Miss Lin

Miss Lin giggled and handed Joaquin an ice pack. "Tell me again how you got knocked out," she jokingly said with her fingers pressing Joaquin's cheek.

Joaquin snatched the ice pack away and looked in the opposite direction, Miss Lin grabbed a bunch of his dreadlocks and started pulling on them. Joaquin shook himself violently until she let go of him. She pouted and with a blush on her face she took off to leave the nurse's office.

The fight of Joaquin versus Ruben started to replay itself in his head.

After being tripped and falling to the ground. Ruben quickly got up, but Joaquin used that time to crawl forward while ascending, to save time. Ruben, threw himself down crash landed on Joaquin's heel.

He let out a small screech before using his other leg to kick Ruben on the face. Ruben who had his mouth open got to taste a thousand miles forcing him to let go. An opportunity presented itself and Joaquin accepted it with open arms. Forcing himself up and outside the entrance.

'Persistent hypocrite,' thought Joaquin as he realized that Ruben had a tight grip on his school shirt. Some buttons flew out and Joaquin snapped. 'Remember that you forced my hand'

The two stood there for almost a minute not moving a single muscle. Ruben let go of Joaquin's shirt, "I'm sorry about that. We can get a new one later if you like."

Joaquin looked away from him.

"Come on. If you didn't refuse to come with me I wouldn't have been forced to do it." Joaquin still didn't respond to the now worried Ruben. "I'm only doing this to save you from yourself…"

"Give me a break, you don't want to see me succeed." Joaquin shifted and started to walk away, beaten up more by the earth than Ruben. His uniform dirty, torn and missing a few buttons, his eyes were watery and his hands were shaking. With every step he took the voices of students got louder, suddenly the science labs grew further away from him.

The world around him darkened, chains appeared on his wrists, ankles and neck. His body grew smaller and his uniform turned into dirty old rags. A tear tried to escape his eye but he didn't let it. Joaquin tightened his fists and continued to stomp forward. In his mind he kept telling himself. 'I will get stronger, I will get bigger and never again will those people call me a lowlife.'

But he was distracted from his thoughts by the siren signalling the end of lunchtime and the start of study.

Ruben who watched Joaquin walk away slowly suddenly felt as if his heart was being crushed, he again was misunderstood. 'I just don't want him to turn out like him. Why won't he let me help him?" Ruben clenched the coat in his hands and disappeared back into the block along with the siren.

Normally after study begins. The disciplinary committee members will sweep through the school for the first five minutes to make sure that all the students have sat down. Normally Joaquin would just give up and head back to class, but today he had a lot in his mind.

To his left was the house of Dawn block and to his right was the house of Dusk block. In the middle was a fountain and up ahead, so very far ahead were the school's labs. All of these buildings made the school appear like half a city.

That was necessary and even before seeing the school, one could already imagine it's majesty from the praises it received. One kingdom to another, everyone talked about the overpopulated and overachieving Heaven's Gates academy.

It was almost completely quiet with only the sound of Joaquin's shoes touching the ground, but. From the House of Dawn emerged three students, walking together in resonance. Joaquin didn't hear them and continued walking forward.

The first one to see him signalled for him and got no response, the second one recognised Joaquin and whispered to his friends. They giggled and slowly made their way to Joaquin, he still kept his head down while deep in thought.

Two of the boys walked ahead of the one in the middle and giggled as they slowly got near Joaquin. After Joaquin got caught in the middle they tapped his shoulder and he immediately turned to face the guy on his right.

This distracted him from the guy in the middle who he ran into. The middle man fell to the ground and was left chin down looking up to Joaquin.

Joaquin eyed the guy on the ground and the one on the left, he noticed the scarfs on their arms. 'DC,' he thought. He gave them cold looks and walked around the fallen guy.

'Please don't cause any trouble for me, I just want to go and put a stamp on my findings.' Joaquin had only taken a few steps forward when he felt a tug on his pants.

"How dare you make me look up to you?" A raspy and mocking voice came from the ground.

Joaquin stayed quiet and actually stopped in his tracks.

The guy who had fell used him as a pedestal to get up. He grabbed Joaquin's shoulder and pulled with some muscles in his hand, hoping to drag Joaquin to the ground. Unfortunately that proved impossible as Joaquin turned around slowly to face them.

"I know that I shouldn't be here now. So give me my ticket and I'll immediately head to the labs." He said slowly in the lowest way possible for his voice.

The guys looked at him for a few seconds and his expression remained calm and unchanged, the one who had been knocked to the ground slowly got red and his face folded on itself.

"Are you mocking me? Are you mocking my job? Are you aware that you aren't supposed to be here in the first place?" He tried slapping Joaquin but his hand was caught.

The boy's colleagues pulled him away violently and screamed, "HOW DARE YOU ATTACK A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE? ARE YOU SICK OF SCHOOLING HERE?"

'Here we go again.' Joaquin sighed

"You shouldn't even be here in the first place, I find it difficult to understand why the school still admits people of status." The guy from the right exclaimed.

"If it were me you wouldn't even be allowed to utter the name of this majestic academy. But that is not the case. As expected of trash like you, you're violating the rules and thus must be punished accordingly." Said the guy on the left.

The guy who was on the left took a few rapid steps forward and swung a fist at Joaquin. Joaquin dodged to the other side and unconsciously punched back.

The guy flew back and slid on the paved ground, his pants ripping apart from the friction. He quickly grabbed his nose but a red liquid still leaked from his fingers. He glared and Joaquin and seemed to yell something drowned by his hands.

"Oof, you're a creation type." Joaquin said softly.

"How dare you?" The remaining two screamed and rushed in with eyes blazing with fire. They got into an exchange of skills with Joaquin but lost out to his odd movements and unusual strength.

"I thought you didn't have any mana, why are you so strong?" he argued.

"I would like to apologise for my sudden outburst. But, isn't the DC supposed to give me a ticket instead of attacking?"

"SHUT UP! A stupid peasant like you has no place questioning our actions. We are going to file you up for assaulting the law if you don't kotow and let hit you a hundred times." He thrust his finger forward and said. A light seemed to glow around him, and it was brownish.

'I have a bad feeling about this.' Joaquin folded his fists and brought them up to his face. The boy grinned and Joaquin's eyes budged out.

Joaquin exhaled as the scene disappeared from his head and his eyes looked at the curtain surrounding his bed. The pain gave him pictures of his childhood, a childhood he didn't want to look back to, but whenever he did. The room felt cold and became swallowed up in the darkness, a tear would fall uncontrollably down his face and echo though his mind.

Pathetic, is what he would say to himself as he clenched his fits. His breathing will inevitably grow louder and disturbing. Peace was a legend he wanted to bring to life.

It eventually got darker outside and the sounds of children running around faded, these were the mature times of the academy. Times when Joaquin could have a little peace, even if temporary, he jumped off of the bed walked out of the nurse's office.

The nurse tried waving at him but he ignored, he was currently thinking about tallying up his successes and failures, science wise that is. The nurse's office which he was in was in the lab block, so walking over to Miss Lin's class would not be that hard.

"Miss Lin," he snarled.

"Ah Choo!" she sneezed.

Because the school was so huge most class lights were left on, but today, it was unusually dark in the laboratory block. Down the hallway was Miss Lin's class and there seemed to be a lot of movement inside.

It made Joaquin feel uneasy but he still braved forward, the movement inside got even more vigorous and the steps grew louder. A few glasses were knocked to the ground and Miss Lin finally let out a scream, "NOOO!"