I had forgotten that we had orientation this morning. I was meant to tell Carly, but I got distracted by her hair. It was blue, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. She was beautiful, there was no argument there. But who wore blue hair? Though, I had dyed mine pink once. I guess there wasn’t much difference. 

Who cares? It looked good on her. That’s all that really mattered. She came to the door and hit a smile that would melt most people’s hearts. Most people’s. Here at Super University, she was going to be surrounded by beautiful people. She was going to have to step her game up. Maybe get a nose piercing. I could see her pulling that off.

“What’s up?” Carly asked as she opened the door.

“I lost track of time when we chatted earlier,” I said as I collected my hair. I put it in a ponytail behind me and used the band on my wrist to hold it. “If you don’t already have plans, I was thinking we could walk down to orientation together. Our row is reserved at the front, so there’s no rush, but we still want to get there before it starts.”

“Sure… should we grab Liro? I had completely forgotten about orientation.”

“I guess we can. I didn’t quite get a read off of him earlier. How is he?” She looked at me like I’d just insulted her best friend. “Oh, no offense to him. I just didn’t get much of a chat out of him, is all.” I had a tendency to talk too much sometimes. This might have been one of those times. Oops.

“He’s nice from what I can gather. Just reserved, I think.” Oh, thank god. She wasn’t super close with him, either. I let out a quiet sigh of relief and bounded over to Liro’s door. I tightly rapped on the door three times before calling his name.

“Liro, mate. Orientation’s soon. Carly and I were going to walk down together. You want to join us?” 

He opened his door significantly less enthusiastically than Carly did, though he still wore a smile. 

“Sure thing. Let me grab my key. Is Skip coming with us? I could grab my spare…” he seemed to pull into himself. The all-black thing didn’t help. I ventured a guess that a makeover would make Liro quite the ticket. Starting with that hair. Smoothed back and black only works sometimes, and it definitely wasn’t working for him.

“I could ask him, but it would be moot, really,” I said dismissively. “Skip likes to stay to himself. It wouldn’t shock me if I missed him slipping by me earlier. He’s a sneaky little badger when he wants to be. That being his whole power and all. Let me see if he’s in.” I cleared my throat. “Oi, Skip! You in, bruv?” After a few moments of silence, I shrugged. “Told you.”

“You’re quite… loud,” Liro said as he stepped out of his door and closed it behind him. He wasn’t intending to be rude with the comment, so I let it slide.

“Thanks, mate. My parents always said it was a gift to always be heard in a house with six kids. You think I’m bad? You should hear my sister, Laney. When she gets pitchy, she screeches like a barn owl. It’s quite miserable. Anyways, you lot ready to head out? It’s in the dining hall.” 

I turn and bounce over to the elevator before hitting the button. I almost didn’t want to go. It was so nice and quiet on this floor. Every other floor was crawling with supers looking to make a name in the world. I’d be surprised if I made it the week without an unofficial challenge. I didn’t even understand why people did them anymore. Rankings only changed during rankings weeks at the beginning of each semester. The vultures would have to wait until after finals week. It didn’t stop people from trying, though. And the desperation was pitiful.

I step onto the elevator and plant myself right in the center. Carly slots in right beside me, whereas Liro backs away from me a bit and stands off in the corner. Probably a tad intimidated. Two pretty girls, one new school, and the lowest ranked on the elevator. A lot to be intimidated about.

The ride down was relatively quiet. Surprisingly, the door didn’t open the entire time down. Most of the students must have already left for orientation. Bollocks. As it opened on the bottom floor, I noticed even the crowd down here had thinned out substantially. A few looked our way but immediately went back to their conversations.

“We’re going to be bloody late!” I looked at my phone, and we still had ten minutes. That had to be enough, surely. I hadn’t timed the space between the buildings on campus yet, but the campus wasn’t that big. Though it did house an entire simulated city…

“When we were supposed to be there?” Carly asked.

“10:30. We’re getting introduced to the school as the new eight.”

“Wait, what?”

“Did you not read the orientation papers?” The blank look on her face indicated that she had not. “They e-mailed them to us… nothing? Love, we’re going to have to work on your cyber communications. First Elysium, and now this. Don’t worry. It’s relatively harmless. Just letting the school look upon the latest version of perfection.”

“You don’t truly believe that, do you?” Liro asked as we stepped off the elevator. We all joined in lockstep as we hit the front entrance, and I felt the warm summer air hit my lungs.

“Liro, love, I have to,” I assured him. “We’re going to be the target of quite a lot of hatred over the coming years. Supers are notoriously arseholes. School isn’t going to be any different. We’re looked at in a different light than our classmates. It only helps us to look at ourselves the same way. We can’t afford to think we’re better. We have to know we’re better.”

“What’s your power, Ally?” Carly asked as she walked to my left. This was going to be fun.

“You’re asking that because you’re intimidated. You’re unsure whether someone here is better than you at everything, and I’m assuming that someone is me, given the choices. You want to know if you’re better. More than that, you want to know how much better you are. You’re offended that you’re at the bottom of the top eight, but you’ve no intentions of trying to go higher in the rankings.” I shot her a look, and she looked mortified. Good. “And right now, you’re wishing you could crawl under a rock.”

“You read minds? That’s fucking ludicrous,” she said with a shocked face. “How are you only number fucking four?”

“I wish I bloody read minds,” I scoffed. “No, love, I read intentions. So I was able to read the intention behind why you asked that question. I can read the intentions behind why you’re here. I can see people’s deepest desires, their greatest wishes. But only while their mind is focused on it. It only has to be a flicker of thought for me to latch onto it, but it has to be there. I can’t just walk up to a group of people and figure out who wants to slag off who. Unless they’re drunk, then those intentions tend to be a little closer to the front of the mind.”

“That’s still pretty damn powerful. I assume you can use that in fights?” she asked with a hint of panic. She was worried about what the other top eight could do compared to her. Poor thing. Nothing to worry about now. It’s a little late for that.

“You lookin’ for a scrap, Carly? I’d fuck you right up.” I laughed, and her expression softened a bit. “I can tell when people intend to strike at me and how they intend to do it. Clap that up with my blackbelt, and I’m pretty nasty at close quarters. My only real weaknesses are those who can decide and strike faster than I can read their intentions. I’ve only ever lost one fight, and that was to my dad when I was younger. I doubt the old man could take me now.”

“So why’d you come all the way here?” Liro asked from my other side. Almost forgot the little bugger was there. “You’re obviously British.”

“I am, you observant little scamp. I’m actually from Wales. My dad’s English, but my mum’s very proud of the fact that we’re not English. He’s the only traitor in the house, as she puts it. I don’t know why she’s so hot about it; London is beautiful. The rest of England I could leave or take, but London. Ugh. Anyways, when it was time for me to pick a university, I picked Saxton University in London. My mum had a conniption. No daughter of hers was going to London. I told her my only other option was here. And here I am.”

“Your mom hates England so much that she’s paying a fortune to send you across the world instead?” Liro asked in astonishment. 

“Well, when you put it that way, sure, it sounds a bit weird. You’re not Welsh. It’s hard to explain. You get it, right Carly?”

“I’m with Liro on this one.”

“Oh, piss off, the both of you.” I felt my face flush. I was not spoiled, goddamnit. “It makes sense if you’re involved in the situation. I think. I don’t know; my mum might just be a loon. All that matters is I’m here now! With you guys! And that’s exciting!” I put my arms around both of their shoulders and pulled them in. I wasn’t tall, so it was odd being the tallest of the group.

As we walked and dodged a couple of American footballs and frisbees, we eventually made it to the dining hall. It was technically called Eggman’s, but I didn’t much care for that name. I preferred to just call it the dining hall. It was a circular brick building with a large metal dome on the top. There were various windows on the building that were a couple of meters tall, at least, and just as wide, spread out along the wall. From the looks of the windows, there were three floors of tables on the inside. The only windows higher than that were on a row near the top that seemed to go all the way around the building. I continued marching to the closest set of double doors and opened them up, allowing Liro and Carly to walk in before me.

The inside was much nicer than the outside. The finishes were all white and modern, with booths and sturdy padded chairs surrounding solid stone tables. The floor was black and white tile except for the staircase, which was some sort of dark stone. I saw the kitchens and where the food was in one of the corners furthest from where we walked in, but it was all shut down as it wasn’t time to eat quite yet. They would open up tonight if the paperwork was anything to go by. Then they would be open twenty-four seven, outside of school-wide meetings like this one.

The large open room was buzzing with conversation. I motioned for Carly and Liro to follow as I made my way to the makeshift stage in the center of the room. I felt rather aggressive intentions coming from some upperclassmen. I stiffened and pulled my skirt down as far as I could, and walked with a tighter gait. Fucking perverts everywhere. Carly and Liro were none the wiser. Lucky devils.

We made it to the stage, where the front row sat half empty. It was our row! I looked at the head of the row where the two large Alpha twins sat. They were lost in conversation with each other and didn’t even dare a glance in our direction as we walked up. Skip looked up to see us, and I waved with a smile. He went back to staring at the floor. Git. Then there was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever laid eyes on, Bella Ace. She was lounging on her phone in a white crop top with light blue jeans on. Fuck I hated her. Who looked that good? Then, of course, the lanky wonder himself, Chris.

“Oi, Chris!” I threw my hands up and out for a hug. He stood up and gave me one with his lanky arms before turning to my two companions. “Look what I’ve dredged up. Chris, this is Carly and Liro. Liro, Carly, this is Chris. He’s rank six. I’m going to go sit before we get started. It was lovely chatting with you on the way here. Here’s to many more, aye?” I faked a toast and then walked over to my seat as number four.