Seventeen year old Jay Sasaki lives in a world where corporations spend millions of dollars to exploit superpowered children and the media defines good and evil. Cursed with the ability to steal souls, Jay leads a double life as both a normal high s...
My alarm rang at six o'clock in the morning, jolting me out of bed. At first, the noise from my alarm clock confused me, but I remembered that this was the first day of school. This was the start of my last year of high school, and it was time to make the most of it.
I climbed out of bed and walked towards the dining room. I was still a little bit worried about my senior year. All sorts of crazy things could happen, from failing my classes to not getting into a good college to being completely ostracized from the rest of the student body. The last one scared me the most. I didn't have many friends at school before, but now, the whole school knew that I was a supervillain. If I had any hope of making friends at school, it was gone now.
However, senior year did seem exciting in some ways. If nothing else, going back to school would be a new experience and a distraction from my loneliness. I could take government and psychology for the first time, and if I was lucky, the muffins that I had made could make it clear that I wasn't really a villain at all.
When I reached the dining room, I found Dad reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. "Jay, have you heard the news yet?" Dad asked.
"No," I answered, and Dad handed me the newspaper. I skimmed the article, and my jaw dropped.
Mr. Russell had been acquitted on all charges except for tax evasion, and he had been sentenced to five years of imprisonment. The fact that Mr. Russell had gotten away with all of his other crimes made me want to scream. Percy had given the police undeniable proof that Mr. Russell was a murderer, yet he was only in prison for tax evasion. It wasn't fair, but at least he had gotten some punishment for all of the horrors that he had helped the Academy inflict upon its students.
There was even more shocking information later in the article. Instead of trying to hold out for a little bit while longer on government funding, the Academy for the Research and Education of Superpowered Individuals had chosen to close its San Urbano location. Not only had we defeated the Academy, but we had also forced it to close. That was definitely a success.
The article reported that most individual superheroes previously employed by the Academy had not yet announced their reaction to the Academy's closure. However, several adult superheroes had already offered to help teach the former Academy students that still needed to complete their training. I liked to think that Vanessa, Declan, and Harper were among those heroes, but there was no way to know for sure.
I handed the newspaper back to Dad and tried to digest all of the new information. I was thrilled that the Academy was finally closing, and even if Mom hadn't quite gotten her justice, at least Mr. Russell wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else. I took out my phone and texted Harper the news, but she didn't respond right away. I put my phone back into my pocket, finished my breakfast, and then went back to my bedroom to finish getting ready for school.
