It's ... just going to be easier if I repost and write in the margins.
The world broke a thousand years ago. Not just cracked. A full on shatter. Something picked up the pieces and rewrote everything.
It all started when the Gates tore open the sky. That's when the monsters arrived. People called them Voids, but not because they were empty. Voids erased everything. Ash. Silence. Survivors who weren't really survivors, not after what the Gates did to them. They turned into Aethers. Humans with glowing sigils burned into their skin and powers that ignored every rule written in a physics textbook.
You don't need two opening paragraphs. One bit of exposition for a world we don't yet care about is already bordering on too much. You're also introducing way too much jargon before you need to. Gates, Voids, Aethers. Just save all that for now, and bring it up when it actually becomes relevant to the story, at which point your readers will actually care enough to pay attention.
The Voids didn't stop. They never really do.
Now, your sigil was everything. It decided whether you mattered. Ren had nothing. No sigil, no status. Just a ghost in the halls
Once again, none of this means anything to the reader. In fact, I would just cut everything up to now. Because the next sentence is where the story actually starts.
The sun slid behind Aether Academy, throwing long violet shadows over the courtyard. Teenagers packed into their cliques, little sigils thudding with energy that Ren felt in his teeth. He drifted through the edges. Head down. Hands jammed in his pockets. Eighteen, skinny, genius level IQ. Useless. In this world, brains and no sigil just made you a target. Ren already knew how to be invisible.
He tried, anyway. Trying wasn't enough.
You need to show, not tell. Don't tell me he's a genius, don't tell me a lack of sigil makes you a target, don't tell me Ren knows how to be invisible. Take the time to actually show me.
"Hey, No Sigil loser! Still trying to hide?"
See? Like that. No need to tell us before showing us. Also, your dialog is a bit stilted here. This is how cartoon bullies talk, not a real person bullying someone else.
No need to lift his chin. Ren already knew the voice. Loud, smug, always flanked by a pack. Kaito. One of those "True Aethers" who'd won the lottery with superhuman strength.
Show the superhuman strength, don't tell me about it.
Ren saw Kaito for what he was. Mistake after mistake stacked like bricks. Leaned too far left. Telegraphs every move. By the time he started to swing, Ren's mind had finished the whole fight and rewound it twice.
You are trying to make your protagonist is too cool, too smart. Which is working against the empathy you are trying to make the reader feel toward him. If you want to actually make him super unpopular, just let him be entirely outmatched.
Kaito got right in Ren's face. Tall and sneering. His breath reeked of cheap cafeteria meat. "Maybe if you weren't so weak, we wouldn't waste time on you." He blocked the path. Waited.
More cartoon bullying, and also the dialog makes ... no sense.
This time Ren didn't drop his gaze. He stared Kaito down.
"You always lean left before you swing," Ren said. Quiet, steady. Not backing down. "Every single time."
Everything stopped for a heartbeat. Kaito's neck went red. His friends fidgeted behind him.
"So you think being smart keeps you safe?" Kaito's voice cracked. He sounded less confident. "I'll break every bone you've got. All of them."
He lunged. Most people would just see a blur.
Ren moved three inches left. That's it. The punch sliced empty air, close enough to feel.
Kaito pitched forward, off balance and angry. Not used to missing.
Ren didn't waste the moment. He snagged a loose brick from the path, calculated in half a beat, and drove it into the spot right where spine meets skull. Pain without murder.
Again, you're working against yourself here. You've basically put Batman in front of the Justice League. In the justice league, nobody f's with Batman. Exactly for the reason you see here. It does not matter that Batman has no powers, he'll still mess your shit up. So I have a hard time believing that Ren is getting picked on in the first place, sigil or not. And again ... you are cutting the level of empathy we might have felt for him, being bullied, earlier. You have to pick a lane. Either unhinged Batman type who nobody messes with, powers or not, or sigil-less nerd who gets picked on. You can't have both, because you are trying to get directly competing emotions out of the reader.
Crack.
It echoed. Everyone froze.
Kaito didn't scream. He just collapsed, eyes wide, limbs limp before they touched stone.
Real silence now. That kind of silence that makes you super aware of your own heartbeat.
Kaito's gang stared like Ren was something unrecognizable. One edged away. Another couldn't close his mouth.
"He did that without a power," someone whispered.
"Get him!" someone else yelped, but his voice wobbled.
"Get him!"
I'm now thinking about the bully kid from Sharkboy and Lavagirl. "I did not! Mr. Electric, send him to the principal's office and HAVE HIM EXPELLED!" Ah, what a treat that movie.
Ren braced himself. He'd done the math. Four powered bullies against one unpowered nerd doesn't end well. He could see every move in his head, every fist, every boot, but that didn't change the facts. He was just human.
By having the victim do the mental calculous about his future beating, you are undercutting any emotional power or horror that the scene could have. You know, it's okay to just let your protagonist get their ass kicked.
The first kick hammered his ribs. Pain flashed white. He hit the ground and curled up, arms over his head. Boots rained down. Someone crushed his fingers. He didn't make a sound.
Through it, he thought about his little brother back home. Waiting at the table for dinner, probably grinning hope. Ren didn't want him to see this. Didn't want him to know.
He shut his eyes. Just waited.
And then the air tore apart. Not a ripple. Not a crack. More like a hole punched in the middle of everything, right in front of his face.
[Initialization Protocol: 0.01%...]
[Scanning Biological Anomaly...]
[Host Intelligence: Critical Mass Detected.]
Something cold vibrated in Ren's skull. He forgot to breathe. His heart tripped over itself.
[Insight Engine Installing...][Heal Skill in Progress...]
Heat flooded through him. Not just outside. Inside, deep and scalding. Like someone poured sunrise in his veins.
The agony in his ribs faded. First an ache, then a tickle, then nothing at all. He watched bruises vanish, skin smoothing over until he looked untouched.
[Installation Complete.]
Ren blinked. His ribs felt fine. No pain. Nothing.
He pushed up, slow. The bullies were already leaving, laughing about their own jokes, as if they hadn't just beaten him seconds ago.
Yeah ... I don't buy that for a second.
He looked at his hands. They didn't tremble.
Everything felt different.
Show, don't tell.
He just didn't know why. Yet.
In summation, you have two MAJOR issues here to work through. It's totally okay, we all have to learn these things. I'm not dunking on you. But to elevate this scene, you really need to work on believable dialog and showing instead of telling. The show don't tell thing is easier, even if it will take more time. Just take all the exposition, you narrating things about the world and characters, and chuck it all out the window. And then replace all that with scenes taking the time to SHOW what you wanted to show us.
The stilted dialogue is a bit trickier. My advice? Obviously, read a book with dialogue that sounds natural to you. Study it. Write down what works. But then, what I think you really need, is to find someone in this big wide interwebs who writes dialogue so bad that you know you could do better. Something like, "My Immortal" or a similar work. Figure out for yourself why their dialogue comes off wonky and inhuman, and you'll have an easier time fixing that in your own work.
Best of luck!
