[hr][h1][color=dimgray]Max Hernandez[/color][/h1][hr]

Max walked over to the assembly and sat down in one of the faculty seats at the front. The auditorium filled with students, some normal-looking and others malformed, though he could tell all of them were metas. He followed a few of them with his eyes: a light-skinned muscled kid with dreadlocks, a girl who contained three people (sometimes the things that he found with his ESP made him wish he was normal), a guy with an arm made of fire. He grew up in Mendel, was trained by a giant lizard man, and had worked for NEST for about five years, but sometimes he still found being in a room full of metas to be quite disorienting. 


After the Headmistress gave her speech (Max got bored halfway through it and started doing a 4x4 Rubik's cube to keep himself from falling asleep), Max got up and lead some of the students to the cafeteria, where a reception was being held. Being quite hungry, he walked over to the line, took a tuna sandwich (actually, two of them because he loved tuna), poured himself a glass of hot apple cider, and sat down at an empty table at the edge of the room. It was already dark outside and the lampposts that lit the Academy walkways bloomed into light. In the distance, he saw the blue flash of one of the emergency lights. They were placed around campus where students in trouble could reach them. If a student in danger hit the big red button on the security lights, it would alert security forces to trouble. He took a drink of his cider. Thus far, everything seemed to be pretty calm. Maybe this year wouldn’t be that bad after all. 


[hr][h1][color=darkorange]Casey Calahan[/color][/h1][hr] 

Casey followed her new friends off of the boat and to the auditorium, where they sat through a big speech by the headmistress about how if they had sex they would get disintegrated or something. She sat through the speech with her arms crossed and studied the ceiling tiles. Though she herself was not known to be a troublemaker, she hated behavior speeches. Once it was over, she shuffled out of the room and moved to the cafeteria. She turned to Jess and Kai, who she had managed not to lose in the crowd. Both of them seemed like the kinds of people Casey wanted to be friends with. Jess was a strong adventurous extrovert, and Kai was more of the bruiser-looking type. Were it not for the ice show on the boat, Casey would’ve assumed that Kai’s power was super strength. Come to think of it, however, Casey wasn’t sure of Jess’ power. She turned to Jess. 

“So,” she said, “I’ve seen what Kai’s power is, but I haven’t seen yours. What’s your ability?” 


[hr][h1][color=firebrick]Victor Calahan[/color][/h1][hr]


Before long, Victor was herded off of the boat with the rest of the kids and shoved towards the auditorium. He walked defensively, with his arms crossed and his shoulders tucked in so as not to burn anyone bustling past. Despite his efforts, someone brushed into him and cursed as his hot arm burned them. Victor rolled his eyes and kept walking. He was used to people burning themselves on him. 

He sat through the speech like everyone else, and then left as quick as he could. Unable to find any of the people he’d met on the ferry, Victor sat in the back and tried to keep to himself. Afterwards, he found himself at the reception desk, where the receptionist told him that his roommate was a man named Copen. He looked around, hoping that someone would approach him. He had absolutely no idea how to find the person and absolutely hated having to find someone in a crowd. He sat down in a chair near the receptionist’s desk and hoped someone would notice him.