gloom

Earlier this morning, you started getting...visions. That's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of it, but it's not entirely accurate. It's more like you just get thoughts, and you know that they don't originate from your own mind. These thoughts just appeared this morning, telling you about your new powers (that's still hard to believe).

For a while, you thought you were being messed with by someone, and to an extent, you still do. You're honestly kind of worried by this. You remember watching some girl on the news, who got brainwashed by the mindscrew guy in Quebec, and how she started increasingly loving the mindscrewer, to the point where she was completely loyal and 'mentally betrothed' to the guy. You don't even remember how she got out. Scary. There are capes who can control minds, and maybe you're being manipulated by one right now. The thought makes you shiver, and you do your best not to dwell on that idea, and try to focus on your two new powers.

The Headway power. Headway allows rapidly enhanced growth of ordinary skills (and magic, apparently), as well as gaining powers from defeated foes. In a week or two, you imagine you could become an Olympian level athlete, a super-genius in terms of school, or gain almost-parahuman abilities around that level, just with a bit of work and effort. That's not even mentioning the potential superpowers you could make from even the mundane abilities like Programming or Mathematics, two of your current skills.

The Nexus ability allows you to travel to different universes. Now...you almost think that one's a trick. Because you don't see Aleph on the list of universes in your interface, but you do see a bit of stuff you recognize as fictional. There are about twenty or thirty universes that pop up when you think about them. Bleach, Skyrim, Fallout, Larklight, Defiance, Tiger and Bunny (what?), a ton of worlds with really weird and unfamiliar names. Still, they generally look pretty awesome, and you're pretty sure you'll get to go to all of them at a later date.

Young Justice, apparently some kind of superhero show. You almost didn't understand it, until you recognized Robin, the sidekick of Batman, one of those old comic book superheroes. You don't remember if he was DC or Marvel. There's also a few worlds based off of other superheroes. You recognize the Avengers and X-Men as a few of them.

As for the others, you don't remember or know any of them. Your interface, which really just ports some words or pictures into your head (which remains creepy) says that only one is accessible anyway. Something called One Piece. When you focus on the universe and its 'image', the interface's description of One Piece 'helpfully' pops in.

Wealth, fame, power. Gol D. Roger, King of the Pirates, attained everything his world had to offer. The words he uttered before his death drove people to the seas. "My treasure? If you want it, you can have it! Find it! I left everything the world has to offer there in One Piece!"

And so men head to the Grand Line in pursuit of their dreams! The world has truly entered a Great Pirate Era!

The romantic description pauses there, and your power continues its description in a more reasoned, somewhat less flowery, way. 'One Piece' is a tale of adventures, of far-off goals, and of true friendship in a world much darker than it seems. It is a story of audacity, of a crew uniting in companionship and dreams, and of a world driven mad. Monkey D. Luffy dreams of becoming the King of the Pirates, and behind him are his true nakama, the Straw Hat Pirates!

You allow the interface to continue telling you of the glories of One Piece, briefly checking the room to make sure no one's giving you odd looks. They're still focused on Mr. Gladly or the time-honored tradition of doing nothing in class. Good.

The description finishes, with an almost startlingly blander, basic summary of what exactly is in One Piece. 'One Piece' is generally around the 16th century in terms of technology, with varying factions possessing a significant amount of schizo tech, including but not limited to robotics, laser bursts, soda-powered cyborgs, etc. A significant number of powers can be gained here, including but not limited to Devil Fruits, fruits that grant superpowers in exchange for removing the ability to swim, Haki, a mysterious force that enhances combat, sensory abilities, and many more, Rokushiki, a superhuman martial arts style, an almost innumerable amount of Charles Atlas superpowers, etc.

Your starting location will be Loguetown, in the Polestar Islands of the East Blue, a gateway to the Grand Line.

Now you're sort of lost. Your power seems to just be touching on what you can gain from this world, rather than doing a thorough explanation. Because that would just be too convenient, wouldn't it. You take a moment to ponder on what exactly you know about this world. There are an apparent multitude of superpowered pirates, in a world with some strange differences in technological advancement. It sort of sounds like the ocean is very important, but that might just be the fact that the series- no, it's real now, so the world- focuses on piracy.

Yyyyeaaahhh. That whole world sounds pretty...odd, to say the least. But there's a fairly prominent part of you that finds it pretty cool. You get to travel between dimensions! You manage to hold down a gleeful grin, before you shake it off, and the images disappear as an unintended result. Class has about three minutes left, and you spend several minutes aimlessly considering your new powers.

Sixth period is lunch hour, and you decide to eat by yourself in the girls' bathroom on the third floor. It's a good place to eat lunch by yourself, given that you have no friends (Greg and his pals do not count) and that no one really likes you (again, Greg doesn't count). The bathroom's never a place where people really want to stay, plus it's off the school's metaphorical beaten track.

It's almost become comforting to see the stained and scratched mirrors, and the stall door with a hole chopped into it by...something. That probably comes off as a bit more disturbing than it actually is. Hey, when the cafeteria is a cacophonous mess of gangster wannabes, the three bitches and their ilk, and general weirdos, you take what you can get as a relief.

Your thoughts drift back to your powers, because, really, what else are you going to think about? Your power claims that Headway can help you with enhancing skills, knowledge, and stuff like that. Logically, that means that it should be helping with math, right?

You decide to test that theory. Mr. Quinlan didn't really do much in terms of teaching today. In Geometry, you've been covering area and perimeter for polygons, and the methods used to find them. All he did today was hand out a packet to be worked on over the course of a week in class, with one hundred problems on calculating polygonal areas/perimeters. You get to work on it, using a sink and the textbook for support.

The square parts are easy. They're nothing more than area and perimeter, after all. Rhombuses take a bit more effort, and you have to call upon your knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem, but that's about all you have to do. You have to spend a bit more time on cones and cubes, but you manage to get it after pressing on.

You finish the one hundred problems with ten minutes to spare until seventh period begins. With a little time left, you spend a few minutes looking through the textbook for miscellaneous problems, trying for the complicated ones. You decipher two or three word problems with a bit of effort, scribbling down answers as you do the mental math, grinning as you check the back of the book to ensure that the answers are accurate. They are, to your perhaps disproportionate satisfaction.

Third period, Art, is a bit unpleasant. Some of Emma's friends are in there, and they give you disgusted looks occasionally. You mostly ignore them, and focus on listening to Mrs. Hernandez explain the difference between impressionism and post-impressionism. It's not the most interesting class.

When you took this course, you thought it would be more about painting, pottery, and the like. It didn't especially interest you, but you were hoping it would have been something simple, and it sounded better than P.E., anyway. Unfortunately, it wound up being a bored woman close to retirement reciting from a textbook and occasionally assigning projects. Still, all it requires is paying attention, so you guess it's not all bad.

Your favorite class of the day, however, is your fourth period class, Computers. Ms. Knott is easily your favorite teacher, being the only one who seems to notice when Sophia or someone messes with you. Sure, she can't do that much, but it's the thought that counts. She smiles at you when you enter her class, and you return the favor.

Today's assignment is fairly easy. For the advanced students like yourself, it's making a spreadsheet out of a certain set of data. It takes you most of the period, which given that it's meant to be work for the next few days, is a testament to your programming knowledge.

You can feel your Headway at work more so than ever, perhaps because you actually enjoy computer science stuff. Whenever you advance in something, all of your previous mistakes or roadblocks seem so obvious in hindsight, you're almost embarrassed at your past self. The more you think about it, the cooler you realize it is. This project normally would have taken you the allotted time, but you finished in record time. Ms. Knott stops by and gives you a thumbs up and a grin, silently congratulating you on your work.

The rest of the day is unremarkable, with you spending the short time remaining in her class checking your work and improving upon it. When the bell to leave school rings, you take the bus home, sleeping through most of the ride.

Despite today being largely pleasant, you still let out a sigh of relief when you arrive home. In the past year or so, you've learned that high school is rarely an enjoyable experience. You think that you can get a bit done tonight. Not terribly much, but enough.

You have three actions to choose from for tonight. Stuff like dinner with Dad and such is automatically included, you don't need to tell me to make Taylor sleep or anything ultra-specific like that. Telling Dad about your powers isn't an option yet.

Label your plan something, like so. This is just an example. You don't actually have to do that exact layout.

Headway/Nexus Quest 1.1

Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3

Date: Monday, November 1, 2010

After returning from school, you go upstairs to your bedroom, and pull your various textbooks from your backpack. You think you'll spend tonight working on your academics. It's boring, sure, but if you get this out of the way first, then you'll not only have an easier time at school, but you'll also have room for more exotic sessions.

History goes first. Mr. Gladly doesn't really use a textbook, preferring to use a projector and an Internet connection to go to news sites and discuss what's going on in the world, which does make sense, given that he basically teaches a Current Events class. Still, it leaves you at a bit of a loss for a few moments, until you realize that he does have a textbook, he just hasn't used it all semester.

You spend around half an hour going through and reading the first few chapters. You hear Dad return home halfway through the section on Scion and Yugoslavia, and he stops by your room to check up on you. "Hey, kiddo," he says, after knocking twice. A habit your mom had to drum into him. You try to shove that thought away.

"Hey," you reply.

He notes your textbooks strewn around your desk. "Study session?"

Oh no. You really don't want to lie to him. Think of something... "Oh, uh, yeah. I didn't want to get left behind, you know."

Smooth. Thankfully, Dad doesn't seem to notice. "I remember my professors telling me to read ahead so I wouldn't get lost during lectures. I was always too lazy to do it. That's, ah, a good habit to pick up."

"Thanks," you say, with as much cheer as you can muster. You think you might have overdone it, since Dad blinks a bit, before apparently thinking nothing of it.

Your father nods in your general direction, before gesturing his thumb towards the stairs. "I'm going to heat up some lasagna. Come down when you hear the beep. Ten minutes, maybe? I dunno. I always have to check the box over and over again."

You force a smile. It's not that you're unhappy, just that you don't usually smile when you aren't happy. "Yeah, okay."

"I'll be downstairs. Remember, when you hear the beep!" he points a finger at you for that last sentence, waggling it in a faux-dramatic manner. You stick your tongue out at him right before he leaves, and he laughs. Okay, so you didn't mess that one up.

You finish off chapter two of the World Issues textbook, stopping to quiz yourself on the last section before dinner time. Let's see...where did Scion create two hundred miles worth of bunkers during the Yugoslavian collapse? Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, or France? Well, duh.

What was Demitar Blagoev's role in the Bulgarian acquisition of former Yugoslavian territories? He was the...you have to stop and think for a moment. He was a politician in the '90s got powers and became the dictator of Bulgaria for a few years, before dying in the Simurgh attack on Sofia.

You belatedly realize that doesn't answer the question. He ordered the invasion and takeover of some Yugoslavian territory right as the war was heating up, which was one of the things that instigated the collapse of the European Union, which was the main focus of the chapter.

You're downstairs a minute or two before the microwave beeps, and you help Dad set the table. Your family's microwave is fairly old, it doesn't have the features of the newer ones, which automatically set food at a preferable temperature. The two of you have to wait a few minutes for the lasagna to cool down. Dad has you make a salad, which is really just emptying a bag into a large bowl. You think you can handle that much, at least.

Dad doesn't really say much during dinner. He's had a long day at work, not a hard one, but a long one, and doesn't really feel like talking. That's fine with you, you don't have that much to say to him, and you don't want to tell him about your power unless you have to.

You help him clear the dishes, before returning to your room. Art is next. Art is fairly straightforward, same as World Issues. You don't have many hands-on projects until next semester, so it's just bookwork until then.

The current chapter is on rising art styles in the 19th century, impressionism and post-impressionism in particular. The book does a fair job of describing what exactly that means. Impressionism was a more realistic style of paint, like the portraits of people or bowls of fruit. It's sort of like taking a picture. By contrast, post-impressionism involved vivid colors and a wider usage of creativity. Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and a few others were post-impressionist artists and painters.

Not very interesting, but it had to be done. You press forward into math, spending the rest of the night doing equations, mostly finding area and perimeter, but also doing a bit of basic trigonometry. You have a feeling this was the most rewarding study session of the night, since you feel a drastic increase in your mathematical skill.

You yawn as you finish the book's practice quiz. It's getting late. You should probably go to bed. There's school tomorrow, and you know the trio are going to start upping their game. The thought sours your good mood. Well. You'll just have to be ready for them.

Geography +1. Geography 2.

World Issues +1. World Issues 2.

Art History +1. Art History 1.

Mathematics +1. Mathematics 3.

Geometry +1. Geometry 2.

Skill Unlocked! Housework 0.

Skill Unlocked! Trigonometry 0.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, November 2, 2010. You have three actions to choose from

Headway/Nexus Quest 1.2

Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3

Date: Tuesday, November 2, 2010

There's not much to elaborate on for your before-school morning. You wake up, grab a few pieces of toast, and get on the bus. The bus ride is unremarkable, and you sleep through most of it, as usual. You arrive at school five minutes before the bell rings, and stand around until the morning bell rings to let you in.

First period, math, starts at eight forty-five, and there are about thirty-five students present, out of around fifty total. Emma, Madison, and a few of their friends are among that number. Thankfully, though, you manage to find a seat on the other side of the room, so they're unlikely to bother you.

Mr. Quinlan wordlessly hands back the packets from yesterday, before telling you all that if you brought them home, it's your responsibility to bring them back. He spends a bit of time refusing a girl asking for another packet, but by then, you've zoned out.

After you've (surreptitiously) made sure that they are embroiled in their work, you hand in your packet to Mr. Quinlan. The man looks at your paper briefly, not even turning the pages of the packet before he scribbles a 100% on it. "You sure you're done with this?" he asks, turning towards you.

Shouldn't he have asked that before writing your grade? "Yea- yes, sir."

"Hn. Good. Here, take this. Next chapter's packet. Remember to study for the Unit 2 test next week."

There's around an hour left of class, and you spent it doing the packet. You don't feel the Headway power kick in that much during this period, but that's fine. You're four-fifths of the way done with it by the time the period ends.

That was nice. It's the early morning, so the trio and their ilk are still too tired to bug you, and they're busy with the mountain of work Mr. Quinlan assigns every week. Unfortunately, now you have World Issues. You manage to hold back the trepidation as you go downstairs to Mr. Gladly's class.

Mr. Gladly stands outside the door to his classroom, saying hi or giving high fives to any entering students, and you walk by with an awkward smile. Thankfully, neither of you have to dwell on it, as other students follow behind you.

You settle into class, again trying to avoid the trio, who are all present in this period, taking a seat in the middle left of the room. Two minutes after the late bell rings, Mr. Gladly finishes talking with students, and officially starts class.

"Alright, guys, we gotta get this thing started!" he claps his hands, and the din quiets down after a few minutes or so.

You couldrepeat what Mr. Gladly said, but all he was doing was repeating stuff from this chapter in the book. Suffice to say, none of it was anything you hadn't heard before, nor was it interesting in the slightest. He's...alright, you guess, but he's way too excitable and tries a bit too hard. The best thing about class is that you do feel his oral lesson reinforce your own knowledge, and the sensation of knowing that the Headway power gives you flows through you.

You don't do much after class during lunch. You mostly just sit down, read a book, and enjoy the lovely atmosphere of the third floor's girls' bathroom. Someone's scratched a racial slur against Asians into a mirror since you were last here. Charming, Winslow.

After lunch, you go to third period, Art. Mrs. Hernandez gives a pop quiz on the current chapter, which you manage to pass with an eighty-eight. Thank god you studied. You can't imagine doing well without last night's session. Not much else happens in class. After the quiz, she spends a while reviewing the test, and then the material.

Madison dumps a pile of pencil shavings on your desk, and you barely manage to clean it off before Mrs. Hernandez notices. Thankfully, you sat by the trashcan. Class ends before they can try anything else.

Computers goes fairly well, actually. Your assignment today is a bit of code-building with Virtual Basic, and you definitely feel the Headway power at work there. Not as much as it could have been, but its effects are certainly noticeable, particularly in Virtual Basic. You think you might have gotten more out of this than anything else today.

As usual, you take the bus home from school, and you're very happy to be back at your house. You consider lounging about for the rest of the day, not having any homework or projects, but part of you manages to overcome that slothful urge. Plus you wanted to branch out your power beyond basic schoolwork.

You track down a few Kung Fu videos on YourStream, and after a dud or two, you find a man named Sherman Hsia-Liu offering free training in dozens of ten minute videos. You decide to spend a few hours following his instructions.

It pays off. Beginner Kung Fu feels a bit awkward, but that's mostly because you aren't used to it. It's more like a collection of poses and gestures at this point, rather than the punchy-kicky stuff you were hoping for. Still, Hsia-Liu does a decent job at explaining why these beginning gestures are worthwhile, and you're willing to believe him.

Dad comes home from a decent day at work, and you help him make spaghetti for dinner. The Headway power does its best to do something in that regard, but you don't see any noticeable increases from helping Dad. He asks you how school went, you tell him it was an okay day, he says something about work, it was an okay day, and the dinner talk didn't go very much beyond that. Nothing unusual, it's almost identical to many conversations you've had with him. That probably says a lot about your relationship.

You stop by the basement, dragging out a set of dumbbells of various weights up to your room. The fact that you were panting by the end of it is honestly kind of depressing. You aim to fix that. A bit of haphazard practice gets you quite a bit of results, namely that you see everything you were doing wrong in said practice. You also feel a lot better, not just mentally, but physically as well. You feel...alive. Yeah, that's what you feel. Your fitness is better than its ever been, and you know you can make it even better. It's a spectacular feeling.

You take a break for about thirty minutes to recover from your exercising, and when you're done with that bit of slothfulness, you start studying. Not for school, but for your various universes. Here's what you find. It's not terribly useful.

The first thing you start with is your other universes, besides One Piece. Perhaps a bit of a bad idea to start off with, but it seemed like an efficient use of time at the moment. Mass Effect. A series of video games on Earth Aleph, but copyright's blocking much more than trailers. Fans have loaded their wikis to Earth Bet, so it's not all bad.

Firefly, you've actually heard of. It was a show that ran for a few years in the early 2000s, until most of its cast died in the Leviathan attack on San Francisco. There's a readily available wiki for it that you take the time to bookmark. Stargate was a movie on both Aleph and Bet. On your world, it failed miserably, but on theirs, it spawned a massive television franchise. Frustratingly, you can only find the first season on the Internet.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is obviously a video game or anime, but you can't find anything on it specifically. The best you get is a brief blurb about it in a giant list of Aleph media on a forum meant for cataloging that kind of stuff. It's part of the Fire Emblem series, which you do find was a video game series on your world, until the company that made it was destroyed in Leviathan's attack.

There's something called Worm that's completely grayed out, and when you try to focus on it, it just says that it's not available for those in your dimension. Maybe when you travel to One Piece? Next up is the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls was a moderately successful video game series in your world's 1990s, and even more so on Aleph, but all you find on Skyrim is that it happens to be a place in the Elder Scrolls' world.

Bleach is actually fairly easy to track down, which is relieving. It was an independently published manga on Aleph, about a boy named Ichigo Kurosaki who begins to interact with the spirit world of his community. It ended with the defeat of its main villain, Sosuke Aizen, a few months ago. Bleach is in fact available for purchase on your world. Nothing on the series called Fairy Tail.

You mostly skip the superhero stuff, like Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, X-Men Evolution, Young Justice, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you want information on those, there's plenty of stuff about comic books on the Internet.

The Riordanverse is apparently called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It was a series of books published by a history/mythology teacher on Aleph, but copyright issues are preventing its release on Bet. Opposed to that is the Dresden Files, a series about a wizard/private detective in Chicago who often gets in situations over his head. All of the books in the series are available for a price on your world.

There's nothing on Real Steel. X-Com was a massively popular video game series that concluded on your world with X-Com: Alliance in 2007, but faded into niche obscurity on your own world. Nothing on Pacific Rim or Code Geass. ExoSquad was a cartoon from the 1990s on both your world and Aleph, but it lasted an extra season on your world. It's available for free on YourStream, and you bookmark the playlist.

Ghost in the Shell is one of the few on the list you recognize. You saw one of the movies on Cartoon Network a while back. It's equally popular on Aleph and Bet, and you bookmark any links that look helpful. Nothing on Claymore. Yu Yu Hakusho is an older anime from the Aleph 1990s, which seems pretty similar to Bleach. You wonder if Bleach ripped it off. It was available on YourStream until last month, when the license ran out, and it doesn't look it's returning.

Nothing on Tiger and Bunny, Vanquish, or Defiance. Fallout was an unsuccessful video game on your world, an apparent sequel to another game called Wasteland, but on Aleph, it did pretty well. The latest game, Fallout: Atlanta, has apparently raised a bit of a ruckus with fans for introducing capes into the setting. The games themselves are not available on Bet, besides the first one.

The Dakotaverse was part of Milestone Comics, an attempt of Aleph's to make superhero comics for minority youth. It was purchased by DC Comics in the 2000s. You try to find out more, but comic companies are apparently ferocious in keeping their property out of Earth Bet.

Akira is an anime movie that you know for a fact is available on Earth Bet, so you mostly skip over that one. Worldwar was an alternate history series written by a man named Harry Turtledove, focusing on an alien invasion of Earth in the 1940s, and the ensuing repercussions. Like Fallout, he's drawn controversy for having capes appear in his world's 1980s and 1990s, completely Disrupting the Balance (no, seriously, that's what the book's called).

Nothing on Xam'd, Larklight, Ben 10, or Generator Rex, although for the last one, you do find a comic that ran for two issues, called M. Rex. Now that you've spent a significant amount of time researching your various universes, you move on to One Piece.

On your Earth, One Piece was an anime/manga that ran for two episodes and one hundred and eleven chapters until its creators' death and company's destruction in the wake of Leviathan's attack on Japan. It starred Monkey D. Luffy, a teenager who consumed a fruit that gave him superpowers, and gained the ability to become a rubberman. He dreams of becoming the Pirate King, the strongest and most infamous pirate around.

He gathered a crew called the Straw Hat Pirates, with a swordsman named Roronoa Zoro who uses three swords, with the third one in his mouth, a navigator named Nami, a cowardly marksman named Usopp, and a cook who can kick things really hard, Sanji. Wow. That's really weird.

The key point of the series is dreams and friendship. The Straw Hats unified because Luffy held them defeat obstacles standing in the way of their goals, and they're all coming together to help Luffy find the One Piece, some kind of treasure left behind by the original Pirate King.

This basic synopsis doesn't tell you anything you didn't already know about One Piece. The real meat of this study session is that you find out where you can read the manga. There's a Japanese cultural memorial site where you can pay ten dollars a month to view all the culture you want, and all 111 issues of One Piece, plus both episodes that made it to air, are available. You bookmark that in addition to One Piece's limited forums.

After that, you head to sleep. Time for another day. Joy of joys.

+1 History (2)

+1 World Issues (3)

+1 Art (1)

+1 Art History (2)

+2 Computer Specialist (4)

+1 Programming (3)

+1 Fitness (1)

+1 Housework (1)

+1 Exercise (1)

Skill Unlocked! Language: Virtual Basic 0!

Skill Unlocked! Kung Fu 0!

Skill Unlocked! Exercise 0!

Headway/Nexus Quest 1.3

Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3

Date: Wednesday, November 3, 2010

You wake up for another day of school, but unusually for you, you're actually not dreading it that terribly much. When you put it like that, it sounds incredibly depressing, but it's true. Normally, even getting to school is either an anxious, sickening, or both experience. But today?

Well, you've got powers now. You're no Alexandria, that's for certain (give it time, a little voice in your head whispers), but you think school's going to be a lot easier for you with this new ability. After the usual amount of moving around and waiting, school begins, and first period starts.

Mr. Quinlan's sitting at his desk, not quite hunched over as he tiredly observes the students entering. Some occasionally give him greetings or good mornings, but by now, almost everyone's learned that he only gives basic grunts in response. After forty-two students, a surprisingly high number for first period, pour in, he stands, and basically tells everyone to sit down, shut up, and do math. If it weren't for Ms. Knott, he might just be your favorite teacher. Another depressing thought for the day.

You finish this next Unit's packet in several minutes, and after checking to make sure Emma and Madison are busy at work, you submit it to Mr. Quinlan. He actually takes the time to look it over this time, before nodding slowly. "Huh. You weren't cheating," he comments, in what you think is disbelief and impression.

"Um...no, sir?" you hazard a hesitant answer.

He scratches a stubbly chin. "Okay...let's see here," he begins, reaching underneath his desk. "You got any work due for other classes?"

"No."

"No, sir," he chides. "If you don't have anything else to do, study this," he says, handing you a packet, labeled a Level Determination Test Study Guide.

You frown at him. You have a good idea of what this packet means, but you aren't sure. "Are you...sure? I thought Algebra 2 was already full."

"It is. But I can talk to Mrs. DiMattia about getting you put into a digital class. You don't mind working online, do you?"

"Definitely not," you say, almost blurting it out, before you catch yourself. You might be able to get away from the trio for a period! "Um, that is to say, no, sir, I don't mind."

He rubs his eyelids. "Good. Study this packet, come here during...let me find a date...ah, here we go. Lunch, on the 11th. Next Thursday, right before the Veteran's Day rally. That okay with you?"

"Yes, sir. Anything else I should know?"

Mr. Quinlan considers your question for a moment, before shaking his head. "Just be here next Thursday, and we'll get you out of here. Remember to study," he says, before literally waving his hand and shooing you off. Okay, sure, he's earned a bit of impoliteness.

You do your best to hide your giddiness, because you have a sinking feeling that the universe might want to ruin it, and speaking of ruination, it's time for World Issues. Mr. Gladly greets everyone normally, and you actually muster up a polite hello today.

Mr. Gladly actually covers slightly different material today, showing old news reports from the '90s about the Basque uprisings. You're thankful they're censored, because you can clearly see firing squads, a parahuman raining down artillery blasts upon fleeing soldiers, and child soldiers, and to make matters worse, those are all just in the first half hour. This is still slightly better than being forced to do a group project, though.

"So that's why Euskala doesn't have many friends in Europe, and also why Spain left the EU. I'm going to go ahead and sum it up for those of you who are taking notes. The Basque were a historically oppressed minority, when parahumans begin appearing, most Basque parahumans weren't interested in staying in the Spanish state. When Spain began to put down student protests with unnecessary force, things went south. Now, what this has to do with our overall lesson? The European Union barely intervened in Spain, aside from logistics aid. At the time, Germany had a very competent team of parahumans, and from the Spaniard's perspective, didn't use them to help take down the rebellion. So, feeling neglected, the Spanish left the Union after Euskala's independence."

He tosses a marker into the air, and continues to speak. "That's the Cliffs Notes version, anyway. So, important names! Spanish Prime Minister Marlon Pantoja, ordered the use of rubber bullets on protestors, and it went horribly wrong when it turned out that some of the guards were using actual bullets. He was in office for the entire duration of the conflict. Viktor Asuaga. He's a Basque separatist parahuman, probably the most powerful and prominent of them all. His powers, for you cape geeks in here, are generation of these weird circles in the sky that spray down explosive energy bolts at a direction of his choice. That's basically it for names."

Class is over before you know it. The trio was barely even focusing on you, which given that Gladly barely spoke the entire time, adds to a better day in Mr. Gladly's class. To your complete lack of surprise, Mr. Gladly showing a bunch of videos is more interesting than his normal sessions. You leave for lunch, and have an uneventful hour in the third floor's girls' bathroom.

All you do in art is sit through another series of presentations on impressionism vs post-impressionism, which is getting old fast. Mrs. Hernandez's repetition was already annoying when you weren't good at her class, but now, it's just obnoxious. Aside from that, nothing particularly notable happens. The trio doesn't have an opportunity to harass you thanks to the teacher's strictness today, which is very nice.

Finally, Computers. This is where you definitely feel your Headway power at work. Ms. Knott assigns you some more work in Virtual Basic, and you whip right through it. You think you've almost mastered the entire language in a single class period, which is...wow.

You don't think you need to say much else. In an afternoon, you've completely mastered a language. You don't often swear, even in your own head, but Headway is bullshit. Not only do you have a near-perfect understanding of Virtual Basic, you can also feel massive increases in your standard skill with computers, programming, technical support, the whole works.

You arrive home after school with a definite sense of happiness, no, eagerness. Today's been a great day, for both your ordinary and powered life. You're almost waiting for the shoe to drop. You shove that thought away as you get to work on exercise and fitness.

It's a bit disappointing compared to your astronomical gains at school, but you make slow, if steady progress. You don't really feel that much more fit, but you know a bit more about what you were doing wrong, particularly in terms of weightlifting. If you try this again tomorrow, you'll most likely do better.

Supper with Dad is unremarkable. He had an okay day at work, he doesn't say much about it besides that. You tell him that you'll be testing out of Geometry, and he definitely approves, promising to sign any necessary paperwork. You help him clean up the table and do the dishes, before returning to your room.

After dinner, you move on with Kung Fu. Hsia-Liu's videos continue, and you learn some basic disarming positions to deal with stronger opponents trying to attack you. More importantly, though, you think you've found a dedicated way to train this skill set, which will most likely improve the speed at which you learn it.

Finally, there's first aid. You grab the kit from the kitchen cabinet, log up a few links on the Internet, and get to work deciphering what exactly to do. It...could have gone better. Sure, now you know a bit more than the bare minimum about first aid you did before, but that's about it. Nothing on medicine, or anatomy, heck, you don't think you even reached today's training potential for this skill.

You go to sleep feeling relatively accomplished, and somewhat ready for a new day.

+1 Geography (3)

+1 Art (2)

+2 Computer Specialist (6)

+1 Technical Support (2)

+4 Language: Virtual Basic (4)

+1 Kung Fu (1)

+1 Exercise (2)

+1 First Aid (1)

Skill Unlocked! Weightlifting 0.

Headway/Nexus Quest 1.4

Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-jcw3

Date: Thursday, November 4, 2010

You know the drill. It's time for another day of school. First period -math- is fairly simple, all things considered. You flip through the geometry study packet, only briefly stopping for complicated word problems, but all things considered, it's fairly easy. You doubt you'll have any problems with the upcoming virtual course. As a side note, you barely notice the trio during this period. You have to say, you definitely like that arrangement.

Second period, World Issues, continues on the breakup of the European Union with the exit of England. He starts off class with a few educational videos on the British Isles. You aren't quite sure how, you're thinking Headway, but you already know most of this. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was the remnant/successor state to the British Empire. Until 2003, it occupied the entirety of the islands of Great Britain, a bunch of little islands, and part of Ireland. It was a parliamentary democracy, with a figurehead royal family and you're getting tired of taking notes on stuff you already know. So you stop.

In 2003, Simurgh hit London. Prime Minister Powell was almost immediately corrupted by her song, as was most of Parliament. At the time, there weren't understood or dedicated methods to resist her song, so the Albionites Brave, Britain's sponsored cape team, was almost entirely corrupted during the fight, as were around fifty thousand Britons. No one's ever been quite certain that everyone involved was detained, and it's theorized that there were a number of seduced Albionites that remained in their positions, which led to their eventual breakup.

It would have been one of the most catastrophic events to happen to a western government in years, almost on par with a diplomatic version of Kyushu. But it got worse. Queen Elizabeth II, who was already suffering from a heart murmur, had her condition turn notably worse as a result of the news. Her grandson, William, took over the throne and hastily appointed a charismatic Conservative MP named Spencer Byrne to the office of Prime Minister.

Unfortunately, while the new PM was excellent at appealing to crowds of baseline humans, he was notably anti-cape, and was one of the most prominent sponsors of the Albionites Brave, which many Briton capes saw as needlessly restrictive, requiring mandatory registration of all of your powers, secret identity, and you would be drafted if there was a S-class event.

The cape community mourned the loss of London with the rest of their countrymen for the first few months, but when Byrne kept upping the hours the Albionites worked, browbeating rogues in service, and even recruiting former villains, there was a mutiny.

Sparkplug, a member of the Albionites who was highly controversial for his anti-royalist views, walked up on a stage in Birmingham with fifteen of the surviving thirty-three Albionites, and publicly announced that they were leaving the government-sponsored team, and that if the new Number 10 wanted them back, they'd have to do it by force.

That on its own would have been a mortal blow to the English government, but then Scotland, which had an already scheduled referendum in 2004, voted Yes to leave the United Kingdom. This, in conjunction with the rapidly collapsing cape program and the failing recovery efforts in London, caused the Conservative Party to be effectively be forced out of office by the voting public.

The ensuing election was chaotic, with Conservative and Labour both being discredited parties thanks to perceived mismanagement of London. It turned into a spectacle of the radical that almost entirely ignored the moderate voter, with the Green Party and the United Kingdom Independence Party catching the majority of the vote. Eventually, the votes were counted, and Henry Lukas of UKIP was elected.

England's sudden isolationism happened almost overnight. Lukas, with the support of an alliance of Conservative and UKIP, unilaterally voted to leave the European Union, and to roll back their allegiances to the United States and NATO. The Albionites Brave, seen as a failed program, were re-branded into the English Defence Force, but that only lasted for a year until Britain's cape program collapsed entirely.

In 2006, Northern Ireland declared its independence as the Republic of Ulster, another blow to the decaying United Kingdom. The cape community in England became increasingly chaotic, with only a skeleton crew of government capes barely able to stem the tide in the cities of Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. 'Villains' took root, and the country was swarmed by wannabe warlords.

This was ended in early 2009 by the Switch Club, a playing card themed group of heroes and rogues, who ascended to power in the remnants of London. After a series of brutal battles with the local gangs, one which is still not entirely won, they won legitimacy as the Suits, the newest government sponsored cape team.

"Now I realize that isn't entirely relevant to you kids, being American and all," Mr. Gladly admits, shutting down the projector, before continuing. "But, the United Kingdom used to be one of America's greatest allies, if not the greatest. I wanted to show you guys how capes can make, break, and make again, and England's one of the best examples of that."

After an honestly pretty interesting class period, you have an uneventful lunch, and then a test in Art. You think you did pretty well. You're just glad you didn't have anything bad happen to you at the hands of the trio.

Computers goes fairly normally. You don't feel any boosts like yesterday, not even in Virtual Basic, but you do get a start on a new programming language. LogaRhythmic, a human-invented language native to Earth-Bet. You're getting the hang of it fairly quickly. Unlike most languages, particularly those from Aleph, this one uses a series of flexible symbols and equations to get results. It's a bit odd to get the hang of, since you haven't used anything like it before, but you think you have it handled.

You go home, and start the afternoon off right with a bit of exercise. You do rather well, and you see sizable increases in fitness, exercise, and weightlifting. You notice that you're also improving in physical appearance, with your moles, pimples, and such fading away, creating better skin as they go along. It's an utterly minute difference you barely spot, but it's enough to cheer you up.

It's not, however, enough to cheer you up enough that you don't train any further. Survival skills are your next path. You spend quite a bit of time on survivalist sites looking up the very basics. You...aren't very confident in your current level of skill. You think you could barely manage to light a fire or build a basic shelter, but not much more than that. This skill will definitely need more work.

You're a bit disappointed. The Headway's method of distribution seems almost random at times, with some results barely getting you anything, with others granting you boons for almost nothing. Does the power work better for some? Does it rely on your own enjoyment? Is it trying to get you into situations where you have to fight? Because you are so not ready for that. Ugh. Too many questions.

Finally, you do a bit of research into the positions on a ship in the Age of Piracy. It seems like a good idea to know how to live on a ship roughly equivalent to the type that seems to be the majority in One Piece, since you will be going there after all.

There are a lot of positions on a ship of the era, most of which seem a bit unfeasible for you. Quartermaster, cabin boy, and so on are titles that pop up. The one that interests you the most is the boatswain, the ship's maintenance man. Lookout also seems like a good position, until you belatedly remember that you need glasses.

You spend a significant amount of time looking over the construction of a wooden ship of that era, particularly the hull. It takes you a bit to get used to, but you start to understand after a half hour or so. You also learn the basics of exactly what life was like working on a ship, then and now, at least, enough so that you won't look completely out of place on a ship when you go to Earth-Mayim.

Earth-Mayim is what you're terming the world of One Piece. Its world doesn't really have a name of its own, as far as you can tell, and it's not Earth. At the same time, it's a world only you can access, so you don't really feel right continuing to use the Hebrew alphabet. So you use an online translator, plug in the word water, and boom. The universe has a name.

With that five minutes spent on a rather unproductive task, you head to sleep. Time for another day of school.

+1 Geography (4)

+1 World Issues (4)

+1 Fitness (2)

+1 Exercise (3)

+1 Weightlifting (1)

Skill Unlocked! Language: LogaRhythmic (1)

Skill Unlocked! Survival (0)

Skill Unlocked! Seaman (0)

Skill Unlocked! Seaman (Age of Sail)(0)

Skill Unlocked! Boatswain (0).