The cafeteria felt like heaven after the training compound. Simple metal tables and benches, but after three hours of pushing their quirks to the breaking point, it might as well have been a five-star restaurant.
Mateo collapsed into a lone seat, just for Switch and Anon to settle in next to him uninvited, Anon's tray holding what looked like some kind of protein paste and vegetables that had clearly been chosen for nutrition over flavor.
"Anyone else feel like they've been hit by a truck?" Ben asked, settling heavily across from them. His usually immaculate appearance was rumpled, his clothes torn in several places from the projectile training.
"I actually really enjoyed the training," Switch joked softly, though it was an obvious lie as he was still panting and sweating from the session.
Mateo felt too exhausted for posturing, too focused on the simple act of consuming enough calories to keep going, so he mostly stayed quiet as he ate while the others bickered around him.
"This is only day two," Anon muttered, stabbing at his protein paste like it had personally offended him. "Who knows how much harder it will be later on?"
"You're one to talk. You don't even fight, you just stare at us and let your big brain do all the work! You're such a cheater!"
The voice came from in front of them. It was a group of girls Mateo hadn't really taken note of, and they were approaching with lunch trays in their hands, looking equally exhausted but still chattering amongst themselves.
The voice specifically came from an athletic-looking girl with Asian features and green hair. The most prominent of her features was the green-scaled snake that hung around her neck like a living scarf. It looked like it was sleeping, but occasionally it would open its eyes and flick its tongue in the air. Was that her quirk?
The other girls picked seats around the wide rectangular cafeteria table, the room soon filled with chattering. Mateo wanted to be alone, but now he couldn't leave without looking obnoxious and antisocial. He sighed internally as he looked to the other students who hadn't settled in their main group.
He could see the redhead—what was his name again?—sitting at his own table before Alex settled down next to him. They seemed to engage in an animated discussion, but it also looked one-sided, Alex doing most of the talking while the fire guy gave brief answers, occasionally looking away.
Across from them, Henrik sat alone with his copper-thin hair and wiry frame, eating a plate of beans and fish solemnly. He looked like he'd been forced out of the class discussion when he was the one who'd chosen to sit alone in the first place.
Mateo let his mind drift back to his table where the conversations were still in full swing.
"...Speaking of cheats." A glossy-skinned girl with golden hair addressed Switch with a scowl. "You totally cheated in yesterday's challenge! You switched positions close to the end of the race and knocked me back two spots!"
Switch shrugged nonchalantly, his brown hair bouncing with the movement. "It's not cheating. I'm literally using my quirk like the rest of you."
Still feels like cheating though, Mateo thought, remembering the sudden lurch as his position changed from first to third in the race. It still pissed him off, even though Switch and Anon had given that lousy attempt at an apology last night.
But looking at them now—really looking—they all seemed so... human. Exhausted faces smudged with sweat, torn uniforms, hands shaking slightly as they lifted their forks. Whatever competitive fire had burned during training had dimmed to barely flickering embers. They were just tired kids trying to recover enough energy for the next round of hell.
"Why are you guys acting like friends?" Mateo muttered, not loudly, but loud enough for the others to hear.
They stopped eating and looked at him like he'd grown a second head, until one of the girls spoke up. She had soft, light-blue hair that seemed to shimmer even under the harsh cafeteria lights.
"Aren't we all friends though?"
Her voice sounded cool—not cold, but like the first breeze on a snowy morning. There was something genuinely puzzling in her tone, as if the concept of not being friends was foreign to her.
It was a simplistic answer that sounded fine on the surface but didn't make any logical sense to Mateo. Ever since he'd stepped into Atlas, everything had been one challenge after another. Each a brutal competition where he had to push himself against his classmates. And now they sat here talking together like they were buddies?
"I mean, think about it," she continued, putting her hand to her cheek in a gesture that looked unconsciously graceful. "In about six days we'll be going into battlefields and fighting side-by-side in this war. I want to know and get close to the people here before that time. Don't you?"
The logic hit him harder than he'd expected. Mateo had never thought about it like that. But it was still hard to brush off betrayals when they were so fresh.
"Dude, so you didn't accept our apology?" Switch asked, leaning forward slightly. "The competitive challenges are meant to be won at all costs. We're still friends at the end of the day after that, right?"
Mateo shrugged and nodded. He still wasn't convinced about buddying up to one another, but everyone else was having fun in their one hour of peace before grueling training resumed. He was willing to let it go—for now.
"Speaking of getting close to each other," the dark-skinned girl smirked, a mischievous grin crawling across her face, "we really don't know that much about you, Slime boy. I always wanted to ask—you like Alex?"
The nickname made his jaw tighten, though he didn't address it. But it was the question that really caught him off guard. Like Alex? "What gave you that idea? We literally hate each other."
"Aw, c'mon," she pouted playfully. "Just because you guys were set to fight and she beat you in the entrance test doesn't mean you have to be perpetual enemies. She's kind of cute, isn't she?"
Mateo reluctantly glanced toward Alex and the redhead, who were still deep in conversation. The fire user was more invested now, actually talking instead of just giving one-word responses.
Mateo did think Alex was attractive, in an aggressive, dominant way that intimidated him more than anything else. He hadn't been thinking about girls lately—survival took precedence—and even if he wanted a girlfriend, Alex would be his last choice.
"She's okay," he finally answered after a beat of silence. The dark-skinned girl sighed dramatically at her failed matchmaking attempt.
"I'm Amara, by the way. Amara Lumiere. I can stop calling you Slime boy if you want." She stretched out her arm in a gesture of good faith. "What's your real name?"
After a pause, Mateo shook her hand. "Mateo."
The other girls introduced themselves in turn. The one with the snake was Akira Nagasaki, and she had an easy smile that made the reptile around her neck seem less threatening. The blue-haired girl was Seraphine Celeste, and something about her seemed almost ethereal.
Two other girls had remained quieter—Marina Tidwell, pale-skinned with pitch-black hair who seemed to radiate an aura of coolness, and Maya Vera, whom he recognized as the telekinetic with the baseball bats from training.
The conversation lulled as they ate, only fifteen minutes left in their break when Ben spoke up, nodding toward Alex and the redhead. "Wonder what those powerhouses are busy talking about over there."
Alex and the fire guy were definitely the strongest in their class by a long shot, the redhead edging out Alex by a narrow margin.
"Zeke," Akira said—Mateo made a mental note so he could stop calling him Fire Guy. "His power is fire, right? I heard his father is one of the top ten heroes."
"Is?" Amara asked, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Aren't the top ten, like... dead?"
The question hung in the air like smoke. Eliza had confirmed as much for Mateo in her office when she'd told him that the top thirty heroes had already been killed, which explained the desperate rush in their training. But maybe the general populace wasn't aware of these details—keeping people calm and all that.
The cafeteria had a sense of emptiness that reinforced the grim reality. When Mateo had first walked through the other dorm levels, he'd noticed they were devoid of students. He'd never really gone to school except kindergarten—political tensions and his father abandoning them had left his mother in too unstable a financial position. But he'd always imagined bustling, happy students in hallways. Not this hollow place with only a dozen kids.
"There are rumors that they might not be dead," Amara said tentatively, her voice dropping even lower. "Some say their communication devices were just destroyed, or they're seriously injured and can't get help."
She leaned in closer. "I even heard that some went rogue and joined up with the villains."
"But that's just speculation," Maya said, unconsciously adjusting her sweater while glancing at Zeke. "I've heard about him though. His father is Inferno—you know, top three hero with incredible fire power. I heard kids of those heroes just become heroes because their parents were. Inferno's dad was supposedly a hero too, passed down the mantle."
So that makes Zeke Inferno III, Mateo thought, finishing his last few bites.
"Yo, Henrik!" Switch called out in a voice that managed to sound both teasing and genuinely inviting. "Why don't you stop being a social outcast and come eat with the rest of us?"
Henrik, the wire-framed boy who'd been sitting alone, was long done with his lunch and had been staring off into space. His eyes darted around nervously when he realized they were talking to him, like he wasn't sure if it was some kind of joke.
The girls motioned encouragingly for him to join them, and for a moment it looked like he might actually move—
A loud voice boomed from the intercom above: "Class 1B, your lunch break is over. Report to Training Bay Alpha for competitive extensive training."
Everyone groaned except Alex, Zeke, and Henrik, none of them fully recovered from the last session.
"We're going to train until eleven PM?" Akira mock-cried, slumping dramatically in her seat. "I think my body's gonna collapse if I do this for another day."
And then after that comes the real war, Mateo thought grimly. If the training sessions were going to be this brutal, actual combat was going to be absolute hell.