It took a good ten minutes before Wyland calmed the class down, and after a proper chastising towards Ezekiel, who looked rather ridiculous when cowering to the teacher, the awakening continued.

Liam was up.

“Next is the person back in the line… Who’s the lucky guy, ah?” Liam had a pitiful look on his face as the teacher seemed to almost do a 180 on the attitude. “Ah, Liam… Guess it’s true what they say. Do the quiet ones always get cold feet? Come on up.” Everyone in the class seemed to be caught up in the mood, because for the first time in a while people were talking while he was being addressed.

He nodded, unsure how to feel about the sudden attention towards him.

On one hand, it felt nice to feel like he actually existed to them,

On the other…

“Do you think he’ll turn into an ego?”

“I heard everyone in that district becomes one. Maybe it’s genetic?”

“How’s it genetic, Idiot. We learned that in class.”

“Ezekiel, you’ll protect us, right?”

“W-what!? You guys are crazy!”

The giant monolith of a student raised his hands defensively as his friend teased him on. Liam couldn’t help but laugh at the defensive nature of the kid. Their power would have turned them into a warlord in the badlands. In district three, it was much more important to not be able to die than it was to dish out damage. If you could take a bullet, you were basically set to live the best life. Was this kid really scared of a normal-powered kid like him?

Apparently so, because his laugh shut him, as well as everybody in the class up. For a moment nobody in the class even dared to breath, looking at him as if he’d just pulled out a gun.

…God damnit. He fucking hated this.

For the first time since he came to this school, he decided to act out. His head was pounding, and the stress of the situation was making him a bit irrational. Not to mention, he finally found a student in this stupid class who, by all accounts, could turn him into paste. He could go off the cuff a bit, now. He took a step forward, trying not to look too angry. “I'm not a super yet. You could grab me by the head and rip it off right now, you know? I saw that punch.” The kid seemed about ready to fall to the floor as he spoke, and it only made Liam angrier when they actually did, tripping on their feet and landing on the ground with a heavy thud.

It was infuriating, seeing them lie there.

“Seriously? Wyland here… you don’t see him scared of me, right? He’s not even 'indestructible' you know.” He pointed to the teacher behind him, who looked dead serious right now.

Maybe Liam was taking it too far, but this wasn’t a moment he had ever thought would come. This school, this life, it all seemed too… artificial? He’d seen the way the higher grades acted with their powers… Super strength, super speed, laser vision. He’d seen a kid bend metal with his mind, for fuck’s sake…

But they never acted like they were the hottest shit. In the badlands every last one of these kids would dominate a section of the territory, and yet these freaks just acted like… Like…

Like they were normal.

The way literally every last one of them seemed to treat their powers as if they were a facet of life, rather than a weapon or tool, made him feel like he was the moron for thinking otherwise. He was completely terrified when he had come to this school and saw the upper classes, but these superpowered freaks were treating him like He was the one who was dangerous!? Even if he pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot Ezekiel in the chest until he ran out, Liam was sure nothing would happen. He was completely defenseless towards what they could do, so why did they have that stupid look on their face?

He almost wanted the big bastard to put him in his place, to slam him against the floor until he broke every bone in his body and tell him that’s not how things worked around here. That none of this was normal…

Liam wanted things to be his normal, not theirs.

But that was stupid.

Their was a reason this district was called Utopia, and not the fucking Badlands. Liam looked away guiltily, unsure of how to continue. “Nevermind. Just have some awareness about your… Whatever, don’t actually listen to me. I’m an idiot.” He walked towards the machine, no longer caring about the conversation. That was until he was stopped by a hand. He almost expected to turn and get his jaw removed until he saw the teacher of all people. “Liam… I see that… uh, there might have been a reason you wanted to be last. Do you want some time before you make your choice?” They didn’t even seem mad, just concerned.

The concern he’d seen supers give to children who had lost all hope.

Liam reminded himself that he was in a classroom, and that punching a super in the face was the same as hitting a big red button that says ‘die’ on it. This whole place had almost made him lose his edge, made him think acting out like this wouldn’t get him killed, but… Unlike the rest of these people, Liam was sure that Wyland had been in his fair share of violence, and wouldn’t hesitate to break a bone or two if Liam wanted to throw down. The grip in the man’s arm tightened, and for some reason Liam found that grip to be almost nostalgic.

The calm before the storm.

He pulled away, and surprisingly the teacher let go as well. “Don’t worry about it. I just didn’t want to get run over by the others.” His mood had picked up now, especially since the students seemed relieved about the teacher showing him up. Even Ezekiel seemed calmer, even though he was still on the floor. Funnily enough, the kid’s friends seemed angrier with Liam than the kid himself. The moment of anger passed, and Liam found himself thinking rationally again.

…

Ah, he really messed this up, huh?

The teacher seemed a bit more relaxed, though they still seemed plenty weary. “As long as you’re sure of your decision, kid. I don’t want you whining about your power when you come out.” They had a grin on their face as they slapped his back, and Liam couldn’t help but grin back. “Don’t worry, Jitman. I won’t go off the rails…” He said, reaching towards the door. He didn’t catch the look of surprise of the teacher when he was called boss.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The door shut before Wyland could react, and already the kids were spouting rumors.

______________________________________________________________

Even as the seat strapped him in, and his head was slowly being pulled back, he couldn’t fight off the embarrassment of what had happened. Did he really have a breakdown in the middle of class!? Was he a 10 year old girl!? No, he was 16! He’d lived under threat of having his house demolished his whole life, and he was cracking under the pressure just when he finally had a moment to breathe!? He wished his hands were unstrapped, so he could curl up and die right then and there. The machine didn’t do anything but keep him in the bed, though.

He wondered how his mom handled it. She came back home every day with a smile on her face and takeout in her hands, always ready to talk to him about her day. She had been his rock while he’d been here, and she was the only reason he’d come here in the first place. People had heard of the rumors about Utopia, how they let supers walk around without any supervision, and how most were trained the moment they hit puberty to become the perfect heroes…

But now that he knew the truth it had him so scared he had almost preffered the Ego deaths from his old home.

They were giving kids these weapons, these choices… And they barely even knew the strength they had. He wanted to go back home, to people who were actually experienced in what they did. Even if they weren’t as powerful, or as fast, or as smart… He wanted people who demanded respect from what they had worked for in a city where your effort was the difference between life and death.

But he couldn’t, his mom would be devestated. She had done so much for him to get here, to get a life where he could amount to something more. She had done this all for him, even when he had not asked her too. What bastard son would he be if he didn’t meet up to those expectations?

But he didn’t want to. He was a bastard…

What did he want as a power, what could he get to get him out of this situation?

He didn’t know, all he wanted right now was for someone else to make the decision for him. He wanted them to console his mother, to make friends, to prove to people that this ‘someone’ from the badlands wasn’t as big a piece of shit as he really was… He wanted to be someone that could be that…

No, he just wanted that better someone to take his place in this world.

_________________________________________________________________

“Jitman? Why’d he call him that?”

“It’s what people call their leaders in the third district… It’s for people they respect.”

“I thought it was what you were called in badland gangs when you kill a lot of people?”

“No way, you don’t think…”

The kids kept spouting rumors while the teacher stood silently in front of the door with his arms crossed. This wasn’t anything new to him, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth to see these kids act so prejudiced. He’d been to the badlands before, for a job after a devastating amount of heroes had died there. Surprisingly, he found that the only supers remaining were those that had been there since birth. It was even more surprising to find that each one of them owned their own ‘gang’.

These kids would probably flinch at the word, and Wyland had been no different when he’d gone there. The drugs, the guns, the death… it all made him think of that world as inhumane, barbaric. But slowly he realized those people had to do those things for a reason. They had to be inhumane, else they’d get their lives torn away…

The Ego-deaths…

He shuddered, remembering the scene of dozens of those horrible creatures appearing at once, some strong enough to run through buildings as if they had been made of sand. The horror in his eyes as children years younger than these kids pulled out weaponry that would have been banned in any other district and fired with reckless abandon... They had shot him when he had tried taking them away.

And he had been forced by another super to let them be. There was no talent in it, no gift. Those kids had survived purely through experience, and thanks to them, as well as the rest of the ‘gang’, Wyland had been able to stop the threat from becoming so much worse.

Slowly, as he continued to protect the third district, and people came to know his name… Slowly, he had made a connection with them. He started seeing through their eyes, even when he knew their ways had been inherently flawed. The strong ruled the weak, and the weak kept armed just in case the strong crossed a certain line. He remembered how gang leaders had opened up to him, telling him that they would be killed if they didn’t meet a certain standard with the same casual worry as a teacher in this school talked about getting a pay cut.

He wondered how that could be. Some of them were powerhouses that even Wyland had to be careful with in a fight, so how could the non-powered beat them? That mindset went away when he saw one of the non-super kids drink a purple vial during one of the Ego death purges. They had no power, but they moved like they did, fighting like a demon until they were eventually eviscerated by the creatures.

They fought so bravely that Wyland had had nightmares for weeks after being forced to put their revived corpse’s Ego-Death down.

It had been a show of power he hadn’t seen before in the kid, and it lasted well into their new abominable form. When he’d asked what that was he understood why. The kid had lost his brother during the purge, and used the drug Wyland now knew was called the Shortdragon drug, or skimmer as they liked to call it. It gave low level physical enhancements for about an hour, but they were extremely addictive, and made you lose your rationality by the second. No no one used it unless it was a situation they couldn’t escape without…

Or if they were just planning to kill themselves in a flashy way.

God, that was the other thing...

He fought to keep a frown off his face. Even now, Wyland couldn’t understand the third district’s fascination with death. People would live their lives unafraid of what tomorrow would come, or would kill or talking about killing another person without remorse. They would talk about the Ego death purges as if they had been an average workday, and some had even been impatient on when the next one would arrive, too hopped up on battle lust to consider even for a moment that no horrific monsters appearing from the horizon was a good thing..

Out of everything in that district, their lack of concern over their own lives had been the final straw that made Wyland leave.

He had been born in Utopia, a land of people who valued their lives, especially since they were destined to become the world’s next heroes. It was a calming place and in the end this was where he felt most comfortable, watching these kids live their life like it wasn’t their last. There was peace in it, tranquility… Well, until the staff had decided to throw a kid-sized wrench into the mix.

Wyland sighed in regret, wondering why he had thought asking the school to put that kid in his class had been a good idea.

“T-teacher! It’s opening!”

Well, that was quick… That only took a minute.

The kids braced, and Wyland couldn’t help but facepalm in disappointment as a couple kids went in front of the student Ezekiel protectively. Liam had been right to call out this strange attitude in the children. It was a value trained into them since birth, and for good reason, but still… His mood picked up a bit as the kid pushed his non-powered friends behind him, a look of fear in his eyes, mixed with an ever-so-slight amount of determination.

He’d be a good hero, that one.

He waited patiently as the kid came out of the large machine, and was surprised to see them come out with a peaceful look on their face. Their hair was down again, but this time it was placed to their left side. The way they held it looked carefree, as if from a painting. Suspicious. “Wow, kid… what happened there? Did you get your beauty sleep?” The boy nodded happily, before a hand appeared from behind the door and shoved them aside, earning a couple screams from the class.

Wyland took a stance, unsure if this was just an Ego transformation or something much worse, until the boy fell to the side, showing another person inside the machine. Even in the state they were in, they looked worried about the person they had tossed aside, unaware of what the students were seeing.

“Ah, sorry about that… I… Where am I…”

Liam fell forward, almost hitting the ground until Wyland swooped in to catch them. “Whoa kid… Take it easy. Let’s take you to the nurse’s office as soon as the machine takes note of your… powers.” He noticed the machine was still off. There was no whining gears or the sound of humming like before, and Wyland’s eyes narrowed as he realized what happened.

“Geez kid… No wonder you’re tired. Who the hell has a natural awakening in this district…” The teacher didn’t seem angry, but Liam could hear the lilt in his words. As if they were saying ‘why the hell does this have to happen to me!?’ Liam couldn’t help but grin at that, feeling a bit happy he could get the teacher frustrated. That was until the energy left his body and he went limp.

The whole class had been silent until one of the girl spoke up, the one who had her bag ruined with water.

“Natural?”