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Diva Academy (Salt-In-The-Wound x LittleCloud)

LittleCloud

LittleCloud

Super-Earth
Joined
Sep 12, 2022
The campus of Diva Academy was a modern marvel of construction built from cutting edge amalgams of glass, metal and a few things that modern science hadn't quite caught up with yet. The Diva's had impressive resources of their own and the network of supporters and allies they had built up from their years as glamorous defenders of freedom and justice were equally happy to contribute to ensure that their new project would have everything it needed to house, train and support the young heroes of tomorrow.

Upon his arrival Emil wouldn't have much time to appreciate any of this as he was met by a member of the Academy's support staff, a pretty young woman with short brown hair wearing a white and gold uniform, and bundled across campus in to one of the plainer looking buildings, lead down its labyrinthian corridors and stairways until he finally came to a stop in front of an unremarkable door.

"Just wait in here please." His guide asked brightly "The presentation will start shortly."

Through the door he'd find himself in a waiting room with a few chairs and a small table with a selection of refreshments but he wasn't alone, leaning over the table was a girl with firey red hair umming and ahhing over wether she should have a full fat soda or not while another girl with short multicoloured hair ran through a series of warm-up stretches, her crop top and bike shorts making her look far more at home in a gym than the small area they were all sharing.
 
Emil had thought that throughout his life he had seen a lot of particularly impressive works of artifice--spending his early years floating about military bases, driving past pieces of equipment worth more than either of his parents would have made in their entire lives. This academy silenced him, though, and he wished he had more time to be awestruck by the sheer scale and complexity of it all, before he was ushered away down campus towards a rather unassuming building--at least comparative to the academy's other offerings.

...Even then, the Interior of this place was bizarre. Most school buildings he had ever been in had the same plaza style of construction--A rectangular corridor that allowed easy access to a wide variety of rooms and ultimately connected back in on itself. This different. Staircases you had to walk to from other staircases, dead-end corridors with nothing down them...

He wondered why this was. Defense, possibly? The part of his brain that had been trained for recon got a bit giddy at the idea of leading unsuspecting assailants on a wild goose chase through this building's endless and perplexing architecture. Though he also knew it was just as likely it was to accommodate rooms that had been specialized for specific classes: As would need to be when dealing with superpowered individuals.

Finally they arrived in the waiting room. Immediately he felt a bit subconscious. He tucked the hem of his jacket into his pants, made sure none of his leg was visible, and ensured that no-one could see between the jacket of his sleeve and his glove.

...Perhaps this was a bit much, but as Emil saw a glimpse of skin on the back of his arm...

...blatantly visible graft lines where the new skin was installed. An odd glimmer of light as sunlight graced the mirror-skin implants...

...

Just sitting in here waiting around was going to be a bit awkward, he should talk to someone. The girl with the multi-colored hair was in the middle of a workout, and... while this was a weird place and a weird time to be exercising, it was generally considered distasteful to interrupt a girl in the middle of a workout. He approached the girl at the refreshment's table.

"Hey there! My name is Emil, what's yours?"
 
The girl over by the refreshments had vaguely registered that someone else had entered the room but she wasn't really bothered by it, not when she had important soda problems to puzzle over but when Emil actually spoke suddenly that didn't same so pressing any more. Spinning around she almost seem confused to see him standing in front of her but that expression melted away almost immediately and was replaced with a bright friendly smile.

"Hi! I'm Klara, that's with a K, how cool is this place? You're here for the school right?"

"Pfft." There was a laugh from behind them and suddenly the girl with the brightly coloured hair was next to them, drawing a squeak of surprise from Klara with a K, she had a cocky grin on her face and one arm confidently draped around Emil's shoulder "Be real. Guy's don't have powers."

"They can." Klara countered "I think I read about it in Teen Hero. You guys want a drink?"
 
"Yeah, I'm here for the school. I-"

Before he could finish his statement, he felt a pressure around his shoulders. The training he had gone through by this point almost pushed him into a fight response, but he was able to avoid cracking his composure. He looked behind him to see that it was the girl that was working out--the one with the colorful hair.

He wiped some hair away from his eyes, and nodded at Klara.

"Yeah, just grab me whatever you're having."

He was going to have to answer this question--powers were almost exclusively a girl thing, guys very rarely developed them--something like 100 times less likely.

He did not have any powers. Or, rather, he could not claim that he had been born with any powers, because he had not. He was fully aware that there would be some judgement, considering he was given his powers. He was going to have to cross those waters eventually.

"Yeah, I have powers. Just like I assume the two of you do?"

He looked backwards toward the girl with the multi-colored hair.

"What's your name?"
 
"Danni." The girl replied, vanishing to appear on the other side of him while Klara finally settled on diet soda and held one out for him, clearly this was someone who was exceptionally comfortable in the use of their powers and had no problem in showing them off. "So what are they then?"

The wild haired girl wasn't about to let her line of questioning drop just yet, I mean if Emil had powers then he wouldn't have any problem showing them right?

"Ooo I'll go first." Klara chipped in, placing her can back on the table "You guys might want to step back a little."

She would give the pair a moment to move back if they wanted to and then with a moments focus her powers activated, her skin turning a bright crimson and her close seeming to vanish as she became wreathed in flames like an infernal Venus and floated a few inches off the ground.

"Pretty cool right?" The human-cum-elemental asked, her voice losing none of its brightness in the transformation and even Danni had to admit that it was indeed pretty cool but it wouldn't hold her attention for long and then she shifted back to the boy in their midst.

"Your turn."
 
He was about to open the Soda, before jumping just slightly when Danni appeared on the other side of him. He could do something similar--though the mechanisms by which they could achieve that power was most likely very different.

He felt panic welling up in his stomach. He was not so uncomposed that this would cause a big issue for him, but it was an awkward situation that Emil did not know how to progress: Luckily, he was given a couple of seconds of leeway when Klara began to demonstrate her powers. He turned around to look at her.

...The sight was extraordinarily impressive, though. The immense heat radiating off her body as she floated in the air, skin like freshly forged steel--glowing red hot and bursting forth with flame...

Emil felt the heat lick up against his skin as it moved forth from her skin. For a few moments he actually forgot what he was going to panic about in the first place: But then he was brought out of this state, and Danni decided quickly that she still wanted to know what Emil's powers worked.

"My powers? Well... I have a few of them.... Ah, they aren't half as interesting as what Klara has going on, though.'

If a power was simply defined as any feat not obtainable by an average human, than he could do a lot. He could climb up the walls and around the ceiling, he could leap between roof-tops, he could turn invisible, swallow poison without even being remotely affected--Hell, he could jump off the Burj Khalifa and land like he had just stepped off a curb.

The thing is, it was more than that. A power was something special about you, something you were born with. Something that was not given to you. That was not Emil. To say he chose a steely heartbeat and glass eyes would be Incorrect, but he was not born with them. His powers were given to him, and even if there was a good reason for that, he was not sure they would understand.

If he gave them a demonstration, they would have questions. Questions he could not answer.

He racked his brain for anything that could get him out of this situation.
 
Klara gently touched back down on the ground and luckily for her modesty her clothes returned just as her skin lost its brilliant red hue and return to normal. Now she didn't have to worry about boiling the contents of the can with a touch she picked up her drink and popped it open with a hiss before she took a sip, eager to see what kind of cool powers Emil brought to the table.

All eyes in the room were on him and as the seconds ticked by it seemed like he would have to come clean and reveal his secrets to the eager girls...

Until the room was suddenly filled with a beautiful and melodious laugh before a shimmering image appeared in the centre of the room, a beautiful ethereal woman with soft sky blue hair that seemed to glimmer with the same light as her gossamer robes stood before them, this was Mistress Avalon, the Diva's very own Queen of the Arcane Arts.

"Hello my little darlings~" The image cooed "I'm so glad to see that you're all getting along on your first day but it's not going to be all fun and games., it's time for you to prove that you have what it takes to follow in our footsteps. I'm sure you're up to the challenge."

With that the walls of the room they were in fell away like they were part of a cheap set to reveal that they were no longer in the bland corridors that they had come from but in a junkyard surrounded by stacks of rusted out vehicles and mountainous piles of scrap, the sudden change of scenery causing Klara to cover her mouth and let out a surprised gasp while Danni went with a slightly more forceful "What the hell....?"

A satisfied smirk played across the image's features before it held out one arm and conjured a golden trophy in the palm of her hand, a long haired woman striking a heroic pose "One of these is hidden somewhere nearby and it's your job to find it. Make sure you do your best, I'll be watching~"
 
Emil would have been sweating if such a thing was possible for him. A Synthetic Heart, Synthetic Blood and Synthetic Skin meant that he was capable of no such thing, but he felt almost a phantom sensation of suddenly feeling cold and clammy as all eyes were on him. Certainly he could get away with a little demonstration, keep them guessing? Tell them their exact body temperature or start crawling around on the walls, nothing that would pose too many questions, at least not right away...

...Then a laugh he did not recognize. It definitely wasn't either of the two girls in the room, both of them had somewhat higher pitched voices, and this was a lower, contralto laugh. He wheeled around on his heel to see who it was, and found someone that judging by their stature, was most definitely not a student.

...In-fact, as he took a decent look at her, he realized that this... this was more than likely one of the very owners of the academy themselves--a Diva in the flesh! He was not shocked to meet one of them, and he was not prone to starstruck, but he couldn't help but be awash with a certain sense of awe when she was in the room with them.

...Could this be all of them, though? I mean, this didn't exactly make a class, but it was absolutely possible that they were being split off into groups, so mayb-

The walls quite literally gave way around them, falling down onto the ground to reveal that they were in an odd dystopian hellscape, one that absolutely did not reflect the campus grounds or the surrounding area. Mistress Avalon was the Queen of the Arcane Arts, so he wouldn't doubt that had something to do with it.

"My God..."

...This most likely wasn't even Mistress Avalon, but a projection of her, and he had no doubt that this place was a similar projection. Still, within that projection was a trophy they had to find, and this place. looked and felt real enough.

...Well, they had a find a single hand-sized trophy in this surrealist hellscape of rusted metal. She said it was nearby but that could mean 100 yards or 1 mile. Not to mention the mountainous size of these wrecks... They were reflecting light into his face, the wrecks--despite being patched with rust--were a bit hard to look at...

...Wait, that was it!

The overwhelming majority of the metal here was going to be Iron and Aluminum, maybe a bit of copper. These metals absorbed heat differently. This meant nothing to a normal person, but for someone with Infravision, it meant a whole lot more.

...Still, this was assuming a lot. This assumed that the trophy was actually gold and not buffed brass or ormolu, that it wasn't buried so deeply he couldn't detect it, that this kinda method would even work in this little challenging grounds Mistress Avalon had made for them....

...Worth a shot!

If any of the girls had a mind to look, his eyes would twitch for a moment, the pupils unfocused--before returning to normal. He looked over to Klara.

"Hey, Klara, can you make some heat? I have an idea."

At a later time, he would have to explain how exactly he was doing this: But rather that than being thought of as useless.
 
"Laaaaame." Danni bemoaned as the image of Mistress Avalon explained their mission before it winked out of existance, she had been hoping for some bad guys to bust up or maybe an assault course but here she was stuck with a scavenger hunt! Where was the fun in that? Well the quicker they got this done the sooner they could maybe actually do some cool heroine stuff.

"That trophy's got my name on it!" She declared before vanishing off in the blink of an eye to reappear atop one of the scrap mountains, stopping to rummage through it for a few seconds before vanishing again, it was entirely possible that she didn't really have much of a plan.

Klara watched the other girl disappear from view until Emil spoke up, she didn't have any better ideas than rummaging around in random piles of junk either though she was glad that it sounded like the boy did.

"You bet I can!" She said proudly, her body undergoing the same blazing transformation they had all already seen until she was floating in front of him, the temperature already starting to rise as the flames danced around her "Just tell me the plan."
 
"Alright, so..."

Emil began to climb up random piles of junk, looking around. He... He moved up these mountains of scrap with shocking ease, despite the fact that his physical shape appeared to be pretty human in nature, and he did not have clawed or webbed hands that would make such a task easier...

..The girls might not have noticed that, though. Emil just hoped they weren't paying attention, as he scanned the piles of Junk with his eyes.

"So I uh.... I know you're going to need a better explanation later on, and you'll get it, but I can see temperatures. Different metals absorb heat differently, and the stuff the cars are made out of absorbs it a lot differently than the stuff I think the trophy is made out of.

He was idly sifting through the junk, opening car doors and moving piles of scrap around. He dropped back to the ground and readjusted his clothing--pulling up the tall neck of his jacket and pulling down his sleeves to make sure not an Inch of skin was visible, besides from his face.

"At ambient temperatures, this doesn't mean much of anything. If we heat things up a little, though, It might pop out."
 
"That's so smart!" Klara enthused, already conjuring a ball of flame in each of her outstretched hands and turning her attention to nearby piles of junk that didn't already have one of her new friends on them, she'd almost certainly lose points if she melted on of them while they were looking for the prize. Were they getting points? She wasn't sure but Mistress Avalon said she was watching them and that was close enough.

"I guess I better heat it up then!" With that the fire lanced out from her like a perky living flamethrower and washed over the refuse, quickly starting to heat up the metal and causing the air around to warp and shimmer.

Emil's plan went off just like he had said, to his enhanced sight the different metals stood out clear as day amongst the flames and there near the top of one of the heaps of scrap, nestled amongst the rusted dross was the unmistakable silhouette of the prize that they were searching for.
 
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