Hero Academies

Chapter 16: Contradictions

Cutting class and casually strolling down the school hallways was not something that Niall would usually chose to do, but chemistry was just so boring. He had to get out of that class before he got in trouble for sleeping again or he would have to serve another detention.

Past attempts to make the class more interesting by bringing food along with him had ended miserably. The result, him getting an earful about why eating during lab experiments was an endangerment to everybody’s safety. In essence, Chemistry was a class the blonde would rather miss and for once he decided it would be better to just cut the class rather than have to suffer through it.

So it was rather a surprise to him when Professor Conlin abruptly came out of nowhere and took him by the collar of his vest, leading him to god knows where. He was stammering and spluttering, barely able to form a coherent sentence from being caught off by the sudden action.

“Holy shit- what in the hell is going on Professor?” he managed to get out. The teacher didn’t pay any attention to the curses; all the teachers in school were already familiar with his foul mouth.

“There’s a fire in the next town. There was an accident on the highway so the firefighters can’t reach them, and they need us to send a rescue unit over. Now hurry up and I might just not mention the fact you’re skipping class to any of your teachers.” The woman never failed to get to the point.

Wordlessly, the blonde let himself get dragged by the teacher. The mission seemed simple enough, and it had been a long time since his last assignment. Niall just hoped that he would be as useful without his team, and that the day would go by without incident.

There was a little panic in Niall’s eyes when he arrived at the mission site. Hero Academies was in the center of many different towns and cities, but out of all the ones that were there, the assignment just had to take place in the one Sean lived in. He cursed his timing; why did he have to be there when Professor Conlin was scouting for students? What if Sean saw him? What if his lies were discovered?

However, he was given little time to think about that as he was rushed inside the building to save the people trapped inside. His ability to create sonic booms allowed him to be able to tell what was inside a room without seeing by the way the waves travelled; an asset to the mission in pinpointing exact locations of the people trapped inside and saving precious time.

There were other people there to help him, doing the actual rescuing part while he found which rooms had people in them. Sometimes it would be a little more difficult, as some were unconscious and unable to move, so it would be harder to differentiate them from other things inside the apartments.

Yet somehow, they were able to safely maneuver their way about the building, and reach everyone who was still inside. Getting them out proved to be slightly more difficult, but they had managed. Niall had been proud of himself, that he was fully capable without his team. Not that he didn’t want to be a part of his unit; he just liked to know that he wasn’t completely dependent on them.

Except that the moment that he thought everything was alright, that everyone was safely out of the still burning building, and he only had to wait for the fire department to arrive to put out the flames, a woman started shouting hysterically. He didn’t understand what she was saying at first, her voice was too shrill and her bumbling muffled her words. The blonde didn’t realize what she was saying until she had calmed down enough to make a coherent sentence.

“My baby! My daughter is still in there! Someone help her!” she pleaded.

Everyone’s eyes widened in horror after comprehending the full impact of her words. Niall was dismayed with himself. He found himself responsible for the lethal mistake. He had one job, and that was to make sure that they locate everyone trapped inside the building. Yet somehow he had messed that up, failed in his only task.