Not been writing recently... exploring other creative outlets... In other news, it would appear that I suck at pretty much everything... that is all.
Crimson Tatsu and Aurora hurried to the cafeteria, they were slightly dismayed to see than almost everyone was already sat down and eating, this left very little chance of anything good being left.
There was no pizza left, that was predictable, there were also no chips, no chicken and actually pretty much nothing left that was made of meat. Tatsu, being rather majorly carnivorous was pretty ticked off. But Aurora was still in high spirits.
"See, loadsa fried things left." She smiled happily, ignoring how very unimpressed Tatsu was. And continued to smile up until the point when a particularly large person piled their plate high with the remainder of the fried things, leaving absolutely none for anyone else.
"Oh my god! did you two see that? they took all my food!" Aurora wailed at Tatsu and Crimson.
"Umm calm down, you can just eat some of these... uhh... grey, slimy looking whatevers." Crimson suggested lamely.
But Aurora was on the move already, cutting though the line to reach the fried things thief. She caught up with them and tugged at their sleeve.
"Umm excuse me, but those things you've got on your plate are one of my favorites, and there aren't any left, could you please let me have some?" She said, doing her very best impression of a hungry puppy.
The huge person turned round and looked down at Aurora, who was currently trying be as much of a sweet little girl as she could manage, it was something she was good at and it usually worked. "I know who you are." The person said, in a voice that gave the impression that she was just a little bit slow "You're that little runt I got as a rival." Evidently this was Violet Persimmon, Aurora's immediate impression was that she had lied about her weight.
"Yes, i'm Aurora, hello." Aurora continued smiling, hoping to god that Violet wasn't going to hurt her too much.
"Huh, dunno why you don't just give up and go home now, you're way too little to be any good."
At this point Crimson had managed to push his way through the line to be next to Aurora.
"Hey Aurora, who's the ugly chick?" He asked.
"Crimson, this is Violent, I mean Violet Persimmon." Aurora tried desperately to maintain some level of polite friendliness.
"Ohhh, yeah I remember her, whats up violet? You do know you're going to get fat if you eat all of those, well, I mean fatter, obviously."
Crimson was smiling broadly whilst Violet was turning red and was just about ready to swing at him. Aurora however was turning pale, she'd never really been one for fighting, and had been hoping that the matter could be solved in a non violent fashion, all hope of that had disappeared at approximately the same time that Crimson had opened his mouth, and he didn't seem to be finished yet.
"Hey, red suits you ya know, it hides some of that horrible acne you've got just there."
In an extremely fast motion Violet grabbed Crimsons pointing finger , tugged him forwards by it and slammed her knee into his nose. She followed up by delivering solid punches to the side of his head.
"You smart mouthed little shit! I'll kill you!" She aimed a kick at Crimsons knees, which he managed to avoid by spinning away from her. A small amount of distance had now been established between the two, giving Crimson a moment to gather himself.
He balanced on the balls of his feet, and brought his hands up to shoulder height, ready to either strike, block or dodge. He was the first to move, his kick landed squarely in Violets mid-section, driving her backwards, her guard was up, so Crimsons punches fell against her arms.
By this time absolutely everyone had noticed the fight and were cheering and placing bets, somewhere in the crowd Tatsu was trying to push his way to the front, but people were unwilling to give up their vantage points. With the distance between the two combatants closed, the fight had lost almost any technical aspects and was now nothing more than a brawl. Crimson had the edge, but was starting to lose it due to Violets weight advantage.
Both combatants jumped backwards as a ball of fire scorched the air between them. It had come not from Aurora, but from a small boy who was looking at both of the fighters with dark and serious eyes.
"I thought the counciling sessions were helping you Violet." He said in a flat monotone.
"Yeah, but there's only so much shit I can take from one little punk kid." Violet snarled, The boy turned to look at her directly.
"You will keep your temper, or you will be punished, is that understood." The pitch of the boys voice never changed even by a single octave, there was no accent or inflection.
"Yes Hokanu." Violet said through gritted teeth. Now that Violet was suitibly cowed Hokanu turned his attention to Crimson.
"I don't know you, but if you start a fight with Violet again, I will take her side, you don't want that to happen, trust me." And with that almost solemn threat dangling in the air Hokanu motioned for Violet to come with him and left.
The crowd grew quickly bored now that the entertainment had left and they dispersed rapidly. A fair few of them muttering about how unfair it was that the fight was broken up. Crimson was feeling much better as a result of Auroras healing techniques, but was about to feel worse as Tatsu made his way over.
"You look a mess" Tatsu said, looking Crimson up and down "Tell me, did you ever bother learning to fight? Or did you just figure it was a matter of throwing your weight around."
Crimson sighed "I've had light training as a ranger, generally speaking those of us who shoot at things instead of stabbing them don't get within arms reach."
"That's an excuse and you know it" Tatsu scoffed "That girl was off balance, angry and slow, if you'd have had any idea what you were doing, she wouldn't have been able to touch you."
"Alright, fine, whatever." Crimson held his hands up in a gesture of defeat "I admit that I totally suck at close combat, and have just been thoroughly embarrassed by a girl."
"Well." Tatsu said thoughtfully "I wouldn't say you were thoroughly embarrassed, at least you didn't just hold your nose and cry or something."
"Me? Cry? You'd never catch me doing that, I'd run off to my room first" Crimson grinned, and then caught sight of Aurora "Hey, umm what are you doing?" He asked.
"Just getting lunch." Aurora replied cheerfully, what she was actually doing was collecting up any fried things that hadn't touched the ground much, or been trodden on during the course of the fighting. This didn't really bother Crimson, but Tatsu gave a resigned sigh at how pathetic it must look to those who were still in the area.
It took Crimson a whole half an hour after leaving the cafeteria to realise that he hadn't eaten all day. He was now being quite vocal in his objection to starvation.
"I'm hungry, I want food, can't we go back to the cafeteria?"He whined.
"No." Aurora replied "We've only got a few minutes till the next class, you should have said something while we were there."
"I would have done, except I was too busy getting my ass kicked defending you."
"Did I ask you to help? Don't think I did, sorry if it seemed to you like I'm just a helpless little girl in desperate need of somebody to fight my battles for me."
"What?" Crimson snorted indignantly "I never said anything like that, I helped you out because I think of us as friends."
"What's this?" Tatsu asked, from behind the pair, he sounded to be in unusually good humour. "Lover's tiff? Want me to leave for a while?"
"Ah, Tatsu, where'd you come from?" Aurora all but jumped.
"Same place I went to, cafeteria, got us some drinks." Tatsu held up three brightly labeled bottles, the labels proclaimed the drink to be Smash, with three exclaimation marks. Tatsu handed one to Crimson and one to Aurora.
"Cheers." Crimson thanked him as he unscrewed the lid, he sniffed the contents of the bottle with some suspicion. "What is this anyway?"
"It's a well balanced cocktail of flavour and nutrients." Tatsu said happily as he took a big gulp of his own drink "It's exactly what a busy person on the go needs to get them through the day."
"Err, actually I meant what flavour, not what the advertising campaign was."
"Oh, this and that, never seems to taste the same twice, mostly fruit though." Tatsu said with a shrug.
"Fair enough, can't be that bad, seems like its a drug to you though." Crimson took a tentative sip "Hey, this is pretty good." He took a big swig of it.
"You guys think its good?" Aurora asked, sounding slightly incredulous "You can have mine then, it tastes way too chemical for me." Tatsu snatched the bottle away from her just a fraction of a second before Crimsons hand passed through the space where the drink used to be. Which was fair enough in Crimson's opinion, Tatsu had been the one who paid for the drinks in the first place.
"So?" Tatsu asked "What dya think the next class will be?"
"Well, We've already had basic fitness, Ranger training, Hunter training." Crimson ticked them off on his fingers "So I suppose it's going to be either martial arts, or Force arts."
"Here's hoping its martial arts." Tatsu was now bouncing around "I've got energy to burn, bit of a workout would be good."
It turned out that Tatsu was to be disappointed, as everyone crowded into the classroom, it became obvious that the lesson would be in the Force's arts. The room was far diffrent to any of the other teaching rooms, which were fairly standard. This room had no chairs, no desks, there were only rough square mats for the students to sit on. The teacher too was obviously a force, her long flowing robes, the serious look on her face, her hair, almost as white as Tatsu's despite her youthful appearance, and the air of mystery around her were pretty much typical of those adept at the various combat techniques or "magic" which technology had opened to humans.
"Good evening students." The teacher smiled at them "I am Altessa Zelpher, I will be teaching you the Force's arts."
The students had variying reactions to this news, a few of them groaned, some looked indiffrent, but most seemed very excited about the idea. Especially Aston who could barely contain his enthusiasm as he furiously scribbled down every detail of the room, he seemed intent on having a written record of every single movement.
His sister however was one of those who seemed to be indiffrent, Erisa walked towards Altessa and handed her a note. The teacher read the note quickly and nodded once.
"Very well, you're excused from the lessons."
Erisa bowed slightly and left the room without a word.
"What do you think that was about? Tatsu asked Crimson as he watched Erisa leave the room.
Crimson shrugged in response "You'll just have to see if you can figure it out."
"What do you mean by that?" Tatsu asked suspiciously "You know something don't you? How come you know why Erisa doesn't have to attend? You haven't even talked to her."
"Ah ah ah, we don't ask about a girls secrets do we now? You'll just have to ask her yourself."
"You're being very evasive Crimson..."
"Well evasion is a good trait for a ranger isn't it?"
"I give up, I don't really care anyway." Tatsu resumed paying attention to the teacher, just as she was telling the rest of the class to quieten down and listen.
"Umm I don't really have a lesson plan as such, so could someone please tell me how the other teachers did their first lesson?"
"It was boring." John said loudly "They just taught us safety crap, if this class is going to be like that then I'm walking."
"That does sound boring." Altessa agreed "Anyway, you don't need to know any weapon safety for this class, unless you think you could manage to injure yourself with your mind." She giggled a little. "So lets get straight into things shall we?"
There were mutterings round the room, almost all of them were approving, it appeared that everyone had got somewhat bored of the safety lectures and the entire class was ready to do some practical.
"Okay, everyone take a mat." Altessa instructed "On each mat there should be a medical injector, does anybody not have one?" Everybody took a mat and picked up their injector "Good, now some of you might not like this, but could you please inject the contents of the injector into yourself, I suggest injecting at the neck."
Most students did so after only a moments hesitation, but Tatsu just pressed it to his neck and did nothing.
"Is there a problem Mr. umm?"
"Littlewing, Tatsu Littlewing" Tatsu replied quietly
"Okay, Tatsu, is there something wrong with your injector?"
"I don't think so Ma'am" Tatsu replied, acutely aware of the fact that everyone in the entire room was looking at him.
Altessa walked over and knelt down next to Tatsu. "What's the matter?" She asked gently, in a low voice so that the rest of the class was excluded from the conversation.
"I can't do it..." Tatsu paused after this admission "I hate injections"
"I'll do it." Altessa whispered to him, she picked up his injector and made a show of examining it for faults. She then placed it against Tatsu's neck, He held his breath. A quick squeeze of the trigger and it was over. Tatsu however had turned quite pale and didn't seem to remember how breathing worked.
"It wasn't that much of a problem Tatsu, just a blocked needle end, that's all."
Tatsu was inwardly grateful to Altessa for not letting the class know about his fear of injections. He was fairly certain that John Kayden would never let him live it down, and Crimson wouldn't be too merciful on the subject either.
"Okay, I'm surprised nobody asked what was in the injectors." Altessa said once she had returned to the front of the class "For all you know they could have been filled with poison, maybe we do need a lesson on safety?" she giggled at the looks of horror on some of the students faces "I'm joking, they contained chemicals to enhance certain functions of the brain, ones that are usually dormant. Those particular chemicals enable the use of Barta. Does anyone know what that is?"
Aurora put her hand up, hers was not the only hand in the air, but it was the first.
"Yes, miss?"Altessa gestured towards Aurora
"Aurora Tasai-Quin Rylath Dorphin Tals Sytheria, 12 of 59"
"Ah, I expect a perfect answer from you then."
Aurora nodded "Barta are ice techniques, there are three major ways that they are employed, but the mechanics behind it are always the same, the temperature of the air is reduced by removing the heat energy from it, if a sufficiently talented person uses the technique they can cause the humidity in the air to freeze into shards of ice, and by proper manipulation, these shards are propelled at an enemy."
"Very good Aurora, I see you learned something from your parents." Altessa smiled.
"Actually I learned from books and data files, none of my parents really had much time for me, you know, 58 brothers and sisters."
Altessa gave a small laugh "Well it was a good answer, I hope everyone was listening" She addressed the whole class. "Any questions?"
"Yeah" Somebody at the back of the room asked "Does this mean we can chuck bits of ice around whenever we want?"
"No no no, you have to train your mind. It's like using a set of muscles that you haven't ever used before. For most of you, these are new chemicals, things your brain won't have had any experience with, so it'll be hard for you to use techniques to begin with. Any newmans in the class will find it easier, your bodies naturally produce small amounts of technique enabling chemicals, so you should have an easier time of it."
"So how do we "train our minds"" The same student asked.
"I don't know." Altessa replied "It's different for different people, some people never get the hang of it. For now, I want you all to imagine that the air infront of you is very very cold, freezing. Don't just imagine it, believe it, OK? I want you all to try now."
Many of the students looked dubious, but they all settled themselves down and did as they were told. Crimson adopted a cross legged sitting position, and tried to think the coldest thoughts he could. He thought of when he was a small child, getting food from the freezer in his house. At the time it was the coldest thing he knew of, he couldn't imagine anything colder.
Altessa was walking about the classroom, stepping in front of each student. She tapped Crimson on the shoulder, he opened one eye.
"You're doing really well, do you have newman blood?" Crimson noticed that the air in front of him now contained tiny ice crystals where his breath had frozen, it was only directly infront of him, once his breath went a foot to either side, it became invisible again. He reached his hand out and felt that there was a noticable chill in the air. But it soon passed once he lost his concentration.
"No, no newman blood at all." He replied to Altessa's query.
"Sorry to disturb you, please keep trying." Altessa smiled at him and resumed her walk around the classroom.
After about ten minutes of this silent concentration John Kayden got to his feet and began to walk towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Altessa asked softly.
"I've had enough of this bullshit, you get us to drug ourselves up with god knows what, then you want us to all sit here and think nice cold thoughts? Well nothings happened, I'm bored, and I'm outta here."
"Please don't bother yourself with coming into the next lesson either then." Altessa said "I'm sure it would just bore you, but bear in mind that techniques will be part of the examination at the end of the month."
John said nothing, but simply slipped out of the door and slammed it behind him.
After five more minutes Tatsu, having had very little success, was about ready to agree with John, but then again he wasn't the only student who didn't seem to be having any luck. So far only Aurora, Crimson and 4 others had managed to manifest any noticable effect on the air. Altessa called a stop to the meditation and instructed everyone to talk to each other about what they had been thinking about and what had happened.
Aurora recieved most of the attention, not surprising seeing as how she was the only person who had managed to freeze anything that wasn't her own breath, she was quite delighted to answer everybodies questions while showing of the small pile of snow that she had generated, which was quite rapidly causing a puddle. Ashton differed from most of the other students in that he flitted from person to person, recording everyone's findings on his ever present note pad.
After the information exchange Altessa dismissed them, even though it was half an hour before the class officially ended, she said she didn't see the point in keeping them locked up when they should be out enjoying the evening.
As Tatsu was leaving the classroom he was set upon by Erisa. Well, not exactly set upon, in actuality she timidly tugged at his sleeve as he was walking to catch up to Crimson and Aurora.
"Oh, hello Erisa." He greeted her "What's up?"
"Umm I just wanted to know what happened in the class." Erisa said, blushing slightly.
"Nothing interesting really" Tatsu said dismissively "We had to have an injection of some chemical or other, and then we were all told to think about freezing the air in front of us."
"Oh, did anything happen?" Erisa asked with genuine curiosity.
"Not for me, no. A few others managed to get something to happen, but it just didn't work for me." He neglected to mention the jealousy he felt because his two friends could make it work but he couldn't. "If you want to know about it you should ask your brother, I'm sure he's killed a few more tree's with all the notes he took."
Erisa rolled her eyes "Ashton writes too much, it's just how he learns, he writes down every word that's said to him and he looks through it all later. I think it's boring."
"I don't know." Tatsu mused "I think it's a pretty good way to make sure he doesn't miss anything."
"W-w-well yes, of course, I mean I never said it was stupid of him, I just mean I" Erisa blushed and looked down at her feet "You must think I'm being so dumb."
"Not at all, you just need to be more confident in yourself, you didn't seem this shy the first time I talked to you."
"Hehe sorry, I try to be more sure of myself, but umm... nevermind, umm there aren't anymore lessons today, and it's only about five o'clock so I-"
"5 O'clock?" Tatsu said "Hey, sorry about this, but I really have to go, I'm supposed to be somewhere today." He ran off waving goodbye."
"-was wondering if you would like to hang out with me or something..." Erisa finished quietly. She sighed and began walking slowly back to her room.