The night was a mix of Aura control practice and revising the textbook Jacq gave me. Edward’s power was useful, but having to loop aura took far too much concentration. I had to actively look inside at my centre; both Auras were almost reacting with each other as they blended and separated in my centre simultaneously. It was slightly hypnotising to watch like a lava lamp, which would have been useful for actual meditation but not for aura control. The combination was more than the sum of its parts, and while it gave me a huge pool of aura, the con was that it was at the cost of less control. It’s easier to control the flow of a pool than a lake.

I managed to get through about a third of the behemoth of a textbook. Luckily, a large chunk of it was illustrations of different Shades, how each type typically changed if it went up the rankings, and notes on practically rare variants.

Each logged Shade had its own special combat procedure, which listed recommended Mythic types and skill levels, special annoying traits of that Shade and recommended containment and escape routes of particularly brutal types, which typically invoked alternative attacks such as creating a zone of non-emotion or using disease to convert organic matter to attack.

By the time that morning arrived my brain felt overworked from splitting my attention and from reading all the info, who knew taking notes was so taxing. Unfortunately for me, coffee was still banned, so I needed an alternative to caffeine to wake me up. However, the evil grin Matthew gave after I asked him to wake me up probably should have warned me not to say yes when he asked to confirm whether or not I was sure I wanted his help.

After swapping out of my now cold, drenched clothes, I did feel more awake, but definitely would prefer an alternative next time.

“One method I’d been recommended, mostly from Keter, is to try looping aura to your brain. Though there are some side effects if done wrong, and it’s very easy to mess it up.” Edward unhelpfully recommended, “A less effective method is to slowly diffuse your aura into your brain like a gas rather than its activated liquid form. I’d ask about that next time; Keter does try most things so as not to have to sleep.” Gassiest aura was a step above what I’m currently able to do, but it might be a useful idea later.

From what Keter had told me about aura, the general gist was that for unawakened people, the aura was solid but leaked as it was used as it isn’t pulled back to their core, whereas for awakened people, their aura is liquid, so it is pulled back, to the core after use. With higher control can cause it to become gaseous, which has the lowest amount of leakage.

My team and I went down to get food with Oliver leading, as he seemed to be the most directionally competent. Alex was keeping track of the time as we had early morning classes with Miss Smallwood, and it took about ten minutes to get to where she taught her wilderness survival class (technically, it would take me a lot less time if I ran, but you know, my team is heavy).

I had a loaf of bread and breakfast tea (Edward said that tea had an acceptable level of caffeine), and the rest of my team had regular meals, except Alex, who, apparently, drank that coffee sludge regularly.

“So…” I asked after finishing my loaf, “What are your guy’s actual powers? Because I don’t actually think I’ve asked.” I felt slightly awkward as I felt as though I should have known this earlier. “’cause I know the basics like Mathew does glowy symbols and stuff happens, Alex does things with tech and Oliver… does something with arrows?”

“I’m a technopath, which means I can control technology, and Oliver hasn’t actually been fully awakened yet, but based on his eyes, it’s likely it will be linked with teleportation, based on what records we have,” Alex replied, as the rest of the team had to finish their food before they could answer. “His Aura is unlocked, but his power needs a catalyst.”

“Those glowy symbols are known as runes, as I’m a rune mage.” Mathew paused as though this should be answer enough, I motioned him to continue which he did with a sigh, “Which means I can write things known as spells with my aura. The database is quite sparse when it comes to examples of the spells, though, so I either must stick with what I have or try and find some more through experiments.”

“Neat, from what I can tell, mine makes me part lightning, which makes me fast,” I say, noting that Mathew finds me calling his runes’ glowy symbols’ annoying and to remember to do so more in the future.

“Based on what I’ve seen of your power, I think your aura converts your matter into kinetic energy, which makes you far lighter and able to move at such high speed. If you want to be more precise, that is.” Edward corrected me.

“So, what you could say is, my power makes me part lightning.”

“Sure, if that’s easier to understand for you.”

“I’ll ignore that implied insult to my intelligence.” I switched topics as the power talk is probably better visually seen than just using words. “Anyway, Alex, how are we doing for time?”

“We have fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds left, so we probably need to speed up a bit,” Alex replied precisely like he was reading off a digital watch, which likely wasn’t too far off from reality.

We finished up our food and headed to class, which Alex had helped us prepare for this time by printing off some of Miss Smallwood’s online notes of the database, which I wasn’t aware were available. Not that I looked. Plus, they had pictures! Which would make the game of spot the difference that was foraging far easier than it was in the previous lesson.

We arrived around the same time as the Legends, which in seeing them reminded me that we still hadn’t changed our group name from throw up noise.

“Hey, have any of you come up with a better team name in the last couple of days?”

Mathew started, “What about team Blackout, for obvious reasons? “A slight glean appeared in his eye as he clearly thought of a better name: “Or the Babydoors, as we’re so difficult to get through.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Hey! It wasn’t my fault it wouldn’t budge, blame the manufactures! Does anyone have any better suggestions?”

Oliver looked over, “What about the Spotters? As we have a lot of powers that would be good at supporting, or maybe the Unstopables, as we’re difficult to stop once our Legacies start.”

“Huh, I like your second suggestion.” I gave a slight pause as Miss Smallwood clapped once to get everyone’s attention, “We can think more about it later, though.”

“Right, you lot! Today’s lesson, we’re going to focus more on emotional invisibility as it’s the more important of the two halves of my course,” She began, placing down a travel bag, which clinked as it moved, Alex sighed as he put away the notes we no longer needed, “Foraging is more preparing you for when missions go wrong and you don’t have food, though it is fun. Plus, I recently got a delivery of these buggers.”

She opened the bag to reveal it was full of small glass jars, each containing a small black insect.

“These are known as Infestations, and they’ll be our visual aid.” Each of the small Shades were crawling around their enclosure, their slightly shiny shells reflecting the light slightly though they were too small to see much detail at the distance I was, “Like all Shades, they are attracted to negative emotions, just these little lads fly right at the source, making a slight buzzing sound. Typically, you’ll see a whole load of them as they swarm out the brood mother. They like crawling into every orifice you have, making them one of the worst ones to see the aftereffects of, so hope someone else is called up instead of you.” You could tell from her facial expression she had seen what happened, but there was no reaction from the Infestations. “They’re a right sod to deal with but useful for this. Grab one and pass it around.”

Once the bag was passed to me, I got a better look at the Infestation. It was a creepy little thing with beady red eyes, a shiny long shell, a long needle-like mouth, and a mosquito-like mouth. Its front legs were long and thin, but its back legs were short and thick, like a locus.

Once each student had a jar, Miss Smallwood placed the bag to the side. “Oh, and before we begin,” she started flatly in a monotone voice. “I’ve been told I must warn students before I try to cause the emotions that you must cover. I’ve done a little research on each of you since the last lesson, but I’ll start off easy.”

“Just concentrate on your meditation and how our aura flows, and you’ll be fine.” Edward reassured, “It’s not about not feeling emotion; it’s about acknowledging it and moving past it. Don’t let it linger. As long as you let the feeling pass after acknowledging it, they won’t react.”

What followed was an almost elimination-like game with images of different shades and creepy music, which was easy to ignore, followed by general images of a ghost village after being devastated by an attack. All the Infestations were calm until Miss Smallwood revealed that the devastation was preventable, and only due to the political negligence of the village leader pocketing the defence funds was the village put at risk. Disgust and anger eliminated a few students, including Cassie, buzzing sounding from their jars.

This went on with more and more students failing and reacting negatively, causing the Infestations to sound until it became personal. Oliver and Alex were eliminated with evidence of one of Light Industries suppliers’ use of horrible working conditions in Drakonsbane, with the crystal miners not being supplied with proper equipment or living areas.

It was a low blow that got me. It was a picture of Mum in remembrance.

Mathew won, if you could call it that, you could see that Miss Smallwood gained no pleasure in what accounted for practically emotional torture. All those who were in the lesson were given a small reprieve in the form of dessert items and other things to help them come back to a better emotional level, with some of the students who lasted longer talking to some of the staff from the mental health side of the medic area. I declined their offer to talk about it as I had already talked about those feelings enough times.

Most seemed emotionally drained by the experience, but had a determined look to become better as it was a necessary evil, as in a real life situation an emotional flare up may be the difference between surviving and being overwhelmed.

All the Infestation jars were collected, counted and put back into the bag. Miss Smallwood stood in front of the class and waited for the sound to die down.

“Well done. All I have to say is well done, most years I don’t have to go that far. While I don’t envy you having to go through that, you should be proud of yourselves with the control you have. Next lesson we will have a more natural survival focus, and you’ll be glad to hear that you have the rest of today to recover.” Relief appeared on the faces of the students. “Only some of you need to learn slightly better control, and even then, some situations and fighting styles do require you to purposefully spike your emotion to draw a shade’s attention off of someone else.”

As the lesson ended, the team and I caught up with the Legends.

“Hey, guys.” I started, slightly interrupting Cassie’s rant to Star, “I was wondering whether you could help us with our name situation to help keep our minds off the lesson”

Star looked over, “What names are currently on the table?”

“So far, we only have two, those being the Unstopables and the Spotters.”

“Actually,” Mathew interjected, “We have two other suggestions I gave.”

“So far, we only have two actual suggestions.”

Cassie smirked, “What? Is team ‘Dry Gag’ too good for you?”

“What do you think?” I replied sarcastically, glad that my distraction was somewhat working, if only at my own expense.

“I think I could think of a few more options for you. What about team Sleep?”

“Matt already made a joke about how I keep blacking out.”

“Ah, really? Ok, what about… uh… yeah, I’ve got nothing.”

“What about Bright Sparks?” Emily chimed in, “’Cause of your lighting and half your team’s association with Light Industries.”

“Yeah, that is a good suggestion,” I turned my thoughts to Edward, “What do you think?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Those are alright.” Edward replied, sounding distracted.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just keep getting the feeling I’m being watched, and every time I look, it’s like my thoughts feel like a dream for a couple of seconds, like there should be thoughts, but they’re not.” He sounded unsure. “It’s probably nothing to worry about.”

I looked in the direction of where he seemed to have been looking.

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