Shinjiro Karasawa

"Yeah, yeah, we're movin'! Cool your jets, Tachibana!" he called back to the retreating twintailed figure with far less trepidation and care than was thought to be customary to most who had only just met a Level 5. Watching her hair dance in the breeze behind her like the flame it resembled, he let out a snort. They couldn't be that late, right?

He checked his watch.

The digits 5 and 9 immediately stood out, and his purple eyes widened.

"Oh shit, she ain't kiddin'! Hat-chan, we better h u s t l e! I'll catch your name at the assembly!" he crowed, before bursting off into a run towards the--

He skidded to a stop at a conveniently placed map nearby. He didn't know this school's geography yet... There!

Okay! Back to running!

The dead sprint continued as if it had never stopped. "Down the left corridor after this one, Hat-chaaaaan!" he called helpfully back at the shrinking figure, even as he sped down the walkway, zipping past the first building.

Hat-chan ~ ハットちゃん

"Late?"

As the hat-wearing teenaged girl known only to her compatriots by the moniker of "Hat-chan" stared after the rapidly retreating back of the boy (Kawahara Shinjiro was his name, wasn't it?), she came to two, incredibly important, conclusions. The first one was that if the swift skedaddlement of certain students was a sign, then the inaugural assembly would be soon to start. The second was that she, if she did not begin running like Karasawa Shinjiro had, then she would likely be cast off into the depths of the classrooms where those late on their first day sat their detentions!

That was not going to happen again.

Like a rocket ship on her way to Mars, the teenaged girl known only to her compatriots by the moniker of "Hat-chan" immediately started running after Karasawa Shinjiro.

She refused to be late again!

Bang Constantine

The school looked pretty big.

In fact, it was big. Had it not been big, Bang would probably not have felt that pressured to be at the place. Maybe it was because Hybrid Academy was no ordinary school, but something about the place felt daunting to him. Regardless, he would make sure that he would keep up with the classes and activities provided by the academy.

He remembered his Mysterious Mexican Friend telling him,

"Don't fall behind! Always stay ahead in some way, and you'll be okay. I think. Maybe."

It was a truly reliable source for knowing how to remain competent in a school.

As he walked, however, he saw a man run past him. The purple-haired man soared like the wind, as if to cut the air itself. Bang blinked as he took another step forward.

A woman rushed past him. Were they racing? Was there some sort of competition going on?

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...Then in that case, Bang would certainly not lose without a fight. Without even knowing the context as to why the two were running, Bang followed them as he ran like a rocket as well.

Assembly

The headmaster watched quietly as the students started to fill in the room with quite a few of them rushing in due to how late they were. It was truly a enjoyable sight to see that so many of them would accept the invitation and some of them he himself worked to get into the academy. When he saw a majority of the students enter the auditorium he stood up and walked up to the podium with a small sip of water and a clearing of his throat he began to speak.

"With this said please follow your respected sensei so we can begin the system scan the best of lucks to all you future students." He said as he went off the stage and went through the front entrance leaving the auditorium.

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ELSEWHERE

Nearby the new Hybrid academy A shadowed figure sat at his grand desk that overlooked the academy city proper. "Soon everything shall be put into motion and with it a start of a new system one that ends the the sorrowful state of this world" He said to himself before a female figure walked in wearing a white chinese dress with a large black coat laying over her shoulders. "Sir all the things are set we are ready to begin at your command" She said with a slight bow of her head as she waited for the reply. "Good please tell them to remain steady and that everything is still set to go on as planned" He replied before leaning back on his char as a small smile spread across his lips.

The purple-haired teen suppressed a snicker as he rose to form up in the growing masses of Espers headed in Kawashiro-sensei's direction, instead downsizing things to a mere amused smirk. "Best of Lucks"? What was this, some sort of anime? That kind of Engrish slayed him, every time. Sure, as a technically native speaker in constant contact with friends from the Big Apple to keep his skills from atrophying, he had an unfair advantage compared to many in Academy City, but still.

Falling into the group of Espers that had quickly begun forming into a line, he folded his arms and glanced back over his shoulder. Where would Hat-chan and the guy who'd ran in after them-- Bike Guy, actually-- Where would they go? Espers or Mages?

How would one even do a system scan for magic, anyway? Wasn't the whole point of it that it didn't have hard rulings like levels and the laws of nature governing what one could do with it? How would a scan even work? What would you even scan? Did MP exist, or something?

...

"Shit, I don't know shit about magic." he muttered, eliciting a snicker from somewhere behind him in the line.

He resolved to punch that guy later.

Hat-chan ~ ハットちゃん

"I think it might could've done with idol theory and mana," said the teenaged girl known only to her compatriots by the moniker of "Hat-chan", her breathing slightly more intense thanks to the rapid run from the gates to this assembly hall. "Not a magician though, so that's all I know."

She too, had found herself in the line of Espers, having followed Karasawa Shinjiro the entire way throughout the proceedings. It was always good to stick by those who were amicable and familiar. And Youko had told her to make a new friend, so it was better to tag along instead of finding somebody else. Familiarity bred friendship, didn't it?

The hatted girl had always wanted to see how the Esper life rolled, too. So following was just a no-brainer.

He blinked, turning to face the hatted girl behind him with a candid and confused expression.

"... What, like idolm@ster? You sayin' it's magic that's keeping Guts from ever getting off the boat?" he asked, expressing his lack of understanding through what could either be honest lack of education on the subject, or a very poorly told joke. Or, perhaps a little of column A and a little of column B, as they said. In any case, he still didn't know shit.

"So they got Mana after all? Figures as much, like we Espers have AIM, right?" he asked, intent on grilling the girl who seemed to know slightly more about the subject than he.

Seriously, he needed to stop with the long nights and pre-exam cramming sessions that'd leave all the information to fade away into nothingness after a few weeks of no longer being reinforced.

Maybe.

Wu Fuwei (吳 福威)

Tommy Woo was not one to be tardy.

Despite his rushed arrival, Tommy Woo had successfully made it on time to partake in the headmaster's speech. Indeed, absolutely nothing had gone wrong on his way to the academy. Not a single accident of any sort.

Those ladders were broken when I got there.

Putting thoughts of the past behind, it was rude, after all, to deviate his focus when someone else was talking, Tommy Woo intently diverted all his focus to the headmaster's words. Which, truth be told, did require all his focus, one could chalk it up to his weak Japanese skills but for some reason or another understanding the headmaster did not come easy. Still, from what he could gather, there was little all that remarkable about the speech. He had heard it many times before, both at Noriaki and in New York. His dad also spoke in similar eloquent proverbs.

"Remember boy, 'Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart. If you always give, you will always have.'"

Of course his father would be more annoyed by his lack of respect and attention towards the headmaster, although by now it was rather moot. The headmaster had already wrapped up the speech wishing them all the 'best of lucks.'

At least my English is good.

His father had made sure of that. Weak English was the sign of an illiterate man in America, one lacking a proper education.

Still, now was the time to follow the headmaster directions, and so Tommy Woo found himself behind a certain hat wearing school girl and a purple haired boy. They appeared to be in conversation about magic and how little sense it made, not that Esper abilities made much more sense to Woo, his own powers were the source of consistent confusion. He also mentioned something about AIM.

"Excuse me good Mister-san, is more AIM supposed to mean more strength? The researchers mentioned such a phenomenon but I have yet to have seen it in practice." Tommy Woo found himself offering up his own views on the matter, because in truth if AIM truly did mean greater strength is own should have been massive. Perhaps it was due to his nature as a, what was the term?

Ah yes, a 'Gemstone.' That's what they called me. Also, was Mister-san the correct term? Honorifics are not easy.

Rebecca walked further up to the school with the Little Monkey and stalker following behind her. Sotoe asked about her abilities and the way she presented herself, comparing her characteristics to that of a Level 5. That was almost true, since she did display the mental traits that were normally associated wit Espers of that level.
"I'm a Level 4, but my ability isn't a common one." she replied, almost ignoring his last comments but paying attention to his ability. She continued upwards to the area the assembly would take place.

---

After the assembly ended, which continued for a short time but felt like ages, she ended up in the line for the Esper system scan - stood behind an odd looking girl wearing a hat and a purple haired esper. Along with that, she stood behind a very odd looking kid who she could have sworn was a member of Woodles Noodles. The three of them were talking about magic and AIM diffusion fields. As well, the noodle guy spoke about more AIM being more power. Fool. Rebecca decided to lend her knowledge to the poor guy.
"That is incorrect. An AIM field is a weak field that is constantly emitted due to an espers ability. A more powerful AIM field does not represent an espers power, but instead how they are using the ability. If a Pyromancer were to increase the amount of power they exerted, the AIM field would become hotter and could create fire, where as an electromaster would create a stronger electromagnetic field." she said. That was what Sunless had told her, and her being a powerful ability manipulator was reason enough to believe it. "The names Rebecca, by the way. I was wondering if you had seen a girl with vibrant red hair around here; I can't see her for some reason."

Herring that Rebecca’s ability wasn’t a common one made Sotoe think of all the possibilities here powers where. However, he figured not to press the issue and walked into the auditorium. He was surprised the speech the headmaster gave was short and to the point. He figured it would be long and drawn out. Sotoe was happy he didn’t have to sit there for hours because he couldn’t sit for long periods of time since he always thought about parkour and free running. When he was told to stand in line for a system scan he found himself in the back of a very long line, but at least it was moving forward at a reasonable pace.

“Please don’t book me with some person who’s a downer. I don’t want to be with someone who can’t have fun,” Sotoe prayed.

Hat-chan ~ ハットちゃん

"Ara?"

Had she been a character in the cartoons she knew and loved, the hat-wearing teenaged girl known only to her compatriots by the moniker of "Hat-chan" would likely have manifested a floating eroteme beside her head in response to the reply of Karasawa Shinjiro. The words she understood, but the manner in which they were strung into the sentence (why were there guts on a boat?) and how it all related to that music game Youko owned was utterly beyond her comprehension. Hence the tilted head and expression of confusion.

She had no idea what was being said.

That meant it was probably a reference.

"Anyway," she said as she returned to a more neutral expression, deciding to position herself at the gist of the topic at hand. "AIM fields are involuntary energy releases, not the source from which Espers derive power. I think there was also something about the 'Personal Reality' that going through the PCP develops."

The Academy City brochures she had received all those years ago had been especially useful in explaining how things 'tended' to work.

Bang Constantine

Remaining silent, Bang found himself in the assembly.

Wait.

Oh.

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So they had been running for the assembly all along.

So it wasn't a race, he thought, nodding to himself as he kept silent to himself. He did not want to butt into the purple-haired student and the hat-wearing girl's conversation. Keeping his mouth shut, the boxer heard the headmaster give out a speech. It was interesting; the headmaster gave out a speech on the first day of school rather than on an "open house" event and the likes. He saw some key cultural differences showing up already from his home and Japan.

Apparently, Normalishes were allowed to jump into any of the system scans. With that in mind, Bang Constantine headed for the magician system scan. He had nothing in particular that counted as a "weapon" aside from his boxing gloves, which were pretty important for training in his freetime. But if they deemed that boxing gloves were dangerous, then he would comply.

Bang remained still in the Magician system scan line, waiting for his turn.

He had to admit, the presence of women in the school did not seem to change much. He heard of strange stories about women from one of his friends back in Virginia... Percy, yes. Percy was his name.

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Bang thought his friend was a funny guy. He had no idea what his friend talked about back then, and that made it easier to laugh mindlessly at his friend's "philosophies."

At least none of the people around him wanted to eat his pencils.

Ali' had managed to get to the assembly on time and savored every minute of it. This wasn't at all what he was used too, hell he actually hadn't even been in a school and took it seriously since the museum fiasco. This environment seemed quite nice, especially since everyone else seemed to not take life all that seriously. However, once they started to talk about magic and aim fields Ali's eavesdropping habits kicked back into drive and now he was listening to everything he could. For starters, he wanted to hear about what others knew about magicians like him, and secondly, he knew jack shit about how aim fields worked or what espers really did and how they got their stuff.

The girl named Rebecca and the monkey boy seemed to be heading to the different sides of the room, figured. He knew for a fact that at least Rebecca wasn't a magician, and he already guessed that was the same for the monkey-boy as well. Well, at least this could give him a chance to make new friends. However, he also wanted to hear what some of the espers had to say about this. He quickly drew out his phone and cast Aeris three times in a row. He targeted the most interesting looking espers he could and drew their words to his ear.

From what he could overhear, it sounded like gemstones functioned in a similar fashion to how some magicians who used mana worked, except they could basically use their abilities all the time? Ali's head couldn't keep up with all the concepts being thrown around. He was sure his old teach' had taught him everything he needed to know about this place, turns out he was far from right. Ali' knew he would actually have to study and read up on AIM fields and espers if he didn't want to get left behind in the dust academically. Hell, if they talked about this stuff for fun it might even mean he could get left behind socially because he was a giant idiot.

"..."

What was this personal reality in development? Was that some major self-esteem boosting program? Ali felt more ashamed then when he was caught out by Rebecca earlier that day. Well, whatever. Once the spell wore off he figured he was better off talking to any magicians he could start a conversation with instead of listening to those across the room.

Thus ended the standard start-of-year speech. The details varied from school to school, but the point of such assemblies was the same. Inspirational pep talk, important information, then split up to start the day. A song and dance repeated across the world, be it in English, Japanese, or any other language. Splitting up into magicians and espers was different, Rebekah had to admit. There weren't many schools where the deciding factor for peer groups was "are you a magician" or "are you an esper", and even fewer where either one could be true. Only one, that she knew of. Her answer was easy. As soon as the headmaster left the stage, she proceeded calmly (and seemingly against the tide) towards the lefthand exit.

The line was... Surprisingly short. As in it consisted of, counting herself, two people so far. Rebekah was slightly disappointed. She had hoped to see more magicians at Hybrid Academy, to see how their magic functioned and what their take on it was. Even though there were undoubtedly more than two magicians in the school, it seemed they were vastly outnumbered by the espers. Their powers were fascinating too but she didn't have the capacity to replicate them. She permitted herself a quiet sigh as she took her spot in line, glancing briefly at the other magician, before turning her attention to her phone. Conversation might have been in the cards, but he was already focused on something else.

A few taps on her phone brought up the live video from her living room, where her canine companion dutifully watched the door. It would have been nicer if she could take him with her, but she wasn't worried about leaving him home. Checking up on him once or twice would make sure he didn't get into trouble. Unfortunately, checking up on him only required a few seconds. Without any better idea of what to do, and no flat surface upon which to set up her laptop, she stowed her phone and took playing cards out of the pocket of her uniform's coat.

A few deft moves, and the deck was shuffled. She looked at the top card, returned it to the deck, and shuffled. Repeat ad infinitum.

"I've seen half-red and half-blonde." Karasawa replied, opting to simply gloss over his apparent misrepresentation of AIM in his attempts to glean information about wizards and such. "Nobody straight-up red, though. Like, couple of Irish people in the crowd while we were all sitting down, but no neon eyesearing brick-colored anime red. What for?" he clarified and asked in one breath, glancing over his shoulder at the latest addition to their group, after the...

w a i t a m i n u t e

This Chinese guy. He knew him. He knew that face, he had to have seen him before, somewhere!

Where from, though?

"Say, uh, Chinese Guy. Have I met you before?" he asked as the conglomerate made their way through the halls.

Sachiko Tachibana

Sachiko sighed as she stood in the line for the espers listening to the people talk as she stood a bit behind that one purple haired person from the morning still she supposed hopefully things got started soon she was getting kind of bored just standing there. Still all things considered it was to be expected she supposed. With a yawn as she stretched her arms upward she looked around she supposed they were waiting for the teacher but she was no where in sight.

Sakuya Kawashiro
Well she supposed it was time to get started with the whole system scan all things considered. "Espers taking the system scan please follow the yellow line towards the testing area. I repeat espers follow the yellow line towards the testing area. Those who are viewing the espers system scan please follow the red line towards the viewing room I repeat follow the red line towards the viewing room." She said over the intercom as she teleported to the testing area now all she had to do was wait for the people to arrive.

Red and blonde? Sunless had never said anything about the Level 5 having multiple hair colours, or at least Rebecca didn't remember her saying anything about it. She kept looking around, trying hard to find the girl in the crowd of espers. She was about to give up when she saw the girl behind her, looking rather bored. She didn't need to speak to her now, but she thought it was good to know what she looked like for future reference. Though as Rebecca looked the girl really didn't look anything like Level 5 material. There were no resemblances between Melting Point, Sunles or Cocoon but still she was stood there.
"So that is the Level 5 Pyrokinestisist." she said quietly, observing the girl slightly before turning away.

The intercom went off and all espers who were participation in the system scan had to follow the yellow tape, apparently. It was probably going to be the same though, then having no real way to test the ability since it technically wasn't one that should exist. She walked forwards following the Chinese guy and the purple one, only now realising that the stalker had gone off into the magicians area. Still she kept walking and eventually made her way into the testing area.

Nakami

Placing two fingers at the base of his skull, Nakami spoke to the room, his voice amplified by magic.

"Magicians, gather at the stage and follow me to your testing grounds. Anybody who wants to join us, I suppose you can watch." He sat on the edge of the raised platform, acting more like a bored kid than a teacher, and waited for his students to gather. He didn't expect many, since there was still a lot of argument against mixing science and magic, but he knew for certain there were a few.

"Yellow linin' it! See you guys on the other side!" he called to the rest of the group, seamlessly breaking off from the group proper that had conglomerated around him and merging with the line of Espers waiting to be tested.

He honestly doubted anything had changed. The neighborhood was quiet this summer, and his blood found itself burning, more often than not, in the thick of things rather than just through him deciding to practice on a whim. That was to say, he "trained by doing". On that same line of thought, though, he doubted he was gonna be any weaker, either. Simply put, for this one, he'd have stagnated.

Eh, if he was gonna be roaming the same spot as Tachibana, maybe he could do with a little more practice here and there.

He cricked his neck.

"We'll wait and see."

Wait, testing grounds? Damn, hopefully this wouldn't mean they had to fight some test dummies or something, Ali' was never exactly that proficient in a fight. He had his magic, that is true, but he had never been in a full-blown fight before and was already a little nervous. Maybe they will just ask for a simple demonstration? He hoped that was the case, but then came the question of how much percentage he should put into the spell he used. Maybe a 14% fulgur? That sounded pretty safe to Ali. Or maybe 21%? He couldn't decide.

Well, whatever he decided to do, he would have to be in the testing grounds to do it first. So he followed instruction and did what the teacher told them to do. He tried to see if he could be the first one up, then others might think whatever he did was the norm' and instead of standing out, he would the what everyone else would consider average. Well, even if he wasn't first, he could always try just to imitate whatever the other students would end up doing and try to match it in power.