Ethan didn't wait for Thornton to finish sputtering.
"Director Thornton, I know what comes next. You're going to expel me."
The words were so casual — so unbothered — that Thornton actually paused mid-tirade. Then a cold, thin smile spread across his face. If the kid was going to make this easy, so be it.
"Mercer, we were once teacher and student, so don't blame me for what happens next. Your expulsion today isn't about the conflict with Ms. Greer." He straightened his tie, pivoting to the script he'd prepared. "It's about your academics. I'm told that in today's physics class, you couldn't answer even a basic question. If you can't handle material at this level, perhaps Ashford Prep isn't the right environment for you."
Greer jumped in immediately, right on cue: "That's right, Mercer. Today's problem was elementary. If you can't solve something that simple, you're wasting everyone's time — including your own."
Ethan watched the two of them pass the narrative back and forth like a tennis ball, and a cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
The problem Greer had given in class was anything but basic. On a real National Scholastic Exam, it would be the final question — the one designed to separate the exceptional from everyone else. Even most top students would struggle with it.
But the two of them needed a cover story. "Expelled for being stupid" played a lot better than "expelled because the teacher was a bully and the director was corrupt." It was reputation management, pure and simple.
Too bad for them, the Ethan Mercer standing on this stage was not the same kid who'd sat in that classroom yesterday.
"Greer says I can't answer basic physics questions." He turned to face the crowd, projecting his voice across the assembly grounds. "So let me set the record straight. My understanding of physics is something ten of her couldn't match."
A single sentence. A thousand reactions.
The assembly grounds roared.
"ARROGANT!"
The shout came from a cluster of physics teachers near the front. Greer's reputation among students was garbage, but her colleagues — however much they privately disliked her — still considered her a competent physicist. And Mercer had just insulted the entire department.
"Mercer, you need to take responsibility for what you just said!"
"Questioning the professional competence of Ashford Prep's faculty? I'd say the expulsion is justified!"
"A moment ago I felt sorry for this kid. Now I see he brought it on himself."
The chorus of condemnation rolled through the crowd. Teachers shaking their heads. Students snickering. The consensus was clear: this orphan from the countryside had just talked himself off a cliff.
On the podium, Thornton's thin smile widened. Public outrage. Perfect. Now the expulsion wouldn't look like retaliation — it would look like a consensus.
Greer, sensing the kill, pounced:
"Since you question my competence, Mercer — since you claim to be better than me — then explain something. Why couldn't you solve a 'basic' problem in class today? Why didn't you have the answer?"
A colleague from the physics department piled on: "That's right! If you're such a genius, solve it right here. Right now. On this stage. Show us your 'superior' physics!"
Laughter cascaded through the crowd. The idea of a seventeen-year-old student outperforming a teacher who'd spent decades in the field was absurd. Fantasy. The kind of delusion that came from too many missed meals and too little sleep.
Nobody tried to stop it. They all wanted the same thing: to watch this poor kid crash and burn.
Ethan, standing at the center of the storm, was perfectly still. He scanned the crowd — the sneering teachers, the laughing students, the cold satisfaction on Greer's face — and felt nothing but ice-cold clarity.
You all want a show? Fine. Let's see who ends up embarrassed.
"Sure," he said. "I'll solve it."
The physics teacher who'd challenged him laughed. "Good! Then today we'll witness your extraordinary genius. Someone get him paper and a pen!"
"No need."
Ethan's refusal cut through the noise.
"For a problem this simple, I don't need paper. I already have the answer. I'll just say it."
More laughter. Louder now. Ashford Prep didn't lack for top students — kids who'd ranked first in the province, who'd spent hours grinding through practice exams. The problem in question had been assigned yesterday and left unsolved. Even the best in the grade would need considerable time and scratch work to attempt it. Mental calculation on the spot? Impossible.
"The answer is h₂ = 10.59 meters."
The laughter stopped.
Every student in the courtyard turned toward the physics department, waiting for the teachers to tear the answer apart. Waiting for the satisfying moment where the orphan was proven wrong and the natural order reasserted itself.
But the moment didn't come.
Instead, the physics teachers were frozen. Greer's face had drained of color. Two of her colleagues were furiously checking notes on their phones. And the silence — the heavy, shocked, disbelieving silence — stretched on and on.
"No way. He didn't actually get it right?"
"Look at Greer's face. Oh my God."
"That problem was harder than anything on the Scholastic Exams. There's no way he just..."
Greer recovered first. She had to. Because if this answer was correct, then her entire position — her credibility, her authority, her justification for Ethan's expulsion — collapsed.
"Mercer!" Her voice came out high and strained, dripping with theatrical grief. "I always thought you were simply lazy. But now I see your character is rotten to the core."
"Using a stolen answer — copied from who-knows-where — to show off in front of the whole school!"
"As your teacher, I'm ashamed to have produced a student who would stoop so low. I owe an apology to every teacher and student at this school!"
The performance was desperate. And everyone could see it.
Below the stage, students who'd already searched for the problem online were rolling their eyes. It was a brand-new question — no solutions existed anywhere on the internet. Greer was grasping at straws, and the straw was made of tissue paper.
Thornton jumped in to support her: "Mercer, anyone can read off an answer. If you actually know what you're doing, explain the solution. Step by step. Right here."
Ethan almost laughed. With the physics knowledge now occupying his brain — knowledge that belonged in university lecture halls and research labs, not a high school stage — solving a problem like this was like asking a chess grandmaster to play tic-tac-toe.
"According to the Law of Conservation of Momentum, the collision of the two spheres at this velocity produces..."
He launched into the solution. Calm, methodical, each step flowing into the next with the precision of someone who wasn't working through the problem but reciting it — the way a native speaker reads their mother tongue.
Most of the students below listened in glazed confusion. Physics at this level was well beyond the standard curriculum.
But the top students — the handful who lived and breathed equations — watched with widening eyes. Each step was not only correct, it was elegant. The logic was airtight. The math was flawless.
And standing at the edge of the faculty section, Dr. Helen Archer felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
Helen Archer led the Physics Research Group at Ashford Prep. She was the one who'd written the problem. Provincially ranked, nationally recognized, she'd spent thirty years in physics education and had earned a reputation for creating problems that broke students and teachers alike.
This particular problem had been her latest creation — a question she'd expected no one in the school to solve correctly. She'd prepared two solution methods herself, and she'd considered that comprehensive.
But this student — this scholarship kid who was about to be expelled — had not only solved it correctly, he'd done it through mental calculation alone.
If this was real — if this boy had genuinely derived this solution from his own knowledge — then she might be looking at the most talented physics student she'd encountered in her entire career. The kind of talent that came along once in a generation.
And if she nurtured that talent? National competition. Maybe even international. The dream she'd chased for decades.
She absolutely could not let them expel this student.
Then Ethan finished the solution, paused, cleared his throat, and said:
"That's the standard approach. But I also have two additional methods that are even simpler."
Helen Archer's decision went from probable to absolute.
She was protecting this boy. No matter what it took.
PLZ Throw Powerstones.