The walk to the academy was short and uneventful while I moped about how Harper and Michael might have killed themselves over something so stupid.

  Even Michael had the sense not to say anything as we passed the many giant beasts on the plain.

  Once we got to the academy, we were welcomed in by our new professors, who were asking us if we had seen any of the explosion. We just nodded our heads and told them that it was big and bright. Nobody even gave me a second glance.

  Once we were in the actual academy, there was so much to see. There were students running every which way, trying to get to classes or messing around with Dark Matter, moving it through the air. I was elated to see that it was mixed with something else. I had seen enough of that stuff in its pure form to last me a lifetime.

  "Do you think we share a dorm like we did on the spaceship?" Harper asked me. I snapped out of my trance and started to think again.

  "Maybe they have a list with all the dorm room assignments or something," I suggested. I tapped some kid on the shoulder and asked him where we could find what dorm room we were assigned to.

  "You find them on your flesh-watch," the boy looked at me like I was a dingus. I pinched myself. Sometimes I was just that forgetful that I had a watch ingrained into my skin.

  I pulled up the apps on my flesh-watch and opened the new one that said TITAN ACADEMY in bold letters on the front. Something popped up about oxygen and how you should be able to breathe within the boundaries of the academy, and how you were so welcome to the academy, blah, blah, blah. I clicked that I had read everything, found the search bar, and looked up where our room was.

  Apparently, there was a virtual assistant who could lead you directly to your room. I opened that up, and a soothing female voice started to guide me to our dorms.

  "Follow me," I told my friends as I started to walk toward the dorms. After weaving through many hallways, we finally made it to an inconspicuous hallway that had the entrance to our dorm.

  "The password is Kiwi," the assistant said into my head and then was gone. I relayed the message to my friends, and as soon as the word "kiwi" was out of my mouth, a segment of the wall opened and we all hurried into our room.

  "Whoa," Harper said, mouth wide open. I was right beside her doing the same thing. Our common room was sick. It had these big bean bags strewn around, and there were lots of board games at our disposal, along with a shelf full of books. Wyatt was already by the books, thumbing through them with an eager look in his eyes.

  In the common room, there was also a balcony looking over some type of training ground. When I walked out there, I was blown away by how vast the space was. It was easily the size of eight soccer fields, but the size wasn't even the coolest part. Teenagers of all ages were fighting each other with Dark Matter or completing an obstacle course. I couldn't concentrate on one thing because when I looked at something cool, there was something even cooler within my peripheral vision.

  "That's insane," I heard Harper's voice whisper from behind me. "Are we going to get to train in there?"

  I nodded my head. As students of the academy, we had full-time access to the training facilities and everything else that standard students got, which was pretty much everything as far as I could tell.

  I felt a hand grab me, jolting me out of my thoughts.

  "Let's go check out our rooms," Harper said, dragging me to a door with my name on it. She kicked it open without any hesitation. Inside was a tiny, empty closet made out of Titanium.

  "What?" I said, confused. This couldn't possibly be my room. I could hardly even fit in it.

  "You have to use Matter to melt away the Titanium. Once you do, only you can do it," Michael said from behind us, making me jump. "It's the most ingenious key because your Dark Matter is identical only to you, and what is ingrained into these walls can never leave."

  "I'm not even going to try to get in," I said aloud. "I don't feel right about using the stuff with everything that we've been through."

  Harper nodded her head and wandered off. I stared at the wall the whole time, contemplating what to do, when I heard a scream from the direction of Harper's room. I sprinted to her room as fast as I could.

  "They have CAMERAS!" Harper said, pointing at an inconspicuous piece of wall. I didn't find anything out of the ordinary with it, but when I really squinted my eyes, I noticed that there was something there. Michael walked in and took a look himself.

  "Camera?" Michael said. "I don't see a camera. How strange that you guys can see it but I cannot."

  I stared at the camera and suddenly had an idea. I took a little bit of Matter from a couple of kids training in the facility below us and let the Matter wash over our room.

  "It's gone," Harper mumbled, looking at the spot. She turned toward me. "How'd you do that?"

  I shrugged my shoulders, and Michael had me do the same thing to his room. He said he didn't want anyone stealing the ideas to his machines, but let's be real—he doesn't want his naked rear end to be spied on.

  Once that was over with, I went back to my room and looked at the wall, contemplating how I was going to do this. As I was thinking, my consciousness lingered and I accidentally swiped some Matter from a consciousness next door to us and let it wash over the Titanium.

  The next thing I knew, I was integrating a little bit of the gold stuff into the Titanium, and I could control it with Matter just like that.

  Beyond, my room was spectacular. I had a wonderful four-poster bed that looked unreasonably comfortable. Next to the bed was a hot tub, and next to that was a door that led to an obstacle course.

  I started to walk toward the bathroom to pee, but then I remembered the cameras and let my Matter wash over the room. Then I felt comfortable taking down my pants. Maybe I would treat the Jacuzzi like it was a giant bath now that the cameras were gone, I mused to myself.

  Once I was done doing my business, I went back to Harper's room to see what she had gotten, but the door was shut. I decided to leave her alone, so I went back to my room and checked out what we would be doing for this year via the flesh-watch.

  It looked like we had three more days until the orientation, and then our classes started the next day.

  I kept looking around the flesh-watch but didn't really find anything interesting, so I decided to go check out the training grounds.

  When I stepped onto the grounds, things were really put into perspective. I was first confronted with an obstacle course that I tried and failed heroically.

  "You need some help?" An older kid was extending a hand to me. I took it and heaved myself out of the pit that I had fallen into.

  "Thanks," I said, brushing myself off. "I'm Wyatt."

  "I'm Judah," the guy said. "You a new recruit?"

  "Yeah," I said, looking at the guy. He was a big dude and was built like a tank, though that wasn't the thing that caught my eye. He was wearing shorts that were made only of Dark Matter. "We just got here yesterday."

  "Cool," he said, seeing me looking at his clothes curiously. "You like my outfit? A lot of us kids that are more powerful like to clothe ourselves in Dark Matter. It's more comfortable, and it tells younger kids not to mess with us."

  I stared at him, still wondering why he was talking to me.

  "Did you see that explosion that happened then, if you just got back?" Judah said. I knew he wasn't just talking to me out of the kindness of his heart.

  "Yeah," I said, treading carefully. "I was pretty close when it had happened. Probably forty feet away from the blast zone."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Sick," Judah said. "Did you see anything? I've been hearing some rumors about some guy dressed in gold armor fighting a floadon. An adult floadon, no less."

  I nodded my head. If he figured out he was talking to the one that had done the deed, I could not see it being a walk through the park.

  "Yeah," I lied. "I saw something like that. Kinda like a flash of gold, you know?"

  Judah nodded his head.

  "I guess I'll see you around then," Judah said, slapping me on the back. He started to walk off right as the screaming started.

  "Help!" I heard a female voice screaming. "He's turning!"

  I ducked behind a wall of the obstacle course and eliminated all the cameras with a bit of Matter before letting the armor come back and my visor slam down over my face so nobody could see me.

  I was about to fly up into the air when I realized that they might be able to track me with the flesh-watch. I put a little bubble of Matter around it just to be safe.

  Then I burst into the air.

  Carnage was all around us as a writhing dark force was tearing obstacles apart and throwing people every which way.

  I sped down to the dark force and started taking a small percentage of Matter from people that I passed, though not enough to make them pass out. I wanted to make sure people could still run.

  The Matter started to form in me and well up, and I knew I was ready to take on this darkling that had formed.

  "Aaaaahhhhh," I yelled as I charged the dark mass, letting the Matter that I had been collecting wash over the darkness. Immediately, it was gone, and there was a normal-looking kid in the middle of it all.

  I flew down to him as fast as I could and crouched over his body that was trapped in some type of metal shorts.

  The boy pointed to something to the side of us and started to shake. I looked where he was pointing and saw a dark shape looming by an obstacle. I instinctively put a shield of pure Matter around me and the boy, and we were covered in a sheet of metal. I would later realize that if I had been any later, I would have died. The metal would have crushed me under its weight.

  In that moment, I was cowering over a trapped kid and trying my hardest to stay alive, so I did what made sense in my brain. I exploded.

  Matter washed over me every which way, and I turned my armor into a drill, plunging myself into the ground, covering up the hole I was making with dirt as I went. I kept going like that for ten minutes before I was falling through open air. I wasted no time in making my wings. I put some Matter into the tip of my sword and illuminated the cavern around me.

  I was hovering above a vast ocean. Below me was water as far as I could see, filled with creatures moving every which way. Above me was a rocky ceiling, covered in stalactites.

  The other thing I noticed was the heat radiating off the surface of the water. I was already sweating in my armor, and the steam coming off the water was making my eyes water.

  I flew up to the top of the cavern, trying to get away from the heat, when I noticed a cave, so I flew into it to check it out. It was about the size of my closet from Earth, and it had a large rat thing the size of a dog crouching in the corner. I killed it with my sword and threw it into the ocean below me.

  Once I heard the splash of the large rat thing hitting the water, I put some Matter into my torch to take a look at the cave I was in.

  It was damp in the cave, and I could faintly hear water dripping from somewhere not too far away. It wasn't anything special, but in that moment it was a spot where I could rest from my exhaustion. That battle had taken a lot out of me, and it was probably wise for me to lay low for a couple of hours. Plus, a nap would do me a lot of good right now.

  I woke up to a bit of water splashing onto my face from the ceiling above. I swung my arm around, expecting to hit my alarm clock that I'd had on the ship, but instead I hit a big rock, cutting my finger open.

  "Ugh," I said, pulling myself off the ground. I looked down at my outfit and realized that I was going to have to get to the surface somehow. Hopefully, nobody would notice that I had been gone.

  "What is the 'ugh' about?" I heard a voice say. I jumped and spun around to confront whoever it was. An old man was crouching in the corner. He had a staff that was carved with ornate patterns and wore the clothes that you would expect to find on a beggar.

  "Get away," I said quietly as I conjured up a shield of Matter around me.

  "Why should I?" the old man said. "You are the one that was invading my cave."

  "Sorry," I said. "I didn't realize it was YOUR cave. Are you a darkling or something?"

  "I have the power of a darkling, but I am no darkling," the old man smiled. I looked the man up and down. There was no possible way he was as powerful as a darkling. He was just a frail old man after all.

  "There's no way you're that powerful," I scoffed. The old man looked at me and smiled again. I hated how he did it that way. It made me shift and squirm.

  "You want to test that out?" the old man said, conjuring up the tiniest orb of Dark Matter. It squirmed through the air like it was alive, and I felt a strange aura of power radiating throughout the room. Maybe this wasn't the greatest idea after all.

  "I propose a duel," the old man said, "so I can see what you're made of. Good old-fashioned fight until the other player falls unconscious or taps out."

  "You want to fight me?" I said, still a little baffled by the whole situation. The old man nodded his head. "Whatever. Let's get this over with."

  "On my count," the old man said. "One... Two... Three."

  I expected something crazy to happen on three, but nothing did. The wriggling black speck started to move toward me ever so slowly.

  I reinforced my shield of Matter, waiting for the attack. After watching the tiny speck continue its approach for a couple of minutes, I began to lose my patience.

  "Are you going to fight me or what?" I said to the man.

  "I am attacking you," the old man said, gesturing at the speck floating toward me. "That is all I can muster."

  I laughed at that and sent all the Matter I had at the pathetic speck. Once the Matter went away, the speck was still coming toward me.

  "What the..." I said, speechless. I had never seen anything like THAT before. I panicked as the speck picked up its pace and crept toward me fast.

  It got through my shield no problem.

  Suddenly, blackness flooded out of the man and surrounded my shield, putting it out like a candle.

  "I surrender!" I screamed, scared for my life as I floated in the black abyss. Then it became light again, and I found I was looking into the blind man's eyes. I blacked out only seconds later.

  "What happened?" I groaned as I sat up and looked around me. The old man was sitting calmly in the corner, looking at me.

  "I kicked your butt. That is what happened," the old man smiled. "You put up a good fight, though I give you that. I have not seen someone with that type of power for a long time."

  "Thanks?" I said, not knowing what to say.

  "And whatever you bond your Dark Matter with is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. It was almost like it wasn't Dark Matter at all."

  "Er..." I was speechless. How had I been such an idiot? I had gone out and used Matter against some rando just for the sake of a DUEL.

  "A secret, I presume?" the old man winked at me. "That's fine then. I understand. When I was young, I thought I knew everything too."

  I smiled uncomfortably.

  "Well," the old man said, "if you come to visit from time to time, I can give you pointers and I can teach you how to do what I do."

  I nodded my head.

  "I might just take you up on that," I said. The old man smiled. "Bye then."

  ACTIVATE THAT GROUND-DIGGING THING, I thought to myself. AND KEEP THE FLESH-WATCH OFF FOR NOW.

  I sighed and dove into the wall of the cave, drilling up toward the surface, making sure that I wasn't going to pop up anywhere near the academy.

  After digging through the earth for fifteen minutes, I hit the light and had to lie there in the ground for a couple of minutes to let my eyes adjust to the sudden brightness.

  Once I could see again, I found that I was in some type of cave. It was handy because I didn't have to worry about being spotted by anybody. I quickly turned my armor back into underclothes and released the Matter from around the flesh-watch when I heard something growl behind me. I turned around, but all I could see was darkness.

  I wasted no time in getting out of there, and when I got out of the cave, I found that I was in the middle of the field that we had first walked through to get to the academy, full of strange, mysterious creatures.

  I took my time walking through the field, and when I strolled through the front gates of the academy, no one gave me a second glance.

  Once I got to our rooms and shut the door, I let out a deep breath right before someone crashed into me, squeezing me so hard I thought my ribs were going to crack.

  "Where WERE you?" Harper asked, her nose almost touching mine. "You were giving us all a heart attack!"

  "Geez," I said as she got off me. "It's not like I've been gone that long."

  "You've been gone all through the night," Michael said, rising from the couch. "Everyone has been talking about you. 'The golden warrior' is what you've been branded."

  "What?" I said. "What do you mean?"

  Harper pulled me over to the couch and made me sit down.

  "You're being hunted, Wyatt," she said. "The academy has a bounty on your head for quite a bit of power. If you are captured, the person that does it gets to live in a penthouse on this moon for the rest of their lives and they never have to fight ever again. If they kill you, the prize is slightly better."

  I shuddered. They really wanted me, didn't they? I mean, it made sense. I was the only one that could destroy their civilization if I got powerful enough. Better to take me out now than risk the inevitable. Not that I wanted to take them out or anything. I sighed. Why did these things have to be so complicated?

  "So what do you want me to do? Not do anything?" I said. "I cured that person of whatever was inside him, and they're just going to put a freaking bounty on my head?!"

  "They killed him, you know," Michael said. "They told us it was too much of a risk having a darkling around."

  I clenched my fists.

  "We both decided it's better if you lay low," Harper said, grabbing my hands. "They can handle their own affairs. We don't need you getting hurt—or killed."

  I didn't say anything, but I did make eye contact with Harper.

  "Promise me?" Harper said, holding my gaze. I shook my head. I wasn't going to promise anything. I wanted to help. Wanted to do something.

  "I'm not making any promises," I told her. "But I can try my best."

  Harper sighed but seemed to accept it.

  "Random question," Raydawn said. "Where in the world have you been hiding for the past day?"

  I laughed and told my friends all about the strange old man and the fight that I had initiated.

  "I'm glad he kicked your butt," Harper said. "You needed to be humbled."

  "He sure did," Michael laughed. "You think you're going to go back and get some lessons?"

  I shrugged my shoulders, and we sat there in silence for a couple of seconds.

  "Well then," she said, "what do you want to do for the next couple of days until our classes start?"

  "Let's go train and play some games," Michael suggested, so that was exactly what we did until the first day of our class, and let me tell you, it was a very interesting class unlike anything I was expecting.