Harper picked at the food on her tray. Her headphones pyed a tired song. The tumult within her soul could flip a freight train. No one else sat at the table with her. The dull roar of background conversations filled the cafeteria with the static of life, but here at this empty table she ate alone.

  Despite the swirling tide of thoughts that pgued her internal world, Harper kept her external world clean. She wore a straight face with a raised nose and a soft smile that didn’t touch her eyes. She remained outwardly stoic but, to the trained eye, cracks could be seen forming in her facade. The long-term harassment she faced had finally worn down her armor, and now she faced the world bare.

  She lied to herself. She repeated the mantras of the broken and the damned—as if teenage goth anthems could repce what she had lost, what she had destroyed with her own hands. She gave in to her baser self. She used music and escapism to let herself wander to far away pces where Harper never existed; she dreamed of other worlds. .

  She let the dream end as lunch came to a close. She cleaned her tray and left towards the auditorium, where a special lecture was scheduled to take pce. She didn’t know what it covered, but judging by the excitement of the teachers it seemed someone impressive had come to the school. Her bck shoes ccked loudly down the empty hall.

  Harper’s leisurely pace came to a halt. She had avoided the more commonly used hallways to avoid running into anyone, but she had failed spectacurly; she had come face-to-face with the group she most hoped to avoid.

  “Harper.” Caroline’s voice was stately and level; she sounded like a diplomat instead of a cssmate. Her fxen hair danced behind her as she swished her head.

  Harper’s breath hitched. She hiccuped and stumbled as she stepped backwards, but a hand pressing against her shoulder stopped her. That hand belonged to a brown-haired girl named Maya, and that hand pushed Harper forward into the middle of the hall; she was now surrounded.

  “C-carol the special lecture assembly is starting soon. I really need to be going—” Harper’s quivering voice betrayed the strong (but fake) expression on her face.

  “Tch,” Caroline clicked her tongue. She walked forward and put a finger on Harper’s chin, meeting her eyes. “Are you saying some lecture is more important to you than your friends?”

  “N-no! Of course not—” Harper stuttered. She recoiled at the touch and tried to distance herself but couldn’t because of the hand on her back.

  “Oh! So if you really think that way then why are you trying to leave us behind? Unless you don’t think of us as friends?” Caroline pouted and pulled a strand of Harper’s hair, gently twirling it with her finger.

  “THAT’S NOT—”

  “Maybe she’s looking down on us again, Carol~” One of the ckeys spoke.

  “How amusing that the weakest in the css is looking down on anyone~”

  “Now now, girls,” Caroline retook control of the conversation. “Harper is just concerned about her education. With grades as bad as hers it only makes sense she’d want to spend more time learning.”

  Harper started nodding, relieved at the sudden unexpected olive branch. “Yes. I need to improve my grades so I don’t drag everyone down.”

  “Oh my! How cute!” Caroline pinched Harper’s cheek, but she used too much force. Harper chirped in pain and a red mark was left behind. “If our little st pce wanted help she only had to ask. What do you think, girls? Shouldn’t we help? Why don’t we spend this special lecture time more productively?”

  “Oh are you suggesting…”

  “Yes. Why don’t we tutor our friend?”

  “Th-that—” Arm bells went off in Harper’s head. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes.

  Scale waited outside the auditorium and frowned. She hadn’t seen Harper yet despite waiting by the entry. She wondered if she just missed her? Or maybe Harper took a different entrance. Scale didn’t know the school’s yout too well yet.

  “Ah. I’m out of time,” said Scale. In the end none of her so-called friends came to save her. She had to face this lecture alone. It was frustrating, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She did have a pn, albeit it was a pretty bad one.

  Scale knew herself well. She knew her weaknesses and strengths, and she always sought to py to what she could do instead of what she couldn’t. She sighed as she walked into the building and made her way towards the stage. The familiar chatter of students made Scale feel a bit nostalgic for her own days in school. Then she remembered the workload involved in an engineering degree and all the nostalgia and good-will left her body like she’d just been hit by a blue shell in a chaotic racing game.

  The room quieted down as Scale stepped on stage. She scanned the crowd but couldn’t spot Harper. Activating her mana, Scale performed a simple detection magic but it failed. Harper wasn’t in the building.

  Scale immediately assumed Harper was avoiding her. Someone probably tipped the kid off. It was a tragedy. Scale also felt a small flower of anger budding in her chest. How dare her little apprentice skip this special lecture?

  “Ah.” Scale made a neutral sound into the microphone to test it. She tapped it a few times while fiddling and eventually figured out how to lower it to an appropriate height. “If those in the back three rows can hear me well, please raise your hands.”

  Hands went up immediately.

  “Good, good.” Scale ughed. She could feel all the eyes in the auditorium glued to her. Being famous had a few perks, and one of those was not needing to waste time on introductions .

  “Nice to meet you all, students. I am going to be giving afternoon lectures to the student body for the next month. Some of you are probably wondering what I intend to teach. The answer is simple.” Scale paused and moved her mouth really close to the microphone. She whispered into it, “I am going to teach you all how to survive.”

  The solution Scale reached was a simple one. She couldn’t teach intricate things, and she firmly believed that hands-on experience trumped any fancy book learnin’ in regards to combat. Her grin turned a bit manic and madness swirled in her eyes like a sea of stars. White light started to filll the room. Barriers formed on all the doors and windows. Magic seeped into reality like an infectious disease. A massive blue Gate opened in the front of the room.

  “With my magic, no one is at risk of injury.” Scale’s ominous voice made all the children tremble. Some of the spectating teachers stood from their seats but colpsed soon after. “Ah. No interference from you pesky adults. The kids wouldn’t learn anything that way.”

  Scale ughed into the mic. Her voice sounded like shattering gss. The teachers all disappeared in a poof, their bodies being scattered outside the barrier.

  “Now students,” Scale raised her hands over her head. The Gate started to glow as the magic turbulence increased. Monstrous beings emerged from the dimensional walls. “You are all free to fight to your heart’s content. Your objective: Survive!”

  Scale felt proud of her pn. She agreed with the Principal that only through conflict could these kids grow, but conflict without safeguards was just war. What these children needed was a setting where they could experience conflict without real risk. With Scale’s magic filling the room, none of the children would be in real danger. The pain they’d feel would be real, sure, but that was a small price to pay for the perfect growth environment.

  “The lesson ends when the st monster dies or when the bell rings in two hours! I’ll be grading your performances, so make sure you try and stand out!”

  The Barriers on the auditorium separated it from the rest of the world like a miniature veil. The Principal, intent on spying, was now cut off and unable to even get a hint of what was happening inside the auditorium. He cursed and smmed against the barrier with his full strength, hoping to at least use Scale’s barrier as an outlet for his aggression (and perhaps as a measuring stick)... But when his own attack rebounded he realized just how deep the waters he was trying to swim in were.

  “Aww fuck~” The Principal fell unconscious with a smile on his face, lying next to a pile of other unconscious professors. A passing pigeon’s poop nded perfectly on the side of the Principal’s face.

  Sarah only needed one more win to finally advance. She leaned forward as the game got more intense. She roared into her mic, screaming at her teammates and demanding they get their acts together (while simultaneously doing the worst on the team).

  “You damn noobs stop letting them get the high ground!” Sarah belittled her teammates for their failure in tactical knowledge.

  “You’re the sniper, it’s literally your job to stop that!” One of her weakling teammates dared to talk back. His voice had a nasal quality that ruined whatever point he tried to make.

  “Report this guy!” Sarah had no mercy for nerdy-voiced noobs.

  Meanwhile, behind her, her phone now dispyed: “114 missed calls.”