By now, their memories are coming back, all of them at the train station, Russ had sneaked from the train, taking care to erase himself from notice. One's memories might consist of Russ staring at them with brilliant blue pupils, and recollection will be met with confusion, the person unknowing to why they had not noticed him before...Russ actually enjoyed the train journey. It was a new place, and most importantly, new people, all with new alterations he'd never seen before. Some were obvious, the plant-girl, it was clear from her physical body alone what her alteration included. Others were more tedious to silently study, not boring, but requiring more effort, perhaps even less boring and more entertaining, he always liked a good puzzle of a person. He sat alone on the train, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and not wanting to engage in conversation without observing a person first...that was a big no-no. So he sat quietly, and waited, even when the train had stopped and people started to file out. He waited, and waited, and eventually when the coast was clear, he got up carefully and proceeded onto the platform. Luckily, nobody was expecting another to step out of the train, because no real attention was directed his way, or he'd have known, surely. He had slunk over to a pillar and sat down next to it, achieving two things: 1) A smaller area for him to be spotted, and 2) a place that he could sit quietly in to watch the interactions unfolding on the platform.
He looked over at the plant-girl, with another girl right by her...she looked Asian in descent, but that didn't matter - she was on the floor, sweating, growing plant-like features. Could she shape-shift? Was she having a competition? Whatever it was, it was really interesting, the way her body morphed to imitate the plant-girl. She would definitely be one to observe more, to confirm her talents.
And then Russ turned, to see a girl cramming food into her mouth from her seemingly limitless supplies. And there was what seemed like a swarm of wasps, 'stood' nearby her. Russ watched in confusion as several wasps pushed a jar to her, which she picked up and used, before eating even more. Further, she seemed to be talking to the wasps! Was this a person too, like the rest, but their alteration was the wasps? Should he care about them seeing him? Would he be able to do anything about it? There seemed to be another person next to the two also, swatting at the wasps. It looked like she might be in for a bad day.
He next turned his attention to the tall, muscular boy stood on the platform, staring directly at Russ. He gestured to the boy, but the boy was unphased, it seemed. It appeared that there was no recollection of Russ in his head either, to erase. Was this boy blind? Could he not see clearly? Or was his awareness terrifyingly bad? That was something that would have to be resolved, eventually, in due course.
There were two others talking on the platform, one whose face was forever unchanging, and another who seemed to be greeting him.
*BANG*Russ wildly turned to the source of the noise, the 3, well, the 2 and wasps, over to the side, eating food. Except the wasp cloud seemed to disperse briefly, Russ' jacket also blowing gently from the quick air flow. The wasp-swatter was now holding a lunch box out to the wasps, perhaps a peace offering. The other girl, the one with the never ending amounts of food, seemed to be wide-eyed at this offering, not hesitating to take up a beetle into her mouth. Gross. That trio sure was strange.
He immediately checked around to see if anybody else had noticed the sound. Sure enough, the boy with the earphones and the emotionless face had checked around to look, almost certainly catching sight of him, so he worked quick to stop their recollection, the seemingly unchanging face of the other boy started to stare at him for a few seconds, but quickly turned back to conversation after he'd forgotten Russ.
The plant-girl and the imitator had also seemed to notice the sound, though apparently had not seen him yet, but as they started to move, he shifted around the pillar. He saw another boy on the platform, also idling, though seemingly not as affected as the blind one, who was vocal about the bang:
"Would you mind keeping the disruptive noises such as that down please, such noises can be rather distressing, especially when unexpected. And given the situation, it's likely best to wait for a staff member from the academy rather than causing a ruckus."Looks like he wasn't one to annoy early, without getting to know, he'd have to be studied a little more before Russ would be comfortable in engaging in conversation with him. Nevertheless, the other boy seemed not to care - he sort of idled, talking to himself. Certainly an odd character.
And then a bus came around the corner, the horn sounding and presumably somebody from the school shouting out to the crowd now gathered on the platform - of course, this was why he was here, he clutched his letter in his jacket pocket as he remembered his entrance exam, finishing it as quickly as possible, after all, he'd done it in secret to not be sent to that wretched sports school instead.
Russ got up, sighing.
It's one thing staying hidden in an open space, but in an enclosed bus, things might get incredibly difficult... Should he sit at the front or back? Should he wait for everyone to get on first, to be preoccupied with their conversations, so he could slip on quietly? He had no gripes with the Scottish man seeing and acknowledging him, as long as he didn't announce it to the whole group. That was unlikely to happen.
*BANG*Russ stood and waited by the pillar until everyone had piled towards the bus. He saw the wasps convening on the roof. Of course, the wasps, what would he do about them? He'd just have to hope, there was no way he was wiping that many minds in even a day, nevermind with no rest in between.
He got onto the bus trying to get as far back as possible, whilst being noticed by as little as possible. This was no achievable feat, but he tried it, getting about 3/4 of the way to the back. This was good enough, two of the boys were playing video games presumably against each other, and both the girl who didn't stop eating, and the other girl, who had presumably teleported to the back of the bus. That must have been what the bangs had been.
He sat alone.
Now all I've got to do is hide, oh.....this is gonna hurt, he said quietly to himself, quickly evaluating in his head who had noticed him. He gathered up a list, and set to work, physically unable to move until he had erased himself from each memory. The people at the back of the bus were even harder, gradually causing him to suffer from greater and greater visceral pains - his bodily defence to tell him to stop before he would pass out, both having to erase himself and persuade the person to look away as he was doing so, so that they didn't see him after he'd finished. Some of them were stubborn in this regard, unconsciously ignoring his orders, and this already was down to some fine timing before they ignored him, through all his increasing pains.
Finally, the job was done, and he did one last sweep before flopping onto the window seat, exhausted, as the bus set off.
Russ must have fallen asleep, because he opened his eyes, looked up, and saw the bus, stationary, with nobody but him on board. Lucky it was unlocked. He ran half-stealthily towards the main doors, and got there as the other students started to depart. He collected his keycard and headed up to his room, hoping that the other students had gone off to explore the grounds first. He got to the dormitory he was assigned, Dorm 3, and opened the door.
Uhh.Shit. There were the plant-girl, the blind boy, and the expressionless boy, all conversing.
Hi...
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