Sigurd Lukotta

---

Once his consciousness finally clicked back on, Sigurd's eyes snapped open into a glare his lingering drowsiness creating marks underneath his eyes and transforming his normal stare into a persistent, irritated glare. Not that he was actually annoyed by anything. He was just trying to get a hold of the situation. Everyone was passed out, and he had no recollection of going onto a train in such an uncomfortable position: Sigurd had been deposited into the back corner's seat, his one arm flung up against the wall, and the other pinned behind his back. It looked especially odd because of his neat appearance.

Coming to terms with the fact that he was probably drugged, Sigurd took a glance up at the skylight above as he massaged his arms, which had fallen asleep at that point. Looks good, he thought to himself as he stood up and looked through the door of the car behind them. The few that were beginning to wake up were panicking or straight-up confused. He stared at that scene for a few moments. ... Looks bad.

On the other hand, the car that he was currently in was silent, save for the sounds of breathing. The sound of breathing... They're all asleep and their breathing is really... soft i love this sound and wait they're all passed out it should be fine if i justtouchsomeofthemforamomentortworightmaybejustsmellthemforafewmoments theyprobablywon'tmindthey'renotawakerightnowiwon'tdoanythingweird ijustthey'reallsobeautifulandiwanttotakeintheirsmellandthat'sperfectlyokay it'sokayit'sokayi'lljuststopwhensomeonestartswakingup--

He sat down, almost a bit hastily, and slowly scooted closer to the person next to him, gently hugging their arm. With his height, their shoulder was right next to his face. Nesting up close, he took a deep breath and his deadpan expression bloomed into a loose smile. Losing any semblance of self-control, Sigurd quickly became absorbed in whatever it was he was doing.

---

---

It was hardly Marabel's first time waking up from a drug-induced sleep. However, it was her first time waking up from a drug-induced sleep without her parents around. She blinked hard, trying her best to clear the hazy film of sleep from her vision. Her movements were heavy and sluggish as she brought one fist up to her eye and tried to rub a bit of wakefulness into them. She yawned and stretched a bit as she oriented herself. As she did, she gasped and quickly covered her mouth as she saw the fish overhead.

"I must be dreamin'." She whispered to herself. Her accent was a bit more slight than others who grew up in the area she was from, but she tended to drop her 'r's a bit along with the softened vowels typical of a US southern accent. She pinched her cheek between two knuckles then clicked her tongue. "Not dreamin'. Okay." She muttered, groggily looking around. Where was she?

Oh, right. Something about an academy. Something about being surrounded by... peers.

She gazed about the room for a moment before she felt her heart pick up uncomfortably. She had never actually met another super. Marabel subconsciously rubbed her arm, a nervous habit she shared with her mother. The urge to make a noise of fright was great, but she was even more frightened that if she did, someone would lash out at her. So, she decided to stay quiet and stare at those who had woken up.

Should I talk to them? What about him? Oh no, he doesn't look like he wants to talk. Maybe I'll just go back to sleep? No, too late now. Already awake. Gotta stay awake too.

~Meredith~

---

For some, the drugs may have been slightly less effective than they might have expected them to be. For example...one Meredith Hillard. She had been expecting the drugs, and was able to more or less easily scrub her entire system clean of the drugs fairly easily. Wasn't too difficult of a task...though, she now had to very badly use the restroom, but details details. For the most part though, she remained feigning sleep until she heard a few of the others stir.

...most notably someone hugging her arm.

The teenager yawned, giggling quietly as she gazed down at Sigurd. She used her free arm to readjusther glasses, still forgetting that she really didn't have need of them any more. She had them since she was...six? Really young, and she just couldn't get comfortable without them. Right, she should probably reply instead of just enjoying the human contact.

"...Hello." She greeted Sigurd with a shy seeming smile. Oh, he looked like a tasty little morsel...oh, that was a bad thought. Eating people was a bad idea, even if she was hungry. "Caaaaan....I help you?" She asked hesitantly, giving him a small smile. Boy, she didn't expect to make a friend this easily on the first day!

And her parents were worried about her. Hah! She could do this whole...socialization thing easily! She wondered if he liked dissecting things?

~Halsey~

---

Ugh.

Drugged.

that was not the good stuff she was used too back home. Halsey was sitting near the end of the compartment, rubbing her face with her hands. That was not a good time. Jesus, they didn't have to drug her of all things, did they? Bah, she could understand the reasons she supposed but it was still goddamn annoying. Halsey grimaced as she crossed her legs, leaning back into her seat and reached into her clothes and started rummaging around a bit.

Heh.

At least they didn't manage to nab all of her things. With a swift motion she removed her hand from the insides of her clothing, pulling out a carton of cigarettes and a lighter. She knew how to hide things from the law, since she and the law objectively did not get along in any sort of manner. She pulled one out of the carton and lit it. Now this was the good stuff. She leaned back in her seat, pulling her headphones over her ears and exhaling some smoke. They at least let her have those.

For now, she'd remain quiet and would only speak if she was spoken too. She wasn't really set on making friends one way or another, but it'd be funny if someone did. She glanced around the area one last time...

Oh great, looked like they were waking up and someone was already getting friendly. Her eyes lingered on the two for a few seconds before sighing and settling back down. Well...nothing would happen.

---

The unconscious haze that had dominated Clyde's being for the past few hours slowly began to fade away. Eyelids remained heavy, however, and the soft repetitive breathing of other beings nearly lulled him back to darkness. It took monumental willpower to draw himself away from the comforting darkness, as he hesitantly opened his eyes - the light was soft, yet still annoying to Clyde's recently awoken vision. Clyde stammered around for several moments, gently maneuvering his hand across his body. It was near his breast pocket that he found them - the thick glasses that he needed in order to see anything with actual clarity. Sighing slightly, he gently put them on and the entire room became clear - a train car, with several other individuals sleeping soundly next to one another. A sudden surge of panic and fear overtook Clyde for several moments, until it faded away as realization flooded his mind.

He was on his way to school. His new school, the one for people who were special. The ones that had talent. He was drugged in order to provide secrecy while he was loaded onto the train. The disgusting liquid that he drank nearly caused bile to erupt from his throat, but his mind went blank as he fell to the ground. Next thing he knew, he was on this train. Everything seemed like how you would expect a bullet train to look like, except for certain features - the seats were significantly softer, and the train itself seemed far sturdier than usual.

Gazing around for an extended period of time revealed another conscious person, a short male student sitting across from Clyde, near the corner of the car. He must have awakened a significant period of time ago, as he was poking and staring at a female student just escaping from the clutches of unconsciousness. While Clyde was not a very good people person, he knew that physically touching someone you didn't know while they were unconscious was pretty rude, especially if they were a girl... Clyde simply chose to avert his gaze from the small boy and the long haired girl, turning his attention instead towards the source of a smell that began to permeate throughout the car... A woman was smoking. A woman, somewhere near his age, probably slightly older, was smoking a cigarette while on her way to school. Clyde coughed slightly when he realized this was the source of the smell, and pulled the collar of his coat tight against his mouth. He was used to the oppressive heat his choice of attire caused, and simple looked out the window to ignore the odor.

The windows were spaced equal distance from one another, seemed especially thick, and were all rectangular in shape. Clyde gazed strongly out of them, hoping to figure out where the train was headed based on the scenery. Several seconds passed until he realized that the vast expanse of blue was water rather than the sky, this fact being revealed when they passed a small school of fish. Paranoia briefly returned, Clyde feared he was going to drown in some train car, until he saw the glass tube that encased them. Where the hell were they going that they needed to take an underwater train system to get there? Then again, what could he do about it? Get off the extremely fast moving tube of metal and be stranded in a glass cylinder under the ocean? As his heart rate slowly returned to it's usual beat, he noticed the connecting cars to the one that the group was currently in; noise and conversations could be heard from the surrounding cars, and it appeared as though they were awake before he was. Speaking of which, Clyde wasn't even aware of the time. He must have been asleep for hours, and the last time he checked was on his smartpho-

A pang of anxiety awoke withing Clyde, and his hand swiftly shot down to one of the pockets on his suit pants - there, he felt the ever warm and calming metallic felling of his smartphone, and he immediately relaxed. For a second, he thought someone had looted him of his phone while he was unconscious, but the device was radiating heat in his hand as it had always done. Thinking of it briefly, he realized how foolish it was to think it was stolen - every time it left his immediate presence, he felt blinding pain that surely would have awoken him had he been pick pocketed while asleep. Shaking his head at his moment of panic, Clyde quickly checked the time, to see that nearly eight hours have passed. Has he been unconscious for that long? Had the others been unconscious that long, or had they been asleep only an hour or two? Clyde was somewhat suspicious that he was drugged during the middle of the night, but now it made much more sense - he must have taken awhile to get to the train, and the people who drugged him wanted the train to leave on schedule. Having noticed the time that had passed since he had last eaten, Clyde quickly reaches down to the bag at his feet - the bag that contained all his necessary possessions that he had brought to the school with him. Among them, he found what he was looking for - a six pack of water bottles and several protein bars. Pulling them all out, he set them to his side when he realized several other people had begun to awaken.

The thought of trying to start a conversation passed his mind, but even though he felt more confident and happier the last few weeks than ever before, he still shook slightly at the thought of initiating a conversation. The one girl, who seemed to be staring at the members of the car that had already awakened, maybe she was simply searching for someone to talk to her. No, what if he didn't know what to say, or seemed weird. No, instead Clyde chose to do what his parents had told him; he smiled as best he could, held his snacks to his side so that others may ask for some, while also reaching into his bag and pulling out his favorite hat. Clyde did his best to appear as approachable as possible.

As he did so, in fear of staring at the others and appearing rude, Clyde instead chose to look outside the windows that were scattered throughout the train car. Fish swam without a care past the metallic tube, and several were mercilessly slaughtered by passing predators. Checking his smartphone, his suspicion was confirmed - there wasn't any service hundreds of feet underwater. Sighing slightly, he returned to his previous position of smiling awkwardly and trying to appear inviting, but soon grew restless. Sweating nervously, he wondered if he was actually safe here. For all he knew, some of these guys could probably kill him simply by thinking about it... Clyde shook his head slightly at this thought, letting the rational part of his brain take over. They were kids, like him, they were just more special than he was. They weren't going to kill anybody. Clyde pulled out his phone, and began to write in his diary, occasionally taking a bite of his protein bar or sipping from his water, all the while keeping the same strained smile on his face in order to look more approachable.

Day 1, Morning: Everyone seems tense, except for the short boy and the girl in the jacket. I am to. Some of them have already begun to talk, but I can't hear them over my music. Listening in on other people's conversations would be rude. The train is pretty interesting, and it was quite a shock when I first awoke to see that it was traveling underwater. Will continue entry upon making it to school.

With that, he slid his phone into his pocket, the wires of his earbuds snaking out like string. He planned to keep a journal of everything that happened here, on account of his less-than-stellar memory. He leaned back in his seat, finally abandoning the smile. It was to strained, no one would see it as genuine. Instead, Clyde adopted his usual, slightly frowning face, and sat still, awaiting for the train to arrive at his new home for the next few years.

---

Samson grumbled as he began to awaken, extremely groggy. He rubbed his temple as his eyes slowly opened. His vision was extremely blurry, and he could hardly see an inch in front of him. He tried to get up, but accidentally bumped his head against the chair in front of him. He lurched back in his seat, his headache made five times worse.

"Son of a..."

The good news at least was that it woke him up, enough to remember that he wasn't in his bed, which was why he just hit his head against the seat in front of him. He rubbed the spot he bumped, as he looked around the... Train? They were in a train? The windows looked kind of Murky. But then he noticed the entire roof above them had an extremely long glass panel, which was also murky. But then he saw a giant frickin whale swim overhead! They were underwater!

Samson grunted as he stood up, and started stretching. He saw the other seats in the room had other people, roughly his age. Some of them sleeping, others in the same state as him, and a few privileged were up and walking around. Not that he knew anyone, he sat back down in his own seat. He noticed his black and red bag, located right next to his seat. Picking it up, he fished through it. Good, it still had his stuff: His phone, an MP3 player with Earbuds, and a deluxe Kitkat he bought before the trip. He took out his Kitkat, unwrapped it, and ate one of the wafers. He turned to the student sleeping next to him, still chewing, and broke off two of the wafers, and offered it to them. "Want some?" He asked.

Sigurd Lukotta

---

Sigurd jolted upright from the ”... Hello”, letting go of his neighbor’s arm and his expression immediately reverting to a raptor-like stare, albeit ever-so-slightly wider-eyed than normal. He’d completely forgotten about his surroundings, for a moment. Sigurd’s self-evaluation of “well I guess I’m a pervert” was definitely an understatement, especially considering that he’d spent the last two years just watching people through his computer, but he figured that there was no point in criticizing himself any further at this point. Nonetheless, he figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try and change. He began developing a plan.

If I just cut myself off from everyone, that’d be counterproductive; I’ll have to slowly build up my resistances to human interaction. Right now, I should get used to just being around others, seeing and smelling them; then I can move on to being friends, talking and doing things with them; then, hopefully, I’ll be able to touch people without losing my composure… but taking the second step will probably be too difficult if I don’t make friends now… The person in front of me seems friendly, but I haven’t had a conversation since I first got my powers, so I might have trouble enunciating properly--

”Caaaaan....I help you?” ”Please pet my head.”

... Well, I didn’t mess up. I’m fine with being pet as well.

Sigurd decided to correct himself, anyways.

“Please be my friend.”

~Meredith~

@Savo@Rice Porridge

---

”Please pet my head.”

Meredith blinked in seemingly surprised, not immediately able to respond.

“Please be my friend.”

"Weeeelll," It didn't take her long to get her mind into gear though. "How about...both?" The blond giggled, reaching out and giving Sigurd an affectionate pet on the head. See? And her parents said ever since that day she wouldn't fit in! Ha! Take that! She not only made a friend, they were already to the touching phase of friendship! Before she could really say much else though - another boy seemed to have woken up and decided to introduce themselves.

Oh, she was so popular! This was getting better and better, hehe!

...she was also feeling slightly hungry. She wondered if either of them would let her have a tiny nibble? Right, bad thought. Normal. Appear, normal. No nibbling.

"Eeerr..." She began, greeting the male student. "Hello." She greeted softly. Right, she should probably introduce herself. That was a normal thing to do! "Uhm, Meredith. Er, that's my name. Meredith Hillard." She wasn't entirely sure what else to say at the moment. At least, say anything that would make her seem a bit odd.

---

@Duoya

---

Frightened. Frightened was the right word. One moment it was quiet, then the next moment it seemed mild chaos happened. Someone was cuddling up next to someone else, someone was smoking, someone had an actual sword, which just seemed completely wild to her. Guns and knives were commonplace. Swords? Strange and unusual. Still, she knew she was panicking by the fact her breaths were short and quick. She took a moment to calm down before steeling herself and turning to the person who had recently awoken and begun taking out... a bunch of waters and some sort of protein snack. She opened her mouth to say something, but a shocked squeak came out of her mouth instead when the person actually smiled and looked at her before she said something. She quickly looked away, red in the face, a little teary eyed, beyond feeling out of place.

"Damn you, Debra Thompson." She muttered in the lightest, quietest voice possible. Debra had been her caseworker after her 'incident'. "This is not better than the girl's home. This is terrifying." Her eyes shut carefully for a moment as she squashed the beginning of panic once more. Realistically, she was beyond fortunate for the opportunity of education in any form. A girl in her social class didn't often get such a chance. But these people were scary. Polite, maybe, but that smile was sudden and she would just blame it on the fact she didn't get smiled at too often. She wasn't the type of girl people smiled at. Especially not cute boys. Those never smiled at her. Be it fear of rumors, or the off-putting stare she had, the kind smile was new and shook her up more than it ought to have.

---

Baihua crouched in her garden, watering a menagerie of colorful flowers. She stepped to the side, to a blank space in the soil. Pointed one of her fingers towards it, dozens of tiny plants instantly emerged from the grass, sprouting into small white flowers. The fat, ugly fax machine sitting on the counter buzzed, with a glowing red light, startling Baihua, into causing the flowers she was manipulating to grow in a pattern that tangled them all together. She tried to untangle them with her power, to no effect, and then her hands, to no effect. She sighed as she approached the machine, and pressed the red button. A thick piece of paper rolled out, making a horrible mechanical crunching noise as it did. Honestly, she had no idea why she didn't just pick a better method of notification like the other teachers did...

The message told her that she was selected in evaluating this years students, who were still a few hours from arriving at Palladium. She hadn't even finished setting up her classroom yet! She let out a sigh, and started to get ready.

She grabbed her Bag, put her shoes on, and picked up a flower from her garden. Not the flower planet, just the actual flower petals. She clipped it to her hair, and headed out. After getting on the bus, entering the academy, and spending a good ten minutes trying to find her way to the Katherine Sinclaire's office, she finally found where it was, and entered.

"I have got to get around more in this school", She sighed. "I'm not late, am I?"

---

---

Becoming self-aware was a liberating experience, Chiron reasoned, but he could have done without the anxiety that came with having an expanded consciousness.

The mechanical teacher pondered the classroom again, where his first class would be taking place. He was more then prepared of course. His materials were ready, the walls of the room were decorated with maps and charts and other such teaching aids, and even the desks and chairs were lined up with perfect accuracy, up to the closest millimeter. A bit excessive to be sure, but when you could create an entire year's lesson plan within the span of a few minutes, the excessive perfectionism that a human saw could make for some good stress relief. Pacing through the rows, he rubbed off a marking on one of the desks as he walked by, he pondered the board at the front. Perhaps he should introduce himself as Dr. Chiron, instead of just Chiron. It was a good title, even if it reminded him a bit of being in the medical profession before he woke up, so to say. He came to a decision in approximately a fifth of a second, writing "Dr. Chiron" on the board with the use of his omnitool.

He cocked his head slightly as a new message came in, straight from the administration to his own internal system. Student evaluation? Made perfect sense, actually. He had planned on doing an evaluation for his first Conduit training classes, it only made sense that it was being done with the entire student body. Perhaps his concerns about the evaluations had been heard after all. Wonderful.

Wasting no time, Chiron made his way for the door, pausing only to adjust a chair a millimeter to the left before heading down to Sinclair's office. At his calm pace he made good time, arriving slightly after Báihuā made her way to the office. He had positive feelings about this evaluation before he arrived, and seeing that the Chinese Biologist was involved certainly didn't hurt.

"Morning Sinclair, Nǚwáng," he recited politely, bowing slightly towards each of them as he spoke.

Sigurd Lukotta

---

@Rune_Alchemist@Savo

---

Waitwaitwait, she's going to pet me?! Sigurd was happy that she was going to be his friend, but he absolutely did not have the mental resistance for a headpat. However, it was impossible for him to find to words to refuse the headpat because, at that very moment, he took a decisive blow from the sight of her laughing smile. Her… smile is so cute how can she be so cute you're such a beautifulandnicepersonyoumustbeanangelpleasepetmeIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouyourhandissoclosetomyfaceIcanfeelthewarmthyou’resoclose pleasepleasepleasePLEASEYOURHANDISSOSOFTANDWARMANDIWANTTOFEELMOREILOVEYOUILOVEEVERYONEISSOBEAUTIFUL THERE'SAGUYINFRONTOFMEHE’SREALLYHOTIWANTTOFEELHISARMSAROUNDMEAND--

--Then he snapped out of it. Sigurd managed to restrain himself this time around; his expression barely changed, his fervor instead being shown through a deep blush nearly as intense as his leering stare. Still, Sigurd strove to do much better. Slightly red-faced, he took another look at the teenager in front of them. I might’ve attacked him if I didn't calm down there…

Despite the enthusiasm he had asking for a headpat, Sigurd decided on a quiet introduction this time. Following Meredith’s introduction, he gave a quiet "... Sigurd."

~Katherine Sinclair~

@KaiserElectric@wxps350

---

The door to the office in questioned opened easily enough. Upon entering the office, they would notice a couple of things. Most notably, they would be assaulted by the smell of a cigarette which had just been snuffed out in an ash tray. The second was that the room was for the most part spotless aside from a layer of dust. Not in a clean sense mind you, but rather in a sense that whoever worked here really didn't spend a lot of time in the office. There was a desk near the back of the room. In it, sat a woman in a fairly loosely put together casual suit leaning back in a chair with her combat boots propped up on the desk. An open bottle of bourbon sat near the edge of the desk, with a half empty glass next to it. If they so happened to be able to see her face behind the number of papers she was reading, the two teachers would be able to see the Counselors usual scowl threatening to burn a hole through the stack of papers she was reading from despite likely being able to do the exact same thing on the computer.

Kat was still fairly old fashioned, though...and definitely didn't have troubles with computers.



"No, not late Báihuā." She replied with a grunt, pulling her feet off of her desk and sitting up in her chair. "Right on time, the both of you. More or less, heh. Try not and spend more time in that fancy garden of yours next time." She chuckled as the papers she neatly stacked the papers she were reading, giving the other two staff members a wolfish grin as she fixed them with her one remaining good eye. "And for the umpeenth time robo-brain, it's just Kat. I might be married and might be an old woman but that don't mean ya gotta make me feel like one, heh." She got up from her desk, grabbing the half empty glass of bourbon and downing the rest of it before walking over to the two with the papers.

"I'd offer ya a drink too, but robots can't exactly drink and I want to get this over with so I can go ahead and go back to annoying my kiddo." The older woman. "So lets get this over with and I can get back to doing that."

"So, first year student Evals. Ya should know this is a pretty standard thing. Your unlucky asses have have been selected to help me run 'em this year." She started, pausing for a moment to shift through the papers she was holding. "Don't worry too much, I'm still doin' most of the work, you'll just be helping me since we got a lot of newbies this year. Same stuff as usual. We take the students to the training yards and we give them a challenge designed to test their creativity with their abilities and how well they can use 'em." She paused for a moment, taking a section of them and handing one to Báihuā and one to Chiron.

"Here's a list of students names and their abilities. Probably already have a similar list on whatever fancy devices you and your robot pals fidget with all the time." She chuckled towards Chiron. "There's a lot of babble and other stuff on there you can read if ya want, but to put simply you all will be helping me Evaluate and judge students performances on the field. Might have to run a few Evals at a time to keep things running smoothly. A lot of it is going to be automated so no need to really do much unless something happens...so, any questions?" She looked at the clock on her wall.

Seemed one of the others was running a bit late.

Meh.

She'd fill 'em in once they showed up.

~Halsey~

@Duoya

---

Halsey simply watched the other students around her, eyes lingering on the rather...flamboyant kid who was introducing and making a nuisance of himself at the same time. She couldn't really hear what she was saying over her headphones, but from the stares and awkward the blond girl and the overly attached boyfriend were giving him he had probably just done something stupid. Ugh, the waiting in this place with the rest of these guys were going to kill her. She really hated that she had to do this...her frowned deepened slightly as she thought about how annoying this all was.

Gah, she wondered why she even went along with it.

Pulling her phone from her pocket, Halsey turned it on, checking the time...except it was dead. Oh-fucking-great. She forgot to charge it. Or it had died in the time they drugged her. That, or a certain someone she knew messed with the batteries just to mess with her. If they did and she saw them again, they were gettin' smacked.

"Well fuck me anyways...ugh." She grunted, shaking her head. No sense in getting worked up over this whole thing. Just wait it out, like she always did. As she moved to replace her phone in her pocket, she remembered noticing another student with a phone that seemed to be working. Well, might as well see if he had the time or something. Halsey got up from her chair, adjusting her jacket slightly as she walked over to Clyde.

"Hey," She said to the kid, poking him on the forehead to get his attention and removing the cigarette from her mouth, dropping it on the floor and crushing it under her shoes. "Saw that fancy phone of yours. Got the time? Mines dead."

---

The smiling routine, unbeknownst to Clyde, had worked after all - a girl with dreadlocks, nearly a foot shorter than Clyde was blushing heavily and looking away. Unfortunately, years without social interaction has caused Clyde to have difficulty reading social cues, and the blushing girl simply made Clyde think he embarrassed himself somehow or did something ridiculous. Quickly shooting his gaze down to his phone, watching the minutes slowly tick by, the fleeting hope of a bar coming through rapidly diminishing. No one had approached him yet, but a few more people had awoken - a boy with messy brown hair in a hoodie was talking to a girl with black hair and crimson red eyes... Clyde simply avoided thinking about it, believing that she must be using colored contacts. The short blue haired boy was talking animatedly with the girl who held him, and Clyde decided to avert his gaze from them as well. They were... extremely close. Far closer than Clyde could ever be with a stranger... Unless the two already knew each other? Perhaps that was the reason the two were only inches apart - they were lovers. Nodding slightly in confirmation, the sound from his earbuds kept Clyde in ignorance of the actual situation. A bitter smirk crept across his face slightly - even before he got to school, he was the social pariah, the kid no one even knew was there. He was still just as normal as he was before he got the phone, he was just surrounded by special kids.

"Hey."

The sound barely passed through the earbuds, but the pressure applied to his forehead caused him to swivel around, where his eyes rested on the older looking girl in the green jacket. She was standing close to him, and her arm was retreating towards her mouth, where she pulled the... lit cigarette... out of her mouth and gently crushed it under her foot. The already terrified Clyde only grew more fearful at the sight of this. Where the hell did a school girl get cigarettes?! Then again, she did look older than Clyde, she had to be at least 18, probably 19 or 20. But even then, smoking in an enclosed space like this was bad for others nearby, and-

"Saw that fancy phone of yours. Got the time? Mines dead."

The cool, icy words she spoke cut through Clyde's thoughts like a knife and, trying to hide his fear, he opened up the phone as quickly as possible, the sight of his car greeting him in the form of the wallpaper. Looking to the upper left, Clyde quickly understood how the girl's phone must have died - his own battery life was at 42%! Before anything else, Clyde realized what it was - his phone was still trying to connect to the internet, and must have been doing so for the last 8 hours. Shutting off the Wi-Fi on his phone, Clyde checked the clock.

"O-oh, it's 6:55 AM. D-do you want to borrow my charger?"

Reaching into his bag he pulled it out - the black charger that he used to keep his phone powered on. He didn't know what kind of phone she had, but the universal charger he bought would probably work. Clyde had bought the charger since he expected his phone to change models so often, but looks like it would see some use besides that. He held the charger out sheepishly, until he realized this was his chance - his chance to make a friend for once. While he held the charger out and slid his phone back into his pocket, Clyde nodded towards to water bottles to his side.

"You can have one of my water bottles, i-if you're thirsty."

Just has he finished speaking and his nerves were calming down, Clyde heard some commotion in the car. A young boy with brown hair and red eyes (another person with contacts?) was talking to the couple from earlier, but he was already done speaking by the time Clyde could focus on what he was saying. Instead, he focused on what he looked like - the boy had a uniform on, was standing with a confident stance and... was upside down. The man was on the ceiling. Clyde elicited a slight gasp as he fell off of the ceiling, before making a clearly practiced landing, the sound of his body gently hitting the ground with a 'thump', and his sword moving in the sheathe attached to his side-

A SWORD!? Clyde tried to not make any movements, but his eyes widened and his hands became clammy. How was the school okay with allowing a student to bring a sword to school?! That was a clear safety hazard. It took nearly 20 seconds of freaking out for Clyde to realize - While nobody knew it, he had technically brought a gun with him. It would be hypocritical to judge him for his weapon, when Clyde had one of his own...

Clyde tried not to show it, but he disliked people like Lukas - he could talk to other people so easily, and seemed to be almost a natural at doing so. He probably had tons of friends, and if that cool flip was anything to make assumptions off of, he was really good with his power. Clyde's phone relied on tools and resources to be as effective as possible, and Clyde simply didn't have access to these resources. Lukas, on the other hand, seemed to have gravity manipulation or something similar, a highly versatile power straight from the get-go. Looking dejected and averting his gaze, Clyde began to chew on the protein bar that was half eaten in his hand.

---

Samson handed the girl a bar off of his Kit Kat. He ate two whole bars himself, and then wrapped up what was left in the wrapper, stuffing it into his coat pocket. The girl next to him seemed okay, if a bit aloof and narcissistic. Atleast he got to sit with a girl so front-heavy.

He put his MP3 player away, and took out his phone. Damnit, he couldn't get any reception down here. At least he had a hardly-played Minesweeper installed, for this exact occasion. Or he could scroll through old pictures he saved from the internet. His thoughts were interrupted, however, by some kid who was standing on the goddamn ceiling, holding a sword. He dropped down in front of some cuddling couple. Samson swore he saw that guy out of the corner of his eye earlier, walking around the ceiling, though that was when he was still groggy, and thought he was still in some sort of dream.

Samson could already tell he would not like this guy. I mean what the hell was this, an Anime? But, he didn't want to be an asshole by standing up and telling that guy off. All he did was mutter "Faggot" quietly under his breath.

Also, how the hell did he even get a sword in here? Calvin was told not to bring a weapon by his mom when he was packing. Not that he would have, of course. It would've been an easy way to get someone hurt, or possibly killed. Stuck down here, hundreds of feet underwater, possibly taking hours to get to and fro the Academy. If some guy managed to bring a weapon down here, what would stop him from just swinging left and right?

---

---

If there was something to expect when someone mentioned a teacher, it was that teachers were organized and methodical. However, judging from the state of the Human Sciences Classroom located in the basement, you might just reconsider that assumption based off of first glance. Plastic anatomical models were resting on nearly every surface, removable pieces scattered around the hopefully right model. Books, binders, and stacks of reference material were hastily stacked at on the teacher's desk in an unsorted fashion. The most interesting items in this messy classroom were the stacks of coolers of various different makes and models ranging from Styrofoam coolers to a more robust metal coffins were shoved to the side side of the room. Those containers had just arrived yesterday and contained the 'fresh' dead and organs that would be used this year for the more hands on portion of the curriculum.

Of course, this classroom was expected to be presentable by the time the students arrived, as the youth were impressible things. But with every year, Dr. Margaret Haefield had always assured the administration that she will always have a presentable classroom for the students. After all, she did not need sleep but more importantly to Margaret, the new mischief of rodents had arrived this morning. Three separate broods were placed in large terrariums that were located in the back of the classroom. As repulsive as some people found rodents, Maggie had always been fond of these selfless servants to science. So many died for the sake of learning that it was endearing and these broods were most likely fated to meet similar ends.

"Oooh good girl, Aggy. Don't take any sass from that upstart, Flor." Maggie teased, tapping the glass lightly. She turned her attention to another terrarium to comment on the proceedings there. "Happy that's naughty, no~ heheheh" Maggie grabbed a nearby stool and pulled it over so she could scale it and reach into the tank, grabbing the rat, Happy, and pulling him away from a female, likely his sister. She lifted the Happy out of the cage and delicately held the creature up to her eye level.

"That's illegal, naughty rat~!" Maggie laughed as she slipped the rat into her blouse through her collar, allowing the rodent to fall to the blouse's tuck where it meet her skirt. As if it wasn't unusual to have a rat scurry inside her clothes, she inspected the final terrarium with her bird's eye view from the stool. Noticing nothing unusual, she reached an arm down her blouse and fished around for Happy, deftly pulling him out and bringing the male rat to eye level again.

"Find Darling. She's a sweet girl so be nice." Maggie nodded to her rat as she placed Happy in the new terrarium. Satisfied, Maggie lingered for a bit to watch how the brood would accept their visitor before a dull alert sounded behind her. Her attention was needed elsewhere which was unfortunate because there were still a few awry rats may need further attention but they would have to wait. After all, Maggie wouldn't want to disappoint fellow staff members for the sake of the satisfaction of a few rodents, no sir-e!

Maggie turned and hopped off her stool and headed straight for her console. A quick investigation revealed that she was requested as a student evaluator and the moment she read those words, a toothy smile stretched across her face. "Oh goodie! The pupils are almost here~" Maggie squeaked in delight as she jumped from the console and skipped across her classroom to the door, stopping just before leaving to jump and pull down her overcoat from the corner coat rack. Maggie slung the brown, oversized coat onto herself and skipped out of the room, pulling the door along with her for it to shut.

It didn't take Maggie that long to arrive Katherine Sinclair's office, though she did find herself to be later than two other staff members. "Petals! Dot! So nice to see you both~ heheh~" Maggie's voice squeaked with a slight raspy dryness in her childish high pitch as she slipped into the room and continued until she slid right into position by Dot's robotic side, even giving the metal man a playful pinch before slinging her tiny arm around the robot's arm, pulling herself close to Dot. "Ssaw-reee I'm late, Kitsss..." Maggie slouched and exaggerated a pout for a brief moment before returning to her usual demeanor... a slouched posture and always with some type of drugged smile. "Sssoo what were you saying before I arrived? Oh! Have the new students arrived!? I want to meet them~"

Sigurd Lukotta

---

@Rune_Alchemist@Savo

---

Now that almost everyone was awake by now, several things were going on at once. From the edge of his vision, Sigurd saw a guy in glasses that seemed pretty nervous about the girl standing in front of him... Actually, he’s probably just a nervous person in general, Sigurd thought, seeing him tense up once he noticed the swordsman in front of Sigurd and Meredith. That’s kind of cute, but it doesn’t seem like he’s enjoying it. Personally, Sigurd heart raced at the thought of someone tough-looking like her standing over him, but he couldn’t speak for anyone else.

Sigurd refocused back onto the person in front of him. He really lays on the complements, huh? Sigurd liked how poetic he was, but he was clearly a very heterosexual person. Even then, Sigurd got excited when he leaned in close. If this is how people interact normally, it’s going to be hard for me to get used to this... It had been absurdly long since he’d last been friends with anyone, much less around anyone, and Sigurd didn't think his memories of elementary school would still apply.

In the middle of his introduction, Lukas suddenly seemed shocked by something. "Ah crap, I didn't realize," Sigurd assumed that he’d just remembered something important, but then he apologized to him and Meredith before saying, "Y'know, I'll just go and let you two lovebirds share some alone time together, sorry for gettin' in the way," and walking off with a sorry expression.

Although he would be perfectly fine with that arrangement, Sigurd didn’t really think that it looked like they were in that close of a relationship. Then again, he supposed. I don’t really know what something like that would look like... Wouldn’t it be like... full-body cuddling? They weren’t doing anything that was that intimate. He looked to Meredith. Since she was older, maybe she would know better? “... Do we look like that to others?”

~Meredith~

@Savo@Rice Porridge

---

This person sort of set her on edge. Lukas, eh? Meredith simply continued to smile softly up at him as he introduced himself and started speaking about a number of things. He was a bit silly, and entertaining at least though! She just wanted to give him a tiny little nibble. He looked so delicious, too! Maybe flay the skin one piece at a time, savor it? Heh...heheheheh....Meredith Blinked. She was going somewhere not nice, with that thought. Aha, someone would get angry with her if she thought that.

Lovebirds, though? She watched as Lukas walked off and Sigurd asked his question.

"No idea!" She replied with a giggle. "Maaaaybe?" She had zero clue as to what normal intimacy looked like. For her, it would usually involve full body hugs and...other things. "Do you...want to be that?"

Sigurd look like fun, at least! And he was so cute too! She could just nibble on him all day~

~Halsey~

@Duoya

---

"Sweet, thanks man." Halsey replied, taking a seat next to the guy as she hooked up her phone to the charger. "Ugh, I don't know what they drugged us with but it was definitely not the fun stuff." She chuckled, reaching for the water bottle and taking a long chug of it and nearly drinking half of it. After saying thanks though, Halsey didn't seem to be too much interested in talking more however. At least until Lukas started making more of an annoyance of himself.

"...meh, showoff." Halsey grunted quietly. People like Lukas really annoyed her, honestly. Some people just needed to learn to chill every now and then. Still, she shouldn't get involved. It'd only mean more work for her. Instead, she booted up her phone after letting it charge for a few seconds and made sure everything was in order. She cast a glance over to Clyde however, a small grin forming as it was quite obvious he wasn't exactly doing so well.

"You uh, alright there bud?" She asked with a light chuckle, giving him a soft jab in the side with her elbow after realizing that he was perhaps feeling a bit either intimidated by that moron with the sword or by her. Either were possible scenarios. Not much she could do about either though. Too tiring...but she could at least make small talk. She was good at that. Somewhat. "Breathing is usually beneficial to you know, uh living, so maybe try doing a bit more of that and a bit less of whatever this is." Maybe introducing herself would help? That might be getting a bit too involved though, so...eh.

...well, she could do what she wanted here as long as she didn't get too serious with anything.

"The Name's Halsey. Got a name yourself? Or do you just go by the lord of horrible tasting protein bars?"

~Katherine Sinclair~

@KaiserElectric@wxps350@Pirouette

---

"Ha, hello Maggie." Katherine chuckled lightly as the last teacher made her appearance."Pleasure as always. Just spend less time with those creepy mannequins of yours next time. Anyways, the new students will be arriving soon but we've got a bit of work to do for them and not a lot of time to prepare," She handed Maggie the same note she had given the other two. "To put simply, you three will be helping me run the new student Evals this year." The phys ed and Eval teacher went on to explain exactly what that would entail. The teachers had pretty much full control over the testing facilities and the contents of the exams so long as a few basic parameters the school had devised were met. The only things that were a hard no were lethal weaponry, unless otherwise stated as well as nothing being impossibly hard for them.

Anything else, was free game.

"These papers should cover everything you need to know, but if you have questions just message me or use those fancy computers or something this place gives ya..." She slouched slightly at that. Ugh, technology really wasn't her forte. "I'd suggest to get going to the Eval area and prepare while the kiddos are having their breakfast." With a grunt, she headed out of her office.