“Parth Hall. Lost his parents in his awakening unfortunately. His older brother is his only living family. A smart combatant and clearly experienced though not as much as Constantine. He was supposedly in a gang before he turned eighteen. The gang also met an unfortunate end to an unregistered Pre-Alpha.”

“That’s some bad luck.”

“Indeed. Can create smoke as an ability which can form into a double-headed scythe, seems he cannot yet choose what it forms. At least not yet. His use of HLE from what his file says should be one of the most advanced in the group. And I would say his greatest strength is his adaptiveness and ability to learn very quickly.”

“Impressive. Behavior?”

“Strangely ordinary, if not slightly lackadaisical for what he has gone through.” She paused. “A bit like you, sir.”

“We all handle trauma and life experiences in our own ways.” He smiled briefly and it was gone as quickly as it came.

A few more profiles were mentioned until the last one.

“Lastly we have Tey’ra Castro. She is…not normal.”

“Ohh?”

“Her life before the Pre-Alpha course is shrouded in mystery, almost like she just showed up one day already a Framer but at the Pre-Alpha level. Any inquiries to higher-ups are shut down and we are told not to ask questions…Her ability to create red chains that appear to have strange effects on people they bind up is powerful.” She stopped for a bit a quizzical look on her face.

“And?” He urged.

“She definitely has something else but weirdly we are never able to quite catch a glimpse of it. Almost like it evades or messes with your senses.”

“That is…quite strong for an Alpha-1 even you could not see through it?”

She shook her head.

“Hmm…any more?”

“This might sound off but… Before she arrived here she had always been very subdued and curt, but now she is getting quite friendly with Parth. I think she is bad news personally.” She finished.

“I can see your concern. Keep an eye on her. Looks like this year is going to be interesting.”

 

***

 

The students left the building and standing outside were a group of Military bots and mundane marines in full armor. They handed each student an earpiece.

As he and Tey reached them. A marine handed him one.

“Your Hyper Logical Information Device or HLID for short. Activate it with a small burst of HLE and it should register you as its sole owner. You would also be the only person able to activate it apart from authorized faculty members. As for its other functions? Well, you would have to find out for yourself.”

Parth thanked him and Tey gave a polite nod as they walked away. He put the HLID into his right ear and with a small burst of HLE it came to life.

Welcome, Parth Hall.

You have been registered on device E230-64

He could both hear and see this message displayed in front of him almost like a hologram…but not really.

“Can you see this?” He glanced at her pointing at the display.

“Nope, I assume you cant see mine either.”

She was right, upon further observation it seemed that the device emitted some HLE, so it was likely an effect of said emissions used to create a visual effect visible only to the user. It drained an inconsequential amount of HLE from him while it was being used.

Operating this device is simple and done via control of your HLE. You are expected to be a complete beginner and thus I would guide you to your first class where HLE manipulation would be taught as your first lesson.

Every Framer in the Institute should have already learnt how to do such a thing. Yet it had been a year since the Pre-Alpha trainings thus a refresher might be needed for some. Though getting to this point in the first place required the use of HLE anyway.

Out of the twenty students it seemed only one of them was unable to activate her device, it seemed that was not completely unexpected however as one of the marines gave her directions to their first class.

The devices provide an augmented reality guiding system with arrows that pointed Parth towards the same room in the facility.

He walked into the room behind and in front of the other students and found a seat with Tey settling herself to his right.

There was a large desk at the front with a chair behind it, most of it a dark screen indicating that it was a Holo Projector.

A few more minutes passed before the door opened.

A mousey looking woman in round glasses walked into the room setting her numerous bags down with what seemed like groceries. She glanced at her watched in a small panic before running to the desk and turning the projector on. In front of her the logo of the Institute showed up. A large flame sitting in a silver plate.

Before long the logo disappeared showing a spinning icon indicating that the Projector was still booting up.

It took a moment before everyone in the class seemed to realize at the same time.

She was human.

“Hello everyone.” She squeaked in a high-pitched voice. “Welcome to Hyper Logical Essence theory class.”

“As I am sure you have all realized, I am indeed a completely mundane human. I am neither a Framer nor modified or enhanced in any way. However, I have been chosen to teach this class because I have done extensive research on Hyper Logical Essence.”

“Oh, I did not introduce myself. I am Professor Samantha Davis. You may call me Professor Sam. No need for introductions from you, I know all your names.”

She paused point at a corner of the desk that opened up to reveal a glass of water before taking a sip.

“This class is paired with the Hyper Logical Essence practical course which would be directly after our lesson ends.”

“Now, can anyone tell me what Hyper Logical Essence or HLE even is?”

A raised hand.

“Constantine.”

“HLE is an energy produced by both Drakker and Framers from what is believed to be the soul. It functions beyond typical space-time and gives form to the abilities of Framers.”

“Mostly correct. The soul is still under careful study ever since its revelation after The Expanse, which as you would imagine is a hard thing to do. But it is indeed believed to be where Framers draw HLE from. Drakker however, are a different story. We do not think that they have a soul. Rather, their bodies are made up of HLE. This is what makes them capable of quite casually ripping apart space-time which their bare hands to enter our world.”

She looked around.

“Let me go back a little. For Framers like yourselves, your soul and body would undergo a massive change as you awaken. We are still not too sure why and what the conditions are, however through extensive study with the cooperation of multiple countries we have been able to make some strides in our studies.”

“We know that your souls become much more resilient and stronger as weird as it is to say. We also know that your souls take on a form. Would you happen to know what that form is?”

“Our Hyper Logical Frames.” The answer came from Tey.

“That is right. HLF for short, are what your souls become as you become a Framer and you become able to physically manifest it.” She paused for a drink.

“Now do you know why we stopped you from using HLE earlier and also why you are forbidden from ever summoning your Framers without permission?”

“We are simply told it is very dangerous.” Constantine mentioned curiously.

“The full reason is the effect it has on everything and everyone around it. HLE manipulates space-time in its most basic form, this in itself makes it very dangerous, but it also manipulates surrounding souls.”

“This includes other people around you, and the stronger the Framer the bigger the effect. This is also why it can be very dangerous when you awaken. You could quite literally tear apart the souls of humans in your surroundings as our souls are not even nearly as tough as yours.” She looked around.

“This effect is even more powerful when summoning your Frames. Of course, you can also end up damaging your fellow Framers.”

That made sense, Parth always knew HLE was dangerous. Heck, everyone would know it was drilled into them. And it was why he was careful to not use it but this was far beyond what he thought the energy could do. Tearing apart souls? That was a ridiculous power to give to potentially unstable people. It was no wonder that humans were truly terrified of them. He could hardly blame them.

He looked at Professor Sam in a new light, she had to be incredibly brave to be here teaching an entire class of twenty dangerous beings.

“Oh and don’t worry about me, while I urge you to not use HLE in this class as I am as fragile as humans come. I am not so defenseless and have a few tricks to keep myself safe.”

She nodded knowingly. He figured. She had likely been loaded with multiple anti-HLE equipment and so was the entire facility. They would be stupid to not do so.

The hologram loading icon had been done for a while now and she shifted some icons in the air before brining up a full three-dimensional image that spun in the air. It was a white lizard like creature with an angular almost jet like face. Two pairs of yellow slit eyes sat on the sides of its head. It had six limbs and a tail tipped with large black and sharp horn-like objects on the end. Their front four limbs were almost like arms but just a bit too long showing that they could be used like arms while still being legs. They had two black tipped fingers and a thumb at the end of them. The large back legs finished by very large, clawed feet.

The image had measurements surrounding it. In the crouched form it was one and a half meters tall and from head to tail was 2 and a half meters in length.

He had seen some images on the Haze-net but this was his first time seeing them in such definition.

“This is the typical, most basic and most numerous Drakker, we call them Drones. They can also be called Standards.”

A raised hand from a student that Parth did not recognize. He had short curly ginger hair, a single brown horn in the middle of his head and dark grey eyes that could barely be seen under the mass of hair. He also had massive dark bags showing lack of sleep.

“Yes, Maverick?”

“Two questions if you will?”

She nodded in affirmation.

“If they are made of Hyper Logical Essence, shouldn’t the Drakker be untouchable by physical means? In fact shouldn’t HLE as we know it be impossible to see in the first place? As it is completely abstract in its existence.”

“Is that both of the questions?”

“Yes Miss.”

“I will start with your second. When we see HLE, what we are seeing are simply the effects of it as it comes into our world. The colors as if seeing through a bubble and the blurring are simply the effects of HLE breaking into our world. You would see similar things like this when Drakker descend from outside our dimension.”

“Next, Drakker indeed should be impossible to see just like HLE and to touch. But it seems when they tear through due to having some a level of sentience, they have a partly physical body formed. Essentially, they are half physical and half HLE. This is why they were difficult to take down with conventional weaponry until anti-HLE technology started being developed.”

“The HLE in their bodies makes them much tougher than any creature on Earth and even heals them much like it does your bodies but at a much faster rate. So, you would have to turn them into scrap to finish them off.” Originally over two hundred years ago we needed high caliber rifles to do permissible damage to their tough hides and not many weapons at that time were routinely carried by armies across the world. Honestly if not for you Framers all of humanity would have been wiped out.”

“The HLE you have allows you to negate theirs with the clashing powers. In fact, HLE appears to have the ability to negate other energies to an extent.”

“Anyway, Haze tech we have been able to replicate the effects of HLE to a lesser extent.”

Haze tech had been in development for at least seventy years and massively advanced human technology. Its development was born via desperation for human survival in the situation they found themselves in. Between the Drakker and the Framers, humanity looked positively screwed and so with cooperation from other Framers ways to deal with HLE were experimented which. This led to the existence of Haze technology, a way for anyone really to manipulate space-time somewhat like HLE could. It was still far weaker but allowed weaponry to be far more effective against Drakker and rogue Framers.

Parth wondered how humanity dealt with the Drakker before then, from what he read high calibers weapons like what she described were just shy of anti-tank weapons. And those were not easy to come by. Humanity sure was tenacious when life came down to the wire.

The rest of the lesson was spent over other HLE theories and studies before its end.

“Your study material would be on your HLID.”

Professor Sam was intriguing. She had no fear whatsoever which is very different to what Parth experienced with other humans. His weird appearance was understandably scary to them and even those soldiers despite how used to Framers they clearly were, were on alert around the students. Their fingers not far from triggers, eyes watching their every move and how closely they stuck to the surrounding battle machines. She was almost too relaxed; it was somewhat disconcerting in a way. But she was also very clearly enthusiastic and had a vested interest in the subject at hand as she said she was part of the country’s HLE research team.

They were now off to their next class HLE practical.