The Academy Rebooted - The Demon Awakens

[Paragon]

Arrival

The minutes before this particular moment were normal. Zack was in a very special training session, one in which his life would in fact be threatened if he did not fact cautiously. He could be injured if he was looking for it. Before he realized that he was puking the contents of his stomach, he had stopped fighting out of exhaustion and let himself get pummeled in the stomach. Strangely the impact was enough to get him to vomit.

The audience around the arena screamed in joy as they saw the widely known failure of the Academy throwing up on the floor. The victor of the match raised his arms to the platinum coloured ceiling, his hands covered in hard and hot rock. Among the insults and shouts of dissatisfaction there was the occasional shouting of 'Zero', the offensive nickname that Zack had successfully earned over the year in the Academy. Most of the audience was actually cheering for the victor, adrenaline rushing in their veins and the money won from their illegal betting being slipped subtly into their pockets.
Zack promptly fnished throwing out his stores of food. Wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his black shirt, he stood up. His legs were uncontrolled and he was showing a clear display of unbalance. Zack's eyes swept around, looking at the audience swearing at him behind the bulletproof glass. The first time he was here he was on the verge of petty anger and sadness. Now he just smiled grimly with a look in his eyes which suggested he'd given up the fighting spirit many, many days ago. His glance snapped back to the victor who was looking at Zack. The bulky Australian with blonde hair wore a grin on his face which he aimed directly at the thin boy he'd just humiliated.
"You weak little shit. I can't believe you're still in this place." The audience roared louder behind the glass, hearing everything.
"It's mutual mate. I don't believe either. See you next time," Zack said casually, making his way to the doors. Under his breath, trying best to fool the Academy hearing system, he whispered an extremely colourful word as he walked away from the grinning mass of meat behind him.
The audience became silent. Shit, Zack thought.
"You worthless pri-"
As if God had just rescued Zack from another physical punishment, the sound system under the raised arena boomed. "ARENA SESSION OVER. VICTOR: DERRICK LEONARD" The audience began cheering again when they remembered who had won. In that second when all attention had shuffled away from Zack, the boy had already dissapeared from the arena.

After twenty minutes worth of walking through the massive Academy to get to his room, Zack calmly strolled in. The sliding door automatically closed behind him after doing a biometric eye scan to prove his identity. "Lights on," he muttered, the small flat lights dotting his ceiling slowly coming to life. Immediately Zack went to bed. This was his day-to-day routine in the Academy. The business which he hated was done, then he would go to bed. No matter how sweaty he was now after an obligatory Arena session he still lay down in bed. It was his one comfort zone. With a heavy sigh, he turned on the TV with a similar voice command as he had used with the lights. The hardware of the television was set inside the wall, never seen by any eyes (except the ones which could see through walls and probably clothes too). All that could be seen was the screen. Looking from the left side of his eyes, he watched a program which he frankly could not bother understanding. The Academy was hidden from the outside world but anyone inside the massive complex could watch the outside world as much as they wanted. "I guess it's to stop people from getting homesick. Who the hell knows how long they'll stay here..." His voice was dripping with spite. He'd only spent a year here and he had probably broken the world record for the amount of enemies one person could possibly have.
His hand fell to rest on his stomach. Zack's face tightened into a painful wince. Lifting his head he pulled up his black shirt, looking at the green mark growing on the surface of his belly. "Brilliant. This is going to take some time to remove." His head fell back on the pillow with a thump. "I hate life. I guess it can't get any worse now."
A beeping noise resonated from somewhere to Zack's left. It could only mean one thing. The beeping suddenly turned into a tune trying too hard to sound merry, as if it was another failed attempt to replicate the spirit of Christmas into the alien world of the Academy. Normally things didn't deserve as much attention from Zack that they would require him to turn around fully. However, this particularly object did. Really.
The tablet's display became brighter, a large message taking the spotlight of the screen. The words 'new arrival' were highlighted, and a small list of people was summoned below by the tablet's CPU. Zack's heart sank when he saw his name was on the list. In his mind he kneeled down a preyed to God, to take his name off the list for the briefest second. Zack opened his eyes again.
Still there.
Getting up, he patted down his dark blue jeans and picked up his tablet. This was the worst day ever. He had been beaten up, humiliated and now he had to do be tortured. For this was the day when new, confused superhumans would arrive in the main entrance of the Academy, feeling incredibly sick by the teleportation that occurred there. Holding the tablet loosely in his hand, he sighed as he walked out of the room, unphased by the hesitant doors.
His quiet footsteps could barely be heard as he made his way to the Main Entrance. There numerous teleporters (or worm-hole manipulators as the scientists liked to call them) would pop in and out of the Academy, traveling around the world to pick up people who used the distress number. In the moment of danger when a person's true, superhuman self was revealed and the person could be killed they always called the number. Zack knew, because he did the same thing.
Looking down at the tablet as he arrived there, he slowed to a halt, staring more closely at the number assigned to him. Three. Zack was supposed to assist the superhumans who would come in the third round of teleportation per min the teleporters spent. Checking the digital clock on the tablet, he waited for the time to go up by one minute.
The number changed from a five to a six. Focusing on the teleporters, he started counting everytime a group of them traveled through the worm hole and brang people form the outside world. Zack watched the first round go. Then the second. Finally, the third had come.
They certainly looked normal. Thankfully they had all been transported close together, close to or even at the same time. Walking towards them, he raised his hands after putting the tablet in his pocket. "All of you, come with me. I'll explain everything along the way," Zack said, looking at them with dead eyes. He turned around and expected them to follow him, but he paused before he started walking. "If you have any questions, ask while we're walking. Oh, and, welcome to the Academy. This is the place in which you will save yourselves."

[Xartarin]

There was darkness and clattering noises, and loneliness. Her parents had stopped checking in too long ago, and Jess wouldn't be able to survive much longer. They were out there, searching and waiting. But she couldn't stay here forever, and they could. There was no escape, no fighting them. There was only one hope, and it was a long shot. Jess gulped, and hesitated. There was no way this would help. Zero percent chance. But whatever they would do to her, it was better than starving to death in this whole, right by their feet.

You do not belong in this world anymore.

Jess created a light by her shoulder. A flashlight, hovering and bobbing just slightly. There was footsteps and rummaging above her as the light tipped them off. Jess had the phone by her, and was frantically dialing. She was certain now that even if it did anything, the phone number was too strangely long, she'd never make it in time. The ceiling was destroyed above her, smashed in. Fire and brimstone poured out, but they were undeterred and wise to her tricks. They reached in and with great force began to drag her out as Jess frantically pressed buttons on the old phone. Jess had caught her feet on something to resist but now they were lifting her up. One last digit. Jess was rising up, and reached out her hand, her other arm trying to force herself from their grip. Her finger wavering, she was almost there....



It was an awful feeling, like being sucked through a straw across miles in an instant. After a short time through that ride she arrived at "The Acadamy", in some kind of large chamber full of strange and alien-looking teleportation devices. There were people all around her, although she wasn't exactly crowded. For a few moments she was disoriented. Her insides felt like they were burning. But she was too scared to be fully nauseous, and she was too desperate to be scared. She had no idea where she was.

In her few moments of disoriented panic she tried to piece together her surroundings. Technologically advanced devices, lots of people, large building. And she was brought here when she used the card, the card that said "you do not belong in this world anymore".

What an insulting thing to say to someone to like her.

It became clear very quickly. This was a trap. Those agents were the backup plan, but that card was the main lure. She called, gave away her position, and was abducted by some kind of technologically advanced cult or conspiracy or government organization. This was the belly of the beast, a torture chamber hundreds of miles below sea level where people like her were spirited away to and never heard from again. She had to act. She had to do something.

These new surroundings were very odd, but she glanced around the room looking for an exit. Behind Jess were some strange-looking machines, she couldn't tell if she could leave through those or not. In front of similar ones were other people, strangers. There was a boy in front of her, close to her age, with his hands raised for some reason. Very plain looking. He said "All of you, come with me. I'll explain everything along the way." Aha! An exit behind him, probably where this weirdo entered the room from. "If you have any questions, ask while we're walking. Oh, and, welcome to the Academy. This is the place-"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Jess shouted once her post-teleportation stupor had fallen away and she was focused enough to act. Storm clouds rapidly swirled and surged above her, covering the ceiling in an instant. With a ferocious bang, a lightning bolt struck her and shrouded the room in a blinding light. She made a break for it, rushing past the other teleportees in the general direction of the door she had spotted. When the light faded, Zack and the other arrivals could see Jess sprinting towards the entrance Zack had used, looking almost but not quite exactly like their greeter. His feet didn't touch the ground completely, details in his face were slightly off, his clothes didn't fold or move correctly, and the illusion gave off an "uncanny valley" feel if you looked at him too long. But it was close. Hopefully close enough to distract them.

[BitSmall]

Miles could not be having a worse day.

As he pressed the call button space began to stretch and contort itself around him, and Miles's stomach appeared to be following suit. He hadn't felt this sick since that one time he contracted food poisoning from a horribly undercooked KFC. But now was not the time for jokes. Miles found himself in what appeared to be a rather large room containing a small group of people, though it was hard to tell through the blur created by wincing through your one remaining eye. just then the pain caught up to him. still clasping his bleeding right eye miles let out a cry of agony before trying to stifle it as best he could by gritting his teeth. he attempted to take a step forwards, but the mix of pain and the lingering dizziness rendered him too week. His leg buckled and Miles fell onto his left side, his shoulder colliding heavily with the floor.

He was already regretting calling the number. here he was, No idea of where he was, lying crumpled on the floor. why couldn't he have just called 999 like a normal person? Miles tried in vain to stifle another shot of pain.

Someone please help me...

[Riaxh]

The sensation was horrible. It felt like he was being sucked down a plughole, compressed, and spun around at the same time. He was choking, he couldn't breathe...

Lambda landed heavily on the academy floor, jarring his knees and wrists. He took deep breathes, before realising how sick he felt, almost feverishly so. He staggered to his feet, trying to get a grip on his surroundings, there were people around him, he could hear them, but the world was spinning, it took all of his balance just to stay in a kind of hunched crouch. He tried to peer around through squinted eyes, taking in the confused locoing people and alien machinery.

who are these people? Where are we? Have we been kidnapped? Oh my god....is his eye missing???

That gruesome sight was a bit much for Lambda right now. He hadn't eaten much recently, but there was still enough vomit to make a bit of a mess, though fortunately he didn't hit any of the individuals lying near him. His head was pounding now, he was sure he could feel a migraine coming on. It took him a second to realise there was somebody talking to them. He just gaped as he listened to the stranger welcome them to "The Academy".

Lambda's hands balled into fists as he tried to focus, to get a grip on the situation and figure out wha-

"GET AWAY FROM ME"

A girl close by, though still a little unsteady, seemed to have recovered enough to walk. Lambda felt the remaining blood drain from his face as he watched storm clouds gather around her, bloting out the ceiling.

Is this real? Has the shock sent me into a mental breakdown?

The lightning bolt was sudden and blinding. When he looked again, the girl seemed to be making a break for it, which raised an important question: should he be doing the same? What if he had been wrong to trust the number, and this was just some elaborate method to get captured?

But no, that didn't make sense. They had been coming for him, and the card had allowed him to escape. Besides, The moment he had dialled the number he had felt something change, like an important outcome had been decided. He didn't understand this freakish power of his, but he knew how it felt and he knew that overall, this was a good outcome.

He found he was completely stable now, though his head still hurt, and he found himself moving over to the guy clutching his eye again. He seemed awake, but he was keeled over and from what he could tell, there was a lot of blood. Lambda felt his stomach protest again.

"Hey...." he called over to their host, though he was probably more preoccupied with the fleeing girl. For whatever reason, he found he was out of breath.

"Hey... I think we need some help over here." He called out weakly.

[Cyan]

Maria's body unravelled fifth dimensionally through time and space. For what felt like ages, the air felt thick like marshmellow and the coffee shop noise seemed to drop in pitch till all Maria could hear was a dull ringing that rattled through her brain. Her limbs didn't seem to want to react as quickly as they would usually and before she could even open her mouth to say anything, she burst back into existance, stunned and without the chair she used to be sitting on. She toppled on her bum, bracing herself to ensure she didn't fall and further back. The room was unfamiliar and definitely wasn't the coffee shop any more. Looking around there were others, all of which looked scared or hurt except for one who stood and addressed us all.

"All of you, come with me. I'll explain everything along the way. If you have any questions, ask while we're walking. Oh, and, welcome to the Academy. This is the place in which you will save yourselves."

The Academy? Nothing of what he said was particularly reassuring and the guy bleeding and the girl screaming didn't help. Maria did have questions and lots of them, but the bleeding boy lying in the fetal posistion required medical attention. She wasn't an expert first aider but her years of having to tend to her own wounds had taught her a bit, definitely enough to slow the boys bleeding. She staggered to her feet and pulled off her light blue sweater off over her head, revealing her hello kitty top. The injured boy was alreay getting some attention from another so crouched she passed him the jumper instructing, "Get him to hold this gently to his eye. Don't apply pressure to control bleeding, it'll make it worse," Maria turned to Zero," get medical help now or call them on that tabletty-thing or something!."

[Paragon]

"Get away from me!"

While he had his back away from the group, storm clouds began to form close to the ceiling. Looking up quickly, his mind wondered about how stupidly impossible it was for storm clouds to form in a closed building. The birth of the next second brought the sound of a lightning strike with it, people around clutching their ears and closing their eyes at what could only be the sound and bright light of a lightning bolt. Zack's expression was unchanged. Almost all superhumans arrived scared and panicking, using their powers to try and escape. Zack watched as the probable cause of the harmless lightning bolt sprint past him; Himself. As soon as he saw himself running away when he knew for a fact he was standing still, caught in the moment, he knew that there was an illusionist in group three. The imposter was running at full speed deeper into the Academy, contrary to what others would advise. To some extent, the illusionist had the right idea. The only entrance to the Academy was the wormhole network managed by the superhumans who created them. It was impossible to physically leave the Academy without breaking down reinforced, metal walls.

The illusionist wouldn't cause trouble. After the imposter had gained distance, Zack knew what his visual copy was going to get. The defense system was supposed to activate when someone...

His thoughts were interrupted by a robot-sounding voice echoing across the entrance hall. "Unauthorised use of powers detected. Initiating defence mechanism." Zack would have probably shivered at the sheer simplicity of what the Academy AI stated. He switched his view to watch a small, thin turret pop out of the ceiling with a pair of bolas dangling from it's tip. A red, infrared laser searched ravenously for it's target, tracking the illusionist's legs once it had spotted them. As soon as the laser had found it's mark the turret fired the tiny bolas, the metal balls wrapping tightly around the illusionist's legs. Zack looked down, noticing that the ground beneath the falling illusionist was glowing. The neon lights had chosen a specific area. With a mechanical whir a magnetic field had been generated around the illusionist, sticking the bolas to the floor with incredible strength. If he cared Zack would feel sad for the imposter; after all, when he had come ot the Academy in the first place the same thing had happened to him when he chose to run instead of listen. It was a simple procedure to unlock the magnetic field though, so Zack would make sure to remove the restrains from the runaway later.

For now though, he needed to know what else had happened. A weak, frightened voice called out to him. Zack's heels pivoted on their point of contact with the ground, turning around to see what the distress was about. "This is new," he said, noticing that a boy was lying in the foetal position on the floor, blood appearing from the front of his face. Zack tilted his head to the side, arms moving in front of him as adrenaline was produced and released into his veins. From this angle Zack could see the true damage the boy had suffered: He was missing an eye, the only remainder being a mutilated mess still inside his eye socket. Confusion took control of Zack. He didn't know what to do. He hadn't dealt with this situation before; all arrivals he had accompanied in the past had arrived unharmed. Though Zack was glad to see that a woman around his age was taking initiative, quickly taking off her blue sweater and giving it to the boy Zack suspected had called out to him in the first place. When she had taken off her sweater she revealed the- What? Hello kitty? That's ne- Zack interrupted his thoughts and stopped staring lest people assumed he was doing something socially unnacceptable (not that he was good at being social in the first place).

His mind caught up at last. This was too weird, even by Academy standards. It was like everything the world had to offer Zack had arrived in a few seconds. Zack walked with haste, crouching by the injured boy. Taking some initiative of his own, Zack took out his tablet and pointed it's back at the boy's eye. Pulling the sweater out of the way for a brief moment, he let the small blue lasers originating from the back of the tablet sweep across the boy's eye. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Help is on the way," he said, honestly trying to sound reassuring. His tone suggested he didn't even care, which immediately crushed his futile attempt.

All tablets distributed by the Academy were connected to a central artificial intelligence. All data entry was filtered through the massive server deep under the Academy. In this case Zack had just scanned the boy's severely injured eye and sent the information along the mainframe. It took milliseconds to process the data, redirecting it to the medical center. Within two seconds of what Zack had said, two staff members in a black uniform walked through the dimensional rift caused by the wormhole network. One was male with a carrier bag probably containing medical devices while the other was female, standing proud and tall with a more advanced looking tablet in her hand. Zack found it funny that even the staff used tablets. The tablets were everywhere.
"Give him some space, we can handle it from here," the woman said.

Zack promptly stood up and backed away, beckoning for the others to follow suit. A small pool of blood had formed around the injured boy's head, and a crowd of frightened people had formed around the scene. This was a bad start to the day Zack thought. A superhuman arriving with a possibly fatal injury. At least, Zack thought it could be fatal. He wasn't quite medically savvy, or savvy at anything in fact. He was a failure who had called others to fix a problem he couldn't, and that didn't upset him in any way. It was best to let the people with the knowledge do their job.
He watched as the two emergency doctors treated the boy. First they injected a small amount of thick, blue liquid which resembled honey. Pulling out numerous devices from the bag they did their job, stopping the blood flow out of the boy's wound and even using a laser to cauterise wounds outside the eye. Zack knew this was messy work, but by what he observed it was working brilliantly.

After a few minutes of silence, the woman stood up and looked at Zack. "He'll be fine. He needs some more treatment and an eye patch to hide the wound, so get him to the hospital," the woman nodded at him, her partner rising from the ground and closing his bag. The boy had stopped bleeding and the area around his eye looked a healthy pink, but the biological material that had made up his mind had been far too damaged. It was hidden from view but Zack knew enough that this boy had lost his sight from that eye. "Give him our condolences," the woman said as she tapped her tablet and the impossible rift appeared in front of her and the other man. They hurried through the hole and vanished.

Zack shook his head to snap him from the moment. Approaching the boy again he grabbed his arm and slowly helped him up. "Your hair is soaked with blood and you look a mess, but you'll be fine. The pain should be suppressed by the nanobots for a few hours, but we're going to need to get you to the hospital later." Zack sniffed, surprised at his calm tone. Looking at the rest of the teleported superhumans, he continued to speak. "You all need to come with me. It's of vital importance that you trust me for now. I'll explain everything along the way to getting this guy cleaned up." Zack turned his attention to the fomerly injured boy. "Do you need help walking?" Zack tilted his head to look the boy in his good eye. He had forgotten about the restrained superhuman a few yards away, so he took out his tablet in advance to unlock the illusionist. Everything was going wrong, but if they listened to him he could fix things. Maybe he could do a good job out of this situation.

[Riaxh]

(OOC: sorry its not great. I'm in a rush )

Lambda had barely finished calling for help when he felt a presence at his shoulder. He turned to find a girl he hadn't noticed before and immediately accepted the proffered sweater, and helped the boy get it against his eye, following her instructions.

"Thanks" he said to the donor, though he wasn't sure she heard him, as she was busy yelling out to the boy with the tablet, somewhat more decisively than he had.

His next thoughts were interrupted by the loud call of "initiating defense mechanism" and he felt a spike of alarm as the turret emerged to lock on to the fleeing girl.

surely they won't gun her down?

His fears were put to rest seconds later, as although he couldn't see the projectiles, it was clear they had merely shackled her down.

After that their host finally made his way over to them. He sounded indifferent, but to Lambda he looked a little hesitant. He didn't resist as the sweater was lifted away and probed by the scanner, though he took a double take when the medics merely strolled out of thin air.

This place is crazy.

He gave them space, as ordered, though the doctors were hardly reassuring. Their grave manner and black uniforms gave them the air of morticians. He tried to give them some privacy while they worked, but he couldn't believe it when they backed away after only a few minutes to reveal the flesh utterly restored. The medics departed the same way they had arrived, through some kind of portal, and the boy once again requested that they follow him.

Not like we have much choice, he thought, thinking of the restrained girl. He had a million questions he wanted to ask, but he knew it would be hard to get a satisfactory answer for any of them. He would follow, for now.

With a start, he realised he was still holding the sweater, slightly bloody and now unneeded.

"Er.... I don't know what you want to do with this. It would probably wash out." he said, turning back to the girl that had given it to him. It was an awkward thing to say, but it was her sweater and he felt it was only polite to ask.

[BitSmall]

Miles managed to give a week smile to the boy who applied the jumper to his eye and the girl who had supplied it, however he had the feeling the expression my have come a cross a bit forced as he continued to grit his teeth to suppress another throb of pain. he tried to take in the surrounding action in order to detract himself, however his some-what embarrassing position on the floor did little to supply a view worth seeing. he could just make out the from or a girl ho appeared to be pinned to the floor by her ankles a little way off past the boy who appeared to be hosting this little bundle of chaos. the only other remotely noticeable thing he could see was the 'hello kitty' shirt worn by the girl who had removed her jumper, and that was hardly anything remarkable.

Just then the host approached holding out his tablet, allowing the pattern of lazes scan his eye. Miles couldn't help but feel incredibly uncomfortable, and not just because he was lying in a pool of his own blood.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. Help is on the way,"

Miles couldn't help but notice that the boy's tone fell a bit flat and, overall, sounded rather apathetic which was not reassuring in the slightest. but sure enough about two seconds later a pair of doctors in black uniform strolled through what could only be described as a portal. Then the operation stared. Miles felt a little uneasy as the blue liquid was pushed into the area around his damaged eye, the viscus liquid causing the tissue to swell slightly until it was sufficiently diluted with blood. Rolling onto his back and closing his remaining eye he allowed the doctors to proceed. The blue liquid must have been some sort of fast working anesthetic as the pain he felt emanating from the damaged area suddenly weekend considerably. some time later the woman stood up "He'll be fine. He needs some more treatment and an eye patch to hide the wound, so get him to the hospital,"the two doctors parted the same way they had appeared through another imposable portal. Even now that miles could think strait he still could't wrap his head round how that worked, or how anything worked. Nothing had made a lick of scene since he got here and he was beginning to wonder whether any of this was even happening. Perhaps he was still on Croft Road in the dark, delusional from the loss of blood after the attack. but then how would he explain the healing of his eye?

he felt the tug on his arm as he was hoisted to his feet by the host "Your hair is soaked with blood and you look a mess, but you'll be fine. The pain should be suppressed by the nanobots for a few hours, but we're going to need to get you to the hospital later." Miles looked down at the puddle of blood he had left on the floor. "Oh dear, I've made quite a mess," Miles joked nervously, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He observed his bizarre reflection in one of the futuristic looking machines. One side of his characteristically grey hair had been dyed red in the pool of blood and… he caught sight of the wound and quickly covered it up with his hand again and turned away. It began sinking in that he really had lost an eye and more importantly that It would not come back. Miles turned back, peering timidly back at his own reflection. This would take some getting used to.

“Do you need help walking?”

The host’s voice snapped him back to reality. “I feel better, I’ll be fine for now… I think.” Miles replied, though his tone was a little short of confidant, “I should introduce myself, the names Miles, Miles Reiley.” He tried out a step, and upon realising that he was still upright continued on to the other side of the room and waited for the others.

[Cyan]

She had done all she could for the boy now, hopefully he was fit enough to survive till help came. She stood back from him as he was already recieving enough attention from the two boys around him. The immediate danger of him bleeding out was gone and she found herself wondering where she was and what she was doing here. There were now two identical greeters in the room, one of which was shackled to the ground, the other idly staring at her chest. She turned round to break his gaze, which she was not impressed by and to further examine the room.

The room was wide and long with a curved roof with several doorways leading out on the far side. From what she could see through there was a lobby of some description on the other end. The teleporter room had no windows and housed several bizarre, glowing machines and computers the lined the walls at this end of the room. The floor was metallic and like the lighting was clearly designed to be more functional than anything else. Pulsing little blue arrows pointed there way from each teleporter to a single point in the centre of the room which then lead down the room to the other end where there was a small vending machine filled with might have been the greeters mini-iPad but it was too far to tell. Where ever she was this was definitely not the coffee shop she had been in minutes before and from the sounds of the greeter she was going to remain, at least till she had "saved herself" what ever they meant be that. They definitely could have done with started with something a little more concise and less ambiguous, the greeter wasn't doing much for her nerves. She was in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people brought her by a means she had yet been informed about and was expected to just trust any individual that claimed authority. We had to stick together, the only people that could be trusted were all but the greeter...Why were there two?

Identical twins? Why had one shackled the other? What had she missed in the critical minutes before she arrived? The more she examined the twin chained to the ground the more she felt unsettled by it, like something wasn't quite right. Before she came to any conclusion the doctor's arrived out of thin air to tend to the bleeding boy, which further purplexed her. The boy that she handed the jumper to came back with it, now with a section of deep purple on it.

"Er.... I don't know what you want to do with this. It would probably wash out."
"Thanks, yeah I'll take care of it."

Maria smiled instintively as her jumper was returned to her and her brain whirred looking for a solution, there was quite a bit of blood soaked in but it didn't really matter whether it washed out or not, there were bigger problems than that at hand. It was about time she introduced herself to him, but she was caught off guard by the non-chalant meantioning of healing nano-bots, like these were an everyday item one might administer to repair loss of an eye. It was beginning to get to much. She felt cornered, even in this massive room and she was getting desperate. She searched her pockets for the sharpest, most dangerous item on her and finding only some change and her phone she settled for biting someone. Unfortunately it was the sweater guy, who she didn't want to hurt but she no longer had much choice in the matter; He would become a hostage to her if the person with all the answers didn't speak up.

"I'm not moving before we get some answers!"

[Paragon]

Pff, a good job.

Who was he kidding. Things were already going wrong. Zack turned to the source of the new trouble, expecting something worse than what had just happened. Maybe another of the superhumans in group three had unleashed their power and gone on a killing spree. Or perhaps they were trying to break out of the Academy.

It was somewhat surprising to see that the trouble he sensed came from the hello kitty woman, merely stating that she wouldn't move. He looked her in the eye, trying to scope out whether or not she was trying to make an enemy out of him. The emotion he could see behind her eye was telling him that she was on the border of that sort of action. She was poised to do something, and Zack feared what she would do. If anything drastic happened the Academy would restrain her just like it had with the illusionist. If it was too drastic they might even sedate her this time.

Raising his hands again in a peaceful manner, Zack began to speak with a slow and steady tone of voice. "I know you're all confused and scared as to what the hell is happening. You all chose to dial a number on a white piece of card. Suddenly, you find yourselves in this creepy place, with a creepy person trying to explain things to you." Zack paused for a moment, hoping that what he said so far would settle into the mind of the girl who's gaze he was holding. Before speaking again, his eyes swept across the other members of group three.

"This isn't a place to be scared of, I assure you. This is the Academy, the global hub for every human who isn't like everyone else. The people who don't fit in, the people who are hunted and the people who have been given a genetic gift. You are all special, and that is why you have been brought here," Zack explained, holding up his tablet below his eyes. Navigating the interface quickly, he looked up specific information on group three. The girl who was staring daggers at him had incredibly enhanced regenerative powers. She was one of the immortals. Rare, but not unheard of in the Academy. Looking up again, he continued. "I'm certain that strange things have been happening in your lives. Events you could observe were somehow connected to you or... Your own bodies developing new abilities." At that last part, he glanced at the immortal in front of him.

Zack hated doing this. The last time he needed to guide some arrivals one of them had chosen to brawl with him. Who knew what could happen here. "The Academy delivers the white card I mentioned earlier to people who it knows are going to need it," he said, plunging a hand into one of his jean pockets. Rummaging around, he found a remnant of an event that happened a long time ago. "This is the card I was given," he continued, holding up a crumbled piece of white card with the exact same message and phone number. "They gave me this card when my body was starting to implement my abilities. That's about the time something called 'The Hunt' starts. A time when people who know what you are track you down and try to kidnap you. They're interested in using your abilities for whatever they want. If you give them a hard time, they simply kill you off. I came to the Academy when they started to gun me down after chasing me for days. This place is basically a sanctuary. It has everything that you would expect outside and more. You've seen the sort of technology this Academy has, because it is funded by every single one of the world's governments. They keep this Academy running so that the normal human population don't know we exist and also so that the superhumans stay safe and independent from any organization which wants to use them when they go back to the outside world.

We are capable of anything, and that's why people want to use us. This Academy stop that from happening, giving us the training we need to defend ourselves and also to enjoy a section of your life safe from any threat." Zack finished his little speech, looking at the faces staring at him. It was obvious they couldn't believe what they had just been told. It was too different from their 'normal' lives. It was expected that they would all be scared or stubborn that anything Zack had said was actually true.

"Look. Here are your options. We can stay here in this extremely busy Entrance Hall full of people and noise, or you could come with me and I can actually show you what I am talking about. Does that sound good?" Zack gazed at the immortal, challenging her previous statement that she would not move until she was given her answers. In his minds eye Zack saw himself leading a counterattack on her army.

I gave you your answers. Now it's my turn.