Chương 30: The Send-Off

Four groups of two hundred students sat in plastic chairs on the school lawn. One group wore graduation caps, most of them smiling and waving, their parents standing on the side and snapping pictures. The other three groups were sneaking glances at their phones. The sun was bright and burning, literally, with how it had turned their seats into sauna benches, and the heat caused clouds of sweat that wafted around in a sour breeze.

Sitting in the Freshman group, John wondered why the whole school had to show up for graduation. For six hundred of them, the ceremony was at least a year from being relevant. All the Freshmen agreed that they were the worst off of anyone. Graduation was still a lifetime away, and soon they would have to watch the same Seniors who kicked them around every day celebrate and throw their caps.

Case in point, John could hear the whispered moaning and bitching from a group in front of him, and then another group behind him. Adrion sat next to him in their row of seats, and he'd already complained to Claire about the wasted summer vacation. Their Vice-Principal (whose name John never bothered trying to remember) kept going on and on with the same speech.

The man would pause every so often, letting everyone see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it was always a fake-out, and he would launch into an even longer story than the one he'd been crawling through before. The Principal still had to take his turn, later, and then their graduating Queen. Still, compared to the torture everyone else seemed to feel, John was only weakly annoyed. It was a nice change, compared to when he'd suffered twice as much as anyone every school day.

The difference was that, for him, a lack of things to do meant an opportunity to think about the rising questions he hadn't had the time to work through. Meili was weird. That was the first thought that came up. Earlier on, he'd guessed that she was normal for a girl of her age and level, and it was his ignorance of high-rankers that made her seem bizarre. Now the opposite seemed more likely, three weeks in, that Meili wasn't normal no matter what level you compared her to.

He'd seen the first piece of evidence just a minute after meeting her. She showed him her corporate nametag. It should have been obvious, then, because fifteen-year-olds didn't work at massive Biotech corporations for a summer, whatever their level. There were other things, too. You weren't supposed to insult and disrespect a god-tier into beating you to the brink of death, no matter what kind of crazy plan you had, no matter what your reasons were.

You were supposed to get upset when someone weaker than you started closing the gap, but she'd only had positive reactions to his newly earned 3. 9. You weren't supposed to invite your low-tier friend, almost three levels below you, to live in your high-rise apartment for the summer. Even if she was smart, even if she had a surprisingly useful ability, it wasn't something you did. Having a low-tier friend to begin with, at Meili's level. It just wasn't something you did.

He'd met Alicia when the two girls invited him along to an amusement park. It was the type that specialized in rides that were purposefully light on safety, where falling off and using your ability was half the fun – an impossibility for him until recently, so he had obviously agreed. The Ferris wheel had been the opposite of relaxing. The sitting compartments had no floors and optional seatbelts, with deep water below to catch anyone who fell out.

He and Meili had taken turns pushing each other into the open air and reeling themselves back to safety, practicing quick retractions and extensions with Devil's Hands. Meili never pushed Alicia out of the compartment. John had thought that maybe she felt left out. He'd mentioned it, having Alicia join in, and the two girls simply stared at each other and laughed.

"No way," Alicia had said.

"I would break something just by hitting the water." John had realized, then, that he'd been assuming Alicia was an elite-tier, assuming Meili was normal. It would've been right, the correct assumption, if Meili saw things and did things the regular way. The vice principal finally finished his speech – " I hope you'll grow beyond this neighborhood, this city, and experience how broad this world can be…" – and John clapped absentmindedly, still inside his own head. Meili isn't a normal high-ranker, he thought.

That doesn't mean she has to be wrong. He'd been considering her suggestion, the idea of leaving for a different school, and the objective answer was that there was nothing left to keep him. What was New Bostin High School, really? John could finally see it from above, see it for what it was. It was an old brick building, broken lockers and cheap lunches, a principal he would surpass in just a month. Teachers he could never respect or like.

Not when he knew that they had sat there and watched, never trying to help, never making even the smallest attempt. It was eight hundred classmates who hated him, who he hated in return. He was going to be a high-tier next year, but what kind of high-tier would he be if he let a group of jealous mid-tiers decide how he was feeling, to the point of frustration and self-hatred just by seeing their faces from afar? They were still influencing his emotions, even now. All of a sudden, the whole school started laughing.

He realized after a second that their principal must have landed a joke. But the unexpected laughter triggered an old instinct, a momentary certainty that the laughing was for him. Laughing because he was so fucking funny for trying to be a real person like everyone else, when he'd been nothing but a sandbag for years.

"…John. You good?" Adrion was staring at him, leaning in close. John blinked a few times, realized that everyone was back to whispers, and wiped the miserable look off his face.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," he said quietly.

"Uh, well, I just wanted to ask because you…" Because my face looked like someone with a mental ability was attacking me.

"I know." Adrion tipped his head a tiny amount, seeming apologetic. John took a quiet breath and calmed down.

"Hey," he said.

"You got the email I sent out, right? With my new ability profile."

"It's in my inbox, yeah." Adrion smiled and shook his head.

"I still can't believe you did that. Sending it to the whole school, I mean. Nobody's checking their school email for another two months, but everyone's gonna go crazy when they see that 3. 9." John had used a pre-existing filter functionality to find every account with a New Bostin High School email tag. From there, he simply sent an email with a picture of his ability profile.

"It wasn't everyone." John smiled as well.

"There were five people I didn't send it to." Adrion tilted his head, seeming confused.

"Really? Who? Why five people specifically?

""It was Jabari and Jasmine," John explained.

"The twins. Then Isabel G, Mateo, and Oliver." Adrion blinked at him. There was only one particular meaning when he lumped those five names in a group, and both of them knew it. Five people that, at one time or another, John had sincerely wanted to kill.

"I don't get it," Adrion said.

"I know you'll always single them out; it only makes sense after what they've done. But I thought that meant you would want to send them the news before everyone else. Like, read it and weep." The principal finished speaking, handing the mic to their graduating queen, and the air got loud with applause. John waited for it to die before shaking his head.

"I would have done that, yeah, but there wouldn't be a point. They're all moving schools next semester."

"Really? That's great! I… I guess I just never heard." Adrion went silent for a while.

"Weird. I walk past Jabari and Jasmine's house all the time, and there's never been a 'for sale' sign." John let out a small laugh.

"That's because they don't know they're leaving yet. None of them do. I'll give them the bad news after the ceremony's over." When John was seven, around the time when everyone else got their abilities, his classmates started getting obsessed with a website called FightCalculator. The site did just one thing, calculate your chances of winning using the data you gave it, but that was enough for everyone to love it.

Later, when he was ten, some of his classmates were getting strong enough to try fighting multiple people at once. Everyone bought the paid version of FightCalculator to access the group-fight mode. John had eventually gotten interested as well, wondering if the presence of a 1. 0 could swing the result of a group fight, wondering if even a cripple could contribute. Unfortunately, he'd chosen to plug his numbers into the online calculator during history class, where Mateo had a clear view of his computer screen.

Ten-year-old Mateo had announced delightedly to the whole classroom what John was doing, and they'd laughed him out of the building. Outside the building at lunch, they'd had a great time punishing him for his ignorance, classics like human horse and kickball. Currently, in the small field behind New Bostin High, fifteen-year-old Mateo couldn't announce much of anything. The boy coughed, failed pathetically to say something, and choked on his breath while his ribs strained and creaked beneath John's shoes.

John pressed and eased off, listening to his enemy's breath hitch with pain, and used a massive black hand to slap Mateo into the school. Being twins, Jabari and Jasmine had the same body enhancement ability. They were already rushing him, coming from behind like he knew they would, turquoise aura pumping their arms and legs. John deflected two laser blasts from Oliver while pretending to be unaware, then spun around and transformed his hands into layers of spikes.

The twins were readying straights to the back of his head, but instead impaled themselves on their own momentum. They shrieked in pain instantly, nailed into place by spikes on their limbs. Then John whipped his hands in the same undulating motion he would use to spread out a sheet, sending them headfirst into brick wall while ripping out chunks of their flesh. Meanwhile, Isabel had been trying to get him with her Slow Touch ability, circling around for an opening. She finally touched his claws and shouted a "yes!"

of victory. Oliver launched another beam right as she did, one he'd charged up to max power, but John stepped around it unimpeded. Slow Touch would have brought him down to sub-cripple speeds if it made contact, and the beam would have turned his kidney into a hole. Then they might have had a chance. The last two stared at him in horror instead, and John grinned at them. He'd already known the claws weren't a 'true' part of his body.

The enhanced senses are underrated, he thought, aware that Mateo kept trying to pull himself up into a crawl. He walked over and landed some stomps on the elbow to put a stop to it. Meanwhile, Isabel positioned herself in front of Oliver, trying to buy time, and kept yelling "charge faster!" at the top of her lungs. As if it would make any difference at all. The calculator gave him a 96. 8 win percent, and that was ignoring the information imbalance, how long he'd been planning for this day to come.

Five mid-tiers, no stronger than 2. 7, against a 3. 9. Oliver's hands shuddered as he poured all his remaining aura into a single thick mass, finally launching it with a shout of effort, but John caught the beam head-on, letting it bury itself in his enormous palm. The kind of purposeful carelessness that belonged to the strong. When it fizzled out, he morphed his hands back to normal and waved them in front of his face. Any injury had disappeared.

He approached them in silence, his hands snapping into two pitch-black blades. It was better to be silent, fighting multiple people alone, to avoid a talking competition of one mouth versus five. Now one mouth versus two. Isabel tried to run, but she wasn't very fast, so he immediately caught her and slashed her limbs at the joints. She flopped to the grass as a heap of screams, and he stomped on her ankles to be safe. John turned around, making eye contact.

Oliver shuddered, still clasping his hands to charge a beam. The result was nothing but a faint spark as the boy tried to back away, and John thought, o ne mouth versus one.

"Do you know why I asked you all to come here, Oliver?" John asked.

"Here specifically?" He stepped forward until they were two paces apart, then looked at the back of the school building, gesturing to the area around them. They stood in the spacious divot behind New Bostin High, brick wall on three sides, the only place you couldn't watch from a window. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"I bet you have an idea," he said.

"It was the same in middle school, too. Always a convenient little area behind the building that nobody else can see. You know something's probably going down, some poor guy getting his guts vaporized, but you can't report what you can't see. I used to thank the architects for the fun every day." Oliver tried a smile. It was fake, false confidence.

"It was fun. We all had a lot of fun, really. I wish I could go back then and savor it, before you ruined it for everyone."

"Uh huh." John grinned, a real one.

"I just think it makes a nice circle, you know? The five of you once made me want to kill myself, right here, but I'm alive. I think it's a fitting place for my first win as a 3. 9." Three. Point. Nine. He emphasized the syllables. Even Oliver wasn't dumb enough to miss that 3. 9 was large, a higher level than the school king's, and the boy stuttered in place like a laggy video.

"What? You… You're not a 3. 9. You're not!" Oliver said.

"That's impossible. You were a 3. 0 like a month ago!" John looked around, at the four immobile bodies lying in the grass.

"You think I haven't figured you out, John? You're not even that strong! I've never seen you use that ability before, but it's a perfect counter for all of us! You went and paid someone to copy it!" He smiled and shook his head – even perfect countering could never let a 3. 0 do what he'd just done. John made his hands normal and slapped Oliver in the face.

"I need you to admit it before we're done here," he said.

"We'll be doing this for a long time if you don't recognize the truth."

"Come on," Oliver snarled.

"You're stronger than me, fine. That doesn't mean you can pretend to be stronger than Zirian! Knock me out, get your rocks off, and move on!"

"You can't order me around anymore!" John struck Oliver again, this time leaving a rash of pink skin.

"I'm a 3. 9, and I'm going to keep asking you what my level is. Answer wrong and I multiply by four." Slaps were supposed to be a good way to shake someone out of denial. And more was better, when it came to things like this – so it was four slaps, each a thunderclap against Oliver's cheeks, rocking his head back and forth like a pinata.

"What's my level?" Oliver spat at him.

"3. 0! You're not a fucking 3. 9! You're just not! Whatever you do, it's not gonna-" John hit him again. Over and over, until both cheeks were a skinless crimson. It took a while, and his wrists got slightly sore, but John multiplied four by four.

"What's my level, Oliver?"

"You're… You…" Four to the third was sixty-four. Somewhere in the forties, Oliver's already-limited vocabulary shrank to 'you're', 'a', 'three', 'point', and 'nine.' The boy crumpled to all fours in agony at sixty. Still, Oliver's eyes were wide open with active pupils, which meant he hadn't blacked out.

"This doesn't have to happen again," John said slowly, leaning down.

"I'm going to rule this school next year, and I'll want to do this to you every time I get the chance. But I don't want to waste my time on a bunch of weaklings, either, because it's unbecoming for someone at my level. So it's up to the five of you to make the smart choice for everyone. The smart choice. You get it?"

"... I-... I don't-""I'm telling you to leave!" John shouted louder than he ever had.

"Get the hell out! In two months, when I rule this school, I don't even want to see a picture of you! I'm not going to let you be a person if you stay, and why would I let you? Imagine I see your smiling face in the hallway, because you grew your level or made a new friend. I start thinking, why should I let him have that? Why should I let Oliver smile, when he never let me have that, not fucking once?"

"......."

"Today was a sample," John breathed, Devil's Hands extending his oxygen.

"This is what it's going to be like, for any of the five of you who stay here. Beg your mom and dad to move, find a boarding school, start homeschooling, I don't care. Just leave. And make sure to tell everyone what I told you. This'll be every day if they're here when the summer's over." Now Oliver had no vocabulary, only nods. Just nodding and whimpering, over and over again. He barely even cried. He just knelt there defeated in the grass, rightfully, because that was what he was.

John finished the job with the other four, playing some kickball to drive his message home. They tried playing dead, but he was able to sense that they were conscious enough to have heard everything. He also texted a report to The Authorities, saying that there'd been a fight behind the school building – because he didn't actually want them injured permanently. Then he simply left, circling their brick box of a school to the parking lot and bus stop. He soon passed an old crabapple tree.

It was the same one he'd once reclined against, immobile, and wished he were dust. It had become routine since second grade, that same crawl through the grass to find a tree to support him. How long had it been, most times, before someone took pity on him and carried him to the infirmary? Thirty minutes, sometimes an hour? A few more steps, and the magnitude of his triumph set in. It felt like winning a decade-long war, the kind of victory that wiped out all your previous defeats.

Now the worst years of his life were void, nonexistent, in the same way that rounds one through nine meant nothing if you knocked your opponent out in the tenth. He felt more powerful, like he could fly if he chose. A normal step was strong enough to shake the ground. The whole landscape surrounding him seemed miniature, like a figurine cabin in a snowglobe, one he could watch from above. The parking lot and school, the playground and yard behind it, the woods beyond.

It was all too small and weak to touch him, because he was in the sky. In the physical, non-metaphorical world, he was a third of the way to the bus stop. Walking through the empty parking lot felt like the most pleasurable experience of his whole life. He could have enjoyed the high for the entire day, maybe a week, but a voice brought him down to earth.

"John?" He was caught off guard. Graduation had ended over an hour ago, and there should have been no one around. Instead, he turned and found his father's black minivan ten parking spots away, one of the only cars in sight. John thought it was a hallucination at first, some post-fight condition, but then it was obviously real. He hadn't noticed from a distance somehow, but now it was too late, and his dad was already leaving the driver's seat.

He was aware, all of a sudden, of things that hadn't even been in his vision. The fact that his shirt was dyed red, his face painted wet. The amber glow in his eyes, still active with a copy of Meili's ability. The body enhancement was the source behind his powerful steps, letting him spring forcefully against the ground. John fumbled for words in a panic.

"I didn't start it this time," he said. It was halfway true. He had lured them into a private area to provoke a fight. But it was Mateo who'd obliged by throwing the first punch, wanting to humble him.

"Don't lie to me." His dad stared him in the face.

"Please."

"I'm not!" John protested.

"Mateo tried to attack me, and then it was five versus one." His dad exhaled and shook his head.

"How do you think I knew to come here? It's because I installed a recorder on your phone, John. I heard everything." William opened the trunk of their minivan, tossing him a hygiene kit and a change of clothes.

"Clean up and get changed. I think we should talk." The car had been silent for ten minutes when they finally parked. There were no words or music, and John found it unsettling that his dad went quiet after saying they should talk. It implied that his dad wanted to say something, but couldn't. William Doe's career was writing novels, some with hundreds of pages of dialogue, and he knew that his dad could think of a thousand ways to say something if needed.

It meant something different compared to an average person if his father had no words. The hike up the narrow stairwell to their apartment was also quiet. John's shoes were still slick, squeaking with every step. The squeaks were louder on some steps than others, and he saw his father flinch at a particularly bad one. They had been arguing over this kind of thing recently. His father had been going all around the city, trying to find him 'mental help' or 'therapy.'

But John knew the facts: late-bloomers like himself were likely to be weak-minded or passive, even unwilling to stand up for themselves and claim the respect they deserved. He was doing well. Still, when he started rinsing the blood from his body in the shower, it was clear the high from earlier was gone. At least his plan's success wasn't in question. As long as his dad didn't make him take back what he'd said to Oliver and the others, then victory was a sure thing.

When John finished and left the bathroom, his dad was sitting at the dining table with a laptop. It was playing familiar audio, the shouting and fighting from earlier, though the speaker's rendition of his voice sounded like a different person. His father paused the audio. They stared uncomfortably until his father apologized for the secret recording. John admitted that his own dishonesty justified it a little.

"We never make progress when we try to talk about this," his dad said.

"So I decided that we need some rules. We're both going to stay seated, first of all, and nobody's going to yell at anyone. No raising our voices or interrupting." John gave a half-nod and sat down, even though he was skeptical. They had already fought half to death on this.

"I don't think you'll get it whether I shout or whisper, but okay."

"Well. I need to know exactly what happened, first of all," his father said calmly.

"You want the five of them to leave, is that right? And you did whatever you could to make that happen?"

"Not really." He shook his head.

"I held back like you've asked me to."" John. Slapping a boy sixty consecutive times is holding back?" He didn't respond to the obvious question. He held eye contact until it was his father who had to look away.

"Could you have held back more, then?" William asked.

"Could you have hit him fifty less times, or tried to be gentler, started with a negotiation?" Really? John rolled his eyes.

"They'd be less likely to leave that way," he replied.

"I'm not even completely sure now, but if I did any of that, they wouldn't leave. Is that what you want, Dad?"

"John-""Answer the question. Do you want me to give out small beatdowns over and over, ten or twenty times in a row, until they can't take it and leave? Isn't it better to beat them down all at once, a single afternoon, guarantee they're too scared to do anything but listen?" For a while, his father stared out the window with a grimace. John knew he was right. In the first place, the only way he knew to get people like Oliver and Isabel to truly run was by damaging them to the point they lost all confidence.

A regular beating was never going to cut it.

"What I want," his father said, "is for you to feel like you can do neither and be happy. The real answer is neither. But I understand we don't live in that world. Especially after listening to what you shouted at them."

"Then I don't know what we're here for." His father sighed.

"We both know there are more than five students at New Bostin High School who have wronged you, John. The list of names you used to keep in your room had over a hundred. And the school won't ever let you force a hundred students to leave, no matter how strong you become." His dad struggled and hesitated to speak. Then, finally:"What are you doing with them? With those names?" John knew instantly that his father had wanted to ask this in the car.

The understanding came with a weight, for some reason, pressuring him to answer in a way his dad would accept.

"The five today were special," John replied.

"It's true there's history with everyone else. But as long as they follow and respect me as king, I won't do anything." His father's expression worsened.

"But that's not what's going to happen, with your collective history. Everyone remembers the past."

"Then I'll punish them," he said.

"Until they forget who I was before." William shook his head sadly, told John to stay put, and walked quickly out of the room. There was a sound of the bathroom sink turning on. After a long period of splashing noises, his father returned and sat down with a damp face and hair. Beads of water dropped to the table in an uneven rhythm, and John realized what his father had been washing away.

"I don't have a way to stop you, John," William said quietly.

"But if, from here on, you do anything half as horrific as what you did today, I don't know if I'll be able to call you my son." The words were so removed from anything his father had ever said that they felt foreign. As they set in, John felt himself grow cold and angry, and for some reason ashamed. He didn't raise his voice.

"But it's what every other King in the sector does if someone insults them."

"Right," William said.

"They aren't my son." Once again, both of them said nothing for multiple minutes. John searched for an answer but found none. He felt frustrated, a sense of unfairness that was different from when he was younger. Now that he was finally powerful enough to do what he wanted, he'd met a roadblock where power made no difference. Of course he loved his dad. The idea of being anything but the son of William Doe felt frightening and wrong.

It didn't matter that they were arguing constantly about violence, how he was going too far, or where to draw the line. All of that was under the assumption that they would be a family, ultimately, together in a much more important way. So what could he do? He could promise not to hurt anyone, no worse than what a few hours of recovery could fix, but they both knew it would be a lie. He could try to argue, point out how unreasonable his father was being.

It was tying his hands behind his back, keeping him from violence, when it was the best way to grow his level and earn respect. He could also say something cutting. How he never wanted to be the son of a cripple anyway. The fact that he only suffered so much because his father was a weakling, and everyone took advantage of them because of it. John knew that none of these were right. Oddly, his thoughts went to Meili's Grandpa, how pathetically the man had failed despite being so powerful.

The old god-tier had been strong enough to handle Meili like a plastic doll, but he'd lacked a different kind of ability, the ability to make the right decisions. It struck him how easily he could become the same.

"Then I should go to school somewhere else," he finally said.

"Some far-off boarding school where they've never heard of me." His dad seemed surprised.

"Doesn't it make sense?" John asked.

"I won't have to beat the shit out of anyone, then. Not by default. Nobody's going to disrespect or insult me, or say that they wish I was still a cripple. We won't have bad blood." His father had started nodding.

"It does, John. It does make sense. That's a good idea. But what about Adrion and Claire? You shouldn't commit to a choice this large the moment you think of it."

"I've been thinking about it for two weeks," John replied.

"I know where to apply. I know which schools offer level scholarships, which ones help you get into top colleges. There's a school in Wellston City that's really good, and I wanted to ask for help on the application."

"I… didn't realize you were fully serious." His father paused.

"Okay. Yes. We should work on it together, especially the essays." His father frowned.

"If you wanted to switch schools, why did you do what you did today, forcing those five to leave? You already don't have to see them." He took his father in. A man who'd spent twelve years of school as a cripple, but still asked this kind of question.

"You've been through it too, Dad, so I don't know how you can't understand."

"John," William said, disappointed.

"Wanting revenge doesn't make it right." John felt his eyes get wet. The frustration at his weakness made him tear up even more. Everything he'd been wanting to say burst out at once.

"How about not wanting to run away?" he said.

"Don't you get it? Every day for years, all I did was sneak around and hide. I took the city bus to school instead of the school bus. Every class, I had to ask just enough questions for participation grades, but not too many, or someone would decide I was annoying enough to beat on. I hid in bathrooms between classes, memorized Oliver and Isabel's hallway routes to avoid them. I took every sick day, skipped every field trip, spent half my day thinking about the best ways to run. You Know All Of This!"

"And now I'm strong. Now no one can touch me. Why should I have to run from them, run to a different school? Why can't they be the ones who have to run, because they're helpless and weak, because they can't do anything else? Why can't I make them learn what it's like? Is that so wrong? Let them be the ones who have to run, just one time, is that so wrong?"

'Is that so wrong?' was suddenly the only sentence he knew, and he repeated it time after time, dripping tears onto the tablecloth. His father stood up and hugged him. They stayed like that, finally embracing, but John already knew his father's answer.