TWO HUNDRED SIXTEEN: The Snake-shaped Letter I

******

216

******

“Um…so I think if you had one of those, or another device like it, hidden behind your shield…and you were being attacked by a Strength Brute who hadn’t felt your skill before…you could get away? With your power being more of an unknown, they’ll probably hit as hard as they can to make sure they break through, but then the device would be there…”

Lucille was holding one hand out flat and lightly punching it with the other, to represent Alden’s shield and the imaginary attack against it. He’d gotten the idea right away, but he was still paying attention and nodding instead of interrupting. It was sweet of her to have spent time since their last fight thinking up a way he might be able to survive an S-rank of her subclass.

Albeit a more ignorant S-rank.

Febri flitted a few meters behind her, inverted himself in an aerial, and kept going. Alden refused to turn his head to see what other gymnastics the Agi was doing now that MPE was over for the evening.

It was one minute after seven o’clock. They’d been dueling the whole time. Alden had succeeded in staying on the floor, taking advantage of the entire class period by refusing to fight in ways that allowed his opponents to land devastating blows against his skill. He’d even surreptitiously preserved a breath mint whenever he got the chance.

He’d wanted to do MPE exactly right today—practicing double preservation with the mints, using a small amount of instructor-approved sand to increase his mobility, and trying to find ways to use his magic without completely fatiguing it. He hadn’t known when he decided to go that route that he was in for the kinds of battles where he’d actually be tempted to claim his skill was shot just so that he didn’t have to keep his cool around certain people.

Not Lucille.

She’d slapped down his final shield of the day, then pinned him to a dome-shaped obstacle in their dueling block more easily than he could have pinned an actual bunny rabbit. But he had no complaints about it. She’d let go the instant he conceded, and now she was trying to cheer him up by telling him he could buy Wrightmade gadgets in the future to surprise S-ranks who really wanted to kill him.

Since their last duel, her braid had lost its hair tie, and she’d worked up a sweat against opponents more dangerous than him. She was dabbing her forehead with her suit sleeve.

I hope she worked up a sweat fighting anyway, and it’s not the pressure of making conversation with me.

She’d beaten him three times. Sticking it out to the end of duels meant a smaller pool of fighters, and that pool was even smaller than usual after all the crap people had pulled this evening. And Lucille had been astonishingly chatty for someone who often limited herself to yes, no, and thank you.

“For something like a single-use punch returner…you would…you could special order it by second-year uni,” she said, brown eyes blinking at him. “If you wanted a stronger one than normal. And that way it would definitely be ready for you to start work right after graduation. For emergencies.”

“Thanks. Getting ideas for gear is always interesting. Good duel. Or…well, it was a duel, and you were good.”

Alden would rather spend two straight hours losing to her than fight some of the others one more time. He looked around at what was left of the class. Several students had been banished, and he’d seen at least one person storm off, despite the instructors warning everyone after their first dueling day that a string of losses wasn’t an acceptable reason to remove yourself from the gym.

There was a palpable tension in the room. Glares, red faces, people hurrying toward friends to mutter grievances against whoever had pissed them off.

“Those Elites letters,” Alden said. “I didn’t expect them to make so many people lose their—”

He was cut off when Instructor Klein stepped away from a conversation with Big Snake, Foxbolt, and Marion and raised his voice. “Class is dismissed! Take care of your suits. Any performance notes we have for you will be in your inboxes tomorrow. I’d like the following people to stay behind for a quick talk.”

He barked out a few names, then, “Alden! ”

What did I do to get named?

He’d been making a huge effort to be unflappable for the last half of the class.

“… Astrid, Njeri, Haoyu, Max. And Lucille and Ignacio,” Klein finished.

It didn’t sound like a group deserving of criticism to Alden. These were the people he’d have called out for their composure, actually.

They all grouped up in the corner where Instructor Klein waited, making eye contact with each other.

[We trouble?] Haoyu texted Alden. [Not fair if we are. Some of the others are so much badder.]

[I was thinking the same.]

A few people lagged on their way out of the gym, no doubt hoping to hear what the instructor had to say to a select portion of the class that didn’t include them. But a raised eyebrow from Klein had them moving again. When it was only the people he’d called on and the teachers left in the gym, the instructor said, “I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to thank you all for your levelheadedness during today’s session. None of you let your tempers get the better of you. Some of you made special efforts to be considerate of your classmates’ feelings on a difficult afternoon. The first hour of Friday’s MPE class will take place in another room. I’m sure you’ll hear about it from the others when they receive the notice. This group will come here instead and work with Instructor Foxbolt and Instructor Waker. Like usual.”

Alden counted heads. Only ten people.

An hour. He’s so much madder than I guessed if he’s taking a whole hour of gym time away from three-quarters of the class.

“Please continue to behave as maturely as you did today. Your instructors do notice, even if we’re sometimes too busy pointing out problems to offer praise. Good work. That’s all.”

******

******

The evening was cool and gray as Haoyu and Alden left the MPE building. They walked to North of North mostly in silence. Alden assumed that, like him, Haoyu was mentally drained and pondering how another school changing the way they handled their own hero program could turn a gym class at CNH sour.

Alden had been curious about what Li Jean was doing earlier today, but he hadn’t expected it to matter too much to him. If a few S’s jumped ship to go to a new school, he’d miss some of them, but he wouldn’t dwell on their absence. It wasn’t like someone moving to a different campus was an eternal separation.

He’d missed some Anesidora Social Dynamic. Or he’d underestimated just how abnormal the group of Avowed teenagers who’d succeeded in entering this program with him actually were. The hero track was full of competitive, obsessive overachievers who wanted to be able to beat others in super-powered combat. They had their own reasons for wanting to get stronger, and there were people in the class who didn’t completely fit the mold. But the mold was still there, and it shaped how they behaved.

He and Haoyu came to the spot where they needed to cross the street to reach the main North of North building. A motorcycle passed, followed closely be a woman skating down the road on a spell that allowed her to glide above the pavement.

“That was a rough class,” Haoyu said. “People warned me before I started school here that it was possible I’d end up in a class that was the tense kind of competitive with each other instead of the positive kind…but I’ve liked our group. We’ve mostly been getting along except for a few people. And then today happened.”

Alden let his fingers fiddle with the zipper on his duffel bag. “Maybe they shouldn’t have done duels today.”

“What if we’d done a team activity, and we’d ended up with the worst ones, though? It would have been a good day for something like the tower climb again.”

“Yeah, that would have been better. They obviously didn’t anticipate a few acceptance letters from Li Jean making everyone lose their minds. Or they did anticipate it, and this was a psychological experiment to see which of us would crack first.”

“I don’t think that was it, Alden. But at least if it was, we won! We didn’t crack.”

“It was close there for a while. Right now, I’d let Li Jean take half of our class, and I’d say good riddance.”

Haoyu turned his head to watch a passing skateboarder. “I didn’t see many of your fights. The one with Reinhard, though… ”

“The one where I tricked him into letting me catapult his ass into a barrier and won? Or the next one, where I refused to shield myself and practiced dodging instead and he yelled about it like a toddler?”

“Second one.”

“He can go rub his face in his own bullshit. If he really thought we owed it to each other to use our full strength in every duel, then he’d be firing his biggest shot at me instead of saving it for higher ranks. Fatigue management is something we’re supposed to be learning. I’m under no obligation to stand still holding a magic target out for him to destroy.”

The success of the Reinhard-catching trap he’d finally managed to try out had been the high point of class for Alden.

Make a giant bird’s nest shield, drop it over the archer’s head, release preservation and act like getting him tangled up in a ton of cordage is the only goal. And then, when he shakes it off and takes a step onto the mess, re-preserve and fling him.

Reinhard had flown headfirst at one of the barriers and hit it hard.

Alden thought it was beautiful. Creative. Probably even historic. After all, how many Rabbits were there in the universe who could beat an A-rank Meister in that particular way?

“Your cartoony idea worked?”

“Flawlessly. He doesn’t take me seriously enough to be careful. I told you it would work on him. I told a couple of people it would, and they all doubted me.”

Haoyu brightened. “Was it funny?”

“So funny. You need to watch it. Reinhard didn’t appreciate it. As I’m sure you noticed.”

By the time the rotation had put them in a dueling block together again, the archer had been steaming mad. Much madder than Alden had expected. He’d likely had a series of infuriating fights in between to stoke his temper.

And as soon as Reinhard had realized Alden had no intention of trying the same tactic a second time, he’d flipped out. He wanted to prove he could blow up that bird nest shield, and Alden denying him the chance was the end of integrity, sportsmanship, and the world.

“Foxbolt cancelled our duel and set off that firework in front of his nose when he started digging at my rank. He’d ignored a text warning from her, she said. And then he tried to tell her it was just some trash talk. I think she was going to say that there was a line for that kind of thing, and he was crossing it. But he went full baby and pointed across the gym at Max and accused Foxbolt of letting B’s say whatever we liked while she picked on him.”

That was when the instructor had gotten fed up and sent Reinhard off to work out his feelings by running laps on the track.

“Max is doing something different when he taunts someone,” Haoyu said. “It’s not venting.”

“Right. It’s calculated. He makes people mad to make them stupid so that he can get them to walk into his spells. I think the instructors look at it like it’s an extension of his powers.”

Reinhard was talking shit because he couldn’t control himself. If Max was talking shit, he was probably controlling himself and whoever his victim was. Alden was grateful that Max so far seemed content not to take that route during the times they’d faced off.

“He’s always polite to me,” said Haoyu. “It’s starting to make me nervous. Like maybe he’s luring me into a false sense of security so that he can get me really good in third year.”

“Thank you so much for the new fear.” Alden started across the street. “I’ll never be calm around him now.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“You’re welcome.”

They entered North of North. It was full of all the usual sounds. Classical music played here at the entrance. Footsteps echoed off glass and marble. A blender whirred. And the climbing wall, just out of sight, rumbled with a simulated earthquake.

Haoyu looked over at the smoothie bar as they passed through on their way to the spa. Cavemanly was drinking something purple beside a sign that advertised the new flavors for December.

“How long do you think Klein is going to make Lexi stay out at the track?”

“I didn’t see what he got sent out for,” said Alden.

“Letting Writher clip Febri after time was called.”

“On purpose?”

“Ehhhhh…” Haoyu frowned. “I know it wasn’t like, ‘I’ll kill you, Febri! Die!’ But it might have been like, ‘Oh, look. Writher’s going to slice off one of Febri’s ears. What a shame.’”

“Under the circumstances, I get how that could happen. But I doubt Klein does. Good thing Lexi likes running.”

“Febri deserves to be on the track himself,” Haoyu said. “He was cat-and-mousing. That wasn’t just trying out new strategies. He was coming at us in all those different ways because he’s thinking about putting together a Li Jean application. He was collecting good drone clips. Like Winston. Only he’s way stronger than Winston, so when he does it…”