Harrison ‘Cheater’ Smith

  Student Coach

  Level 406

  XP: 59/100

  HP: 100/100

  EP: 76/100

  RP Status: Controversial— Points Uncalculated

  Weakness Lvl 10

  Harrison was dying for the Lunch period to end. Disaris was in a bad mood— God knew why— and decided to take his frustrations out on the only full-blooded human in the SC pack. The first thing he’d said when he sat down at their table was that he wished he could boot off all his ‘worst-performing’ students and put them in Harrison’s non-existent Guild.

  As of the moment, Disaris’s Guild, Beta, had just over eighty members. He had recently accepted three new students, one of whom was a cousin of his— no surprise there. The other two were a Voraxian and a Mercearthian, both of whom were arrogant jerks with inflated Rep Levels.

  Eighty students were, of course, a huge workload for one Student Coach to handle; that called for the Assistant Student Coaches. The top Favorite student of each Guild would help the Student Coach in Guild Training, provided they met all other requirements. If they were unqualified, the next best Favorite would step in.

  Disaris had ten students he considered the best in his Guild. Replacing his previous top Favorite, who was currently serving time, was Barreth ‘Hellhound’ Digger. He was a Hajjian student who was notoriously fierce in the last competition, landing in the top twenty best in the country. His call sign mostly stemmed from how he preferred breathing fire at his opponents; he tended to crouch in a dog-like position to magnify the effect.

  Harrison also knew he was partly given that call sign because he kind of looked like a dog.

  Disaris went on to complain about the members he regretted accepting, which were apparently a lot. Every Guild had its low-performing bunch, but One-Punch complained more than anyone. Almost every time, he’d suggest to Harrison that he could ‘shape them up’ once he kicked the students out of Beta.

  Harrison initially opted to ignore the man, but finally had enough after a while. He shot a sharp glance at the other Student Coaches, namely the ones that were usually nice to him. They couldn’t at least change the subject? Were they really just letting this man constantly degrade him right in front of them without even hiding his distaste?

  Achieved: Sworn Enemy Status

  +Avoidance V (MAX)

  +Rumors VI

  +Insults IV

  +Exclusion IV

  That was long overdue.

  “It’s weird that you get the lowest-performing students in your Guild,” Harrison said, rolling up a bunch of spaghetti onto his fork and pretending to inspect it. “Maybe you need to up your standards when you accept people.” He then shrugged, taking the bite. “I guess that’s why your best man’s up in the space stations.”

  He caught Catherine folding her lips, stifling a laugh, as well as many other raised brows from the other SCs. They hadn’t stood up for Harrison, but none of them were refuting his words, either; not even Reilly, who indifferently continued eating as if he were alone.

  -10 Rel-P (Disaris)

  “Listen up, you little punk.” Disaris pointed his fork at him. “Don’t talk to me about standards when you have none. The people in my Guild may be idiots, but they have enough self-respect to never want to be associated with someone like you.”

  “They also have enough self-respect to not end up in jail… I hope.”

  Disaris’s meaty hand slammed onto the table. The loud noise caught attention from nearby tables.

  -10 Rel-P

  Warning: Possible Confrontation

  “As your Pet, I advise you to shut up now,” Harrison’s Pet, Jupiter, quickly told him. He wasn’t one to chat with Harrison often (outside of the Games), but when he felt the need to feed him advice, he’d do it.

  “Alright, that’s enough,” Li Mei said, nudging Disaris. “You’ve been glitching about your students non-stop. I’m getting tired of hearing it. Just beat them into shape.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Disaris cast one last glare at Harrison before returning to his meal, finally halting his rant and rave. Harrison never understood why he got so angry with him when he always chose to start the antagonization. He was 27, but he sure didn’t act his age.

  The AIDA bell finally graced Harrison’s ears with its three gentle dings, ending the Lunch period. “Lunch period has ended. All students, proceed to your Warm-Up or Review periods.”

  Task Acquired: Attend Warm-Ups period— 8 XP

  Harrison left his half-eaten spaghetti on the table. All the dishes lifted off the tables in a cacophony of clinking ceramic and metal as gravity beams shone over all the tables, bringing them to the recycling system that would convert leftover food into sterilized fertilizer and pick the dishes to absolute cleanliness.

  He inwardly groaned, realizing that the AIDA would notice how little he ate today. It always took account of the students’ average serving sizes so it could generate an adequate amount of food to avoid so much of it being abandoned, but sometimes, it was a bit too sensitive. It would probably give him a smaller dish at Dinner period just because he left half his spaghetti, but he couldn’t concentrate because of One-Punch’s constant badgering.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  As if reading his thoughts, Jupiter brought a pop-up:

  Nutrition inadequate

  “Jupiter, not now,” he sighed.

  “I’m just doing my job,” Jupiter said, and Harrison could hear the shrug in his voice, despite him not having an actual body other than the sphere nestled in his belt.

  As he walked to the Training Center, one of the teleporters along the outdoor pathways lit up, making Lílitha appear. “Where were you eating today?” Harrison asked the little woman when she approached him.

  “My dorm. I usually like the Studitorium, but I felt like being completely alone today.” She tucked a kernel of her midnight blue hair behind her large, lynx-like ear. She usually tried to hide her ears enough so they weren’t obvious; Harrison sensed something was bothering her with how she kept them so bare today. “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “Just fine,” she said indifferently, but Harrison could tell she was lying with the way she didn’t meet his eyes. He decided not to pry further; she was a secretive soul with heavy trust issues, and for good reason. He didn’t know much about her past, but she had a hard time connecting with other people, including her own family back on Ilamiko.

  She’d met Harrison on his first day in the Versus Fighting School. They were in the same year (third-year 1), but Lílitha had started earlier than Harrison; he had initially started at the School of Fighting for the non-Versus track, being too young to compete at the time. However, seeing his prodigious potential, the admissions board had decided to grant him early admission to the Versus track the next year as a second-year student, which already brought doubt and envy from his peers. He was only fourteen years old at the time, and when he got on the team, he was already set up for rejection from his own teammates.

  Being the youngest in the school at the time, and Lílitha being the youngest-looking, the two already had a lot in common. Lílitha had been quite protective of him during his first year and already knew who to trust and who not to trust, tipping him off whenever she felt the slightest suspicion that someone would take advantage of him. From what he knew, he was Lílitha’s only friend, and even then, there was a lot she didn’t tell him.

  They entered the Training Center, heading to their corresponding gymnasium for Teamwork class. As usual, the hallway HARPs played different channels related to Versus News and political news— this year’s team would need to know about current events if they were to fight against other Earth countries in a few months. As the Treaty dictated, any geo or astropolitical conflict would be addressed through the Games, supposedly avoiding any innocent lives getting caught up in such matters.

  With the Planetary Leader election coming up, the HARPs were often showing Thiki Burna and Whitley Geanna’s faces. Harrison wasn’t sure how they’d ‘settle’ any conflicting opinions towards the two candidates; most, if not all, fighters were firmly against Geanna due to her anti-Versus stance and hopes to take down every fighting school in the country. Last Monday’s announcement of Sweden pulling out already had students gossiping madly, worried that the United States would be next since the President endorsed the Socializer candidate.

  There was another rumor going around that the President was having an affair with the Vice President— a former beauty queen and current Socializer. Harrison wasn’t too sure about this rumor, and he wondered where it had come from. It wasn’t the usual kind of gossip that floated around the academy. They cared about broader issues and fighter stats, not secret love affairs and pageant women.

  “…looking to include exclusive interviews during the training period next Versus year…”

  “…Burna’s policies that will eliminate hacked areas of space stations and drastically reduce crime, as well as expelling residents who…”

  “…had the pleasure of hosting Mrs. Jennifer Zyben-Medley the other day, and I brought up this sort of issue…”

  The HARP nearest his classroom made him stop. The woman in the hologram looked strikingly familiar. He stared at her; long black hair, emerald green eyes, porcelain skin…

  “Isn’t that Medley?” Lílitha inquired, also watching the hologram.

  Harrison stepped closer, studying the woman. It wasn’t Calista— her face was a little different, but they could be twins. What were the odds?

  “Maybe she has a twin?” he wondered aloud.

  Some other students also stopped, chuckling at the image. “Isn’t this the ditzy girl in our class?” someone said.

  “You mean the one that can’t even play Freeze Race?”

  “Yeah, look how pretty and prissy she looks.”

  “It’s inevitable that young, impressionable minds like Calista’s and even Katelyn’s are easily brainwashed through their propaganda,” the Calista lookalike was saying.

  “What’s the fuss?” Rosalina Wiasod approached the group, her presence prompting the students to make way for her. She reached the front, glancing at Harrison and Lílitha; the latter already had a venomous glare fixed on her.

  “Cheater,” she said curtly.

  “Hothead,” he replied.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing. Just someone that looks like… someone in our class.”

  Rosalina watched the Calista duplicate and smirked, her fangs glinting. “Oh… the flexible human clown show, huh? An older version, though.”

  “She doesn’t look that old,” Harrison said.

  “Those are mods,” Lílitha pointed out. “Everything about her seems very… fake.”

  Whitley Geanna momentarily took over the hologram, the lookalike’s figure paused and muted behind her. “A mother of three, struggling to keep her children from falling into a world of violence, just to have her beloved firstborn ripped away into a culture of rage,” she said dramatically.

  “This is her mother?” Rosalina had a huge, irritating grin on her face. “Did she get any genes from her father?”

  Calista’s mother’s image returned, sitting across from Whitley on a long sofa. “I want to get her out of there more than anything. Sadly, these schools have a legally binding contract that prevents her from leaving. Once you sign up to one of these schools and enter, there’s no getting out. You can’t simply quit. I can’t imagine the threats that would come out of that. I’m sure that, by now, Calista is regretting her impulsive decision. Unfortunately, she has to reap the consequences of her actions.”

  “What is she talking about?” Lílitha wondered. “People can leave the school. You just need a good reason.”

  “She’d get fined, but not threatened. What is she on?” a boy remarked.

  “I can’t consider her my daughter. She’s left to the ragers now…” Tears pricked at the woman’s eyes, but they didn’t spill at all.

  Murmurs spread throughout the group. “She’s a Socializer,” a girl said, turning all eyes to her. It was Hillary Kaye. “That human failure is a Socializer.”

  “There’s no way. Why would any of them come here?” a boy inquired.

  “They hate people like us,” said another girl.

  “I bet she’s a Trojan. She came here to shut us down, or humiliate us.”

  “Maybe she’ll fake her own death and blame someone here.”

  “It’s no wonder she always looks so ridiculous. No one can mess up that bad by accident!”

  “Who the glitch does she think she is?!”

  Harrison looked around at the agitated crowd, which was growing more anxious thanks to Hillary’s incitement. He caught a pair of emerald green eyes staring from the other side of the group, and he locked on them, seeing the fear and shock.

  The group quieted, slowly realizing her presence, and all eyes turned to her. She stood like a deer in headlights, unable to move. Her eyes were fixed on her mother’s hologram, which then faded, replaced with Whitley.

  “There you have it,” she said. “A beautiful, reputable family of our community, torn apart by warmongering, monstruous ragers who want nothing but division and anger running our galaxy. It starts small, and if we allow this to continue and spread, it will soon infect everyone in our galaxy. With Thiki Burna at the controls, our society will fall. It’s up to your leaders to decide whether they truly believe in a Utopia. I am Whitley Geanna, and as Planetary Leader, I will do everything in my power to achieve the perfect society we all deserve.”

  “Is that your favorite candidate, humie?” Hillary approached Calista, breaking her out of her daze. “Is that who you want as Earth’s leader? Did she send you here?”

  “Gravity, enough.” Harrison made his way to the front of the crowd, shoving some people aside as they tried to block him.

  “I doubt she’s meant to be ‘undercover’,” said Rosalina, who easily walked through the group. “Even Socializers aren’t stupid enough to blow anyone’s cover the way they just did.”

  “What do you want with us? A story? A sobbin’ broadcast about how evil we are?” Hillary pressed.

  “Come on, Kaye, lay off.”

  “I’ll give you something to tell them.” She shoved Calista, sending her back a few steps and taking a Health Point off. “Tell them how mean I am, humie. Tell your mother how much we hate you, humie.”

  Warm-Up Period in session!

  Coach Tostama exited the gymnasium, her shoulders releasing smoke. “WHAT on Hajja are you doing out here?!” she yelled, making nearly everyone jump, including Hillary. “Get your glitchbutts in here before I set you on fire and send you running with fifty Experience Points torn out of your Levels!”

  Everyone quickly obeyed, rushing into the gymnasium. Harrison was a little slower, looking back at Calista, who was still frozen in place. She was pale as a ghost and her forehead perspired.

  Lílitha’s hand stretched over to his shoulder, nudging him over. “Come on, Harrison. She can only help herself,” she said.

  Harrison wanted to say something to her— what could he say? He had no way to make it better. He silently entered the gym, leaving Calista by herself.