Unicorns [Open to Students]

[guytanenbaum]

Professor Tanenbaum's class never started until he slammed his office door shut behind him. Whether or not the bell had rung, this sound was the Tanenbaumian signal for the lesson to commence, no exceptions. If you were unfortunate enough to keep talking after the Slam, you would find yourself being admonished by Guy himself. And you did not want that to happen. The one and only rule in the Professor of Ability Control and Ability Application's class: respect the Slam.

Guy Tanenbaum's office door slammed with its familiar crash behind him. Without skipping a beat, he walked over to the large whiteboard, picked up the nearest marker (a pleasantly unremarkable red) and began to vigorously scrawl two words for all to see: "Ability Application". He placed the marker back down and revolved to face his pupils.

"Hello. If you are here, that means you have signed up for Ability Application second semester. If this is not the case, kindly direct yourself out the way you came." Here, Guy gestured toward the door. "As for the rest of you, I welcome you to my class. In this class, you will be taught how to apply your many different Gifts to the real world."

"Because, dear students, Ashburn Island is not the real world. Ashburn Island is a fantasy world. And we are the unicorns prancing merrily around on our fantasy island. It is al a dream, a shared dream of each and every Gifted person in history: a peaceful place where special people like us can go about our business making believe that we are normal. We are not normal. We do not belong."

"So it is my job to teach you how to lie. To lie to the real world. To smile and be pleasant to the very people who call you freaks behind your back. To integrate yourself into their society. I am here to teach you how to apply your unreal powers to a very real world."

Guy took a deep breath. He hadn't meant to go off on such a zealous tangent. Maybe it was yesterday's alcohol speaking. He stood there, collecting himself, then continued.

"Today, I would simply like to hear about some of your Gifts, and I will give you suggestions on exactly where you can apply it. Hands, please. Anyone?"

[Brandon Bailey]

Ah. The Slam. There it was. Brandon looked at the clock on the wall, trying to figure out if Guy was early or later than the bell today. He hadn't paid it much attention, but it didn't ring, so it must have been on time today.

Brandon, being Brandon, sat in the middle of the classroom. He wasn't an overachiever like some, or a slacker like others. He did what was asked of him, as far as school went. He took out his pencils and spiral notebook, a red one with "Power Control" on the front in black permanent marker. He wrote down the cliff notes version of the speech, and raised his hand first to talk about his powers.

"Well, Professor...I have two Gifts. One, I can manipulate water. Depending on how far I want to take it and how much power I want to spend, I can go from manipulating the water around me to sucking it out of things like plants or the air, and even the human body. Umm.... I can filter impurites from water and probably from blood too, but I haven't tried that yet."

Brandon paused for a second, then continued.

"My other gift is pyrokinesis. I can manipulate heat into flames, and even create flames myself from nearly any source. I'm working on developing a sort of infrared sense with my fire powers, and also seeing if I can learn to change the colors of my flames," the elementalist said,"it's not fancy, or much useful, but those are my Gifts."

[Admin]

Alex sat at the back of the classroom, her eyes locked on the desk. Her hand was coiled around a pencil, the point of the pencil touching here journal. Her hair was pulled back into a loose bun and dark circles were forming under her eyes. She'd been up all night, down at the beach. Thanks to her gift of Phasing, she could just walk right out of the walls and down to the beach without being caught. It'd been a midnight swim and a chance to write once more--she hadn't passed it up.

The slam of the door was the start of class, snapping her head straight up. She watched Professor Tanenbaum stroll in, her eyebrow curiously peaking up. "The Slam," Alex thought with a slight smirk. She sat a bit straighter up, pulling the pencil from the journal. At his question, she sunk a bit further back into her desk. One boy spoke up, talking about his Gift of Water and Fire Manipulation. Her eyes locked onto the Professor, analyzing over his face, waiting for any expression.

A part of her wanted to raise her hand and answer, but the other part of her closed it all down. "It doesn't matter. Relax," Alex thought, slumping further and further into her seat so she couldn't be called on. Her eyes flashed to the boy who had the Gifts. Her stomach twisted nervously again, her eyes flashing to Professor Tanenbaum once more.

[guytanenbaum]

Guy raised his eyebrows at the boy's answer. He'd met plenty of water manipulators, and even more fire. Yet he'd never encountered any person who could manage both. It only took him a second to gather up a response.

"Quite a rare gift. As you seem to be aware, your Gifts could prove to be helpful in many areas. Most hydrokinetics I have met seem to be perfectly satisfied with jobs in the water purifying industry, although I often wonder why." He laughed, a harsh bark. "Another occupation that seems to be growing in popularity among elementalists is a small group, known as Weather Control, who specialize in preventing and protecting civilians from especially destructive natural disasters. I'm sure they would appreciate someone with such unique talents."

"Speaking of which... Water and Fire. Interesting combination, I must say. You must be careful; controlling just one of the fundamental elements of nature can prove to be too much for some people. I can only imagine how difficult two such Gifts must be, especially polar opposites. If I were you, I would try to concentrate a great deal of your energy on control."

"Thank you for volunteering, sir." He redirected his attention to the rest of the class. "Anyone else care to share?"

[Brandon Bailey]

"Actually, I'm not done. My Gifts are in need of a little more than just simple control. They're... really powerful. It's hard to explain, but I have different forms, too. Depending on my form, I could go from making waves or a fireball to making a small tsunami and a blazing inferno. It's hard to control when I'm using them full power. They kinda change my personality a bit. Is that... normal, Professor?"

He kinda felt a bit... boastful. It sort of felt as if everyone was staring at him, and the elemental lightly flushed.

Brandon decided to change the subject slightly.

"And the reason water manipulators like water purification is that it's easy and actually kind of fun. I mean, any self respecting water manipulator could even take the water here and make it better."