There was silence in the class as everyone waited for the colors to begin swirling. They waited, and waited, and waited.
'Did I break it!?' Damian thought in fear.
"Interesting," Helios said as he looked towards Damian's collar. Damian quickly grabbed his collar and brought it up. There was a black button on it, with three dog heads inscribed into it.
"Hades," Helios said and Persephone gasped, "Your affinity is Hades"
Damian looked back at Helios in shock. He turned around and saw the other two looking at him in shock. Persephone had her mouth hanging open and Adrian was sitting up in his seat and fixing him with a piercing stare.
"Go on now," Helios said, "We don't have all day"
Damian nodded and went back to his seat. Helios then cleared his throat, "Well, now that we have that out of the way, I bid you farewell"
"Eh?" Adrian said, "Where are you going?"
"you didn't think I'll be here all day, did you? Even I don't have that much patience. If you look into your desks you'll see your timetables for the foreseeable future. Try not to lose them. Bye"
Helios grabbed his files and put the earbuds back into his ears while walking out of the class. The three students opened their tables and saw a piece of paper there. Damian frowned at his paper and then opened the desk of the table beside him. It was empty.
How the hell did they know exactly where they would sit down?
He opened the paper and felt a nerve pulse in his head.
…. Hope you're comfortable ….
He hated that man.
"H-Hey…" Damian looked up and saw Persephone calling him from her seat. She had her head bowed and was squeezing her hands tightly, "A-Are you really from the Hades faction?"
Damian didn't know what to say to her. He didn't even know what was happening right now, he was simply going with the flow of things. He saw her tighten her hands even more.
"He's a newblood," Adrian said from the side. The other two turned to him, but he was looking at Persephone, "He's not one of them"
Persephone breathed out a sigh of relief and then turned back to Damian, "Sorry," she said
Damian had no idea what she was apologizing for.
The door to the room opened and a tall man walked into the room quickly. He had green hair and yellow eyes and wore a black tracksuit.
"Hello everyone," he said while standing in front of the class, "Welcome to Karma control cla-"
He paused in shock as his eyes landed on Damian and he saw the black button on his collar. He cleared his throat and continued.
"Sorry about that. Welcome to Karma control class. I am your teacher, Ajax. You may call me Jax"
Jax moved to the projector board and took out a flash drive from his pocket. He fitted it into a USB port on the board and the board turn on.
"Before we go on, there are some things we need to clear up," Jax swung one leg over the edge of the table, "Who knows what Karma is?"
"You mean like the rule of Karma?" Damian wondered
Jax laughed, "No. Nothing like that. Anyone else?"
Adrian rose his hand, "Karma is the natural energy of the world"
"Exactly," Jax said. He pressed a remote and a picture showed up on the board. It was of a human body with its arms and legs spread wide, "Karma is what we use to carry out techniques. There are two forms of Karma. The positive and the negative. Negative Karma is poisonous and leaves whatever it infects as a husk of its former self. There have been people known to absorb this Negative Karma and become something… less than human," Jax looked towards Damian for a moment before he continued, "The other form of Karma is Positive Karma. It is the form of Karma that we use and that is what I am going to be teaching you how to control"
Persephone rose her hand, "J-Jax-sensei," she called.
"Jax. Just Jax"
"Uh. J…Jax, h-how did Karma come to be?"
Jax smiled and clicked a new button. The screen changed to show the earth, but there was something strange about it. One side of it was covered in shadow while the other side was bright.
"I'm sure you all know of the Titanomachy by now, the war that brought forth the age of Gods," they all nodded, "Good. Well before the Titanomachy, the world looked a little like this," Jax pointed to the screen with the remote, "The light side and the dark sides were completely split down the middle. One part of the earth suffered and the other part thrived. This threw off the ecosystem and threatened the very essence of the world as we know it. There was no balance at all" Jax clicked another button, "And then the Titanomachy happened,"
The picture on the screen was of the earth again, but now, the light and shadows swirled around the world in equal measure, "The balance to our world was a welcome one, it meant it wouldn't be dying anytime soon. But things are never that easy. With the absence of Kronos and the other titans, the power they controlled fell upon the rest of the world. Regular humans couldn't feel this because their bodies are already naturally balanced, but the gods could feel It, and they made it their job to ensure this negative energy never ran out of control. And now that they are gone, the responsibility falls on us the descendants"
Damian's eyes widened, 'Descendants?'
"But I'm not here to teach you history, any questions on that can go to Callista. I'm here to teach you Karma control"
Jax clicked the remote again and two bar charts came up. One of them had Daemons written under it while the other had Hunters.
The two bar charts had six bars each. D-class. C-class. B-class. A-class. S-class and unclassified.
Jax jumped down from the table, "The chart behind me shows the power scaling system used by the twilight world. You can see that for every class a hunter is, the equivalent class of daemon is actually higher"
Damian looked at the bar chart and noticed that Jax was correct. The D-class daemon had a higher rating than the D-class hunter, and the C-class Daemon had a higher rating than the C-class hunter. This continued till the unclassified class. These were both at the same level, but the top of the bars were both crossed out, leaving him to wonder just how much power they really had.
"Things weren't always like this," Jax continued, "The scaling used to be pretty much equal, and it used to be possible for a B-class hunter to defeat a B-class daemon"
"Then why did it change?"Adrian asked.
Jax clicked the screen and Damian felt his food rise to his throat. He recoiled back in disgust. The screen had the image of a deformed and torn human body.
"I could say that we were simply trying to look out for you, but it would be lying. The real reason for it was simply because we thought we were omnipotent"
"Omnipotent?" Adrain said, "As in all-powerful?"
"Hunters are beings of great power. The things we can do with Karma surpass anything humans could ever dream of achieving with simple technology. But we forgot that just as we can use positive Karma to its fullest extent. The daemons can use negative Karma as well. Hunters that were of the same rating as daemons became careless. They attacked mindlessly and began thinking their rating would be able to save them. These hunters were very strong - true, but the daemons are strong as well"
"J-Jax," Persephone called in a very low voice, "P-Please. The screen"
Jax looked back to it and quickly pressed a button to change the image back to the bar charts, "Right, sorry about that"
Persephone nodded. She looked like she was going to be sick.
"So the Seat decided on a new system of grading daemons and hunters"
"Make the daemons stronger?" Adrian said.
"Make the hunters weaker," Jax corrected, "The fatal flaw in the former rating was the fact that hunters thought they could automatically go up against a daemon once they were of the same rating. But now the system is different. For a hunter to be able to climb past a certain rating, they must be able to take down five demons of that same rating, singlehandedly."
All three students were shocked.
"But that's insane," Adrain said, "I've heard stories about the A-class daemons. I know just how vicious they are. No one can hope to take down five of them alone"
Jax rose a brow in surprise, "Wait. You don't know?"
"know what?" Adrian said
"You don't need to look far at all to find someone like that. He just left as I was coming in"
Adrian's eyes widened, "Wait... You mean…"
"Yeah," Jax said, "Your homeroom teacher, Helios. He is one of those people"
-----
Helios opened the door leading to the staff room and immediately ducked under a book that came flying at his head.
"Helios!" a voice shouted and Helios looked down to see a very short woman looking up at him. She had long brown hair and black eyes and she also wore a long lab coat over her dress.
"Hey, Ana," he said.
"Don't 'Hey, Ana' me! I heard you hurt a child on your last mission!"
Helios rose a brow and then looked behind Ana, towards Deacon who was paying far too much attention to his computer screen. This blabbermouth.
"It isn't anything like that," Helios said, "Let's just say that I accidentally hit him with a wall of fire,"
"What!"
Helios cleaned his ear with a finger and then walked into the room. He moved towards one of the desks and put his files down on it, "You don't have to be so loud you know. He's completely fine"
Ana rose a brow at him, "Really?"
"Yeah," Helios said, "Scouts honor"
"You were never a scout, Helios!"
"Oh, well, then never- a -scout's honor" Helios smiled at her and then plopped down on his seat, "If you don't believe me then you can just go check him out yourself"
"Maybe I will," Ana said, and then she walked away.
Helios sighed and brought out a paper from his folder. The same one he had been using in the class. It was completely empty save for one line written in a neat, clean font.
…. Don't hide it. Make sure they all know ….
Helios rested his chin against his fist, 'What in the world are you planning now, Arie?'