Pretending To Be God

Akshar turned, "WHAT?"

"The heck are you staring at me? You got your ass beaten by me and now you're going to try to get your ass beaten by him too? Get outta here!" Peyton shouted.

Akshar chuckled before turning back to George.

"Hey, I'm talking to you! Don't think of us as warmups so you can go try your luck against Oz if you can't even stand toe to toe against us. Freaking piece of crap." Peyton continued.

The barbarian sighed and nodded slightly before drawing closer to George's face, "I FIGHT YOU IN SPAR NEXT WEEK."

"Sure." George replied and nodded with facade confidence.

Seeing that the barbarian was done, Peyton exited the class, followed by the purist, whose face turned sour from the loss.

George sat back down, trying to regain the energy that he used from just standing in front of the barbarian.

Being scared was enough to make one's energy depleted, and George felt that. "Whoo…"

He quickly started thinking of ways he could mitigate this situation before Jame tapped him, waking him up from his worry. "Yeah?"

"Uh, would you be okay answering some questions regarding the rumors surrounding you?"

George couldn't hear the question correctly and still had a lot of thoughts in his mind, but he answered nonetheless, "Sure."

'No, I can't think of those small problems now, I have bigger problems on hand…' He thought while trying to figure out how he could do the speech while trying to remain in class.

Jame was still shuffling through his bags to find for his notebook to record the conversation that they were going to have.

As he took it out and turned towards where George was, he became puzzled as he was nowhere to be seen. "George?"

He quickly looked around the class only to see some of the hardcore nerds studying too much. 𝐛𝐞𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝐞𝐥．𝗰𝐨𝗺

He quickly dashed out of the door while holding his notebook and pen, looking left and right in the hallway.

He had to squint at the very left side of the hallway and could make out George's back, 'I can't delay this anymore,' he thought before running towards George's direction.

George ran as fast as he could; his eyes sat on the instructor who was walking tiredly to his office.

"Sir!" His voice echoed through the hallway.

"Yes?" The instructor turned towards George, looking slightly annoyed.

"Sir, I would like to be exempted from the speech."

The instructor's eyes widened as he heard those words come out from a student that had just recently been accepted to the academy, "Kid, do you know how big this opportunity is?"

"Yes, I kno-" George was immediately interrupted by the instructor, whose face turned red in an instant.

"No, I don't think you know. Because if you did, you wouldn't be uttering those words. Do you even know who Oz is? People would kill to meet him, and I am actually serious. So are you telling me, you are willing to let go of some small reason to see and hear from someone that people are willing to kill to meet?" The instructor said as his face got only redder.

"I do, really! It's just that-" George tried explaining but got cut off once more.

"If you do, then do me the favor and never speak to me about this matter again, because then, I will not only shout at you here, I will expel you from this school and you will never see the light of day again."

George took a step back, as he wasn't expecting that kind of response from him.

"Uhm, the reason why I was asking, is because I know Sir Michael…" George said. He knew that the instructor wouldn't let him respond with any other kind of explanation, so this was his only choice.

"What?" The instructor asked, still couldn't believe what George had just said, "Kid you must have a talent of shocking and pissing off people, because you have done that to me, twice, in a single conversation."

"Sir, I'm not trying to." George replied, still not understanding why the instructor was talking in this way.

"I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear the second thing you said to me, because if I report this to the Emerald City guards, you would go to jail, immediately."

"Sir, I assure you, that I have not utter a single lie yet."

The instructor shook his head before pacing back and forth, "You brought this upon yourself, I am going to report this to an Emerald City guard right now…" He gritted his teeth.

"Don't need to, I heard everything…"

Both George and the instructor turned to the voice.

George recognized the face, "Ah, Ma-" He stopped himself from uttering the name, pretending that never happened.

"So, you know Sir Michael?"

George nodded, "Yes sir, I do." He sighed, annoyed that this situation had been worse than it should be.

"If we find out that you are lying, you will have to spend a whole year in jail. Not because you claim to know him, but because you claim to know him in order to get what you want."

"Yes sir… I know that."

"So, do you still know Sir Michael?" Mason asked once more.

"Yes sir, and I would still like to be exempted from attending the speech, because Sir Michael told me not to."

Mason tried to reason with the idea but couldn't process in his mind why Michael would say that and so he asked, "And why is that?"

"I plead the fifth."

"Huh?"

"No, uhh, I mean it is private information."

Mason sighed and nodded before turning behind him, "Donovan!"

He waited for Donovan to turn up, but even after half a minute of waiting, his partner had yet to arrive.

He quickly turned to both of them, looking slightly ashamed, "I will get him, just wait here…"

He then walked towards the left part of the hallway, where he could see Donovan looking at the ceiling.

"Donovan…" He called but received no response.

"Donovan…" And still no response.

"DONOVAN!"