“It is said that this world shares its history with another; one to whom it was joined some millennia ago. Our elders refer to that world as Oya, and speak of her as the savage sister to our beloved Terra. They say that these sister planets were birthed from the remnants of Gaea; after she was torn asunder by a cataclysm wrought by the hands of her most powerful daughters.

Everyone knows the stories, these fairy tales, but none are naive enough to believe them. In a world governed by logic, where even the supernatural is dissected, studied and explained, such grand claims are akin to lunacy.

Let me tell you a story of the day that I became party to such madness…”

Time crept slowly along within the sterile environment of the small lecture theatre, which was purposely devoid of the myriad of distractions that usually bombarded the small group of students spread sparsely throughout its crammed interior. A room that usually accommodated upwards of thirty students, now played host to a paltry eight. They were all that remained of more than one hundred students who were accepted into the Advanced Meta-Physics program. Unlike most universities, which prided themselves on producing top notch lawyers, doctors and engineers, Titan Academy attracted and eventually nurtured to a new class of skilled elites. These fortunate few, ever capable, specialised not merely in the study but the practice of the supernatural arts, in their attempts to master everything from the scientifically anomalous to what was widely considered to be the occult.

Amidst them was the one young man for whom time could move no slower. His unique abilities made the world seem like molasses to him under normal circumstances, and this quality was only highlighted by his anticipation of the end of this particular class. His casual glances towards the solitary time-peace affixed above primary screen in the lecture theatre now seemed to be timed to the second, occurring every five minutes without fail. He sighed lightly as the realisation hit him, running his hand over his forehead and through his two-toned hair to wrangle the unruly strands and brush them back into place.

His hair style was short but partly unkept, shaved low and neatly at the sides while retaining a messier look at the top. Around the edges and to the back it retained a slick black pigment, but in the front and stretching back as far as the middle of his head, it grew out sun-gold streaks from the roots. These streaks matched the bright yellow highlights on his racer jacket, which was now pulled up around his ears as he slumped down in his chair and played with a gold necklace that dangled just above his collarbone. His feet tapped rapidly and his eyes darted around the room as his mind wandered with boredom.

Across the room, his restlessness caught the attention of one of his classmates and drew a smile to her lips.

“I’m sorry, do you find the application of advanced zeta algorithms to be amusing Ms. Cage?” The voice of their lecturer drew the attention of both youngsters back to reality.

“No, sorry Dr McLeod, I must have spaced-out for a bit.” The young woman replied, to the general amusement of the rest of the class. “Last day of school and all – it can be a bit hard to concentrate.” She conceded, causing the restless young man on the other side of the room to smirk slightly. “I’ll try harder to pay attention.”

Her lecturer just smiled as well.

“No, you’re right.” He shook his head. “You kids aren’t going to remember half of this stuff next semester anyway – so why don’t we call it a day for now?”

“Finally.” The blonde-haired man whispered under his breath before finally sitting up in his chair and beginning to pack away his things.

“Remember, evaluation for placement starts next semester so try to spend at least some of your summer doing things other than drinking and partying.” Dr McLeod advised. “Not only is the curriculum going to be a lot more practical but you're going to be evaluated against some of the most gifted students in your field. I’d advise that you put some of the things we’ve learned this last year into practice…”

His voice trailed off as the last word escaped his mouth and his attention drifted away from the small compliment of students, before becoming fixed on his surroundings. The senses of his students were not yet as finely tuned as his were, so they could not yet feel it but even for ones as inexperienced as them, this event would not go unnoticed for long.

“What the hell is that…?” A young man with neck-length, platinum blonde hair exclaimed as he too began to feel what it was that their lecturer had already noticed.

“Looks like our lesson isn’t over just yet...” Mr. McLeod replied with a sigh.

Unlike his students, who were all too young to be familiar with such a sensation, McLeod had lived through such an event before.

“Nikolai, Brian: move into the doorways and secure the structures.” He commended; calmly but sternly. “The rest of you, exit the building and move into the courtyard in an orderly fashion.”

Unfortunately, before he could fully finish his sentence the sensation that he was feeling washed over the rest of the class. At first, it came like a wave, flowing over their bodies and permeating their senses. The initial effects were subtle, manifesting as strange distortions in their surroundings when they faded into view; warping the world around them. But these effects quickly intensified. Soon the students could hear a crackling in the ether as space itself seemed to shift and strain under the influence of what they all realised was about to their first cataclysm. They could feel it, rushing through their bodies and causing their extremities to tingle as the strange energies at the source of this event permeated them and mingled with their own unique energetic flows. It was unlike anything they had felt before, but at the same time it felt eerily familiar.

“Goddammit!” McLeod yelled. “Move your asses.”

His words snapped the awestruck youth from their dazes, finally motivating the two young men that he had originally called out to rush towards the identified exits. The platinum-blonde youngster, Nikolai, was the first off his feet; throwing off his faux-leather jacket as he rushed into the doorway and began to channel his unique gifts. As the jacket went flying, it revealed the sleeveless shirt that the young man wore underneath and the black tattoos that snaked up his bare arms. As he slid into position, these tattoos began to leak a green, luminescent energy-form. That energy quickly filled the doorway and began to pour out onto the ground before taking shape. From the middle of the doorway, Nikolai extended his arms upwards, watching as the physical manifestation of his internal power mimicked this motion and took shape. Around him, and ethereal figure formed from this strange energy and propped up the door frame with its hazy body.

Across the room, Brian was also in place. This well-built, red haired young man also wedged his body into the frame of the door. From his body white energy poured outwards but unlike Nikolai’s it didn’t leak far from its source. Instead, it seemed to coat him in an eerie glow as he pressed his hands to the frame of the doorway and channeled the energy into its structure.

While they did this, the youngster with black and gold hair rushed towards Ms. Cage who had been eyeing him earlier. Much like his hair and the highlights of his jacket, the energy flowing from his body emitted a golden glow; spiralling outwards from his body as he moved. It’s movement blasted away the small chair and flimsy desk that he had sat at for the last hour, clearing a path for him as he hurdled the seats between him and the young woman before grabbing her by the arm.

“Roun, no!” McLeod exclaimed as he picked up the young man’s high-speed movement, just moments before the swirling golden energy encircled him and the young woman that he had targeted.

McLeod's warning fell on deaf ears however. Before the young man could process what his lecturer was saying, the swirling vortex of gold energy had completely encompassed him and his target, energizing their bodies before they both vanished.

“Damnit.” McLeod muttered as he watched the two of them vanish. “The rest of you out, what are you waiting for!?”

At this point Xess McLeod, Professor of Advanced Zeta Programming, realised that the preceding ‘heralding wave’ of the cataclysm had already began to subside. This meant that the full effect of the distortion, the truly terrifying part was about to begin. The odd tingling sensation that accompanied the initial wave was replaced by almost crippling pains that shot through the bodies of these unique individuals, causing the four students that had not yet moved to clutch their chests and heads in agony. Even McLeod had to hold onto his desk as his knees buckled under the weight the overwhelming sensation.

At the door, Nikolai’s ethereal construct flickered and Brian’s energetic infusion glimmered as they lost focus at the most inopportune time; because what accompanied their very personal and individual pains was a much more universal phenomenon. The subtle energy that they sensed, rode upon the forefront of a much more powerful wave; one that possessed the ability distort time and space itself in a much less subtle way. Its arrival heralded the violent quaking of the ground and sparking air, which turned the small, sterile lecture theatre into a terrifying death trap.

Only now did the remaining students fully snap to their senses and heed McLeod’s words, clamouring for the nearest exit as Nikolai and Brian did their best prevent them from collapsing and trapping everyone inside.

On the outside, the young man with the two-toned hair – Roun – was hurtled from his energized state into the shaking ground with tremendous force. Much like Nikolai and Brian, whose abilities had destabilised with the advent the ‘cataclysm wave’, Roun was also unable to maintain his unique mode of transportation. But while the others would simply recompose themselves and reinitiate their efforts, Roun and his passenger had little time to do the same. The result was their resolidification at unimaginable speeds and the inevitable crash that followed, leaving them both dazed but luckily not critically hurt. What made matters worse however, was the fact that his unique form of motion also seemed to amplify the effects of the cataclysm wave, increasing the tremors and sparking air in the vicinity substantially.

“An amateur mistake…"