Kitty Lee

Kitty watched as Cheol signed her cast, oddly pleased by the fact that he'd skirted around the Pokemon stickers. Wait, actually, that wasn't odd at all! It was important to have a healthy respect for Pokemon, after all.

"Weird?" she echoed, and blinked. His first name? Well, she supposed it really didn't sound very Japanese. But-- "That's not weird, though! That's cool!" Kitty giggled. "Are you Japanese? Or Korean? Or both?!"

She hummed as Cheol finished signing, taking her marker back. Wow, his handwriting sure was neat. Neater than Kitty's, even! Weren't girls supposed to have better handwriting than boys? Well, it was clear that Cheol was the exception to that rule, if it was even a rule at all.

"I'm Chinese," she told him. "But I live in New York! My dad's a stock broker, and my mom owns a restaurant. My name's kind of weird too, I guess! I chose it myself, when I was younger. I named myself after my favourite animal! I guess it's a good thing my favourite animal wasn't, um, the lizard or the elephant or the rhino or something. I mean, can you imagine? Lizard Lee? Rhino Lee?"

Huh. Cheol seemed pretty nice, actually! And they were having a nice, normal --well, sort of-- conversation, without being interrupted by angrily fashionable girls or giant monsters popping out of the ceiling.

With people like Cheol and Graham and Alexis around, maybe superhero school wouldn't be so bad!

Speaking of angrily fashionable girls, however, Kitty vaguely remembered dripping blood on that girl's fancy shirt. Uh-oh. That… probably wouldn't be good.

"Are you Japanese? Or Korean? Or both?!" Kitty asked Cheol. Reasonable question, he supposed.

"Both," Cheol said. "My mum's Korean, but my dad's Japanese." He shrugged his shoulder slightly. "But I've spent all my life in Japan so I don't really know all that much about my mum's country." He then listened to Kitty as she explained her name and raised an eyebrow. "You chose your own name?" he said. "What do you mean by that? I mean, didn't you parents choose a name for you?" He supposed he should have gathered she was Chinese with a last name like Lee, though the name Kitty had thrown him off.

Kitty Lee

Wow, both? That was cool! Kitty wondered, briefly, if Cheol knew how to cook. She was a big fan of Japanese food, actually.

"What do you mean by that? I mean, didn't you parents choose a name for you?"

Kitty hummed. "Mmm. Well, they did, but it was in Chinese! I chose my English name myself. In retrospect, probably not the best idea, huh? Like I said: I could have been Lizard Lee! Or Rhino Lee! Or… Dung-beetle Lee! Wow, I'm really glad I like cats."

She tried to twiddle her thumbs, but it was kind of hard to do, considering that one of her arms was in a cast. In the end, she ended up just twiddling the one thumb on her right hand, somewhat absurdly.

Come to think of it, she didn't know what Cheol's power was. Her own power was kind of boring, to be honest. Teleportation was the most mainstream thing ever! In fact, Kitty was pretty sure that the only power more boring than teleportation was… super strength, maybe? Cheol seemed pretty shy, so… maybe he could turn invisible or something? Kitty knew people's personalities often ended up being influenced by their powers. Or was it that their powers were influenced by their personalities?

Whatever. She was rambling on and on in her head-- might as well just go ahead and pop the question!

"So," she said. "What's your power?"

Cheol nodded as he listened to her explanation. Made sense, he supposed. Perhaps it was just that could never imagine what it must be like to change one's own name. As weird as his own name was, he couldn't imagine having a different one.

Then Kitty asked a question that caught him somewhat off guard, though in retrospect, it really shouldn't have.

"So, what's your power?" she asked.

It was a superhero school, obviously. Still, he shifted his awkwardly from foot to foot and gave a nervous smile. "Well, err..." Cheol scratched the back of his head. "Well, thing is... I don't really have a superpower." He blushed slightly. "Well, I do, but it's not really mine..."

'Just say what you mean, Cheol,' a voice hissed in the back of his head.

Cheol sighed to himself as he unzipped his shoulder bag and took out his most prized object: a very crude Japanese mask, modeled into the face of some kind of bird with, a long crooked beak and golden eyes bulging out of its face alarmingly. Cheol held up the mask nervously so Kitty could see it.

"See, I have this mask," he explained. "And when I put it on and say the magic words, well..." He chuckled slightly. "I, err, well, that's when I have powers."

Paul happily agreed with Tony and watched as the technopath took away the injured girl, taking her back to the station where she would receive first aid by the school nurse. He then turned towards Meredith who, by now, seemed to have the situation under control. "Paul, Tony, be dears and go take those who are seriously injured to the train platform. The nurse should have been alerted the moment the emergency breaks were pulled, and already should be on their way here." Meredith commanded the two students.

Paul quickly scanned the interior of the train for any injured students and found that there was one girl who had cuts on her hands, probably from all the broken glass that was scattered inside the train compartment. He was about to pick her up and take her back himself when Meredith commanded another newcomer that, surprisingly, had just woken up and didn't know what had happened, to escort the injured girl back to the station. Huh, you chose a great time to open those eyes buddy... Paul thought as he sat on one of the seats next to the door he had previously opened. He waited for the two students to exit the train and with a flick of his fingers, the heavy, steel doors of the train car shut, reducing the number of possible exits the troublemakers could escape from to just the hole Meredith had created, which was guarded by none other than herself.

"Alright, so, if I could have all of your attention please!" Meredith called out again. "Anyone want to tell me who was fighting? You'll get bonus points in my class for being a good little human!~"

Hah, she and her humor. She really enjoys messing with the newcomers, doesn't she? the thought made him chuckle. He crossed his arms and listened to Meredith questioning the students. He watched as a girl came forward and introduced herself to Meredith; Alexis huh, that's a nice name Paul thought. She accused another girl of starting the whole fight, that she had just come out of nowhere, swinging punches at Alexis, who had no other choice than to defend herself. Paul didn't really dig the whole self-defence thing and all that nudging between Alexis and the boy behind her didn't really help solidify their case. Meredith was bound to figure something was up but Paul decided to remain silent. It was funny seeing her scare the shit out of the students, he had to at least admit that.

Aspen Archer

Aspen felt bad that she had ignored Cheol's question but when she saw the man in the lab coat she froze in fear. The man in the lab coat appeared to be walking closer to her, she wanted to step back and run into the tunnel. Aspen, at this moment would rather face Miss Meredith than this man.

“Right, which one of you needs treating? I’m Dorian Lost. That’s ‘Mr. Dorian’ or ‘sir’ to you brats, got it? Anyway, come here, Aspen. I’m going to treat your hands, got it?”. Come here? She wasn't about to go anywhere near him, in his hand was a bottle, she couldn't see what it was but from past experience it had to be chloroform or something similar.

Aspen looked over towards Cheol wishing he had stayed by her but he had gone over to talk to Kitty. She had some strange thing over her arm that was covered with creatures. Although these creatures weren't like the two she had witnessed on the tram, these were smiling and colourful and looked like things she could recognise but with faces.

Her attention was back to Dorian who was about to begin to treat her hands. Aspen wanted to push him away, far away but she knew that she would get into trouble. Her fear began to get the better of her and she started to use her telekinesis to push him back but she didn't want to hurt him or cause a scene so she ended up pushing him back so gently that his feet would only slide back across the ground a few centimetres. It wouldn't do much but she didn't feel comfortable with him so close to her; he looked like 'they' did.

Aspen looked back over at Kitty and Cheol, he was writing something on her arm covering. She then wondered if they knew about her, the families back at home in her neighbourhood were told that she had just been adopted by the Archers but Esper program was big news and well known by superheroes and the Superhero community would be aware she'd been rescued, as would this academy but would the students know.

Dr. Isaac Archer

Isaac saw Aspen standing by the tunnel entrance but she had not yet noticed him, no, her eyes were fixed on Dorian Lost and Isaac knew exactly why. Her face was as neutral as ever and even though he couldn't read her thoughts he saw the fear in her eyes. Isaac looked down at her hands, her arms were up near her stomach and her palms faced the sky. Aspen's hands were covered in blood and what looked like glass. Isaac gasped in shock and was about to run over to her when saw Dorian walk over to her, which unsettled him but he watched Aspen and saw she did nothing but look over at the boy who was with her and the girl he was talking to. Maybe she's made friends, or intends to with those to he thought after a few moments, a small smile appeared on his face.

With Dorian taking care of her hands, Aspen not reacting too badly with him and the possibility of friends with her, Isaac left and teleported back into the academy. She may have been traumatised by what had happened and Isaac wanted to leave it as late as he could before showing himself to her as a teacher here. He wanted her to settle in before she found out as Isaac, his son and daughter-in-law were not sure how she would react to not being told. Would she feel betrayed and lied to? Isaac was not sure; they still had so much to learn about her. It wasn't like he could tell her, this academy was adamant about secrecy.

Dorian Lost

Dorian sighed as Aspen started trying to push him back, very gently. He should have known this would be trouble, shouldn't he? Aspen Archer, after all, had been one of the kids who'd been abducted by the Esper program.

It wasn't like Dorian hated kids. Really, it wasn't. It was just… he hated interacting with kids. He just didn't know what to do with them.

Why, oh why had he accepted this job?

The logical thing to do was to take off his lab-coat. The Archer girl was scared of scientists, so naturally he'd scare her. But, of course, there was the problem of his tattoos. He'd been trying to keep those things secret, yet here he was, on the first day of school, thinking about exposing them. The whole situation made him grit his teeth in frustration. He was a school nurse, for Pete's sake! Not a scientist or therapist.

Of course, he had to deal with Aspen somehow. And if he didn't show her that he was (mostly) harmless now, then she'd probably end up avoiding the nurse's office all year long. He was supposed to do what was best for the students, wasn't he? And there were only three students present…

Thank God he'd decided to wear a long-sleeved shirt today.

Fine. Fine! Dorian shrugged off his lab-coat, dropping it on the floor. Upon a quick glance, the edge of one of his tattoos was peeking out from under his sleeve, but whatever. It wasn't really too noticeable… probably. "Look, kid," he said. His voice was still gruff, but considerably more gentle than before. "Aspen. I'm not a goddamn scientist. I'm a freaking school nurse. I make a living out of patching up snot-nosed brats after they've gotten into fights. In other words, I'm here to help you."

He lifted the bottle of disinfectant and the roll of bandages. "This is disinfectant. All you have to do is let me clean off your hands and bandage them up. It won't even sting. I promise. You can stay standing. You don't have to stand particularly close to me. Just… let me treat your hands, okay?"

Wow. Dorian sighed. He really, really couldn't stand interacting with children.

Kitty Lee

"See, I have this mask, and when I put it on and say the magic words, well… I, err, well, that's when I have powers."

Kitty stared at the mask, utterly fascinated. It was kind of that perfect mix between creepy and cool. Like Gengar, or Dusknoir. "Woooow," she said, whistling. "So you wear that and you get powers? That's awesome! Does it only work for you? Or does it work for anyone who wears it?"

Okay, that was way cooler than being able to teleport around a bit. And she bet that he'd never had problems with accidentally teleporting into animal exhibits at the zoo before.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Dorian trying to treat the girl who had come with Cheol --okay, her name was definitely Aspen if a teacher was calling her that too-- without too much success. Still, Mr. Dorian seemed to be trying his best to make her feel comfortable… sort of. And, hey, was that a tattoo under his sleeve? She couldn't really tell. Maybe it was just a pen mark.

Aspen kept looking over to Kitty and Cheol. Maybe she wanted to talk to them? Hey, maybe she wanted to sign Kitty's cast! Kitty giggled, and smiled over at her.

Well, Kitty would ask her to sign it later. Aspen did look awfully busy with Mr. Dorian, after all, and she certainly wouldn't be able to hold a pen with her hands all bloody.

As the situation calmed down and the injury received attention, Tony sighed. His suit whirred and collapsed into itself and folded onto his back. His hair was even wilder now, not that he cared. The teenager slumped into the seat next to Paul. "Shitty start to the first day, but definitely not the worst I've had." He said this casually as he thought back to his first day, he nearly shit his pants when Meredith had first transformed. He and Paul didn't know each other enough to be close friends, but Tony was generally nice to everyone. Plus it was good to see a familiar face. He picked out a few other senior students like Jack and Olivia. Remembering he kind of ignored her during all the chaos he kind of felt bad, he'd make sure to talk to her at some point.

Tony had no intention of telling Meredith what had happened, she would find out eventually and there was no way in hell he was snitching. The technopath just wanted to go to his dorm and work on his latest project. He was almost finished with a Jetpack modification to his suit and he just needed to install it. He also had a huge project in the works that actually had some magic involved.

Hart leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head. The guy looked like he didn't have a care in the world despite what had just happened. 'This year's definitely going to be interesting.' he thought to himself as he smiled slightly.

Cheol blushed slightly at Kitty's outburst, both relieved and surprised that she didn't seem to mind that he was powerless without his mask.

Kitty also asked him, "Wow! Does it only work for you? Or does it work for anyone who wears it?"

At this, he paused and thought for a couple of minutes. Honestly, he'd never tried it with anyone else. A large part of him hoped it was only him the mask worked for, just so he could prove he was special in at least the smallest, slightest way. "I don't know," he admitted truthfully, feeling there was no harm in admitting it, at least to Kitty. "I haven't tried to see whether it works for anyone else," he said.

It was then he noticed the other girl, Aspen, was looking over at them and, feeling a little nervous again, he smiled awkwardly over at her and gave a casual wave in her direction. He still felt that they had gotten off on the wrong foot. He just hoped they could get along, if not as friends at least as pleasant acquaintances.

Aspen Archer

Aspen watched as Dorian shrugged off his lab coat, she was a bit perplexed by his action but realised what he was doing when he said "Look, kid, Aspen. I'm not a goddamn scientist. I'm a freaking school nurse. I make a living out of patching up snot-nosed brats after they've gotten into fights. In other words, I'm here to help you.". Not a goddamn scientist, he definitely knew about her in the Esper program. "This is disinfectant. All you have to do is let me clean off your hands and bandage them up. It won't even sting. I promise. You can stay standing. You don't have to stand particularly close to me. Just… let me treat your hands, okay?"

Aspen gave in, he seemed to be quite impatient but seeing how much effort he was going through to not seem like the bad guy made her make the decision to trust him. She put her hands out towards him but turned her face away from him, she didn't want to see him pulling out the glass, she could have done it herself telekinetically but the idea made her squeamish. Plus, if he did try anything, there were people around would see and hopefully help.

Aspen's eyes wandered over to Kitty and Cheol again, when Kitty turned to her and smiled she couldn't help but return it with a small smile herself. Cheol soon looked over aswell with a smile and wave, Aspen smiled back and him but since she couldn't wave with her hands currently occupied she gave quick nod.

Dorian Lost

Oh, thank God. As Aspen tentatively stretched her hands out, Dorian couldn't help but give a sigh of relief. He hadn't been sure if that would work-- man, some of these kids were twitchy as hell. She didn't seem to want to watch him work, which was probably a good thing, because watching a dude pull glass out of your hands was… probably not the most fun thing to do.

"Hold still," he said, pulling a pair of sanitizer tweezers from his pocket. "This won't hurt a bit."

Which was true, because it really wouldn't.

Gently, gently, Dorian reached out with his mind and blocked off the pain receptors in Aspen's hands. It wasn't like he liked seeing students in immense pain, after all. He rinsed off her hand with the disinfectant and then began slowly pulling out each piece of glass. It was a good thing the splinters had all been fairly large, because smaller ones… could have been a bit of an issue. As it was, Dorian didn't have any problems getting the glass out.

He rinsed her hands off once again, and patted them dry with the cotton pads. Then, to protect the wounds, he wrapped her hands up with the bandages. They looked fairly secure, so he eased himself out of her mind and patted her on the shoulder awkwardly. The pain would probably come back, but the worst of it was over. "All done," he said. "You'll be fine. Try to keep them clean and dry, let them heal and all that, got it? Now, go talk to your little friends, and do whatever you miserable little brats do in your free time."

Dorian stepped away. He wasn't really in the mood for conversation, to be honest, and this place kind of gave him the heebie-jeebies. It did look suspiciously like a government laboratory, after all.

With a sigh, he heaved himself back onto the platform and plopped down onto the ground. When Meredith arrived with the rest of the students, he'd give them the usual health-and-safety speech, and then he'd have to have a capital-T Talk with the woman.

Because seriously, stopping a moving train abruptly and completely without warning? While there were unsuspecting students who didn't wear seatbelts on it? Not cool.

Well, that would have to wait until she actually showed up, of course--

Wait a sec. Were those kids standing on the tracks? Wasn't that… dangerous?

"Hey!" barked Dorian. "Get onto the platform, brats! Now!"

Kitty Lee

"I don't know," Cheol told her. "I haven't tried to see whether it works for anyone else."

Well, fair enough. Kitty nodded: that did seem to make sense. Like, why would you let someone else touch your presumably priceless artefact of power thingy? Much better to just… keep it. And not let anyone else touch it.

"Oh, of course!" she hummed. "If I had a special magic thingy that gave me powers, I wouldn't let anyone touch it! Ever! Um, unless it was cursed. In that case, I'd be getting the heck away from it!"

Okay, maybe she'd been reading too much creepypasta. "Um," she started. "Ignore that, I don't always make sense--"

"Hey!" barked Mr. Dorian. "Get onto the platform, brats! Now!"

Well, okay. She'd do that, then. Obediently, Kitty made her way onto the platform. Now that she thought about it, standing on train tracks when she already knew that one of her teachers was a psychopath and that there was definitely a train that used these tracks was… probably not the best idea.

As she walked, she passed by Aspen, whose hands had been nicely wrapped up. Had she ever introduced herself to this girl? Uh… probably not. Well, now was as good a time as ever!

"Hi!" she beamed. "Aspen, right? I'm Kitty! I'm fifteen, and a teleporter! What about you? Oh, wait, do you wanna sign my cast?"

Maybe that wasn't the best thing to blurt out upon first meeting a person. Well, Kitty had never had the best brain-to-mouth filter.

Paul just watched as Meredith continued the questioning of the students, amused by their frightened reactions. Then Tony came from nowhere and sat down, next to where Paul was sitting. "Shitty start to the first day, but definitely not the worst I've had" Tony said. "Nah, it wasn't that bad. Besides, this much is expected, It's Meredith we're talking about" to told Tony and chuckled. Paul knew that there was a technopath enrolled at Herculean Academy but didn't really know much else about him. Well, he knew his name at least, Tony Hart.

Paul then noticed that there was another familiar face on the train, Olivia. He and Olivia knew eachother pretty well since they were classmates for two years prior to this. He watched as she just casually made small talk with Meredith, much to the newcomers surprise. Then she offered to escort the two that seemed to have started the whole thing, back at the train platform. Paul sighed, "Seems everythings fine now" he said and re-opened the train doors, allowing the students to disembark the train. "Well, let's go back then" he told Tony and stood up, following Meredith out of the train.

Tony Hart

Tony chuckled at Paul's comment. Meredith was one of the weirdest adults he knew at the school, besides maybe Dorian. Well he was just scary in general, able to give people pain... He was glad that he had a less, malevolent or grotesque ability. As Hart stood to his feet and stretched, he thought of what this year was going to hold.

Cramming a ton of hormonal teenagers with the abilities that could devastate an entire city combined was bound to have some drawbacks. Humans were so weak in comparison to Supers, it was amazing that they hadn't tried to kill them yet. The technopath's mind wandered as he jumped off the train, there were so many things to think about. Like how it was going to be interesting to see how the conflict between Brett and Alexis would pan out.

Would he make any rivals, friends? Who knew what this year would bring honestly, but he could almost feel like something was in the air. Something was coming... Or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him, he wasn't a psychic after all. So as Tony walked into the school, he wondered about all of the possibilities. "So yeah guys, welcome to Herculean Academy. Now all that's left to do is set up roommates."

Aspen Archer

"Hold still, this won't hurt a bit," Dorian said making Aspen look back at him for a breif second to see him take out a pair of tweezers. She looked away again before he began to pull them out bracing herself for the pain. Won't hurt a bit? That's what they always say

Aspen felt liquid being poured onto her hand but it didn't sting, she felt the movement of the glass from her hand but that didn't hurt either. Aspen wanted to look at what was going on but decided it would be best to keep looking away until it was done. There was a few second gap between a piece of glass being pulled out and liquid being poured on her hands again, she figured it must be over. Dorian patted her hands dry and wrapped them in bandages. Aspen felt a pats on her shoulder, "All done,you'll be fine. Try to keep them clean and dry, let them heal and all that, got it? Now, go talk to your little friends, and do whatever you miserable little brats do in your free time."

Looking down at her hands she saw they were neatly covered, she tried to flex them, at first it didn't hurt but them slowly she felt the pain. Aspen looked up from her hands about to thank Dorian but he had walked away from her. "Hey! Get onto the platform, brats! Now!". She watched as Kitty and Cheol complied and walked towards her.

"Hi!" she beamed. "Aspen, right? I'm Kitty! I'm fifteen, and a teleporter! What about you? Oh, wait, do you wanna sign my cast?"

"Yes,"Aspen confirmed her name. "I'm Aspen, seventeen and a..telekinetic," She answered Kitty's second question. She looked at her 'cast' and then back at Kitty, "Do you have a pen?" She asked.

Kitty Lee

A pen? Well, of course she did!

With a bright smile, Kitty produced the black marker and held it out to Aspen. So Aspen was seventeen, huh? If this was anything like a regular school, that probably meant that they wouldn't be in the same grade, which was… kind of a bummer. Cheol and Graham seemed to be about her age, though… and what about Alexis? She was so tall that it was kind of hard to tell, but. Maybe she was just an abnormally tall fifteen year old?

Well, Kitty certainly hoped so.

"Here you go!" Kitty chirped. Wait, was it a bad idea to ask a girl who'd recently had glass taken out of her hand to sign something? "Oh, uh, if it hurts too much, you don't have to sign if you don't want to!"

Briefly, Kitty wondered what was taking everyone so long. Had they gotten held up? Had the teacher told them off for fighting? Kitty still wasn't sure if the monster-teacher thing she thought she'd seen was a hallucination, to be honest.

Nevertheless, she certainly hoped that everyone else would arrive soon. She couldn't wait to introduce Alexis and Graham to Cheol! And to Aspen, too, although she didn't really know Aspen quite as well yet.

And then a terrifying thought occurred to her. If she had been kidnapped… she probably didn't have all her stuff. And even if the school had thought to bring her essentials, they probably wouldn't have brought her laptop or her many gaming devices or her rather extensive collection of video games. If they had managed to do that, then they'd have to be, like, reasonably competent space ninja pirate doctors who were all half angel, one quarter demon, one eighth alien and one eighth Time Lord, and a hundred percent tsundere! With ostrich familiars named Igor!

And Kitty highly doubted that the faculty of this school, no matter how interesting or strange they were, were as interesting as that.

Sadly, she resigned herself to a life without video games. The thought… was not a happy one.