The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism

Chapter 270: 270 | Cinema, Absolute Cinema

Twenty voices hit the chorus at once, a wall of sound that would have been embarrassing under any circumstances but was particularly devastating given what they’d all watched. The observation deck erupted into chaos, students turning in their seats, phones appearing from pockets, conversations dying mid-sentence to be replaced by the specific energy of people who had just witnessed something scandalous.

Caden materialized from the crowd like he’d been waiting for exactly this moment. His grin stretched so wide it threatened to split his face, and his hand was already up for a dap before I’d finished stepping through the door.

"My guy!" He connected with my hand in a collision that would have broken fingers on anyone less prepared. "Man like Lukas! Absolute legend! The tactical kiss? The wall pin? The whole thing where you basically—"

"I’m aware of what happened."

"Bro, the cameras caught everything!" Caden threw his arm around my shoulder with the enthusiasm of someone who’d just watched his favorite sports team win the championship. "You went full secret agent on them! The desk throw? The bathroom ambush? When you grabbed Camille and just—" He made a motion that was anatomically impossible but emotionally accurate. "Cinema! Absolute cinema!"

Marco appeared at Caden’s side, his expression containing the specific smugness of a best friend who’d been vindicated about something. "I told him you were different. Back when you first showed up. I said there’s something about that guy."

"You said he looked like he’d been sleeping in a dumpster."

"Different can include dumpster aesthetics!"

Felicity pushed through the crowd with significantly less grace than her usual presentation suggested, her blue eyes wide and her freckles standing out against skin that had gone very pink. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and finally managed to produce words.

"Lukas. What was that?"

"A victory?"

"You kissed Camille."

"Tactically."

"And then you and Petra—the cameras showed—when you fell and she was on top of you and her costume—"

"Also tactical."

"THAT WAS NOT TACTICAL!"

Her voice cracked on the last word, drawing even more attention from the already attention-saturated room. Several students who had been pretending not to listen gave up the pretense entirely. Rina had materialized at the edge of the crowd, her purple eyes tracking between me and Felicity with an intensity that made her sheep mug shake in her grip. Nyx was saying something to Maribelle that made Maribelle laugh in a way that sounded deeply inappropriate.

The room was absolutely not recovering from what they’d all witnessed.

I should probably feel bad about this. The rational part of my brain was fully aware that kissing one classmate and then ending up in a compromising position with another classmate in the span of ten minutes was the kind of behavior that got people expelled from normal educational institutions. The Ecchi Logic trait humming through my system didn’t seem concerned about conventional consequences, which was either reassuring or terrifying depending on how you looked at it.

The good news was that the cameras had probably only caught the aftermath with Petra, not the full costume malfunction. Most of the extreme wardrobe failures had happened when we were tangled on the floor, and the angle would have obscured the worst of it.

Probably.

Hopefully.

A throat cleared with enough authority to cut through the chaos like a blade through warm butter. The room went silent so fast that the absence of noise felt physical, every student snapping to attention as Radiant stepped forward from his position near the monitoring bank.

"Alright, people." His voice filled the space without effort, the kind of natural projection that came from decades of commanding attention. "Let’s settle down before this becomes a social situation rather than an educational one."

The students scattered back to their seats with the speed of people who’d just remembered they were being observed by the number one hero in America. Caden gave my shoulder one final squeeze before retreating to his row, and Felicity shot me a look that promised this conversation was far from over.

I took my seat in the third row, Percy settling beside me with his notebook already open to a fresh page. The silence held for exactly as long as it took Radiant to cross his arms and survey the room.

"That was Match Three." His blue eyes found me with the kind of focus that made my Oracle Feed flicker with warnings it couldn’t quite articulate. "H-3 takes the victory through objective extraction and enemy capture. Both hero team members demonstrated adaptability under pressure and effective coordination despite asymmetric capabilities."

A pause.

"Mr. Belmont."

"Yes sir."

"Those were some unique methods for capturing a villain."

The room held its breath. Twenty-odd teenagers waited to see how the Symbol of Hope would address what they’d all watched on the monitors. Radiant’s expression gave away nothing, his legendary smile replaced by something more considering.

I shrugged with as much confidence as I could manage while sitting in a charcoal compression suit with amber accents that probably still smelled like Camille’s lip balm.

"Got too in character, sir."

Radiant’s eyebrow rose by approximately half an inch. The silence stretched. Then the corner of his mouth twitched upward in what might have been amusement or might have been professional concern.

"The entrance exam footage mentioned your theatrical tendencies." He turned back to the room at large, apparently deciding that further comment would only encourage whatever he’d just witnessed. "Moving on to tactical review. Ms. Ortega, Ms. Lang, please remain after class for individual assessment. The rest of you, pay attention to the next match."

Camille made a noise that suggested she was going to murder someone before the day ended. Petra sat in perfect stillness, her emerald eyes fixed on a point approximately six inches above everyone’s heads. Neither of them looked at me.

Smart choice.

The remaining matches proceeded with significantly less romantic entanglement. Team after team went through the exercise, demonstrating various levels of competence and coordination while I sat in my third-row seat and processed exactly what I’d done.

The kiss had been pure instinct. Camille’s rivet was three inches from my face and her concentration was the only thing preventing it from punching through my skull. Breaking that concentration was survival. The method was simply the fastest option available.

That’s what I was going with, anyway.

The thing with Petra was harder to explain. The constructs had genuinely been out of control, the feedback from breaching her barrier scrambling my focus in ways that made fine manipulation impossible. Every attempt to dissolve them had only made things worse, and her struggling had compounded the problem exponentially.

None of which changed the fact that I’d ended up with the recommendation track princess straddling my waist while her costume suffered a critical failure.

My brain helpfully replayed the moment in high definition. The emerald fabric slipping lower. The lace edge appearing against skin that looked luminous in the amber light. Her breath catching when she realized what had happened.

I needed to think about literally anything else.