Chapter 37 School Days

“Just because we work well together doesn’t mean I’m not watching you!” - Truth, to Dare halfway through an adventure in which they uncover an ancient conspiracy, the true origin of cheese, and the systemic institutional corruption relating to its sale and manufacture.

“Hume is the electricity, while meta abilities are the electrical appliances that use it,” Trist explained. “Pure Hume doesn’t have a lot of uses other than enforcing the base rules of reality, that’s why it gets rid of Bleed and can even weaken meta abilities if used by an experienced metahuman. Meta Techniques do nothing but allow a person to reinforce the rules of normal reality.”

“Then what are Extended Techniques?” Aiden asked.

Trist spun a ball on her finger, “The answer is pretty simple.”

She threw the ball forward, and while it was mid-flight, the teacher held out an open palm.

The ball froze in mid-air, trapped in a frame approximately fifty centimetres away from her palm.

“The simplest way to describe an Extended Technique is an application of your ability that does not fit the initial version of your ability. Like Meta Techniques, they are divided into Expansion, Imbuement and Reinforcement. Expansion relating to literally expanding the possible uses of your ability, Imbuement is infusing your ability into another physical medium and Reinforcement is using your ability on your body in some way.”

“That sounds very broad,” Aiden replied.

She nodded in agreement, “Yeah, some people would say my self framing would count as a Reinforcement Extended Technique, but I’d say that is incorrect. It is a different application of my ability, but not one that uses an inherently different version.”

“Compared to that ball?” Aiden asked, glancing at the frame floating in mid-air.

“Yeah,” Trist replied. “Most abilities have innate rules and conditions, mine requiring my palms to physically touch the target for example, but through Expansion, you can remove the conditions and limitations of your ability.”

She held up her hand, “And before you start thinking this is some miracle method, removing the condition that I need to touch my target, to instead affecting things five centimetres away from my palm took eight years. The distance you see right now took almost twenty.”

Aiden frowned, “How old are- sorry, never mind. Why did it take so long?”

“Because fundamentally, the conditions of your ability are there for a reason,” she answered. “Especially for Awakened like us. To remove even a single one would be like removing a piece of an extremely unstable balancing puzzle. For conditions you set yourself, you generally know what happens if you break them, sometimes you even set up specific punishments that will occur if you broke the rule, but to understand what damage you might suffer from breaking an innate rule, requires you to understand why you manifested this ability in the first place.”

And she shrugged, “At your age, it might be possible for some Manifested, but for an Extended Technique to even be created, it requires an intense degree of introspection and self-understanding of why you manifested this ability and not something else. To even begin, you need to understand your own beliefs and biases, why you believe them, what caused you to believe them, and where the possible flaws in them are.”

“Expansion is when you break away from the beliefs and situations that caused your Manifestation. Imbuement is applying those beliefs to things outside of yourself, to other objects or people. Reinforcement is when you continue to embody those aspects despite any flaws you might’ve seen in them.”

“It’s easier for Manifested to begin because there is a single event you can look back at where you manifested, and introspect from there. But for Genelines who’ve had their ability their entire lives?” she shook her head.

“Unlike with Meta Techniques, this is not something that can be trained. We can teach you to push pure Hume in a bubble or envelope yourself in it because the only danger is overdrawing Hume. But for an Extended Technique? The simplest answer to why we don’t teach Extended Techniques to teenagers is because many of you lack the emotional and mental maturity to even take that first step. Genelines have it especially difficult because their ability can be entirely unrelated to who they are as a person.”

“Not to mention, once you learn an Extended Technique, the corresponding Meta Technique is forever locked away from you, so in order to make sure everyone leaves here with a full deck so to speak, we teach Meta Techniques as soon as the Genelines reach the age where their Hume level makes it safe to do so.”

“Around seventeen to eighteen, correct?”

She nodded.

Aiden sighed, “And Awakened like you and me can only learn two of the three? Why is that? Can a Manifested person not introspect to the same degree?”

Trist shook her head, “Sure there are some radicals out there, but most people theorise it’s an innate condition to being a Manifested, that gets lost when the ability is passed down in a Geneline. We have no idea though, some people even think it’s a defect that someone like us need to fix by having kids.”

“You need to understand, Genelines make up a solid seventy percent of all metahumans, that’s where all the study is, and what this school’s curriculum is built on. Most power is inherited, not earned as an individual.”

‘Strangely similar to money,’ Aiden thought.

“Then which two do you have?” Aiden asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, which of the two Extended Techniques did you learn?”

“I don’t mind,” she shrugged, “they are Expansion and Reinforcement. It’s a purely fighting style, which I slightly regret now that I’m retired. If I went for Imbuement instead of Expansion, I might’ve been able to make tools immune to wear and tear by giving them the ability to rewind, along with Bleed Resistance from the Meta Technique training.”

“Which would’ve made you a lot of money selling,” Aiden muttered with a slight glint in his eyes.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “instead I’m stuck with a mediocre ranged attack.”

A few minutes later…

“That’s why you didn’t learn Imbuement,” Aiden muttered, looking at the golden carnival wheel.

Trist sighed, “It’s one reason. Though honestly, as a production metahuman, I am still subpar compared to people whose ability is specifically to do this. Four alone could feed the entire city just by duping stuff, the only reason why he doesn’t is that there are at least six others with the same capability in this city that are already doing it…”

‘That’s why prices are strangely cheap and normal,’ Aiden realised as an excited Wren kept writing more things down in her ‘Heaven’s Door’ notebook.

One initial culture shock was how similar, and cheap, his rent and basic living costs were. Aiden Lu needed to pay almost twice the amount he did in his old world just to keep a roof over his head. Here? It was comparatively so cheap he could cry.

It wasn’t an issue in this world because there were metahumans in every nook and cranny of society. The production capabilities of humans in this world probably surpassed his old one by leaps and bounds.

But prices here were still similar to those in his old world because humans here were constantly pouring those resources into endless wars.

The combined costs of every soldiers’ boots on just the Hell front would completely and utterly bankrupt a first-world nation in his old world, and there were countless such threats everywhere, the threat in the Pacific, the Goblin Wars in the US, the Kaiju, the Floridians, just to name a few.

He suspected the only reason why they weren’t living in some ‘post-scarcity’ society was because they needed to keep burning resources in the endless sink of inter-dimensional war.

Even a massive worldwide horror like World War II would barely register in this universe, they were already constantly fighting such insane threats, what was one or two play fights?

It almost sounded like he was downplaying, and Aiden realised that as he looked around, but referencing Bu’s basic knowledge of history, the massive World Wars that shook his old world to its core would barely be acknowledged if they happened here at the same scale.

The deaths of nearly a hundred million people would barely be a dint this world.

That was why Freddy sounded so callous when mentioning the death of many.

It was an understood and accepted part of life.

It was insane.

And it felt strangely comforting.

No matter how great of a mistake he made, it could all be washed away like footprints in the sand.

No one will remember his mistakes.

“Aiden!” Jun called, “Wren made a wolf!”

He went forward, “I am not animating a wolf for you! These are dangerous animals!”

But there was no real anger or venom in his voice.

Aiden finally sat down next to Wren, sighing at the stubbornness of youth as Daycore Jun was… well, ‘bearhugging’ a bear.

He called it a bearhug though Aiden would much more liken it to a mauling.

It wasn’t mauling a large bear, Aiden had specified this one by species, that’s why he still held the concept of a bear, but Jun kept burying himself in the thing’s thick black and white fur, while the rest of the boys were gushing about the ‘panda’.

Strange name for a bear species, then again this thing had weird colouring for a bear, next someone would tell him it primarily ate plants, how absurd.

“Thanks for this,” Wren whispered, “I… I always wanted to be like a contriver type,” she giggled. “One that runs into a fight surrounded by fifty drones and all of my mechanical minions.”

“Your tech is still limited by Hell’s Promise?” Aiden asked, remembering the name of Hell’s Bleed effect.

She nodded in affirmation. “My stuff is completely mundane,” she complained, “it’s a limit the Manifested ancestor who got it had, and it stayed throughout every generation.”

She paused, and hesitated, “... erm… Can you um… give me umm…”

“What animal would you prefer?” he asked tiredly, wearily accepting his role as this group’s dispenser of living hug pillows. “I do have to warn you, these things become entirely independent of me after a while. I can add some let’s say… ‘programming’ to it, but they can learn to work past it.”

“What would you suggest then?”

“A creature with a good streak for intelligence, loyalty, or isn’t dangerous enough to be a physical threat,” he suggested. “Numerous canines fit the bill, though some herd creatures and birds could also work.”

“Many already domesticated animals would also be a perfect frame of reference,” he continued. “We managed to domesticate horses but not zebras for a reason.”

“Can it be a cat? Like a really big one?”

“I won’t do a big cat species,” he replied, “those are predatory hunters who have the capability of hurting or killing you.”

After all, without her book, she was just a normal girl.

“Then just a normal cat then? Can it still be big?” she asked, eyes practically sparkling.

“Why not just get a normal cat then?” he asked.

Wren grimaced, and Aiden saw enough. Not wanting the associated labour and cost of training a pet to be properly domesticated, or wanting some cheat with the care, it was a common thought.

“I have to warn you,” Aiden began, “you will have to feed and take care of it like a normal cat.”

“I can do it,” she replied. “And it won’t be that hard right? It’ll be smart and can talk like Ranpo?”

“Probably not talking,” Aiden replied, “their vocal cords are wrong, but intelligence I think I can do.”

“Then let’s do it!” she said, “What size body would be best?”

“Around a metre,” he answered, mind filtering through the possibilities. “Furry, preferably grey coloured. This one will need frequent exercise, lots of space, and more grooming than most smaller ones. Weather gets hot so you’ll also need to allow it ways to cool down.”

Wren nodded, takings notes on her mundane notebook.

“Diet should be the same as most domestic cats,” he continued, eyes distant in thought.

“What breed is it?”

“A Maine Coon,” he answered, “may I borrow a pen and note page?”

She moved to her Heaven’s Door notebook.

“The normal one please,” he said.

She paused, moved to her mundane book and ripped out a page, putting it on the floor in front of him, as he took the pen she passed.

He did Intelligent, Loyal, and Talking for Ranpo. He wasn’t sure if those concepts had been fully ‘relearnt’ in his mind, so he didn’t use them. If he was testing for himself, he would’ve still used them, but this was for a friend.

On the page, he wrote the words Maine Coon, Wise, Protect, Communicate, and finally, as a test, he put Regenerating.

And in his mind, he put the image of Wren, her appearance, and he made a Wise, Protective Maine Coon that could Communicate.

A furry, grey tattoo appeared on his skin, large enough to cover his entire arm.

Wren hurriedly set down a page, which quickly changed into the form of a massive cat.

Aiden touched it, eyes still closed, letting the tattoo flow off his arm.

The fake fur ruffled beneath his hand.

“Is it done?” Wren asked and Aiden flinched back, eyes opening to take in the appearance of the short girl beside him.

“You’re Wren right?”

“Yeah?” she replied.

Aiden nodded strangely, then turned to look at the sitting cat.

He still remembered who Wren was.

But when he created that tattoo, he had completely forgotten her appearance and voice.

The cat slowly dipped its head at him, nodding.

And Aiden nodded back.

The cat rustled forward to rub itself against a laughing Wren, who threaded her fingers through its fur.

Glancing at the page underneath him, he still remembered what Regenerating meant, even though he tried to give the cat a healing factor like he and Nightcore Jun had.

It had failed, which confirmed a few things.

He couldn’t give a creature a concept that it was not originally capable of.

He could give crows and cats intelligence, for both were intelligent creatures, or make them talk and converse, for both creatures were already capable of understanding people.

He couldn’t give one the capability to regenerate limbs, he would be able to do it with an axolotl, at which point its healing factor would be greatly enhanced, just like with Ranpo and intelligence.

“How can I pay you back?” Wren asked, laughing as the rather long cat meowed and wrapped itself around her. From nose tip to tail, the grey-furred cat was almost as long as she was tall.

“Don’t worry about it,” he answered, stuffing the page about the cats breed and concepts into his pocket.

“Wait, your umm…”

The cat turned to look at him, mirroring its owner, and glanced between its own front leg and his cast.

Wren ripped out a new page, and on it she began writing something.

“How did it happen for you?” Aiden asked. “Learning that Extended Technique.”

Trist’s eyes… turned distant. “It was a rather shit time. I was still serving, and by then I had realised what my Manifestation cause was. A desire to change, to make things better by returning to the point before or going to a better future. It’s a rare thing, to have a Positive Manifestation, but I had one, and one day, my squad faced something it could not.”

“We were slaughtered, I survived only because of my Reinforcement Technique, and when I came to, everyone else was strewn across an abandoned city.”

“And I gathered every single piece, every rotted intestine, every fragment of bone, every tiny bit of flesh, every smashed in skull, and I brought all of them back,” she said, “I rewinded them back to before the fight, and I dragged them across a warzone.”

“I kept rewinding myself and them,” she continued, “so that they would be healed, so that my body wouldn’t need food or rest.”

“I spent a month just dragging my squad across an active warzone,” she said, eyes staring at Aiden with a blinding intensity. “And when I finally made it back to our lines, you know what they told me?”

She chuckled, almost madly, “They told me I shouldn’t have bothered, they were long dead.”

Her ability, despite its Name, did not change a persons’ mind to a previous or future state.

And when the body died, the mind could not be recovered.

For a month, she simply dragged along a bunch of vegetables.

“That is when I gained the capability for learning Expansion,” she answered. “When I realised I could be too late. That there is a place I cannot reach.”

She walked forward, “I could’ve waited to gain Imbuement instead, but I didn’t want their deaths to be in vain, so I pursued Expansion.”

And Trist touched his shoulder.

Aiden did not panic when his body froze, or when it began rewinding.

“It’s harder for me to rewind metas,” she spoke, her voice carrying despite Aiden’s still prison. “The extra Hume in their body makes it difficult, and their own ability might counter it. For a normal Metahuman, twenty-four hours is my limit, for one that knows Meta Reinforcement, only eight.”

Aiden was soon returned to his original state, nothing having happened.

“When did you lose it?”

“Last week-ish,” he answered, glancing at his cast.

“Shame,” Trist said, “I was out of the city for holidays.”

“I do not blame you for that,” Aiden replied, and he really did mean it.

“Still, I was too late, wasn’t I?”

Wren made a perfectly sized prosthetic hand. It was almost like the hand of a mannequin, wooden, its joints stiff and not made for movement.

“Try this?” she asked.

He shrugged, removing his cast and placing the prosthetic hand on his cast.

And he created a Human Right Hand.

The tattoo flowed freely off his skin and onto the new hand.

Aiden stared at it.

And began laughing, for he no longer remembered how to move his hand.

Shaking his head, he said, “Thank you Wren, but this won’t work that well.”

Not without him spending time to completely relearn how to move the limb, one that he had no sensation or feeling in.

She looked shocked, confused almost, “It won’t…”

“It could work, though it would be difficult,” he admitted, experimentally moving the joints, “but you’ve helped me realise this is an option.”

He didn’t get his old hand back, this was a completely new one, one that he had to spend time to retrain and relearn.

Reabsorbing the Human Right Hand tattoo, he replaced it with something else, black skinned, slightly furred at the wrist, and moved it better, now that he had his own movement as a reference.

“This could work, I might need a glove though.”

Wren passed him a pair of gloves, made of black faux leather that fit his new hand snugly.

“If that isn’t enough I can…”

“This is enough Wren,” he said, “Thank you for that.”

“You’re running out of pages aren’t you?” Aiden pressed, “There’s no need for you to do more.”

And on that new hand, he covered it with his cast.

“What of innate conditions that cost something of the person?” Aiden asked. “Something that requires something important to them?”

Trist pursed her lip, “I once met an Awakened whose ability burned through her own lifespan. And even to this day, I think she was one of the top ten most dangerous ability users I have ever met.”

“All Awakened are off somewhere, it’s almost impossible for us not to be, it is the nature of manifestations to occur to those who deviate from the norm. But abilities that burn something like lifespan as an innate condition?”

She shook her head, “It speaks of the insanity that caused her manifestation, that she believed shortening her life was worth the short bursts of ability usage. Fundamentally, an innate cost only appears if the Awakened is fine with paying that cost. They can overcome it or cheat it, but it says that they are the type to take that deal to begin with.”

“An ability that costs something of yourself, your lifespan or your very body like with Allen the Annihilator, says that they believe their own life, their own body, are both expendable, and that is dangerous in its own right.”

“Especially with Metahumans, there is nothing more terrifying than a person willing to pay any and every cost.”

‘Or a person who never saw value in themselves in the first place,’ Aiden thought.

“HUH!” Jun yelled, releasing the poor bear, “You made her a cat! No fair!”

Aiden shrugged, “You already have a pet.”

“Fluffy being a goddamn treasure does not mean I don’t want a bear!”

Aiden touched and reabsorbed the panda.

‘Wait, so it actually does eat plants?’

“FAREWELL! WORTHY FOE!” Josh saluted to the panda body.

“Mr Checkerboard!” Jun mourned. “Why did you do that? He was so cute!”

“You cannot take care of that many pets,” Aiden muttered, “not to mention you don’t have any animal care qualifications.”

“I can get them!” he argued.

“Then come back to me when you do,” Aiden serenely answered.

“Erm…” Wren began, still carrying the very large cat. “I still want to repay you somehow…”

“Don’t worry,” Aiden replied. “It’s just a cat.”

Said cat shot him a dirty look.

“You don’t get it,” Wren continued, “My mum told me that pets aren’t allowed since there was no point if it could die to Bleed or other stuff. And… your ability might be resistant to Bleed, so my mum might finally let me have a pet!”

He paused, that wasn’t the reason he had suspected, though it did make some sense. “Don’t worry about it, I don’t need a gift.”

“You would give things freely, but reject things given to you freely?” Jun asked.

He paused and shook his head, “It is simply a matter of pride. You’ve already done enough for me Wren.”

“I wrote two fucking words on a page, I want to give more,” Wren said. “How about this, let’s make it a trade instead, I’ll give you the bodies you need, and we’ll be even?”

“That is very one-sided for you,” Aiden quietly replied, his mental evaluation of Wren rising as she spoke.

“Then you just promise to help me when you can, and I’ll help you however.”

And he paused.

That was a very tempting offer.

Wren, out of everyone here, had the simplest and most obvious way to earn money once she got her meta ability licenses. She alone would put a manufactorum to shame.

But he cannot implicate her in what he might do with his ability.

Aiden still needed a way to earn money, and though the most illegal methods he abhorred, there were still many ways to earn money with his ability.

All the while he didn’t have a license to make it legal.

Aiden shook his head, “Thank you, but I don’t need you to make my ability work. It would be easier, I agree, but I don’t need it.”

Crestfallen, Wren’s shoulders slumped as the cat turned to nuzzle her face in comfort.

“Wait, didn’t Ran Ran say something about needing a lot of grapes the other day?” Jun asked.

“Grapes?” Wren asked, head perking.

“Like he bribed the birds to scare some shitheads for us,” Jun explained, “but you still need to pay back the crows right?”

Aiden nodded, “Yeah but-”

Wren was already scribbling in her notebook.

Aiden raised his hand, “Please stop, you don’t need to-”

Wren shoved the notebook into his hand. “Take it, I already wrote it down so you can’t use it for anything else.”

Of the few remaining pages, every single one had a ‘crate of grapes’ written across the page.

“You write really quickly,” Aiden muttered, almost impressed she managed to cover over a dozen something pages in the breadth of a sentence.

She smiled, “Now you’re stuck with it, so better make use of it.”

“Don’t try to convince her,” Darius chuckled, walking up to them. “She has the look right now.”

“Accept my kindness lowly mortal,” she laughed.

“You need a better laugh as well,” Josh assessed.

Speaking up, Luther said, “I’ve been meaning to ask, but we all have good synergy.”

“Not a question but YES nonetheless!” Josh answered.

“We should form a six-man team,” Luther continued.

“For the SD project?” Aiden asked.

“Not just that, but also for the school Paintball War.”

“Oh, that?” Jun muttered, nodding, “Yeah, that can work.”

“Paintball War?” Aiden asked, glancing around.

“It’s a one-day event that happens during Dawn Week next month,” Darius replied, glancing up at the sky, and even though the ceiling obscured, all knew about the shattered moon.

Dawn Week, the anniversary of the end of the Long Night. It was simply a week where nothing happened.

A week of peace.

“Every student in the school can participate and win points to earn prizes. Same rules as normal paintball, but you can use your abilities,” Luther explained. “We ran as a three-man last year, but me and Darius aren’t heavy hitters.”

“I would wreck shit with Nightcore,” Jun chuckled.

“I guess, but it sounds…” Aiden didn’t want to say ‘immature’ out of politeness, but he believed it to be exactly that.

“You can win prizes,” Darius continued, “the more students you take down, the more points you get. Some teachers are also participating.”

It sounded too tedious, an entire day of just dealing with teenagers? At least Darius bought him free drinks-

“And the last team standing gets scholarships, all cash.”

“I’m in,” Aiden immediately answered.

“But I hadn’t even explained-”

“Doesn’t matter, I’m in.”