"It's a pleasure to meet you." The bald bastard said as he put out his hand towards me. It's been two days since the incident, and I spent those two days, moping on my bed because of this asshole. Sitting beside him was my grandpa, who unlike usual had a big smile on his face.

The same guy who didn't like having visitors, was suddenly being a little too friendly with that bald bastard. I grabbed baldie's hand and squeezed it as hard as I could. He flinched as he felt the pain slowly creeping up from his hand up to his arm. He immediately started to shake my hand off but to no avail, I only stopped because I didn't want to ruin gramps' mood.

'He was all mad about me having muscle pains, and now he's acting all goody goody? Just who is this guy' I thought as I looked at baldie. He didn't particularly look important, the only thing worth noticing was his suit, and even that didn't look that special.

"You must be Ray." Baldie said as he tried to soothe his hand. "I'm Aaron." He added. He then grabbed a briefcase from behind his back and took out a small stack of paper. He then handed it half of the stack to my gramps, and one to me.

I quickly skimmed through the first one, and the second one, but the last one caught my eye. A very familiar symbol could be seen stamped on the upper right of the document. A capital N, with the words Neo Academy written at the bottom.

I looked at gramps before looking back at the document again. I'm pretty sure we received the same things, but he didn't show any reaction, as if he was already expecting it. I held the paper tightly as I slowly read what was on it.

'Congratulations on being admitted to Neo Academy'

The first sentence alone made me dizzy. I continued to read it, but the more I did the more I thought that this was some sort of scam. 'John Smith is my backer?!' I screamed inside. John Smith, one of the greatest mercenaries in our time. After he retired he built Neo Academy from the ground up. I'd rather cut off my own leg, than be stuck with spoiled richy rich kids for three whole years, but if John Smith wanted me to do so, then I would make an exception, you could say that I was some sort of fan.

That was it. I was sure of it this time. This guy is trying to scam us. I don't know how he fooled gramps, but all of this just seems too good to be true--

"Yup, this'll do" before I could walk off, gramps muttered something under his breath before signing something in one of the documents. "H-Hey gramps, you probably shouldn't sign that." I said trying to stop him from getting scammed.

He looked at me with a confused face, as he continued on signing it. Before I could stop him, the baldie pulled another thing out of his briefcase.

It was a small black disk with a little hole on one side, almost like a donut shaped UFO. He pressed a button on one side of the donut, before tossing it onto our table. Suddenly out of nowhere, a blue light emerged from the hole. Though faint, you could see the light trying to form into something. It wasn't long before the blue light formed into a big floating head. The head looked familiar. A stern looking man who seemed to be in the same age as my grandpa, his giant disembodied head was currently looming over me.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"W-Wha-" before I could question what was going on, the head looked around and eventually stopped to meet my eyes--

"Ray, Congratulations on getting admitted into Neo Academy." The floating head said, as he looked at my grandpa. "Did I scare you?" He said as his voice gradually became more laid back. "You always pull this type of shit that I already knew what was gonna happen" gramps replied in an annoyed tone.

'John Smith?' I was stunned. To think that I would see to meet the real John Smith, though there was still a part of me that thinks this is a scam, it was slowly getting overshadowed.

It wasn't in person, and I was just seeing his disembodied head bicker with my grandpa, but all of it still felt surreal.

"Umm, Sir?" I attempted to get their attention. I was confused as to why the John Smith was backing me, and why I got admitted into Neo in the first place--

"Oh, If you have any questions, you could ask this guy" he said as he pointed his lips at baldie. "I don't have much time left, I should leave now." He said as his head flickered and eventually faded away.

Baldie grabbed the donut device and stuffed it into his briefcase, before facing me again, this time with a big smirk on his face. "Once again, I am Aaron Gnoch. If you have any questions feel free to ask me." He said.

Baldie, or in this case Aaron then gave gramps another stack of documents. His eyes lit up as he read the contents of said documents. Without any hesitation he bolted out of the room leaving me and

Aaron alone.

...

Marcus was currently running to John's estate. It wasn't that far from their run down apartment, so it wasn't that much of a hassle. He was running as fast as he could, the reason being the extra documents that John had sent him.

It wasn't long before he reached it. A tall building, probably the tallest in the city. Looking at it only made Marcus queasy. He quickly made his way inside, where he was greeted by a really fancy lobby.

White marbled floor, marble columns lined the whole place. It wasn't that eye catching, but the simpleness only made it more beautiful to Marcus.

As he made his way in, two women dressed neatly in black suits greeted him--

"We were expecting you, Sir Marcus."

The two immediately escorted Marcus out of the lobby and into the elevator. Other passerbys couldn't help but stare at Marcus, he didn't quite look like he belonged here. He was wearing a dirty white shirt, with a long black coat. He looked like a homeless man who was magically let in.

The three made their way to the 81st floor of the building, there he was greeted by a man sitting on an office chair, in front of him was a large oval table filled to the brim with paperwork.

Marcus ran in and immediately slammed his fist on the table--

"Hey. What's this for?"

Marcus said in an annoyed tone. John who's face buried under all the paperwork lifted his head and looked at him. Marcus then stuffed the paperwork into John's face.

"AH! What was that for!?" John exclaimed as he got out of his seat. "I should be the one asking that!" Marcus replied.

"What? It's paperwork." John retorted as he pushed away Marcus' hand. Annoyed Marcus exclaimed--

"I know that you idiot!"

"Listen John, I don't want you getting into more trouble because of me. Getting Ray into Neo is enough, I don't need it." He added as he placed down the papers on John's table. Written on it was the deed to an estate that John owns. He had wanted Marcus to live there for the time being, in order to escape from the council's eyes.

John looked at Marcus before responding in a serious tone--

"Marcus, I'm doing this because there's something I want Ray to do." He said as he opened a drawer on his desk and from it he grabbed a giant record book.

Opening the book, John made his way to the very recent page. He then turned the book around before showing it to Marcus.

"Class Z, I want Ray to supervise it."