Metaphysical Education

12:40pm CATZ

Septermber 8th 2118AD

Harare - Post Africa

Ian sat at his computer desk, he really should have been in bed, but tomorrow, or rather today was set to be the start of a chapter in his life. He had been selected for post secondary education, the thought of it terrified him. Again and again he replayed the clip on his laptop. He had seen it enough times for it to be burned into his mind:

An M16 armed combatant rounded the corner and unleashed two burst at the unarmed combatant, each bullet unleashing the energy of a lightning strike on impact with the wall, by this time the unarmed combatant is backflipping over the gunman and then races around the corner at an inhuman speed. The gunman give chase but the second he is around the corner the unarmed combatant is already racing towards him, the gunman shoulders his rifle but the unarmed combatant drops into a powerslide and with the momentum manipulation only a level 6 contact fighter could muster instantaneously began rotating. The unarmed combatant sweeps out with their right leg at the opponent's shins and strikes with enough force to cut through. Before the gunman even has time to fall, the unarmed one redirects their momentum once more and launches herself vertically, striking with both legs to the chin of the gunman, shattering the skull and causing the man’s eyes to burst. The unarmed fighter is quickly back on her feet again as the man’s body begins to fall, lashing out one final time before he hits the ground, piercing through the rib cage and into the chest cavity, stopping the heart.

Match.

He felt a shiver run up his spine and he grabbed his student card activating the holographic data display.

Name: Ian Smith Abbott

Gender: Male

Role: 1st year

age: 14

Stats:

Casting: 3

Contact: 3

Containment: 1

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 3

Speed: 3

Reflexes: 3

Stamina: 3

Appearance: Black hair, average height for his age, tad underweight.

weapon of choice: Kreigsmesser

fighting style: best described as “one handed kendo”, notably applies both contact and containment magic in his bladework.

Not a single stat above 3, he was going to be slaughtered. Lost in his own worries, he practically jumped out of his skin when he heard his door creak open. “Ugh, what are you doing, you have to wake up at 5 to catch your plane, and all I can hear from my room is you clicking on your laptop.” His older sister, Haley, said as she rubbed her eyes and entered his room. She looked over his shoulder at the screen. “Reviewing my victory? Not that it’s weird or anything, I mean I certainly am worth watching.” She said with a smirk.

For Ian it was hard for him to believe that the warm face smiling at him then and there was the same as the blood spattered expressionless one on his screen. “I’m scared.” He mumbled.

She took one look at his active student card and groaned, “we’ve been over this before, with your balanced stats you’re going to do fine. So drop the bullshit and tell me what’s really bothering you.”

He gulped and mumbled, “I don’t want to … kill.”

She put a hand on his shoulder, “Remember, you don’t have to, you can just claim or destroy their beacon,” She said, then gave him a hug, “but if you do kill someone, you’ll get over it. Now come on, you have to get up early for a big day, get some rest.”

She tucked him into bed then left, and he wondered to himself, was she right? Would he get over it? Furthermore: Was he right? Was it the prospect of killing that scared him or was that just a lie to cover his fear of being the one killed? He glanced up at the window above his bed and up at the starry sky and silently wondered which of the dots in the heavens above was Dragon Station.

If waking up at 5 had been hard, then hugging his family goodbye at the airport had been nearly impossible, and watching his home continent fade into the distance from his rear facing window seat as the sun rapidly rise in the east was down right painful. The flight was excruciatingly long. For what felt like the thousandth time he checked the Bureau of Public Awareness app of the digital display built into the back of the seat in front of him. The same headlines were there, “world population set to reach 2 billion by 2119”, “Sons of Helaman claims responsibility for Bureau of Career Determination L.A. Centre bombing” and “Bureau of the Economy says GWP is set to grow 6% next year” he groaned, put in his earbuds and hit play on his portable multimedia device.

[cue flashy intro set to some hybrid pop-rock jap-crap song with interspliced engrish]

9:40pm CT

September 8th 2118AD

Out skirts of Houston-Texas-Yellow Rose Rebellion

“Piece of shit!” Cletus remarked and threw the stinger on the ground.

“Whoa there amigo that thing’s still loaded even if it won’t shoot!” Javier shouted in a panic.

“This is what I mean when I say that technology will fail us. The 40mm bofors gun carried America through WWII, so we should have been using one of those.” The man dressed in what looked to be an AEF uniform pilfered from a museum said and looked up at the vapor trail left by the escaping passenger jet.

“Am I the only one who finds it a bit sad that we’re shooting missiles at planes carrying kids to school.” Hank asked.

“I’d mind a bit more if said school wasn’t just a factory for magic-capable special forces. Hell I reckon we might be doing them a favour by putting them out to pasture now.” Cletus replied. “Now come on let’s finish our beers, get back to the tank, and see about gettin us selves transferred to the Oklahoma front.” He said and gestured to the M-160A3 (a hybrid of the M1A3 and M60A3 made by the rebellion) at the bottom of the hill they had been standing on.

11:40pm EDT

September 8th 2118AD

Hamilton-Ontario-Post Canada

The last leg of the flight had been strange, flying back into darkness of the night. Many times while looking at the landscape of North America he had noticed flashes on the ground, a reminder that this was a wild land that was continuing to resist the civilizing force of the Xi’an government. It was also a reminder of why the school was here, to keep the ever dangerous amatur magic users at arms’ length.

Hamilton for its part seemed peaceful. There was more barbed wire and peacekeepers than in Harare, but for the most part it seemed like a picturesque harbor town. From the airport he and some other old world arrivals were loaded onto an armoured school bus which transported them to the high school, the former campus of McMaster University.

For now the bus only winded its way through the campus dropping people off at their assigned residences, the School was taking on many new students this year and he had been assigned to one of the nearby houses that had been bought by the school and termed the “student village”.

The bus drove by the soccer field and onto road separated from the other lane by a massive grassy median, by this point there were only a few students left on the bus, he noticed that the girl sitting near had a rising sun sticker on her suitcase. “Hey, are you from Japan?” He asked. He noticed that she seemed a bit flustered and seemingly tried to hide behind her long raven black hair, “I’m from Harare, Africa and we old-worlders gotta stick together.” He offered, and gave a friendly smile.

The  released her breath, “I’m from Teshikaga, Hokkaido. My name’s Rin Ishikawa. Yours?”

“Ian Abbott.” he replied.

The bus rolled to a stop and a voice over the loudspeaker informed them it was the last stop. His bag in one hand, his student card in the other, currently displaying the address of his residence, with the helpful addition of an arrow pointing him in the right direction. He looked in the direction of the arrow and walked between the road and the start of the nearest house’s lawn and watched as the arrowed adjusted its angle to remain fixed on the large boxy house at the end of the court.

Standing on the front porch he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Rin walking up behind him, “You live here too? That’s neat.”

The lights inside were on, so clearly there were some others there. He gave a knock, “That must be the last ones, Hec get the door.” A deep voice with a southern American accent called out from within the house.

“Sure.” A much nearer voice replied, “Yo, first year peice of shit! You have a student card, just fucking tap it!”

“That’s not very nice.” A third voice added.

“I’m not nice! I am however smart enough to say that the new fags should learn to use their keys!” The near voice hollered back. There was some truth to that, he tapped his card on the black panel by the door and the card flashed green. Entering through the doorway he found himself in a hallway. “Congrats on finding your way in,” a tall boy with curly blonde hair said from the other end of the hallway. “now you guys can finally move your crap out of the front hallway,” he said and gestured to the two piles of boxes which contained things that had been shipped ahead of move in day. “though I will warn you, there’s only two rooms left and one’s so small I think it’s just a closet that’s had a bed frame stuffed into it. Name’s Hector by the way.”

Both of the new arrivals’ faces drooped at this news. Feeling an urge to be chivalrous Ian cleared his throat, “I’ll take the smaller room.” He then received a sharp kick to the back of his leg.

“I refuse to take any handouts!” Rin exclaimed, walked over to her pile of boxes and began digging into a long thin one. She eventually managed to get through the excess of packaging revealing a wickedly sharp Naginata and a beacon. “I will duel you for the larger room.” She proclaimed.

“What?!” Ian exclaimed and all but fell over.

“What? You’re going to bail on your first challenge?” Hector asked then began chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

The other residents of the house ran over and joined in on the chant as Ian dug through his pile to find his weapon, eventually he found it and attached the scabbard on the right side of his belt and his beacon to the left side of it. “Alright, we can use the front lawn.” He said.

There was a nice cool breeze blowing down the road, and crickets could be heard from the grass as fireflies darted about. The two stood opposite each other and the oldest of the boys lowered his hand “Begin!”

She lunged forward from her combat stance and thrusted out with her polearm. Ian drew his sword and knocked the thrust aside with a single motion. She kept on the offensive with a barrage of rapid slashes and thrusts. Again and again he struggled to parry them all, using such a heavy blade with one hand was quite tiring and she seemed to be taking advantage of this.

A yellow aura formed around her blade as she wound up for an attack. Contact magic, likely electricity he thought and moved to parry, at the last second activating a spell of his own.

The blade of his sword wrapped around the naginata blade and the electric spell discharged into the air.

There was a loud beep and the oldest boy proclaimed “MATCH!”

Rin was unsure what had happened until she directed her attention to Ian’s left hand, which currently held her beacon. She had been so focus on his right hand and the sword it held that she hadn’t given any thought to his left hand. What she really didn’t get was why he looked embarrassed and why everyone else was laughing, then she felt the breeze. Looking down she saw her skirt at her feet, the waistband must have broken when he grabbed her beacon. She she looked at it, then at him, then back at it and quickly grabbed it and pulled it back up, keeping the torn portion clenched in her fist. “Well I guess you won the big room.”

The laughter died down, “Big room?” One of the boys enquired.

“All the rooms are the same size.” Another added.

“Hec, what did you tell them?” The older boy demanded.

Hector who had only just stopped laughing replied, “I was bored and wanted to watch a fight. So what?”

The eldest boy walked on to the field and spoke in his rich southern voice, “Well now that that disturbance is out of the way. My name’s Andrew Jenkins, hall monitor and floor… or rather house... don!” He said then ushered them towards the house, “we can have introductions now.” The other boys however, seemed to be making their way inside again, “Ah said: we can have introductions now!” Andrew loudly stated.

The first to put himself forward was a slightly taller than average boy who calmly pushed aside a stray bang from his face before speaking, “The name’s Dan Grayson, but Hector likes to call me lightbulb guy, because he needs me to change them for him.”

“Hey! Just because I failed 3 courses last year doesn’t make me dumb!” Hector shot back.

“Yes it does.” A green eyed boy said and offered his hand, “Adam Menendez, I’m a biathlete.”

“Well I’m an athlete, but I’m not bi.” Another stated with a sly grin, “Adrian Flare at your service.”

“Don’t be mean to the member of the LGBTQQIP2SAA community!” A long hair member of the group interjected, “Worry not, I Samuel Bantan, am a sane progressively minded-”

“Pfft! There’s plenty of pictures of your crypto-fascist ass in a brownshirt uniform, you will never be a true socialist.” A boy who was holding an An-Soc flag stated, “The name is Jonathan Archer. I have a flag.”

All eyes fell on Hector, “You heard my name a few times by now, and thanks to Danny boy’s roast of me, you already know that I am not particularly academically minded. However  he left out that I have 2 girlfriends.” He paused and clarified, “and they know about each other.”

“I omitted that because I still don’t believe that claim.” Dan replied. As the group headed inside.

12:00am EDT

September 9th 2118AD

Teacher’s Lounge-Hamilton-Ontario-Post Canada

“Dr. Smith, you’re in late.”  Dieudonné Guillory said as he ran a hand through his white hair.

The abruptness of Dieudonné’s appearance would be startling, but Dr. Jason Smith was used to it by this time. “I’m just reviewing the course content once more and enjoying the lounge’s coffee.” In reality the coffee in the lounge was quite rancid.

Dieudonné got the message, “Ah, you like it dark?”

“Blonde.” Jason replied and shifted his glasses.

“Speaking of blonde, I hear that the brother of Ms. Abbott will be under your instruction.” Dieudonné stated and took a seat in one of the lounge’s chairs.

Jason gulped, “Yes, I hope he can prove to be more broad minded than Haley, she showed so much promise, but her obsession with winning prevented her from seeing the bigger picture. There is evidently lots of talent in their make up”

“I just hope he ends up requiring emotional counseling a bit less than she did.” Dieudonné said, then added, “Which is not to say that I would not very much like to make his acquaintance.”

“As you said, it’s late and I should be going.” Jason replied and left without bothering to finish his coffee.

Dieudonné leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. This was indeed going to be an interesting year.

12:23am EDT

September 9th 2118AD

Ian’s room

Ian sat on the edge of his bed, wondering what he felt.

He wasn’t homesick, despite the nearly unimaginable distance between him and the apartment he and his family called home. He knew that feeling from when his parents had brought him out of town for a week, and this wasn’t it.

Could it be anxiety? Butterflies in the stomach the night before a new school year wasn’t unusual; which is why he knew this wasn’t just that.

Was it dread? Looking his window at the school, illuminated by some floodlights, it didn’t seem particularly imposing. However something about it, perhaps the way the road wound through the school’s facilities like they were a maze, filled him with foreboding. As if to underline the feeling a longing wail sounded in the distance. The pathetic fallacy is real. He thought to himself and looked up to the sky, again wondering if dragon station was above hiding amongst the stars and satellites of the heavens.

[insert ending theme here as scene fades to credits]

A/N:

Yes it’s not cancelled, though it will be if Grayson doesn’t get back to international section 9.

Tux’s character did not appear in this chapter because he is a hyper pessimist and I wish to punish such views.

Also I will be taking this story as an excuse to write a love letter to Ontario.

Finally, about the main character: while writing IAH:R, I found it pretty hard to write a story centred around you all while also trying to give you all decent enough exposure (Grey knows that I failed in that regard), so with a single main character and all of our guys just being people in his immediate social sphere I feel I can have a more coherent narrative and give you all better scenes.