The World's Start

Jack

"Each of you has won one of the tests so far. To decide who's going to win, the third test has to hold the final result," Mister Tenney explained, roughly a week after Jack and Heath had completed the second test.

"I suppose congratulations are in order," Ken said tightly. He didn't like complimenting Jack, if he could avoid it, but he fancied himself above all prejudice over the other students.

"Congratulations?" Mister Tenney coughed. "It is obvious, as we could deduce from the first test, that the two team leaders have no desire to destroy the other, to rise above... I have to say, I'm very disappointed. Yes, I was expecting something completely different to happen..."

"I may not have given my best, but there is no competition," Heath interrupted him. "I'm only partipaticing because I'm the Laoch, Jack is the best student..."

Jack was momentarily warmed by the compliment. Then he realized, Heath wasn't saying something nice about him. On the contrary, this was no ordinary school --- this was Mister Tenney's own special project, and you needed only one skill to be the best: having no qualms about using violence, backstabbing, tricks, and foul play whenever it was needed.

In fact, if it wasn't so, Ken Fallon would be the best student. His physical form and intelligence were on top of their game, but he didn't believe in playing dirty, and Mister Tenney rarely spared him a glance.

Something inside of Jack, something that had been stirring for as long as he'd met the Laoch, quietly exploded.

He understood he'd fought with teeth and nails all his life not to turn into men like his father, but that, somehow, he had accomplished the opposite result.

Jack had dressed soberly that day. There was only a small amount of suits his earnings could cover, and they got ripped and strained too easily. 

For some reason, he kept thinking of the way Heath's magic worked. It had destroyed the other man, in the way Jack thought only addictive substances and grief could change a person so completely. It wasn't a good look --- magic shouldn't have been that hard on anyone.

"Your next test will be another mission," Mister Tenney said. "You have to spy on Elvors. They're likely to know the whereabouts of the Stone, and how to get it. It might be our only chance at retrieving it."

"Spying on the Elvors?" Jack almost screamed. "Are you crazy?"

He'd always tried to pay some respect to the Professor, but there was no way he would accept being sent on this suicidal mission. He had made scenes for less. And perhaps, he also felt differently towards the man now. He couldn't forget what Heath had told him about the man, and he felt positively disgusted about it. In a way, though the bubble of self-deprecating thoughts he had been living in had been at the point of popping for a long time, this might have been the last drop. He couldn't reconcile the cruelty the man had shown to the Laoch with the things he knew now. 

He couldn't care only about himself any longer.

"Mister Edens, behave yourself," Mister Tenney tutted. "One would think you'd learnt how to be a man by now, what with all these magazines you read during class... but alas..."

"No," Jack tried to say. This was all wrong. There was a reason he read those magazines, and while he didn't care what the other students thought of it, or so he told himself, he couldn't be made fun of for something that wasn't entirely true. "I don't... I don't..."

"You don't what Jacob?" the Professor snapped. "Be a real man? You want to remain a boy... well I could have guessed at that much myself. I really don't know why I'm stuck with all of you losers."