I felt my whole body tense as Iraklis sped towards me in a giant boom, cracking the ground where I was standing a few moments ago. I’d been training with Iraklis for seven years, I would be truly useless if I didn’t learn anything through all of that time.

I rushed at him, hoping that I’d be able to take advantage of his momentary confusion and place my hand on him. I was still wearing my gloves of course, I wasn’t going to risk using my power on my friend.

I reached for him using both of my arms, but he used his own arms to block me, choosing to attack with a headbutt, causing us both to stagger back. Unfortunately for me, Iraklis recovered first, flying toward me and pinning me face first to the ground. I struggled in order to move my arms or legs.

He grabbed both of my arms in such a way that I couldn’t move them, and he was on top of me if the weight I felt on my back was anything to go by. I mentally added another point to Iraklis for this fight.

“You can let me go now,” I said, not even bothering to hide the disappointment from my voice. I felt the weight on my back and pressure on my arms go away as he got up, but made no effort to move myself other than turning around to lie on my back.

“Are you going to just stay there then?” chuckled Iraklis as he sat down next to me. He then proceeded to pluck a bit of grass from the ground and let them fall on my face, because of course he did.

“You suck. You know that right?” I asked him as I sat up properly and spat out the grass.

I would begin training with Jensen soon. The day after tomorrow in fact, and we only had two months to shape me into someone that could be a proper student at the most prestigious Heroic Academy in the world.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but you’re definitely overthinking it. It’s all going to work out.” smirked Iraklis.

“I’ll only be sure of that when I’m actually out in the field, being a hero,” I responded, looking and frowning up at the dark sky.

One of the undeniable negatives of living in a city like Heraklion was the light pollution. I’d been camping a few times and the grand array of stars visible through non-light polluted areas was truly impressive.

Still, there was an almost serene atmosphere around us, one that let me truly relax for the first time this past week.

And it was almost immediately ruined when a metal sphere rushed towards his head, Iraklis’s hand shooting out to catch it instinctively. It was the size of a tennis ball, and he clearly struggled to keep it in place, as evident by his shaking hand and grunting.

“You can do better than that, Maria!” said Iraklis. His voice was jovial and a smirk was on his face.

The sphere slowly backed up, going around the blonde’s hands and behind us. We followed it back to its owner with our gaze as we got back up.

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A brunette girl with black eyes around Iraklis’s height was standing a couple of meters away from us, dressed in a casual t-shirt and shorts and three metal spheres were orbiting her form. But that wasn’t the most notable thing about her appearance, not to me anyways.

The left part of her face, from her cheek upward was an extremely light shade of white with a painful looking scar running from the top of her forehead all the way down to her jaw.

I clenched my right hand as memories of that day flash through my mind.

“He-Hello Maria. It’s-It’s been a long time,” I said with a stutter, desperately trying to keep my cool.

Both she and I avoided interacting with each other as much as we could, to the point where she actually tried to change schools in order to not see me, in spite of the fact we lived relatively close and ran into each other more frequently than we’d like. She didn’t end up doing it unfortunately, but that was where we were.

“You want to be a hero Alex?” she asked accusingly, snarling at me.

Suddenly I was twelve years old again. Screams of horrified children were dominating my hearing and I could feel my lungs stop working as I struggled for breaths.

I could faintly register Iraklis and Maria arguing, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying. My legs felt simultaneously weak and ready to carry me out of there as fast as possible.

I saw Maria pointing to her scarred face.

I messed with the seams of my gloves before I clenched my fists. My mind suddenly went blank, and all I could see in my mind’s eye was that scene replaying itself over and over.

Maria on the floor, crying.

Me standing over her with my hand out.

Everyone looking at me like I was a monster.

And so I started running. Not the most heroic thing to do, but I wasn’t thinking properly.

I was just focusing on running and just not stopping.

Without realising it, I ended up at Koules–the medieval fortress and pier of Heraklion. I tried to steady my breathing–thankfully I didn’t get dyspnea–as well as get my head on straight.

“How-How long was I running for?”

Looking down at my clothes, a white t-shirt and black shorts, I realised that they were sticking to me because of sweat. A fact that I could unfortunately feel all too well now that my brain rebooted itself.

After I had relaxed properly, I began walking deeper into the pier, eventually getting close to the lighthouse where there were only a few people, mainly couples and a few others that looked as sad as I had felt. I went even deeper, reaching the edge of it, where I was completely alone.

I looked out at the sea, with the city being visible in the background. All sounds were barely audible here, and the sea smell was invading my senses. It was enough to make me truly relax. You couldn’t really see all the bad things about the city, and the water looked pretty clear that day.

It looked peaceful. Hell, the whole image was so peaceful that I momentarily forgot why I was there.

In spite of everything, I started shivering. The temperature seemed to drop out of nowhere and I crossed my arms around my chest in a, hopefully, discreet way to warm myself. If nothing else, my gloves helped keep my hands warm in this sudden chilly atmosphere.

When did it get so cold?

Two days. Two days and I would begin my training. If nothing else, that would be good enough. I’d get to train next to a professor of Atlantis. I’d get to ask him about the world of heroes and get closer to it than I never could in any other timeline or lifetime.

Maybe, just maybe, these two months would be enough.

I removed my left glove and looked down at my bare hand.

“Who am I kidding?” I muttered to myself.