Believe it or not, I’ve never actually been to a mock debate before. They happened all the time back in high school, but I can count just about a billion other things I’d rather do than fall asleep listening to people stutter over their words and pretend to argue with one another. I’m not exactly bursting at the seams with excitement for this right now. But hey, anything to put me to sleep, am I right? Besides, Ana hasn’t let go of my hand, and the closer we get to the Liberty Commons, the more I realize this isn’t just some little get-together happening at two in the morning. About four dozen people are sitting on the grass lawns, perched on chairs in groups, hovering in the air, all lit up by floating balls of golden light. Ana drags me past one. I reach out to touch it, and my fingers slip through it with a crackle of power. And when we finally get to an empty spot on the grass, something in my gut starts tightening.

  The first thing I see are the large banners snapping in the wind. One is scarlet, white and black, with SSA printed on it in gold, alongside a sword crossing over a cape. The other just says Humanity League in white writing over a navy blue canvas. Simpler. Cheaper. The poor thing has patches sewn onto it. And below the flags are two groups of people. Kids in red blazers with bronze pins of the same sword and cape symbol hooked onto their ties. Pants ironed. Hair short and kept right. Superhumans. You can almost smell the power coming off them. They’re silently watching the other group of kids, some of them in jeans, others in shorts and flip flops, with matching hats and slushies in their hands. Humans. Regular, fun-of-the-mill humans. They’re bickering and whispering, shaking their heads at one another, jabbing fingers into tablets and flapping around pieces of paper. Well, this looks just so…so fun. Fuck, Sam. How do you keep getting yourself in these stupid situations, anyway. Oh, right, Ana.

  Remind me to stop falling for girls with pretty smiles and excitable hearts.

  They’re my glowing green rock.

  “What’s this for exactly?” I ask her.

  She shrugs one shoulder. “Dunno. The poster was just an invite. Didn’t you get one, too?”

  Considering you need a special card to even get onto the seventh floor, the answer to that is a resounding: of course not. Even if I did get one, Clare would’ve probably scooped up that piece of paper, weighed my options for me, and either threw it away or decided it just wasn’t worth my time. It still kinda isn’t. Debates suck. And I left my phone in my room, too. Great. I look around and find barely a single phone in sight. No cameras. No pictures. Just a bunch of people whispering about how stupid the humans look, whilst the cluster of them sitting on the hill sit so tightly together it’s almost like they’re one big symbiotic humanoid mass. They sweat and frown and quietly complain about how much of a mess the Humanity League looks. ‘They’re so not ready.’ ‘What the hell have they been practicing over the summer?’ ‘Great, another year of Ashley and her dictatorship—I just can’t wait. Hurray.’

  I nudge Ana. She’s clutching onto her phone, staring at the SSA members in their pressed scarlet blazers, their neat hair and acne-free faces. They almost look plastic. Especially the girl standing closest to the Humanity League, arms behind her back, face flat, eyes a pearly gray and her hair a harsh shade of blonde forced into a tight ponytail. Her eyes drift toward me, slow and fluid. But…not me. I’m dozens of feet away, standing in a pack of other superhumans. Then the corner of her lips curl, threatening to smile, before her eyes drift back to the humans again.

  “Who’s the vampire?” I say quietly.

  Ana floats onto the grass, legs folded, resting on her palms. Some guy is trying his best not to look at her chest, and when he sees me watching him, he clears his throat and finds something interesting inside of his solo cup. “Vampire?” Ana says, as I sit down beside her. “You’re seriously telling me that you don’t know who that is?”

  “I’m not huge on politics,” I say, or hunting thousand-year old creatures, I think to myself.

  “She’s all over social media, but I doubt you even run your own pages. You probably have someone who does that for you, right?” I open and close my mouth, because sure, why not? I have to remind myself I’m not here to get into an argument with her. Again. Ana continues. “She’s a junior, ranked fifth in her class. She’s really popular for a bunch of think pieces she posts online.” Another shrug. “My brother likes her stuff. I think he’s got a crush.”

  On that? And I mean it disrespectfully. She looks like someone made her inside of a test tube. Tall but not overbearing. Sharp jaw, an even sharper nose, but a tiny, flat black mole on her cheek evens out the perfection. She’s just so right. Exactly the kind of person you’d expect to see running for office or whatever. She blinks slowly, when she does, anyway. I’ve counted three times in the past several minutes. And the longer the humans keep bickering between each other, the more she digs her fingernails into the back of her hand, so deep they almost break skin.

  “Get on with it!” someone shouts, then throws a beer can at the humans. It hits a girl in the shoulder. The crowd cheers and claps and hoots the same thing over and over. The cluster of humans on the hill get restless now.

  “This feels weird,” I say under my breath, and when I look at Ana, she’s staring at the stage.

  For several seconds, she says nothing, then blinks, turns her head to look at me, and says, “Huh?”

  I jerk my thumb at the SSA. “You’re interested in those losers? They look like circus monkeys wearing cutesy little matching outfits. You, Ana Walker, the same chick who spray painted Mr. Harold’s sedan with fuck the government, raw and bearback after he lectured us on how great the president is, gives a shit about this crap?”

  The people sitting around me turn and stare. Look, I’m used to people staring at me. Not to brag, but when you’re literally who I am, it’s normal. Even a little more creepy when I was a kid and adults would look at me a little too long, want to pat my back or ruffle my hair or squeeze my shoulder just so their grubby fingers could brush my neck. But that’s for another day. The problem now comes from how intensely they’re staring at me. I catch a handful of Mutants glaring at me as well, like they’ve got any reason to have their weird-colored eyes on me in the first place. Fuckin’ Wastelanders, how’d they even let you— Happy thoughts, Sam! Happiest of thoughts, because I can’t scowl, can’t think terrible thoughts, and it’s better that I laugh this off, scratch the back of my head, and think of something to say before someone throws a beer can at me and I get written up for punching someone into the soil.

  “Is what a weirdo would say.” I laugh a little, then clear my throat. “Their blazers are totally cool.”

  Silence, then someone cheers, “Sentry’s with the SSA! Hear that, HL! She’s with us!”

  A cheer erupts on the hillside. The humans shuffle and look around, sweatier, hearts quicker, looking even more afraid now. Ashley turns her head to me this time, her thin smile more evident. The humans on stage nervously pick their fingers and adjust their hats, and one of them, a guy with an afro and circular glasses, nods as he looks at me, adjusts his large metal frames, then turns around to look at Ashley. I watch him step closer to the SSA as people clap me on the back, force a selfie camera onto my face, and like magic, I’ve got two beers in my hands. This is weird. Really, really weird. Am I supposed to support someone? My agent always said I should avoid politics at all costs, otherwise known as the deathbed of so many superhero careers. ‘Smile and nod and tell ‘em the only thing you believe in is protecting the people, easy,’ he always says. But now there’s energy in the air as Ana nudges me, smiles, and cracks open a beer of her own. I suddenly don’t have the stomach, and decide to give her both of mine.

  Besides, I also don’t like how many people are trying to get closer to me, patting my back, telling me I made the right choice, like I just cashed in and won a million bucks, and now the entire casino wants a piece of me.

  I really should’ve never texted Ana. Wallowing in heartbreak sounds better right now.

  A short, pale-skinned guy with scruffy black hair pops into existence between the SSA lead speaker and the HL’s strangely confident leader. Hooked nose. Pinched features. He licks his lips and smiles, revealing a cluster of yellow teeth that…wow, I mean, if he wants those things straightened, I don’t mind punching them back in place.

  “Now that we’re all finally ready,” he says, and then there’s more jeering at the Humanity League. He smiles just enough to make most of the HL scowl. “How about we get started? Hopefully before we all go gray.” That’s directed at the guy with the afro, with a firm elbow in his gut and another rat-like smile. I glance at Ana. She’s staring at Ashley again, sips lightly from her beer, then licks her lips. I clench my jaw and look back at the guy standing between the two on the pavilion below. “Welcome, everyone. Freshmen. Sophomores.” He points at me, and I almost check over my shoulder to make sure I’m the one he’s jabbing a crooked fingernail at. “Sentry, too, folks! Look at that! We’ve got real star power here tonight, and this is just about the biggest turn out we’ve had in years. Years, people. All I know is that, yes, mock debates really are that super.” Cheers. Applause. A few more people clap my back. I grudgingly put on a smile. “But, as tradition goes”—booeing, almost immediately, comes from the crowd; the rat on stage puts up his hands—“humans go first. I know, I know. Kinda sucks, right? But let’s just get it out of the way so we can get to what we all came here for.” What the hell? I look around as fists shoot into the air, followed by clapping and whooping and a girl a little too drunk vomiting mid-cheer. “So if you can give a very…well, as big as you can, round of applause to Mikey Evans and the rest of his friends, let’s get this started!”

  Only the humans clap and cheer for the guy with the afro. The echo is deathly loud in the silence.

  I nudge Ana and cup my mouth as I whisper, “Is he allowed to say all that stuff out loud?”

  “I guess the only reason anyone’s here tonight is because of Ashley,” she says quietly.

  The rat-boy smiles at me, winks, adjusts his black jean jacket, and then vanishes.

  Mikey steps up, polo shirt crinkled, bags circling his eyes. He smells like coffee and energy drinks, and also anxiety, nerves, and a flash of weak deodorant. A girl in the crowd shouts his name. He meekly waves, then adjusts his glasses, glances at a piece of paper, then sharpens his gaze onto Ashley. “We’ll keep this cordial. It’s the Humanity League. Not Mikey and friends.” He turns to face us. Ashley only tilts her head, making the rest of the HL look away. “First and foremost, thank you for coming. It really is an honor. Second of all, I’m glad you’re all here to witness a shift in how the student council will never be the same again after tonight.” He neatly folds the piece of paper, then slides it into his back pocket. “Things are changing. In the world. In America. In Liberty City. The heroes we grew up with, the ones we idolized, now have kids of their own, some of them even sitting amongst us. Isn’t that just so great?” Silence answers him. Mikey adjusts his glasses again. “Times really are changing. And like all things, so should the student council. Thirty-eight years. That’s how long it’s been since a civilian-class human has sat on the council. Thirty. Eight. Years.” He looks at the crowd. Silence has firmly woven its way through each and every single person sitting around me. I shift on the grass uncomfortably. “And not a single civilian-class human has even seen the happenings inside of the meeting room. Friends, that is nothing short of a disgrace. An erasure of a growingly marginalized group here in PU. This university is an open program. For all. And yet, every year, it’s the SSA, or all its variants over the years, that remain in power. We need change. Time marches forward around the world, through the Free States, and yet, Pantheon U seems to be moving backward. My opening piece, and my opening question”—he turns his head to Ashley—“is this: why are you so afraid to let us have power?”

  “Fuckin’ guy thinks he’s smart asking something like that,” the guy next to me mutters.

  “Power?” a girl behind me whispers to her friends. “They literally keep getting rules made for them.”

  I scratch the back of my neck, because maybe I should just head back to the dorms, slide into my bed, and pretend to sleep for the next handful of hours. Listen, humans are pests. But I mean all humans. Super or otherwise.

  But this kind of talk feels…weird. Simmering. At the end of the day, I am a superhero.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  And something smells wrong right now, but there’s so many people here, so many people muttering and quietly cursing Mikey out right now, that I can’t tell where that stench is coming from. It’s almost like the wind itself reeks of evil, sulfur, rot and gore and something metallic and nasty. I almost want to puke. I shift again, tug my t-shirt collar and pluck grass out of the hill, eyes wandering around, my nose trying to search for the horrid source.

  “Hey, Ana?” I say. She barely looks at me as Mikey steps back, arms folded, getting nods and quiet affirmation from the rest of his team. I nudge her. She finally looks at me. “You wanna bounce? This is kinda lame.”

  “Five minutes,” she says, then squeezes my hand. “Please? You already broke my heart once.”

  Remind me not to talk to any of my exes or flings for me, thanks.

  “Fine,” I mutter. “Five minutes, then I’m rolling.”

  “Shh,” she says, finger to her mouth. “It’s Ashley’s turn.”

  She’s dead right—it almost feels like the wind hasn’t moved yet either. The glowing balls of light in the air brighten just enough to banish the shadows around the pavilion. Each footstep she takes echoes. She walks through the crowd, quietly saying hello to people she knows, smiling at the handful of freshmen here, faintly smiling and waving away the people who say they love her. It takes five minutes, almost like she’s a shepherd striding through her flock, making sure they’re all here, making sure they’re all paying attention—then she’s back at the front, and turns around with a swift spin on her heels, swinging her sheet of blonde hair as she spreads her arms wide open.

  Like she’s embracing the dozens of people very openly staring at her.

  The front of my skull pulses, then aches. I cringe and massage my temples. Telepath. Her? No. I scan the SSA, look at their faces—mom used to give me homework, the practical kind. We’d sit on building ledges, and she’d tell me to look for the superhumans on the streets below, judging them from their build, their bones, their muscles and their smells. Telepaths are easy. They’re like cancers, spreading easily, chewing on people’s thoughts even without them knowing sometimes. Minbreaker used to love ripping through people’s thoughts, finding the memories that made them angry, plucking out those emotions and spreading it through their body. And the problem with Telepaths is that they’re kinda like signal towers. Wanna make a group angry, wanna make ‘em spiteful or sad?

  Just get a thin Asian guy with rectangular glasses to keep his palm open and his eyes glazed over.

  “Kinda not fair,” I mutter, leaning in to Ana.

  Ana’s too busy staring at Ashley, her eyes almost going red because she hasn’t blinked in nearly a minute.

  Then the boy closes his hand, his eyes flutter open, and he takes a step back, swallows, and wipes his face down with a handkerchief. The pressure in my skull vanishes. The thickness in the air suddenly vanishes. Then—

  “He’s right, you know,” Ashley says. They all suddenly look confused. Brows crease. Muttering. Even the HL starts flipping through the notes they’ve made, probably trying to figure out what she’s up to. Ashley, though, waves her hand at Mikey. “The Ungifted in Pantheon U”---Mikey’s jaw clenches, and the humans on the hill not too far away scowl at her, because that’s a word most people kinda don’t use anymore; heck, even I know that—”really are important. No, they are. They’re the backbone of this program.” She lowers her arms. The balls of light dim until she’s the only one really being illuminated. “Without the Ungifted, many of our highest ranked seniors wouldn’t be able to be the heroes they are. The lives they save, the supervillains they stop? Oh, no, it’s the Ungifted who fight our battles for us, that force us to keep working harder and harder. To save that life. To defeat our evils.” Her face softens as she clasps our hands. “And through thirty eight years of greatness, the SSA has never been more honored than it is right now to welcome so many fresh new Gifted faces into our program. It’s a safe environment for all. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: thirty-nine years ago? It wasn’t like that. Not at all. Pantheon U was…my goodness, it was a work camp run by, dare I say, Baselines that thought of us as…well, they thought of us as nothing except assets.” Grumbling from the crowd. “Weapons. Things.” More unrest, a little louder. “We were forced to sleep under the dorms! Like captives! Like slaves! But they said it was for their safety. For their comfort. And then they would lock those iron doors and tell us it’s to keep us safe from ourselves. Oh, friends, the SSA has nothing but changed that. Look at us now! In fact, an Ungifted lives on the seventh floor! Comfortably! My goodness, I mean, there he is, standing on the other side of this very stage.” She turns her head to look at Mikey. “Ever comfortable, ever taken care of, pretending you represent a group that isn’t anywhere near marginalized. What I think, Mikey, is that you’re after power for yourself, not for the people. You should be ashamed to even think that the SSA are not letting all of you rightly get in office. We let you vote. And the system selects its rightful victors, not liars and scammers.”

  “You let us vote?” Mikey says. “And just how much power do you think you—”

  “Answer the question, Baseline!” someone in the crowd yells.

  “Yeah!” Another chorus of jeering, cheering, fist-pumping chanting. “You’re stealing power from us!”

  “That’s all they ever do!”

  "We're not trying to steal power from anyone!" Mikey says, almost shouting. "All we want is-"

  "He wants to put us back under the dorms," the Asian SSA boy snaps. Ashley smiles. "He wants to put us back into seperate clasrooms. Into other bathrooms. He probably hates that we drink the same water as him!"

  "What?" he cries. "That's insane! All I want is-"

  A can gets flung through the air.

  That fast, that sudden, it'll smash his skull into gore.

  It darts like a bullet toward Mikey, then gets turned into nothing when a ball of light appears directly in front of Mikey’s face. He stumbles back, panting hard, as Ashley lowers her hand and the ball of golden light vanishes. She sighs and says, “Let’s not get violent. This is a debate. Who did that?”

  A shaky hand goes up. Mikey adjusts his glasses and glares at Ashley.

  She points at the girl who’d thrown the can, because if that hit him, it would’ve turned most of his skull into aluminium-mashed pulp. “You, stand up.” The girl awkwardly does, wringing her hands, so drunk she’s blinking slowly and sweating profusely. Ashley waves her closer. The girl stumbles her way through the crowd until she’s in front of Ashley. The blonde puts a hand on her shoulder, then speaks loudly without looking at anyone. “Friends, Pantheon U stands for everything except violence against its own.” Ashley looks at Mikey. Smiles. A chill runs down my spine when something glimmers in her gray eyes. “This is, afterall, just a debate. We don’t sponsor violence against one another. Mikey, I truly am sorry for that. Once in a while a bad apple gets a little too sour, you know how it is.” Ashley pats the girl’s arm and says to her, “Go to your room. Get some rest. Don’t be violent. OK?”

  “She’s so gentle with people,” Ana whispers. “Even when that could’ve ruined everything for her.”

  “That idiot nearly killed someone,” I say. “And all she’s gonna get is—”

  “That’s it?” a brown-haired girl in the HL says as the girl wanders away from the pavilion, clutching her stomach and groaning. Ashley tilts her head. “She could’ve hurt Mikey! Or worse! And she just gets to go to bed?” The girl ignores the rest of her team and gets into Ashley’s face. Now the silence becomes harsh. Loud. Ashley is taller. The brown-haired girl keeps her finger jabbed into Ashley’s rigid chest. “Can you fucking imagine what would happen if we threw anything at you? Or any of you’re ‘Gifted’ friends? You’d lose your shit and kill us.”

  Ashley stares at the girl, stares so long, so hard, that it almost makes me feel like getting up. Instinct. That’s what this is. I’ve seen enough fights to know how this ends. Two nights in PU, and both end in chaos. You’ve got a talent, Luck. You really do. Ashley, then, smiles. “We’re superhumans,” she says quietly. “We protect the Ungifted.”

  “We don’t use that word anymore, super-bitch,” the girl spits. “It’s not the Fifties anymore.”

  And for someone who can hear the ants under the soil, when I say silence clicked into place, I mean it feels like the universe just hit pause. Mikey’s eyes go wide. He steps forward. A guy in an SSA blazer does the same.

  Ashley raises her hand. The large boy stops, blocky jaw tight, heavy fists unclenching. Mikey tries to drag the girl away, but she ignores him and keeps glaring into Ahsley’s eyes. I look around. Nobody else looks willing to move. Ana sits forward, clutching her beer, like she’s watching a movie and she can’t wait to see what happens now.

  “I apologize for my language,” Ashley says. “Rowan, right?”

  The girl’s glare sharpens.

  “Well, Rowan,” Ashley says, “we’re born, and we’re bred, and we’re taught to always protect civilians of all classes. Deescalation is what we’re meant to do. Punching that girl whilst she’s drunk? That’s just…primitive.”

  “She nearly took Mikey’s head off his shoulders!”

  “Rowan, I’m fine,” he says, almost through his teeth. “Ashley sorted it out.”

  Rowan groaned and says, “This is what always fucking happens with you! You talk all big, and then you pussy out whenever things start getting scary. Grow a pair of balls and look at how they’re treating us! You think if I threw a fucking beer can at her head, anyone would deescalate that situation? I’d get grabbed, put on the ground, and told to stop fighting or else someone’s gonna take me to campus police.” She shoves Mikey out of the way. “Whatever. You suck. The only reason nobody ever votes for us is because your speeches sound pretty but you’ve got no spine to back them up.” She grabs a backpack off the ground and slings it over her shoulder. “Have fun on the seventh floor with them.” She storms off without anything else, deaf to the rest of the group calling her name.

  Mikey blinks, adjusts his glasses, looks at the group, at Ashley, then at the crowd.

  The glowing balls of light turn his lenses into sharp white lenses, hiding his nervous eyes.

  Ana gets onto her feet, then points at him. “You’re a fucking coward, man.”

  I stare at her. So does Ashley and the entirety of the SSA.

  And then laughter comes out of their mouths. Words get flung. Faces go red with embarrassment.

  Ashley says nothing as she steps back, watching Mikey stutter over his words, check the speech on his piece of paper, and finally, eventually, bail out, leading the rest of his team away. The humans on the grass skirt away, silent, small, angry and muttering about Mikey again and again. The SSA gets chants, cheers, pictures are taken and hands are shaken, questions are asked and I stand there, on the edge of the hill, watching the pavilion fill up with superhumans trying to get close to Ashley. Several SSA members make a barrier around her, but that doesn’t stop her from smiling, from answering questions and waving for videos and winking for the cameras. Ana is gone. Suddenly not standing next to me. Suddenly getting spoken to by the Asian guy, shaking her hand and grinning.

  I step back, then take another step away again. “Gotta hate politics,” I mutter.

  Because that was…weird.

  And the smell of evil is gone.

  I bump into someone the second I turn around. It’s the rat-boy, smiling, hands in his pockets. He offers his hand to shake. I only do because that’s what I’ve been taught to do. “Real honor. Big fan. Had fun tonight, too?”

  “It was…something,” I say quietly, watching the HL trudge away into the dark as one ball of golden light after another dies and blinks out of existence, leaving only one hovering above the SSA. The guy in front of me lights a cigarette, then offers it to me. I take it, only because…well, I don’t know why I do. “But I’ve got class—”

  “You know,” he says. “You helped her out by saying you sided with the right side.”

  “I literally only said they’ve got cool jackets.”

  “Cool jackets, cool colors—cool people wearing them…” He shrugs and takes the cigarette out of my fingers. “At the end of the day, that means you like ‘em. Which is good, because Ashley wants to see you now.”

  “Me?” I ask. Fuck that. “I’m pretty beat, I’ll probably head to bed. Tell her I said thanks, though.”

  He grabs my wrist when I walk past him, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to glare at him.

  “Ashley wasn’t askin’,” he says, then jerks his pointed chin beyond the hillside. “Make friends, because if you wanna be on the right side for the next four years of your life, you’re gonna need to smile and shake hands. That’s what you do, right? Read your agents’ speeches, smile and wave and look good for the cameras. That’s what you’ve got to do now: just look good.” A smile. A nasty, ugly little smile. “C’mon, politics ain’t that bad, Sentry.”

  “Yeah, no thanks. It’s just not my thing.”

  “What, you don’t think your race deserves to be treated like we should?”

  I pause before I’m even a foot away from him. My race?

  I glance over my shoulder. “What did you just say to me?" I whisper.

  My race? The same ones the humans wiped out? That race?

  He shrugs. “Well, if it’s not right now, then Ashley will find you eventually. She always does.” He salutes weakly. “See you around then, that’s for sure. Hey, Sentry? Remember”—he points the cigarette at me—“the Future is Super.”

  I stare at him. Really, really stare at him. His hand lowers, the cigarette goes back in his mouth.

  And then he’s gone, leaving behind foul blue smoke hanging in the air.

  Ana jogs right through it, gushing as she grabs my hand. “I got to say hi to her!”

  “Cool,” I whisper. Then I shake my head. “Ana, what the fuck was that? That ugly dude just said—”

  She grabs my face and kisses me.

  I stare at her when she pulls away.

  I don’t move. I can’t move.

  I do, though, swallow, and taste the beer in her saliva.

  She breathes through her parted lips, looks into my eyes and runs her fingers across my cheeks. She nods, then lets her hands slip down my shoulders, my arms, until she’s holding my hands. “This was fun. Really fun.” She lets go of my hands, leaving harsh warmth clinging to my fingers as she walks backward. “Tomorrow after class?”

  I’m about to speak, to try to formulate a thought past ‘why the fuck did she just do that?’ but she’s gone the next second, swept up in the crowd that spills over the hill, excitedly talking, jostling and shoving and smiling.

  I drag my hand across my mouth, then spit onto the grass.

  My saliva lands on a crumpled, stepped-on brochure for freshmen, right where it says Welcome to PU.

  “Where the Future is Super,” I quietly read the smudged slogan under school’s bronze shield logo.

  I feel eyes digging into the back of my neck, and through the crowd passing around me, I find Ashley’s pearly gray irises cutting through the darkness, past the tide of bodies and heads and shoulders, staring me down. Then, with a small nod and a smile, she walks away, slowly disappearing down the hillside, taking her golden orbs of light with her.