I was called up for the examination and made my way over to the physical examination centre. When I got there, one of the walls had completely collapsed and a few of the lights were on the floor. Something or someone I couldn’t see immediately fixed all of the damages. I walked up to Station 2 and stepped into the fullscanner. Fullscanners were large, beefy grey machines with hundreds of buttons and a few screens. I had to step into a small blue chamber within the contraption. The operator spoke to me.

“Please take off your hood, gloves and scarf for the scan,” he said.

“I can’t,” I said. “That would probably damage the machine.”

“This machine can withstand all sorts of anomalous bodily properties,” he said, tapping the machine with his palm. “So don’t worry.”

“Alright…” I said. For the first time in a long while, I took off my hood and my scarf, and my gloves.

“We will proceed with the scan now,” the operator said.

My body trembled. The blue in the chamber turned into a dark grey as the scan went on. The operator called up a few other operators to check something in one of the screens of the fullscanner. They all had puzzled looks on their faces. The scan ended. I went to grab my scarf, hood and gloves. They had lost their brown colour and were now a dim grey. I stepped out of the chamber and saw that a few of the small blinking lights that had been turned on when I stepped in were now fuming. One of the fullscanner operators came up to me.

“Pardon me, but…” he said. “The fullscanner says you’re an anomalous hybrid of a darkling and an unidentified being. Would you happen to know what that other being is?”

“A shadow person,” I replied.

“Shadow person…?” he said, scratching his head and looking at a piece of paper in his hands. “Those are real?”

“Yes, but I don’t know what they really look like,” I said. “My parents died when I was 2 months old.”

Another operator wearing glasses and holding a long piece of paper joined the conversation.

“It appears the fullscanner has identified your powers as darkness constructs, light absorption, and… in highly dangerous circumstances, antimatter manipulation,” she said.

“Antimatter manipulation…?” I said. Well, I guess I didn’t lie to Sitch after all… I thought.

“These powers have the capability of being highly destructive,” the other operator said, with his hands on his hair. “The last time we had a hero who could manipulate darkness was-“

“Shadow Valkyrie?” I said. “She’s my grandmother.”

“I guess that makes sense, but…” the operator said. “Antimatter manipulation…”

“Well, I had no idea that was a power I had,” I said. “I only knew about the other two, and I can’t do much with them yet.”

A tall man with long white hair and a beard wearing a fully white superhero costume with yellow gloves and boots and dark yellow sunglasses walked up to me from behind the fullscanner. It was the superhero Auriel, a high-ranking member of the school staff.

“I came by as soon as I heard about you,” he said, crouching down so I could see his face. He was 2.3 meters tall. “Shadow Valkyrie mentored me back when I was starting out my superhero career. I’m honoured to meet you, her grandson.” He held out his hand and I shook it.

“H-Hello, Mr. Auriel,” I said, very lightly gripping his hand. “N-Nice to meet you too.”

“So, how do your darkling powers work, eh?” he said, standing up and walking back a few steps. “Could you demonstrate?”

“W-Well, no, they only activate when I feel like I’m in danger,” I said. “It’s not something I can j-“

Auriel threw a high-speed punch directly at my chest. I felt a chill down my back. My tentacles had come out. They were grappling and slithering around Auriel’s arm.

“Impressive,” he said. “What happens to them after they come out?”

“Well…” I reeled back my tentacles. “I can make them stay out for a while.” He crouched down again.

“Try to keep them out all the time from now on,” he said. “See how long they can last.”

“A-Alright, Mr. Auriel…” I said. I felt my tentacles tremble along with the rest of my body.

We said our goodbyes and he left. The operators approached me and told me I didn’t have to do the physical examination. I was brought back out to the airport terminal-like waiting room. As it turns out, nobody had seen what had happened, as me taking off my hood and scarf broke all of the cameras in Station 2. Martelle and Vernon were standing near the entryway.

“So? How’d you do?” Martelle said, putting her arm around my shoulder. “We couldn’t see your examination ‘cause all the cameras broke.”

“I found out what my powers are…” I said. “Darkness constructs, light absorption and antimatter manipulation.”

“That sounds cool!” she said with a big smile on her face. “By the way, what happened to your hood and scarf and stuff? Why are they grey?”

“I had to take them off,” I said. “They lost their colour in the process.”

“Damn…” Vernon said. “Those powers sound ridiculous, especially the antimatter manipulation.”

“Hopefully I never have to use something like that,” I said, adjusting my hood. “The operators implied it was pretty destructive.”

The PA system switched on and called everyone up to do the written examination.

“Writing is so boring,” Martelle said, grunting.

“What’s the written exam about?” Vernon asked.

“As far as I know, it’s a few questions about basic superhero facts and an essay about heroism,” I said. “It’ll be easy. Don’t you worry, Yearthling.”

We were all brought to a large room full of desks and chairs. We were handed out our tests and sat down to write. I managed to pass with an 86/100 score, Martelle passed with a 64/100 and Vernon passed with a 55/100, with most of those points coming from the essay.

“Guess I don’t know anything about how this world works…” he said, scratching his head and looking at his test results.

“You said it was going to be easy!” Martelle said, pointing at me. “Some of these were hard as hell!”

I was distracted by a large holographic screen showing everyone’s test results. No student that passed the physical examination got over 90/100. Guess it wasn’t that easy after all.

By the time we ended the examinations, it was 9 PM. We were brought out of the test room and into an enormous dormitory. There was a multitude of reinforced wooden doors lined up to the sides. The hallway was wide with green carpeting and light-yellowish walls. I figured this place got destroyed frequently as well. At the end of the hallway was a teletransporter which would take you up to lower or upper floors when you stepped on it. We were told the dorms could accommodate four people each.

However, our rooms hadn’t been assigned yet. That depended on which class we were assigned to. 2048 students entered Hero College that year, which meant that students would be divided into classes of 16, and further subdivided into clusters of 4, which would live together in one dorm room. We had to wait for an algorithm to automatically assign students to their respective classes. Luckily, Martelle, Vernon and I were assigned to the same class and even the same dorm room. Our class was Class 57, and our dorm room number was 366.

The three of us made our way to room 366 with our luggage and started to settle in. Our room had 4 beds with a nightstand, a bathroom and a kitchen. The walls were pure white and the floor was carpeted grey.

“Man, this is cool!” Martelle said, laying on a bed. “I’ve never lived so far away from my parents before.”

“It’s exciting,” I said, putting down my bags. “Martelle, that’s my bed…”

“This world is so much better than Earth,” Vernon said, checking out the kitchen. “This dorm room looks very similar to the ones from my world, though.”

“Hero Colleges aren’t fancy, but they work,” I said. “We could try and decorate this place to make it a little less depressing, I suppose.”

“Say…” Martelle said, sitting up and looking at a piece of paper. “Who’s Dynasta? They’re supposed to be our other roommate.”

“I don’t recognize that name…” I said. I thought about it for a few seconds, and my heart dropped. “Wait… Dynasta? That sounds like-“

There was a knock on the door.

“I’ll go get it,” Vernon said, rushing over to the door and opening it. “Hello! You must be Dynasta.”

“Y-Yes. Hello.”

Vernon opened the door. I saw a horn. Wings. Four arms.

“You must be Vernon…” She turned to see Martelle, who could barely contain her laughter. “You must be Martelle…”

She fully entered the room, and turned towards me.

“You… Y-You…”

It was beetle girl.

Fuck.