Hashim's hand didn't tremble. He had faced death before. This was just a new form.
A cuter form, Xavier thought, teasingly. Hashim didn't know about that, but Xavier was probably the only one among them who would know, or care for that matter. Toon certainly wouldn't. Jake might. Corpse didn't care about anything but insulting people, or so it seemed.
Then why does he know the professors? Toon thought. It was a good question.
And, of course, Corpse didn't deign to answer.
"A Ralkmester is one of the most prideful creatures you'll ever meet," Professor Scotch continued, coming up beside him. "They would see a withdrawal as an insult, unless they give you permission. They view their strange effect on humans as a boon. And, indeed, it is. To be able to know the intensity of abilities is a great boon."
Hashim nodded. That made sense. After all, for a giver to be denied the right to give a gift, especially after the receiver had requested it? He wouldn't be very appreciative either.
Hashim inclined his head slightly to the fuzzy ball. Hopefully, it could see far enough to tell what he was doing.
The creature, studying him, slowly retracted its fur, making it lie more or less flat again, and straightened its head, then inclined it in return.
Taking that as permission, Hashim moved his hand forward again. Professor Scotch reached out to stop him immediately, but then she saw the creature's head bowed, and hesitated.
That was all the time it took.
Hashim's hand touched the creature. And it glowed.
A rainbow of light bled onto his hand, glowing like a star in the dark room. Currents of purple, yellow, green, grey, and a silvery rose pink mixed in with a general white coloring. Toon was fascinated, and Jake almost panicked. His plans for lying low, manipulating the other students to not perceive them as a threat, were over.
Unless... Xavier broadcasted a modified plan to them all. Jake broadcasted appreciation.
How long have you been working on that? Toon thought, incredulous. It was flawless. Almost. Painful, perhaps. But Hashim was no stranger to pain. And this was a form of pain that he didn't much care about.
Or... Toon revised the plan, slightly. Sloppy revisions, perhaps. But done by Toon, 'sloppy' was almost a compliment. A sloppy plan by Toon was still more likely to work than another person's well-thought-out plan. Besides, he could think through the rest of it tonight.
They just needed one more piece. Fortunately, the lesson wasn't over. They still had time.
"Well, this is actually a perfect example for what I meant to teach you," Professor Scotch was saying, looking somewhat startled. Hashim started listening again. This could be useful, after all. "Such a vibrant display is the perfect candidate... for a reversal."
What? Hashim thought. This could be perfect. If he could do something to minimize the level of power that the academy's machine sensed... Up until now, he had had a rough idea of limiting the amount of power he used in the official examination, which would take place a week from now, or perhaps utilizing his ability to make them simply give him an estimated score.
Hashim hadn't known that there was a way to accurately measure the strength of one's abilities. If there was a creature that could do it, then they would have found a way to make a machine to do it. And all of his and Toon's plans would have been for nothing. But this was actually better. People wouldn't expect anything from him if he could make the machine measure his power at a lower level. After all, as Toon was so fond of saying, machines were much more reliable than people.
Professor Scotch produced a small scrap of a strange weed from her pocket and held it up dramatically. Her uncertainty at the display of Hashim's strength was now gone, steamrolled by her obvious enthusiasm for creatures.
She explained animatedly how to utilize the weed and how to use different amounts to change the color, either one way or the other, and how the weed, if grown in a specific way, which she described with great detail, could bleach or darken the shade.
And Hashim listened.
Sometimes he didn't listen in class. It could be hard, especially with bad teachers. And he always grasped the concepts so much sooner than the others. The teachers going over it again and again was just boring to him.
But this? This could be useful. It was probably the most useful thing Xavier had ever done.
But what about that time that I-
Hashim cut Xavier's thought off with a loud humming noise inside his head. He didn't want to know what Xavier had done. It was probably in the old days anyway. When they were fractured. He didn't know everything that had happened in those days. Their senses had been closed off to the others back then. Now they were open. Mostly.
He still didn't know how Xavier had registered for this class without him knowing. He would have to have Toon look into it.
Focusing back on the teacher, Hashim saw her handing out pieces of the plant. Taking his own, he carefully turned it over in his hand. It was dry, but not flaky. The plant was a dark green with hints of red veins, which he now knew meant that it would cause the color to bleach to a near-white.
Apparently, different colors corresponded to different types of abilities, but the types were classified in a way that didn't make sense, so they couldn't really tell what type the abilities were anyway.
The Ralkamester's touch worked by sending a signal up a person's nervous system. That specifically toned signal would set off danger flares in most people's minds, but for those with abilities, the mind would remain calm and instead activate the ability to attempt to protect itself.
This, in turn, would activate their ability, especially on the part of them that touched the creature, the hand in most cases. But due to the unique signal, the ability would instead appear as a shifting of pigments in their skin. Apparently, the signal activated certain proteins inside of the subject's skin cells, causing them to use the power that would normally activate their ability to synthesize specific pigments based on what sort of energy their ability had.
Or, at least, that was what Toon had gathered and surmised from what Professor Scotch had said.
There were also urban legends of people's skin color changing if they used their abilities too much.
Hashim never believed it until they had seen it, soon after they had arrived.
Professor Inteugo was the teacher of Applied Energy, a class about how abilities can help you out in the world without making other people feel too inferior. He had a high-tier ability that allowed him to detonate any explosive remotely from up to a mile away, and he had used it so much that the skin of his hands going halfway up his forearms was a dark blue color. He liked it, but some people thought it was a sign of weakness and that he should cover it.
Hashim wondered how it would work if that happened with him. After all, his body contained numerous abilities. Then again, the skin color changing was mostly the body's reaction to being strained in unnatural ways, so it was likely that the colors would just mix on his skin.
It would be interesting to see, though. Hashim asked Toon to run a simulation, and he watched as color bloomed over their skin from within. Modeling it after the colors they had seen from the Ralkamester, Toon first spread a layer of white underneath. Hashim's. Then it was the silvery rose of Xavier's ability, and next came the green and grey entwined. Toon thought that that was Jake's. After the yellow and purple colors joined respectively, Toon's and Corpse's abilities, a thin layer of black spread over them, surprising them all. Toon didn't understand what was happening, but of course he was fascinated by it.
So fascinated that he accidentally took control.
Hashim was watching on the outside of Toon's perspective as he projected a vision of color, created in his mind, across their skin. Hashim hadn't noticed that he was metaphorically leaning back, and had let control of the body slip from him. In absence of direction, control had snapped to Toon, the most active one in their brain at the moment.
And they only realized it when Professor Scotch asked them a question, and a veritable essay poured out of Toon's mouth absently.
Toon looked up, pausing. He terminated the simulation, focusing on the situation. It seemed that control had been defaulted to him when Hashim had ceded it due to inattention.
It was also clear that he had just said something un-proportionately intelligent. That he got easily from the confused expressions on the other student's faces.
How to handle this? Toon searched through their brain, but annoyingly, Xavier cut him off with a sense of amusement. He wanted to see Toon embarrass himself. Oh, well. If Jake could help...
Toon started, confused. Where was Jake? He looked through their brain, confused. It wasn't often that something happened that he couldn't explain. Especially inside their own brain. Back when they had been fragmented this would happen often, but it shouldn't be happening anymore.
Frowning, Toon guessed that he must have somehow receded into the Deep Consciousness. Sure enough, there he was. Toon felt him faintly, and unthinkingly sent Hashim down to the Deep Consciousness to retrieve him, then he immediately ceded control.
Xavier was the only one to take it.