“You uhh… are just going to show off your Identity?” I asked, a bit flabbergasted.

She laughed. For an alpha she was relatively plain, meaning she was absolutely gorgeous but wouldn’t be out of place at a Hollywood Gala, unlike many who could have given Medusa or Helen of Troy a run for their money. Dark chocolate latte skin, a broad but not unattractive nose, large but delicate lips, and an almost seventies-style puffed afro that she carefully fluffed out from being compressed under her mask. I could see her playing the cute younger sister or beautiful but wise protagonist’s best friend in almost any rom-com.

“Nope. My name is Rendition for a reason. My power, or curse, is a constantly changing appearance and the ability to seem normal and unnoticeable almost anywhere. It applies on many levels, but when I teach classes I find it is better to remain recognizable by wearing a mask that people associate with their teacher. Race, hair, face, eyes, every morning I look different, although my body tends to stay the same. I hate it when I have an afro, though, because the sheer bulk tends to make my mask uncomfortable.”

I nodded, “So what was it you wanted to talk about?”

She smiled, showing off dazzling teeth. “I think I could ask you the same question. You passed me a note, I almost expected it to say, “Do you like me?” with a pair of check-boxes for a yes or no answer. But I do want to talk to you about your answer.”

I nodded, “You first.”

“Your answer was utterly correct, but for the wrong class.”

“Huh?”

She nodded slowly, digging around in a small purse and pulling out a fluffing pick to get her hair into better order. “You were right. But situational analysis is taught in leadership two, usually for third-year students as part of the tactical chain. Leadership One is mostly for people who will be joining either the monster hunters or a team. Mostly it involves learning to make decisions after you have gotten orders from others that will save face if you are questioned and making on-the-fly decisions that won’t get you hounded as a supervillain. I take it you are one of the alpha students?”

I nodded, “Yeah, but I can’t tell you who.”

She laughed, “Obviously, but who you are is pretty clear even without your armor the moment someone figures out you know a lot more than other students. You might want to watch that since the list of first-year male alphas is pretty short. There are three of you, one of them is Pitbull, who is unmistakable whether he wears a costume or not, and Redshift has a very distinct speedster build.”

I nodded, “So do you. I take it your second power is speedster?”

She nodded, “Tell me how you figured that out.”

I sighed, “Well, your build for one, although that wasn’t a surefire thing, you might just be a light that enjoys wearing clingy contraweave that lets everyone know when it’s cold outside, but most people who pay for that level of protection need it for something like dealing with the side effects of extreme speed. If you were a brick, you’d be wearing reinforced Proxovan, and a pure stealth specialist would have been unlikely to bother with a costume at all.”

I shrugged, “I also caught it the last few days when you left the class at a sprint. I mean, I couldn’t actually see when you get moving unless I actively concentrate, but I could see you turn and brace to run.”

“Enhanced perception?”

I nodded, “Although you seem to be able to shrug it off. To be fair, I am just getting that you are human, but even pure unawakened humans have an inactive energy system. From you, I got nothing. Ironically, it’s as clear a marker as wearing a bright green nametag that says “Hi! My name is Rendition!” even if your appearance changes, because I have never seen anyone that does that before.”

She laughed, “I see. Most enhanced perception alphas still just see whatever they think is appropriate due to my affinity. I’ll have to remember that. Too bad you are a student.”

“Why is that?”

She shrugged, “Do you know how interesting it is for someone whom nobody ever recognizes to deal with someone who always can see me for me? It’s like a telepath meeting someone immune to telepathy. But teachers don’t date students.”

I sighed. “And do I have to tell you how utterly exhausting it is to be one of the few guys in a school full of the most attractive girls on Earth, and to have every single one of them, even the teachers, look at me like I am made out of chocolate ice cream?

She laughed brightly, “Such a terrible and inhumane fate. Most guys would look at it as an opportunity to either have unlimited variety or to keep a stable of ready-to-ride girlfriends.”

I nodded, “Sure. But I am not some guy right out of high school. I almost got married, once. Keeping even one girlfriend happy is a twenty-four-seven job. Add in jealousy and the fact that I am possessive as hell and won’t share, no thank you. I think I found Miss right, and would rather not lose her because I can’t walk past a buffet without filling up a plate.”

She nodded, “I totally understand. It’s actually refreshing, even if I feel like I missed an opportunity. Still, things change. Has Manny given you his “You don’t belong here” speech yet?”

I snorted, “Yeah, good call. Right before this class.”

She chuckled quietly. “He doesn’t usually know how to phrase it, since he’s a nerd through and through. Your background implies that there is not much that the academy can offer you… what you have learned already is staggering, but Kellar is designed to turn idiots with too much power into idiots that won’t wind up on the front-page news for doing something stupid, or even worse, in The Keep or the morgue.”

I chuckled, “Yeah, I get the point. There are only a few classes that are worth taking, at least for me. What do you recommend?”

She looked at me carefully, “Teaching assistant.”

“You mean, like grading papers, putting away lab equipment and stuff?”

She shook her head, “No, here that’s a teacher’s aide. A Teaching Assistant is a specialist with useful knowledge that nonetheless is also taking classes at the school. You draw a salary, which can be applied to your tuition or used to pay off your grant, and are considered both student and staff.”

“It reduces your available class hours, but you test out of general path electives. The advantage is that when you graduate you have both a full academy certification and specialized training credentials. Both of those are useful for smoothing the way with brass, taking on leadership positions in the military or monster hunters, and if you decide to join a team, it cuts down on the amount of crap you take from the organizations that sponsor the teams and the ass-kissing you have to do,” she said.

“Will it help me start a specialty team? I know that private teams trying to go public often take a huge amount of flack before they can get added to the BSA response network or military call order. I have an idea for a private team and can afford to fund it so I don’t need to be to an existing network, but private teams, especially with corporate backing, are often looked at as barely better than Farm Family raid teams. I could also use the authority to kick some of the farm teams into gear.”

She nodded, “Kellar academy graduate and Kellar-certified trainer? Yeah. It even comes with a beautiful plaque to put on your desk if you need that. Sometimes someone comes in who has spent a few years in a team or as a solo, or even as a pardoned villain or vigilante. They don’t need much except some certifications to clear up the red tape for joining a team or working their own corporate angle. Something that tells the BSA, feds, and military that this girl knows how to play ball, and is trained not to start problems we can’t handle even if they were a problem before they cleaned up.” She looked at me for a second, “or guy.”

I snorted, “Why is it that a few teachers seem to know way more than they should? I take it you are thinking about my prior career as a professional entertainer?”

She smiled, “It’s a Kellar thing and one of the reasons that it’s such a prestigious academy. Kellar graduates are the ultimate proof that people have cleaned up their act. Hell, even Graviton came through here and got certified, and he went from BSA most wanted to first-class asset.”

I nodded, Graviton was a first-class something that started like an asset but had a different second syllable. He was also a decent Senpai who had helped me out enormously, and I remembered he had spent time as Jupiter, leader of the Olympians team. In fact, I’d be training with him in a little over an hour. His punishing high-grav training was sheer pain, but it had helped define my already purity-hardened body and improved my endurance and durability, and because of it I had a six-pack you could bounce a tire iron off of.

Abbey was totally legit in not wanting to go all the way yet, but she REALLY liked it when I wandered around without a shirt on, and while I wouldn’t really push her beyond flirting, she had been willing to flash me… which implied that she might also enthusiastically endorse some extra-curricular activities that I had in mind. I wasn’t a virgin, but she was, despite being 29 to my much younger age. Although she didn’t look it, with the right look she could appear anywhere between 16 and 25, easily. Call me a creep if you must, but I really enjoyed both looks, especially when she adopted the older librarian with glasses guise.

I wondered if she would be interested in pretending to be a teacher with a disobedient student. Hmmm…

“Did I lose you?”

I nodded at Rendition. “It’s your own fault, though, I was starting to imagine the girl I like as a teacher with me as that irritating jock type that caught her alone in an empty classroom and decided to show her how I planned to earn lots of extra credit.”

Rendition shivered. “Okay, bad.”

I grinned, “Exactly. So, what would my duties be?”

She took a second to collect herself. I almost felt sorry for her, never being able to have a real long-term relationship because of her power had to suck, but, as I mentioned to the counselor Senpai Bob had recommended, I couldn’t save everyone.

“Mostly you will be assisting teachers who need an extra hand in the classes for the tracks you test as qualified in, a lab advisor, demonstrator, and an occasional temp or sub for those same courses. The Alpha teachers are never sick, but they might miss a day or two due to other reasons, and the baseline teachers have the same problems any baselines have.”

“Demonstrator?”

She nodded, “Someone who demonstrates advanced techniques, especially in power efficiency, which apparently you have a strong facility in. Sparring partner when you qualify, and, considering your known abilities, standby for classes like advanced tactics and teamwork, where occasional accidents and emergencies might happen.”

“Ahh! Now it comes out! Let me guess. Free healing and helping out the tinkers and widgeteers?”

She nodded, slowly. “Yes. To be honest, just as a full-time emergency standby, the academy would probably offer you a lifetime pension, especially for rank competitions and teamwork training, which can both get pretty nasty. A lot of students get hugely competitive.”

“That reminds me, do I still compete?”

She nodded, “If you want to, your path doesn’t necessarily NEED high competition scores, although rank within the monster hunters themselves is often influenced, if you are planning on running a team, that’s one of the things that city governments and corporations often look at. I think it’s sad that your ability to be considered a competent emergency responder leans so heavily on your ability to beat down a girl in a brawl, but it is what it is. And in your case, taking the lead in tech competence, team competence, gearing, and widgeteering, even if you aren’t a widgeteer, could dramatically help. Especially since the military wants to mark you as a supplier.”

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“Huh? How’s that work?”

She smiled a little, “You get hints when you are a stealth operator. Back before the crash, the GAO used to go with the lowest bidder, but that led to situations where the declared cost of equipment was sold at below-market and profit rates in order to secure bids. Bribery and corruption led to write-ins to defray the losses, like five hundred dollar toilet seats, which left the military with dirt-cheap crap that could barely do what it was designed to do, and office widgets that cost as much as the income of a small country without even being gold-plated.”

She continued, “So after the crash, when survival turned into a real fight, they realized that shoddy garbage was too expensive in terms of manpower and other lost expenses, so they went to a ratings-based system. You get ratings for a huge variety of factors, like utility, victory, performance, and even staff competence and training. Low price is still a factor, but the rating system is so strong that even if you produced first-rate gear and charged virtually nothing for it, it could still be replaced by lesser equipment from a better-ranked source that has a harsh price. You might not even make the minimum rating for specialty gear that no one else can produce because it’s not considered mission-critical.”

“Which means?”

“Winning competitions help your ratings. If you make power armor and offer it up for free, the military might consider it a risk and keep running raid defense with gold-plated Kevlar and machine guns because your ratings were not high enough. Over time, your ratings increase if your gear is proven, but a lot of budding tech companies get pushed out because their equipment never even gets to the lines for quality and utility rating gains.”

She smiled, “You want to know how big companies push out competition even for stuff that they can’t sue into oblivion? That’s how. And that’s why we still use old-fashioned heavy AP artillery and refurbished battleships to fight class six Kaiju that they can barely scratch instead of plasma cannons, macro-needle railguns, and gunship drones.”

I nodded, “Right. So I get more time, have to help and gain ratings to be taken seriously. Maybe I should just start selling stuff to Japan.”

She smiled, “You could do that. As a gaijin, it will take a while to get some traction, but their system emphasizes startups by starting with a high baseline ranking and lowering it with trouble calls or failure to make quotas, meet mission-critical goals, or have bad or low maintenance ratings. That’s why, even in the middle of the Pacific, their kill rate against even the highest-ranking Kaiju like class eights is why their country still exists.”

She sighed, “Of course, their system has a lot of trouble spots too. You have to create a lot of prototypes and get their utility independently verified by some extremely expensive rating corporations to determine all the relevant statistics, and those statistics are REALLY important. If you make a cannon that is rated to be solidly effective against up to category three non-fire-resistant Kaiju, and it fails due to something other than poor tactics or gross negligence, you get dinged and the rating companies make you pay for it due to their own lost face.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Oh, we were talking about what you get for being a teaching assistant. Sorry, I got distracted.”

I grinned, “That’s fine. This is important stuff. What if, for example, I created something that the Japanese loved and had solid ratings from them? Would that help get it into production here?”

She nodded, “Absolutely, assuming that it’s not designed specifically for Japanese needs for an island nation. A small Kaiju-hunter sub, for example, is right in the Japanese mission-critical lists, but here? Alphas can do a better job except when they can’t, and when they can’t, a small class-four killing sub is nothing more than a speed bump. We have a lot higher population and a lot more alphas, which changes the numbers game… The irony is that even though they get hit more often by higher-class Kaiju, they have a lot higher defense ratio even without as many alphas. Their tech is sorta sick.”

“You’ve been to Japan?”

She smiled evilly, “That is need-to-know information and you don’t need to know. Let’s just say that even though my face changes every day, I can influence the direction that change takes, such as race, attractiveness, or having giant eyes and a tiny mouth and looking like something straight out of a hentai cartoon, within the bounds of staying human, mostly.”

I shook my head, “Huh, all that and you still don’t have a long-term boyfriend. I don’t get it.”

She sighed, “Baselines are a lot more strongly affected. If I made myself look like a pinup, and the next day I came back looking like a different pinup, he wouldn’t even remember me. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“Does that mean I can’t heal you? My blueprint requires scanning your genetic structure. I don’t know if that would work close-up, but close to my maximum range, it doesn’t even really return as a human. Or rather, it returns as utterly average human, but missing the stuff that humans can’t see.”

“Like what?”

I shrugged, “Power channels, meridians, essence levels, your preferred essence type. Most humans have a network of power channels. If someone is not awakened, they are dormant, and if they haven’t been cleared, like most alphas, they would look clogged up and incredibly sluggish, but in you, it’s like they never existed in the first place. You don’t have meridians, umm… pools of power that your abilities create in you, or dantians, which are like gates that you use to absorb the power. In most alphas, the gates are closed, because they get their energy from the q-bomb rift instead of it passing through the gates, but they still exist.”

“So, what happens in alphas? And why do you say most of them? This is seriously important information, scientists have been trying to explain alpha powers for a very long time, and most of their explanations are just wild theories.”

I sighed and looked at the time. “Are you sure you want this? Most of this is theories, but it comes from some pretty reliable sources, and a lot of it I have proven or had it proven by others.”

She nodded, “Yes, absolutely. I especially want to know why some alphas have perfect control of their powers, and some powers just seem to run all the time whether you want them to or not.”

I nodded, that would make sense considering her situation. “Okay, It’s sort of like when you try and use VR too much, and your mind stops interpreting your eye signals correctly. Or maybe it’s more like someone is born deaf and never learns to talk. Humans, or at least most of them, have this power network that’s useful for all sorts of cool things, but for the longest time, the power to use it has been so low that they never could even get started.”

“Enter the Q-bombs, and the chaos rift, or rifts. So the Q-bombs go off and blow this hole into another place where essence power abounds. It sort of floods the planet, and a lot of people, in a moment of stress, open up that network and start using the power.” I added.

“The problem is, it’s the wrong sort of power. Or rather, it’s supposed to seep in with all the other powers and get mixed up and sorted out a little by the environment. Like stepping into an environment with lots of nitrous oxide.”

“Well, humans can use that power. Or at least, they can use a tiny bit of it, so it sorta jump-starts their system. Before, they could be trained to open up their gates and absorb it, build it, and clean it up… but these rifts are like solid cocaine. The stress of using it seems to connect people directly to the source of that energy, and so they start sucking it in wholesale, using it to do cool stuff related to what jump-started the process in the first place. Are you following so far?”

She smirked. “I think you have dumbed it down sufficiently,” she said a little sarcastically.

I chuckled, “Right, so, well, that wrong energy still has a little rightness to it, but instead of sucking the energy in and purifying it and using it, well, alphas suck that dirty wrong energy in wholesale, and then just… spit out what they can’t use, which is ninety-nine percent of it, like an oil slick fire.”

“Well, all that extra energy doesn’t really belong here, it hasn’t had a chance to get separated out by the local environment, and turned into all sorts of energy that people should be able to get through their gates in purity, or even drag in and purify themselves. If your perfect energy is based around the ocean, sitting by the ocean would make you pull in a lot better kind for you, and make purifying the other little shreds of non-ocean type energy a whole lot easier.”

“As a result, we have things like hordes of monsters that get warped by that nasty, dirty, mixed-up energy into chaotic amalgamations and chimeras. I imagine if it were fairly normal, we would still get monsters, but it would be things like bears that lived close to a volcano being more in tune with fire energy, or deer that spent all their time in the deep woods becoming more nature attuned. Moreover, some creatures, especially longer-lived ones, would tend to absorb the overloads of that energy, becoming whatever, while most normal animals would just live their lives like normal.”

“I am with you so far, I think. Can you identify what energy is what?” she asked.

I shrugged, “Sort of. There are lots of different types, and to identify them, I need to see them in action, not just floating around before I can reliably figure out what they are in the future. But if I see someone using it the way their body likes it best, it’s not hard to figure out.”

“So it’s back to the most alphas question.”

I nodded, “Right. Well, the humans that can use the energy right, can do awesome stuff like using it to improve their bodies to physical perfection. Alphas get an obvious improvement from the chaos energy, but it’s not even close to their best. They can also learn sort of magic spells to expand their repertoire of abilities, increase their control, or even grow and strengthen the energy that they use. But the nasty energy sort of prevents that… each person has a sort of core, that a friend of mine calls their spirit roots, and the chaotic energy floods it, and their maximum is determined by whatever the roots can handle.”

“But the system is a lot better than that if they are using what they actually need instead. Their body gets stronger, their aging slows, their endurance and durability increase, and more importantly, if they get powerful enough, they are supposed to be able to multiply the power of their root, by increasing the density of the essence that flows through it rather than just running the max amount of weak crap through it.”

“In my case, I never connected to that source. I guess my body was allergic to it or something. Very few other people have as well, but they never knew what they were doing. That’s why I look like I do now because I was able to flow some of what I need through my body. I didn’t even realize what was happening, up until recently, and even when I awakened I was just an average-looking guy that works out. Apparently, it’s made me a bit more than average.”

She smiled, “I have a hard time believing that, since you look a lot like… well, like I think Adonis would look like if he was a real person. Sorry for flirting with you, by the way… I thought you were used to the effect that your appearance, smell, and attitude have on women, but yeah… if you had acted like you were interested, especially after that schoolteacher comment, I’d have found an excuse to play pinball with you in a heartbeat, right here on the table. It’s weird because I am usually more discerning than that, even with the hottest of guys.”

I sighed, “I am slowly getting used to it. It doesn’t help that it also seems to increase your sex drive. I was never like this, flirting with everyone, but now I can’t even look at a reasonably cute girl without wanting to peel her like a banana and find out how she tastes. It’s distracting.”

“So is it possible for others to do it?”

I nodded, “Yes, but the methods I use to jump-start them are damned close to sex, and since I am not going to be a manwhore, I am not very comfortable with it. I am hoping to find a better way, but people who draw energy the natural way seem to help clean up the extra chaos energy floating around. So I need to get as many people doing it the right way as possible, and hopefully close the rift.”

“So I might be able to learn to control my gift?”

I nodded, “Yes, but… I have to be careful. And there’s usually growing pains as your body adapts to using its lungs again, so to speak.”

“I don’t care, would you do it to me?”

I smiled a little, this was a bit surprising. “That’s why I am having trouble. I can’t see that system at all. I used to have to touch people.”

She offered her hand, peeling the glove off. “Touch me then. Or do you need to touch someplace more intimate? That would be fine too.”

I shook my head and took her hand. I might have to take a vacation just to get away from all the innuendo.

Ahh, it WAS her gift concealing her abilities… touch seemed to confirm it. Like me, she had a concentration of movement energy flowing through her body, but I could tell her symbols were very different from mine. She had a concept that was very close to mine and probably part of the same law, but her pool was smaller and her glowing core slightly weaker than Abbey’s. Also, like mine, the edges of her pool were simply edges, unlike the sparkling layer that Abbey had. I would probably have to get just as close to her for her to connect with my pool, but because our concepts were so similar, that should make reaching out easier for her.

“The answer is yes, I could, but it’s time-consuming and I have physical training in a few minutes, so it would have to be later. I also need to mention it to someone if it’s okay… it IS intimate, so intimate that traditionally it used sex to do it, although close physical contact seems to be enough.”

She smiled broadly, “Please do. I have waited this long, I can probably wait a little longer. Now get to class, you need to turn that body even more Adonis-like to lure even more helpless girls with crushes to their inevitable doom. Even if you were full of shit, it would be worth trying just for the chance.”

I nodded, “Oh, one last thing… the swords… please tell me you don’t use them in a fight?”

She laughed and shook her head, “Good lord, no. I have a pair of less elegant ones I use. This is my formal uniform, for attending high-class events and stuff in costume. I don’t even usually wear full contraweave, it’s too…”

“Thin?” I supplied.

She nodded, “Yeah, that. It's too obviously expensive-looking and way too exposing. But here, well, This school is a playground for guys. Compared to most, I am that skinny girl over there, even in uniform.”

I was thoughtful, “Let me guess, if I become a teaching assistant, I am not off-limits anymore?”

She smirked, and then said, with overplayed false innocence, “Oh no! I never even considered that!”