Disc 5: The Academy's Here! Have a Trained Mind and Body!

When Neoru finally found the strength to open his eyes, it was a new morning. The light of a rising sun - or something of the like - shined through the window of what was apparently his new apartment. He also noticed that he was on top of a cushy mattress, which struck him peculiar due to him not remembering making it to the quarters in the first place, let alone finding a bed to sleep on.

"Yep, crazy bitch got me alright. Jeez..." Neoru complained. Yes, upon inspecting the back of his head, he found a large knot nestled on top, shrunken yet visible if one went out of their way to search for it. After a set of particularly violent thoughts faded from his mind, Neoru immediately shifted into curiosity as he looked around his new HQ. "Ooookaaaay," he slurred as he crawled out of bed, wiping crust from his eyes, "what's this place got for me?"

His feet hitting cold steel aided Neo's slow start-up with a sudden jolt and a quick profanity. "WHAT THE-where the hell'd my shoes gooooo..." he loudly inquired before his eyes glided over the rest of the room. A metallic blue coated the walls, ceiling, and floor, all which emanated a dim blue light. "oooh." The room was a good meter above Neo's head, yet it expanded for several, and adorning its sides were a shelf and a door leading to a smaller room in turn adorned with hangers.

Walking out the room at a breakneck speed through a portal-esque automated door (with which he had more fun than he should've), Neoru was faced with a multitude of sections of his new house including a-

"Holy shit that's a fridge."

...Yeah, the small kitchen was the first and only section which captured Neoru's interest. As he gripped the handle of the refrigerator, he muttered a rapid "please have food" before slowly opening it. His violet eyes lit up with joy as he beheld an array of meals (they all appeared bizarre, but Neoru only saw food) and a drink he held nigh-sacred...

"WATER!" Neoru cried in ecstasy.

He was quick to put entire jug to his mouth and chug away, occasional intervals of savoring the resource included. Time flew by as Neoru guzzled his precious life juice, and by the time he was willing to unhand the jug, the morning had faded and made way for noon. He lie on the ground, erupting in hiccups while planning his next move.

"I go back outside and..."

Premonitions of a yellow-haired psychopath (who could run and punch a dozen times better than he could) kept him to the floor while inspiring a gulp from the boy. Yet still...

"But if I stay in here for the rest'a my life..."

His mind replayed a snippet of the cloaked, lavender-haired and uber-strong swordsman warning him about potential consequences for mooching off free resources. Just the thought of what he could do iced over Neo's blood. Suddenly, getting his ass kicked seemed a lot better than...

He did a needless kick-up, strapped on his shoes, and headed out into the city.

"Errrrr... sir?" Dina cautiously asked as she approached the surreal being, whose 6 eyes immediately darted towards her with visible offense.

"M-MA'AM! I meant ma'am!" Dina hastily attempted to correct herself. The being still looked offended as it let out an agitated groan which you could replicate by turning on a motorcycle's exhaust after covering it with a balloon.

"Oh for fuck's- Look, mate, I'm new here, I just need to know where the damn Academy is. Literally a extended finger will do at this point."

"Hmph! And why should I tell an insensitive moron like you anything?" the being pouted, extending a middle... appendage to Dina. All it had accomplished with this gesture was incurring Dina's wrath, as it found itself suddenly and violently grabbed by its collar.

"Alright you listen here yeah? All I wanted were some fucking directions and here you are acting hard yeah? If you wanna act so fucking hard mate, I'll rip off your fucking tentacles and make you gag on 'em yeah? How 'bout I rip off those mandibles and play Tic-Tac-Toe on ya fucking eyeballs, how'sat sound? Now If you don't wanna end up a fucking stain on the chalk, gimme my fucking directions before I GET PROPER FUCKING CROSS WITH YOU!" With the way her hair stood up, she looked like a punk rock star.

"W-wait! Business District, straight ahead!"

Dina threw the patroller to the ground in a huff before making a break in the Academy's direction. "Could've just led with that, ya shrimp dick prick."

"Wait!"

"Eh?"

The eldritch resident broke down in its version of tears. "My name's STEVE! PLEASE just call me STEVE!"

Dina scoffed. "Wha'kinda name is Steve?"

Steve continued to cry.

"O-R-A-N-what the hell is that-E..."

Neoru analyzed the structure, deciding whether or not this was the place Kaset wanted him to be.

"Oeraineh... doesn't sound right." Neoru sighed. "Close enough, though, so why not?"

Neoru pushed through the door and was instantly dazzled. To put it bluntly, the interior was huge. The ground shined with a marble-esque texture, illuminated by the light let through by the window atop the ceiling, and dozens of varying banners hung from railings. Multiple corridors branched from the main hallway, and in the center was a sigil of a long, horned dragon in the shape of an S, which wrapped around an H and exited out the Center of an O, that covered most of the floor. Said dragon held in its jaws a seven-starred orb.

Neoru whistled in amazement as he checked out the school's layout. Not too long after, he picked up on faint-yet-stern lecturing to his right.

"Guess that's where I'm supposed to be."

After investigating a plethora of deterrents (he raided multiple lockers and ate someone's granola bar on his way) he opened the door to a full class of varied faces, with a tall, green, and antennae-clad man pointing a long, thin stick at a board the size of a house.

"-perties of Katchin will receive extra credit on their..."

The green slug man directed attention to his new arrival, and most of the class followed suit.

Neoru looked back in mild annoyance. "What?"

"Ah, a new recruit! Can you state your name to your new classmates-"

"Neoru," he said as he jumped up the stairs to an empty seat. Frankly, he just wanted to stop being stared at like he was a freak by a bunch of freaks, and hauled tail to the highest row.

"...straight to the point, I like that."

As the lecture continued, Neoru attempted to pay attention to what was being taught. The attempting soon turned to struggling, which gradually turned to indifference. He was about halfway into a daydream when he was bumped by a bushy yellow tail.

"The hell-"

"Hi!"

Neuro was greeted by a boy who looked too damn happy in comparison to the rest of the class. He wore a martial arts gi which donned the marking of a panther, and his head was topped with moppy blonde hair. Most noticeable were his eyes, which were a vibrant emerald that glowed with an uncanny optimism for life.

'I'm Zinco!"

"Cool." Neoru was already annoyed. "Waddaya want?"

"I just wanted to say hi!" Zinco continued.

His voice was girly. Too girly. Neoru squinted a bit to check for any signs of womanhood, only to be greeted by genuine muscle.

"Let's be friends!" Zinco broke Neo's discordant train of thought. The latter looked at Zinco like he was a madman; people who talked and grinned like that usually just wanted to gut you while you slept, take necessitates, and trade them for half a jar of goose shit down the line. Then he thought about how grating his voice was. Needless to say, Neoru wasn't interested.

"No."

Zinco's expression sunk into that of a sulking puppy's in a shelter advertisement.

"Oh. Ok."

That look alone made Neoru reevaluate his decision. Besides, he wasn't made of stone.

"Wait, I mean... yeah, sure!"

("WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?")

(("I'M NEVER GONNA SLEEP RIGHT AGAIN IF I DON'T MAKE THAT FACE DISAPPEAR THIS SECOND, LEAVE ME ALONE!"))

That reestablished Zinco's happy-go-lucky expression. "Yosh!"

Just then, a sudden crash snapped everyone's attention towards the door.

Dina held it open, out of breathe and eyes twitching.

"H...Here!"

Yo! OP here.

No set schedule-having ass, I know. Still, found some inspiration at the library and got back to it. The doc was like a week old in all honesty, and it sucked because it felt like the plot was moving the characters forward and not the other way around. This one seems a whole lot better.

Also, Zinco's been introduced. Yee. He's a half-Saiyan I'm excited to deconstruct and work with in the coming chapters (gonna be a while though) and my intent for him and his eventual team is to bring that OG Dragon Ball feel to this fic. Far too few have that, you know, and it's sad.

But yeah, stay tuned. Hoping I spend 2-3 chapters focusing on the Academy, but I'll be sure to make it a fun read while also letting characters develop from all this. Because after all that comes a small tournament and the first Patrol.

Next up: Neoru sucks at math, Dina sucks a bit less at math, Neoru doesn't suck at math as much as he thought he did. Or maybe that'll be later, and next up's Learning, also people be scary.

See ya.