I’m Leo Galilei. I’m… your average student. I go to school, work, go home, study then go to sleep. That’s… that’s what I used to do anyway. Now, as I walk towards my school (which also houses my dorm) I’m surrounded by crazy fireballs, frozen lances, poisonous gases, floating books, giant monsters, horrible abominations, duplicating students and even the notorious hurtful words that literally climb out of the mouths of students and slap the faces of others.
Why Dad? Why did you do this to me? I try and silently make my way through the crowd of obnoxiously loud yelling and absolutely terrifying explosions. Back in the lab, if something exploded, that usually means something went wrong. So it should be easy to understand why I’m so tense in this situation. What, with all the constant spouts of flame and death all around me, yeah, that’s cool.
Either way, I try to see the light in the situation. Letting the small things get to you only makes things worse. There is some good after all. My current school is called Academia. That’s what the other kids call it because its full name is some latin garbage that we can’t be bothered to learn. Either way, Academia is most definitely the world’s best school/university/college. Basically, it’s just the best building for education ever built. It was founded by the king after all.
So, now, when I go back home on the holidays, I can brag to my friends back there that I go to a good school. That’s one.
The second is that I can finally get some answers. As well as being the world’s largest and most advanced education center, Academia also spends its massive budget on basically everything else related to learning. Labs and experiments are commenced daily here. That means, if I prove myself, I can get my very own lab and budget to start experimenting. I start to drool at the thought. Oh, the anti-matter theories that I could test.
???: “Watch out!”
I turn around only to see a red-haired girl carrying two bags run right into me, knocking me over. She got up quickly gave a quick apology and left. Then, a few seconds later, some massive bulky dude, wearing only a towel, came running after her, screaming and shouting something about his gym bag.
I’m really trying to weigh my options here. A chance at a life full of wealth, money and knowledge or a normal life without crazy girls who take people’s clothes. When did my life go so wrong? I pick myself up, grab my bag and continue walking toward the school.
I look to the right and see a girl talking to an english-speaking tree. English huh? That’s an old one. I look to the left and see a giant dragon devour a large group of students. If I was a chemist, I probably could have neutralized the stomach acid, unfortunately, I’m not. I continue walking, pretending I saw nothing.
Soon, I start to get close to the entrance of the school, which was completely full of students trying to get in. I don’t have time for this. “Gravitational Field Strength, Target: Leo, Set Amount: 1.6.”
As I say those words, my weight drops by a massive amount (It was a 612% decrease). I feel my body become light, and as I jump off the ground, I feel myself soar, high above the crowd. “Gravitational Field Strength, Target: Leo, Set Amount: 0.2.”
I weigh 150 pounds. I weigh around 3.1 pounds now. With a simple flapping motion using my arms, I feel myself climb higher and higher into the air, the students in the crowd watched as I passed overhead, shocked not that I was flying, but rather, that I was flying without wings.
“Gravitational Field Strength, Target: Leo, Set Amount: 9.8.” Earth’s classic gravity returns and I gracefully land on the academy rooftop. There, I saw a door, typical asian culture. Can’t complain though, it came in handy this time.
I walked over to the door, before five dim-witted punks walked out from behind the concrete staircase. They wore the academy’s uniform, but they were clearly way too disillusioned.
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Goon #1: “Well, well, well. Look what we have here boys! Some freshman kid thinks he can casually float on our turf? I don’t think so.”
The other boys chuckled, I sighed. “Hey, does that door lead down?”
Goon #1: “Well, yeah dumbass. Where else would it go? Your house? *SNORT SNORT*”
Goons: “*SNORT SNORT SNORT*”
Oh god. I don’t think I’ve heard a more disgusting sound in my life. I look at the goons. Their clothes… were slightly dirty and their bodies were covered in dust.
Leo: “Are you… stuck up here?”
The goons stop laughing. Bingo.
Leo: “I can help you get down y’know?”
Goon: “C-Can you really? We’ve been stuck up here for days! The door was locked from the inside. We tried to go down the ladder but that stupid witch cursed the tree in front of the school to toss us back up here if we tried to escape! The teachers haven’t even noticed that we’re missing!”
The goons looked at me with hope in their eyes. I thought these guys were bullies, back in my hometown, people who behaved like this usually weren’t on society’s good side. However, here, it seems that these guys are the ones being bullied.
Leo: “Of course! What, you think I’m going to flay you and feed your bodies to rats and flies just because you offended me? Of course not. Here, lets get you down.”
“Gravitational Field Strength, Target: Goons, Set Amount: 1.6.”
The Goons’ eyes go wide as they feel their weights decrease massively. “I reduced your weight but I’ll need to reduce it some more. Once I finish my phrase, start flapping your arms. It sounds dumb, but it works. Got it?”
The goons nod. Gaining their approval, I say the second phrase ““Gravitational Field Strength, Target: Goons, Set Amount: 0.2.”
The goons start flapping their arms, maybe a bit too vigorously, and start to fly. “HA, HOLY SHIT, I’M FLYING, WITHOUT WINGS! WOAH.”
I smiled as they flew on with joy. As they past the border of the school roof, I heard a violent shaking from behind me. I turned around and saw the massive oak that sat in front of the school start to uproot. A face grew on its trunk and its roots turned into massive legs. I thought giving them flight would be enough.
Sweat trickled down my forehead. I’m getting a real workout today huh? The treant started to follow the goons, who desperately tried to fly away, but it was clear that the treant was going to catch them anyway.
“Gravitational Field Strength, Target: Treant, Set Amount: 19.6.” I gasp as I say the phrase, but almost instantly, the treant starts to crumble under its own weight. Something as big as a tree just has too much weight for it to continue walking around normally. I know it was being supported by another student but not even the gift can stop the laws of physics!
The treant’s mass started to compress quickly and soon, it resembled a ball of aluminum in a hydraulic press. Basically a plant pancake. I looked down to see if anyone had been crushed by the tree. Thankfully, I will not be getting sued today.
“Physics Parameters Reset, Target(s): Pretargets” In the distance, I saw the goons start to fall out of the sky. “Coefficient of Friction, Targets: Goons with Air, Set Amount: 1.0” “Acceleration, Targets: Goons, /\V Amount: -20.0m/s”
I watched as the goons went from free falling to a slow descent. Once they touched the floor, I spoke one final phrase. “Physics Parameters Reset, Target(s): Pretargets”. The goons got back up, back with the normal laws of Physics acting upon them and immediately passed out from stress probably. I wouldn’t know. I’m not a biologist.
When I undid the Physics Parameters, I could feel the strain on my head lessen until it was completely gone. When humans first started using the ability some 100 years ago, no one knew anything about it, the situation hasn’t changed much over the past 100 years.
But we do know two things. The first is that these abilities are all due to a latent energy that was made in the big bang, something comparable to the dark energy theories of the past. The second thing is that these abilities, are somehow related to anti-matter. The thing that confuses scientists today, anti-matter. There should be equal amounts of matter and anti-matter in the universe but there isn’t.
These powers, these gifts hold the clues we need for unlocking the universe’s mysteries. And that’s why I’m here, I’m going to define, propose and validate the first ever anti-matter gift theory.
However that’s a long way from now. Until then, I have to deal with this. I look back at the mass of students who don’t even understand how to use their abilities properly.
God, why did you have to make this so hard?