POWERLESS Page 4

  "The next round starts in 5 minutes," the instructor said and teleported out of the gym as well.

  The timer appeared on the ceiling and started winding down.

  When Aggen returned from the infirmary, he walked over to Malkus and laid down on the ground. "You're going to win this tournament, too. I just know it," he said.

  "How'd you figure that?" Malkus asked skeptically.

  "I'm in no shape to win the next round," Aggen said. "I barely held off Glen. He knocked my noggin' pretty good. I can't see very clearly right now; my eyesight is still blurry. I'm just going to forfeit the next round. Is Schmendrick nearby?" he asked quietly. He closed his eyes and tried to relax his body.

  "No," Malkus replied. "He's sitting with another kid right now."

  "If that guy's serious about winning the tournament, then none of us will stand a chance. But I have a feeling he doesn't want first place. If the match ends up between you and him, he might just take a dive," Aggen replied.

  Malkus sucked his teeth. "You're suggesting Schmendrick had let me win the running exercise?" He was incredulous.

  "Maybe," Aggen said with a shrug.

  "Why would he hold himself back?" Malkus asked.

  "Maybe he wants you to owe him a favor. Also, I noticed that the guy hates being the center of attention, unlike you. He tries very hard to blend in with the rest of the class for some reason. He pretends to be an average joe when he really isn't," Aggen observed. "But there's something weird about him that I can't quite put my fingers on. The way he thinks is foreign to the rest of us."

  "I think you're weird for thinking that way," Malkus retorted.

  "Am I?" Aggen finally opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. "I think deep down inside, you agree with me. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't follow him blindly."

  1.7 - The Noob Academy,

  Final Rounds of Class Tournament

  The instructor promptly returned to the gym after 5 minutes. He typed into the keyboard.

  The class looked up with anticipation at the matchups. The only contestants remaining were Aggen, Torre, Schmendrick, and Malkus, who was going to fight for the first time.

  The hologram on the ceiling flashed and announced the matchups: "Aggen Vs. Torre; Schmendrick Vs. Malkus."

  The four boys walked into their respective circles.

  When the countdown dropped to zero, Aggen held up his hand and said, "I forfeit." He immediately stepped out of the circle.

  The students started booing him.

  The instructor gave the coward a death stare. The boy could have won his match. Sure, it would be a brutal fight against the little guy but the fight was winnable. And that was all that mattered. The instructor was very disappointed at the boy's lack of will and determination.

  Aggen looked at them and said, "Hey, my ears are still ringing from my last match. I'm not in shape to handle this guy."

  All eyes in the gym then turned to the remaining match. To the delight of the audience, neither fighter was inclined to forfeit.

  Schmendrick and Malkus slowly approached each other and started trading punches. It was a Battle of the Titans and neither wanted to cheapen this match with stupid tricks.

  Displaying uncanny vision, Schmendrick dodged most of the blows from Malkus. But the punches that landed were loud and painful. On the other hand, Schmendrick was attacking with almost surgical precision. His punches were mainly focused on the eyes with the occasional body blow to keep Malkus wary.

  After a few minutes, the bigger boy's eyes were beginning to swell and he could barely see. Malkus understood perfectly what the devious boy was trying to accomplish. However, Malkus allowed himself to be played in this manner in order to set up a trap of his own. Suddenly, Malkus threw a right hook to his opponent's head. He had never thrown this sort of punch during the match and the fighter was hoping to take his opponent by surprise.

  However, Schmendrick saw the blow coming. Instead of ducking under it, he purposely lunged his head into the path of the fist! *WHAM* The force of the blow dropped Schmendrick to the floor and he stayed down.

  The audience gasped at the unexpected and violent end of the match. They started applauding and hollering Malkus' name. The boy was simply too powerful even for that dark horse named Schmendrick.

  A spotlight shone on Malkus and the metallic voice declared him the winner. A portal appeared and Malkus was ordered to bring Schmendrick to the infirmary.

  Malkus carried the unconscious boy through the portal and placed the teenager on the altar. Malkus should have been jubilant that he had won the match. Instead, he was furious! But now was not the time to yell at Schmendrick. After all, the boy was unconscious. Furthermore, Aggen's prediction had proved accurate and Malkus did not want the system to learn that Schmendrick had purposely thrown the match to Malkus.

  Once Schmendrick was safely encapsulated on the altar, Malkus walked through the shimmering portal and returned to the gym. The timer on the ceiling indicated that there were still 3 minutes remaining before the final round will begin. However, his body felt too tense and wired with adrenaline for Malkus to sit down. Instead, he stood on his feet.

  When the timer reached zero, the instructor returned to the gym. "Okay, this is the Final Round. Malkus Vs. Torre. Please give us a good fight!" he said.

  The two boys ignored him. They also ignored the blinking yellow arrows on the ground.

  Malkus walked over to a red circle that was furthest away from the prick.

  Torre followed him into the ring. Instead of backing away, Torre stayed close to his opponent. The short kid looked Malkus in the eyes, daring the taller boy to back away.

  Malkus stared back and stayed right where he was.

  The audience started chattering. The two combatants were standing less than a foot apart. Surely, they weren't planning to start the fight standing so close to each other?

  Finally, the countdown reached zero and the match officially began!

  However, the two continued with their hard staredown and neither boy moved an inch.

  Finally, Malkus grinned. He bent his knees and back to lower his head until it was on the same plane as Torre's head. Malkus offered his challenge. "You take your best shot at me. If you knock me out, you win this match. If you don't, I'll return the favor and try to knock you out. If neither of us gets knocked out, then we'll have a slugfest to satisfy this bloodthirsty crowd. Deal?"

  Torre returned his grin. "Deal." The boy was confident in his punch. Malkus was crazy enough to allow Torre to make his move first? That deal was a no-brainer! He took a step back and pulled back his right fist in a windup. *WHAM*

  The blow caused Malkus' knees to wobble. The punch was much more powerful than he could imagine. He blacked out for an instant and then he began seeing stars. But somehow, his mind managed to clear up and, more importantly, his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground. Malkus smiled despite the fact that his left eye was now swollen shut and he had a pounding headache. "Not bad, kid!"

  Torre gave him a death stare. "Well?" In an instant, Torre was punched in the face! *BAM*

  Malkus threw an uppercut to his victim's chin. The brutal force of the punch lifted the much smaller boy off his feet and his body went flying! He dropped to the ground six feet back, unconscious.

  A spotlight shone on Malkus and he was declared the winner. He was immediately ordered to bring Torre to the infirmary.

  The audience started clapping at the dramatic ending of the tournament. It wasn't the slugfest they wanted to see. But there was a clear winner and that was all that mattered.

  However, the instructor was furious at the two boys. What he expected from them was a good old-fashioned fistfight. What he got instead was some overzealous macho showdown. He was not happy with them. Not. At. All. They were halfway to his shit list. "Okay, gather around!" he yelled.

  The students immediately walked over and sat down in front of him.

  The middle-aged man folded his arms across his chest
. "I am disappointed in you," he announced. "You guys are not taking the tournament seriously. You think this is just some silly little game and you get to cruise through my class. Well, you're wrong. Dead wrong. If you cannot convince me that you'll be able to survive your first fight with a monster, you may as well be the next Brandon." He paused for a moment for dramatic effect. "Who's Brandon, you ask? That's the kid who didn't leave the Rebirth Chamber alive."

  The boys suddenly turned attentive to his speech. They remembered the one boy who was struck by lightning and burned to ashes right in the room where they were all reborn.

  "Finally got your attention, did I?" the instructor grinned. "Here's a dirty little secret. It costs a tremendous amount of Aether to resurrect a Reborn. Our Rezdi City is ruled by the Priest-King and he alone has the power to decide whether to spend the precious Aether to resurrect you when you die. The system keeps track of your movements and actions; it creates a file for each Reborn living in the city. The Priest-King will review this file and determine whether you are worth resurrecting. When there are 25 of us that the Priest-King decides should stay dead, he will activate the Rebirth Chamber and bring in a new batch of Reborns into the city."

  "As your instructor, it is my responsibility to teach you the skills you will need to survive once you leave The Noob Academy. Someday, you may find yourself fighting with your bare hands. And if you die, don't count on being resurrected. Am I making myself clear?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir!" the students replied in unison.

  "I'm going to distribute the experience points for your participation in this tournament. Some of you will advance to Level 2 or even Level 3. You will need to assign your attribute points before the system will permit you to leave the gym. So do it now or else you'll hold up the rest of the class," the instructor said. He typed into the keyboard and some students heard a "Ding!"

  The fortunate students quickly assigned their 20 points.

  Once the system confirmed that all assignable points had been distributed, a green portal appeared once more.

  Wordlessly, the boys walked through the portal and arrived at a dormitory!

  The instructor was the last person to walk through the portal and it closed behind him. He clapped his hands to get their attention. "As much as I would like to move on to the next lesson, there are a number of you currently in the infirmary. Thus, I can't continue with my instructions until your injured mates are back. So, the system has tasked me with bringing you to your dormitory. This is where you will stay while you are attending The Noob Academy."

  "We encourage you to act responsibly as a Reborn. That's why you will be permitted to make your own room arrangements at the dormitory. Decide for yourself who or if you want roommates. Each dorm room has two sets of double bunk beds, allowing four roommates. There are 10 rooms and 40 beds in all. There is a communal restroom. The system will create portals for you to enter and leave the dormitory. The system will alert you when it is time for the next lesson. Now, go claim your rooms!"

  Before the instructor even walked through the green portal before him to leave the dormitory, the boys ran down the hallway and rushed to claim their rooms.

  1.8 - The Noob Academy,

  Dormitory

  Red. It was a primal color. The color of blood. The color of life. The color of death. The boy found himself standing in a pool of blood. Whose blood was it? The boy drew closer and stepped around the queen-sized bed. He found his answer. He wished he hadn't. It was the body of a woman. He screamed. "MOM!"

  * * *

  Schmendrick awoke from his horrific nightmare. The vividness of the image of his mother laying on the ground, in her bedroom, and mortally wounded caused great pain in his heart. His chest tightened, his pulse rate rose rapidly, and he could barely breathe!

  Suddenly, the hissing sound of a gas entered his capsule. The minty smell immediately hit his nostrils. He breathed in the gas and it calmed his nerves. Laughing gas. What was a laughing gas? He couldn't remember. He was annoyed at this inadvertent reminder of his predicament--the loss of his precious memories. It was a Devil's Bargain, trading away his past memories for a new life in a new world. Honestly, if Schmendrick was given the choice, he wasn't sure he would take the trade voluntarily. Be that as it may, he had more pressing concerns at the moment. Namely, where was he?

  Schmendrick looked up and saw the familiar looking white fluorescent lights. He turned his head to his left and right. He saw other bodies atop the altars. They, too, were encapsulated. The teenager tried to push his hands outward. They barely moved away from his hips. Somehow, he had been entombed while he was unconscious. He had no way to escape.

  Yet, the boy did not feel any fear. Somewhere along his past, he had learned to wall off his emotions. His mind started analyzing his current situation. The last thing he remembered was taking a punch in the face from Malkus in the semi-finals of the tournament. He gave the class a good show and then pretended to be surprised by Malkus' right hook.

  Hopefully, the boy had won the tournament because otherwise, Malkus would have only 1 win to his credit for 500 experience points. It was the curse of getting 2 bye rounds for winning that stupid running exercise. With 1,000 bonus points for winning and 500 points for finishing the running exercise, Malkus should have at least 2,000 points and possibly 4,500 if he won the tournament.

  Schmendrick, on the other hand, had won 2 matches for 1,000 points. He received a bonus 500 points for finishing the first match in record time. Including the 500 points for completing the running exercise, Schmendrick now had 2,000 points. He recalled the Menu to check and confirm his math. He quickly chose to put all 20 points in Vitality. He tried to close the Menu but it remained open. Huh? Schmendrick checked his status screen again and this time, he saw a red blinking exclamation point next to his Experience. It read: "2,000/2,000." He could advance to Level 3!

  Schmendrick was flabberghasted. Normally, one would expect the level advancement to steadily increase in terms of experience points required for each successive level. 1,000 points for Level 2, 2,000 points for Level 3, 3,000 points for Level 4 and so forth was the norm for example. Instead, in this system, it took only 1,000 points for each successive level. This was a mixed blessing because it meant that Schmendrick could be forced to "graduate" from The Noob Academy sooner than most of his class, aside from Malkus who could leave even sooner. And the sooner the students graduated, the fewer resources such as food and shelter that the system will be forced to provide. The teenager realized that this was by design.

  Schmendrick stared at the blinking mark incredulously. He was becoming angrier by the second. This system is rigged. He took a deep breath and his anger departed with the air exhaled from his lungs. His heartbeat returned to normal and his mind was clear. It was pointless to be angry at the system. All he could do now was to gather as much intel as he could before he was forced out of the academy. Once he graduated, his options will increase. Until then, he had to pretend to be a talented but obedient little boy. He looked at his attributes and tossed another 20 points into Vitality; its score was now 140 points.

  Once his points were assigned, there was a flash of light inside his capsule. When Schmendrick opened his eyes, he saw that he was no longer entombed. He reached out with his hands and felt nothing holding him back. He sat up on his altar and saw a shimmering portal nearby. He looked around and he saw two other boys entombed on their respective altars.

  "Please leave the infirmary, Schmendrick," the metallic voice ordered.

  The teenager looked around but he couldn't find the source of the voice. He hopped off the altar and stepped through the green portal.

  * * *

  Schmendrick found himself standing in a long hallway, with many doors on each side. He slowly walked along the hallway until he reached a doorway. The door left open, he looked inside and saw that it was a room with two sets of bunk beds. The room itself was empty. However, he heard the sound of conversations and quickly realized he had been br
ought to the dormitory, where his class will stay until graduation. The instructor had promised to provide them with shelter until they reached Level 5 and he had kept his word in this regard.

  Schmendrick counted 5 doors on each side of the hallway plus an open doorway at the end. Assuming each door led to a room, there were 10 rooms in all with 40 beds. Clearly more than the 12 students in his class. Schmendrick was tempted to claim this empty dorm room as his own and live by himself. However, he did make a pact of sorts with Malkus and the rest of the boys. He felt an obligation to follow through with the pact--at least until they chose to cast him out.

  With the decision made, the teenager continued walking along the hallway, this time in search of his comrades. He knocked on the closed doors before opening them. Some were occupied by his classmates while others were empty. It was only when he reached the 2 doors furthest down the hallway that he found them: Yolo and Torre in the room on the left; Aggen, Burns, and Malkus on the right.

  When Malkus saw Schmendrick, a look of annoyance appeared on his face. "Guys, can I have a minute with Schmendrick?" Malkus requested quietly.

  The 2 boys quickly left the room.

  "What's up?" Schmendrick asked.

  "Why did you throw our match?" Malkus asked in a serious tone of voice.

  Schmendrick looked away for a moment. "You knew."

  "Answer me," the other boy demanded. His voice hardened. He was hoping that Schmendrick would deny it. The boy's refusal to do so had hurt Malkus' pride. This was despicable and unforgivable in Malkus' eyes. And depending on the mysterious boy's answer, Malkus was ready to fight him on the spot.

  Schmendrick sat on a bed. He looked directly at Malkus, saw the hurt on the other's boy face, and shrugged helplessly. "Instincts?" He saw the look of disbelief on Malkus' face and quickly held up his hand. "Ever since I arrived in this world as a Reborn, I've been at war with myself. My gut instincts have been telling me to do certain things that normal people may think are irrational," he explained.