Last Place

Ren approached the stage. Some of those in front of him seemed nervous to get their power evaluated. He climbed the steps and stood in front of one of the glass ball machines.

"You can put your hand on it whenever your ready." stated one of the security officers.

Ren slowly placed his hand on the glass ball and squeezed with all his finger strength.

CRACK!

The glass blew apart, throwing glass all over the stage. Some yelped in surprise. To Ren's relief, on one seemed to notice the slight movement of his hand as his shattered the glass ball. Mr. Allard and the security personnel looked extremely shock.

"There must have been a defect in that one," guessed Mr Allard. "Try this one." Mr. Allard pointed to the one to the left of Ren. Ren approached the other glass ball machine. Everyone's eyes were transfixed on Ren now as they awaited the result.

"I have to be even quicker with as little movement as possible," stressed Ren as he put his hand on the second glass ball.

CRACK!

The glass ball shattered, twice the amount of glass on the stage now.

Ren looked at Mr. Allard and security, all of them with their mouths open in awe.

"This has never happened before!" exclaimed Mr. Allard. "Hold on a sec, I'm going to call the head of the Academy."

Mr. Allard pulled out his phone while walking around to backstage so no one could here the conversation. "Hello, sorry to call you like this. This is Mr. Allard. We had a glass ball blow up in response to someone's power... twice. What do you suggest?"

"I suggest just putting him in last. Give him a power level one less than the one who ends up in last place. If it really did burst in response to his power, he will have no problem climbing up the ranks to get into the top five hundred." replied the headmaster.

"Understood," replied Mr. Allard. He walked back out to the stage and strolled towards Ren. "I'm sorry Mr. Lynch, but we are going to have to give you a power level one less than whatever last place will be after this evaluation is complete."

"That's fine," Ren retorted. Ren turned away from him and stepped down off of the stage and back to his place.

The room was filled with muffled conversations as everyone in the crowd was confused about Ren's power level.

Ren opened back up his app and saw that the letters TBD were next to his name.

Mr. Allard called the next ten names to continue evaluating the rest of those who haven't gone yet. From what Ren saw, there weren't any other strange occurrences as the evaluation progressed. Although, some higher power levels were recorded near seven thousand. None were as high Lorraine Flanagan's, however. The closest was a power level of 7,489 by some guy with wavy blonde hair. Ren couldn't catch his eye color, but he seemed very impatient, as if he had something important to do.

Ren knew he was still getting some stares from people because of his TBD power level, but one guy in particular wouldn't look away. Whenever Ren looked his way, he was looking at Ren. Ren decided it wasn't a big deal, but noted it in his head anyway.

Mr. Allard finally called the last of those that needed to go then switched his notes on the podium. Ren scrolled through the app to find the name Ray Lynch so he could see what power level he received. He received 874, rank 5209 out of 5209, last place.

"This'll be fun," smiled Ren.

"Now that you have all received your power level and rank, I'll explain how you can climb the ranks," announced Mr. Allard. "We know that power isn't everything. There are many factors in determining one's capability, such as, experience, technique, and skill. In order to climb the ranks you can challenge any one that you so desire. We have camera's everywhere so we can observe and record each and every battle that takes place. You don't have to worry about damaging the building or the grounds, we have ability users that are able to repair any damage on standby 24/7. The winner is determined by knockout, inability to move, or a surrender. It is forbidden to kill another. If you do, you will be charged with murder and imprisoned. We have excellent healers as well, so don't be afraid to rough up your opponent. We also ask that you don't fight during your scheduled course time. The winner of the battle claims the losers rank and the loser is set back to last place."

The crowd started to stir with excitement as well as anxiousness.

"We have one more little rule for your entertainment," added Mr. Allard. "The one who is challenged can set a condition that the loser of the battle must do.

Now the crowd really began to burst with excitement with this rule. Ren was very interested in it as well.

"This will begin at midnight tonight. You are all dismissed to your quarters."

The crowd began to file out the two exits in the back of the very large room. It took a while for Ren to finally pass through the exit into the common area. It was a very beautiful campus surrounded with pretty gardens, luscious green grass and lots of tall trees.

There was a couple of buildings spread out on the campus. Most of everyone headed towards the dormitories. Ren had other plans. He strolled towards the outside of the campus and then disappeared into the distance, running.

Ren began to think as he ran, "Last place, huh. I accept the challenge, but how should I approach it? Should I work my way up slowly, or just aim for the top right away?"

Back at the American Authoritarian Association...

"Sir, do you really trust Ren with this assignment?" asked Mr. Walker.

"He has the determination, plus he's the perfect one for the assignment. However, I feel that he is hiding something from us," replied Mr. King. "I want a small search team to go look for Burtgundy facility to confirm what exactly happened there."