I introduced myself the same way I always did, talking about my origins, the fact that I was the grandson of Shadow Valkyrie, and I talked about my powers and how I thought they worked. I sat back down in my seat and listened intently to the introductions of my 15 classmates.

The first one up was the amazon Martelle and I had seen previously while waiting for my turn in the physical examination. She was impressively tall and muscular. Her entire armour getup was made of bronze. The armour covered her upper body, wrists and head, leaving the other parts exposed. She had long white hair and tan skin. She introduced herself as Aella, the daughter of an amazon and a great warrior who trained her from birth. She had great strength and agility, and her skin was immune to most damage.

The next one to introduce himself was a student named Constantine. He had the ability to turn himself into the various states of matter: solid, gas, liquid and plasma. As for his appearance, he came up to the podium as a sentient blob of water, with the only thing distinguishing him from the regular liquid being a mouth. He told us he used to have a human form, but lost it after awakening his powers. He could only access his plasma form from his gas form. He could also turn into a few other forms, but he couldn’t keep them out for long.

Dynasta introduced herself as a human-beetle, originating from a valley in the north of Foeria. She came from a long line of human-beetleperson hybrids, and her powers were natural to her physiology. She could do anything a beetle could, but with more powerful enhancements. Flight was the one she used the most often.

After Dynasta finished, someone rolled up into a hedgehog-like ball with spike protrusions rolled up front, jumped in the air and then unrolled herself. She had long, spiky dark brown hair and a hedgehog-like nose, but the rest of her body was human. Her skin was the same colour as a European hedgehog’s fur. Her name was Erin. Her outfit was simple, a white shirt and jeans. Much like Dynasta, she was a hybrid of a hedgehog beastperson and a human, so she had hedgehog-like abilities.

Rolling in like Erin, a large metal ball moved to the front of the classroom, then dematerialized. Out of it came a silver-haired, silver-eyed student wearing a red overcoat, a grey jacket, a grey scarf and black pants. He had a thin physique and his skin was pale. His name was Fripp, and he could create large simple metal objects. His favourite to make was a giant pinball. His ability made him extremely cold all the time, so he always wore winter clothing.

Using a small plant’s leaves to spell out her name, Gaea introduced herself as someone who could control and create plant constructs out of nothing. She had light green-tinted skin and extremely long green hair with bangs that covered her eyes. She had an oversized plain white sweater similar to mine, and green cardigan pants. She didn’t say a lot about herself, she only talked about her abilities.

After a streak of flashy introductions, the next student simply walked up front. Her name was Ignea. She was wearing a black biker jacket, a leather aviator and pure black jeans. Her hair was blonde with streaks of red. She sat down on the teacher’s table while loudly eating crisps. She had the ability to control all types of oils, from gasoline to oils used in food. She could manifest oils from her hands or manipulate existing ones. She swore a lot during her introduction.

Martelle introduced herself next. For the first time, she described her power as enhanced upper arm strength, as she could lift things much heavier than herself with her arms, but couldn’t do much with any other part of her body. Besides that, she mentioned her rich family and proficiency with hammers.

Mimi introduced herself by using a combination of the abilities she had seen displayed in the introductions, rolling up in a spiky metal ball covered in roots and leaves. She could replicate the abilities of anyone who was near her for up to 25 minutes. She had purple hair and red eyes. Her eyes became bloodshot and she lost some hair after that timer ran out. She gained the clothes of the person she last mimicked. She was the result of generations of mimics who passed their powers unto their children.

Ludere introduced himself by teleporting all over the classroom, before revealing he never actually left his seat. His power was creating sensory illusions of all kinds. He didn’t look physically strong. He had dark brown hair, goggles and an oversized, neon multi-coloured overcoat. He raised and lowered the tone of his voice throughout his introduction. He couldn’t manipulate two sense at once, only one at a time.

Sitch introduced himself next, wearing the same clothes as the ones he was wearing on the bus. He gave some more insight into how his fire powers worked. He could only aim the fire downwards, and the fire expanded in a small radius. Not as impressive as I thought, but I could see some uses for that.

Surry didn’t have a flashy introduction. She didn’t need to, as her appearance was quite shocking. She had no eyes. Her entire body was grey and she was bald. Her hands were more like large claws, and her wrists had two black bars around them. Her only facial feature was a pure black mouth that looked carved on with sharp teeth. Her voice was distorted and awkwardly pitched. Apparently, her power was sound manipulation. Her appearance was due to having some alien ancestry that had an intense reaction to her power.

I immediately recognized the next student up. Bald, dark purple skin, big green eyes, red jumpsuit. It was the weird creepy guy that was staring at me during the bus ride. He had all sorts of weird powers, like eye rays, bat wings and a long, sharp tongue. He spoke in a very neutral and matter-of-fact way. He told us he came from the same facility as Surry. His name was Urform.

Vernon introduced himself next. He straight up mentioned he was a reincarnator, and that his powers weren’t anything flashy like the rest of us. He gave us some insight into what Yearth was like, a place where only humans existed, the world was covered by cement and smog, and the incredibly weird things they ate, like fried butter.

The 16th and last student to introduce himself was Voda, who could control pressurized water with his hands, feet and mouth. The pressurized water could cut through most objects and even harm people. Voda had ginger hair with a buzz cut and a stubble, and he was wearing a black tracksuit and a beret. He came from a strange part of Foeria where the people spoke and sat down in a funny way, and they were also intense alcoholics.

After finishing our introductions, Mr. Kunzite told us we would have time to get acquainted when we finished the learning part of the day and got into the physical training. We would be brought to a training facility within the campus where we could freely test out our powers against dummies, showing off to both our classmates and the professor.

I was excited. Wait, if they’re dummies, then how am I going to activate my powers? I thought. Dummies can’t hurt me. I won’t be able to do much.

I was wrong to assume that.