A Certain City of Espers

Ayaka

I walked to school with a sigh. My exams were a bit different from the others. In the distance I can hear waters splashing. Railgun, I thought, a bit jealous.

After a few minutes, I arrived at my goal. I entered a small white room with tables and chairs, like any other ordinary classroom. A few students were already inside, all of them looking happy. I guessed they have seen the future too, like I did in my sleep. We will pass the test. I sat on a chair and wait for my turn.

And finally, it's my turn. It was an odd test: a huge table was set in the center of the room, with one hundred small boxes on top of it. A man was standing near the table -the instructor. He explained the exam to me in a low booming voice.

"One hundred small boxes were placed on the table, each containing a different item. I want you to find what one item is asked for you to search out of these one hundred. Do your best and look for a golden ring." He smiled.

I closed my eyes and concentrate on the future, searching what is contained on those boxes. My head started to hurt.

"It's just level one, Ayaka." the instructor said.

I ignored him, concentrating on my mind. And then blurry images starts to form. I can see toys, coins, jewelries, and rings. I searched for the rings- there are diamonds, silver, gemstones... but no gold ring.

I took a deep breath and smiled. "No gold ring", I muttered, and I knew I passed the test. I sighed.

Cait followed the instructor into the greenhouse, standing in the center of the isle. The instructor stood at the far end, slipping on a pair of goggles. Like she really needed those, yet... Cait rolled her eyes. She wasn't ready to shatter anything.

"Cait, look around the greenhouse. There are three panels marked with tape, but the tape is clear. Find those panels, and dislocate them."

Cait nodded. She turned in one spot, looking around her. It took her about a minute, but she soon finished the visual analysis of the room. The first panel - and only panel on her end - was above her. The other two were on either side of the instructor. She cocked an eyebrow, curious. Maybe the instructor had planned this? She was about to get blasted with a little tornado...

But she followed her instructions. She hummed an A-3, sliding up to an F-4. A breeze came in through the door and angled up, breaking through the top panel. She lessened the pitch, dropping to a C-4, as she focused more on guiding the wind to the pair of panels. She even resorted to using her hands as sights. Closer, closer, faster, faster... She opened her mouth into a simple "ah" as she quickly lifted the pitch up an octave, to the A-4. The two panels shuddered slightly against the wind ramming them from outside, but finally the glass gave way, falling from the frame and meeting in the center of the isle, wrapping around the instructor and spinning her in place like a miniature tornado. She released her control and voice, and the breeze dropped, vanishing.

The instructor coughed, clearing her throat. She shook her head, chuckling once. "I don't think I ever will get used to that voice. And you're not even done..."

Cait only smiled and followed the instructor to a second greenhouse, walking straight in a fresh container. It was routine; she couldn't shatter a building if it had any leaks. She just hoped her instructor had brought...

"You do have earplugs, right?" Cait asked.

The instructor looked over her shoulder. "Yes, they had said something about that. Am I really going to need them?"

"If you want to keep your eardrums."

BIANCA

My head was pounding. I sat up, holding it. I was right, i was in the nurses office. The sweet little nurse came over and helped me off the bed.
"I was expecting you. Want something for your head?" I shook it.
"nope, i'll probably end up back in here anyways." I shrugged.
"I wouldn't say that, you've only been out for five minutes." I was utterly shocked, only five minutes? Really? That's amazing! Usually i'm out for two hours at least.
"Y-Your serious, only FIVE minutes?"
"Ya we just set you down on the bed, I think you should go back and try again!" I hopped up and down. This was a huge step. Maybe this new found confidence would help!

I didn't think, I ran back to the field, the instructor was just as shocked as i had been.
"Your up already?" I nodded running beside him.
"I want to try again. The whole field. Without going unconscious." He smiled and nodded at the -10.
"Okay then, let's see it." I focus all my energy on the end of the field. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in.
When i opened then i was on the other side of the bleachers, past the other side of the field. I fell over. My body gone numb. I couldn't stand but i wasn't unconscious. I lay there for a moment. Until i heard a familiar voice.
"She's unconscious. Let's get her back to the nurse." I looked up at the instructor and one of the students.
"I'm fine. Help me up." The instructor looked dazed.
"Y-y-your up? This is a huge improvement from last year. As soon as we can get you to teleport this far without falling, you'll be good enough to be a level three!" I felt my heart thump, I grabbed the students hand and pulled myself up.
"Seriously?!?" He nodded. I Regained my posture. "Then i want to do it again. From here to the other side." He nodded and took a step back, writing on his clipboard.

I Focused on the other end of the field, where the other students were waiting. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When i opened my eyes, my legs felt like jelly, but i didn't fall. I was standing beside another student. Who helped me stay standing.
"I'm fine let me go." She let go reluctantly, i stumbled a few steps but remained standing. The instructor ran over.
"Amazing, utterly amazing! I have never seen such an improvement." I beamed, i could hardly believe it myself.

Cait stood near the entrance, the instructor at the other end. The instructor put the goggles back on. "You know what to do. Shatter this entire building as fast as possible. Last year's time was 1 minute 58 seconds. If you can beat 1:30, you might be able to move up to level three."

Cait nodded. "Plug your ears and brace yourself, then. It's about to get windy."

She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes as she focused. She began to sing, starting already on F-4. The breeze kicked up inside the greenhouse, running along the walls in a tornadic motion. Cait starting vocalizing the chorus of "Mein Heirr Marquis", fingers twiddling by her side as she ran through the sixteenth-note runs up to C-5, skipping back and forth between F-4 and C-5 and G-4 and D-5. That wasn't seeming to work; she shifted into "The Temptest".

The higher she got, the faster the wind rotated, spinning along the glass walls. She focused more on the wind, popping out a set of staccato Ds; the wind seemed to jolt with the notes, ramming the glass with increasing pressure. The glass began to vibrate.

She had to breathe again, but she didn't lose much of her momentum. She glanced at the instructor; she'd already put in the earplugs, and was holding her hands to her ears. Cait smiled slightly, but out of frustration. She should have broken the windows by now... She would have to do it, she'd have to face the F, G, and A-5s, the notes she had always been afraid of. At least it wouldn't take too much on those... She slid higher and higher, steadily climbing. She closed her eyes, putting her whole voice and mind into it; she held her hands out, palms up as she supported the magic. How much higher did she have to go?

She opened her eyes, gasping on the inside as she finally closed in on the B-flat-5. In her surprise, the wind finally broke free, erupting into a giant tornado that ripped through the glass and warped the metal. She stopped singing and dropped to her knees, panting. She coughed once, swallowing to moisten her mouth and not strain her vocals any more. At the other end of the greenhouse, the instructor was picking herself up off the grass, about twenty-feet away from the demolished building.

They both sat there, breathing heavily. Cait stared as the instructor looked at her stopwatch. She swallowed, anxious. Had she done it? The instructor just smiled. "One minute, twenty-eight seconds."

Takeo

Man was he feeling sore! An entire day of lifting weights, bending bars and appeasing the examiner in every way possible was not easy. But now for the hard part. Taki hated this part. He wasn't ready, he just wasn't good enough. And everybody knew it. No matter how hard he tried, Taki wasn't another Railgun.

"Ready for the final test?" His tutor asked. Flashing her a bright and cocky smile, Taki gave her the thumbs up.

"Of course. Level four material standing right here!" Taki boasted. I wish. It wasn't like he ever did anything really wrong! The exams were just sucky, that was it. They were suckily biased and until they changed them he'd never advance. Ah well. At least he hadn't dropped back a level, his tutor had already confirmed the big shiny level three.

"Then go." The tutor backed off to give him space and Takeo approached the obstacle course. It looked easy. At one end was a pedastal and over at the other end, just a couple of metres away was another. On one sat a metal star and on the other was a metal star shaped space. However, between the two pedastals was a crazy grid of lights, metal walls with holes and sharp, spinny things. Taki had to gently manouvre the metal star from one side to the other without triggering any of the alarms which meant not touching anything! It was stupid and finicky, much too gentle for his awesome power! But that was the test for level four. Ultimate, fine-needled control. He dreaded to think what level five was like.

Taking a deep breath, Taki lifted the star and twirled it sideways to edge around a criss-cross of lights. Then he had to hover. He knew this from previous experience because if he didn't hover here, he'd be caught by one of the spinny things. One... two- and go. Takedo took the next section at speed until he reached another known safe spot but he could feel the sweat beading on his brow. Lifting weights was one thing, they were so big that it was easy to get a grip on them; but his power slipped along the spokes of the star so that he was constantly having to grab it again.

Only two more chances before they'd give him a different course. If they realised how much he was doing by memory already, they'd switch him over in no time. Okay. Un-chartered territory coming up. With as much resolution as he could manage, Taki moved the star again. He weaved in and out of lines of light, he dashed up and then down, through a hole, around, under a swiping metal blade and then - ah shit. The alarm was ringing in his ears before he even saw where he'd gone wrong.

"Ooooh too bad. You was almost halfway through that time though." Stupid woman. Taki groaned and hurled the star back to the beginning, setting the alarms to a nasty clanging melody. The tutor covered her ears and scowled her disapprovement.

And that was how it went. Takeo failed the next attempt of the obstacle course, was directed to another and spent the rest of the day failing that.

***Since he forgot to post, and asked me to take hold of his character, I'll give Dynamo some progress so we can continue with the storybook.***

Ren

It was growing very hot in the space; sweat rolled down both Ren's and the instructor's faces. But things seemed to be progressing, even if only a little. Within fifteen minutes, and a lot of straining and focusing on Ren's behalf, the metal began to drip, drip, slowly liquifying. Five minutes later, tiny pools of liquid metal had formed under the horse.

"How long has it been?" Ren panted.

The proctor looked at the stop watch. "Twenty-three minutes."

Damn, Ren thought. That's not too good a score, so far. If he didn't finish it soon, he very well could fail and degrade back to a level one. Not to mention, everyone else could be either finished or close to it... He exhaled a growl as he tried to focus more on the bars.

As if granting his wish, the iron bars began to creak, losing altitude. He smiled. Just a little more...


***I'll let him finish his own exam, lol ***

Lena

I watched as the water flowed around me. I let the tranquility of the water flow through me and clam my every nerve. So far this exam had been really easy. All I had to do to take some water and make it more around. I took a glance behind me and watched as the instructor took notes on her clip bored. Every now and then she would change the instructions to try and keep me on my toes and it had worked. Walking over to me, she then placed a hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at her, she was smiling.

I want you to now freeze the pool and work from that. Sighing, I proceeded to freeze the pool and walk out on it. I could feel the long day...lengthening.

(Well, I'm glad to see everyone managed to keep the story going without me. If it's okay with everyone else, I'd like to have some of our characters spend time with each other before bringing them into the plot.

And sorry for forgetting to post on Friday. I couldn't think of anything at the time. Thanks, Ayumi.)


Ren pushed himself to make his flame hotter. but no matter how hard he tried, the bar wouldn't melt any faster. One-by-one, the other pyrokinetics finished their test and left. Pretty soon, Ren was the only one left. He pushed himself to his limit, and after a while the bar began to sink more and more, until finally it slipped off the horses.

Ren extinguished his fire and placed his hands on his knees, taking a moment to catch his breath as his instructor started scribbling on his clipboard. "So, how did I do?"

"Your final time is forty-eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, which is around three minutes better than your last test." Ren smiled a little at that. "But as you know, in order to advance to level three you need to melt the bar within twenty minutes. So, I'm afraid you remain at your current level."

"Yeah, I know," Ren said. He was just glad he finished it under an hour. If he hadn't he'd by right back at level one.

The teacher handed Ren a slip of paper with his grade. "Here. You may take the rest of the day off. School starts again at its regular time tomorrow."

As Ren made his way to the front of the school he looked at the slip of paper. There were six boxes with the numbers 0 through 5 written in them. The number 2 box was circled, with the words Room for improvement written under it.

He sighed. At least I have the rest of the day to myself now, he thought. He looked in the direction of the pool and noticed the explosions had ceased. Railgun must have already finished her testing. She was probably long gone by now.

BIANCA

I clapped like a fool. He smiled now, he scribbled something down on a slip and looked up at me.
"Sign this one and your free for today." He turned the clipboard towards me. I scribbled my name down, his writing was neater then mine. "This one is for your new class, you'll start next year. You'll finish off the year as a level two and start the year off fresh as a level three." He smiled broadly.

The real question was what would i do until tomorrow? I was so happy, i teleported the farthest my new limit allowed, which was almost to the front of the school. I walked around to the front of the school, seeing the other people who were done there exames. I smiled seeing a few familular faces from off the bus. I looked up at the people, i needed someone to talk to, i was bored.
"Hey! people who know me! Who wants to hang tonight!" I cupped my mouth as i yelled. Some people turned to me and agave me a dumb look, others just chose to ignore me. I heard someone comment from behind me.
"sure, what do you want to do?"

*that can be anyone*

(Ren won't be taking the bus, he's walking because he's going to spend time in the city during his free time. Just thought I'd point that out if anyone was planning on having their character hang out with him.)

Lena

It had been nearly a half an hour before the lady testing her decided that she was finally done for the day. Out of all the things that they tested her on, the only other one she seemed to be able to control was the blood inside of the dummy. Honestly this freaked her out really bad. She had never been a big fan of blood but when she thought about controlling it...well it seemed kind of scary and honestly she was not quite sure what to think about it.

As she walked out of the building she considered just going back home, but she decided against it. Right as she was about to just go on a walk, she heard a girl shout "Hey! people who know me! Who wants to hang tonight!". Turning around I noted it was that girl on the bus, Bianca. Deciding that that sounded funner that going and walking home, I walked up behind and said, "Sure, what do you want to do?". After talking and introducing ourselves, we decided to see if anything interesting was happening in the city.

Cait sighed, a slight skip in her step as she wandered around campus. Everyone else had gone already, she was sure. She'd just meandered aimlessly for about an hour... Maybe she could sneak into the building and play on that fabulous pinao in the auditorium...

Wait, she saw someone. She stopped, looking closer. It was that pyro, Ren. Was he just now leaving his exam?

She smiled, bouncing toward him. "Hey, there. You just now finishing?" she asked, trying to keep her tone welcoming and conversational.

He faked a smile, and nodded.

Her own smile vanished. She knew that look of regret anywhere; she seen it on herself before, when she failed to move up a level...last year. "It went bad, huh?"

He huffed a little, not rudely. "Yeah..."

She shrugged, softening her features to a more casual, less frivilous style. "I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help you out..." she said hesitantly, but gained her confidence as she figured out what she wanted to say. "But until I can find out what that is, I'll just be someone you can talk to."

Ren smiled weakly and said, "Thanks, Cait." He couldn't remember how they had become friends. All he knew was they just started talking to each other on the bus one day, next thing he knew they were hanging out during lunch breaks. At first he had thought she liked him from the way she flirted with him, but that misconception was soon dispelled when he noticed she acted that way around all guys.

"So, do you want to tell me how it went?" Cait asked.

"It took me forty-eight minutes to finish my test. It was three minutes shorter than my last test, but still more than twenty minutes longer than what I need to become a level 3." Ren sighed. "At this rate I'll stay at level 2 for the rest of my life."

"Don't say that. You got a better score this time, didn't you?" Cait said, trying to cheer him up. "Just keep practicing and you'll move up to level three in no time."

"Yeah, I know..." He didn't sound too convinced.

That's when Cait got an idea. "Tell you what? How 'bout we go on a date to cheer you up?" she asked, smiling suggestively.

Ren looked at her and chuckled a little. He knew Cait was only trying to cheer him up. He knew it was just her way of saying, Let's hang out. "I guess I have nothing better to do," he said.

"So, where do you want to go?"

"I was planning on going over to the arcade for a while," Ren answered.

(Man, there are a lot of active storybooks right now. I just posted this morning and already our storybook moved to the second page. )

Cait smiled. The arcade sounded cool. She nodded. "Okay. You lead the way."

She wouldn't admit she had never been inside the arcade before; sure, she'd passed it several times while walking around town, but she knew nothing about it. The closest she ever came to an arcade was just computer and Nintendo DS games she played in her spare time at home.

"So, what games do you like to play?" she asked him, hoping he could give her some advice on what to go for. She just hoped they weren't too hard and she didn't look like a complete idiot.



***Sorry, all I've got for now. I'm going to warn you in advance: I might post one more time tonight, but I'm going to bed early, and I won't be able to post until late tomorrow afternoon; I have class - and I'm taking my boyfriend on a detailed tour of the campus! He gets to spend the day with me! ***