6 Graduation Day

"Mom. Mom. Moooom. MOM!" Jayce was already exhausted and she had only been helping him pick out clothes for ten minutes. She turned around to face him with not a small amount of disappointment on her face.

"How exactly do you live in this mess young man? I know I told you that your father was messy but I didn't realize that would be permissible for you to see how many bugs you could give a home to in your closet. I am sure your future girlfriend will never appear if every girl you bring over walks in to see this and runs screaming into the night." Jane Good glanced around her son's dorm room one more time to make sure she had actually entered into a room humans lived in. After double checking Micu's side and sighing to herself she turned her attention back to her son. "If we find one button down shirt that is wearable I will take you out for ice cream after this graduation ceremony."

Jayce beamed as he pulled open his dresser and inside was one pair of nice pants, a button-down shirt, clean underwear, and a pair of black socks. Laughing evilly to himself he looked at his mom, "I planned this from the beginning of the year. I was hoping to get something better than ice cream though..." He pulled the clothes out of his dresser and started getting dressed.

"Ahem!" His mom looked at him and said, "Have you showered today?" She could tell he hadn't by the greasy look of his dirty blonde hair.

'Awh mom, I showered last night and all I did was sleep on it. No one will notice! I promise!" Jayce desperately didn't want to waste more time showering. He already was feeling stressed about time and he knew his mom was going to spend a long time talking to her friends before walking into the gym to watch the graduation ceremony.

Jane looked at her son disapprovingly, "Jayce this is your ONLY graduation ceremony, can't you at least pretend to act like it's a big deal?" She looked over her son, who looked more and more like his father every year. Her face softened, "Alright, but you have to wear one of those silly hats that they make graduates wear the whole ceremony then."

"You mean the mortarboards?" Jayce paused, "Fine fine if that means we can go faster then I will wear the silly hat for you."

Jane smiled and relented on teasing her son more about the state of his room. As he finished getting dressed she glanced around his room. Walking over to his suspiciously neat and tidy desk she looked at the notebooks that were neatly stacked. Picking up the first one she read the cover aloud, " Advanced Tactics of Defense 310? Jayce what was your schedule of classes this year again?"

"Uh... that defense class, one about the history of humanity on Earth, fundamentals of attacking with melee weapons, known rules of the Chaos Simulation, and dodgeball," Jayce replied while struggling with the belt for his pants.

"What about any grammar classes? Math? Science?? Didn't you take any, you know, normal classes?" Jane looked slightly concerned. She thought to herself, "I know this is a different world than Earth but shouldn't my son be getting a somewhat normal education? How is he going to be able to get a higher level job if he only knows how to fight, and play dodgeball..."

"Mom I took all of that stuff, like, five years ago. It's just not what I want to do with my life." Jayce replied while trying to untangle the one tie that he had brought to school with him. It was so knotted that even if he did untangle it there was a high probability that it still wouldn't be able to function as a tie.

Jane glanced at the rest of his notebooks: Previous Victors of the Grand Prize, Essential Gun Maintenance techniques, Art History 101, Famous Human Contestants, and Alien Greeting Techniques. She frowned and turned back to face her son before almost bursting out laughing. "Jayce! What is that thing you're wearing around your neck? Some kind of obese snake?" She let slip some giggles before giving up completely and laughing with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Jayce looked at his mom and huffed his cheeks before looking up into his mirror and then also bursting out laughing. His previously jet black tie had gotten so dirty it appeared to have grown spots and camouflage like a tree boa. He hastily pulled it off and threw it in his mountain of clothes his closet barely contained.

His mom looked him up and down checking behind his ears before playfully pinching his cheek and smiling. "Your father would be proud of the person you've become Jay. Well maybe except how messy you are. But other than that definitely proud."

He knew his mom was making light of it but they were both sad thinking about dad being missing. "Thanks, mom I couldn't have done it without you." Before hugging her tightly for a long minute. When he pulled away from her he noticed that were tears in her eyes and she was smiling proudly. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve Jane smiled at her son and started to walk out the door before pausing, "Oh by the way," she turned to face Jayce, "I heard that the potential score test was yesterday. What did you score?"

Jayce stiffened, "It was quite the experience mom but the machine said I was just above average for humans." He smiled at his mom and gave her a thumbs up. Jayce didn't know what to make of his score either and didn't want to worry his mom if it ended up being a negative thing.

She smiled and turned back to walk out the door. "I expect big things from you Jayce Good. Not just above average things." She closed the door behind her and Jayce could hear her heeled footsteps echoing down the hall.

Jayce sat on his bed and pulled open the internet browser on his watch and swiftly typed in "potential score -10" and waited for the results to load. As he scanned the results he sighed to himself. He had searched every resource he could find for any information but every time it just pulled up articles about King Arthur and his exploits in the game. Jayce had even checked the library at the school and found nothing but magazine articles where they were interviewing Arthur. While he was impressed with Arthur's accomplishments they didn't help him in finding any answers that he was looking for. Closing the webpage Jayce jumped off his bed and did a quick double check in the mirror before dashing out the door to join his friends in the cafeteria.

Opening the cafeteria doors Jayce was impressed to see the wide variety of fashion statements each of his classmates had made. Every color of the rainbow and then some was in display among the 15 other students who had all been snacking on the chips and salsa that the school had provided. As Jayce walked in he noticed his friend seated around their usual table with the rays of the sunset streaming in. He heard his friends calling his name and power walked over to join them already feeling like he was about to get teased for being late, again.

"Well look who arrived last. If I had a credit for every time you were late I would be able to afford my own school." Ralnas stood up and clasped hands with his best friend. "Took you long enough, I thought your mom might make you on time for once."

"My mom is the reason I'm late..." Jayce shrugged sheepishly. He didn't mind letting his mom take the fall for this one, especially since it was kind of her fault. Plus she would never know so there wasn't any harm in it.

"Of course you blame your mom," Jenira rolled her eyes. "Well since your here we can finally discuss the most important thing about the night, who's Mr. Chiron going to call up last to the stage?" She grinned evilly at Jayce.

"Oh god please not again. I would rather be first than last today." Jayce felt sweat already starting to form on his back. He shook out his shirt to try and cool himself down.

"The odds of you going last again are so low Jayce I'm sure that it won't be happening again." Micu matter of factly stated. "Plus the person with the highest potential score went last the year before so I would guess that I will be going last this year. Otherwise, it is just alphabetical order for who goes when."

Jayce relaxed, "Oh thank you, god, thank you so so much." He sat at the table and then glanced around the cafeteria. It seemed like his classmates were looking at their group differently than before. Jayce had never really paid close attention to anything besides his friends so he wasn't sure if it was because everyone was dressed up that things felt different.

"Hey Micu what are those patches everyone else has sewn into their outfits?" Ralnas was also looking at the crowd. Indeed many of their fellow classmates had different patches sewn into their graduation outfits. Some were ornate with jewelry highlighting the symbols while others were simple cloth patches sewn into the collar of their shirts or jackets. They also were a wide variety of colors but the most common one by far was the green ones which had various leaves as their symbol.

"You mean the man who always talks about winning the grand prize doesn't even recognize the elite team's symbols?" Micu asked incredulously.

"Huh? Well, I do when they show their teams competing on TV but why are our classmates wearing them?" Ralnas bristled from Micu's question. Obviously, he would recognize the symbols of the teams but these weren't like the ones that his heroes wore when they battled on the TV. Ralnas more than anyone else watched the highlights on loops before falling asleep imagining it being him those highlights were showing.

Micu raised his eyebrow, "Well probably because their parents hope the teams who come to graduation will see the patches and maybe chat with their kid. It's like of like advertising yourself to potential companies at a job fair. Though I'm honestly not sure."

Jenira was about to chime in with her own idea about what it meant when the loudspeaker crackled to life. "All graduates please organize into two lines. One for the boys and one for the girls. You will be led into the gymnasium by Mr. Chiron shortly." It repeated this same message twice more before shutting off with another crackle.

"Here we go I guess." Ralnas looked at his friends as they made their way to the double doors leading to the gym.