Seattle, Mercer Island

Tesla Academy

The same day

 

Dawn followed Elissa, but to keep up with her she had to boost her body with her mana. The redhead kept up with the superhumans’ rhythm, Dawn didn’t understand how she could do that. Elissa turned and looked at her, stopped and caught her arm and made her walk faster. Arm in arm, the girls followed the group to a platform that Elissa was vaguely familiar with. It looked like one of those transporter platforms they used to teleport people in science fiction TV shows.

“Come on kids, get up on the platform.” Mr. Vinson ordered while making signs to come on it with his hands.

“Urgh, my sister wasn’t lying when she said there were teleporters.” A black girl with a bob cut and short pink dress with thigh high boots said out loud.

“That’s totes cool!” A bubbly girl with a blue petticoat and a white cardigan and top shouted.

“Where are we going?” A black boy in a red polo and black pants asked.

“Maybe some kind of test facility.” A black boy said, he had a trendy leather jack, a t-shirt with a band name and tight jeans on.

The girls orbited around the last guy as if they smelled prey and the black boy kept looking at Elissa from time to time, clearly interested. That didn’t fly well with the other girls who kept trying to draw his attention. Dawn stayed near Elissa watching them building up the drama, this was why she didn’t like to show her looks. Drama seemed to be a curse attaching itself to the beautiful and powerful. However, it didn’t seem like her companion liked to play those games as she ignored the boys and girls here.

Elissa put a foot on the platform and Dawn followed her example, they were the last to climb on the platform. The examiner nodded and held his right arm under his face and pushed a button on his wristwatch.

“Examiner Vinson, full group teleportation to location Zeta Zeta Zulu.”

Acknowledged. An electronic voice said.

Light shone around each of them and enveloped them; to Elissa, it felt as if she was ripped to pieces and then put back together. She looked at her hands and patted herself to make sure there was nothing amiss, fortunately, she was whole.

“I hate this mode of travel,” Elissa said.

“Me too,” Dawn answered at her side.

Dawn felt nauseous, Elissa took pity on her and placed a healing hand between her shoulder blades. Dawn didn’t feel like puking any more. She looked at Elissa in wonder, that girl was really gifted no wonder she was the daughter of a powerful sorceress. Elissa could heal too! Dawn freaked out, she hoped that no other Mage lines learned of her, or they might do something rash like kidnap her or force her to marry.

*Wait! Calm down she's got a scary mom.* Dawn told herself.

Elissa didn’t think about her display of power, she looked around her. They were inside some woods with a good deal of snow, Elissa smiled at that, this was totally giving her the home court advantage. The girls and boys around her began to feel the cold around them, it was different for her because she was immune to it. Elissa looked down and at their feet were big metal boxes, enough for everyone.

*Big boxes with supplies in them?* Elissa tilted her head, then a light went on in her head.

“Oh, I see what’s coming.” Elissa said with a smile on her beautiful face.

“What’s coming?” Dawn asked mystified by Elissa’s smile.

“Very well, we are here now recruits.” Mr. Vinson said, he looked at each of them appreciatively. “We are going into it now. See those big steel boxes there? Open them.”

Elissa went toward one and knelt to open the lock. Inside there were clothes like the ones Mr. Vinson was wearing, some kind of armor, a backpack with food and water inside; and some fancy gadgets. A wristwatch to be precise.

“Those are yours. Let me explain how the CLO works if you don’t know what I am talking about, it’s the wristwatch in the box.” He showed the CLO on his wrist. “CLO stands for Communicator, Locator, and Organizer, it manages every part of your life, even links your bank account to things you can buy in the Academy city. We don’t let people carry cash here.”

Dawn looked at the wristwatch in her hand and put in on her arm.

Scanning.

DNA extraction. “Ouch!” Dawn felt a sting on her arm.

CLO bonded to Dawn Kisaragi.

“Huh, what does that mean?” Dawn wasn’t a sci-fi geek, but a magic one. She was technologically blind for things more complicated than a laptop.

“It means, Miss Kisaragi that this CLO belongs to you and you alone no one can steal it.” Mr. Vinson helpfully informed everyone.

“Oh, nice gadget.” The short bob-haired African American girl said.

“Now you have twenty minutes to don the clothes and gear, place your own effects inside; everything will be given back to you when the test is completed tomorrow night, chop chop!” A hologram timer appeared from Mr. Vinson's CLO.

Elissa began to take off her jacket, Dawn looked at her in horror and the boys began to look at her with interest. Dawn threw an opaque shield of Mana around her and Elissa in haste and looked at her as if she was crazy. “Why did you…”

“Dawn, did you see anywhere to go change?” Elissa asked while taking off her pants and folding them, she then took off her precious jewelry but didn’t take off her magical amulet with a protection ward engraved on it, nor the magical GPS bangle at her wrist -She can’t remove it anyway- her mana capacity boosting Sapphire rings stayed on her fingers.

“Huh… no.” Dawn hesitated.

Elissa put on the blue pants, the t-shirt, and the jacket.

“This is not going to be an easy exam, begin to undress. Now. We only have twenty minutes!” Elissa ordered her on a hurrying tone.

Dawn looked at her new friend’s body, her face reddened then began to undress too. Elissa took off her boots and shod the ones from the steel box on her feet, once done she put everything in the box. Elissa  donned the armor, they were tight fitting and seemed to have some kind of tech in them. Elissa looked at Dawn who had a bit of trouble putting on her armor; she went to help her. Dawn appreciated it, the two of them put on their backpacks and were ready after putting their field cap on.

“You really look cute in this.” Elissa whistled at Dawn.

“And you look like Sarah Connor from Terminator.” Dawn giggled.

Dawn made the shield disappear, the other girls looked at them with hostility while putting on their field uniforms in the full view of the boys. Some drooled looking openly at the half-naked female examinees, others didn’t care and were already in their outfit. On the hologram, ten minutes had already passed.

“Sorry girls, I forgot about you.’ Dawn looked at them a bit embarrassed.

“You could have shielded us!”

“Yeah, yeah. Those pigs can’t stop looking at us.”

Elissa made a move of her hand and an opaque shield surrounded the other girls. This time two of the boys looked at Dawn and her with anger in their eyes.

“What are you looking at?” Elissa confronted one of the black boys.

“You fuckin’ dyke…” The guy said.

Everyone went silent when he said that, even Mr. Vinson

“Excuse me?” Elissa went still, her fury rising.

“Ya heard me little dyke, were ya busy with your girlfriend behind that screen of yours, must ya sour tah show for us, bros?” The boy added fuel to the fire.

The atmosphere around Elissa became rapidly frigid, Dawn stepped back from her side. She lamented that Elissa seemed to be one of those girls that exploded coldly when enraged. Dawn would have blasted the boy into the ocean to be fed to sharks if he had told her that.

“Who might you be? You sound like one of those retarded wannabe villain rappers I hear on the radio.” Elissa calmed down, not wanting to transform this stupid boy into a popsicle. Not yet, anyway.

“I am YourOtherDaddy.” The black boy said proudly, leering at Elissa.

He was attractive, with his black eyes, caramel-like skin and short dreadlocks. But to Elissa, he looked more thuggish and it displeased her.

“I am not calling you that,” Elissa said with disgust in her voice, it sounded really stupid; she will just call him YOD. “Mister Vinson, do we have permission to go all out with our abilities?”

“Yes, the goal of this exam is to see how far you can go with your powers, smarts, teamwork, and ingenuity.”

“What if someone gets wounded?” Elissa glared at YOD.

“The sensors in the armor will activate an electronic tag and signal to the teleporting examiner -me- to bring the victim to the hospital of the Academy. Oh yeah, I forgot, in the armor, there is a shield that will deploy if your life is in danger, but only three times. When there is no juice in the armor anymore the tag will activate and I will bring you out of the testing area. Let me get this straight, you are all joining, this is not an elimination competition, but a placement one. The team that becomes first will be placed in the special class, get privileges, a luxury room and money to spend for customized gears.”

The shielded girls sounded really excited, Elissa could see them through her own shield already scheming, calculating. The real problem became the boy Elissa antagonized. “Bitch, are you threatening me?” YOD said coming at her and stopping just to be face to face with Elissa.

“In your own language, ape, prepare the lube because when it all begins I will have yo ass.” A cold blue light surrounded Elissa’s left fist.

“Ooooh!” The other black guy gushed.

“BURN!” YOD’s other friend shouted.

YOD seemed to get embarrassed, his face became darker. The young man turned toward them, glared and was about to say something when the girls exited the opaque shield; they were all decked in their gears and looked predatorily at the boys. Some of them looked at Elissa and Dawn with a speculative look. Suddenly, constructs appeared in Elissa’s field of vision.

*Holograms?*

The name of everyone there appeared in this kind of overlay, she wasn’t the only one surprised as everyone reacted to this. The examiner looked at them as if he expected it and the small smile on his face showed that he had been waiting to see their shocked faces.

“As you may have just noticed, the CLO has allowed you to use this Augmented Reality feature. It has injected you with nanites that permit you to recognize other CLO users or any computer systems used by the Tesla Academy. Courtesy of the school, this a freebie that the school has given you. If your CLO gets destroyed or lost you’ll need 10 000 credits to replace it. Oh yeah I forgot to mention credits, didn’t I? It’s not relevant as of yet, you’ll be told in the orientation course when the exam is done.” Mr. Vinson was a really laid back person.

Everyone looked at each other to discover their identity, Elissa looked at the girls too. Danny Sparks was the name of the blonde queen bee, her powers weren’t listed but, her age of 17 and sex being female, were. The two girls at her side are Erika Harmon and Carolyn Pierce. Blonde and blue-eyed like Danny, they seemed to be clones of each other.

*Did they transfer to Tesla together?* Elissa pondered silently to herself.

Jamie Fox and Emilia Dor were the two African American girls that she noticed earlier, they seemed not to be part of the group of girls and kept to themselves. Those two seemed to be together and to know each other. Emilia was staring at Elissa and seemed afraid of her as if she was a monster to avoid. The young black girl hid behind her friend that tried to reassure her and calm her down. YOD’s real name was Walter Jackson, and it made Elissa erupt in laughter, Dawn asked her what made her laugh this much.

“Look at his real name!” Elissa shouted between giggles.

Elissa was kneeling in the snow holding her stomach while laughing looking at the boy that insulted her. No wonder he tried to play the tough guy, he must have been bullied a lot. Was he trying to change personality or something, and play gangsta?

“No wonder he changed his name, I never saw a name more… butlerish?” Dawn put a hand over her mouth, but the twinkling of her laugh came through.

Because of Elissa and Dawn, everyone looked at the self-proclaimed YourOtherDaddy. No one could say it straight while looking at him. Some of the girls followed suit and laughed at him. Some of the guys, Donovan Sims, and Cody Elliott, YOD's friends restrained themselves; the Caucasian guy Wayne Griffin stayed his stoic self and didn’t try to mingle.

“Bitch, I will take you out!” YOD said, seething with anger.

He couldn’t believe it, he invented himself anew after his trigger. He was the nerdy kid in his school and everyone ignored him, it never went as far as bullying because his previous school had a really good system to spot those and nip it in the bud. Walter changed, became more muscular and developed super strength and toughness. Everyone began to respect him and the girls wanted him, his brother even inducted him into his gang and he became YourOtherDaddy. He was finally accepted and recognized. But nothing good came of that, he and his friends were all arrested for drug trafficking and as he was super, the Superhuman League gave him a second chance and to enroll at Tesla.

Now, this white hoe was ridiculing him before everyone here. No more, he will make her pay, he will make her his bitch!

“So yeah kids time’s up! The exam begins now!” A pillar of light could be seen on the horizon, spearing the heavens. “Go toward the light. The first team will be rewarded with 10,000 points, the second team with 5000, third team 2500, and last team with 1000 per member.

Elissa looked at the boy she wanted for her team and went toward him. He was the tallest of the lot, 6”2, African American, muscular with kind brown eyes. She caught his arm, he looked at her blushing.

“Come with me Donovan, you’ll be in my team,” Elissa said in a coquettish voice.

She began to caress his forearm, looking at him with her green jewel-like eyes. The boy gulped, closed his eyes and reopened them looking calmer; she wasn’t seducing him or anything but her voice seemed to bring up the more caveman part his brain when he looked at her.

“Y-you sure? I don’t want to be a bother…” Donovan stuttered.

Elissa put her free hand on his cheek then behind his neck and brought his face to her, making him looking into her eyes, and she said into his ear so no one could listen in, “You tried to look away when the girls were changing, you are not a pig like the others.”

The boy then nodded, Elissa rewarded him with her most beautiful smile. Donovan's heart skipped a beat, he didn’t know right then but he fell in love. The other boys dispersed and went to ask the girls if they could enter their groups, some readily accepted and others had to negotiate. Once the teams were formed a loud ring came from their CLO and the electronic voice coming from them seemed to have concluded that they formed parties.

Team one, Dawn Kisaragi, Elissa Von Braun and Donovan Sims.

Team two, Walter Jackson, Danny Sparks, Erika Harmon, and Carolyn Pierce.

Team three, Jamie Fox, Emilia Dor, Cody Elliott and Wayne Griffin.

“Kids, it’s time to go now.” Mr. Vinson said looking at his watch as if he looked at the time.

The examiner was about to teleport when YOD interrupted him and came at him. The boy looked obsessed and too eager, his muscles coiled and seemed threatening.

“Wait! I have some beef to settle with that red bitch! We can fight over people right?!” He shouted.

“Do what you want, I am just the examiner.” Mr. Vinson said, waiting.

“Hehe, I will break you, bitch!” The wannabe gangsta said.

He began cracking his knuckles and his neck. YOD hoped it would make this girl cower before him and abase herself to him, it had worked at his school. He had always got away with things since he triggered. But contrary to his expectation the girl only seemed annoyed, she rolled her eyes at him and looked behind him.

“Sparks, you don’t mind if I erase this stain from your team?” Elissa called out to the blonde queen bee.

Danny Sparks looked at the back of the hulking guy and calculated, he seemed to be difficult to control. She didn’t want him to be honest. “He seems like a loser, sure.” After that display and how he treated all the girls like slabs of meat, Danny didn’t mind if the little cocksucker disappeared.

“Wait, what?!” YOD turned toward the girls of his team in shock.

“You heard the Lady,” Elissa said smiling like a Cheshire cat.

YOD’s face went dark then red like a tomato he turned toward Elissa, seeing red and ready to get it on.

“Come at me bit-” He started saying.

Sure as snow she came, Elissa stomped her right foot; a pillar of ice sprouted from the snow under them at an angle and hit the boy in his stomach, throwing him into the air. OOPH, Elissa heard, when YOD landed on his back spread-eagled. A platform of ice elevated in the form of his body, Elissa controlled the ice and created a crucifix. Thick icy straps secured his neck, waist, legs, and arms. YOD tried to break the ice but each time the fractures in it disappeared. Elissa made a big mound of ice with the crucifix supporting YOD high in the air. The other examinees screamed and looked at the scene in awe, paralyzed by the brutality of it all.

“Release me!!!” The boy shouted in alarm, struggling frantically.

Elissa didn’t waste time talking to him and built a construct of ice that was just a big drill that floated in the air. It started rotating at high speed, Elissa threw it toward the young man. YOD couldn’t believe what he was seeing and tried frantically to break the thick ice manacles, but it was too late. Fortunately for him, an energy shield deployed from the armor and stopped the ice drill from stabbing him. It broke into shards on the ground. Elissa didn’t stop there, she recycled all the shards and shaped them into little blades twirling on themselves. Danny Sparks looked fascinated by the show, looked at the beautiful redhead and approved. She decided that this girl would really fit in well in her group. That Von Braun girl was ruthless, like her. The girls around her didn’t like that one bit, they knew this light in the eyes of their leader.

Elissa smiled at YOD who looked at her with terror in his eyes, his pants became wet and a yellow like liquid stained the ice beneath him. Elissa really wanted to toss a line at that, but she was raised by a mother that told her monologuing opens yourself up for retaliation. All the blades charged toward YOD again and the second shield break occurred, protecting him from taking damage. Elissa tilted her head, having looked at the way the shield acted she noticed how fast it actually was.

Elissa chanted a buffing spell, boosting her acumen and those of the people in her team. After all her power over ice acted as fast as her will and thoughts. She didn’t want to drag on the show so she simply sent an ice blast that didn’t get stopped by YOD’s armor's energy shield. When the shield activated it was already too late, the ice beam had struck the armor and ice began expanding over it. The armor fizzled and began to crack, the front of it broke in big chunks because of the temperature reaching absolute zero. It had taken time for Elissa to reach such mastery with her power, she had always needed to hold it back and control the intensity of the cold she generated.

Hugh Vinson whistled, he consulted the file on this Elissa girl and his eyes widened in shock. The girl was a superhuman already, Alpha rank and she was also a magic user. That combination was really rare, he knew what he would do when he got back to the center to observe how everything went. But work was work, Elissa has destroyed young Walter's armor. Hugh teleported before Elissa who was about to go beat the kid up. He saw it in her eyes, she wanted to hurt him for some reason.

*Ok not for some reason, the little shit insulted her.*

“Here kid, you should stop now he's had en-”

GURK. URRK. Elissa didn’t need to move to hurt the boy. She simply tightened the straps around YOD's neck. He was already choking, his face turning an interesting shade of blue.

“Girl stop, you will kill him!” Mr. Vinson said with urgency he tried to make her stop by touching her.

Elissa's arm was so cold that it burned Hugh’s hand, he didn’t try to touch her again after that he looked between her and the boy. YOD lost consciousness and Elissa let him fall to the ground from the crucifix.

“My mother told me to let go in this exam, today there will be no stopping me, I won’t retreat and I won’t quit. The next time you try to touch me, you’ll not have need of your hands and will be needing a prosthesis.” Elissa crossed her arms, a defiant gaze on her face. “Don’t get me wrong, if you weren’t an Examiner I wouldn’t have warned you and would have done a lot worse to you.”

Elissa didn’t have to hold back today, she also let the mask of propriety and her ladylike manner go. She let it all go.

Hugh’s face became red, anger boiled in him, but he took the time to calm down and speak jovially with the girl.

“Wow, kid you have a mouth on you…” Hugh couldn’t believe the girl was acting like a bitch already, just because she had a little power; but he saw on her file whose daughter she was. He didn’t try to ‘correct’ her.

When Elissa turned toward the others she could see fear etched on each face she looked at, some others were excited; Danny Sparks and Wayne Griffin looked at her in challenge, the girl with a more playful gaze than the boy. Wayne, couldn’t believe that she was a mage like him… and a powerful one at that. At first, he thought she was just a dabbler because of those mana shields she was throwing around but now… She used an entirely different magical system than him and he won’t lie, it was a diabolically effective one. If he wanted to defeat her, he would need guile, not firepower, he put his hands in his pocket and tried to look nonchalant and totally not threatening. At least not yet.

Elissa held her hands together, closed her eyes and a block of ice formed before her. It was a large block approximately five meters long and 1 and a half wide. Elissa was molding it to her will and it vaguely took on the form of a snow sled. She added some wind magic in her ice construct and wove a permafrost spell in the ice. It won’t melt unless she wills it.

“Donovan, Dawn, hop on.”

The two looked at each other, letting go of their fear. The girl was scary but she has been nothing but kind towards them. Dawn hopped on first, Donovan last he was at the front. Elissa put herself in the position of the driver, looked at the others and waved.

“Later, guys.” The snow sled hovered over the snow and moved to gain more and more speed.

Elissa’s team was far away when Hugh Vinson and the rest of the examinees sighed in relief at her departure. Danny was a bit sad that her future recruit didn’t give them a lift, but she understood that it was a competition. The Examiner went to collect the KOed boy and teleported to the center, Hugh thought that the girl went too far, but he wasn’t keen on trying to lose his job.

Team two and three began to run, following the trail Elissa has taken. Danny Sparks began to run at a fast speed followed by her minions. Jamie, the leader, spoke to her friend Emilia about Elissa.

“How powerful is she?” Emilia asked a bit disturbed by what happened.

Jamie sighed heavily and slowed her walking pace. “More than all of us on this team combined. She felt like my father, you know he is Alpha ranked.”

“Shit.” Cody who heard that swore. He was a Beta ranked super and just the strongman type like Walter. In a sense, he was relieved to not have antagonized the girl as YOD had. He had known the little guy since he was in kindergarten, but since he triggered and became YourOtherDaddy, he became douchier and douchier. Now he had paid for it. This wasn’t Northgate Seattle, here were the big leagues on Mercer Island.

“That’s not all, she has multiple abilities but I have no way to know which ones, they feel like nothing my sensor power has detected before.”

“Double damn,” Emilia said, clearly shocked.

“I felt her power. She’s like me, a mage.” Wayne added. “And that makes her terribly versatile, she can weave spells like I’ve never seen before. She’s got that Japanese girl with her too, she uses magic.”

“They took Donovan with them, we are fucked if we attack them directly,” Cody informed them.

“What do you mean?” Jamie asked surprised.

Cody’s face took on a solemn mien, he began to talk as if he spoke about a ghost story. “We nicknamed Donovan ‘Titan’ when we were in school, he triggered before Walter and I. He was the kind to never mingle and studied to get a job… but one day those guys went after him to induct him into their gang. He half killed them even when they attacked with all their superpowers, he was basically unstoppable!” Cody said clearly frightened.

Jamie groaned and began to run faster than before, but she ranted at the same time. “How worse can it get? That is kinetic absorption! That girl Elissa just picked him like that without knowing?!” She guessed the superpower of that Donovan guy, she had felt that he was strong but not that much!

Jamie’s power was that of a sensor; an ability to divine the power level of a person or a group, the nature of the power could also be guessed if the user had encountered it previously. Emilia had made Jamie the leader of this group because she could make plans and strategies.

“Guys, I don’t think we can beat Elissa’s team. Let’s try for the second position. If we get attacked by the second team we defend and flee. The objective is to arrive at the area where the light comes from before nightfall tomorrow.” Jamie said.

They all nodded at that, but Wayne thought that if he gets the chance he will try to fight with that Elissa girl. To see if he could pick up some magic spells from her or get to know her, he hoped she was from a long-lived magical line like him. The boy put all his Mana into a reinforcement magic spell and followed his teammates, the snow barely stopping them from going faster.