Awaking abilities (3/4)

"Who are you?"

Sebastian asked as he stepped back.

His narrowed eyes studied the man. Instinctively, the mana inside his body started to flow, ready to use the Remorse Marionette in case the man got any closer.

"Easy boy, I'm Lenard. You don't recognize me?" The sunglasses were taken off, showing an average Caucasian face, but with a prosthetic eye. "I know six months has been a long time, but at least I was the first Manifester you met."

"I don't know how would you call it, but ignoring minor details, I'm legitimately your first time." He grinned.

"Holy shhh…" The students around exclaimed. Interchanging glances.

"I didn't know he was into sugar…" Someone whispered.

The hell is 'first time' in your definition!

Sebastian yelled inward.

Suddenly he felt the necessity to beat the shit out of Lenard, even though it was easier for an elephant to fly than for him to win. And yes, now he remembered who this man was.

But first thing first…

"He's Lenard, a soldier or something like that, he was in charge of the Clericland Forest Incident." Sebastian quickly dropped the key information to stop people from making up their headcanons.

It was his reputation that was at risk, if he dared to say something like 'we met that night on…', no matter what follows that starting line, things will just get worse.

After all, he was talking to teenagers.

Thirsty and hormonal teenagers.

…

But while Sebastian balanced his inner awkwardness.

In the circle of students, there was a profound silence.

Someone covered their mouths in regret.

"Oh…"

"I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry, we didn't know."

"I thought… my bad, I need to learn how to keep my mouth shut next time."

Unexpectedly for Sebastian, the students started apologizing.

Huh? What's wrong with them?

Why are they saying sorry?

Huh?

Oh!

Did I say that forest's name?

Come on, I'm not even that fragile.

Chill out.

"Chill out!" Sebastian waved his hand to appease the ashamed faces.

"I'm fine."

Is he?

The classmates pondered the question.

Even though Sebastian never admitted and said nothing about it, rumors have been existing in the school for months and almost all original students were aware that he was at that place that night.

He came back to school, everyone saw him smile. But what about his athletic sports star sister?

His appearance didn't look like he was-

"I almost didn't recognize you, Ian, with your long hair. I guess you're in your Emo period now."

Paying attention or not to the mood of these students, Lenard greeted the black-haired guy.

"........"

Who didn't respond.

"His name is not Ian…"

Finally, Alexandra had to step out to say.

"Wait, really? Your name isn't Ian? Then… Osian?"

"...…......"

"Killian?"

"........…."

"Julian?"

"........…."

"Damian?"

"........…."

"Christian?"

"........…."

Alexandra pulled a wry face.

"It's Sebastian…" She voiced again, not sure why she was more involved than her own friend.

"Oh right, Sebastian." The man finally said it right, "Then, Sebastian, what are you doing in this place?"

"I study here." The teenager tried to use common sense to bargain the high ground.

"No, I mean, why are you here in this test, you awoke months ago. Didn't you tell them that you are registered already?"

"No one asked." He played dumb.

"Huh, no one asked, huh?" Lenard judged the innocent face Sebastian tried to put, "Tina, write that down, tell everyone that in the next school- No, in the next groups, ask first if they are registered Manifesters already. And make them all show their M-card."

"Yes Sir."

"Well, get these kids to test their initials. You, come with me."

Those last words were to Sebastian.

…

Close to thirty students were guided to the center of the gym.

After a little speech by an MDW officer, these were split into two lines.

The first group stood in front of what by pure appearance was a shooting range. There were impact force testing machines along with weightlifting equipment to be freely used.

Their tests would be started right away, supervised by numerous smart-looking analysts, and recorded by cameras from all angles.

Logically, all those gadgets were brought by the MDW. But sometimes, the student subjects would be told to attack or use their abilities on the soldiers.

The result of that is obviously no result. No matter with what kind of eye-catching abilities these teenagers strike, the experienced warriors would always take an even more striking countermeasure out of their sleeves.

Despite the poor looking and unprofessional conditions of this improvised testing spot, these workers show perfectly the attitude of 'if I don't f*ck it up, it works'.

Meanwhile, the second group joined other students that were here from the beginning.

Their best contribution was as spectators of the first group. And from time to time, they'll provide some 'wow', 'did you see that?', 'so strong!', 'I'm jealous' exclamations.

Maybe these teens even forgot that they were here to test their initials too.

But as a white giant duck planted its orange legs in front of them, their testing as the first group too.

…

…

"So… how have you been doing?" Setting on the stairs of the bleacher, Lenard asked the young man while they both observed the energy blasts, magic explosions, and blinding sparkles coming from below.

"Living the dream of all teenagers I guess: no parents bothering, money arriving every month, eating all the food I want, playing video games all day, and then a servant that does all the work. I have no right to complain." Sebastian responded impassively.

"Huh… Good for you." Lenard didn't come up with anything else to say. "You've changed."

Sebastian saved a few seconds of blank in this conversation, remembering what kind of first impression he might have left on Lenard.

"I don't think so, you probably just caught me off guard that night." He eventually answered.

"Your appearance changed."

"Puberty."

"You talk more."

"And? I'm an orphan, not a mute"

"You don't look at people's eyes when you talk to them."

"Cause you only have one to look at Lenard. Yours can't be called eyes, only eye."

"You avoid peo-"

"Fine, if you want to insist so much that I changed. I did, okay? I did."

"You haven't talked with people about that night, don't ya?"

"Who are you? A psychologist?"

"Yeah."

"You should get in your own- wait, what?"

"Former psychologist, before being recruited by the government, when the MDW wasn't a thing yet."

Then all the less reason for me to talk to you, psycho.

"That's so nice. Good for you" Sebastian smirked.

The message was clear.

For the next ten minutes, both stayed quiet, looking at the students making use of their abilities, a great variety of them.

Apparently, it wasn't that obvious to determine what kind of abilities people had. Often, the subjects had to try different ways of application, be flexible with the time using, do weird poses, it takes until the last drop of mana and the analysts to replay the videos over and over again to finally hand a printed paper and a small book to the students.

"What are those?" Sebastian broke the silence.

"The paper or the manual?"

"Both."

"The paper is the information of their initial ability. The class, the use, the precautions, the hazards, all what we know of, and the wrong paths that are good to avoid. It's all in that printed paper."

"How considered."

"Do you want to hear the truth?"

"Why not, Mr. Rhetoric question."

"Well, the thing is, we are just following the protocol of how China is managing their Manifesters. It's not a big secrete, their population is bigger and so it's the size of their land. Meaning a higher number of portals and Manifesters. Their data is way too whole compared to ours and literally all the countries in the world. Thanks to that they openly shared their ability catalog from E to B-class, the tension between nations relieved and more countries shared their information respecting the portals."

"So you're telling me that the ones telling the students 'Please don't do that, it's dangerous.' are Chinese scientists?"

"Not completely, but you could see it like that. The rest of the world complemented the missing abilities gaps. I can say that in a few months, those will become public information."

"What about the manual, are those from China too?"

"Oh, no, that we made it ourselves. It has a bunch of different things, like changes in the law that Manifester needs to be aware of, a more detailed explanation of the current portal situation, the power system of Manifesters, prerequisites to enter the portals, websites, and most importantly, the mana absorption technique."

"The government has finally decided that it would be good for the citizens to have self-protection strength," Lenard concluded with a complicated tone.

"Sound like a 'we need more soldiers' to me."

"One doesn't contradict the other." The man patiently explained.

"Then why are you and I here, an MDW officer and a student, instead of you and an adult. "

"Oh, you don't know how messed up is the adult world. They… We're all animals."