The Academy’s admin building stood in the center of the campus. Well, not quite center, but center enough for anyone to believe it’s in the center. In reality, it was a few meters off, but that didn’t really matter to anyone— except for the landscape tinker who almost had a vein burst from the realization. Thankfully, she was the only one, and the admin building was still as beautiful as it was imperfect.
It was a tall white beacon that overlooked every other building, park, canteen, dorm, and toilet that sat on the academy grounds, almost like an overseer’s tower that kept an eye on everything and everyone. It wasn’t just symbolically looking over everyone like an eye in the sky. No, there was a security camera on top.
In the gilded tower of opulence and authority that would probably make a certain ‘giant flaming orange eye’ jealous sat the main offices of every department on the entire campus— even the janitors. Or the ‘Facilities Maintenance Division’, as they would like themselves to be called. Why they had made it this way, no one knows. Not even the brochures they leave out on the lounge tables in their lobbies could say.
“This building’s more expensive than the entire campus,” Calvin muttered, skimming the rest of the holographic brochure he picked up.
“Where else are they going to spend it? On the students?” Quinn said, scoffing.
“They’re a bunch of superficial people that try to compensate for their lack of superpower with money and expensive stuff,” James added, similarly ridiculing the structure.
“Don’t be rude. They might just like expensive stuff?” The bespectacled girl beside James said, freezing and shyly looking away as Calvin’s gaze crossed with hers.
The four of them sat around a circular lounge table, on two separate sofas facing across each other. The awkward situation was a result of an unexpectedly crowded lobby and a particularly unimportant sign, weirdly enforced by the one security guard treating the place like it was a military installation.
The said sign was more of a poster, like one of those cat motivational posters from the early 2000s back on Earth, only this one was without cats.
’Superheroes need rest too, take a seat and relax when you can. I need to fucking do that.’ Calvin read the poster, oddly annoyed by the lack of funny cats on it. His attention turned to the front desk, where a number was displayed on a gigantic holographic screen above. “Fifty-nine… how are we in the three hundred’s?”
“Because there’s a lot of people here, Cal,” Quinn explained.
“Yes, thank you, I didn’t realize.” He said, rolling his eyes. Most tables were already filled with others who were about to register, like them. “I thought we were early? How are there three hundred other people here? It doesn’t even look like it.”
“Because they were earlier,” James spoke from the other side.
Quinn gestured to James, “What he said. The others might already be in a testing facility.”
“Testing facility? What do you mean?”
She chuckled, turning to the side while the other two looked at Calvin. The girl beside James helpfully explained, “Our powers get tested for registration so they can suggest ‘good’ courses to take. I—it said so on the rulebook.”
“You didn’t read the rulebook?” James asked.
The pink-haired girl smiled, turning to him with wriggling eyebrows.
“…I skimmed it,” Calvin muttered. He quickly changed the topic, gesturing to the girl beside James. “You aren’t going to introduce her?”
“Calvin, Mara. Mara, Calvin. That one’s Quinn.”
“Efficient,” He replied dryly, “Hi there.”
“H—hello.” Mara stammered, looking away. “I’m Mara. Tomara, but that’s a bit of a mouthful so everyone just calls me Mara, from… well, you know… the name.”
“I’m Calvin. She’s Quinn.” He introduced, gesturing to him and the suddenly prickly girl beside him. “She’s not usually this moody— ow.”
“I’ll tell Ina to beat you up,” She whispered.
Mara looked between the two of them, “A—are you guys together? Or…”
“What? No.” Calvin shook his head.
“Ew, no!” Quinn recoiled.
He looked at her, hurt, “Was the ‘ew’ necessary?”
“Yes.” She answered with a serious face.
“Pft,” Mara giggled, the tension on her face softening.
Calvin raised a brow, “How about you and him?”
“I’d rather die,” James spoke before a right hook immediately hit him on the ribs.
Calvin’s brows raised, wanting to clap at the girl’s obviously practiced technique.
“We’re just friends!” She said with an almost pleading tone.
“I—I see.”
Calvin turned his attention back to the holographic screen displaying the ticket number being registered at the moment. His eyes widened in pleasant surprise as he read the number which practically doubled in the past few minutes.
“That was fast,” He muttered. “What are they testing there anyway?”
“Your powers.” James shrugged. “How strong it is, what it does, how much you can use it. Whatever. They’ll test everything they can.”
“Huh… how’s that going to work? With your power? I mean, I don’t think voice cha— ow!” Calvin recoiled from Quinn pinching his side. “What?”
“That’s rude,” Quinn reminded him.
“It’s fine, I don’t care,” James said with a shrug. “And I have no idea either.”
“How does it work anyway? Do you have to hear the voice to copy it?”
“Pretty much. I have to focus to ‘grab’ the voice. Then I can use it.”
Calvin looked up in thought, trying to imagine it, “So it’s not you manually controlling your vocal cords or something?”
“If it was then I wouldn’t need a voice to copy, wouldn’t I? Also, that would be weird. And gross.”
“Mostly gross,” Mara commented, shivering.
“Still cool, though.” He nodded. “Do you remember voices? I mean, does your power remember?”
James smiled slyly, “Guess.”
Calvin raised a brow as he heard the familiar voice while Quinn’s eyes turned into a sharpened glare ready to take a stab at him.
“Fuck you,” Quinn spat.
“What’s happening? Why did you copy Alden’s voice?” Mara asked, looking between the three of them.
“It’s… complicated,” Calvin was too tired to explain. He grabbed Quinn’s hand, “Ease up, will you?”
“Why do you hate him?” James asked. “I mean, he’s a tiresome person to be friends with and can be an asshole a lot of the time, and he doesn’t really appreciate whatever you do for him— actually I kinda get it.”
“Anyway,” Calvin used his tried and trusted move and went to change the topic, “what’s yours?”
“H—huh? Me?” Mara looked at him like a deer caught in headlights. “I— uh, make things disappear. Oop. I wasn’t supposed to…”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
James snickered, looking at her with upturned eyes. “Wasn’t supposed to, huh? Ow.”
She sent another straight towards James’ ribs. “I— uh… what’s your power, C—calvin”.
“It’s only fair. We told you ours,” James added, massaging his ribs.
“Alden didn’t tell you?” Calvin asked, feeling Quinn’s fiery aura beside him.
“For all the flaws he has, he’s not one to blabber about someone else without their explicit consent.”
Calvin nodded appreciatively. ’There’s obviously something there but I probably don’t want to prod that wasp nest.’
“Still an asshole, though,” James added.
“Birds of a feather,” Quinn said, crossing her arms.
“Pft,” Mara chuckled.
With a wave of his hand, Calvin summoned a [Impervious Pebble] on the table in front of them. He didn’t really have to wave, but he sometimes felt the need due to how boring it was to show off.
“A floating rock?” He asked.
“Congratulations, you have eyes.” Quinn mock clapped.
“An immovable floating rock.”
As if challenged by his words, Mara reached over and prodded the pebble. Seeing that it didn’t budge, she grabbed it with her entire hand and pulled, lightly at first, before putting some effort in her arms and shifting her weight to help. As Calvin had said, it was immovable. And temporary.
“Ah!” She cried, stumbling back to the couch as the pebble disappeared.
“Unfortunately it doesn’t last that long,” He shrugged, summoning another.
“How ‘immovable’ is it?” James asked, curiously looking at the re-summoned pebble.
Quinn scoffed, “That’s the stupidest question I’ve heard.”
“Very immovable.” Calvin answered before the two started again. “I haven’t seen it move or break in the time I’ve had it.”
“How do you know? What did you test?” Mara asked, similarly curious at the pebble.
“Bullets and demon girls.”
“I’ll tell her you said that.”
“She still won’t be able to break it.”
“So that’s how you stopped the guy?” James interrupted.
Calvin tilted his head, “The guy?”
“The green guy. The monster guy.”
“Ah, Driver. Yeah. Although it was less ‘stopped’ and more ‘mildly inconvenienced for a few seconds’,” He said.
“I thought that guy wasn’t ‘one to blabber’? How do you know about that?” Quinn asked.
“About someone else. He still told me—” James was interrupted by Mara pulling him and whispering in his ear. A smirk appeared on his face as he glanced towards Calvin, ”You know you can just ask him. He’s right there— ow!”
Calvin could guess what she was asking, “She doesn’t know? Ald— that guy didn’t tell her?”
“Alden is his friend, not mine. I can’t… be friends with him.” Mara immediately said, a hint of history apparent in her tone.
“I think I like her,” Quinn whispered to Calvin.
He ignored her, answering Mara. “Got kidnapped, stopped a green guy, got rescued. That’s the gist of it.”
“You say it like it’s normal,” James said, opening an article on his holowatch and then showing it to Mara, “It was the kidnapping spree six months ago if you remember. These two were a part of the ones that happened right at the HQ.”
“…so that’s how you know Alden.” She muttered.
“I think we’re almost up,” Quinn interrupted, pointing to the hologram.
“Three-hundred— holy crap, that was fast.”
The four of them scooted over and got up, walking towards the front desk just as their numbers popped up on the large screen. There was more than enough staff to process them concurrently, and so they split towards different receptionists.
The man in front of Calvin looked him up and down for a moment before muttering: “Name?”
“Calvin,” he answered.
“Calvin?” The man asked, receiving a nod. “I swear, I always get the ones with egos… Calvin who, kid? There are hundreds of Calvins in the system.”
“Then look up the one without a last name.”
The man flinched, turning to his computer to type something. His half-opened eyes softened slightly as he skimmed whatever document he had pulled up. “You have a watch, kid?”
“Right here,” He raised his wrist.
The man grabbed some sort of handheld scanner that looked scarily like a handgun, almost triggering Calvin’s fight or flight. The device beeped as it neared his wrist, and the sound of printing hummed from underneath the desk. The man ripped off whatever was printed and handed it to Calvin, gesturing at the hallway to the right after.
“ER Three?” Calvin read the paper.
“Exhibition room. We need to see your powers, kid.”
“It’s not a testing facility?”
“We don’t use that term here. Triggers some kids.” He shrugged.
“Okay?”
Calvin nodded to the receptionist before heading to the hallway, where the three were apparently waiting for him.
“Room?” Quinn asked.
Calvin raised the paper, “Three. You?”
“It looks like we’re all in the same room,” Mara said, showing her own stub.
“I can’t believe they used paper,” Calvin muttered, planning to put it in his pocket.
James nodded, “As I said. Superficial. Let’s go.”
“Who let you lead?” Quinn grabbed Calvin and dragged him with her to the front.
The walk was short as the distance between each room was surprisingly small, although Calvin had an inkling why that was the case. The hallway reminded him of when he first went into the Vanguard HQ, seeing rows and rows of double doors lining the two gray walls of a seemingly unending corridor. Although it significantly was less creepy, courtesy of the abstract paintings on the wall, the glass windows showing the garden on the other side, and the potted plants.
“This feels familiar,” Calvin muttered as they opened and entered the double doors with the plaque on top saying ‘ER 3’.
Bigger on the inside, as expected. Fully light gray, with grid lines on all surfaces, and a large holographic screen on one of the walls, it had a very ‘testing facility’ feel to it.
He looked at the panels, the shine reminding him of a particular game he loved back on Earth. “Hopefully there’s no neurotoxin.”
“Why would there be neurotoxin?” Quinn asked, looking at him oddly.
“Just… feels like there would be,” he said, shrugging. “There’s people.”
The four weren’t the only ones in the room. There were two others: one was spraying water out of their palm, looking tired and sweaty, while the other wore a lab coat and stared intently at the said stream like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Calvin smiled slightly at the sight of the lab coat, remembering his first day in this world.
’I wonder where I left that red lab coat… did Sam take it?’
“There’s the last three,” The lab coat person’s attention turned to them before muttering. “Ah, yeah, that’s good enough. You can go now… wait, you know where the dorms are right? Good. You four, come closer.”
They did as the facilitator instructed, passing by the obviously tired and possibly dehydrated registrant.
“You four comfortable with each other? Yes? Good. I hate putting up the privacy field. Hurts my ears. Anyway—”, the facilitator spoke quickly, pressing a button on the clipboard she was carrying.
A floor panel behind the tree suddenly depressed, falling down as if dragged by an arm. Before they could react, the panel was replaced by one that had uncomfortable plastic chairs on top of them. The ones that had no backrest and seemed like they were on the verge of breaking with how thin the legs were.
“—I’ll call you one by one, the rest go take a seat there. Watch or don’t watch, just quickly come up so we can get this over with and I can go eat at that new stall that opened up in the cafeteria that was serving—”, she paused, catching herself, “—ahem, just take a seat. Except for 331.”
The four of them looked at their papers before James raised his hand, “That’s me.”
“Okay, you three, go.”
The three took a seat while the facilitator pressed a few more buttons on her clipboard. A machine appeared from underneath the floor in the same manner as their uncomfortable chairs did, looking like a karaoke machine but with bubbling green liquid and exposed machinery on the outside. What that machine was testing for, was hard to know.
“How are they even going to test his power?” Calvin muttered before turning to Mara who was sitting a chair away. “Oh, yeah, are you okay with us seeing your power?”
“Huh? Oh— y—yeah, I mean… you won’t really… it’s fine.” The girl stammered, turning away from him. “It’s nothing special, I—I can show you later.”
“Later?” Calvin replied, unsure how to react. ’You’ll have to show it anyway?’
Quinn prodded his side and whispered to him, “Someone’s popular?”
Calvin ignored her and turned his attention back to the front, “What the fuck?”
There was no sound, yet James seemed to be screaming bloody murder at the mic held in front of him.
Veins bulging, throat bloated, and eyes bloodshot; Calvin thought that whatever the machine did to his family and loved ones must have been horrible. His eyes looked towards the facilitator standing beside James, staring between the machine and the boy with manic eyes while her fingers furiously danced on top of the clipboard.
After a few moments, the facilitator stopped the test and made the karaoke machine go away. They went through a few more tests, some seemed simple like copying a voice that wasn’t human, and some seemed… nightmarish.
“How did they even know to make a testing machine like that…” Calvin whispered, looking at the machine that looked like it would swallow your soul from your mouth.
“Tinkers have a lot of time,” Quinn shrugged, resting her head on his shoulder.
After James was thoroughly sapped of his soul, both figuratively and physically, it was now Quinn’s turn to be tested.
Or that’s what he thought.
Quinn got up, walked to the facilitator, whispered a few words, and then sat back down.
“The fuck?” He asked.
“Rich girl privileges,” She winked.
“That’s some bullshit…”
It was now Mara’s turn.
Or so he thought.
“What the hell is even the point of this?” Calvin asked, looking at the two rich girls sitting beside him.
“S—sorry?” Mara whispered.
“For you to know your place, peasants,” Quinn jested, nodding towards the facilitator. “Go, she’s glaring at you.”
“I don’t think it’s me she’s glaring at…” He said, standing up.
He walked closer to the facilitator who began typing at her holopad. Her eyes skimmed the display, relief washing over her face as she kept reading his profile.
“Oh good, you’re not one of those…” She muttered as she read. “Says here you’re a Canon Gimmick? Not a Summoner Mystic?”
“Well, I mean… the pebble doesn’t really do anything other than just sit there,” He demonstrated by summoning a pebble.
“Well, let’s see how well it sits there, shall we?”
----------------------------------------
“Uh… can we stop?” Calvin whispered, drained of spirit for a third time this day.
“Just one more! There’s a really big machine the boys downstairs have been bragging abou—”
Calvin collapsed on the ground, limbs sprawled like a dead jellyfish, “No more!”
She looked at him and sighed, shaking her head and tapping buttons on the holopad. “Kids these days…”
Destroyed remains of machines that were capable of outputting thousands of tons of force were strewn all around them. Just thinking about how much all of those must’ve cost made Calvin shiver, but the woman had assured him he wasn’t, in any way, responsible for it.
“There were supposed to be more tests, but we’ll push that to another day,” The woman’s smile made Calvin’s hair stand on its end. “We can test distance, quantity, time, visibility, flexibility, concept, prefixes… hehehe.”
In desperation, he started rolling on the ground, stopping as he hit a familiar pair of pink sneakers. “Having fun?”
“Help me,” He pleaded to Quinn who was grinning down at him.
She giggled, producing a bottle from her pocket and shoving it in his mouth, “Just so you know, I took a picture.”
Calvin groaned as he drank the slightly sweet drink.
“I’ll send it to Ina later, square off your ‘debt’.” She winked.
He removed the emptied bottle from his mouth, “What debt? I already deleted the photos.”
“How naive,” She said, patting his cheek. “Get up, the other two went ahead to the dorms.”
“They left us?” Calvin sat up, looking at the empty chairs.
“You were taking too long,” She stood up and offered him a hand.
Calvin grabbed it and stood up, no longer surprised by the girl’s strength. “We didn’t test anything other than the immovable part.”
“Was there anything else other than the immovable part?”
“I don’t know, I’m not the tester.”
Quinn nudged him forward, “Let’s go wait for Ina, there’s a park near here we can hang out in.”