..America's Star Pupil
"Elated to see you once again, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to today's episode of Inali's Inside Scoop!" A man, short with disproportionately long limbs and a set of chitinous pincers sprouting from his jaw, sat in a beautifully decorated studio. The aesthetic was modelled around a forest of some sort, with beautiful greenery forming the backdrop for his seat, as elaborately detailed as a throne yet somehow still humble, and the seat to his right, holding the man - although he still looked quite boyish - who rocketed to fame in three years time. Beads of sweat ran down his face, and anxiety had drained all colour from his face. He glanced at the front row of the audience, and then back at Guess, who seemed to have been following his gaze.
"So, Morgan, you like the studio?" Inali Guess, former investigator extraordinaire who retired in favour of a career as a talk-show host, leaned forward in his chair to lock eyes with the hero world's top prospect.
Nervously, the boy pulled at his collar, beads of sweat having already formed on his face. "It looks great. Very, uh, green, and I think your chair looks great." The colour drained out of his face even further than one would think possible as the audience gasped in shock.
"Scandalous! He mentioned the chair. The only rule is to not mention the chair, Morgan!"
"M-my apologies! I didn't know that was a rule, sir, really, please forg-" Before he could finish, Guess, and the audience with him, burst out in laughter.
"Nah, we're just messing with you! However," there was a severe tone in Inali's voice, "we do this to every new guest. This tells me you haven't watched my show before!" Again, the audience gasped in shock, but Morgan was more prepared this time.
"Ah," he threw his hands up in the air, "you caught me." Morgan laughed nervously. "In my defense, I really don't have the time to watch any shows! I heard Archangel's new show's about to set the record for amount of awards, but I haven't even gotten around to that yet."
"Right, Archangel! Do you think she's mad at you? I'd be mad as hell, if some student who was ranked #100 two months ago suddenly rose to the #16 spot in the country and knocked me down."
"I hope she isn't! Miss Toussaint's so sweet all the time, I really hope I didn't do anything to upset her." Morgan twiddled his thumbs, looking to the ground embarrassed.
"Okay, okay, I can tell I'm overwhelming you a bit. Let's take a deep breath." Inali and the audience sucked in a huge gulp of air in tandem, and Morgan hastily followed a few seconds later. Then, they breathed out at once. "So, your ability, Ancient King, it's called? What can you tell us about how it works?"
"Well, of course, I can't tell you the precise details." Morgan stood up. "Can't have villains knowing all our secrets, and all that. I'd love to demonstrate, though, if that's alright." Inali nodded in agreement, and Morgan held out a hand. It transformed into the paw of a lion with beautiful golden fur. "The skin's completely impervious - nothing can get through at all." Marks akin to those from being strangled appeared around his throat as he reverted the partial transformation.
"That's the Nemean Lion! I know my mythology, you can't fool me." Inali quipped. Morgan nodded, unable to subdue his smirk, looking quite proud of himself as he quickly glimpsed at one of the spectators closest to the stage and then returned his gaze to his interviewer. "Now, the question that's on everybody's mind - especially each and every hero student's - I think you know what I'm gonna ask already, right?"
"You want to know about ROOT, I'm assuming?"
"Exactly! ROOT is the thing every single hero student in the world wants to shoot for. Anything you can tell us about it?"
"Well, it's an agency." The audience laughed, as much at the half-joke as at Morgan's awkward delivery. "Since its inception, every number one hero in the world's been part of ROOT in their youth, as well as about eighty percent of the top ten at any given time."
"Right, right! But the audience knows all that already - what're the special scoops on it? What's it like being a part?" Inali's signature cadence of speech, in which he drew out the last syllable of his most important questions, caused his audience to sit upright immediately as if it were some sort of special alarm only his viewers understood.
"Well, the atmosphere's.. just amazing. Since they only recruit heroes under twenty-five, it's easy to get along with pretty much everybody there. Of course, The Wanderer was a part of it, although unfortunately before my time, and The Gamma way before that." Morgan thought for a second, and mustered up the courage to continue speaking. "But it's terrifying. Not that anyone's mean or anything, but just the pressure, you feel? Everyone around me is, like, ridiculously strong, to an extent I couldn't even imagine."
Inali looked at the audience, and then slowly back at Morgan. The audience laughed. "You know why they're laughing, right?" At Morgan's confused expression, Inali elaborated. "I feel like 'ridiculously strong' would only barely do justice to the strength you've shown the world. Your rank's proof that you're at least as strong as the rest of them, right?"
Morgan blushed a little. "Yeah.. Anyway, back to ROOT, I think the thing that strikes me more is the training program. Sure, Stonehearthe's virtual reality simulations are great, but ROOT is on a different level. Their philosophy is 'growth through adversity'. So, we have trial missions each month to simulate this 'adversity' through extremely high stakes mock combat situations. High stakes as in, the loser is expelled from ROOT." Shocked noises came from both Inali and the audience.
"Expelled? As in, you get fired from ROOT if you lose?"
"Yeah. Not immediately. You get points based on your performance in the trials, and the lowest performers drop out. I think their method works well, too. The heroes who are closest to dropping out but manage to survive, usually skyrocket to doing the best in the trials right afterwards. The theory behind it is that the stress of being on the brink of elimination will send the unworthy careening into hopelessness, and temper the worthy into the finest swords." Morgan was clearly happy to ramble about his hero agency for as long as he was allowed to.
"You're in love with Kepler Lintang." Leaning forward in his comfortable-looking chair and locking eyes with Morgan once again, Inali Guess changed the topic so nonchalantly that Morgan barely registered what he said.
"What?"