Professor Krom
“What is Rebirth? Rebirth is the process of an esper’s awakening; it is when the brain waves within one’s brain changes frequency at a violent and rapid pace, this change will in turn draw in the surrounding energy into one’s body, which is then absorbed into one’s cells, bonding into their very D.N.A and mutating them. After this process a person has one of few outcomes, they either become brain dead because their brain is not capable of handling the change in their brain wave frequency or more commonly their body explodes and the reason for this would be their cells could not handle the overload of energy and process it properly, or the more rare of the outcomes is they mutate the body. Now this mutation happens in so many various ways that even to this day we with the most advance of technology cannot predict the outcome of the mutations, thus we have categorized them in several different classes, the first class is…”
“Uh Professor Krom, you said that the mutation starts from the changes in the brain’s wave frequency, but what makes the frequency change?”
Came an inquisitive young voice from the front row of the class room interrupting the aged, grey haired, wizen looking professor. Krom while had the face of a wizen old man still carried himself with a particular aura of great knowledge and dignity, his back was always straight no matter if he was walking, standing or sitting, his hair despite being greyed showed no signs of falling from his head like the rest of colleagues of the same age and gender, it was always neatly kept and combed back, while the signs of his 50+ age was shown clearly on his face, it was still what most would refer to as handsome, his body while no one in the university had ever seen it naked, there were rumors that it was still well in shape and the visible signs of his strong frame outlined by his 3 part navy blue suit. Thanks to his looks and demeanor, Professor Krom was quite popular throughout the staff and students of both genders at the university. He was always amiable with everyone, he greeted everyone with a smile and willing to answer every question brought to him no matter if it was about his lectures or something completely different.
He turned his vision towards the Howard, the student that asked the question; although Krom’s class was filled with eager young minds none of them was as eager and curious as Howard. Even though Krom was always happy that the students listened to his lectures with such great enthusiasm and reverence, he was always slightly disappointed that they would rarely question what he said or ask any questions for further clarity so having a student that was always ready with a question at hand made Krom happy, he never mind it when Howard would ask him a question interrupting his lecture, in fact he always looked forward to it.
Looking at Howard, the first thing one would notice was his red gingered curly hair the second thing would be his age. Howard was at the tender age of 13, he had skipped several grades which had placed him in an awkward position, because he was so young everyone would obviously treat him as a child and not one of their peers and that was if they dared to approach him, being known as a genius had made it a bit hard for others to approach him, what made matters worse for young Howard was the simple fact that he was a naturally shy boy, but being at the awkward and tender age of 13 made things even more awkward for him. However, whenever he was in class and asking questions, the natural shyness and awkwardness of his age would disappear and the others could see why he was a genius, asking questions that they never thought of making them see Krom’s lectures from another angle or a different point of view altogether.
“We currently do not know what causes this change, but some have theorized that it could do something with the 20 year war, when the Brain Mind of the Armaton’s was destroyed, it emitted a pulse wave that reverberated throughout the planet, no one knows why it did so but some have guessed that it was a last ditch kamikaze attack, trying to kill as many humans as it possibly could”
Krom answered Howards question with a smile, as he did he looked at his watch to check the time, noticing it was 4:00 pm he decided to end his lecture since the class was supposed to end 5 minutes prior.
“Alright everyone that’s it for today! Remember on Friday is your exam and the following Monday I want you papers at midnight sharp, one minute later and you will lost fifteen percent of your final mark, so with today included you have four days before your exam and seven before your papers are due, make use of every minute, don’t waste a single second…OH yes! Howard can you meet me at my office in ten minutes? There is a matter I wish to discuss with you”
As Krom mentioned having something he wished to talk about with Howard, you could see his eyes brighten a bit. While Krom was always smiling, if someone was extremely observant they would be able to tell that while his face was full of smiles his eyes on the other hand were a bit cold and detached, so his eyes brightening was quite a rare scene indeed, but of course no one noticed it.
“Yes Professor”
Young Howard replied as he neatly packed his books into his bag which was just a bit too big for him, it made for a comical scene too see the small five foot one Howard trotting out the class with his bag, Krom chuckled softly watching the comical scene as Howard left his room, he then sat down into his chair behind his desk and sighed to himself. He silently scanned around the class room, the room was not very big which was why he asked the school dean for this room at the very start of his teaching career, it could only hold thirty students at most, but he liked that, it was easier to teach thirty students than it was to teach a larger student body, the average grade of his students were visibly higher than that of other university professor that had classes which could easily boast of 50+ students, one of the reasons for this was his smaller classes, but he always found it funny that most people thought his student success were due to two factors, his ability to teach and his standards before he accepted a student into his program. The class walls had many posters and diagrams of various things, the human anatomy, the periodic table of elements, diagrams of plants and animals, however, when it came to the diagrams of humans there were always two sets of diagrams, the diagrams of normal humans and that of mutants or Espers as most called them.
Krom had always kept these posters up, using them to illustrate his theories and helping him with his lectures, he also found that having them up not only helped his students understand his lectures but it also had the effect of solidifying the ideas into their heads, making it easier for them to recall the information they needed to know, after all if something was hanging around you for a few hours a day four days out of the seven days in the week then chances are it would be branded into your mind, if you wanted it too or not. He got up from his chair and turned to the white board using the eraser to erase everything from it in a slow circular motion, in truth he was a bit reluctant to do so, as he continued to erase a hint of melancholy could be seen in his eyes, he did not know how many times he had written and thought most of his life’s work in this classroom. He was one of the leading scientist on the research of Esper’s, but then after a certain incident, he decided to retire taking a teaching position, the subject of Esper’s still greatly excited him but he had lost his ambition to further his research, after all, these researches can be quite cruel…even if they were performed on condemned criminals. This teaching position was quiet and peaceful, he had wanted to spend the rest of his days just quietly teaching, passing on his knowledge to the new generation that would eventually replace himself, however, the heavens seemed to have a different plan for him.
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He had originally worked for the world government, the birth of Espers were increasing at an alarming rate which only terrified the governments of the world. Esper’s had superhuman strength and powers, things one would only find in comic books were now becoming a reality, at first it was just petty crimes, but that quickly changed, the biggest incident that alarmed the worlds government was that a terrorist group had invaded and took control of a small country in the middle east, slaughtering thousands that were in their path, they then took to social media proclaiming their powers were a gift from god, that others like them were welcomed to their new holy land so that they could strengthen themselves to carry out gods work by destroying all the none believers and that they would not rest until all the none believers were dead. Of course the governments of the world would not sit by and watch as his words became a reality, they quickly isolated the country, anyone caught sneaking in were deemed a traitor to their respective country and dealt with according to that countries laws, anyone sneaking out were automatically caught and detained, it did not take long before war completely broke out costing the governments of the world quite a bit in terms of casualties, rather than letting the situation grow as they did with Brain Mind of the Armatons, which had led into a 20 year war, the New United Collation of Amerika’s, stated plainly to the rest of the world government’s that they intended to use nuclear weapons, a decision that was not met by any opposition, having just recovered from the 20 year war that had ended just 8 short year’s prior, no one was willing to see the situation repeat itself.
The troops were withdrawn from their posts, the terrorists celebrated in their short lived victory and the nukes were fired. They did not see it coming; they were too drunk on their power and victory. The missile hit them just one hour after the soldiers left. No one survived, nothing was left standing, the land to this day 20 years later cannot be approached, it’s left there serving as a reminder to everyone of what extreme’s the now united worlds governments is willing to go too. Soon after, new laws on Espers were put into place; Esper criminals were given harsher punishment, fair trials were a complete fantasy for any Esper that was put on trial. The ones given death or life sentences were used for research. The research yelled many results, they could now categorize many of the Esper powers, being able to do so they are able to combat them more efficiently, however, what they could not figure out was how to predict which person would awaken to become an Esper, or what type of power they would receive.
Things were peaceful for a time, Esper’s stayed quiet and low key for the most part, they did not have much of a choice, once your identity as a Esper was made known then your life would become extremely miserable, it was as racism against the Armatons all over again, the signs were there but no one did anything about it, the situation was slowly building tension, but no one tried to stop it. Eventually the situation exploded, all it took was one little act of racism, one little straw to break the camel’s back, soon the fighting erupted, Esper’s against normal humans, the police soon responded, arriving at the scene, they shot and killed one Esper, but that enraged two more Esper’s who decided to take a stand, the police not caring killed them at the scene also, eventually the entire city is embroiled in the fighting, one city turned into two, two turned into five.
The government responded with a heavy hand, crushing every Esper in their sites, violent or not, eventually the situation died down and everything became peaceful once again, but anyone that is capable of a simple thought knew that war was on the horizon, all that happened previously thought the Esper’s one thing and that they were not powerful enough yet to contend with the government.
Ever since then Esper related crime was slowly on the increase, however, the amount of Esper’s getting caught was decreasing and what is more fearful for the government is that new Esper’s were being born every day. Knowing they were slowly being put at a disadvantage the government decided to put more importance on the Esper resource project, reinstating Professor Krom into his old position once again.
As Professor Krom finished cleaning the white board, he turned collected his things and headed out the room, once he reached the brown door of the classroom he turned around and took one last glance at the class room engraving every last feature of the room into his memory, the walls covered with diagrams, the rows of chairs that led towards his teaching desk and white board, he sighed softly to himself shaking his head, he did not know if he was going to be able see this old room once again, something that made him a bit saddened, however, he could not deny that somewhere deep down inside himself he was a bit excited to be able to research once again. He turned around placed his hand on the door handle, took in a deep breath as he silently said goodbye to his classroom in his heart, readjusted his mood and then exited the classroom.