After the class came to a close, Kichirou approached Angelina. He was curious. It didn't look like she had pressed any sort of button or trigger to start whatever process had just occurred, and, by Kichirou's logic, what happened could only be described as impossible.
'No matter how you look at it, there's no way she could've done that. Even if she did press some sort of secret button, that doesn't allow people to create fiery energy out of nowhere, and even less the ability to control it with a… punch?'
Kichirou, utterly confused, was left with one option.
"How'd you do that?"
"What do you mean?"
Angelina was just as confused by Kichirou's question as Kichirou was by her display of power.
'Angelina doesn't seem like the type to question it all that much anyway…'
"Never mind, I'll figure it out in class tomorrow anyway."
Angelina gave off the toothy grin of a girl who truly approached the world with nothing but optimism and further continued the conversation.
"Wait! Before you go, we're all new here, right? What's your name? You can call me Ange, alright?"
Kichirou didn't want to miss the opportunity to make any friends.
'The more people around me, the better. It's always better to fight in large groups, and in a school focused on improving our combat ability, I'm sure we'll need to work with others at some point, and that'll only get easier the more people I know.'
Kichirou and Angelina exchanged names and contact info and returned to their respective groups, with Kichirou returning to Victoria and Gray.
"Class is ending soon, so let's get out of here."
Victoria's concise speech left both the boys stunned for a short period of time, letting her walk off on her own for a little bit before they caught up and walked together.
Kichirou continued to theorize what had happened back there.
'I'm sure there was some sort of supernatural phenomena that occurred just then, because there's no way… Maybe we'll figure something out in our acclimation class.
As the trio chatted on their way to Acclimation classes. Eventually, they reached the D building where the class would be held.
"It's pretty…small, isn't it?"
The guys chuckled at Victoria's comment, before nodding along.
"Yeah, it's pretty small."
Gray outwardly agreed with Victoria's comment, and the three walked inside. Kichirou immediately noted the surroundings.
'It really is small in here. The whole building is just the singular classroom…Why have it so far detached from everywhere else?'
Kichirou thought back to how long the walk to get to the room, realizing it'd taken them quite a while just to even reach the room class building itself. Pulling out his phone and bringing up a map of the campus all students were provided with, he looked to confirm his suspicions.
'It really is far away from everything else on campus… there must be something strange going on here if they want it so far removed from the rest of the buildings.'
Walking into the classroom, Kichirou saw the man who'd operated on him using the recovery pod before, accompanied by a much shorter, Hispanic man who was also dressed in a lab coat with glasses. Looking around, they realized they were some of the first in the room, so Kichirou decided to ask the question that'd been lingering on his mind.
"Why's this place so far removed? I mean, it's not like we're blowing anything up or whatever, right:? We don't need to be so cautious like how things are with the combat course, do we?"
The shorter Hispanic man stood up from his seat at the front of the classroom, walking around his desk to stand closer to Kichirou.
"The officials in this city are still fairly suspicious about alien technology. In fact, most of the stuff you're seeing in Charon is the result of joint projects between humans and aliens. We don't even know if they already had the stuff, but the government sure as hell didn't want any hand-me-downs from aliens they didn't know. Well, whatever. That's the reason they don't have this building anywhere near center-campus, though. It's cuz they don't trust the tech just yet, and if anything goes wrong they want it to do that in its only little corner."
Kichirou could tell from the short conversation he'd had with the professor just what kind of man he was.
'Is my teacher a… conspiracy theorist?'
Kichirou, being an alien himself, was no stranger to the views of both the government and the general public on aliens.
'They're willing to take the technology, but they still don't trust them…? Well, it doesn't sound like too crazy of an idea. With how things are today, I wouldn't be surprised if that was true.'
Kichirou's experience with the government was anything but positive, and he wanted nothing to do with them normally. If it weren't for his run-ins with the government, he'd have the opportunity to live a semi-normal life, but that was no longer an option for him, at least not on Earth.
Other students flooded the room, and the short man spoke up.
"Everyone! Please take a seat. Class will begin soon."
Students sat in seats that were arranged in long rows, with Victoria, Kichirou, and Gray sitting with all 3 next to one another.
The instructor stood at the front of the class in front of a screen, placing a glove on his right hand reminiscent of the one Amy had received the day prior.
'Hey, that looks pretty similar to Amy's glove, doesn't it? I wonder if he's gonna do something similar.'
Just then, the professor snapped his fingers and, with a short spark of yellow light leaving his fingers, the television turned on.
'There it is again, that light…'
Kichirou was fascinated by the light's nature, and his intrigue, in his mind, was well warranted. It reminded him of his own abilities, however, it's nature seemed to differ.
'Looks like it naturally just takes on brighter colors, like yellow and orange. My energy is a lot darker in color, though, usually deep blue or purple. Wait a minute…'
Looking closer at the lingering light in the air, Kichirou made an observation. The sparks of light seemed to be distorting the space they traveled through, almost like looking through super-heated air.
'Is it distorting the space? It's just like with my eyes, then…'
At that moment, the connection between the energy stored within Kichirou's eyes and the energy his professors were acquainting him with was formed. In contrast with Kichirou's energy, the distortion caused by the bright light seemed to expand the space around it, while the distortion in space caused by Kichirou's energy made everything appear to be smaller.
The seconds seemed to feel like minutes, but only a few seconds after the professor snapped his fingers, he spoke out.
"Okay class, you may refer to me as Professor Sanchez. It's about time we get started, isn't it? Please direct your attention up here."
Focusing his attention on the screen, the professor swiped his right hand downwards, causing the screen to begin to fold inwards on itself from the middle.
"Here, for all of you, I have a few devices you may recognize…"
Pressing a button that caused a tray to appear from the newly formed hole in the wall with a multiplicity of those same strange spheres that Angelina had made use of in the ranged combat class a little less than half an hour ago laid atop it.
'It's those same spheres, the ones that caused…whatever that was back there. Everything seems to come back to that.'
Handing out a sphere to each class member, the Professor began explaining how they worked.
"As I'm sure you're all aware, these ringed spheres act in a quite supernatural way. They do not adhere to the usual laws of physics of which you and I are well aware. More accurately, they allow the space around them to stop following those laws, so long as their wielder wills it. Frankly, I'm not exactly sure of how it works myself, but, if you're to become soldiers you'll need to be able to at least make use of it…"
As Kichirou finally received his sphere, he examined it quickly.
'What are these? Designs? I guess they do have some fashion sense up there…'
Putting his sphere back down on the desk, Kichirou returned his attention to Professor Sanchez.
"... In any case, according to what we were told by the ambassadors to our Technological Advancement Department, these spheres are made out of a special material that allows for this reality manipulation to occur. The distortions in reality that one can make become more and more powerful as the amount of this material they're using increases."
Kichirou picked up the sphere, getting a good look at the material of the sphere.
'It seems pretty smooth where they don't have anything etched into it. Sturdy too, probably could take a beating before it breaks."
"And if you'll look closer at the rings the sphere is made up of, you'll there are markings engraved into them. In this case, the markings limit you to manipulating force and things that create it, amplifying your ability to do so. We don't want you messing with anything complicated just now, so we're gonna limit what you can do. Maybe they'll release the restrictions someday."
'So that's what those etchings are for…'
The professor put his hand up into the air.
"If you'll look closely, you'll see that this glove I have here is made out of the same material as your spheres. This thing gives me the ability to control pretty much everything in and around this room."
Waving his hand a multitude of ways, the professor shook the room around.
"What the-!"
"No way…"
"That's impossible!"
'Everyone seems shaken up…'
Looking around the class, Kichirou took in the reactions and expressions of his classmates. All of whom seemed to be shocked in some way, with the exception of Victoria.
'Is she used to this kinda thing?'
Kichirou couldn't quite figure it out, but it seemed almost like Victoria already had experience with something akin to what the professor was doing now with the classroom.
'It's not too bad, though. Maybe she's just not easily shaken in the first place by things like this…'
Kichirou guessed at what could be the reason for her unbothered demeanor and moved on.
Ceasing the room's shaking, Professor Sanchez continued with his lesson.
"I'm sure you're asking 'How is he doing this?'. Well, the material of both the glove and the spheres in front of you respond to the will of the user, converting all the different types of energy around them into something known as exigent energy, which is then bent to the will of the user to affect the world around the user. The sound, kinetic, and gravitational energy affecting the sphere is all transformed into exigent energy, and used by you all to change the world around you."
'So that much power is held just in this little rock? Wow…'
Kichirou was fascinated by the sphere's supposed power and began to reach out to touch it.
"Alrighty then, everyone! Class is over, so if you'll all pass your power spheres this way please…"
The ringed orb began to float in the air just before Kichirou could grab hold of it.
'What now…?'
Kichirou, annoyed, looked to the front of the classroom to find the Professor using his hand to grab up all the orbs in the room and place them back into their slots in that original tray.
'If I didn't know any better, I would think he's telekinetic…'
After he finished grabbing up all of the orbs, placing them in the tray and putting them back in that hole in the wall, the professor turned back to face the students.
"I hope you found all of this interesting, if not, it doesn't really matter. You'll still be forced to learn all of this stuff if you wanna pass."
Looking down at his watch, the professor spoke.
"Alright, it's about time you all got out of here. I don't want Aaron complaining to me about how late you all are, so it's time y'all got going!"
Students began to pour out of the classroom, urgently trying to get out with enough time to maybe stop and grab something to eat on their way.
'Just one more class left to go, and things have been pretty good so far. I've got high hopes!'