Kichirou woke up the next morning, ready for the day.
'Alright, I've got everything in the bag, I'm pretty sure…'
Kichirou took a look at the contents of his school bag.
'Books are there… Yeah, I think I'm ready.'
Stepping out of his apartment, Kichirou saw only 3 other people leaving their dorms on his floor. One of whom was Gray Wish, who had noticed Kichirou far before Kichirou saw him.
"Hey, Kichirou! What's up, man? Show me your schedule, I wanna see if we have the same schedule."
Kichiru took out his phone and navigated to a daily schedule that was sent to him on his school UMemo account, using the opportunity to remind himself of his own schedule.
"I have all my basic classes from 9 am until 12 pm, and then I have my special classes. First I go to Ranged Combat classes from 2 pm until 3 pm, the interstellar weaponry acclimation class from 3:30 pm until 4:30 pm, and finally I have my Close Quarters Combat classes from 5 pm to 6 pm."
'Interstellar weaponry acclimation…'
Kichirou looked down at the artificially improved white long coat he'd been wearing around ever since the combat exams.
'I guess I'm already acclimated, to an extent.'
Gray lit up a bit
"We have pretty much the same schedule! At least for the combat classes, not too sure about the basic educational, but the others are all the same."
'Maybe all the advanced program students have the same schedule so they can all train together, the CQC teacher did say both Amy and me have the same class for him even though we're in different grades…'
To confirm his theory, Kichirou pulled out his phone, opening the UMemo app, and navigated to Victoria's contact in his phone, typing out a message.
"You're in the advanced program, right? What's your schedule look like?"
Victoria sent Kichirou a message detailing her schedule, which was exactly the same as his own.
'So all three of us are in the same special classes. I wonder, just what makes it so special anyway?'
Kichirou looked up at Gray.
"Let's get going, it's already around 7:30 and I wanna go get something for breakfast before class."
Kichirou began to walk onward with Gray at his side. Entering the elevator, Gray pressed the button for the first floor, taking them down to the lobby. Swiping their ID's to get through the gate, the two left the building.
As the two made their way to the cafeteria for their morning meal, Gray spotted a large crowd of people, all of which seemed to have their attention focused on a single point.
"Hey, what do you think's over there?"
Kichirou looked over, curious about what exactly was happening.
'What could possibly be so interesting that everyone has to look at it at 7 in the morning?'
Turning his head, Kichirou finally saw what had the crowd so enamored.
'What are those two doing…?'
"The world doesn't need assistance from aliens! Humanity has existed for millions of years, and not once have we received help from beyond the stars! Why would we need it now?!"
Finally gathering a good understanding of the current situation, Kichirou pondered what he could recognize was going on.
'Protesters… I'm not surprised that there would be people against the intervention of unknown forces, but to think it'd be seen even here. This is probably one of the most pro-alien places in Charon, considering there's even classes dedicated to getting acclimated to their technology. If these protestors were able to get in here, it must mean they've got pretty high numbers, maybe even people on the inside. I should watch out for them…'
It made Kichirou's skin crawl to know that there were such a large number of people who were openly anti-alien, especially so when most of the public would consider him to be one. Kichirou knew he'd have to rely on his superhuman nature, but couldn't be sure if it would get him into trouble sometime, somewhere.
"Boo!"
"Get down from there!"
"Who gave these guys a microphone?"
"Phew"
Hearing the people's scorn of the ideals being spouted on by the protestors was comforting to Kichirou.
'I think I'll be safe enough here, the people here seem to be all for the new alien tech.'
As Kichirou was beginning to walk off, he noticed there was a medium-sized black pin with a letter "E" with a red slash through it attached to both of the mens' chest, just above where there hearts were.
'That must be some sort of insignia for whatever group their apart of. I should keep an eye out for it from now on, it'll be best if I could avoid them for now.'
"What was all that about, right?"
Kichirou, knocked out of his trance, looked over to see Gray, a confused look on his face. Leaning forward as he began walking, Gray continued to speak.
"If it weren't for all the assistance provided to us by the GDA, it would've taken way longer for us to build a place like this with the current infrastructure we had, after all, just clearing out the ruins of the city we're under would've taken us this long."
The fact Gray had dropped came as a surprise to Kichirou.
'We're under the ruins of a city right now…? How would they be able to clear up all of that? Even with the technology they have, it'd take more than just that to clear up a whole city. I didn't even see any debris…'
Kichirou had long lived in the southern United States, and recognized the squad car that had taken him into Charon was heading west due to the sun's position. That would mean they'd have to have cleaned up the entirety of one of the American West's huge cities just to build this underground city.
Kichirou heard a sound from the direction the two protestors were yelling.
"Alright, alright. That's enough from you two, please leave the campus. If you choose not to leave now, I'll have to escort the two of you myself."
Kichirou looked over, and caught sight of a tall, slender woman with a strange weapon in hand approaching the two protestors. She was traditionally beautiful, with long, black hair that fell to her lower back. She wore an orange dress that was cut just below her knee, and black flats. She was clearly way older than Kichirou, so he assumed she was an instructor of some sort.
Shink!
The woman thrusted the weapon downward, starting a whirring of many engines hidden within. Now that he could see it clearly, Kichirou deduced that the weapon was meant to resemble a minature, one-handed chainsaw. As the chains spun around the bar, the chain seemed to emit some sort of strange energy that looked almost like his, however, it was a bright yellow in comparison to the dark purple energy that Kichirou could use.
"Surrender now! Being in Charon Military Academy without permission is already grounds enough for a beating! I won't kill yas, but I can rough ya up a bit!"
The image of a graceful woman Kichirou had pictured before had immediately been destroyed.
'I guess you really should never judge a book by its cover…'
"Alright, already. We were just leavivng."
With an annoyed expression on their faces, the two protestors begrudgingly left, headed towards the exit.
"If I see yas again, I'll not be nice!"
The woman wiped her brow, resealing her weapon within itself.
Kichirou, not wanting any more to do with all the drama that had been taking place, did all he could to escape it.
"So, Gray… let's get to breakfast?"
***
After eating a hearty meal, the two attended their basic educational classes. They found that each advanced curriculum student is free to choose their schedule for their basic education classes, and so decided to take them together. During lunch, they'd run into Victoria, eaten with her, and prepared for their combat classes.
Victoria, in between bites of a cookie, reminded the other two of their upcoming class.
"Guys– mm– we need to get to our class soon."
Checking his phone, Kichirou realized it was almost 1:30 pm!
"The cafeteria is already a 20-minute walk from the C Building with all the arenas, we better get going!"
Quickly throwing out all their trash, the three all made their way to the C Building, coming across a screen in the lobby area after finally arriving.
"So we have to go downstairs for the long-ranged combat classes? Why would we go downstairs for a ranged combat class? I've heard of a finished basement, but this would be a bit over the top."
Taking a funicular platform down even further below ground, the 3 chatted about what ranged weapons they might be able to use, when, suddenly, both Gray and Victoria grew nauseous.
"Ugh, what's with this place…"
Victoria hunched over, covering her mouth.
"Yeah, everything feels… weird…"
As they reached the end of the track, Kichirou looked out at the field.
'It's huge…'
The area was humongous, and standing around 10 meters away from the opening to the field, a group of teenagers standing around the woman Kichirou had seen scare off the protestors earlier using that strange chainsaw.
"Is everyone here? Alright, y'all, I'm sure you're feeling a bit weird, but I can assure ya, you'll get used to it. They used a lil doohickey here to dilate the space here. Basically, the area is actually pretty small, but they're making it really big compared to us."
Kichirou marveled at the sheer size of the field.
'We're even able to dilate a space to make something like this? Sure is impressive what we can do these days… maybe we should've joined the GDA years ago.'
The instructor pulled out of her pocket something that looked like a pill bottle.
"Take these will yas? It'll do wonders for that nausea yer feelin'"
'Hmm… I don't necessarily feel as nauseous as the others do. Maybe it's because of my training with the symbol's effects, but I've become pretty resistant to pain and nausea.'
"Once you take these, we'll be ready to start with the first lesson! When yer ready, just come up n' take a lil pill, it won't bite!"
Kichirou looked over as Gray began to trudge the last 7 or so meters to the pill bottle.
"Ugh, N-not gonna make it-!"
'Gross.'
And with that, the class began with the sight of Gray's sickness spilling out.