Nutrition class was quite fun. Being a nutrition nut wasn't part of my last life - just a lot of running - but it felt good to do some actual cooking. That said, my technique was abysmal, and I wound up with several cuts. There's a reason my preferred cooking method was to either follow instructions on a pre-arranged packet or hand the cooking off to Pi, back when she was alive.
In the end, I wound up boosting my neurons electrically just to get enough fine motor control not to flay my own fingers. And thus I escaped a visit to the nurse's office.
Not a bad end to the day, so I walked back to the dorm, took a few measurements of my room, did my homework, and practiced swivelling in my executive chair and bridging my fingers. (Timing a perfect swivel is a work of art, dammit!) I'd noticed on the way in that the graffiti was gone, and that made me a little disappointed, but it did tell me someone was around to clean while we were in class.
After working on a few trap designs (I still needed actual materials), I decided to make good on my relative freedom and grab some sleep.
*
And then it was tomorrow. Tuesday.
A day for long classes and a slightly less long day, at least until PE started.
Being my last day before PE started, I relished the chance to sleep in a bit before pushing myself out of bed and dressing for the day.
Homeroom was still a place of bubbling excitement for most everyone, and my fellow students were talking about teamups and combos and favorite heroes while I worked through all the available algebra homework that unlocked this morning.
And then Ms. Stern arrived.
"Good morning, students!" Everyone quieted down as she took a quick visual roll call. No desks were empty, so everyone was here. "Today I'm going to be teaching you about the types of Talents!"
As I expected, everyone here already knew what she was talking about. One didn't grow up in (or against) hero society without learning how they categorize themselves.
"I trust most of you are familiar with the GAMES acronym?" Ms. Stern asked rhetorically, tapping on her phone to summon up a presentation on the screen. "It stands for General, Accumulation, Meta, Enhancement, and Suppression."
In case you can't tell from the names:
General Talents are those that reflect basic functions of most bodies. Higher strength, durability, regeneration. These are so prevalent that the specific rating levels are more important. Heteromorphic humans often had their bodily capabilities sorted under General, and most people with their strengths elsewhere tend to be squishy or weak or both, but there are exceptions. Like Fiona.
Accumulation Talents gather something. Moisture, weight, sunlight. Mostly some variation of energy or some force of nature. A lot of times they tend to be slow, and attached to other powers. Thankfully, my electricity doesn't have an accumulation restriction, or I'd be licking sockets constantly.
Meta Talents are the second most common classification after General. If it creates something from nothing, converts something into something else, or generally defies physics, then it's a Meta power. The Talents classified as meta talents might as well have been magic, since mostly people could only understand what they did as opposed to why they did it. A lot of people have weak meta talents, but such talents had the most room to improve and broaden over time.
Enhancement Talents often acted like General Talents, but with the ability to switch them on and off. The lines got blurry when it came to things like hardening - if it generated a hard surface or hardened an existing one, for example - but overall enhancers often had worse initial control but higher ceilings than those with general Talents.
Suppression Talents were the rarest, since they tended to mostly work against specific effects, forces, and other Talents. Asshole's boss had a Talent suppression Talent, according to rumors, but such talents were so rare they were hard to identify compared to meta talents, and they often came with some kind of obvious activation criterion.
Within these categories are the various identifiers for range, duration, power level, and anything one can think of, really. And if a person didn't have Talents by the age of fifteen, then they were unlikely to ever develop them.
Everyone in the class had their powers thoroughly assessed before even being allowed to apply, if their parents had any wits about them.
After the refresher, we were told how to fill out forms to update our Talent records if we discovered a new Talent or a different aspect of how ours worked.
Then came math class, just as I finished the last homework assignment and half of the practice tests. It turned out Ms. Stern was also our math teacher, so at least the slide into that class was seamless. Thank the stars these teachers put everything online. I'd be bored to death if I had to wait.
After class but before lunch, I informed her that I was done with all her posted assignments and the practice test, but she wouldn't budge on letting me leave the classroom or take exams early.
"If you want to keep busy, I suggest you help your fellow students," she said sternly. "Or participate in class."
I agreed to take it under advisement before heading to lunch.
I admit I was walking on air a little at the cafeteria, even sitting with the rest of Class A as I ate my lettuce cake with ranch frosting and made plans for the high point of my day: Workshop Class.
Finally, access to heavy machinery... materials... blueprints!
I mean, I didn't lack for the last, but there was something about improving some neophyte's doodle that made me feel warm inside.
So warm I even entertained Fiona's pre-emptive request for math tutoring and small talk with Naomi, who would be sharing the joys of the workshop with me.
Nothing was going to bring me down once I was in my element!