I stared back but said nothing.
John and I sat beside each other in the school headmaster's office. We had been called for a meeting a mere three hours after we'd arrived on campus, but I wasn't all that worried - at least less than in my previous visit.
There was plenty of normal justification (read: unrelated to NxGen or conspiracy) for lumping us together; I had given John a recommendation on his application, for one. And we were high-ranking enough to warrant a pre-semester meeting.
"Good evening," Vaughn said as he walked in. "It's very good to meet you, John… And Meili, it's good to have you back. Apologies for the short notice."
He sat in his huge leather chair, a characteristic unreadable look on his face.
"I asked you here to be fully transparent with the both of you. I'm typically wary of taking top-ranking transfer students. I could share the whole host of reasons if you'd like - but to be brief, there's a disproportionate negative impact if they're unable to adjust."
Vaughn looked to my right. "I consider myself an educator, John, so at times I'll hand out little conversational quizzes. This is one, right now. Just from that small description, can you infer what I might be worried about?"
"Oh. Um." John fumbled his words, but only for a second. "Nice to meet you too, sir. And yes I can. It's unfortunate if a mid-tier transfer has trouble with the new environment, but at least the problem's mostly limited to them. If they're a high-tier instead and having the same kinds of issues, the whole school can end up getting dragged into it."
It went unsaid that John's late bloomer status also made him seem higher-risk. But even ignoring that, it made sense.
…Wait a second, I thought. Where the hell was this cautious philosophy when you let him come here in the canon timeline?
"Very good." Vaughn nodded. "So you understand why I'm pleased to know that you're familiar with one of our royals. It bodes well for your ability to fit in here. I only hope that you and Meili are friends who speak to each other often, not just a pair of loose strangers who happened to talk briefly while she was in New Boston."
"Uh." John wasn't used to cordial relations with a figure of authority. He seemed confused about whether a serious answer was needed. "Well, we-"
"We were hanging out like it was my second full-time job," I cut in, smiling. "With my student expertise, I can say that John's going to be more than popular enough here, sir."
Vaughn nodded with a faintly amused look, after which something about him relaxed, and I felt my own sitting posture loosen in return.
"If that's the case, we can focus on the purely positive news." He clasped his hands together with a faint clap. "I should certainly mention that I'm very impressed with you, Meili. Summer growth from 4.2 to 4.5 is no small thing, especially considering your work."
I made a slight bow in my seat. "Thank you, sir."
"And you, John. You've grown quite rapidly since you sent your application. I wasn't expecting a new candidate for king until Arlo's graduation. But you're certainly strong enough to compete - if you would like, we could decide the date of your title match right here."
So we're doing it early, I thought, stifling what would have been an odd reaction in the eyes of anyone unaware.
John forgot to do the same, and briefly side-eyed me with a knowing look. "There's no need for that," he replied with a shake of his head. "I don't think I'm fit to be a royal."
In my old life, the closest equivalent would have been the school valedictorian flat-out refusing the title and handing it off to someone else - and even that was considerably less ridiculous.
Our headmaster was made to blink in silence, shifting his head like he'd been struck. "I… Well. I can accept that, John. But I'd like an explanation as to why."
"I need to copy someone else's ability to use mine," John explained. "In a duel against a low-tier, if they choose not to use their ability, I'm no stronger than they are."
(It would go purposefully unmentioned, that he'd trained to consistently 'hold on' to an ability for multiple hours after copying it).
"My opinion is that a royal shouldn't have to rely on anything beyond themselves," he continued. "So even though it's unfortunate, I can't help but feel like I'm lacking. I'm also not experienced with leadership; you can probably tell from my profile, but at my previous schools I was never in a position to-"
"No need for more," Vaughn interrupted, off-balance. "I understand what you're saying - that's more than good enough. I should have known better than to ask you to expound on your personal insecurities."
He coughed into his hand. "I suppose there's not much left to discuss, if the royal spots are going unchanged. Though I should be able to answer any questions of yours. I trust Meili to give you a tour, of course, but if there is anything you would like to know…"
John nodded, and started asking about Wellston City in general. We had prepared his rehearsed royal-avoidance excuse ahead of time, to limit his workload and leave him more time for 'extracurriculars.'
I fished my camera from my pocket, held it at waist height, and snapped a picture discreetly.
My parents always complained that Vaughn was unreachable. They could never understand what he was thinking, they said, which placed him among the most frightening men they knew.
They would more than appreciate the unmasked surprise on his typically impregnable face.
.
.
.
That would have been it, a nice and uneventful start to the semester.
But then, as we were leaving, Vaughn asked me to stay behind.
***Beautiful***
Vaughn hadn't expected a Sophomore in high school, a fifteen-year-old elite-tier, to do a better job than he could.
It was a ridiculous thought. He'd been attempting to think of alternatives, as he familiarized himself with John Doe, but none of them were more likely than his initial impression. He could only conclude that his own student had surpassed him at recruiting.
Meili knew that he wanted a large number of powerful students - at least a larger number than the other high-ranking schools. He had told her as much before the summer, in the same office they were sitting in. She also knew that the main obstacle blocking Wellston High was its limited number of royal spots, because strong students simply wouldn't come if they couldn't expect to be king or queen.
That's a generalization, evidently, he thought to himself.
John had been a 4.1 when he'd first applied: a nice addition to their ranks, but ultimately nothing transformative. His sudden growth to 5.2 had been a shock… but the true surprise was that he had absolutely no interest in being a royal.
In other words, Meili had recruited a massively powerful student who wouldn't occupy one of their three precious slots, the same goal he'd been pursuing and failing for a whole summer long.
Meili was also the savvy and overcompetent type - an understatement. She'd worked a corporate internship over the summer, and she'd chosen to become a doctor at fourteen years old. She was precisely the kind to help her superiors, unasked, waiting patiently for her reward without ever explicitly requesting one.
Vaughn stared, examining her as she gave a (very likely censored) recounting of her internship experience. He stopped his sigh.
In truth, he often found her type irritating - she reminded him too strongly of his time working for The Authorities. But he couldn't deny the benefits of initiative, and Meili had ultimately accomplished what he had failed to do.
He tapped a finger to his desk, gaining her attention, and cleared his throat.
"...You've done me a favor by bringing John back with you," he told her. "If you have a preference of reward, Meili, please tell me what it is."
She stared at him, seeming surprised and almost confused, which sparked a suspicion that he was somehow misunderstanding her. It immediately vanished, though, once she gained the look of satisfaction he'd been expecting.
"John's lack of arrogance shouldn't be attributed to me," she demurred smartly, straight from the book. "Though I do have a request. I have the feeling that Biology and Chemistry classes are wasted on me, given my experience… so I would like it if I could spend my time doing lab work with Darren instead."
Vaughn considered it. He recalled her profile, the various teachers' evaluations, and how Meili was purportedly the perfect full-package student. Some of them seemed practically infatuated, given their evaluations: "She can go to any university in the world."
Saying yes would entail lowering her class time by two hours, every day for a whole year. But even then, she truly wasn't asking for much - if she already possessed the course knowledge, where exactly was the harm?
"I'll talk to your teachers," he said. "They're likely to approve."
"Really?" The girl smiled a textbook smile. "Thank you so much, sir! I really appreciate it."
"Early celebration is unbefitting," he said, slightly quickly. A vague dissatisfaction caused him to add a caveat: "You will have to take placement tests for the credits, which match or surpass the corresponding final exams in difficulty."
"When will that be?" she asked.
"Before schedules are fully finalized," he answered. "Likely Monday morning, tomorrow."
Meili nodded but slumped a little, her smile shifting toward a grimace, in a fine performance of difficulty. She was a very, very good actor.
As though she really thought the tests might pose an issue, as though her score would be anything but one hundred percent.
***Beautiful***
Meili: ## So that's how I end up spending my morning on six hours of tests. Still worth it but bleh. ##
Meili: ## Our headmaster really thinks I brought John as a present for him. ##
John: ## Probably because it's true. ##
Alicia: ##
John: ## I used to wonder like, why's this girl being so nice to me? ##
John: ## But it was your scheme all along for a four-hour school day. ##
Meili: ## … ##
Alicia: ## You guys are being so dumb. ##
Alicia: ## Gonna kick myself from this group if I have to listen to your humble bragging for the rest of the year. ##
Alicia: ## It's BS ##
John: ## You can just write Bull and Shit lol. ##
John: ## See above. ##
Alicia: ## If only my headmaster didn't vaporize half my vocabulary. ##
Meili: ## Sucks but you should be glad you're not here with us in all honesty. ##
Alicia: ## ??? ##
John: ## Because the freshman fighting tourney is right now. ##
Meili: ## The whole school keeps shouting insane things at the fighters. ##
John: ## Yea, some girl was shrieking like crazy. "Make him a vegetable! Fuck him up!" ##
Alicia: ## …Could be worse. ##
Meili: ## You should try announcing yourself as queen to all the first-years when everyone knows there's a level 7.0 girl in the tournament. ##
Meili: ## And as queen I have to referee. Very fun. ##
Alicia: ## Oooh. Forgot that Seraphina's a first-year in all honesty. But is that really how the queen title works? ##
Meili: ## I'm the queen for today, yeah. Because technically she hasn't had the time to 'challenge' me yet. ##
John: ## But you can still give up the spot, right? Make her do the refereeing. ##
John: ## You can just announce that you're not queen anymore. ##
John: ## Not like she's going to have fun throwing a singular punch per match anyway. ##
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Alicia: ## … ##
Meili: ## Huh. ##
Meili: ## Now that you mention it… ##
…
I put down my phone and turned to Arlo, who had been glancing at me (judgementally) from the lawn chair next to mine.
He raised an eyebrow. "We are meant to be refereeing, you know."
In the wide and open schoolgrounds in front of us, the first round of the tournament was still ongoing, in the form of a dozen evenly-contested matches. Seraphina had concluded hers fifteen minutes before. There were other fights that had ended almost as long ago, from which the grassy lawn had darkened in large moistened splotches.
"Sorry - I trust you to do a good job, Arlo," I said. "I was just thinking… with Seraphina participating in the tournament, the outcome is basically a predetermined joke. Not one of her fights is going to last even a single second."
Arlo typically didn't like my critiques of school tradition, but he would never deny the obvious. "That may be true," he admitted, "but what would you have us do instead? Disqualify her?
"No," I answered. "I think I'll give her my title right now, so she can referee in my place. I was going to wait for her to win the tournament, but now it feels like nobody benefits from her participation."
Arlo frowned.
"Seraphina needs to prove her strength unambiguously to be queen," he reasoned. "Which should involve defeating her predecessor. I know there are videos of her, but I'm not sure…"
"I'm sure everyone at this school has seen them by now," I quickly said.
I'm not going to willingly fight someone who can stop fucking time.
"Also," I gave him a significant look, "I'd like to minimize the time I spend placing myself above the strongest girl in the history of this school."
By now I knew how to work with his sensibilities. "I can understand that," Arlo said, smiling wryly.
When the first round of fighting was over, when the heavily injured first-years had been carried off to Darren's (unfortunate) care, I raised my palms to the sky and activated my ability.
The result was a thick crimson flagpole. With my enhanced senses, I felt a whole school of eyes begin to rest on me – the bruised and cut-up freshman in the reddened field, the upperclassmen watching from the outdoor sidelines, even those eyes watching through windows.
"The tournament will continue shortly," I began. "But before that, I'm going to say a few words about my demotion to Jack."
Seraphina's eyes, in particular, widened.
"As of today," I said, "I am only a semi-official placeholder, and after resigning I will never have been queen. I could instead wait to be dethroned. I could delay until an official match. That way, the official records would include 'Meili vs. Seraphina' as a title match, and I would be able to call myself a former queen of Wellston by technicality. I would do so on college applications, in job interviews, on and on for the rest of my life."
I cleared my throat. My body enhancement extended even to my vocal cords, the strength of sound they could produce.
"But I won't do that," I continued. "Because I am not deluded, I am not self-confident to the point of arrogance, and I can see when I am undeserving. I understand that Seraphina Galanis ought to be the queen of Wellston - from the very beginning, starting from the first millisecond of the year. I am very strong but not the best, and Jack is therefore my proper place."
I turned toward the freshmen.
"That's everything about me. Now, my request is that you first-years consider yourselves in the same sense I have: where is your proper place? An instinctive answer might be, 'at the top,' because many of you ranked highly in your former schools. But I ask you to remember that Wellston is among the strongest boarding schools in the world, and will only grow stronger in the years to come."
Seraphina was approaching, so I waved at her, and de-manifested my claws.
"Today's tournament, the next week, and the next month will serve as lessons for where you stand - learn from them without arrogance, without self-delusion. Have a realistic assessment of who and what you are."
Applause started a few seconds after the end, but it wasn't wild or passionate, just the normal amount of expected clapping after a speech by a royal. A moderate reception, in response to a moderate, milquetoast, ideologically plain statement… just as I had planned.
In my freshman year, I had essentially presented myself as this world's equivalent of a single-issue voter. I was someone whose views on most things were assumed to be safe and culturally average - with the sole exception being my issue with excessive violence, which I had taken more action against than anyone else.
Even that strong conviction had sort of fit with my image as Darren's medical assistant, as the one always working in the infirmary. I could quietly drop it without incurring much questioning or controversy. So, for my second year, my plan was to let go of my single issue and become a total centrist. I planned to act as the middle-ground, mostly-inactive Jack who rarely got involved in any policy at all.
My self from a year ago, or even three months ago, would have never taken this course of action. The same speech I had just given would have included a strict warning against 'going too far,' and a reminder that "after high school, attacking your opponent after they surrender is a criminal offense." I would have made the practical, level-focused argument against brutality: "a school where students suffer weeklong comas is a school with slower ability growth."
The difference in priorities came from my success over the summer. I was in a position to do a hundred times more good through lab work, research and other extracurriculars than by influencing a singular school, no matter how prestigious and powerful it was.
I had earned the right to look away for a moment.
It was with these thoughts and justifications that I abdicated my lawn chair, allowing Seraphina to take my place without a fight. She swept her purple ponytail behind her shoulders and said a stiff thank-you to me. I didn't know if she remembered my months-old promise, to give up the queen position without resistance, but it didn't matter; every eye had moved to her.
They were all captivated by her power - I was out of the spotlight either way.
Seraphina sat down with her back straight and knees together, like a literal queen. Then she started her speech. She was the strongest student at Wellston High, one of the strongest beings in the sector, all at age fourteen. And if the students ever got bored with her, there was Arlo right beside her as king, heir to the most powerful clan in the city.
'Meili Strauss' was really just his lapdog, an uninspiring third place, uninteresting in comparison.
Just as planned, I thought. Not a single person turned to look at me as I walked away, heading for the infirmary.
***Beautiful***
"Excuse me?" Darren hissed in disbelief. "Look, I'm a bit too busy to be humoring stupid pranks."
"The candies give you a second ability," the black-haired boy repeated, shaking the jar of candy in his hands. "I'm an expert. My ability is Aura Manipulation."
"John and I have been reverse-engineering them together," Meili added. "The candies are secret intellectual property of NxGen, so nobody's supposed to know."
Then why the hell are you making me complicit? Darren thought. In… in whatever the hell this is?
"I don't know what you're up to," he said, "but I want no part in it."
The two kids smiled at each other, then at him.
***Beautiful***
One day earlier…
Wellston City's main airport connected directly to a metro station, where Alicia parted ways from the group.
They arrived at her platform first. After deciding on tentative dates for some plans, Meili and John started for a different part of the station, while Alicia waved goodbye, smiling.
She made sure they were fully out of view - not due to distance but a wall - before she stopped faking cheerfulness. There was no more risk of her envy showing. She didn't want to ruin what was, by any metric imaginable, a period of triumph for both of them.
"Three months ago in May, I would have paid an enormous price to make things go like they have… Something like ten years of my life."
That was what Meili had said, a few days ago, to which John immediately agreed.
Alicia was far from being able to say the same. She'd had her fun, spying and conspiring and planning, working on a plot so far beyond her station that it made her head spin when she stepped back and saw the whole of it.
But her dread for the coming few months hadn't changed. She was still a low-tier, still riding the train back to Agwin High on her own.
.
.
.
It was Sunday evening, the night before the semester started, but half of Agwin hadn't returned to campus. Alicia inferred this from the vast majority of unlit dorm windows, the minority scattering of bright and glowing squares on the walls.
The main school building was also dark. That was, aside from the cafeteria, where she saw groups of students eating through the glass. She started walking toward it, and then remembered that she had real things of value in her suitcase and backpack - not the usual junk that she could risk being stolen or ruined.
So she made a cynical detour to her dorm room closet. Then she headed to the cafeteria to get dinner.
You have to call it a dining hall instead of a cafeteria, she corrected herself, passing a familiar poster in the hallway.
The poster was a crowd of school-relevant words, with terms like 'gym' and 'cafeteria' crossed out in big red marker. Meanwhile, the proper synonyms of 'gymnasium' and 'dining hall' were marked with bright green checks.
It was part of a recent push to make students use all the high-tier words for things, as to 'better fit' the rank of their institution. But everyone saw through the official reasoning, and understood that it was clearly compensation from their insecure headmaster, for the reality that they had lost most of their prestige to Wellston High School.
If only that were the extent of Wellston's effect on Agwin. If it were just that tiny language quirk, some self-inflating and unearned chest-beating, Alicia might have felt fine about the coming semester. She might have even looked forward to it.
But the high-ranking students had to cope with their decline. And the most common thought was that lower-tier scholarship students were to blame, or at least emblematic of the weakness dragging Agwin down.
As if scholarship students were the ones losing Turf Wars matches.
Alicia could imagine the ways she'd argue back, given the chance. ("Did you know that Wellston accepts more scholarship students than we do?"). Speaking up had seemed more feasible to her over the summer - as Meili kept considering and using her input.
Still, after returning to campus, she felt that she would sooner eat a right hook than have an elite-tier eat the blame.
…At least I'm just one scapegoat out of many, she thought, tapping her eating roommate from behind.
"Who?" Brenda turned around in her seat, voice slightly muffled by her full mouth. "Oh. So you're back, Alicia." She swallowed. "Where in the world have you been?"
Alicia placed her food tray on the table with a huff, smiling. "Because I'm such a bookworm that I have to be back in the dorms a week early."
"Not like that," Brenda said. "You know I'm no better. I just thought it was weird that you weren't in any of the pre-semester classes, considering…"
Continued scholarship tuition was conditional on maintaining a high class rank. But they couldn't rank too high, as that would get in the way of the full-package students, strong kids who also happened to be smart.
Keeping her grades in a narrow range - class rank between six and eleven - took almost as much skill as scoring one hundred on everything. Most of the scholarship students took extra classes to do it.
"I would have gone," Alicia started. "I was out of the sector, that's all."
Her roommate straightened up a bit, seeming surprised. "What, did you drive down into the country or something?"
"Not really. It was mostly just New Boston."
A skeptical look. "You're telling me that you actually went on vacation."
"Thanks entirely to a bargain apartment-sharing deal," she said with a shrug. "But I'll still keep on scoring better than you, don't worry."
"Wha-?" Brenda's eyebrows furrowed. "You're just better at getting a consistent ninety-four percent than I am. If we were at some other school where we could both actually try, then-"
I meant that ironically. Alicia interrupted her with a meaningful glance.
"I think we're both trying pretty hard."
Brenda blinked, her mouth expanding into an 'o' shape.
"Shoot… Right. Yeah, um," her eyes danced, "what did you end up doing in New Boston?"
"I had dinner at some nice places," Alicia said, possibly the only part that didn't need censoring. "And I went to this niche amusement park where the main attraction is falling off your ride. Other than that-"
She'd stopped Brenda from speaking of the taboo grade ceiling, but apparently, they were still worthy of punishment. A shiny red blur flew toward their table at racecar speed, which she tried to stand up and avoid, but that only resulted in a sharp impact to her upper thigh.
Her bones cracked. The red blur exploded into fruit-scented pulp against her skirt.
"Fuck, can you stop going on blabbering like eight-year-olds?" The person who'd thrown the apple barked. "Just eat! Aren't you low-tier charity cases supposed to be starving or something?"
Her roommate was already halfway gone, escaping in some interchanging mix between sprint and speedwalk. Alicia would have done the same - but she grimaced in pain as she tested her leg, realizing that she could only manage a limp.
If I can't run, then…
"Sorry. We're really, really sorry for being inconsiderate and rude," she said, in her practiced bootlicking voice.
"I'm basically done eating. I swear - I promise it won't happen again."
.
.
.
Standing there and taking jabs of humiliation, knowing that you could easily throw a haymaker, was not an easy thing.
Alicia managed it anyway, limping through the dim hallway to the infirmary, by not calling Meili's number.
She knew that she'd get a result she liked, just by pressing the right numbers on her keypad. The same had been true for a dozen other painful and degrading moments. Meili's ability was versatile enough to masquerade as something else - all it would take was a ski mask, and she could anonymously turn any number of Agwin students to hospital paste.
But then what?
Was Meili going to keep fighting on her behalf in university, as a working adult, until they were both seventy and retired? Probably not. And even in the present, was it fair or right to ask for her help, when there were so many more impactful and important things to take up her time?
She's a sophomore in high school, Alicia thought, and she's trying to fix something ten billion times larger than you.
The reasoning, as it had before, made Alicia deal with things on her own. And because her family was low on fighting techniques, she could only resort to her dad's anti-confrontation method, which was best represented as an eleven-word proverb:
"If you're a low-tier, smile politely at the man stabbing you."
He used it a frankly depressive number of times. She mostly thought of him as a sad, fatalist man who couldn't bear to dream of a better life. But her father was still experienced in life, and when the world was depressive, being depressed was also a sign that you knew what you were talking about.
"List what you did wrong for me," the apple-throwing upperclassmen had ordered her, back in the cafeteria.
"We shouldn't have been talking so much," she'd answered eagerly. "If we were going to talk, we should have been quieter, and… And I shouldn't have mentioned going to New Boston in the summer. It was inconsiderate. Some of us didn't get to go anywhere."
"As long as you get it, that's good." He'd smiled in satisfaction. "I'll let you fuck off."
When she was around halfway through her walk of shame, Alicia's stomach growled. Her gut felt like it'd been hollowed out with a spoon. She realized that she hadn't even managed to eat dinner, despite what that cafeteria asshole had shouted, which made her really want to go to her contacts list and search 'Meili,' leave a voicemail message about how she'd been wronged, and watch gleefully as-
Ten billion times larger than you are! she repeated fiercely in her mind.
.
.
.
The cycle repeated a few times, Alicia reaching the edge of her patience and pulling herself back, until she finally willed herself to shut down her phone.
Even then, she might have given in - if not for the surreal, potentially world-shaking research she'd witnessed in New Boston. In particular, ability modification research gave her hope for a (reasonably quick) solution to her level-based problems.
My whole life, this has been it for me, she reasoned. What's another year?
A year was an arbitrary number; maybe progress would come in only six months of research, or even less. She didn't pretend to understand all the nuances of ability modification. What mattered was that they had already seen promising results: back in New Boston, after Alicia consumed a regeneration candy, their homemade ability-gauging device had measured her at a temporary 2.6.
2.6 was massive. The upperclassman who had thrown the apple at her was only a 3.0. And if they could improve the enhancement, or make it last longer…
Weak girl with non-combat ability jumps from 1.9 to 3.5 overnight, Alicia thought. Girl claims to have rare genetic mutation.
She snorted to herself. Maybe don't make it that obvious.
By now the daydreaming and hypotheticals had lost their effectiveness as an escape - the sharp throbbing in her thigh was growing more painful with each step. But the entrance to the infirmary was finally in sight. She reached it at last, swung open the door, and limped to the student help desk.
The on-duty nurse at the desk made an annoyed face, tossed Alicia a kelp-green serum, and waved her off.
A measly ten seconds of treatment. There was no fake caring, no pretend consideration. After a year at Agwin High School, Alicia had never heard the words 'what caused this?' or 'who injured you?'
But she still said a servile thank you, in her father's style, and limped off. The serum's glass was cool in her palms - she turned it, verifying that it was the cheap mass-produced kind, the kind that would drain all her stamina after drinking it.
Meanwhile, right there on the student help desk, there was a clear plastic box of the custom-made blue serums, the ones personally calibrated to make the user feel great and energetic.
They weren't for her.
But I can dream now, can't I?