both teams were sprawled across the bleachers. Most people were sitting slightly apart from each other. Emotions were still running hot for several of them.
The Strength Brute from the hero team had started cussing out the Wright before they’d even left the floor, and it was probably only the fact that the guy had high-tailed it out of the gym that had prevented a real fight. The Object Shaper was crying while Emma patted her on the shoulder. The Sandbagger was shooting death glares. She only spared a couple for Alden; Kon was receiving the bulk of them. Lexi was wringing the handle of his whip like he was imagining it was someone’s neck. He was glaring a lot at Kon, too, but to Alden’s surprise his ire wasn’t just for his brother.
He seemed to be mad at every single one of his own teammates and Alden’s as well. He wasn’t yelling at anyone, though. Just darkly stewing.
Kon was staring straight ahead, watching the latest batch of duelists.
Alden glanced down at his umbrella. One of the spokes was bent and poking out through the fabric, and of course there was the broken fishing line.
“I don’t think they’re going to make me fight much more,” said Alden. “But I’d appreciate it, just in case, if it’s not going to wear you out.”
“Hand it over. I didn’t get to show off my amazing powers anyway.”
“I think you showed off well enough.” Alden passed over the umbrella and the broken piece of line.
“It was when I nut punched my big brother, right?” Kon said with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“That was a memorable moment.”
“Probably extra memorable for him.” Kon held the umbrella across his palms and stared at it. “Now you get to experience my dolphin impression.”
“Huh?”
The other boy opened his mouth, and the weirdest spell chant Alden had ever heard came out of it. Many chants were purely sound—the vocal equivalent of weaving a pattern with the auriad. Some peppered in very old Artonan words Alden could occasionally recognize.
This one sounded…a lot like a dolphin trying to speak a foreign language. It was extremely alien, and surprisingly un-pretty. Artonan tastes didn’t always run in the same direction as human tastes, but their chants usually sounded pleasantly musical. This one was just strange.
And astonishing.
There was a cloud of glittering light around the umbrella, then its damaged spots rapidly repaired themselves. It suddenly looked like it had before the fight started.
“Let me do the fishing line next.”
“Are your vocal cords modified?!”
Kon looked surprised. “Most people are more interested in the instant restoration thing. Yeah, they are.”
“Bullshit.”
His brows drew together. “You think I was born speaking like a cetacean?”
“No! It’s just…I’m sorry. That was a positive ‘bullshit,’ I guess? I’ve never heard of an Adjuster getting body modded for vocal casting, and I think it’s cool.”
I’m so jealous I could scream. A human scream. Not a scream perfected for spell casting.
“Positive bullshit? Must be an American thing. There are only a couple dozen other Adjusters known to have vocal mods for some of their spells. My parents helped me look into it after I affixed.”
“It’s so cool.”
“You said that already.” He looked happy about it though. “When the System spat out a rare type-path opportunity for me, I was completely caught off guard. I was going to focus on spells that manipulate electrical energy. I’ve been planning to be an S-rank Adjuster since I was nine, and it was going to be perfect. But when the Contract offers you something you know is one of a kind, you have to take it. It’s a thing, right?”
“A thing?”
Kon nodded. “Yeah. Everyone knows that singleton paths, subclasses, or talents are usually higher potential. Sometimes they’re a flop, but most of the time, they pay off. It was just one starter spell, which seemed so ungenerous. But I took it, and the next thing I knew the System was like, ‘And here is your new alien voice to go with that spell.’”
That wasn’t something everyone knew. That sounded like something you only knew if all your friends and relatives were Avowed. “Can you make any sound an Artonan can?”
Kon shook his head. “Not quite. I’m assuming if the other spells in this category the System has stuck me in require it, I’ll get additional mods.”
“Awesome,” Alden breathed.
Kon grinned. “You’re really into my dolphin impression. Most people think it’s creepy.”
“I wanted to be an Adjuster so bad.”
The other boy tilted his head. “Then why are you a Rabbit?”
Alden didn’t know what to say.
“Did you just get super nervous and accept the class assignment as soon as it popped up? I heard sometimes globies do that.”
“Rabbit seemed like a really good idea at the time.” Alden was unable to think of another excuse for himself that would make sense.
“Well, your shield thing is cool at least.”
Kon picked up the fishing line and held the broken end to the piece still wrapped around the umbrella handle. He stared at it, performed the spell again, and the two pieces of line were reconnected.
“Thanks,” Alden said, targeting him before he handed it back.
“I hope the school is as enthusiastic about it as you are.”
“You sounded more confident this morning.”
Kon shrugged. “I’m confident the spell is capable of amazing things. And that I’ll get more spells that do similar stuff in the future. And that my rank gives me a big advantage. But I’m not quite as sure that the school will be willing to risk it. Just because it’s special doesn’t mean it’s going to be the right thing for hero work. Instructor Plim was really excited about it, but…”
“You have a skill, too.”
“Yeah. They might let me slip in because the skill alone has applications. Knowing the previous state of objects is an odd one to work with, too, though. So who knows?”
“You use the skill before the spell every time?”
“I have to,” said Kon. “If I don’t, it’s like my brain can’t conceptualize the exact state I’m trying to restore the object to. I can’t even trigger the spell impression to cast without it.”
They both stopped talking as a man with a bushy mustache approached them. “Kon,” he said, scrolling through something on his interface. “Are you all right with the interview on your schedule being brought forward half an hour? We’ve had some drop outs.”
“Sure.”
“Then I’m sending you the update now. Alden, is your skill still working? We have you listed as having hit your limit during that last fight.”
“I’m okay,” said Alden.
He was starting to feel tired. Approaching skill exhaustion was a strange experience now that he had an authority sense, and he didn’t have a chaos attack to occupy him. It wasn’t like the authority went away. It was almost like the world around him became resistant to it, and his authority itself became…less authoritative. Stiller. Unwilling to be moved by his will or to move things around him in turn.
“I can keep going until the end of the combat assessment.”
The man rolled his eyes. “You’re one of those, are you? You don’t know when skill fatigue will hit you, kid. Don’t just assume you're tireless because your talent hasn’t quit yet.”
Right. Act like a normal Avowed, Alden.
“I mean my skill was still working fine the last time I used it.”
“We’ll give you one more duel then. Toward the end of the session. If it completely quits on you, just yield. No penalties for that. It’s normal for it to hit low ranks in the last half of the combat assessment.”
He walked away.
“Ouch. He called me a low rank. The principal included us B’s with the rest of you in her speech this morning.”
“She was being generous. B’s are usually ‘high’ if you’re living in F-city and ‘low’ if you’re in Apex. You live between two worlds.”
“What happened to middle? Why can’t we be middles?”
Kon shrugged. “Maybe they’ll build another island when we get a couple million more people, and we can call it mid-city?”
“Mid-city?”
“B’s can hang there with the C’s. Feeling all superior. And then we mighty S’s can have two islands to look down on instead of one.”
“How long have you been an S-rank even?”
“About four months.”
“Does the System affix a massive dose of self confidence when it gives you that rank?”
“It’s just that I’ve been an S in my heart from a young age,” said Kon, holding a hand over his heart. “My parents are both A’s so there was always a decent chance.”
He looked over at Alden. “They’ll put you against an S. For your final duel.”
“It’s not random?”
“It’s semi-random. If it looks like you’re toughing it out all the way to the end of the assessment, though, they’ll make sure you get hit really bad at least once. If they can. It’s a thing.”
“A thing everyone knows,” Alden said.
“Exactly. At least one terrible match-up if they can swing it. For you, any S who isn’t me will do. And it won’t be me, since I’m not dueling. It was all private testing with Instructor Plim…except for me showing off my brother-punching skill just now.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
Kon shrugged. “You were cool in the fight. I thought you were way overestimating yourself when you said you could bonk the Shaper’s sandbags with your umbrella. But you bonked them really well.”
“My skill’s Level 3.”
Kon looked startled. “That’s nice. Did you hide out and train for a year before you showed up here or something? But I still wouldn’t have thought you’d just fling off those bags like they didn’t weigh anything.”
“They didn’t.”
“What?”
“They didn’t weigh anything.” Alden pulled his legs up and crossed them. “I should have realized…but I’m an idiot. I haven’t seriously used my skill like this before.”
“It would be uncommon if you had a lot of sandbag attack experience.”
“No, I mean I haven’t used it as a shield. It’s not…that hasn’t been its main function for me. I knew it would be a big thing for hero work. But up until now, it’s the preservation element that’s been important. Until the past couple of weeks, I usually really cared about keeping the thing I was carrying safe. So I’m geared to think of it that way. And I missed something incredibly obvious because of it.”
“What?” Kon asked curiously.
“I don’t feel the force of things that impact my preserved object. Physically.” He’d definitely felt every impact in other ways. “Impacts strain my skill. They make it reach the exhaustion point faster. I knew that. But if the magic takes the impact of outside things, it also takes their weight.”
“I don’t quite see where you’re going with—”
“The victims,” said Alden, staring across the gym without really seeing it. “Whenever I’ve carried people before, it’s been because they needed to be preserved. Their whole bodies. For their protection.”
“Have you had to do something like that often?” Kon said slowly.
Alden ignored the question.
“And people are heavy. I just got so used to thinking of people as heavy things I have to preserve. But for this exercise, we needed to move fast. That was more important. So I suggested you carry the first girl because you’re stronger.”
“Right…”
“You could have entrusted her gym suit to me instead. I mean, she could have.”
“You mean you could turn her suit into a shield?”
“Yes, but more importantly, she wouldn’t have weighed anything inside it,” said Alden, not even trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “She would be carried by the magic wrapped around my preserved object. From my perspective, she would have weighed as much as a gym suit. It might not have been comfortable for her. But I could have carried her all that way in one hand.”
Kon stared at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Alden paused. “I’m sure that it would have worked, but I guess the faculty would most likely have made us stop. I don’t know how the suits and the bands work together with each other and in conjunction with the magic on the gym. Preserving just the suit…it could have been really bad if something had hit her somewhere unprotected, and the gym couldn’t register it properly?”
“That’s a dark thought. Glad you didn’t try it and find out the hard way.” Kon stood up. “I’m off to be grilled by an interview committee. It was fun to play superheroes with you. It sent me right back to primary school. Only there was never a Rabbit in our superhero games. Even if you don’t get into the program you should come to that party at my house.”
“Are you having it even if you don’t get in?”
“Don’t jinx me,” said Kon. “And of course. It will be a consolation party in that case.”
“Thank you for the invitation.” Alden tapped his umbrella against his knee. “By the way…”
Kon looked over his shoulder.
“You probably didn’t have to cast your spell twice. You could have just done it once.”
The Adjuster might have been an S-rank, but that didn’t mean he could infinite cast his spell. Impressions could be exhausted just like skills. They used their own discrete portion of your bound authority in a similar way.
“What do you mean?”
“To repair the umbrella and the fishing line. You said you use the skill to read the object first. You could have used it on the umbrella and the fishing line at the same time.”
“They’re two different objects.”
“No they’re not.” Alden held it up. “This is one object.”
Kon frowned.
“Imagine the line was superglued to the umbrella. Or that it was made that way from the start. Maybe by some Wright who’s way too fond of multi-function tools. In that case you would have read it as one cohesive piece, right?”
“…right.”
“Just something to consider. Good luck in your interview.”
Alden watched him leave.
About twenty minutes later, he was called up for his final duel. The opponent was an S-rank speedster. He ran at Alden, dodged around the umbrella much faster than Alden could react to protect himself, and shoved him sideways into the barrier. Perhaps he was concerned about hitting a B-rank Rabbit in the torso, because he shoved Alden’s partially outstretched arm.
Pain flared. Alden could have sworn he heard something pop as his shoulder dislocated. He shouted, but it came out muffled as the speedster grabbed the back of his head and pressed his face into the wall.
For the first time all day, Alden felt fear.
Then the ten seconds passed, and his arm was completely fine. His panicked brain slowed down enough to realize the attack was already over. The S-rank was just pinning him to the barrier. He wasn’t even trying to be harsh about it. The other boy was only going for maximum efficiency.
It’s way worse when it comes at you so fast. It makes it so that you can’t even understand what’s happening.
His heart was racing. He would have dropped the umbrella if not for the wrist strap. His right arm was bent behind his back and held in a grip that didn’t budge no matter how he tried to twist.
“You good, pal?” the speedster asked in a Scottish accent. “Your nose all right?”
Fuck. I’m not sure whether this is sad, scary, or funny.
His nose did, in fact, hurt. The guy was smashing his face into the barrier too hard.
“You could crush me less,” Alden finally admitted. It came out sounding like, Oo cud cuff me leff.
The Scottish boy let up on the pressure.
“Sorry. You’re my first B. Didn’t want you to get a hit in from being too careless. I’m on a winning streak.”
Alden cleared his throat. “It’s fine.”
“I feel like I’ve been here all day pressing people into magic walls,” the other boy mused. “It’s not a fun way to spend time, is it?”
“It’s probably less fun for the people who are getting pressed into the walls, man.”
“Guess that’s why so many of them have left already, eh? Didn’t think that was the right choice even if the rules did say we could go whenever we liked after the first fight.”
“It’s definitely a trap,” Alden agreed.
“The locals didn’t start leaving until halfway through. Suits must be nasty. Haven’t taken a bad enough hit to feel it myself. Think they meant for that last Meister to get me good, but I beat her, too.”
“Sounds like you’re doing well.”
“I’m going to be a hero.” The boy’s accent was becoming heavier as he started talking faster. “I’ve always wanted to help people. I want to make a difference, you know? I never thought it would happen, but now it has! I’m going to be the hero I always imagined in my head. ‘If you can just run fast enough,’ I used to think, ‘you can save everyone, can’t you?’”
Alden stared through the barrier. It wasn’t quite invisible when you were being pressed against it. There was a fluctuation in the air. Beyond it, he could see the bleachers. They were nearly empty. Most of the people who weren’t currently dueling had already left, either to head to interviews, to move on to other assessments, or just to go back home and lick their wounds. And reassess their life choices.
“I hope it works out that way for you,” Alden said as the timer ran out and their duel officially ended. “I hope you get in, get your dream job, and it works out just like you imagined.”
The speedster gave him a confused look. “Thank you?”
“You too,” said Alden, saluting with his umbrella. “Good fight. It was informative.”
*********
Alden only had minutes between the last duel and his interview. It was barely enough time to change back into his normal clothes. He didn’t have to bother; plenty of people didn’t. But he wanted to make the best impression he could, and Sweaty Unitard Guy wasn’t that. He stripped and toweled off in the same shower stall he’d gotten dressed in a few hours before.
The morning had been so intense that time was behaving differently. It felt like it had been a week since he met Maricel on the bus. He hoped her own combat assessment had gone well. She’d been in the group that had done it right before his.
I wonder if they gave her sandbags to use. He wrapped his auriad around his wrist and covered it with the leather cuff bracelet. Actually, I wonder what stats she has. Now that I’ve met other beginner S-ranks, she seems outside the norm.
Maricel had been stronger and faster than Alden when they were practicing with the suits, but not stronger and faster enough. She couldn’t have sunk an S-rank’s worth of points into Processing, and Dexterity seemed like an odd choice for her. Maybe she’d gone for ultra specific enhancements. Or it was all in Stamina.
He threw on the green plaid shirt and stepped out to take a quick look in the mirror.
Decent. Now, don’t say anything dumb in your interview. And remember, you’re sure you want to be a superhero.
Often during the application process, especially when he was writing essays or answering questions about goals, Alden had felt like he was trying to time travel. Why do you want to join the program? Why do you think you’d make a good superhero? What does being a hero mean to you?
He had some answers to those questions, but they weren’t the answers anyone else wanted to hear. They weren’t shiny. They weren’t charming.
So he relied on Alden from a year ago instead. He’d had all the answers back then. And they were shiny. They sounded good in person and on paper.
He remembered them all by heart because he’d meant them for such a long time.
Is it still a lie if I’m just trying to copy a younger version of myself? The version they would have gotten to meet if I’d shown up on the island when I was supposed to?
It was. Of course.
I wonder what Hannah would think of me now.
She came to mind more often when he was on campus. Alden wanted to talk to her…almost as much as he wanted to talk to Boe. He wanted to tell someone the things he wasn’t willing to tell the other people who were curious.
If Hannah hadn’t died, he would have asked her if she minded him being different than the Alden she’d known.
Walking down the hall to the classroom where his interview was being held, he met Lesedi Saleh.
“How did your final duel go, Alden?”
“I lost really fast, Principal Saleh.”
She chuckled. “That tends to happen versus strong speedsters.”
She even knew who I was fighting l? Did the principal keep track of everything that was going on?
“What did you think of it?” she asked
“Of the combat assessment overall? Or the last duel specifically?”
She smiled. “The last duel. What did you think when you lost?”
“That I need to get faster.”
Belatedly, he realized that might sound flippant, so he added, “I know getting as fast as an S-rank speed Brute would be ridiculous. But I’d like to at least be able to keep up well enough to understand what was happening as it happened and respond in some kind of way.”
“I see.” The principal’s tone was friendly, but it didn’t reveal what she thought of his answer. “Thank you for all your hard work today. You’ve almost run the whole gauntlet. Good luck in your interview.”
She nodded to him, and they parted. A few seconds later, he heard her greeting another student heading into their own interview room.
When he arrived at the right spot, he took a moment to collect himself before he knocked.
The three interviewers were sitting at a table at the front of the classroom. The first thing Alden noticed was Skiff—Chicago’s very own Water Shaper. He stared at the hero in surprise.
Of course he was wearing his board shorts. He’d been wearing them the last time Alden had seen him, too. And it had been freezing then.
What are the chances that he’d be one of my interviewers? Is it on purpose?
Well…Skiff had always seemed to like all of the parts of hero work that involved hanging out with kids and teenagers. The fun, big brother PR stuff appeared to be his comfort zone. It stood to reason that he’d volunteer at his old high school, too.
Beside him was a petite, older woman who was somehow making a rhinestone-studded, emerald green pinafore dress look like a casual thing to wear. The third member of the group was a strong-jawed man with blue eyes and short, graying hair.
None of them were speaking to each other when Alden entered.
They seem kind of tense.
Maybe they’d argued during the last interview?
They all stood as he entered, and he shook everyone’s hand, starting with the man on the right.
“Torsten Klein,” he said. “I teach some courses here at the high school. Offensive combat mostly.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Hello, Alden!” said the woman, leaning across the table. “I’m not teaching at the high school, but we’ll see each other eventually. I teach at the university and advise Seniors who are finalizing their public personas. I just go by Colibrí. My hero name grew on me over the years, so I made it official.”
Alden shook her hand. It makes sense that the university faculty would be involved, too. Graduates from the high school hero track were automatically accepted to the university one, so there was no question about where you’d eventually be going to school unless you dropped out or were booted.
“And I’m Skiff. Or Lawrence is fine. I haven’t quite decided. You might—”
“Of course. It’s really cool to meet you in person!” He wasn’t even lying. It was cool to shake hands with someone he’d been watching on television for several years.
Boe would probably make fun of me. And remind me that the last time I saw this guy he was trying to figure out who had Chainer for the Velras or the anti-Velras.
Which team Skiff was doing a favor for that day when they’d walked past him at the consulate had never been settled.
Alden sat in a chair facing the trio.
“So! Tell us what kind of hero you imagine being in the future,” Colibrí said. “Take as much time as you need.”
Okay. So it’s that question. They’d asked it in both of the previous interviews. And it was the main subject of the essay he’d written. So it wasn’t like he couldn’t answer.
He could answer it so well, in fact, that he didn’t even have to think about most of the words coming out of his mouth. Battlefield support. The guy whose work makes the other heroes more effective.
Hannah’s dream.
For the first time, Alden added on a bit about how difficult he’d found it to be the only responsible party on Moon Thegund. He was assuming they were finally going to ask him about what had happened in this interview, since it had barely been brought up the last one.
“I know lower-rank sidekicks, and even hero duos, aren’t as popular these days unless they’re…”
He tried to think of how to say ‘just for the sake of the show’ without offending Instructor Colibrí, who seemed to be someone who was in charge of making the show more showy. “Unless they’re unique cases. But I think there would be a lot of benefits to having a dedicated partner and learning the ins and outs of each other’s power set. Working alone isn’t the ideal scenario.”
“That’s a wonderful point!” Colibrí said brightly.
“Do you know why so many superheroes operate on their own when it comes to higher level combat?” Instructor Klein asked. “You do see hero teams working together to fight regular crime. It makes for exciting footage if nothing else. So do you understand why an S-rank in pursuit of an equally powerful supervillain might prefer not to have help beyond the usual…which is to have other individually capable members of the hero team evacuate civilians, relay critical information, and block off access to the battle site?”
“It’s for a lot of different reasons, isn’t it?” Alden said. He ticked them off. “There’s the whole ‘What if I screw up and kill my partner?’ factor. Which I’m sure makes a lot of people just not want to deal with it at all. Then there’s the fact that you need to dedicate additional training time so that you understand how to fight alone and in a pair or team. Trust would be a huge issue; if you don’t absolutely trust your partner to do their job, then what’s the point? And…if the support hero is, for example, functioning in a way that makes it possible for the primary damage dealer to safely deal more damage than they would otherwise be able to…then an error on the support’s part means that their partner might cause much more harm to infrastructure and bystanders than they would have if they’d been working completely alone. It makes both heroes look bad, and it’s the support’s error. But people don’t understand. They usually blame the person in the limelight who dealt the damage, not the person in the background who was supposed to prevent it.”
Instructor Klein looked surprised. “Those are a lot of reasons. You’ve put some thought into it after all.”
“…I think it would be strange if I hadn’t. Given what I want to do. And other things.”
In an urgent situation, rushing because she couldn’t quite keep up with the pace of a fight, Hannah Elber had counted the number of floors on a building wrong. Because of that, Arjun Thomas had smashed through the side of it and into an occupied apartment across the street. That he hadn’t collided with Alden, or someone else, and instantly killed them was luck.
“Then why do you hope to become a support hero?” Skiff seemed to be trying to give Alden an encouraging smile as he asked. “I really enjoyed your essay by the way.”
“Oh. Thank you. It’s because heroes can work better in pairs. More good guys bringing more types of magic to a fight should be an amazing thing. The ideal situation is perfectly orchestrated teamwork. Just because it’s more difficult to achieve that ideal doesn’t mean we should give up on it and settle for the status quo.”
He felt good about that answer. It was so much more satisfying to give an answer that rang true. He tried to study the interviewer’s faces, to get a read on what they thought.
Skiff seemed to be in comforting cheerleader mode. It was probably his default. Or maybe he just liked Alden because of the Chicago connection.
Instructor Colibrí hadn’t stopped smiling since he entered the room. It was a great smile. It didn’t look fake at all. But it was confusing that it never faded.
And for some reason, Instructor Klein looked tired and resigned.
Not a fan of the support-focused superhero concept in general? Or of B-ranks going for it?
Support heroes, as he was describing them, were supposed to be able to take care of themselves well enough not to cause problems. Old-timey sidekicks were a thing of the past because they’d often been highly-killable low ranks.
“Next question!” Colibrí said, still beaming. “What active heroes do you currently admire? And why?”
Alden talked.
And talked.
He was on edge, waiting for the harder questions. They had to be coming. They’d rejected a ton of the returnees first thing this morning after a single, five-minute long interview. They must have asked something difficult. And Winston Reginald Heelfeather was wearing sunglasses because he was so scared of the “mind games” he claimed his committee had played with him last time.
However, as the time slot for his interview approached its end, they hadn’t asked him anything that was even particularly new. These were all questions that had been on the application or in previous interviews. Occasionally, Instructor Klein would ask him to clarify his opinions, which made him think a little.
But the questions were harder in the first interview. The formulaic ones on the B-ranks only, we-really-wish-you’d-reconsider-applying interview had been semi-hostile and stressful to answer because of it.
With two minutes to go, Alden was confused. I thought this would be deeper. I thought they’d want to really get to know me.
It said something to that effect in the admissions office email he’d read a hundred times—that prospective students should be prepared to answer more personal questions in the third interview.
They’ve got to be sitting there with everything I sent them pulled up in front of their eyes.
Maybe Body Drainer and Moon Thegund were considered too personal?
But wasn’t the point of this to make sure he had the right reasons for wanting to become a hero?
Alden hadn’t wanted them to ask if he had some kind of revenge-driven need to fight supervillains because one had killed his parents, but he’d expected them to. He had also been dreading detailed questions about how he’d earned the commendation. He was sure that someone idly saying the wrong thing about Kibby was his Achilles heel. Nothing had fazed him badly all day, but that definitely would have. He suspected that someone else overanalyzing and judging the harder decisions he’d made on Moon Thegund would have set him off in some way, too.
I brought it up myself because I just knew something along those lines was coming. Was I completely wrong? Do they not care about the commendation at all? Do they not care that I’ve been on the Triplanets until just recently?
Maybe Neha was mistaken, and he wasn’t getting the serious questions because he wasn’t a serious candidate at this point. They could have already decided he wasn’t good enough, or that he was too much of a risk with the messy personal history. And so there was no reason to ask him the hardball stuff.
That must be it. They’re not even asking me about being a Rabbit. That’s got to be the surest sign that they’re not taking my interview seriously at all.
Even if the darker personal material was off-limits, asking the superhero hopeful why he’d chosen nearly the worst possible class for superhero work was so obvious. They should have been grilling him about that one.
As Alden reached the conclusion that it was all over for him, this time around at least, he tried not to let his disappointment show.
I really did try hard. I know I’m not feeling it quite like I should, but I do want it and I didn’t slack off any…it’s fine. I’ll just spend a lot more time with Bobby at the gym while I wait to re-apply. I’ll go to Franklin High for a while. Maybe I’ll apply to the other two Apex high schools next time, too.
“Thank you so much for your time today, Alden,” Colibrí said. “It’s been wonderful to get to know you better. Do you have any questions for us before we send you off to lunch?”
So it was over. How anti-climactic after the intensity of the combat assessment.
Since it looks like I’ll be doing this again in the future, I guess I should ask…
“I was wondering if there was anything I should think about or do to improve myself? I know I’ll be getting evaluations from the people who were watching combat today, but are there other obvious things I’m missing right now that I should be aware of?”
“I think you’re on the right track,” Skiff said. “Just keep working and keep your chin up, and you’ll get there!”
Alden hoped his smile looked realer than it felt.
“You should think about what kind of impression you want to give off in front of cameras starting right now,” Instructor Colibrí said. For the first time since the interview had started, she seemed really intense. “Point placement is going to be so important for you as a B-rank. Rabbit hasn’t ever been seriously attempted in the superhero market, so you have options. But that only means you have to narrow your choices down that much more. The bouncing things you can do with your trait—”
So she’d at least seen some footage from the running assessment.
“—it makes me so happy. You may want to play into that. Speedy, agile Rabbit! And don’t neglect your Appeal. You have to make it work for you every step of the way. The System will just generalize it if you don’t make special requests, and no, no, no…that’s for amateurs. You want to be a professional, so you have to decide as soon as you can and start tweaking. Cute? Soft? Sexy? Ironically macho bunny?”
Alden stared at her. Her hand disappeared and reappeared from the front pocket of her spangled pinafore so fast that he didn’t even see her move. In a blink, she was holding out a hummingbird-shaped card. The foil letters on it showed her name, address, and school office hours.
“Call any time! Definitely before you affix that next Appeal point.”
I don’t want another one, though. Alden took the card because you couldn’t just not take peoples’ cards. But he found her a little frightening.
“When you start living on campus, we can—!”
“You want my advice?” Instructor Klein interrupted. Halfway through the interview, he’d crossed his arms over his chest, and he hadn’t removed them since. The body language there definitely wasn’t inviting.
Skiff’s eyebrows went up and he bit his lower lip as he glanced sideways at the other man.
“If you don’t mind?” Alden said.
“Your rank is bad for what you think you want to do. Your class may very well be insurmountable.”
“I think that’s an uncalled for assessment, Instructor Klein!” Instructor Colibrí said quickly. “I personally believe in the untapped potential of the Rabbit class. I can’t wait to see what Alden does with it.”
The other teacher didn’t even spare her a glance. “My advice is that you focus on leveling for the next couple of years before you even consider joining a hero training course. And do some research into other skill options for your class. If you can’t put together a list of known Rabbit skills and spells that will see you performing as well as other currently active B-rank heroes who are in their thirties and forties, then you should find another job.”
“Torsten!”
“After doing my own research into your class’s talent choices, I do not believe you have the potential to be a superhero. Thus, you attending Celena North High is a waste of your potential as a person. And it is a waste of our faculty’s time. I recommend that you enjoy a normal high school experience, learn your way around Avowed life, and then, if you are still determined to try this path in a couple of years, return and apply for the university’s hero program instead.”
He really doesn’t want me to come to school here.
It wasn’t that his words were a shock. But they were harsh on the heels of so much hard work today and such unexpectedly lackadaisical questions from the interviewers. Alden took a few seconds to collect himself.
“Okay,” he said at last. “Thank you for the super honest advice. You’re worried that one preservation skill isn’t enough to see me through an entire career?”
“It’s not enough,” he said bluntly. “One skill is not enough for hero work.”
Colibrí looked pissed off. Skiff was chewing on the end of his stylus.
“That makes sense,” said Alden. He was having an emotionally confused moment. His hands were death-gripping his shirt hem, because having someone tell you to your face that they thought you sucked and would be a waste of everyone’s time was…yeah.
But on the other hand…
He tried not to smile; he thought he might have a little anyway.
“Rabbit is a skill-based class. So the skills I choose are the most important thing. If Let Me Take Your Luggage is the only one in the class that’s really good for hero work, and it tops out at a low level, that would be a career ender.”
Instructor Klein uncrossed his arms and rested his elbows on the table. “That’s just a fact you have to contend with,” he said.
Facts are facts, Alden thought in Artonan. They don’t have to be fair.
He could practically hear Kibby saying it.
Oh, it was a mistake to think of her.
He was really smiling now. It probably looked like he didn’t take the Instructor seriously. That was bad. It was Earth bad and Triplanets unforgivable.
“I will consider that,” he said, forcing his face straight. “I will seriously think about what you said. Thank you for interviewing me.”
He shook their hands again. He hurried out of the room so that he wouldn’t lose his self-control and start laughing in front of them.
It’s not that funny, Alden, he told himself as he rushed down the hall to get out of earshot. This is serious. They think you stink. They’re not going to let you into their school ever, even if you did run across a moon and impress a Knight. Welcome to Earth. Where you are only a shitty B-rank, and an even shittier Rabbit.
He just kept going until he was out of the MagiPhys building and racing across the lawn. His legs were sore from all the weird running demands the coaches had made at the track earlier. It felt good to move anyway.
Why’d they even bother to make me hop around the track and fight an S-rank and come all this way if Rabbit was that much of a problem for them?
He ran down the paved pathway, jumped over the back of a bench, and took a seat. He leaned back and smiled up into the tree branches.
“One skill is not enough for hero work,” he said.
Then he did laugh. And he directed his growing amount of free authority to run along the edges of the affixation, to really feel the shape of what it, too, would one day be. Most of the hypersensitivity was gone. He still woke up in the middle of the night feeling wounded. He still fought it when he knew he shouldn’t. But right now…
“Hey, we did amazing today,” he murmured . “You worked like a dream. I’ll try to think up a better metaphor for us, like she told me to. Because you can be pretty cool. And you’re going to get big. And strong. And awesome.”
He considered the epiphany he’d had earlier.
“I wonder if we could pick up a car? That’s probably way too greedy at this point…but just think of how much luggage we could carry now.”
