"You weren't... that bad." Those words were from Ben. He was completely unharmed due to his quirk, and his statement was nothing more than a lame attempt at consolation.
Mateo clenched his fist. Under his glove, the injuries he had gotten from Brett still festered. With a sigh, he turned away from the ongoing fights in the arena. Explosions and flashes of red burned across the battlefield, but none of it mattered anymore.
Defeated. He couldn't even put a dent on Alex despite all his efforts. All those hours of training wasted. He'd even resorted to using his quirk!
"Even if you can't be a hero anymore," Ben continued, unsolicited, "You've got options. Mercenary work pays well. I heard there's been a rise of vigilantes with all the heroes going to the frontlines—"
"Ben, please shut up."
Ben raised his arms in defeat as he wandered over to Henrik, his opponent from their deadlocked match, probably to disturb him some more.
Alex didn't even bother coming into the waiting room where the other contestants gathered to await their fate. The light gray walls and metal benches did nothing to lighten anyone's nerves. Around him, contestants with serious burns, broken bones, and other fatal injuries were being tended to by medic staff and personnel with healing powers.
His hand still trembled. Ashdrift was gone. So was everything else. No home. No family. No future. Why was he even still sitting here? Unlike Ben or Henrik who fought to a standstill and had equal shots at admission, his chances were obliterated. His body didn't bear the fatal injuries of other aspirants, but something deeper had been broken on that battlefield.
Four hundred dollars in his backpack—that's all he had left from Shinji. Could he really abandon everything now? The dream of becoming a hero, the chance to avenge his brother's death?
A finger tapped his shoulder, interrupting his spiral of despair. Turning around, he found one of the medics who'd been treating the injured aspirants.
"You've got some nasty wounds on you. Mind if I heal them?" The caramel-skinned man with a scraggly beard looked vaguely familiar.
Though tempted to shrug him off, Mateo nodded. The pain of failure was enough to bear—no need for physical agony too.
The medic placed his hands over the dirty bruises from the Alex fight. As he waved his hands, green light floated over the injuries until they vanished. Next came the cracked ribs Mateo had been ignoring, bringing a silent sigh of relief when healed.
When the medic removed Mateo's gloves to reveal torn flesh underneath, his eyes widened. "You got all this from that fight?"
"No." Mateo turned away. "From something else."
The medic didn't press further. With time and effort, those injuries disappeared too. All that remained was his bruised pride.
"You did your best, kid." The medic patted his back, then lowered his voice. "Is this how you're planning on avenging them?"
Mateo's neck twisted sharply as he glared at the medic. That face—now he remembered it from the hellfire of the explosion. The paramedic who had rescued him.
But how did he know about Mateo's motivation? He'd never told anyone except the white-haired man, and that was out of desperation.
"My wife was in Sector 12 when the bombs hit. Same as your brother." The medic's hand quivered as he clutched Mateo's shoulder. "A lot of people lost loved ones that day. But this path—are you sure it's one you want to walk? Becoming a hero just to kill them?"
Yes. The word caught in Mateo's throat. It didn't matter anyway; he'd failed. His mind raced with questions about how this paramedic had read him so easily. Was he that transparent?
"Take care. I'll be rooting for you." The medic walked out, presumably to attend to more injured aspirants.
Mateo's attention drifted back to the LCD screen above, split into four to show battles occurring in several arenas. On one screen, Brett fought with steel gauntlets ready against someone spewing fire en masse. The murderous glint in Brett's eyes made Mateo secretly hope he'd be burnt to a crisp.
"Mateo Mendoza?"
A commanding voice from the doorway snapped him from his daze. Commander Reeves stood like a military officer, gloved hands behind her back.
Slowly rising to his feet, Mateo felt surprise that his name was even mentioned anymore. "Yes?"
"You are being summoned." Reeves motioned, clearly unwilling to elaborate further.
Once they were out of the waiting room and into the maze that was Atlas Academy, Reeves finally spoke. "You are being summoned by Eliza Atlas."