Chapter 6:

The First Day of School

The Portable School of Villainy


Breakfast was awkward the day Kaden had to leave for school. He knew he had to say something, but now that he was this far in, it was far more difficult to do. So, when his mother had asked him,

“So, what school have you decided on?”

Kaden quickly blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

“P-Postella Academy!”

His eyes quickly darted around to look at both his parents, before realising that this made his lie seem even more suspicious, and he hastily stared down at his eggs and toast.

“Haha! That’s my son!” Axel proudly proclaimed.

Kaden didn’t respond. He could feel the suspicious look of his mother, piercing the back of his head. Ashamed, he slumped down in his chair a little.

“No,” he thought, “I have to tell them. It’s either now or never…”

Kaden nervously looked down at his food, occasionally glancing up at his father, imagining what he would say when he told him. He tried hard to convince himself to say something, and the seconds of contemplation felt like they were stretched out over eternity. The excitement he felt yesterday must’ve just been his imagination. He felt good when he passed the exam, only because of the adrenaline, right? He didn’t belong there. He had to put an end to it.

“It’s not too late yet,” he told himself internally, “I haven’t really attended yet. It’s okay…”

Slowly, Kaden opened his mouth.

“Uhm–” He managed to bring out, before a beep interrupted him, indicating that Axel and Rowena had to go out to do their hero work.

“Missions have been getting more frequent lately.” Axel told his family, looking down at his watch.

“They’re always more predominant this time of year,” Rowena stated, “it’s probably nothing to worry about, but let's be careful going forward.”

Kaden watched them both grab their stuff and head to the door. The feeling of courage inside him had faded.

Before she left, Rowena turned around to say goodbye to Kaden.

“Tell me about your first day at school when you get back, alright?” She asked, as she gave him a slightly concerned smile. 

Kaden nodded and smiled back awkwardly.

“Oh, and remember what I said,” she continued, “I’ll be proud, no matter what kind of hero you are.”

She gave an encouraging wink before she headed out. Kaden clenched his fist, feeling once again like he betrayed her. He was sure she knew something was up, and felt terrible for not telling her what it was.

After finishing his breakfast, Kaden headed out as well, on to his new school. He headed to the forest where the school had dropped them off the day before. Though a relatively short distance, it was still quite a trek there, especially since Kaden still had his morning drowsiness. That, combined with the early morning anxiety he felt, made it difficult to walk at all.

When he eventually arrived there, he saw a grassy field, surrounded by trees. A small pond, with four ducklings following their mother duck. The light of dawn, shimmering down through the leaves. It made for quite the serene scene. A peaceful scene. A scene without a villain school.

Kaden put his hands to his head when he realised, he had no idea where to go now. How could he possibly know where the school went to?

“I should’ve asked someone yesterday…” He said to himself softly, starting to panic.

He started pacing around, looking behind every rock and tree he could see, before eventually giving up and sitting down on the grass.

“I guess this is good.” He thought to himself. “At least I won’t have to–”

“What, you think the school will be hiding behind a pebble?” A snarky voice said from the pond.

Kaden stood up and looked around, when a hand rose up from the water.

“They really know how to pick ‘em, don’t they?” The hand sighed.

“You're the same hand from last week, right?” Kaden asked curiously, doing his best not to stare behind the hand again.

“Do you see any other talking water hands around here? Didn’t think so.” The hand peevishly responded.
“Yep, this is definitely the same hand.” Kaden thought, laughing sheepishly at it.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” The hand asked, reaching out to Kaden. “You need to get to school right? Take me.”

Kaden nodded and reached out without hesitation, dreading what would happen next.

“I’ll never get used to this…” He mumbled as he braced himself, grabbing the hand.

It once again violently tugged on Kaden’s arm, pulling him into the water. Kaden hadn’t noticed it the two previous times, but while he felt the water rushing past his face, he wasn’t actually getting wet.

Eventually, the water spat him out, and he bumped his head straight into what felt like a door. He shook his head and opened his eyes carefully, only to find out that he was on the floor of a bathroom stall.

“You couldn’t have taken me to a better place?” Kaden asked into the toilet, while patting the grime off his clothes.

“Look kid, I deal the hand I’ve been given. No pun intended.” The hand told Kaden grumpily, having popped out of the toilet.

“Last time we had the luxury of being located underwater, it’s not like this is a pleasant experience for me either.”

Kaden sighed. He noticed that he felt relieved that he made it to school on time, after all.

“Thanks for getting me here, either way.” He said, bowing his head to the hand slightly.

“Yeah, yeah,” the hand replied, “just don’t make it a regular occurrence, I ain’t your chauffeur.”

“Got it.” Kaden nodded, then backed up to the door.

Before leaving, however, he couldn’t help but ask,

“So you can just travel anywhere with water? Since we’re not underwater now…”

“What’s it look like?” The hand snarkily responded.

“Right…” Kaden said sheepishly.

“Anyway, don’t you have a class to go to?”

“Oh, right! I’ll see you around then!” Kaden responded cheerfully.

“I hope not!” The hand shouted back at him, as Kaden left the stall.

Three other people were in the bathroom, staring at him. To them, it must've seemed like he was talking to himself in the stall. Kaden awkwardly shuffled outside, into the hallway.

He found some kids that he recognised from the entrance exam, as he walked through the corridors, and followed them to his classroom.

Inside, there were already a few kids sitting down at their seats and talking to each other, including Satoku. Kaden, feeling more comfortable sitting close to someone he knew already, took place behind Satoku, who almost instantly turned around to greet him.

“Hey dude, you made it!”

Satoku held his hand up, waiting for a high-five. Kaden, slightly surprised at this, awkwardly touched his hand against his, and Satoku looked at him like he just committed a crime.

Just before the bell rang, Kaito hurried into the classroom, right before the moustached bald-man strutted in as well.

“So very lucky you are, Mr Monomo.” He told Kaito, sternly.

“If you had gathered with the rest of the class, after the entrance exam, you would’ve known where to find the school. I am sure it was mentioned on your brief tour the previous week. Now go take your seat.”

Kaden gulped and quickly looked down at his desk. Had it not been for the hand, he would have for sure been late too. He thought about how Satoku managed to get here on time, seeing as he would also not have known where it was, but before he could come to a conclusion, the moustached man spoke up again and everyone turned silent.

“Good morning new students, from today forth, I will be your homeroom teacher. You will call me,” he turned around to write his name on the board, “Professor Slechtsnor.”

He turned back to the class and peered at everyone with his mechanical eye. After a brief silence, the class greeted professor Slechtsnor back.

“Now it is time for you all to introduce yourselves.” He continued promptly.

“Follow me to the gymnasium, where you will state your name, tell me why you wanted to join this school, and demonstrate your power, so I can see what I am working with.”

He was met with a lot of stares, and more silence. Kaden looked around nervously and saw that most of his classmates also weren’t sure what to do. Shisu Kageyona was the first to stand up, after which Professor Slechtsnor left the room, and everyone else followed, with Kaden in the back.

Most of the kids didn’t really stand out much at first, to Kaden. Four of the thirteen wanted to take over the world, for various reasons, such as putting others in their place, believing they can make it better, or simply to see if they could. The majority of these students had similar powers, a variation of psychokinetics, be it pyrokinesis, telekinesis, or just general psychic enhancements. Except, one of them, Anoyo Tomime, didn’t have any power. He came from a line of rich, underground villains, and used his wealth to buy weapons and gadgets.

Another three students simply wanted revenge, be it on their parents or against a whole group of heroes. Though they had a variety of interesting powers, they were not well suited for combat. Professor Slechtsnor mentioned that those kinds of powers also had their use, though the expression on his face suggested he thought otherwise.

Some of the classmates did stand out to Kaden, however.

Of course, there was Kaito Monomo, who told the class that he only joined because he didn’t belong anywhere else, which Kaden could somewhat relate to. Much to the dismay of Professor Slechtsnor, he wasn’t able to show off his powers, and instead just curled up into a shivering ball.

There was Shisu Kageyona, who turned the room pitch black and threw around a few of the other students, including Kaden; then went on about how he would become the number one villain.

Satoku Tamaki told everyone he was just here for fun, but something about the tone in his voice made Kaden think this wasn’t entirely true. His demonstration didn’t impress many people, the only ones that cheered for him were Kaden, Kaito, and a girl named Amene Desuna, who went before anyone else. She had flooded part of the gym with her powers. The tone in her voice when she told the class that she only joined because her parents wanted her to, made it seem like she was daydreaming during everything.

Then there was a kid named Charles Kemuri, who had the power to turn not only himself, but others invisible in the mist he produced. He wanted to join the school to become a master of thievery, which was so different from the rest of the students that even the professor was surprised for a moment.

At last, it was Kaden’s turn to introduce himself. He slowly walked forward, in front of the group, then turned around.

“My name is Kaden, and–” He started hesitantly, looking around at everyone’s faces.

The whole class staring at him made him a little nervous, but he took a deep breath and continued.

“I joined, because I want to prove to the world that I can be good enough. That I’m not just an outcast or a reject.”

Satoku gave him an encouraging thumbs up, which Kaden appreciated dearly. He looked over at the professor, who just stared back with a blank expression. Kaden got the same feeling of uneasiness every time he did.

“My uhm, power, is Negative Bubbles.” He mumbled, peeling his gaze away from the professor.

A faint chuckle could be heard from the direction of Shisu.

Kaden formed a bubble around his hand and held a pen into it. He intended to use the pen to make his bubble bigger, but the only thing that happened was that it changed from blue into orange.

“Maybe it was just a fluke then.” He thought, looking disappointedly at the pen.
He could hear a condescending laugh from Shisu and some other classmates.

“Hm, yes, quite disappointing.” Professor Slechtsnor stated, while writing down something on a notepad.

“Although, I have seen some of the other abilities you are able to use, those were on the same level of disappointment.”

Kaden felt like he could sink through the ground. After what he said about proving himself to the world, he really felt like he set himself up for failure. His face started to turn hot, as it became redder.

“C’mon teach,” Satoku blurted out, “you should’ve seen him after that, he was awesome!”

“Then he will have to prove those claims to be true, Mr Tamaki.” Professor Slechtsnor said strictly.

Hearing Satoku’s words gave Kaden a bit of his confidence back, though he was still too ashamed to lift his head.

After that they all went back to the classroom, and the day proceeded like normal.

On their way to their classes, Kaden could hear the continued chuckles, and whispers from his classmates, whenever he passed them. This was nothing new to him, since it was largely the same, back in middle school. Unlike back then, however, most of them, apart from Shisu, seemed to stop when Satoku joined by his side.

Besides the occasional villainous analogy, like how much force would you need to take down the average hero, in maths class, or which plants best to use for poison, in biology, classes were pretty ordinary, to Kaden’s surprise. That was until they reached thievery class, which excited Charles Kemuri beyond measure. They were taught how to disappear in plain sight, which he was obviously very good at. Kaden, however, managed to trip over Kaito, who laid hidden, curled up on the floor, and ruined both of their camouflages. Tumultuous laughter ensued, as they laid entangled over each other, and got scolded by their teacher. Kaden had to comfort Kaito, because he nearly burst into tears because of this.

During lunch, Kaden sat down on a tire at a lone table, away from everyone. He didn’t want to join anyone, still feeling embarrassed about everything that happened before. Despite that, Satoku came around not too long after, carrying Kaito. Haido was clinging onto Satoku’s back and biting his head, seemingly unbeknownst to him. They all joined Kaden at the table, who looked at them, confused.

“Kaito was trying to eat his lunch alone in the bathrooms.” Satoku explained. “Of course I couldn’t let him be alone, when he can sit with his best buds!”

Kaden, while trying to explain to Satoku that you can’t just promote yourself to someone’s best bud, looked at Kaito, who did seem like he was actually glad to be here.

“I came along because he touched my baby brother with his filthy maggot hands, and I had to destroy him.” Haido casually added.

Satoku started laughing, while slapping Haido on the back. She started cackling as well, but added,

“That wasn’t a joke. Don’t touch him.”

“Thank you for coming here either way…” Kaden said softly.

“That’s what best buds are for!” Satoku blurted out.

“Yeah, well,” Haido said, “my baby brother seems to like you. He hasn’t shut up about you two since yesterday.”

Kaito instantly turned bright red.

“B-big sis!”

Haido and Satoku started cackling once again.

“You know, for potential future villains, all of you don’t seem so bad.” Kaden told them, having a faint smile on his face.

Kaito hid his face in his uniform after getting embarrassed, but a quiet giggle could be heard from inside. Soon, Kaden started laughing as well, though not for any particular reason that he could think of. For a moment, he had forgotten all about his embarrassment.