Damien couldn't pull his eyes away from the screen even as Jaise tapped on his shoulder, trying to steal his attention. There was nothing they could say to pull Damien's attention off the fight, his heart pounding like a drum inside his chest.

That's a hero.

As a child, like everyone else in their generation, he'd been enamored with heroes. When that belief came crashing down, he thought he'd hate heroes forever, had never imagined a world where he believed they could be good, could do good. But the person they'd just watch beat the training simulation was a hero. Maybe she didn't have a name yet, and this was all fake, but that was a hero.

And I was never going to be one. There wasn't a world where Damien stood on the same playing field as Pip, with her suit of armor and giant sword, manipulating the battlefield like she owned the place, stopping criminals before anything could get out of hand. If anyone could top their exam, he'd be shocked. Even with all the advantages their team had—the info from his spywork class, his own ability combined with Jaise's tech and the tech from the scene they'd be walking into—he doubted they'd come anywhere close.

Damien winced as Jaise pinched down hard on his shoulder, their annoyance more than clear. He stepped away from them, watching the last of the fight before turning his attention to their team captain. Jaise glared with all the passion of a thousand suns, usual passive attitude entirely gone, but with a sinking feeling in his gut, he could barely convince himself to care. After today, he wouldn't be in the program anymore. Even aside from Vora, he doubted he'd make the cut. He'd never been a fit for the program, and Artemis had said it on their first day. Very few people ever made it to hero.

"What?" It came out with more bite than he intended, and Jaise's eyes only narrowed.

"We're going next," Jaise said, their words clipped. "I need you to focus. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong," Damien said, the words empty. "Let's just get this over with."

He joined the others near Professor Wilson, waiting for their turn to descend down into the test city. He fiddled with a seam on his prosthetic arm as they waited, calling his power to the surface to sense everything sitting inside. Now that he was aware of it, he couldn't unsee the tech sitting inside the well of his eye socket, like a bomb waiting to go off. If he didn't respond to Vora, could she hurt him from afar? Track him down? She had to have a way to see through it, if she knew what he was doing.

Professor Wilson led them out of the observation room and into an elevator, their group of five all shuffling inside. Thomas pressed against Damien's arm, forcing him into the cold metal siding of the lift.

The professor began speaking, and it wasn't until the whole elevator went silent that Damien realized the group of them were staring at him.

"Uh…"

"You have information," Jaise snapped, their eyelid twitching. "From your spywork class?"

"Oh, right." Damien screwed his eyes shut, trying to remember. They'd stolen the information from Artemis's office, not that Damien would have been able to access it without Vivainne's help. Or maybe he would have, but it would have taken a lot longer, and he probably wouldn't have risked it. "There's this group of metas…" He quickly recited what he remembered of the file, wondering if it was the most he would contribute to the test today.

The elevator opened up in an alleyway that seemed to be in a different position than Pip and her team had entered, the wall closing up behind them. The others took off, clearly aware of what they were supposed to be doing, and Damien moved to follow before Jaise's pale hand snaked around his wrist.

"I don't know what's going on with you, but I need you to focus," they said, rounded nails digging into Damien's skin. His heart sped up, the pain letting him focus for at least a moment. "I'm not letting you ruin this test for the rest of us. You can get yourself kicked out on your own time."

"I'm not trying to get myself kicked out," Damien said, jerking his hand away.

Jaise made a noise like they didn't believe him and began to move forward. They were dressed in a white and teal athletic set that defied any idea of being sneaky, a large satchel at their side that occasionally let out a clang or jangle from inside. In the field, they'd either need to make something that let them be quiet, or just accept the garish nature of their existence as a tech genius. It was hard to be quiet when you were carrying around a bag full of toys and tools.

Considering who they were with, Damien didn't try to be quiet either. He walked out onto the street like he was any of the other fake people milling about their days, unaware a meta gang was about to try and rob the store down the street. With only half a mind, he reached out his tech sense toward the shop and froze in shock for a moment when his technopathy touched against the ocean of tech inside the shop.

He hadn't expected any of it to be real.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"I can reach all that tech in there," he said, nodding to the shop.

"We anticipated that," Jaise said, reaching into their bag. They didn't pull it out entirely, securing the piece of tech around their wrist as discretely as possible as they continued to walk. Damien wasn't sure what it did, and he didn't really care. With all the tech inside the tech store, he wouldn't have to rely on whatever Jaise had made for him to use. "I don't want you messing with any of it though. We don't know what any of it does."

Damien made a noncommittal noise. It was a silly concern. With his power, he'd be able to figure the tech out without issue, and use it to their advantage. Maybe they could even stop it from being usable.

Jaise murmured something as they approached, then shot Damien a look. "Do you even have your in-ear in?"

"Uh…" Damien uncurled his hand, glancing down at the small piece of tech. Yeah, he probably should have put that in before heading out here. He'd just forgotten about it.

Jaise cursed, stopping in place. "You should sit this one out," they said, the anger behind the words hardly contained. "You're clearly not in it, and I can't have you screwing this up. You can talk to Professor Artemis about it later."

They picked up the pace and Damien stared after them, face screwing up. "No, what, no? I'm not doing that."

"This isn't a discussion," Jaise said, pulling open the satchel at their side. A series of orbs floated out of its confines, humming into the air and emitting a low level light. They gently rose into place amidst the crowd, herding people away from the shop as the others approached it. Everyone was so coordinated, clearly they'd gone over the plan at some point.

Damien fixed the earpiece in place, trying to work out what exactly they were all supposed to be doing. In most of their plans, Damien was supposed to stick close to Jaise and put their creations to use with his technopathy. It wasn't perfect, his powers didn't work the same as technokinesis, but it was helpful.

That didn't seem to be built into the plan here. The others weren't talking over the earpiece except to say the positions of some of the members of the meta gang their team had supposedly been tracking. Damien felt like a bystander, stuck amid the group as Jaise herded them away from the building, protecting them. It was smart, useful, and Damien wasn't a part of it. He wasn't a part of any of it.

Maybe I should sit this one out, Damien thought, taking half a step back. He could just disappear after all of this, leave it all behind. Run… somewhere.

Was there somewhere he could even go to get away from Vora?

"I think they noticed us," Thomas said, panting as he spoke over the earpiece. "They're getting agitated."

Damien looked up, locking eyes on the shop. Jaise and the others were steadily herding people away, but not fast enough if any of those thugs decided to put that meta tech to use.

He lifted a finger to his ear. "I'm going to see if the building has a security system."

Closing his eyes, he focused on the shop, standing in place as he mentally inspected the meta tech store. There was so much tech inside it was like staring into the sun and trying to make out a candle. Gritting his teeth, he dug into the light, forcing himself to parse the different pieces of technology. Like he'd expected, the shop did have a security system, and a pretty damn good one at that.

He wouldn't have been able to break into it, at least not easily, but he didn't need to break into it. All he needed to do was trigger it.

With a slight exertion of will, he flipped a trigger somewhere, and the building went into lockdown.

An alarm went off, the whooping scream filling the street as huge metal walls locked down over the windows, turning the shop into a cage.

Jaise looked across the street to him and gave a short, impressed nod. "Nice."

Damien opened his mouth to ask what they were supposed to do next, and barely caught the growing whine from inside the building before the wall exploded.

The beam of blue light shot out from inside the building, blasting through the metal wall, sweeping across the street. Damien didn't have time to react as his whole world became light and heat and burning pain, and unmitigated panic as he was blasted off his feet and slammed through a store window.

Glass shattered all around him, cutting into his palm as he pushed himself onto his hands and knees, breath coming in shallow gasps. In an instant, he was just a fifteen year old kid again, seeing his whole world come crashing down around him.

Jaise's voice came over the earpiece, calling for everyone to check in, to rally and stop the criminals. Damien focused in on the voice, straining to control his breathing, forcing him to suck in one breath and then another, exhaling through his nose. He was fine. He needed to get out there, needed to help stop those criminals before they hurt anyone.

I'm out.

Damien froze, hands on the empty windowsill, ready to leap out and throw himself back into the fray. The message lingered across his vision, sitting there, a condemnation.

He sank back, dropping to his knees behind the wall and letting his eyes shudder closed. Jaise was right. He should just sit this one out.

Before he knew it, the fight was over, and Jaise came sprinting over. They burst through the front door of the shop, sliding to a halt on broken glass and staring at Damien on the floor, breathing in shallow, wheezing breaths.

Anger flickered across their face for a moment before something softer took its place and they reached out a hand.

Damien stared at them for a moment before accepting, letting them pull him to his feet.

"Told you you should sit this out," Jaise murmured.

Damien nodded. He didn't need to be told they were right, he already knew. The thing he didn't know was where he was going to go now that his time at the hero program was over.

At least my bag is already packed, Damien thought as he left the test city with the rest of his team. He fell back as they walked, standing silently at the back of the elevator, taking off the moment they hit the main floor. With Vora out, there wouldn't be long until she came for him, and he wanted to be as far away as possible when she did.

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