‘Ever imagined a world where everyone has a super power? Think it would be cool to fight villains as part of a group of heroes, using you amazing unique ability to beat groups of people? Well, you’re wrong. It’s practicality lies only in chaos and violence, the ‘heroes’ usually committing more crimes than the villains themselves.' A young pessimistic girl thought, stating her views off the bat. It's not like anyone could hear her, but her words seemed like they were actively talking to an unknown audience.
The girl wore a bland jumper over a bland shirt and suit trousers, this made it hard to tell she was really a girl. With a long blonde hair waving around wildly behind her as if a statement of how she didn't care. She wore little, if any, make-up and spent no time making sorting out her hair or beauty routine. The only things that hinted this was a girl were two barely noticeable mounds on her chest.
She narrated to herself, for some reason introducing her personality in her head to an unknown audience. It was a very reckless pastime to have though, considering how she paid absolutely no attention to those around her.
Around her was a crowd wearing the same basic uniform. However, with the tardiness and sluggish movements, they resembled a hoard of zombies rather than high school students. That said, some of these ‘zombies’ suddenly disappeared from view, to suddenly have a group popout in the distance. Looking around, some were also airborne, zooming over the larger group walking, and others, who looked more like fleas, leaped over ten story building with little effort, thuds from their impact happening all around. Although the methods changed from person to person, the destination for all these people was the prestigious Eleventh High School.
'I'm part of a world where such a dream is a reality, and, like all good dreams, the reality of it is not the fun and noble assumption of everyone becoming perfect heroes or villains, but uncontrolled elitist world wrought with redundant violence. A constant need for resources, and space for training the increasing future generations, puts more emphasis on war rather than negotiations. This mostly leads to spontaneous wars that have little to no reason behind them, like the twenty that started this year.' The girl developed her thoughts.
'Since every country, including my own, simultaneously fighting it's own super villains and every other country too, 'villains' being rebels or people who disagree with the government, basically a massive witch-hunt based on nothing but gossip alone. International politics is a joke, the only 'politics' that happens is declaring war on another nation, the surrendering of a nation and the winning of the other nation. To reference this, most of the government's money goes into training soldiers and heroes to fight these, as seen by the large facilities and population in military courses. For where the elitism comes into this, if it's not present already, I will explain the schooling system to explain where the claim comes from.' The girl added more detail to her previous point.
'In my country there are only 64 'official' high schools, there are more, but only these sixty four schools can give out nationally accepted grades, references and practically everything else you need to get a good job. This leaves most doing mundane, low-paying jobs. The 64 are decided by an national tournament every four years, and the bottom 32 compete against non-official schools as to continue their official status. Due to competitive nature of this, only the top of the top get into one from primary schools. I'm an example of one of the 'top of the top', ' she gloated, as puffed out her chest. Although, to the people she constantly bumped into whilst walking, this was probably seen as more of a taunt. She was too focused on herself to notice.
'National competition results and actual grades from exams can lead to qualifications for use later on in life. There are many different courses, your place relies on a lot of different factors, but for the majority, their abilities decide it. Even though you do have the freedom to pick, most people barely scrape into a high school, so have little choice.’ The girl flinched, seeing one of her schoolmates cascade to the ground before her.
The schoolmate got up again, wiped themselves off, and left with an apology. The girl continued walking.
‘Where was I? Oh yeah. For an example, if your ability is used for violence, you have the highest chance of getting into the military course. You can get in through knowledge of a martial art, or skill with weapons, but it's an up-hill battle this way. Some courses are less picky though, like I'm in the espionage course, which is one of the more varied courses. You can easily get into it by just being a good actor or something, but I'm in it due to my ability.' The girl, pointlessly, explained to herself again. Recklessly crossing a road full of cars whilst preoccupied thinking. It's surprising how none hit her.
'I managed to get into one due to the sheer amount of control I have over my super power. High schools mainly judge it's candidates based on control and use of a skill in the given area you want to be in. In my case, my ability is in the top 100 of my entire school, considering I’m one of only three first years to have such a high rank, I’m impressive, aren’t I?.' The girl smirked as she went off on a tangent and gloated to herself. although to those watching, she seemed more creepy than anything else.
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It's at this time she finally reached the school gate. The school was towering above the first years, separated into many different blocks, most of which over ten stories. The girl just walking in was one of these first years, she was about ten minutes early so went swiftly to the new-comers assembly. I mean, it's not like she was going to listen to it, she just wanted to seem like it. She got a seat in the third row from front.
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As the assembly started, everyone started miming around her, no matter how loud they seemed, nothing but silence got to her, even as the speaker got on the stage, preaching to the entire hall with ease, not a word got through. She played the stereo in her pocket, and she boomed music which no one seemed to mind, or hear it for that matter. Considering the volume was high enough to damage the girl’s ears, it was strange no one else even batted an eye to her.
'Beautiful. If I just look like I'm listening, I'll be able to completely ignore the assembly and listen to my music. I know they're basically recounting all of the things noted in the student booklet. But since I read that, I don't really care about the motivational speaking, and I don't really care who the student council are, I'm not missing out on anything really,' she thought whilst she looked at those on stage, fighting internally against letting her mischievous smile show.
She said she was top 100 out of the entire school, and she wasn't lying. Her Official rant was 73 out of the six thousand students in the school. She loved it since it gave her freedom far greater than both those higher and lower ranked than her. She got a place in the elite dorm, without the hassle of being conscripted to official duties the top 50 had been. Out of the first years she was second in rank only to 'Thor', who was ranked first in the entire school, so the attention of her classmates was on her to a degree, once they knew who she was that is.
Yes, everyone has nicknames based on their powers or, in rare circumstances, their personality traits. The protagonist was called 'Silence', her official nickname due to her ability dubbed 'silence'. It was an ability she mastered when she was 8, with it, she creates physically permeable invisible barriers which control the frequency and amplitude of sound waves, she could make them one-way, or two-way. She mainly uses it to silence everything around her, hence it's called Silence, and not 'Sound'.
By the way, what she did before was loosely place one of those two-way barriers around herself, which blocked off the sound-waves coming in and out completely. This made her silent to the rest of the assembly and the assembly seemed like silence to her.
Back to the assembly, the muscly guy who acted as the headmaster handed the stage to one of the students. A boy towering above the others, muscles ripped, and all the students seemed to start going chaotic, as chaotic as mimes can be, in his wake. A yellow bolt like light came from his fist as he planted it into the table as he tried to get order.
'Oh, it's him. 'Thor' or something, named due to his ridiculous strength and relative control of electricity to subside his foes, ranked 1 out of the entire school. He's a charismatic first year military course student who took his place pridefully as student council president. I know this because I was with him in primary school, but surprisingly we never really talked there... thinking about it, I never talked to anyone there. Huh...' Silence admitted to herself, as you probably guessed, she was a loner in primary school, yet only wanted to continue her loner status further here.
Seemingly at the end of the assembly, Silence turned off her speaker and destroyed her sound barrier. A rush of noise came into her ears. Silence was used to this though, no visible changes happened facially when she adapted back to the assembly's noise.
After a few seconds of her ears adapting she could now make out a very booming male voice preaching "I will now bring this assembly to a close. Please remember to do this school proud and most importantly have fun with your courses. Sometimes drama is the backbone of culture, but other times it's a pain in the neck. Please keep this in mind when you make relationships, as Student Council president, your pain turns into hassle and work for me, so I'd appreciate you not making my life hell. Thank you for listening, I will now pass back to the head-master."
The speaker changed again back to the original speaker, an elderly man who still seemed in peak form. Supposedly he's the third strongest head-master in the country. "Please proceed to your home-room with your heads high and proud. I declare you all dismissed," the man said before retreating down the side of the stage with his ensemble.
With this all the students stood up and in a randomly ordered manner, everyone managed to get out pretty quickly.