Over one hundred students gathered at the starting line. The white wall before us was going to rise any minute now, but you could tell with just a glance that there was a clear division in the ranks.

On one side, a faction of fifty or so had come together. They murmured among themselves as they pored over their tablets in smaller groups, scrolling through their tablets, coordinating all the little details of their tasks for the upcoming test. A frantic energy had been building as the start of the test loomed. I’d thought organisation was going to be a nightmare, but a guy with blue hair that stood on end had managed to hack our tablets and network them together with incredibly precise use of his electrokinesis power.

On the other end of the room, silence reigned. No one mingled. Talking had become verboten. Cooperation seemed utterly unattainable, and I couldn’t help thinking it was a bit pathetic. Refusing to join our larger party was one thing, but I thought they’d at least form their own pacts to try and bring us down or something.

I sighed, turning my attention away from them. A lot of those guys were going to try and cause problems, of that I had no doubt. But going it solo lowered their threat level drastically, so who was I to complain?

Besides, I was having a hard enough time keeping our plan together in my head. When I’d suggested cooperation, I hadn’t exactly expected to be the one at the very heart of our efforts. Quite apart from being a Level 0 among prodigious superpowered teenagers, I couldn’t remember being in charge of anything in my life. Anxiety had strangled any ambitions to take command in the cradle. I was surprising myself over and over today.

Our plan was simple in explanation, but vexing in execution. After some debate, we’d settled on navigating the test zone in a constricting circuit, starting on the outside and moving inwards, completing our tasks on the way. It sounded simple, but not every objective was automatically marked on the map application on the tablets they’d provided us. Like mine, some tasks were given place names which we’d have to track down, and there were a few that read more like riddles to solve. One guy’s was written in some kind of algebraic formula I couldn’t make heads or tails of, though he somehow understood it.

More and more tasks were popping up on our shared map, to the point it was getting hard to actually see the map itself. Keeping track of it all was going to be a pain in the ass.

And, despite myself, I was relishing the challenge.

How many hours had I spent daydreaming about taking the lead in some great heroic effort? It had always seemed like something impossible. A fanciful fantasy. Yet here I was, and I hadn’t even started hero school yet.

Thus, my heart was filled with pride as I stood in the centre of the crowd, my tablet in my hands. Other examinees constantly approached, vying for my attention. Julia and Billy had taken to being my bodyguards of a sort, ensuring I could have at least some peace to strategize how we were going to tackle all these little dots. It was a futile effort, but I appreciated it all the same.

At first, it seemed logical to go for the higher point tasks first. Knock off the A- and B-ranks as fast as possible, and it wouldn’t be a total disaster if everything fell apart. Our people would still pass.

The more dots appeared on the map, the less viable that looked. Not to mention the inevitable accusations of unfairness. At this point, I was leaning towards eschewing careful plans and just completing them in the order we’d encounter them. It’d be less efficient, but no plan survives contact with the enemy anyway—once we got out there, I was sure there’d be complications.

My eyes drifted over the golden pins on my map. My tasks. Or at least the ones I’d had the time to figure out and mark down.

Couldn’t linger on them. If I started thinking about how my own performance in this task might end up looking, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.

Unfortunately, it seemed I wasn’t the only one worrying about it.

“I think you should reconsider your plans,” Julia said at the precise moment there was a lull in conversation around me.

I gave her a look. “Are you ever going to give up on this?”

“No. In other circumstances, I might allow someone I see as competition to hurt their own chances. But I’ve witnessed the strength of your character several times over today, and I think it would be a shame if you failed to get past the preliminaries out of stubbornness.”

“For one thing, I don’t want to hear any talk of stubbornness from the girl who’s brought this up three times despite my request to drop it. For another, what you call stubbornness, I call principles.”

Julia smirked. “Is there a difference?”

“Don’t just ignore the first part.”

“The way I see it, you’re placing excessive value in the importance of your word. You said you would forgo the completion of your tasks, and therefore that’s what you’re going to do.” She tilted her head to one side, observing me like I was a particularly strange specimen. “What would you call valuing a promise to strangers over your own future?”

“Principles,” I repeated, holding up a finger.

“What are principles worth if they mean you finish last?”

“Virtue, honesty, honour,” I went on, ignoring her and counting on more fingers as I went. “All traits a hero is generally expected to have, yeah?”

Julia was unimpressed. “How are you going to be a hero if you fail here today?”

“I won’t fail,” I said, trying my best to believe it. “I’ll make sure everyone has done their tasks, then I’ll go and complete mine.”

“You can’t seriously believe that will work? Your time will be so slow it’ll cancel out the scores for the rest of your objectives, and I highly doubt you’re going to get some special bonus points for rallying everyone after utterly ignoring your objectives until the last minute. It’s hardly an inspiring display of heroism to leave a hostage to their fate.”

My heart dropped. It was a low blow and I could tell she knew it, but it had struck home all the same.

“We’re talking about a dummy here.”

“I’m sure that excuse will go over well.” She shook her head. “This isn’t heroism, Emmett, it’s martyrdom. It won’t win you any sympathy. Stop being ridiculous.”

I sighed. “I don’t have time for this.”

A few people had gathered around while we’d been arguing, but a raised hand from Julia had been enough to keep them from interrupting. I turned to the nearest one, but Julia stepped in the way.

“Please drop it,” I begged.

It would’ve been a much easier conversation if she wasn’t at least partially right.

What I was doing was good, in the moral sense of the word. If we were here to display our potential as heroes, what better way could I show myself off than by helping people at my own expense?

But I knew things weren’t so ideal. A test was a test, the rules written and codified. If I failed to get a high enough score, I wasn’t going to make it past the primaries.

I had been succeeding in keeping my mind off that fact before Julia spoke up.

“Please,” I repeated.

Julia stared at me for a long moment, expressionless. Eventually, she breathed out a sigh. “Utterly ridiculous. Whatever ideas of heroism you’ve had drilled into you, the world doesn’t work that way. Harming yourself to help people is very noble, but it earns you little more than the right to pat yourself on the back. What use will you be if you sacrifice yourself at every turn? How long do you imagine you’ll even survive? Living for the sake of others is a beautiful idea, but there’s a reason it only works out in stories. I hope reality doesn’t hit you too hard before you learn to prioritise yourself, Emmett.”

Without waiting for a reply, she turned and strode away. I was left seething on the spot, glaring at her back. Maybe it was a good thing she left. I wasn’t convinced my reply to that diatribe would’ve been a productive one.

With her absence, the crowd converged on me, and I had no time to dwell on it any further. My world became a blur of maps, tasks, and plans. We took a census of all the powers available in our little alliance, and it was an awe-inspiring mix of abilities. Speed, strength, versatility, we had it all. We even had a Level 5, a girl who could manipulate matter around her as long as she was holding a piece of it in her hand. Going down the list, it was hard to see how the tests would pose any challenge to us.

But that was complacency talking. Aegis Academy was notorious for its stringent standards; only the truly lucky found themselves walking an easy road to admission, and I’d never considered myself a fortunate guy.

“Two minutes,” Morphosis’ voice drifted through a room like a ghostly spectre, leaving thick tension in its wake. I could see the jolts of fear: the oh fuck widening of the eyes, the nervous shakes, the stiffening of limbs.

In contrast, an odd sense of calm settled over me. Something like acceptance. Maybe I’d just overloaded on worry at some point and cycled back around to zero again.

“Everyone ready up,” I called out. “Remember: as long as we work together, we’ll get all our tasks done and easily pass the practical. These objectives were all designed for one person. We’ve got dozens. As long as we stay sharp, be vigilant, and follow the plan, we should have no problems.”

A few nervous glances flicked to the front of the room, and I followed them.

Morphosis was before the starting line, still as a statue. He was staring straight ahead with a bored gaze, looking for all the world like nothing untoward was happening.

Leeway, I thought with disgust.

“Think about it this way: your chances with this group are so much higher than they would be on your own. You have support, back-up. People to bounce ideas off, who know things you might not know, and possess skills you had no idea could be needed. Have any of you seen the statistics about independent heroes versus those who join a team?”

A few heads shook, but I noticed some grim expressions.

“Over 70% of solo superheroes fall victim to a major incident within the first six months of their debut—and that includes everyone. Game Show capes, heroes for hire, local neighbourhood patrollers. Everyone. Unless you’re already a Level 8 when you graduate from hero school and get your licence, working alone is incredibly dangerous in comparison to joining a team. Where, by the way, you have less than a 10% chance of dealing with a major incident.”

I looked over our group, meeting as many gazes as I could.

I wondered what I looked like to them. My figure wasn’t exactly an imposing one, compared to the larger than life heroes who you’d usually imagine giving these sorts of speeches. I was relatively tall, a respectable five-ten, and my shoulders were broad enough in my standard issue grey tracksuit that I was sure anyone looking would correctly assume I knew my way around the gym. But that was nothing even compared to a grump like Morphosis, let alone adonises like Herakles. Was the strawberry blond hair undermining me, or was it an exotic enough colour to be a point of interest?

It probably didn’t matter either way. Nothing could undermine me as much as the knowledge that I was a Level 0.

“Work together,” I said, hammering the words into their heads in the bluntest way. “Because that’s what the best heroes in the real world do. Herakles has a team. Tempest has a team. Even Runemaiden, the most notorious proponent of solo heroism out there, actually has a team behind the scenes covering her back. Cooperation works. There’s no better way to pass this test.”

I turned to face the finish line, then moved through the group until I was at the front. The first one into the fray.

There was another way of looking at things, I supposed. It was even believable.

What kind of self-respecting superhero would stand by while a Level 0 charged ahead of them?

Deep breaths. In. Four seconds. Out. Four seconds.

“Thirty seconds,” Morphosis said.

A low thud from the wall in front of us. It lifted barely an inch, spilling ochre light onto the pearly floor.

I crouched into a starting position, ready to spring forward.

One of my earliest memories was of floating above a roaring, adoring crowd in a sold-out stadium. I’d been on someone’s shoulders—I couldn’t remember whose—to be able to see over the mass of humanity, giving me an unobstructed line of sight to the stage at the centre of it all. A hero had been giving a speech, and the thousands present had been lapping every word of it up like it was aural ambrosia. The sound was deafening.

I’d been a bit bored, in all honesty. Kids of that age were more into the megastar TV heroes like Moon Girl or American Dream, and I was no exception. This man hadn’t been worthy of my attention, with his silly hat and his weird armour and dumb long spear. Where were the capes? The laser beams? The trucks lifted like they were made of styrofoam?

I couldn’t tell you when it actually clicked. From one moment to the next, he stopped being a loud hero with a boring costume, and instead became Dad.

If my dream could be traced back to one moment, that was it. Every other possible path closed to me forever with the sound of a familiar voice bellowing his sermon to the faithful.

We’re all heroes, baby!

Calling it a dream didn’t do it justice. It was an obsession.

Barely a day went by where I wasn’t thinking, planning, fantasising. I made up names, designed costumes, imagined what powers I was going to get. Every time a new hero showed up on the scene, I daydreamed about what I’d do in their shoes. I consumed all things cape, and there was never enough. It was my everything.

Not even some piddly detail like a lack of powers could stop me. Yeah, it didn’t feel nice. For sure, it made me a bit of an outcast. Undoubtedly, things were going to be a lot harder for me until my dumb powers finally showed up.

If they showed up.

But moping wasn’t the way of a hero. No one got anywhere by feeling bitter and resentful of the world. I was never the type to sit around and feel sorry for myself, stewing in my feelings.

All I could do was my best. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than standing in the ashes of my failure, looking back and wondering what could have been different if I’d just worked harder.

“Five seconds,” Morphosis said, and a number twice the height of a two-story house made of oily shadow faded into existence in time with his words. It started counting down.

The practical exam wasn’t going to be easy. Not for me, at least. Julia wasn’t wrong; the logical route would’ve been to collect my tasks along with the rest of the group.

Four.

But what kind of superhero worried about boring shit like logic?

Three.

I was a Level 0 trying to become a superhero. Impossible wasn’t in my vocabulary.

Two.

I’d keep my word. And I’d still pass this stupid exam. I had to.

One.

And hell, even if I didn’t. Even in the totally preposterous scenario where I failed.

Zero.

At least I’d know I did good.

The wall lifted, light flooded in, and the practical test began.

I charged forward, just as I always did.