“Quiet down please,” The crowd talked over the principal. “Everyone: SHUT UP!” The principal caught everybody’s attention. “Whew, sorry. Sometimes I get a little crazy. Anyways, we are here to discuss the recent events leading to Melissa’s disappearance. Also, someone has declared war on us. Therefore, all of your classes will be.. changed. Expect tomfoolery to be punished; until the war begins, you are to train like your life depends on it. Let me just say: Your life DOES depend on this.” The atmosphere in the auditorium felt eerie.

 S.coups walked up to the stage and introduced himself to those who didn’t know him. Yoolhee, Megan and Jun followed behind. Apparently, S.coups would be the leader of the entire operation.

“Hi, everybody. I’m Megan and I am the leader of the Medical Unit.” The bright-colored haired, preppy girl said.

“I’m the leader of the Intelligence Unit,” Yoolhee said. “Oh, I’m Yoolhee. If you didn’t already know.” She flipped her short hair.

“I’m Jun, Minghao’s boyfriend.” He walked back and realized he introduced himself incorrectly. In the audience, Minghao stood up and blew a giant kiss to him. “Oops!” his hand found his hair as he smiled weakly. “I’m the leader of the Martial Arts Unit.”

“Each of you will be assigned into your respected group. All of you will be required to learn a form of martial arts, but not all of you will fight. This is just a safety precaution.” S.coups said reassuringly. “Please don’t get upset once you are in your respected group. Your group was selected based on your power and its potential.”

Principal Nguyen’s eyes went pink as pieces of papers floated in the air. Each student in the auditorium received an envelope with their name written on it. As soon as we were given permission, students began opening the envelopes like they were Christmas presents. I opened mine slowly, hoping to be on the Martial Arts Unit. The paper on the inside was blank. I flipped it over to the other side but there was nothing on the paper. Mingyu looked just as confused as I did as he flipped his paper over and saw nothing written on it. Vernon on the other hand was blessed with the Martial Arts Unit.

“For those of you with the blank paper, you get to decide which unit you want to be apart. Don’t decide right now; you still have to be trained in each category. Pick your favorite when the day comes.” S.coups calmed those students with blank papers. “Please attend your first classes now.”

. . .

“I feel so much better now that my husband, J-hope, took care of me!” Professor Alexander fixed her glasses and blushed. “This course has changed.. just a little bit.” She giggled weakly. “‘Restrictions’ has become ‘Finding an opponent’s restrictions and using them against them!’”

“That sure is a long name.” Dino raised his hand.

“It sure is! Came up with it myself.” She flipped her curly hair. “Dino, would you like to be my volunteer? I bet I can find your restriction and use it against you!”

“NO! YOU DID THAT ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!” Dino ran to the back of the classroom and his behind some of the other students.

“Oh that’s right, and you bled on my floor!” Professor Alexander threw a pencil in his direction but Dino jumped out of the classroom window. “Forget it, I won’t use a volunteer. I will just explain it to you and you can go to your next class.” She sighed.

Professor Alexander explained that to find an opponent’s weakness, we must first let them use their power on us. She specified that we didn’t have to take damage from their power; we just needed to see what it was. Once we determined what their power was, we had to use logic. Apparently, super power restrictions usually matched their power. Someone with fire abilities would probably get dehydrated really quickly, Vernon. Someone who was very quick would get hungry and tired extremely fast, Hoshi. In this case, someone who controlled aspects of the earth would have a hard time lifting it all, father. Once you have discovered the power and restriction, it was time to use it against them. In Vernon’s and Hoshi’s case, after a while they would be too exhausted to continue using their power. For my father, however, he would just be incredibly slow and maybe encumbered.

After class was over, Vernon walked me to my second class. Jeonghan seemed to do a good job at healing us last night, despite his weird methods of dumping water onto shriveled skin. Vernon could now walk, despite both of his legs being broken less than twenty-four hours ago. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have never guessed that Vernon was ever injured. Jeonghan truly is an angel.

. . .

“Alright, everybody. For today’s assignment, I want you to find a partner.” Professor Suarez waited for everybody to find a partner. Immediately, I stood up and lunged at DK before anyone could steal him. Despite him making the moves on me and Mingyu the night before Mingyu was kidnapped, he was still the only student I actually knew in that class. Everybody else looked incredibly frightening, like their parents might have raised them in a prison. “I hope you chose well because you will be fighting this person until they are knocked out. We’ll be doing this tournament style. Want to hear the best part? This is a school tournament. Win four matched and you will be invited to be in the special unit. If you want to know what the special unit does, you have to win.”

“May we switch partners?” DK raised his hand and looked at me with saddened eyes. Was he sad because he was going to lose?

“Nope. Unless you would prefer to fight me, then by all means—”

“I’m kidding!” DK’s smile was fake.

The professor explained to us the rules; they were actually quite simple. One, the first one to pass out loses. Two, don’t hold back because it will all be a vision so damages to the school will not happen. Three, since it is a vision, you won’t feel pain so make sure to keep track of your body. Seems simple enough to me.

“The first match will be between Dokyeom and Wonwoo.” The professor’s face turned to my direction. “May the best one win.”

Sometimes I forget that he is actually blind.

All of the students made their way to the stands and took their seats. DK stood approximately two feet away from me. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to start a fight with a friend. Especially a friend that technically helped save my life. Now that I think about it, his scream is pretty loud. His voice is powerful enough to break a hole into the Earth, and now I have to fight him. I turned to DK who seemed to be just as confused as I was. Suddenly, DK’s expression changed and he let out a screech that sent me flying across the gym.

The sound of DK’s shrill screech left a ringing in my ear. My vision went blurry from either the impact or my unstable eardrums. I stood up, regained my balance and glanced over to DK who was preparing another shout. Instead of standing there and allowing him to scramble my brains, I decided to make things a little bit interesting.

Trees of all kinds sprouted from the flooring of the gym, rising through the roof. Blades of grass followed and soon, it was hard to see. The environment all around us was that of a forest.

BOOOOOOM!

The sound made my ears hurt and I ducked in cover as a few trees exploded from the loud sound. Shards of broken tree fell on top of me as I hid behind a tree.

Is he out to kill me? How do I stop someone with this insane of an ability?

“Wonwoo, where are you?” I could barely make out what he was saying due to the damage he dealt on my ears. His footsteps pressed down onto the grass and I managed to pinpoint his location. My breathing became heavy as I tried calming down. As I had time to process the situation, my throat had time to dry out and I became dehydrated. If I didn’t act quickly, I was going to pass out from dehydration.

Think, a river would be too obvious and DK would find me quickly. What would Yoolhee tell me to do?

Rain

All of a sudden, a large amount of rain began falling down from the leaves of the trees. The water droplets were cold and refreshing. However, it blocked out the sound of DK’s location. Now that I was refreshed and ready to go, I moved away from the tree I was hiding behind and tried looking for DK. All around, water fell to the ground adding fog into the midst.

BOOOOOM!

A tree almost collapsed on top of me but I jumped out of the way just in time. Can he see me, despite the rain and fog? Every now and then, a tree would fly by and I’d either jump out of the way or impale it with roots before it could land. Eventually, I was getting tired and my skin was beginning to shrivel despite being deep within a fake rainforest. The only thing I was missing was sunlight. The only place I could get that was up above the trees. Instead of climbing the trees like an idiot, I grew a new tree and stood on top of it while it sprouted to the top of the gym’s roof. Immediately, the skin absorbed the sunlight, refreshing me completely.

“I knew you would come up here eventually.” The sound of DK’s voice came from behind me. I turned to his direction and was blasted by one of his shrieks causing me to fly to the edge of the roof. I looked down at the ground floor and saw how painful it would be to hit it, even with a rosebush to catch my fall. Sorry, Mingyu. My eyes focused back on the real threat, DK, who was walking along the tops of the trees like it was sturdy flooring for him. Since we’re playing dirty…

The tree he walked on collapsed under his weight, mysteriously. By mysteriously, I mean I made sure that tree would end up like the one I summoned on the first night of operation-save-Mingyu. Along with the tree, DK fell about fifty feet onto the gym/forest floor. Quickly, I ran over to the opening and looked down to see his passed-out body. How was Professor Suarez supposed to know when one of us was knocked out? I mean, there is a giant rainforest encasing us.

As I thought that, I blinked and my eyes opened up to a non-decimated gym. The professor stood at the center of the gym while everybody sat at their seats.

“What a marvelous battle, right class?” The entire class cheered and DK sank in his chair. “Wonwoo, you will be moving on to your second match tomorrow. Remember, this is a school event, so your opponent doesn’t have to be in this class. Be prepared for anything.”

QUESTIONS:

Do you think Wonwoo will end up on the special unit?

What do you think the special unit does?

What three other people do you think Wonwoo will have to fight?