Chapter 89 88 - Class Reunion

When Milo pressed the button, a small hologram projected out of the top of the pyramid shaped badge, casting a blue glow on the table. The seal of the GAA that was engraved on the side of the badge was projected above the top of the badge, and below that it showed his information; his name, the guild he was a part of, as well as his rank were all shown in the hologram. The rank that was being projected showed a capital B.

His first thought was, "did I really do that bad?" He reached out to Maria to find out what rank she had received, to which she answered C. What Milo failed to realize was that the ranking given by the school was much lower than what they would receive when actually being evaluated as a gatecrasher. Even with this being the case, he had been evaluated as a high ranking gatecrasher, X ranked gatecrashers weren't a common occurrence in the world. Close to 25 percent of the world's population at this point had awakened abilities. 93 percent of that 25 percent would be evaluated at C rank or lower, only 5 percent of awakened people would be B ranked, and a little under the two percent remaining would be A ranked. Among all the awakened people in the world less than one percent would be considered powerful enough to be X ranked. Milo pressed the button again, deactivating the hologram projection and put the small pyramid in his dimensional storage.

Milo was a bit discouraged until he saw that he had ranked higher than Maria, as he used her as a gauge to measure someone's strength at the academy. Corinna and Krista both told him how proud they were of him, and after telling the guys in their group chat, they were all amazed that Milo had gotten ranked so high. After talking more, he learned that according to Chris's brother who had gone to the academy a previous year, the number of students who had been ranked higher than C could be counted on one's fingers, making Milo a rare existence. Milo was feeling a bit overwhelmed by his friends' support, he didn't think he deserved the B ranking. As he had always been someone who was weak before this previous year of school, he wasn't able to gauge strength very well. Some considered this as him just being humble, but Milo was clueless about how strong he had become.

He went on to tell all his friends about the upcoming class reunion that would be happening the next day. When asking if he should go or not, he got a resounding number of answers encouraging him to attend the event, all with different reasons. Chris like usual told him to go and show off saying that he was a big shot now and he should rub it in. Mark said that he should go just to go, he wouldn't get opportunities like this all the time and who knows how long until he'd be able to see his class again. The last of the opinions that surprised him, was Zach. Zach had told him to go for two reasons, one was to keep Krista out of trouble as he knew she'd probably get in trouble or start a fight if anyone talked bad about Milo for not showing up. The bigger of the two, was that Zach said that he should go and see how people changed, Milo had changed a lot in the past year, and maybe the bullies he dealt with were now nobodies, he thought seeing how other people changed might help Milo out of his slump he seemed to fall into when thinking about when he was bullied.

After all the encouraging words, Milo texted Krista and said that he would go as long as she stayed by his side, he didn't want to deal with anyone there without her, and he was determined to keep her out of trouble at Zach's request. Plus she was the only one who knew about his system and could keep him from revealing anything if things went bad for whatever reason.

The next morning Milo woke up and continued about his usual routine, minus the combat training, and proceeded to hang out until the reunion was set to start. Krista informed him that he should dress somewhat nice for the occasion as other people most likely would so he got ready and met her out in front of their apartment building. The two of them then got into a taxi and were on their way to their old school where the get together was taking place.

As the taxi got closer and closer to the school, Milo began to get nervous about who he would see from his old class. He began to ruffle through some of the people that he had encountered while going through his first two years of high school. The first face that came to mind was Danny Li and his henchman, who after their untimely demise in the rift where Milo awoke his system, would not be attending for obvious reasons. That made one less face that Milo wouldn't have to be nervous about seeing.

Another couple of faces that came to mind were some of his old crushes, Milo was clueless when it came to girls and reading emotions, but he himself had had the occasional crush growing up, just like any other guy. Thinking about seeing them, even though he never told them he had liked them before increased his already mounting stress. The final student Milo thought of was someone who had actually been a friend of his and Krista's growing up, following the disappearance of Milo's parents he began to resent Milo due to him getting extra attention since he was orphaned, and from then on he would try to bully Milo. With how scrawny and weak Milo was back then, it wasn't hard for the kid, who was named Truman Murphy, to push Milo around.

Thinking of Truman, Milo was practically jumping out of his seat, he commonly made rumors up about Milo during school and would even tell Danny, who was Milo's main bully, fake things that would make Danny angrier, effectively facilitating the beatings Milo received. He asked Krista if he would be there, but Krista wasn't sure who all from their class would be attending the reunion.

The taxi eventually pulled up to the school where Milo's worst part of his life had occurred, New York City Preparatory High School. Seeing the front gates of Milo's former hell, he tensed up a bit as he saw places where he had been shoved, book checked and all around bullied. He heaved out a deep breath to calm his nerves after paying the driver, and stepped out of the Taxi. He saw some of his former classmates all making their way towards the front entrance, where a sign was placed that read, "Reunion for class of 2100 located in the gymnasium."

"Welp, here goes nothing," said Milo nervously.

"You'll be fine," Krista said in response as the two walked towards the gym.

When entering, there was music playing and many of his ex classmates had already arrived and were congregating around talking. There was a table with snacks and drinks, as well as a table with photos of the class. Milo chose to avoid those and instead chose to go sit off to the side with Krista.

Milo was sitting talking to Krista about random things he was noticing about their old classmates when he began to see stares coming from the people in the crowd.

"Who's that?"

"I don't remember a hottie like him in our class."

"Is that Milo? Krista is sitting next to him and I know they were close, but he's changed so much."

Krista read the minds of some of the people looking their way using her telepath ability, and smiled wryly. She nudged Milo and informed him of the thoughts their classmates were having about him, and his face went slightly red. It felt good that people were noticing him now, but he was embarrassed that he was getting this much attention.

Milo eventually grew the courage to join the group of other students who had been talking and informed them a bit about what he had been doing since going to the academy, mainly him meeting a ton of new people and who some of his well known teachers were. While at the school, he never used his ability and only Krista knew he had awakened the reinforce ability during their second year at the school, which is why people were so surprised when he told them he was going to the Awakened Academy. He also chose to omit the fact that he was in the X ranked class, otherwise he'd get double the attention he was already receiving.

Eventually while retelling some stories, Milo felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see the one person he was hoping he wouldn't run into. Truman had shown up and seeing Milo socializing and getting praise from their classmates, he decided to try and rain a bit on Milo's parade.

"Hey, Milo, how've you been buddy?" He said.

Running into Truman made Milo freeze, his eyes darted towards Krista who had just noticed who had shown up, she was talking with another group of their classmates and once she saw Truman she started making her way over.

"I'm doing pretty good Truman," Milo said, trying to act natural, "I was actually about to go out and get some air."

Once Krista had finally gotten over to the group she pulled Milo away from Truman who waved bye to Milo before taking his spot in the group he was just a part of. Krista guided Milo out into the hallway so that he could calm himself down, and after a few more minutes, he had done just that and the two of them entered the gym again.

When entering, the president of their class was up on a makeshift stage towards the edge of the gymnasium and started to make some announcements and jokes about the things that had happened while they were in school. He then went on to read some of the superlatives of the class, and pointed out the people who had earned them to see if any of them had arrived, such as class clown which had been awarded to Truman when they were in school.

Eventually Truman found a way to get up on stage, where he was able to get the microphone away from the class president.

"I'd like to start by welcoming you all here today," he said.

When Truman got up on stage Milo had a bad feeling start to rise in his gut.

"Especially my old friend Milo Fenix!" Truman continued.

Krista turned to Milo at this moment, expecting to see a look of panic on his face, but instead she saw a look of determination.