Chapter 29: Peace Before the Final Selection

Violet slept peacefully, her mind at ease and her heart resting. It was wondrous what good sleep could do, she felt so comfortably warm. Violet would have chosen to snuggle with the blanket and bed forever if she could.

Lowering her counter while she slept would sometimes disrupt her usual sleep pattern, nearly waking her up, meaning that despite the length she usually slept, the quality of sleep she received was usually poor. With Violet needing the counter above 50% for the upcoming fights though, she was able to get uninterrupted sleep, something she greatly cherished.

“Violet, Violet.”

In the depths of her slumber, Violet heard someone calling her name. Unwilling to wake up she instinctively pulled the blanket over her head. This didn’t deter the person attempting to wake her though, as Violet felt someone begin to physically shake her. It was light at first, but it quickly became rigorously violent.

“Violet, you have to wake up.”

‘Nooooooo…’ Violet thought to herself as she woke up.

Then Violet felt her blanket get pulled out, leaving her exposed to the cold. Violet quickly curled up into a ball to preserve her body warmth and the comfort that was quickly leaving her. Unfortunately, the person attempting to wake Violet up didn’t stop there and they began to shake Violet again.

“Violet you have to wake up!”

“Nooooooo,” Violet responded. Anything but get up.

“We aren’t in our dorms anymore, the third selection is starting!”

Immediately Violet opened her eyes and sat straight up. She came up so fast that she nearly headbutted Vivian, who was the person trying to wake her up.

‘The third selection already?’

Violet felt her heart race and her breathing quickly rise uncontrollably as she began to panic. She quickly took in her surroundings, Vivian was right, they were no longer in the dorm rooms. During their sleep, they had been moved into an entirely different area without being woken. The room they were in now was dark green, had minimal lighting, and was devoid of any decorum aside from two beds and two hangers with a set of white clothes on them. It looked more like a prison cell than even the worst dorm room.

“Vivian, where are we!?!” Violet asked, panic beginning to creep into her voice.

“Violet calm down it’s ok,” Vivan responded. She firmly, although not painfully, held Violet's shoulders to force Violet to look into her eyes. “The third selection hasn’t started yet.”

With Vivian’s words providing some peace to her mind, Violet began to calm herself. A sinking stomach feeling that had made itself present during Violet’s brief moment of panic began to leave. Violet put her hand to her chest as she began to take deeper breaths.

In a few moments, Violet had become calm again. That calm was quickly replaced with mild annoyance.

“Why did you say that it already started!?!” Violet asked Vivian.

Vivian blushed slightly in embarrassment and rubbed the back of her head. She avoided Violet’s eyes and gave a nervous laugh before responding.

“I uh… I just thought you would wake up faster that way… Sorry.”

Violet sighed and shook her head, she felt a little guilty about her response. She had become more comfortable communicating with Vivian but some part of her still felt awkward. Violet wasn’t sure if she was too harsh to Vivian just now, she did raise her voice a decent amount after all.

“What time is it anyway?” Violet asked. She felt it would be best to move onto a different topic.

Vivian shrugged, “I don’t know, this room has no windows or clocks so it’s impossible to tell.”

“Good morning future stars.”

Violet nearly jumped in shock at the principal's voice suddenly entering through hidden speakers. In such an enclosed area his voice bounced around the walls, causing it to sound as if his voice came from all directions simultaneously.

“I must say I’m in a rather good mood, I only had to use the shock bed function on two applicants. I hope you’ve all had a pleasant sleep. It’s now 12 am, and we’ll begin the final selection in 10 minutes.”

Violet immediately hopped up from the bed she was on. She hadn’t even felt anything wrong with the bed, it looked and felt perfectly normal. But if she hadn’t gotten up earlier then she would have been in for a far more rude awakening than the one Vivian gave to her.

She turned to Vivian and mouthed ‘Thank you’. Vivian shook her head and hands at Violet, seemingly saying that what she did to Violet was still rude.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why we’re starting so early. As heroes you will be expected to also perform night shifts and, on occasion, you may even be forced to work continuously for over 48 hours. You won’t get the privilege of choosing when you have to perform your duties as a hero, so you won’t be getting it during this application either.”

‘I’m running on only 4 hours of sleep or so, drowsiness could have a significant effect on my performance for the final selection,’ Violet thought to herself, frustrated. But, it did remind her to check her counter, hopefully nothing much had changed since the previous time she checked.

64%

Violet sighed of relief inwardly. The past week had been so eventful that she had forgotten how slow her counter usually went up. While Violet almost always lowered her counter while sleeping, her counter would usually only rise about 5-10% a day anyway. For now, she had a decent amount of headway for the final selection, at the very least, she should be able to make it past 2-3 matches before hitting 100%.

“More details about the final selection will be given to you later. For now, please put on the clothes in your room. A doorway will open up in your room in just a few moments.”

The principal then clicked off, causing a moment of static sound to pierce the air. The two girls were left in the room alone again.

Violet walked over and grabbed the clothes that hung from the wall. They were completely plain white and felt like smooth silk. Violet ran her hands across the clothing, it was smooth, cold, and heavy. She then squeezed it in her hand and an audible crunching noise came from the outfit.

‘It’s silk, and it looks like pretty high-quality silk at that,’ Violet thought to herself.

“What are you doing?” Vivian asked Violet, curiously eying Violet’s hand which was still examining the clothing.

“I’m just testing the silk quality. It’s good, really good. I have a lot of clothes made of silk for different occasions at home so I’ve gotten pretty familiar with it.”

As a daughter of the Woo family Violet would often attend parties with other high-status members of society. When she visited other psychic families there were often dress codes requiring attendees to wear the traditional clothing of the hosts. Being that the Woo family was from East Asia, silk was an extremely common material in traditional clothing, so Violet always had a large supply of silk clothes to use.

Vivian grabbed the other set of clothes and began to feel it herself. She crushed it in her hand, attempting to mimic the same actions Violet took.

“It’s really smooth, it almost feels like wax,” She said.

Violet nodded, “It’s pretty high quality. That being said it’s way too big for us.”

Violet held the silk pants in front of her. They were long enough that even while holding the top of the pants up to her navel, the bottom of the pants still reached down to the floor. Not to mention, they were far too wide for her, even Roland might find them impossible to put on.

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Violet looked at Vivian with a questioning look on her face. Vivian just shrugged.

“The principal said to put them on, we’ll just have to put them on,” she said. Vivian then took off her shirt, pulling it over her head, revealing her stomach and, her bare chest.

“Vivian wait!” Violet yelled, pulling her clothes in front of her face to hide Vivian from view. Vivian immediately pulled down her shirt again and her face became cherry red from embarrassment.

“S- sorry Violet,” Vivian said, stammering. She hugged herself as though to hide her torso from Violet, although Violet was still hiding behind her own set of clothes.

“Uh, it’s alright. Just change while I’m not looking,” Violet responded. She gulped uncomfortably as she felt her face turning hot.

Violet then heard the sound of rustling silk from behind her shield of clothes as Vivian proceeded to change. She couldn’t see Vivian anymore, but somehow that made Violet feel even more uncomfortable.

“I’m done,” Vivian said after a few moments.

Violet slowly peeked out from behind her set of clothes. The moment her eyes focused on Vivian, the awkward feeling Violet felt turned into heartfelt laughter. Vivian’s shirt went all the way down to her knees and the sleeves went well past her arm. Yet Vivian also had to keep hold of the pants so that they wouldn’t fall, something that proved very difficult since her arms were far too short to reach outside of the shirt. The massive clothes caused Vivian to look like a misshapen snowman rather than a person.

“Don’t laugh,” Vivian said, although a small smile was present on her face.

Violet took several seconds to stop her laughter, and several more seconds for the following snickering to stop.

“Sorry Vivian,” she said, although she was still smiling hysterically.

Vivian sighed and attempted to walk around, nearly tripping on the long pants she wore, causing Violet to once again force her laughter down.

“Well Violet, I’d like to see you do any bet-”

Suddenly the clothes Vivian was wearing began to shrink. Tiny sparks of psychic energy leaped out from the clothes. Each time a spark left the clothes shrank more and more until eventually, they turned into a tight-fitting set of clothes for Vivian, fitting her perfectly.

“Holy, that was co-”

The clothes then began to merge until the pants and shirt joined fully, becoming a silk onesie.

“Oh my gosh this is ama-”

The outfit then began to change, gray lines and stripes appeared, causing it to look like a sci-fi cosplay. Not only that, the clothes around Vivian’s chest padded itself slightly, acting as a bra.

Vivian stood there with her mouth open for a few moments. Seemingly waiting to see if the clothes would attempt to interrupt her again. After about 10 seconds though it became clear that the changes had stopped.

“That… was so cool!!!” Violet said, bouncing up and down with excitement.

The embarrassing moment from a few minutes prior had completely left the mind of the two girls, replaced with a joyful and comedic atmosphere. Violet smiled and asked Vivian to turn around so she could put on her own set of clothes.

In a few moments, Violet had entered into the massive set of apparel and felt it begin to shrink. It still felt like high-quality silk, it was just tight fitting. Violet felt around her clothes, specifically the area where the pants and shirt had merged, but she couldn’t find a single seam or imperfection.

‘How did they do this?’ Violet wondered to herself. She had never seen or heard of shapeshifting clothes like this before, but a company built on making these outfits could easily be a multi-million if not billion-dollar company.

The clothes didn’t even feel restrictive, despite the tight fit, Violet felt she could move around in them easily. Running, jumping, fighting, the clothes could stretch for any purpose. On top of that, they felt strangely durable. Violet attempted to pull at the sleeves of her outfit but no matter how hard she pulled, the outfit wouldn’t budge.

‘It’s incredible. Considering the sparks during the shapeshifting process these have to have been made using psychic powers in some way.’

Violet couldn’t determine what type of powers were used to create these clothes, so it was likely a unique power. That would also explain why such a creation wasn’t a full-on industry, there would at most be 1-2 people capable of creating these outfits and the price they would charge would likely be astronomically high. Even Principal Sever could struggle to afford enough of them for over 50 applicants, and he made billions of non-taxable income a year. He had likely used connections with the hero community to get these outfits as a favor instead.

“If we pass the application,” Violet began to say, “I’m going to have to ask who made these clothes.”

“Same, these are really cool, although I don’t think my family could afford them,” Vivian responded.

“Yeah, these would be pretty expensive.”

“I’m sure your family could afford them though, right Violet?” Vivian asked innocently.

‘My family…’

The room was suddenly filled with a cold silence as Violet was reminded of her family, and especially her father. Violet had almost completely forgotten about her father over the previous 2 days. Having been surrounded by the first friends she had made in years, Violet finally saw a future where she escaped from her family, and she lived in it in ignorant bliss.

Violet clenched her stomach at the spot where her father had kicked her. She could imagine the pain she felt then as though it were still there.

Vivian placed her hand to her mouth and her eyes widened as she realized what she had done. Hastily she began to apologize to Violet.

“Violet I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring them up like that,” Vivian said.

“It’s ok Vivian,” Violet said. She could tell that Vivian was being genuine. “So that means Roland told you and Mark about my family right?”

“Uh… yeah he did… I’m sorry Violet, he told us behind your back and I listened. I shouldn’t have done it without your permission.”

“Well, if you’re really sorry, then I need you to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

Violet then walked over and gave Vivian and light but heartfelt hug.

“I need you to pass the application,” Violet told her.

“Huh?” Vivian responded, confused.

“Pass the application,” Violet said while separating herself from Vivian, “and meet me at AGH. That will be apology enough.”

“I- thank you.”

In truth, Violet did feel bitter about Roland telling Mark and Violet about her personal life. If Roland had just asked to tell them then Violet would have almost certainly said yes. But she just couldn’t stay mad at them. Violet did not doubt that the three of them had talked about her personal life out of concern and after spending a week together, Violet had nothing but appreciation.

The thing she wanted most in the world now was a life away from her family, a life that she had gotten a glimpse into with Vivian, Roland, and Mark. Even while tainted by the trauma of the second selection, the time spent with her friends was the most valuable time of her life. It was because of them that she knew what friendship was like.

‘I don’t want any of them to fail the application. I want us to all go to AGH together.’

Suddenly, a portion of one of the walls slid away, revealing a hiding passageway. At the end of the passageway, Violet could see two doors and a timer, slowly ticking downwards.

A robotic voice then began to speak, seemingly coming from all around the room and the end of the passageway.

“Please make your way to the two doors at the end of the passageway applicants, the final selection will begin momentarily.”

Violet and Vivian turned to each other at the same time, both looking at the other expectantly.

“You ready?” Vivian asked.

Violet nodded, “I am,” she responded.

Together, the two of them stepped into the passageway. In front of them was the determining factor for getting into AGH, the final selection.

…

Somewhere in the AGH application campus a man calmly made his coffee while a series of monitors displayed innumerable statistics beside him. The monitors covered the entire wall next to him, stretching 15 feet to the ceiling, each one representing an applicant.

‘Knock, knock’

“Come in,” the man said.

The door opened, revealing Principal Sever to be the one who knocked. As usual, his face was twisted happily into a gleeful insanity. There was nothing wrong that one could point out, but there was a slightly unnerving aspect to his face. Surrounding him was a small amount of aura, causing the air to tingle every so slightly.

“Hello there sir, how can I help you?” The man asked the principal casually, unfazed by the slightly unhinged nature of his face and the aura that came off his body.

“No need to be so formal with me Shamus, just call me Sever,” The principal asked. He released the aura that had built up around his body and smiled softly, the unhinged nature of his face suddenly vanishing.

“Hah, if that’s what you want Sever. So, what can I help you with old friend?”

“First off, how are the suits you designed?”

The man, Shamus, turned to the monitors. Each one showed a diagram of a person along with several numbers that held incomprehensible meanings to anyone but himself. After several moments of examining the monitors, he took a long sip of the coffee he had made before answering the principal.

“They’re all working great. You want to use these diagnostics to select the final 10 of the application process right?”

The principal nodded, “Yes that’s right. Will they be durable enough to survive the battles that will happen?”

“HAH! Just cause I quit being a hero doesn’t mean my skills have dulled, if anything I’ve gotten better. The suits will be fine.”

The man was Shamus Eliseo, also known as The Tailor. In the past, he was a hero who had worked with Principal Sever and he even achieved S-Rank status. However, after many years of hero work, he retired 20 years ago at the age of 60, although it was only now that he looked 60. His aging had been slowed considerably due to his massive amount of psychic energy. Currently, he was a designer for top-of-the-line hero suits, a job his unique power was especially suited for.

“I see, thank you, Shamus,” the principal said. “In that case, I would like you to pay special attention to these applicants.” The principal then pulled out a folder with some papers in it.

Shamus reached out and grabbed the folder. He opened it and began to comb through the applicants that the principal wanted to learn about.

“Hmm, first one, Mark Tran. Doesn’t look like there’s much special about him, good unique power, but only a Low B-Rank,” Shamus said, throwing Mark’s paper to the side.

“I felt a presence come from him for a moment during the door test. I want you to see if you can find it again,” The principal answered.

Shamus nodded before continuing on the remaining papers. He pulled out a single sheet of paper from the folder, quickly examining its contents.

“Hmm, these two psychics. Two of the three High B-Ranks. Wu Zhou and Savitri Kamini. These two are certainly promising, I look forward to seeing their performance.” Shamus then tossed these two papers to the side as well. He then pulled out another sheet of paper from the folder.

“Hmm, Jewon Woo, very interesting. I assume you’re still wary of the Woo family after all these years?”

The principal nodded and laughed. Several years prior, during a party that the Woo family had attended, Sever had gotten drunk and made a few comments about the Woo’s. While he had mended his relationship with the head of the family, Sever wasn’t fully certain about the others.

“That family, what a piece of work. Oh, a soul-related unique power, how interesting. I wonder what that’ll look like on the diagnostics. A Mid B-Rank and an all-rounder. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for her.” Shamus then threw Violet’s sheet away and pulled out the final remaining sheet in the folder.

“Now this one…”

The principal smiled widely. Shamus hadn’t been very impressed or surprised by any of the other sheets, but this one had caught his attention. It wasn’t surprising though, considering the background of this applicant.

“Ikenna Ekene, a High B-Rank without a unique power. And…” Shamus smiled widely. “He comes from Greinia.” Shamus then brought his hand in towards his chest, about to throw the paper out again, but Sever stopped him.

“Wait, Shamus. That isn’t all.”

Shamus looked at Sever with an eyebrow raised while reaching for his coffee. Coming from Greinia, a war-torn country, was already quite interesting, yet there was something more.

“He took Jerricho’s test.”

Shamus immediately placed the coffee back on the table. He was well aware of Jerricho’s reputation for having tests that only produced S-Ranks. This was something that deserved his full attention.

“And how did he do on the test?” Shamus asked.

The principal’s smile became unhinged once more as excitement began to infect him.

“Jerricho has never come to me to compliment an applicant or recommend them, until this applicant that is. Jerricho believes that of every applicant that he has ever come across, Ikenna is the only one which he could see becoming an SS-Rank psychic.”

“I see,” Shamus said, “now that is very interesting indeed.”

End of Chapter 29