“Don’t touch anything unless instructed to,” the servitor told Max in its inhuman voice as it pushed him through the door. “Choose wisely.”

The door clicked shut behind Max. His overheated imagination turned the sound into a death knell.

Max was in a stone, windowless rectangular chamber that felt untouched by time. The air was cool and motionless, as though the very atmosphere was holding its breath. The light was dim, and shadows clung to the corners like cobwebs, thick and undisturbed. Because of his shadow hopping abilities, Max normally found shadows comforting, a ready means of escape. This time he found the shadows creepy.

He felt the hairs on his neck stand up. He had the strangest feeling of being watched, even though he was apparently alone in the chamber. Maybe he was being monitored electronically.

“H-h-hello?” he said, nerves and the creepiness factor making his voice crack. “I’m here to select my school Division.”

“H-h-hello . . . h-h-hello . . . h-h-hello . . . h-h-hello . . .” His words bounced off the bare stone walls and were flung back at him.

“I was told someone would be here to help me pick the right Division.”

“Division . . . Division . . . Division . . . Division . . .”

Other than the echoes, there was no response. Max shrugged. Maybe whoever was supposed to help him was running late. He just hoped it wasn’t Stiletto. She was the one who had gotten him into this mess. Plus, Max assumed the bitch had stolen his fanny pack. He didn’t give a rip about any of its contents, except for the Swiss Army knife his father had given him when he turned thirteen. It was literally the only thing he had left of his father’s. The only interest Max had in ever seeing Stiletto again was to demand the knife back, assuming the Villain hadn’t thrown it away. After that, if he never saw that woman again, it would be too soon. She could go straight to hell, and Max would gladly sell some of his plasma to buy her a one-way ticket.

The room’s only light source came from one of the end walls. For lack of anything better to do until the person he was waiting for showed up, Max approached the light source.

The light came from a mirror. The full-length mirror was mounted on the stone wall, its ornate metal frame nearly invisible in the gloom. The mirror’s glass luminesced faintly.

Max briefly wondered why the glass was glowing, but all thoughts of the glow were erased by his reflection in the mirror.

It wasn’t his reflection at all. Sure, it was the right height and size. But it was as if someone had painted his portrait and then smudged it, making his features blurry and indistinct. His so-called reflection bore him only a passing resemblance. The reflection shifted and blurred, as if the mirror was a lens laboring to come into focus.

Max blinked at his image, scarcely able to believe his eyes as his reflection subtly shifted and morphed. He had spent a lot of time in the Rebel County Public Library, both because he loved to read and because spending time at the library kept him a safe distance away from his mercurial half-brother Ben, to whom books were Kryptonite. At the library, Max had read about the Caputo Effect, a phenomenon where staring at your reflection in a dimly-lit room often made people hallucinate, seeing other faces and even monsters in the mirror instead of their own reflections. However, as Max recalled, the Caputo Effect typically required prolonged gazing into a mirror to trigger such hallucinations. Yet this altered reflection had been immediate.

Just when Max was thinking the stress of being shanghaied to Prometheus Academy was making him lose his marbles, his reflection snapped into place, coming into complete focus. His mirror image, now crystal clear, blinked at him.

“Wow!” he murmured. “Pretty snazzy.” Thoughts of whether he was losing his grip on sanity were immediately put on the back burner. This was the first time he had seen himself in a mirror since the servitors had stripped him of his thrift shop superhero outfit, and exchanged it for the school’s uniform.

Max’s new duds consisted of a dark charcoal jumpsuit, just like the outfit Ravi had worn on the beach of Villains Island. The only difference between Max’s jumpsuit and the fourth year student’s was Max’s didn’t have any emblems on its chest indicating his class year, Unreal power category, mastery level, or school Division. Despite being as comfortable as old pajamas, the jumpsuit was form-fitting, hugging every line of Max’s body like the suit had been painted on.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Normally, Max wasn’t ashamed of his body, but he also wasn’t eager to strut it on a nude beach. However, with the way the suit smoothed over his body’s imperfections and highlighted his strengths, he was for the first time ever proud of how he looked. The suit subtly emphasized the lean muscles in his arms and chest. It tapered at the waist, accentuating the breadth of his shoulders, giving him a more heroic silhouette than he’d ever had before. The suit clearly had been tailored to not merely fit, but flatter.

Max spun in a slow circle, craning his neck to view himself from every angle in the mirror. This new version of Max looked like it belonged in the glossy pages of a comic book, not tucked away in the dusty aisles of Rebel County’s one-room library.

As he checked himself out, Max found himself muttering, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

“Not you, bucko!” his mirror image exclaimed. His doppelgänger lunged at him, its arms outstretched for Max’s throat.

Yelping, Max backpedaled from the mirror, tripped over his own feet in his haste, and fell.

By the time he stopped tumbling, his mirror image was doubled over in laughter. It pointed at Max sprawled on the cold stone floor.

“Ha, ha!” Mirror-Max shrieked gleefully from the confines of the mirror. “You should’ve seen your face! You first years are a riot.”

Max scrambled to his feet. His mirror image had just moved and spoken independently, while simultaneously looking and sounding just like him. What the heck was going on? His instincts screamed at him to shadow hop out of this room, away from this fresh bit of madness.

“Who are you?” Max panted, primed to shadow hop away if the guy in the mirror lunged at him again. “What are you?”

“Are you blind, or just stupid? I’m you, dumbass.”

“No, you’re not. And I’m not a dumbass.”

“Says the moron who tripped over his own feet. The caliber of this school’s students is plummeting. Shadowholme must be rolling over in his grave.”

Max glared at the figure in the mirror, his pulse quickening with anger despite his confusion. “Stop calling me names.”

“Bite me. I’ll say what I please. This is just playful banter, dummy.”

Max felt his jaw clench. “It’s not banter if I’m not laughing. What’s your deal? Are you some kind of AI, or something?”

“AI?” Mirror-Max snorted. “Now who’s name-calling, dumb-dumb? Don’t insult me. I’m not some garbage in, garbage out algorithm. I’m as real as it gets. I’m the you that you’re too scared to be. The you that tells it like it is.”

“That’s bull,” Max shot back. “I want answers, not riddles. Who are you, really? What’s your name?”

“I’m Puddin’ Tame. Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.”

Max shook his head in frustration. This already weird conversation was getting weirder by the second. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You don’t make any sense.”

“Are you going to give me a straight answer, or what?”

“Imma go with ‘what.’ I’m enjoying seeing that vein throb in your forehead when you get angry. I’ll give you a straight answer when I feel good and ready. Assuming I ever do. You’re not the boss of me. And if I never give you a straight answer, what are you gonna do about it? Start crying? Run home and tell Daddy on me?”

Mirror-Max slapped his palm to his head, as if suddenly remembering something.

“Oh crap, I forgot—Daddy’s dead. And a good thing, too, or else he’d be around to see how worthless his youngest son has become.”

That did it. Max’s frustration boiled over, and without another word, he turned and shadow hopped, disappearing from the room.

He reappeared beside a grand fireplace in an adjacent chamber, the one he had noticed when the servitor had marched him toward the mirror room. He snatched a heavy iron poker from the fireplace stand. In a blink, he was back in front of the mirror, the poker raised threateningly.

Mirror-Max gasped, pointing accusingly. “First years aren’t supposed to use their powers without permission!”

“Feel free to tell on me,” Max said through gritted teeth, brandishing his weapon. “But first you’re going to tell me who you are, and how you know about my father. Start talking, or I’ll make sure you have seven years of bad luck.”

Mirror-Max recoiled in fear, taking a step back. “I’m a priceless magical artifact! I’m so ancient, I predate the school’s founding. If you damage me, you’ll be expelled!”

“If you know me like you say you do, you know I want no parts of this place. Being expelled would be a dream come true. So please, don’t throw me into that briar patch.”

There was a flicker of respect behind the fear on Mirror-Max’s face. “Alright, alright, chill out. I was just kidding around before. Put the poker down, and we’ll get down to brass tacks.”

Max kept the poker raised, but nodded for the mirror to continue.

“Look,” the reflection began, a placating tone completely replacing its abrasive one from before, “I’m here to guide you, to help you find where you fit in this madhouse they call a school. I’m the Mirrorkin. I’m going to help you figure out what Division is best for you and your abilities. Among other things.”

Max’s grip on the poker loosened slightly, but his suspicion remained. “You’re here to help me, huh? Then prove it by doing it. Without the insults.”

The Mirrorkin nodded eagerly, his wary eyes on the poker. “Deal. But you've got to be ready to face the truth about yourself. Can you handle that?”

Max took a deep breath and lowered the poker.

“I can handle it. Let’s do this.”