My footsteps were heavy, soles striking the polished floor hard enough to send jolts up my legs. The corridor was endless white, only broken up at intermittent intervals by screens displaying looped animations, smiling superheroes striking poses. The gaudy text introducing their subjects made them look like movie posters.

Out of the hundred or so people filing through the corridor, I would’ve been surprised if I wasn’t the only one discomfited by the sight.

For a lot of people, superheroes were little different from movie stars or pop singers. Reality TV shows following capes were among the most popular in the entire world, elevating groups and individuals to dizzying levels of fame, gathering followings on social media that numbered in the hundreds of millions. There were dozens of hugely popular game shows that pitted superheroes together in a range of challenges, from adaptations of modern sports to stuff like battle royales and straight up gladiatorial combat.

The general public loved their spectacle, and there was nothing more spectacular than capes, masks, gaudy colour, and a whole lot of impressive powers.

I tried not to be disdainful of it all, I really did. Life was tough, who could begrudge people from losing themselves in some mindless media to escape from it all for a bit?

But it never sat right with me, seeing these people with amazing abilities squander it all on worthless pageantry while real villains were running around using their amazing abilities to sow misery and mayhem. All the scandals and controversies that popped up every other day, besmirching what it meant to be a hero in the eyes of the world.

That wasn’t the way superheroes were supposed to be. In my mind, heroes were embodiments of an ideal, paragons of virtue. They put helping people and doing the right thing above all else. They brought hope to the world, not drama. They were noble. Honourable. Selfless, above all else. Shining examples.

So I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed in Marquise. Rumours followed her everywhere, constantly dredging up whispers of her past, but I never paid them much attention. To me, her exemplary track record since switching sides spoke for itself. She had thousands of arrests to her name. She campaigned for and even wrote laws that transformed the landscape of the modern world. She was one of the highest ranking superheroes in USHA.

Most of all, Herakles trusted her to act as vice-principal of Aegis Academy. If Herakles saw her as one of the good ones, who was I to question him?

People said she was cold, ruthless. A hero in name only. That the last ten years were little more than a long-running scheme to undermine the heroes, or something.

Honestly…

~~~

“Jeremy Palmer, son of Carl Palmer. Am I to consider this an act of petty revenge against me? If so, you’ve done a pathetic job of it.”

“Got your attention, didn’t it?”

“You’d prefer this to be seen as a child’s cry for attention? I thought you might possess more pride than that, but clearly I was wrong.”

“You—”

“Enough. There’s only so much we’re willing to allow in the name of testing our candidates’ character. You’re already going to be arrested for multiple counts of using a superpower on other human beings without consent and with malice aforethought. However, despite what you may think, things can get worse for you. Attempt to use your power on me again, and the consequences will be severe. Trust me when I say that you have more to lose.”

~~~

I was starting to understand where those rumours came from. The idea of her being some kind of undercover supervillain still seemed absurd, but if that was the way she acted all the time… yeah, I got it.

“But what actually happened? Why did the kid start going off like that?” Julia asked for the third time. She’d caught up with me on the way out of the medical testing hall, but I’d been too livid to answer her questions at first, and my mood had changed little as Morphosis arrived to pick up our group and chaperone us along to the next testing area for our practical exam. It had fallen to Billy to fill her in some, but he didn’t have the full picture.

I could understand her curiosity. While things hadn’t escalated into an all out fight, it had turned into enough of a scene that it felt like half the room’s attention was on us. Villain-esque rants in the middle of a hero school weren’t exactly something you saw every day, and the infamous vice-principal herself showing up to escort the kid away must have sent the rumour mill into overdrive.

If I was left out of it all, I’d count myself lucky.

All that being said, I really hoped she’d take the hint some time soon. If someone didn’t seem inclined to answer your questions, the decorous thing to do wasn’t to keep rephrasing it over and over until they’d explain just to shut you up.

“Gotta admit, I wanna know too,” Billy said hesitantly. He’d already stoked Julia’s curiosity with his over-the-top gratitude for finding the saboteur, and seemed determined to keep adding fuel to the fire. “If you got yourself into trouble because of me, I’d feel awful.”

“It’s fine,” I said in a tone that I hoped was calm. “It’s handled. No trouble for me.”

Julia squinted at me. “Are you sure? The guys I was working with seemed like they’d throttle me if I deviated from their schedule. Yours didn’t look too happy either, from what I could tell.”

I took a deep breath in through my nose. Counted to four. Slowly let it out through my mouth.

“They were understanding of the situation,” I said. “Despite what that kid thought, no one wants false heroes attending this school. If anything, they were mad at him, not me. Catching a cheater was enough to exonerate me, I guess.”

Results are what matter, Tempest had said. It'd proven true already.

“They seemed pretty mad at you, too,” Billy added.

Another breath. “They thought I should’ve told them, rather than take matters into my own hands.”

Julia spoke. “Look, I get why you confronted the guy; I would’ve been pissed too. But you surely understand that wasn’t the way you’re supposed to do things, right?”

I worked to unclench my jaw before I spoke. There was a low din of conversation echoing through the hall, students bragging about their scores and whatnot, but I still kept my voice low. “Honestly, I just lost my temper. I find the idea of sabotaging other students to better your chances of admittance to Aegis infuriating—though obviously I turned out to be wrong about his motivations. It was me selfishly wanting to give the saboteur a piece of my mind, nothing more.”

Julia winced. “I told you things would be competitive.”

“I did expect people to be competitive,” I said. “I didn’t fucking expect to come face-to-face with some kid who’s going to be a supervillain some day. According to Marquise, there’s hundreds like him every year. That’s insane.”

“People have different morals and values, and some will be willing to go further to get what they want. That’s the way it is.”

“It shouldn't be.”

“But it is.”

I took a moment to breathe again. Fuck, I hated people who argued like this so much.

“I’m allowed to be disappointed. I’m allowed to be pissed. I’m allowed to think that people should be better than this.”

“You are. Your feelings are valid,” Julia said with a nod. She linked her hands behind her back, her gaze straying as we passed a long row of windows. Clouds had blocked out the sun at some point, rendering the world outside a pencil sketch. “There’s nothing you can do about it, though. There’s always going to be people of a different moral fibre.”

“People suck,” Billy agreed, glaring at nothing. “Honestly? I bet that there’s more that we don’t even know about. Not outright villains, but people who’re willing to be dicks in order to get into the school. There are probably plenty of students studying at Aegis right now who’re complete asshats.”

I thought of the written exam, how Morphosis hadn’t seemed to notice the cheating going on despite his dire warning at the start. If it had been left up to him, that girl would’ve got off scot free.

Then Marquise’s words came back to me.

“There’s only so much we’re willing to allow in the name of testing our candidates’ character.”

The sentence turned over and over in my mind like a pig on a spit. I looked at them from every angle, trying to find the perspective that would let me interpret it positively.

“Only so much.”

“Fuck that,” I said, a little louder than I’d intended. A few people turned to stare, but I ignored them.

There shouldn’t have been any leeway at all.

“Aegis Academy is supposed to be a place for students who want to learn how to be superheroes,” I said. “Real superheroes, not these fakers and villains. If people think they can lie, cheat, and steal their way through the exam, they’ve got another thing coming. I won’t let them ruin the integrity of this place.”

I won’t let them tarnish Dad’s legacy.

Julia gave me a sad smile. “Yeah? You’re gonna stop them all?”

“No. I know I can’t do that,” I admitted. “I can only stop what’s in front of me.”

“I’ll be rooting for you,” Billy said. “I don’t think you’ll have any significant effect on things, but, well, good luck all the same, I guess.”

“I’ll find a way,” I said.

Progress was slow as our group trailed Morphosis through the corridors in a long line, corralled by a few other members of staff. Somehow, the murmurs of conversation were twice as tense as the silence outside the written exam had been. In any other situation it might have been heartening, I might have been clueless enough to believe that I was witnessing some camaraderie form between the competing candidates.

Instead, I was wondering if these were alliances forming. Battle lines being drawn. For all I knew, these were conspiracies forming before my eyes, aiming to target whoever appeared to be the biggest threat among our test group—I wished I’d been paying more attention to that during the medical.

The thought made my blood boil.

I said little as our group emerged from the long white corridor we’d been following onto a massive staircase slashing down through the complex, seemingly heading deep underground. It was wide enough to easily fit a four lane highway, went on deep enough the bottom was shrouded in darkness, and it looked cavernous when it was devoid of people. Screens lined the walls, but they were all inactive.

The group mostly fell silent, and I couldn’t tell if it was because they were intimidated by the scale of the staircase or if they didn’t want the acoustics to carry their plans to listening ears.

“Watch your step,” Morphosis’ voice echoed from up ahead, dripping with disdain. “I’ve been repeatedly assured this ridiculous feature isn’t a safety hazard, but accidents continue to occur.”

“It’s just a long tunnel, teach. The staircase has landings, so it’s not like you’d fall far,” someone replied.

“Far enough to hurt yourself. You will all be careful.”

With that, we started moving down as a group. There was little conversation, everyone focused on doing as Morphosis had commanded. Footsteps echoed like rolling thunder, filling in the silence.

About a minute into our walk, an overhead sign came into view.

‘Urban Combat Training Zone,’ it read.

Excited chatter erupted, even as my heart started racing.

The UCTZ wasn’t as famous as some of the other facilities in the school like the gym’s main arena, but it had played host to plenty of events and earned a reputation in its own right.

Boasting nine different ‘zones’ that each simulated, as one might expect from its name, an urban environment, it spent most of its time allowing students at Aegis to get some experience fighting in a place where collateral damage wasn’t such a political and financial disaster. The early days of superheroes had seen obscene levels of property damage, so it was no surprise that a healthy amount of emphasis in hero training went in that direction, along with a lot of cash—evidently it was cheaper to train superheroes not to blow things up than to replace the things they blew up.

I was a little surprised to find we were using it. Quite apart from the fact enrolled students didn’t set foot inside until third year unless they took a special elective offered only to a select few in second year, never mind that event organisers had to pay eye-watering fees to use it, forget that its maintenance staff numbered in the hundreds and my dad once said it took them days to clean up after an exercise, the fact news hadn’t leaked was astonishing.

The setup of AA’s exams were kept strictly secret, aside from the vague instructions they posted online. Staff were under ironclad non-disclosure agreements, but that didn’t mean students who took their preliminary tests earlier in the week had any obligation to keep mum about it once they were done. Tons of info was already online about this year’s tests and how they were run, but there’d been no word of the UCTZ.

Soon enough we reached the bottom, the staircase opening out onto an enormous crescent-shaped observation room that boasted rows of spectator stands, the seats closer to something you’d find in a cinema than a football stadium. Staff bustled through the room. The wall immediately ahead of us was entirely glass, overlooking the massive training complex below.

And there was activity down there. Flashes of light, plumes of dust, glimpses of tracksuit-clad forms rushing around.

It sunk in. Evidently, we were going to be doing our practical exam in the UCTZ, and the candidates were clearly being pitted against each other.

Well. I guess I’m fucked.