Time seemed to stand still.

A new plume of dust emerged from the hole, creeping out slowly, as if afraid. Rumbling echoed through the atmosphere, stone crashing against stone.

Any feeling of triumph vanished in an instant.

“Holy shit,” Julia whispered beside me.

All I could do was stare, hands flexing at my sides. I’d acted on instinct. Defeating the enemies below us before they forced us to retreat from the practical exam entirely had been my only concern. Consequences hadn’t been a consideration.

“Holy shit,” I agreed, my voice empty of any emotion.

Sooyoung hadn’t had the chance to make a sound when the ground swallowed her up.

“Maybe she only fell one floor?” Julia hedged.

“I don’t think it matters.”

My mind had gone blank. My body, numb. I tried to force thoughts into my head, to come up with some kind of appropriate reaction. I was supposed to feel sick. Shame should’ve been pressing down on me with the weight of a mountain.

Instead, I’d been hollowed out.

Maybe that was a good thing. Taeyong’s scream might have been heart-rending if I was capable of feeling anything right now, and I didn’t want to discover sympathy for someone like him. With the way he and his partner had been acting, they’d brought this on themselves.

Or so I tried to tell myself. But the rational side of me hadn’t been forced out, and it told me in no uncertain terms: it didn’t work that way.

Even if I had been feeling sympathy, Taeyong would have dashed it immediately; rather than going after his friend to ascertain her safety, he instead twisted around, holding both hands out towards us.

Black orbs of chaos twisted into existence barely a metre away from where I was standing against the walkway’s railing. Something in me screamed, begging me to move. But that voice was muted, subdued.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to.

The power effect grew to barely the size of golf balls before collapsing on themselves with a whine. A nice breeze washed over me, dispersed by the metal walkway.

I blinked. It had happened so fast I hadn’t even had time to get appropriately frightened. If his power had been working at full capacity, that probably would’ve thrown me off the tower to certain doom.

Something finally stirred in me at that, the first dim embers of emotion. Anything was better than emptiness, so I stoked the feeling.

My fists clenched at my sides as I glared down.

“Aren’t you even going to check if your friend’s okay?” I shouted. “Are you that fucking obsessed with hurting us that you’ll just leave her down there? She could be trapped under rubble right now!”

Taeyong launched another attack, and it did little more than blow the dust off my tracksuit. “Because of you!” he screamed, his voice raw.

“You put yourselves in this situation! What is it with you assholes and just expecting us to roll over and let you do whatever you want? Of course we’re gonna fight back when you’re willing to fucking collapse buildings on people. Here’s the reality for you: when you’re a supervillain, the heroes deal with you depending on the level of threat you pose. If you’re willing to employ lethal force, expect to receive it in return, you fucking morons.”

“Well said!” A female voice echoed out.

Multiple things happened at once as multiple power signals abruptly flashed into existence around us.

A blue bubble emerged from the roiling cloud of dust, lifting out of the hole I’d created. Within it was Sooyoung, and even from here I could see she was trembling.

Shadows swirled, and Morphosis stepped out onto the rooftop. Without missing a beat, tendrils of darkness lashed out from his body, wrapping themselves around Taeyong’s outstretched hands. I expected him to resist, but the anger seemed to have drained out of him, and he sagged as his eyes locked on Sooyoung.

A wall of force blasted over the area. In its wake, the world seemed to move in reverse. Bits of dust and debris soared through the air, reforming the destroyed walls, the hole closing itself as the bubble lifted Sooyoung out of danger. The satellite flew back up and fastened itself to the radio tower, cables wriggling around until they reconnected.

And, within seconds, the area was filled with superheroes. Nine of them, in all. Some I recognised, some I didn’t. They didn’t arrive at the same time, nor by the same means.

Effervescence drifted down in a bubble of her own, smaller bubbles like you’d see in a fizzy drink crawling over her body, obscuring her features. The bubble containing Sooyoung rose to meet her, then started gently orbiting around her. The skill it must have taken to save Sooyoung from that distance… ‘impressive’ didn’t do the feat justice. As expected of a Level 7 A-rank.

Would’ve been nice if she’d shown that Sooyoung wasn’t dead a little sooner, though.

A woman dressed like a stage magician—tuxedo, tophat, and all—appeared on the rooftop from nowhere, without a sight or sound to mark her arrival, both hands resting on the white end of her oversized black wand. She brought two others, one flanking each shoulder: Emeraldia stood tall in her crystalline green armour, taking only a moment to look around herself before striding towards Morphosis. Behind her followed a tower of a man with the ghostly projection of a lion shrouding his upper body: Leonine. I didn’t know any of their Levels or ranks.

Next came Sidestep in his signature white duster coat and bandana combo, slouching through an invisible doorway and coming to lean against the ladder below. The Level 8 A-rank let out a yawn that was audible even from up here.

Tectonic looked like a silhouette of grey stone as he dropped from the sky like a… well, a stone. Somehow, he managed to stop on a dime, just inches away from crashing through the roof. The details of his power weren’t known, but most agreed he must be an A-rank.

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Right behind him came the same harlequin-patterned hero who’d picked up some of our surrendered saboteurs on her red-and-black diamond-shaped platform. A second platform bobbed along beside her, occupied by another hero; from the backwards-counting animated clocks on her costume and the way she was gesturing like she was conducting an orchestra in slow motion, I guessed she was responsible for the time-reversal effect knitting the radio building back together. Neither of them were familiar to me.

The harlequin woman didn’t move to join the others below, instead approaching us while she sent her comrade down alone.

“How about we get you down from this rusty old death trap?” she spoke as she neared, her accent some flavour of British.

“Yeah, sure, uh…?” Julia trailed off.

“Harlequin, at your service,” the woman said with a wry smile. “Teacher at Aegis, specialist in helping students come up with creative names.”

Julia smiled back. “Leading them to that which you can’t have?”

“Ha. Yeah. Something like that, you cheeky lil’ bugger.”

I remained quiet, uncomfortable. As Harlequin spoke, I couldn’t help noticing how she kept her voice down.

That was just one factor among many that told me something wasn’t right here.

Aside from the sound of rubble dragging itself back into place, a heavy, tense silence settled over the scene below. There was a clear divide between the heroes; on one side stood Emereldia, the magician woman who’d transported her here, Leonine, and Sidestep. Across from them, outnumbered with harlequin up here talking to us, Effervescence, Tectonic, and the clock woman radiated hostility.

Morphosis stood between them, with Taeyong as his prisoner, an aura of exasperation rolling off him in waves. Even so, he said nothing.

At another time, I might have been ecstatic to see so many heroes up close, filled with the insatiable desire to get on the internet and search up the ones I didn’t recognise. Instead, a queasy feeling was scrabbling around in my stomach. The ones I knew were all well-known heroes, and no doubt the ones I didn’t recognise were just as experienced if they were standing alongside such esteemed company.

They looked like they were going to attack each other at any moment.

Emereldia broke the silence, her crystal helmet facing Effervescence. “What did you think you were doing? We’re under orders not to interfere.”

“Fuck orders,” Effervescence said. She didn’t elaborate.

Emereldia’s armour creaked as she panned her gaze to Tectonic. “You should know better than this.”

Tectonic’s voice was like an earthquake. “It’s only by pure luck that we haven’t had anyone die today. If that girl didn’t just happen to have a power that could save her, she would’ve been crushed under tons of rubble. Here, the candidate had no such power. Effervescence made the right call.”

My breath escaped me like my ribcage had been wrung out by a giant hand. Staggering backwards until my back met cold metal, I slid down to the floor. I thumped one fist down on the walkway beneath me, pain erupting in my hand. Then I did it again with the other, hard enough to rattle the metal. More pain.

The pain felt good, in a twisted sort of way. It grounded me.

An image seared itself into my mind’s eye, like that last moment had been tattooed on the back of my eyelids. The wide eyes, the sheer fear in those final milliseconds. She hadn’t even tried to dodge. Hadn’t even comprehended the possibility of us fighting back like that.

There was no doubt in my mind that she was a horrible person. Willing to ruin anyone to get her way, and utterly shameless about it. The way she and her friend talked, it was like nobody else mattered to them. They might have killed both Julia and I without a mite of remorse.

And if Effervescence hadn’t acted, I could have killed her. They’d pushed us to desperation, but that didn’t change anything. It’d still be a permanent stain on my record, before I’d even got started on my career. One rash decision could have ruined everything.

My fists shook at my sides, and I drove my knuckles hard into the grated metal of the walkway to keep them still.

The confrontation below continued.

“You can’t seriously think we would’ve stood by and done nothing in a situation like this one,” the time-reversal hero snapped, tense as a bowstring.

In contrast, Sidestep spoke as though he wanted nothing more than to have a nap. “You’ve robbed the examinees of a chance to learn, Anticlock.”

“What, exactly, would they learn in your scenario? That the so-called best hero school on earth is negligent enough to let our examinees get crushed to death?”

“Consequences,” Leonine rumbled, his beastly projection baring its fangs.

Anticlock scoffed. “The consequences of horrible authority figures, maybe.”

“What’s done is done,” Tectonic said. “We’ve intervened because it was the right thing to do. If you have a problem with our actions, file a complaint with the principal. I’m sure Herakles would love to hear about it.”

“The vice-principal deals with disciplinary matters,” Emeraldia replied coolly.

“She doesn’t scare us,” Effervescence said, even as her bubbles were spawning and rising and popping at thrice their previous speed.

“Of course not. Why would she?” Emeraldia glanced at the magician girl, who hadn’t spoken a word. “You’re right, Wanda. We’re wasting time here.”

With that, Emeraldia looked up.

I startled as Harlequin let out an explosive sigh. I’d forgotten she was there.

“Don’t worry about this one too much, kiddies. Just a disagreement between faculty. Adults en’t all they’re cracked up to be.” She smiled, but it looked strained. She’d been watching the exchange as keenly as I had. “So, how about we head up and get you two looked at, yeah? You’ve gone through quite the trial.”

“Will we receive any point deductions if we back out now?” Julia asked.

“All things considered, there’re very few things you could do to fail the exam at this point.” Her gaze trailed downward, and her mouth opened, but after a moment she seemed to think better of whatever she was about to say. “You two are among the most impressive candidates I’ve seen today. With the team you managed to get working together, your points will be through the roof.”

The confirmation that there were hidden objectives, and I’d fulfilled some, should’ve had my heart soaring.

Instead, it was somewhere between my knees.

“You were watching the whole time?” I tried to keep the note of accusation out of my voice.

Judging by her grimace, I failed. “If it makes you feel better, we wanted to step in ages ago. There are… circumstances.”

The answer settled on me with the heavy weight of disappointment. I’d known it had to be that way. The tests would be pointless if they didn’t have a way to monitor how things were playing out on the ground.

But a part of me had been hoping they were clueless, that they just genuinely didn’t know about all the cheating going on. It would mean they were utterly incompetent, but I preferred that to the idea they were, for whatever reason they used to justify it to themselves, letting it all happen.

Keeping my breathing steady, I stepped onto the offered platform. It felt like styrofoam to the touch, and it bobbed in the air like it was floating on water, rather than levitating.

Questions about Harlequin’s power churned in my mind, but I killed them off. I didn’t really want to look at her right now, let alone talk to her.

Julia had already climbed onto hers, so we lifted off the moment I was settled. I’d been expecting us to head for one of the viewing windows high on the UCTZ’s outer walls, so it took me by surprise when Harlequin directed us straight up. She kept to what felt like a gentle speed, but the ground quickly fell away, the false sky approaching impossibly fast.

Julia called out, “Hey, what are you—”

But Harlequin cut her off. “Don’t worry about it!’

In the end, I didn’t get the chance to express just how severely (and quite reasonably) worried about it I was. Harlequin picked up speed, and we went shooting straight up until blue filled my vision.

At the last moment, the hologram faded away, and we went soaring up through a dimly lit tunnel, another shade of sky visible far above.