Chapter Six
Plan B
After I finished the written and practical exams, I left the school covered in so many bruises I looked like a dalmatian. I hurt all over and every time I touched anything I was just sore.
The entire exam took about two hours, one for the written exam and one for the practical, which was about what Sonja told me it would be. I had to complete an obstacle course set up in the gym, which sounds simple enough but this one gym was about four times the size of the gym at my school, with some fake villains sprinkled in which were just robots I had to defeat or otherwise immobilize within a time limit. I didn't actually defeat any. They fought back and I got knocked around but the first one too much to actually do anything against it. So I never made it past him. But the next portion after the time limit was just strictly physical, none of that combat business. I basically just had to do the obstacle course and some other physical activities like run across the gym holding a bag of sand on my shoulder like a person, and other stuff simulating search and rescue.
It was all stuff I pretty much expected. I wasn't particularly good at any of it, but I expected it. I really underestimated how difficult this stuff would be and overestimated how good I would be at it. Luckily, Calder told me he sees some potential in me and I could easily train to get better. Unluckily, I think he was full of shit and he's required to say that.
I didn't do great at all. I failed hard at the first part with the villains, I was winded after one lap with the sandbang, the obstacle course was frustrating at best and impossible at worst so I didn't finish it, and in general I was so out of it at the end that I was about ready to just give up trying at all. The only thing keeping me going was knowing Voss was out there and I was doing something about it. I'm going to show the world Emmet Blake can be a hero. But then the exam ended anyways, so I hyped myself up for nothing. If there's one thing I know now, I need to work out.
When I left the gym and walked back to the entrance I saw Sonja was gone. I shot her a text asking where she was but I got no response after about fifteen minutes while I just stood there like a jackass. Eventually, the receptionist spoke up.
"If you're looking for your lady friend, she left about an hour ago with a bunch of other girls." The lizard lady told me. I furrowed my brows and left the building, looking outside for a sign of them. Nothing. I checked the time and thought I might as well just text her I have to leave before I miss the train. I'll just talk to her at school if she doesn't answer.
I hopped on the train and put my earbuds in while I scrolled through Instagram. I texted Sonja again telling her I got back on the train and to text me when she got the chance because she's probably busy. The ride back seemed a lot shorter and before I knew it I was back at home and filled with dread knowing I probably flunked the exam and my dreams were smashed. Although, I was oddly calm about it. I don't know why, maybe it's because Calder said he sees potential in me, maybe it's because Sonja was so proud of me, I don't know. I do know that I was extremely hopeful about what the letter would tell me when I got it.
I know for a fact I aced the written exam, it really was almost easier than my classes now, I didn't even need to see the results. I think that was probably what had to do with my confidence the most. I don't really consider myself that good of a student, I'm mostly Bs, but my mom says I just don't apply myself as much as I could. She says I'm too down on myself. Anyways, I'm not a great student, I don't talk in class, I just leave it to the kids who really know what they're doing and the kids who just really like talking. I'm just there and chime in every now and again with a stupid remark.
When I got up to my room, I collapsed onto my bed and looked at my phone, still no response. I placed it on my desk and noticed a sticky note I didn't put there. I assumed it was my mom's, but it didn't match her handwriting and had a weird message.
Is the big bad hero gonna come out to play?
Immediately I knew it was Voss. He was in my room while I was gone. I looked to my window and saw it was unlocked and there was a little smiley face drawn on the outside in Sharpie. Chills went down my spine as I considered maybe this whole thing wasn't a good idea. I didn't have time to ponder it before my mom busted into my room asking how the exam went, so I put on a fake smile and told her all about it.
When I was done, she gave me a hug and told me I was for sure getting in. I agreed and laid back down as she left. I looked at the sticky note in my hand and sighed, crumpling it and tossing it across the room.
"Bring it on, assholes." I muttered to myself. I closed my eyes for what seemed like a second, but suddenly I was waking up in the middle of the night. My eyes fluttered open as I sat up and reached for my lamp. When I turned it on I was greeted with the imposing figure of Voss, standing in my room in front of my bed. I jumped, but didn't scream. He was alone this time.
"Imperium Academy, huh?" Voss said to me as he walked over to my computer chair and took a seat. "What's your endgame, Emmet?"
"It's my dream." I lied. I only wanted to become a hero like two weeks ago.
Voss leaned back and reached for my desk drawer, opening it and pulling out the vile with the quirk in it. He looked at it and chuckled before closing the drawer.
"Be careful, Emmet. If, by some miracle, you do get into the academy, I'm warning you. Don't interfere with me or my business." He said calmly. "Or I will kill you. I will kill you and everyone you love."
"Got it." My voice trembled as he looked into my eyes.
"Do we agree?"
I stayed silent.
"Do we agree?" He asked in a meaner tone, the gears in his chest spinning up.
"Yes."
"Good." He stood up. "I just saved your life."
"You want me to thank you?"
"I want you to stay away. I'll keep watching you. But stay away." Immediately when he was done speaking, I heard a loud cracking noise and he vanished. My jaw dropped and I looked around as if he'd be behind me. I looked out my window and saw him standing on my neighbors roof with a finger over his lips before he disappeared again with the same crack noise.
I lied to him. I'm not staying away. And I won't let him kill anyone.
I took the weekend to try and work out. I went on jogs at like five AM, an already ungodly hour made worse by exercise, I lifted some of my brother's old weights I found in my closet, attempted to do push-ups, and failed at doing pull-ups. I did way more, but none of it really counted as exercise because I stopped halfway through because they were too hard. Baby steps. I was even more sore than before by Monday, but after Voss' visit I knew I had to kick my ass into shape if I wanted to be a hero.
Sonja still hadn't texted me back, either. I wanted to talk to her at school, but she wasn't in the cafeteria before school so I just had to wait until lunch.
When I walked in, I sat next to Deacon who was talking to his other friends about some party from over the weekend.
"Dude, he lit himself on fire with his fire breath, it was so funny bro, check my snapchat." I caught the tail end before they got quiet around me, presumably because I'm quirkless.
"Guys it's alright, I'm not scared of quirks or anything." I said as I pulled an earbud out. "What're we talking about?"
They stayed quiet until one boy spoke up.
"Yo, anyways Deacon I'll see you again at Braxton's next weekend, have fun with uhhhh…." He gestured to me.
"No problem, man." Deacon said. All of the boys stood up and left, leaving me alone with Deacon.
"What's wrong with them?" I asked. Deacon let out a long whistle.
"They don't exactly like people like you, it makes them feel weirded out and sad." He said bluntly. I was too phased though, he said stuff like that all the time. "Also the stuff on snap the other day is kinda yikes."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"What Sonja put on her story, you were there, dude."
"Yeah she took a selfie with me at Imperium."
Deacon raised his eyebrows.
"She didn't tell you."
"Tell me what?" I asked, sitting up straight. The bell rang and immediately Deacon shot up and walked away.
"Bro, I'll tell you later." He yelled at me as he got lost in the crowd. I sat there and ran my hands through my hair, frustrated. I groaned as I stood up to get to my class and weaved my way between everybody.
Until lunch, I still wasn't able to find out what Deacon had meant. I asked around about it a few times during my first three classes, but I couldn't get an answer. Everyone either laughed at me or just didn't say anything, leaving me temperamental and annoyed. I almost snapped at my teacher for asking me how my weekend was. Luckily I caught myself, this teacher would have sent me to the shadow realm.
After my final class before lunch, I was basically sprinting in to find Sonja, who was in line for lunch. I bypassed it and walked right up to her.
"Hey, where were you the other day after my exam?" I asked. Sonja didn't answer for a second.
"I got busy." She said simply.
"Yeah, I thought so, but why haven't you been answering my texts?"
"Dude, leave her alone, she doesn't wanna go out with you." Some other guy in line spoke up to defend her. "God, she ditched you because you're a loser."
"Dude, stay out of this, we were hanging out this weekend."
"Yeah, we know." He said.
I looked at Sonja, who was looking away. The guy pulled out his phone and showed me Sonja's snapchat story that he'd screenshotted. It was the selfie she took of us but the caption said that she felt bad for me and took me there out of pity.
"Emmet, I only put that because I didn't want my friends-" Sonja spoke up, but I cut her off.
"Nice." I turned away and wiped a tear that was forming in my eye. "Good to know you didn't even give a shit about me anyways, I might've actually wasted time trying to be your friend."
"No, Emmet, that's not what-"
"I don't care." I cut her off again.
"It's not like you're getting into the school anyways, freak." The guy said to me. I turned around with tears in my eyes and walked up to him, bumping my chest against his. "Gonna cry?"
"Stop it Emmet!" Sonja pushed me away from him.
"Yeah, you don't wanna get your ass beat again, do you?" The guy said as his skin started to smoke gently, probably some part of his quirk.
My fists curled up, but a teacher came up behind me and pulled me away before I could do anything stupid. I was basically dragged to the principal's office where I was sat down and berated for thirty minutes.
"Emmet, that is the third time that you've caused trouble this month, if you keep acting out I'm going to have to suspend you." The principal, Mr. Schwartz told me.
"I've caused trouble?" I asked, gesturing to myself. "Everyday people are assholes to me, why doesn't anything happen to them? I got my ass kicked the other day, you think I was causing trouble?"
"You threw the first hit."
"He was destroying my property."
"And you retaliated with violence." Schwartz argued.
"And what am I supposed to do?" I asked, leaning forward in my chair. "I don't have a quirk like these kids, am I just supposed to sit there and be their punching bag like I've been since kindergarten?"
"We have a zero tolerance bullying policy, Emmet." The principal explained. "If you'd just reported the act, we would have intervened. You were violent in the situation so you are technically both in the wrong."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"So I am just supposed to take it lying down?"
Schwartz stayed silent.
"Got it, you really don't care. I had a cafeteria of witnesses taking videos." I said to him.
"Emmet, I'm not sure Imperium is going to take too kindly to this sort of behavior."
"Oh?" I leaned further forward. "You mean the school that trains you to fight people for a living? They won't take kindly to me getting into fights? Or are you saying you'll sabotage my chances of getting in?"
"Get out of my office and go home, you're done for the day." Schwartz said.
"I don't think you even-"
"GET OUT!" He yelled. The shockwave from it shook everything in the room, no doubt the whole school heard it too. That was his quirk, he could yell really loud. I stood up and knocked over my chair as I left the room and walked to the exit, not even picking up my bag or checking out. The principal told me to leave, he can explain it if he wants.
I walked home, but I took my time to breathe and calm down. At one point I stopped at a park and because school was in, no one was there. I seized the opportunity to just sit in the middle of the place and yell. It was a big park with a ton of trees so while people probably heard me, it was better than just being in public.
When I finally got home, my mom wasn't there. I knew when she got home though, she'd be mad, so I thought I'd do all the chores I could to make up for it. I started with getting the mail and when I placed it on the coffee table for her to see I saw an envelope that caught my eye because it had my name on it. Surely Imperium couldn't have gotten back to me this soon unless I was rejected, right? I looked at the envelope and saw it had Imperium's logo on it as a wax seal, but the return address wasn't the school's. I opened it and out fell a little metal disk onto the floor, a tiny holographic projector. There was also a few pieces of paper inside, but I got distracted by the projector that started playing a recording of the ratty guy who sat behind Calder at the exam.
"What do you want me to say?" He said as he looked at a piece of paper. A faint voice spoke offscreen. "Jesus, alright. Okay, greetings, uhhhh, Emmet Blake."
I furrowed my eyebrows as I watched him skim over the script.
"We have thoroughly reviewed the contents of your written entrance exam as well as, uh, your…." He flipped pages. "Practical exam and while your written score was exceedingly high, we have come to the conclusion that we will not be moving forward with your enrollment at Imperium Academy."
My heart sank. I was certainly disappointed, but not surprised. I turned around and reached for my phone to immediately start looking for other schools.
"However." I turned back around and saw the guy was flipping through more pages. "Due to your incredibly high test scores, we have decided to offer you a position at a subsidiary school that belongs to Imperium Academy. Pathfinder Alternative Hero Education."
I furrowed my brows and stepped closer to the projection.
"What this means is that this fall, if you choose to accept our offer you will be enrolled into the school and you will officially be starting your journey to become a hero." My jaw went slack. "This is a brand new program we have started just this year and we are proud to announce you will be apart of the first ever freshman class at Pathfinder High School."
A smile started to form on my face and tears filled my eyes.
"Enclosed in this envelope you will find all of the necessary forms to enroll as well as a materials list, a parental consent form for the dorms on campus, along with the form that lets you design your hero costume, it'll be fabricated by the team here at yadda yadda yadda…."
The guy started skimming over the lines.
"Welcome to your hero academia, blah blah blah. You have three weeks to confirm your enrollment and orientation is on August twenty sixth." The guy threw the script behind his back and threw back what looked like the rest of a monster energy. "Congrats, kid."
The projection shut off and I was left standing in my living room like an idiot with my mouth open and tears running down my face. I still wasn't entirely sure what this all meant, but I was excited. Until my mom opened the door and I could tell she was pissed.
Alright so maybe I didn't get this chapter out the next day, but in my defense, my bad. Leave a review if you wanna tell me what you think, or drop a favorite and follow if you want. We finally got to the point of the story, guys. Don't leave me hanging. Love you all.
