Jacob wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, that incorrigible drunk, but Sonny had passed his recertification. He would have asked the man himself, but he was already locked in his room and neck-deep into a bender, largely incommunicable.

Becca, however, had a lot to say on the topic. Unsurprisingly.

“The Golden Son was near the top of the S-Rank back in the day,” she explained between kisses as they lay on his bed. Her habit of narrating while doing important things used to annoy him, but he’d gotten used to it long ago. “Something like a glass-cannon back-liner. His Blessing, Golden Gun, allows him to shoot magic bullets as hot as the sun that can punch through almost any defense. It’s said that he never missed a single shot after becoming a hero. Then he was lost in the void expedition along with three other S-Ranks and a bunch of A-Ranks, so naturally everyone assumed he was dead.

“I don’t blame him for being a bit, um, traumatized, given what happened. No one really knows what the void is, but the stories… Well, you know about the stories.”

Jacob nodded.

She kept talking. The kissing had been put on hold, it seemed.

When he mentioned branding to her, something he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since his interview with Think Tank, Becca immediately lit up. She revealed several color-coded notebooks that she had already started cluttering up with ideas for names and costumes. Most of it was likely unusably childish, but he appreciated the sentiment regardless, and they agreed to go over her ideas together at some point.

At around 4 in the afternoon, Jacob got a message on his interface inviting him back to Warehouse 4 in the morning. A quick visit next door confirmed that Bob had received one, as well. That implied that there were a few unlucky souls who had been rejected after just one day.

Jacob was unhappy with this. It would have been better if the weaker applicants were allowed to stay for the full duration. That way, the likelihood of getting easy matchups for the duels would be increased.

Can’t always get what you want, I guess.

*****

When they returned to Warehouse 4 at 7:30 the next morning, all the testing stations from the previous day had been removed and replaced with a single pedestal at the center of the open hall, atop which sat a smiling wooden mask painted an ugly bright pink. The seven instructors stood arrayed about the pedestal, waiting for all the applicants to come in.

Jacob counted forty today, so around a dozen had been weeded out. Johnny was still there, though, grinning as always, despite failing all the physicals.

Starman in his silver armor spoke up, quieting all conversation and drawing everyone’s attention to him. “Today, future heroes, you will have the opportunity to test your mettle, both against each other and against us. The first two duels will be one-on-one, applicant against applicant. After that is lunch, followed by a team battle, four-on-four. Lastly, each of you will duel an instructor. Matchups are completely randomized to prevent instructor bias.

“Do note that winning is not all that we test here. Creative use of your abilities is encouraged and will factor into your final evaluation, regardless of a duel’s outcome.

“Some of you might be wondering how we can expect you to fight four times in a single day without becoming too injured to go on. That is where this nifty little trinket comes in.” He pointed with a thumb towards the pink mask. “This is a Relic, essentially a magic item. It’s called the Mask of Friendship. When worn, it will prevent all sentient beings within a certain radius from receiving damage or being killed by other sentient beings. So you’ll be able to whale on each other to your hearts’ content without leaving a scratch. It’ll still hurt, though. And there is an upper limit to the Mask of Friendship’s ability, so we ask some among you to maybe pull your punches a bit.”

Everyone looked at Haden, the giant. He shrank into himself and blushed.

“The Mask of Friendship does not protect objects, only people,” Starman continued. “That being said, applicants will not be held liable for any property damage. We do ask that you don’t intentionally seek to destroy the warehouse more than necessary. Doing this will reflect negatively on your final evaluation.”

He went over to a corner of the warehouse and walked along a square of red tape that had been placed out on the floor, around ten meters across. “This will serve as your combat area. You will find that there are three others set up. A duel ends if one combatant yields or leaves the square with their entire body. As long as a single finger remains inside or is on the line, they are not out. Being in the air above the square is also fine, as long as you are within its radius. Is everything clear on that front? Any questions?”

A woman asked if they were allowed to bring in any outside equipment, and Starman confirmed that they were not, aside from Blessed items. There were no other questions.

That was the end of the walkthrough. They were given ugly gray sweatsuits and white gym shoes to change into in a neighboring building, and twenty minutes later they were all ready to begin. One of the instructors had donned the Mask of Friendship and lounged near the center of the hall.

Jacob was given his first matchup straight away and sent to Square 2. There he found a drab-looking man waiting for him, a pair of huge toads jumping about his feet. Jacob had seen him before on the first day.

He didn’t look particularly athletic, and while his Familiars were much larger than regular toads, Jacob didn’t imagine they would pose much danger to him unless they had some powerful secondary ability. It would likely be an easy matchup.

One of the instructors stood by their square to act as a referee. She was a blonde woman whose hair was going gray, with a stern face and a long, hawkish nose. Jacob didn't remember much from her introduction, but he thought she was an old A-Rank called Red X or something like that.

“Before a duel, it is customary to introduce yourselves and your Blessings, as well as their natures,” the woman instructed. “After that, I will signal when you may begin.”

Jacob nodded and turned to face his opponent. “Jacob Sorenson. Cheat the Hangman. Symbiosis.”

The man managed a hesitant smile, wiping sweaty hands on his pants. He was nervous. Good.

“I’m Aaron Willems. Uh, my Blessing is Knock Knock. It’s a Familiar.”

“Very good,” the instructor said. “On my mark.”

Jacob settled into a low stance, ready to charge. He’d finish this quickly.

Aaron sent his toads forward to cover him, one to his left side and one to his right.

“Begin!”

Jacob shot forward. He didn’t want to use Dash unless he had to, since he wasn’t sure how the Mask of Friendship interacted with self-inflicted damage, so he just sprinted at top speed.

As he made to jump over one of the puppy-sized toads, the ugly creature began to suck in air and inflate, expanding like a balloon until its limbs hung uselessly off its sides and its eyes bugged out like a squeeze toy. Just as Jacob pushed off the ground, it exploded with a loud boom and sent him flying backward. He flipped end over end, flailing, and ended up catching the floor with his hands, fingers digging deep grooves into it. Once he’d stopped, he looked up and found that all of him had left the square except his hands, which hung on stubbornly inside the red tape.

Jacob got back up, making sure not to take both his hands off the floor until he was firmly inside.

Well, that was close. Knock Knock. Name makes sense now.

He jumped a few times to make sure he was still intact. There were only little pinpricks of pain in his legs, where the attack had affected him the most, but there seemed to be no significant damage. So the Mask of Friendship’s effect also extended to Familiars, even though these toads probably couldn’t be considered sentient. They were controlled by Aaron, and therefore it was still considered an attack by a sentient being. That had to be the rationale. Which meant that the Mask could operate through layers of abstraction. Useful.

Jacob reassessed the situation. Aaron had settled into a defensive stance near one of the back corners of the square, his remaining toad placed in front of him to ward off attack. The other Familiar had left a gory goop on the splintered wooden floor where it had exploded. Already, a greenish mass was beginning to rise out of it. Quick regeneration.

Jacob paced slowly towards his opponent while evaluating his options. He estimated that it had taken a bit over half a second for the toad to inflate and explode. He’d need to get within range of it if he wanted to get to Aaron. Half a second wasn’t a lot of time to work with.

But it was enough.

Aaron was clearly not physically gifted. It was likely he had divided his points between Intuition and Mind. There was no way to be sure what his talent was, but it didn’t matter much.

Jacob settled into a low crouch, reached inside himself, and Dashed forward. The world blurred, and in a fraction of a second he shot past the toad, his sickening acceleration ending just as he reached his opponent.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Jacob used his momentum to hit Aaron with a shoulder tackle, shoes squeaking on the floor. The young man went flying clear outside the square and landed on his back with a long, breathy groan.

Jacob glanced back at the toad, which glared up at him balefully, half-inflated. It slowly let the air out of its mouth like a sad party balloon.

“Jacob Sorenson is the winner,” the instructor announced. “Both of you, please take some rest until you are called upon again.”

One win down. Three to go.

Jacob was halfway to where the idle applicants sat on some benches when he realized that maybe the polite thing would have been to help his opponent up. But it was too late now, so he dismissed it with a shrug and sat down. He caught the end of Bob’s first fight. The robot didn’t seem to grasp the rules too well, and made only half-hearted attempts to withstand his opponent. Luckily he was a sturdy sort, and the young woman he’d been paired with was unable to budge him, throwing herself against him until she was exhausted and surrendered.

A win, technically, but not one that would earn him any points with the instructors. Against a stronger opponent, he would have lost immediately. Jacob decided he would need to give the robot a bit of a pep talk. They both had to reach B-Rank, or they wouldn’t get their approval from the Guild.

Jacob suddenly found Johnny sitting next to him, and the handsome young man wrapped an arm around his shoulder like they were close friends.

“I saw you fight, man, good stuff!” he said. “You’ve got some tricks up your sleeve, I can tell.”

“Thanks. You get a turn yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“Confident?”

Johnny’s ever-present grin widened. “Do you really gotta ask? Not to brag, but I’ve never lost at anything since I Snapped.”

“Any guess who you’ll be matched up with?”

Johnny just smiled.

Jacob watched the other applicants fight for a while. Haden defeated his first opponent with a single kick, sending the poor man flying into a wall and leaving a sizable dent in it. The giant spent the next ten minutes apologizing profusely to his winded opponent.

The woman from yesterday with the age-controlling Blessing—Priscilla—did well in her first bout, too. She did laps around another woman who tried to ensnare her with vines. But whenever the vines began to wrap around her, she simply shrank down and slipped free. She eventually knocked out her opponent with a blow to the back of the head.

It came as little surprise when Jacob found out that his second duel was with Johnny, but the young man did well faking shock. They lined up against each other in Square 3, and this time Starman would be the referee.

“I am rooting for you, Jacob!” Bob called from the other end of the warehouse, giving a big thumbs up.

Jacob returned the gesture somewhat half-heartedly.

“Okay, boys, you know the drill by now, I take it?” Starman said.

“Sure,” Jacob said. “Jacob Sorenson. Cheat the Hangman. Symbiosis.”

Johnny grinned, flipping his golden coin over and over. “John Palatini. Favorite Child. Hybrid, Armament and Aura.”

Jacob settled into the same low stance. He had worked out a simple strategy against Johnny after talking it over with Becca the night before. Get the coin away from him.

“Begin!” Starman barked.

Jacob ventured forward at a more measured pace. Johnny didn’t have any physical abilities to speak of, judging by yesterday’s performance, but his luck-based ability was tricky and unpredictable. There was no way of knowing exactly how it would cause trouble.

Johnny made no effort to back away or run. He just stood there, flipping his coin. Grinning.

It was infuriating, but Jacob forced calm upon himself. Letting rage take over would only lead to rash decision-making and a higher margin of error. Error that Favorite Child would no doubt seize upon.

Jacob inched within reach of the youth and darted forward to grab his lead hand. Johnny made no move to pull away, but flicked the coin into his other hand with a movement that was almost imperceptible other than a brief flash of gold. When Jacob tried to pull him closer, his grip slid down until he was only holding an empty sleeve, and Johnny quickly wormed his way free of the garment, standing shirtless.

“You don’t need to go easy on me just ‘cause we’re friends,” Johnny said with a little laugh. “Come on, Jacob. Show me what you got.”

Jacob threw the sweater aside and continued his advance. He tried another grapple and Johnny slipped free just as effortlessly, as though his skin were covered in grease. The young man made no move to retaliate, just playing with his coin.

“John Palatini, I’ll give you a warning for inactivity,” Starman said sternly. “Let’s see some real moves, or I’m disqualifying you.”

Johnny gave a deep bow. “Of course.”

Jacob tried a punch, but Johnny bent down to tie one of his shoes and the attack passed harmlessly over his head. When Jacob went to knee him under the chin, he stood back up, and Jacob only managed to graze him.

Then he slapped Jacob across the face.

There was barely any pain.

But the blow to his ego hurt all the more keenly.

“Oopsie, did that make you mad?” Johnny asked. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, promise.” He danced around Jacob in circles, performing a mockery of evasive actions with exaggerated grunts of effort. He pretended to step outside the square a few times, only to reel himself back in.

Jacob was done playing around. He caught the young man’s wrist, this time hard enough to dig through flesh. The Mask of Friendship kept him from piercing the skin, but his grip was still hard enough that, surely, his opponent couldn’t slip away that easily. He folded his other hand over Johnny’s and pried it open without much effort, swiping the gold coin from him.

It was heavy in his hand. Heavy and warm.

And…

Jacob slipped. He fell backward, striking the back of his head against the floor. He got back up quickly, readied himself.

Only to find that he was outside the line.

“John Palatini is the winner,” Starman announced.

Jacob’s face went hot, and he had to hold back his anger as Johnny came towards him at a light jog, that grin still plastered on his face. The coin dislodged itself from Jacob’s grip and flew straight into its owner’s palm. So he had Embodiment as his talent.

“Sorry about that, friend. You just got unlucky, that’s all. Wanna grab lunch together after my next match?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got something else to see to,” Jacob muttered. “Good game.”

Johnny nodded. “It was. And you’re a gracious loser, which is very refreshing.”

Jacob glared after him as he went to meet up with a few other applicants over by the benches. You have no idea.

Johnny had said that Jacob got unlucky, not that he himself had been lucky. Maybe that distinction didn’t mean anything, but the unfortunate slip-and-fall Jacob had suffered at the end… Was that still a product of Johnny’s good fortune, or was it something else? Was Favorite Child a more complex Blessing than it seemed?

Maybe he let me take his coin. Maybe that was the plan from the start.

Maybe the coin has the power to manipulate luck, good or bad, and he gave me a big dose of bad luck as soon as I had the coin.

I thought I could play him, but he’s obviously been playing this game longer than I have. With any luck, I won’t have to go up against him in the team battles. That Blessing is a serious force multiplier for anyone on his team. I bet the Guild would approve him for a high rank even if he lost all the duels today. An ability like that would be incredibly valuable for a back-liner.

Then came another thought.

I wonder how much it would take to get him on my team, instead.

He tried not to let the loss get him down too much. One or two probably wouldn’t sink his chances of getting assigned at B-Rank.

Probably.

*****

Jacob went to talk to Bob on the benches. Most of the other applicants seemed to have gotten used to his presence now, and he was left with only a handful of hangers-on. Jacob shooed them away, and they were frightened enough by his ghoulish appearance that they obeyed without much fuss.

Jacob sat next to the robot with a sigh. “What did you think of your first duel?”

“I do not know,” Bob replied flatly.

“You don’t like fighting?”

“I don’t like or dislike fighting. It’s just not something I engage in. I do not fight. My Blessing does not fight. I—”

“You clean, got it. But if you want to clean, you need to get at least a decent score in this competition. Otherwise they won’t let you, remember?”

Bob sat silent and motionless for a while, looking out over the applicants engaged in combat. “I understand.”

“Do you, though? Because in your last duel, you hardly did anything. You just stood there.”

“I was thinking.”

“About?”

“My opponent was nice. She was a kind person. I could not regard her as trash.”

“Meaning you couldn’t sweep her away.”

“Correct.”

“You can still shove them out of the square, though. That’s simple enough.”

“I could.”

“You don’t need to view it as fighting. View it as… I dunno, view it however you like. Just do it.”

Bob looked at Jacob, his head slightly askew. Somehow, he looked sad. “I’m not used to that sentiment, Jacob. To ‘just do things’. It is a very human frame of mind, one I cannot seem to emulate.”

“Well, you better get emulating,” Jacob said, clapping the robot’s steely shoulder. “Because they’re calling your name now. Your second duel is coming up.”

Bob stood and moved off to his assigned square, Square 1, which was right next to the benches. He faced off against Haden. They both introduced themselves courteously, but awkwardly.

Then, before the instructor called the start of the bout, Bob looked up at the big man and said, calmly: “I have decided that you are trash.”

The big man blinked.

As soon as they began, Bob lifted his broom high, and the three-meter muscle mountain shot straight up into the air. He hit the ceiling, sending sheet metal and broken light tubes raining down, and fell back down with a heavy thud, leaving an impression in the floor.

Unfortunately, he was still inside the square, and was able to stand back up.

It was an okay fight. Bob wisened up and tried to use Clean Sweep to push Haden out of the square rather than straight into the air, but the big man always dug his feet into the floor and resisted the strong winds. In the end it was called a draw when they were both too exhausted to go on. Evidently using Clean Sweep repeatedly took a toll on the User.

Still, Jacob figured the robot had earned some goodwill with that, especially through his capacity for improvement.

“Did you watch me?” Bob asked when he came over after his duel, supporting himself on his broom like a walking stick.

“I did,” Jacob said. “You listened to me.”

“Yes. I tried to imagine he was trash.”

“I heard that. Very good, Bob.”

“Do you think Becca will give me a sticker?” Bob lifted his sweater to show a whole myriad of colorful stickers on his chassis, from glittering love hearts to glow-in-the-dark stars to anthropomorphic cereal mascots and cartoonified versions of popular heroes.

“I’m sure she will, when you tell her how well you did.”

Bob clapped his hands with joy.

Jacob forced himself to smile. At least he took pleasure in simple things. An easy employee to keep around.

And his innocence could be endearing sometimes. When it wasn’t too annoying.