Abel glanced over as exactly one of the introductory conversations he had considered and dismissed flared up just a few feet away. One of the girls who had been looking out the window -pressing herself against the glass, in fact, as if she couldn't wait for the plane to land and would rather freefall to her new school- was addressed by a slender, raven-haired girl in a perky manner. Abel spent a moment taking in this girl's face before moving his gaze once more, expecting the perfectly normal conversation to carry on as usual.

When it didn't, he was prompted to look back. The blonde girl, who carried a staff of some sort that almost matched his in size, seemed to have frozen up. Even her incredibly long hair hung stock-still. As he watched out the corner of his eye, she started mumbling before wheezing. Originally he had guessed she was simply socially awkward; now it looked like she was actually having problems. He felt obliged to help her, but he had never dealt with someone like this before. Once he had come across a mentally ill person when browsing the town of Pallisade in his off time. When he tried to talk to him, he had grown confused and angry, and crying out in a terrifying fashion to drive him away. It wasn't a fond memory, but the rest of the day had been exceptionally good, so it was still among his favorites.

Needless to say, Abel certainly didn't want something like that to happen here. When Aurelia's knees began to shake, he pushed himself away from the wall and started to walk away. At that moment, the boy across the room who had been showing off his jackhammer abruptly turned and shouted in his direction before turning right back to his conversation as if such outbursts were perfectly normal. Abel was preparing to address him before he realized that Amalger's advice had probably been meant for the infirm blonde. Standing a few feet away from the wall now and not really sure what to do, Abel pushed the tiny button on the Ampere's shaft that changed its top to blade mode. With a series of smooth clicks, the mechanism combined the four blade sections into two, then close the two blade pieces like scissors into a full blade with a satisfying [i]clang[/i]. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and began to polish the weapon, even though it was already pretty much clean. He figured that he needed his favorite thing in tip-top condition for whatever was ahead.