Kallen and Seren had been given a communicator to wear while on campus. With it, they found the dormitories which were on a lower level, and although they were pretty small, getting a whole dorm to himself was a welcome change of pace.
He had been given several sets of clothes with the academy emblem, and instructions for when and where most of everything was located.
Importantly, it was time to eat, but before he could, he was sitting across from an administrative worker, his interview barring him from a much anticipated meal.
The room his interview was to be held in was stark and unadorned, its simplicity designed to disarm. Kallen sat across from the academy official, an elderly woman with sharp features and angular glasses. Her name tag read Veyla, and she held a stylus poised over a sleek, glowing tablet.
"Would you like to tell me your name?" She asked.
Kallen hesitated for the briefest moment before he spoke. "Kallenir. I go by Kallen."
He'd had a few nights of rest since the incident with the king, but he still didn't like voicing his full name.
"And would you like to say your true name?" Veyla spoke brusquely, as though expecting the same answer the other thousands of sleepers she'd interviewed over the years.
"Blessed of the Sea," Kallen responded.
The elderly woman's pen froze in mid air. Her eyes narrowed, and a hint of unease crept into her expression.
"You shouldn't joke about these—"
"I'm telling the truth," Kallen said. He squared his shoulders, forcing a calm he didn't quite feel. Revealing his true name had been calculated, but that didn't make it any less worrying. Ultimately, he needed influence among the sleepers to divert attention away from his little sister. That and a few other things… "You can bring someone in if you'd like to fact check me.
To his dismay, they had done just that.
It had taken quite a while for them to confirm it, but when it had been, he was once more with Veyla, though she seemed less sure of herself than she had earlier.
"Would you mind telling me about the type of Aspect Ability you received. How might it be useful?"
Kallen thought for a moment, he'd need to tread carefully. "My Aspect is versatile. It has a range of applications depending on how I choose to use it."
"If you're willing to share, I would love to hear what those applications could be."
"Some water related stuff, I guess."
"Can you manipulate water? Or is it more so to heal others or create weapons?"
Kallen smiled. "I haven't had much time to figure it out so I'm not really sure."
Things went on in that manner for a while. Obviously, Kallen neglected to reveal his flaw, but he had hopefully created the impression that his aspect was powerful without giving up any intricate details.
When the interview finally hit a stalemate and the interviewer realized she wasn't going to get any more out of Kallen, she sent him off.
Later, he checked in with Seren to make sure that she hadn't revealed too much either, and then the two of them left for their dorms.
~~~
When Kallen woke, he washed himself off in the private bathroom, revitalized by the water of the shower. He had a few options on what to do before he was forced to chose classes. He could head to a public terminal to do some research, the pools meant for sleepers with aquatic aspects, or he could go eat.
Feeling the empty pit in his stomach, he went searching for his sister and then headed to the dining hall.
The two of them ignored the stares and whispers, eating only with each other and in silence. There wasn't much to say, and it was uneventful.
Kallen walked Seren to her dorm before making his way to a public terminal. He figured the best way to pass the time before the classes he had signed up for was to partake in research—something he considered himself quite adept at.
He had decided upon a public terminal for a few reasons, most of which being that he didn't tend to like doing research on his communicator, and credits weren't really an issue to him.
The biggest issue with using a public computer, however, was the digital footprint left behind. He needed to keep as much about his powers as secret as possible. Thus, he couldn't simply search up, 'What do I do if I've suddenly gained water powers and I was studying to become a mechanical engineer and not an expert on fluid mechanics.'
The two disciplines overlapped of course, and he knew some of the basics about how physics tended to work underwater. He knew that water was a newtonian fluid, that it was generally incompressible, and that some weird shit happened when you started messing with the pressure. Beyond that, he would need to study, while also being careful about what he researched.
It will need to be something so ridiculous that no one would question it, but also something that would benefit me.
That was how Kallen found himself researching the mantis shrimp. He'd come up with the idea a few hours after his awakening, since mantis shrimps were able to create powerful strikes under water. He didn't know if there was anything special that allowed for this destructive power, but he figured studying a small marine creature that could output crazy strong strikes for its size was a great place to start.
And soon, he was lost in the spiral of discovering something new.
'The mantis shrimp's punch is one of the most powerful and fascinating strikes in the animal kingdom. It works through a combination of specialized biomechanics and extreme acceleration. Here's how it happens.'
Kallen leaned in, scrolling with his mouse on the archaic machine.
'1. Elastic Energy Storage.
Mantis shrimp have a pair of specialized raptorial appendages that they use to strike prey.'
He opened a new tab and searched the definition of raptorial.
'Raptorial - adjective. (of a bird or other animal) Predatory. (of a limb or other organ) adapting for seizing prey.'
Kallen closed the tab and continued reading.
'Instead of relying purely on muscular power, they use a type of spring-loaded mechanism. Their muscles contract and store energy in a saddle-shaped structure made of elastic material (like a bowstring being drawn). This stored energy allows them to release the strike with much more force than muscle alone could provide.
2. Latch Mechanism.
A tiny structure called a latch holds the appendage in place while energy builds up. When the latch releases, the stored energy is unleashed all at once, snapping the club forward at extreme speed.
3. Cavitation Bubbles
The shrimp's raptorial club moves at 80km/h, with an acceleration of over 10,000g. The impact is so forceful that it creates cavitation bubbles in the water. These bubbles collapse, generating a second shockwave, increasing the damage to prey.
Kallen continued on, researching the specifics of the biology that was required to execute this kind of strike.
But what he found most interesting, was cavitation.
He'd known cavitation was something he would end up wanting to use. It was how torpedoes achieved such high speeds underwater, which essentially allowed it to travel through the bubble rather than the water, which eliminated the affect of drag.
He'd intended to incorporate the concept into movement, but he didn't even consider the destructive capability. The applications were endless…
Of course, using cavitation for movement would be an extremely difficult thing to do without accidentally killing himself in the process.
He quickly wrote down the formulas that calculated the general speed, mass of the shrimp's appendage, acceleration, and impact force. He was a bit surprised to find that the impact force of the punch was similar to a bullet—around a thousand Newtons.
Obviously, the shrimp's punch, while packing a lot of force, wouldn't strike as deadly as a bullet would. Since the shrim's club like appendage would hit with a wider surface area than a bullet, which was concentrated to a small point. The shrimp couldn't hope to compare to that level of deadliness.
Kallen likened the interaction to the difference between hitting a nail into wood with a hammer as opposed to simply hitting the wood with the hammer. The latter would do nothing, but the former broke through easily.
As a matter of fact…
Kallen searched up the differences between the two interactions and found some interesting information. Firstly, since human skin is soft and flexible, it absorbs shock much better than hard shells seen on crabs and mollusks. While the mantis shrimp was specially designed to break open hard shells, something more aerodynamic was better at penetrating flexible things.
It was obvious. I mean humans figured this out thousands of years ago. It's why you use a blunt weapon against plate armor and a piercing weapon against lighter or unarmored opponents. Well, unless you could find a crack or divide in the armor…
Regardless, he had several things to consider as he made his way to the academy's pools. In his haste to test what he had learned, he had forgotten to do the calculations he had planned.
Kallen hid behind a wall, looking both ways to make sure no one was watching. He then snuck into the combat training room, grabbed a training dummy, and shoved it all the way to the pools. He wasn't sure how he was going to explain himself later on, but he had always followed the philosophy of asking forgiveness instead of permission.
Sure, it would have been easy to simply wait until his aquatic combat class, but he wanted to test out his more experimental abilities when others weren't around. And thus, he shoved the dummy into the water, and jumped in.
As he took a deep breath, he felt a sense of peace and belonging beneath the weight of water. The surface felt distant and unreal, while the water wrapped around him as if it were waiting for him to come home.
He grinned at the sensation as he pulled the training dummy down to the bottom of the pool.
When he adjusted his grip, it stubbornly bobbed back toward the surface. Scowling, Kallen tried to wrestle it back down. When that didn't work, he finally relented and climbed out of the pool, his clothes soaked and dripping wet.
[Ocean's Wrath] would have allowed him to force it to the bottom of the pool without much effort, but he'd need to focus all of his effort on executing the mantis shrimp punch.
I should probably come up with a better name for the ability, he thought, making his way out of the water. A trail of small puddles followed him as he navigated to the training facility.
They probably stuffed that dummy with some sort of synthetic stuffing. That's why it's overpowering the small plate at its base, causing it to float.
"This is bullshit," Kallen muttered, half-sneaking through the hall and into the training facility. He grabbed a fifty pound weight and a small strap, and then snuck back out of the weight room, his steps making flopping noises the whole way. Considering the trail of water he had left behind, there was no way they wouldn't figure out that someone had been messing around the pools. Even if he returned the dummy and the plate.
It wasn't long before he was back underwater, tying the 50 pound weight to the training dummy. He watched with a satisfied smirk as it finally sank to the floor and toppled over.
With a wave of his arms, Kallen activated his dormant ability and shot to the bottom, nearly ramming himself into the concrete floor. Steadying himself, he righted the dummy, and then circled it, testing how it moved with small nudges to different spots.
Nodding, Kallen forced himself to the bottom of the pool, standing flat footed in the deep end some 20 feet below the surface.
Taking a breath he smiled, studying his work. Can't forget, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Kallen took a combat stance, and sent a punch at his target. It was painstakingly slow, and did nothing but budge the training dummy. His follow up kick barely connected before the water slowed it to nothing.
All within the realm of expectation.
Steadying himself, Kallen let the water do the work this time. He twisted his torso, then his arm curled and snapped forward—speed aided by his aspect, he struck the dummy's chest with far more force than he ever could have been capable of. The water had acted as a conduit, an extension of his muscles and tendons, working with him instead of against him.
He surveyed his work with a pleased expression. That's better. Oh that's so much better. He could already feel it, this place, the depths, the pull of something older than himself, of something vast and unexplainable.
The pool was a shallow mockery of the abyss that whispered to him, but even here, he could sense it. His element.
It was time for something a little more powerful.
"Elasticity, loading, speed." Those were the three things he needed for what he intended to try.
~~~
After a few dozen minutes of testing, Kallen finally felt ready to try what he'd come here for. He adjusted his stance, feeling the resistance of the water with every movement. It was strange how natural it felt to be there. Submerged yet breathing as easily as if on land.
Let's see if this works.
Bracing, Kallen coiled his body. He twisted his torso like always, geared his right arm back. The water resisted at first, but he focused. The still water shifted as he manipulated it, coiling around his arm, channeling like a spring. He could feel the energy building, storing power when he pulled back.
Just like the shrimp Kallen. Just like the shrimp.
He held the position, muscles taut. The water around him shimmered with tension. In his mind, he visualized a latch—manifesting as a tiny vortex that was nigh impossible for him to keep for any decent length of time. But it was enough.
Now, release.
With a sharp exhale, he let go. The latch dissolved, and the stored energy exploded forward.
Far faster than he had planned for.
The water around his arm surged with force he hadn't anticipated, the pressure building to a critical point in an instant. His arm snapped forward, propelled by the compressed water, but the acceleration was too much, too fast. And worse, he had planned to use [Amplifier] as soon as he released. It had all happened too quick for him to stop.
The water around his fist ignited as a bubble formed right after contact with the dummy. Said bubble expanded violently, collapsing almost immediately with a deafening crack.
The shockwave hit Kallen like a bullet train. His arm, still extended in the punch, took the brunt of the force. He heard the sickening snap before he felt it—a sharp pain shooting up as the bone broke. The force of the explosion launched him backward, sending him spinning through the water.
He slammed into the far wall of the pool, the impact knocking the breath out of his lungs. His vision blacked for a moment, returning shortly after. Kallen tried to move, to swim, but his limbs wouldn't obey him.
The last thing he saw before he was lifted out of the pool by a firm hand, was the training dummy, torn to pieces and floating lifelessly in the water.