The Astral soul system-Chapter 91: A demonstration

"Mr Zen. Mr Neo. Over here!"

"What is the story behind your strange abilities?"

"Could you please say more on that pitch black ability "

"Mr Neo. What exactly happens to the things you use your ability on"

"Mr Zen. What exactly did you do to Gary storm "

"How exactly is Sentinel academy related to the first truly new abilities in centuries "

"Are there any other new abilities we should be expecting?"

The dean forced a smile as he tried to push back the wave of reporters. Usually this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but Zen and Neo were the first people to get new abilities in the past few centuries,so this much clout should have been expected.

He looked behind him at the students and noticed Zen looking at one of the open windows.

"That won’t be necessary. I’ll deal with this"

Zen looked at the dean and temporarily halted his plan.

"I assure you all the full story will be released in due time. We can’t give any information now due to some minor details, but we can give you the next best thing"

The dean held both Zen and Neo on the shoulder and put them in front of the cameras.

"A full demonstration on the known limits of their abilities, performed right here in front of you all,a few hours from now"

Neo grimaced from the constant flashing lights and whispered to Zen.

"I’m starting to think this isn’t a good idea "

"It isn’t "

The dean pushed through the sea of reporters with Zen and Neo at the forefront.

"Once the story is out, it’ll be covered by our academy’s very own resident reporter,Ava Ryder"

Ava’s eyes widened in shock as she pointed to herself. What in the world was this? Was she... being used as bait?

They all quickly escaped, leaving Ava to deal with the reporters herself, occasionally looking back at the girl that was practically getting drowned by reporters.

"Ha, serves her right" Black said.

Zen, confused about who it had a grudge towards asked

"The girl or the bird?"

"Both"

They all quickly escaped back to the party after escaping the reporters, choosing to split up for a while.

Zen walked around,a bit unsure of what to do now decided to just walk wait for something to happen.

"So what did you think?" Freya suddenly asked.

"About what?"

"The dean?"

Zen answered almost immediately.

"He’s strong"

Freya sighed.

"Don’t worry too much about him. Other than being a bit weird,he’s really just a sweet old man, so you can trust him. He was actually pretty nice to me while I was here"

"That’s ironic. He’s most likely an extremely powerful and high ranking member of the military, one of our biggest enemies. Yet you seem fine with him"

"Don’t get mistaken. If i was powerful enough,i probably would have taken the first chance i got to kill him if it was part of my mission. Besides, he might be Q’s enemy, but he’s not yours. OUR only mission now is to have fun and live to the fullest now that we’re away from Q,so if you want to be close to the dean,why not?"

Zen didn’t reply and just kept walking around until Theia drew his attention to something.

"Look, Zen! Treats"

Zen looked at the table filled with mostly pastries and was about to ignore it when Freya stopped him.

"Come on. We’re not here on a mission, training or some assassination, we’re not even here for recon. The only thing we’re here for is fun. Have fun. Q doesn’t control your life so go ahead if you want to. I know for a fact you like sweets"

"..."

"I know you want to "

Zen finally relented and picked up some chocolate before taking a bite into it.

"So..."

"It’s good " Zen answered.

"Great even. A little tough on the outside,chewy in the middle and gooey at the center...Rio would’ve loved this "

"... yeah, she would "

Zen stretched his hand to take another when his hand accidentally bumped into someone else’s. He looked up at who’s it was and saw Ava staring back at him.

The two stared at each other for a few seconds before breaking eye contact and focusing back on the chocolate.

For a few more seconds the two ate in silence, and just when Zen was about to try talking to her, she spoke first.

"You like this?"

Zen nodded

"Yeah"

"It’s good"

"..."

"..."

"Sorry about...what happened before"

Zen was a bit surprised that she apologized first but quickly recovered.

"It’s nothing"

Zen looked at the table and saw Black and Ava’s bluebird had both gotten on the table and were staring each other down.

Ava looked at it too and smiled,a bit amused by how silly it looked.

"It acts almost like a real bird. So lifelike"

Ava seemed a bit pleased but tried not to show it.

"What do you mean almost? I programmed it to perfectly mimic the actions and behavior of a real bird. It probably even thinks it’s a real bird"

Ava looked back at the birds that were sizing each other up while bumping into each other.

"It does have a bit of an attitude though"

Ava’s focus slowly shifted to Black.

"What about yours?"

"Hmmm?"

"Your raven. It looks organic but it’s almost twice the size of a normal one. It’s eyes are pitch black and it’s talons look like they’re as tough as actual bones, and that’s not even the strangest thing. It looks almost too... intelligent "

"Yeah,i guess so"

Ava scrutinized Zen for a while but after being unable to get any reaction from him, she changed the subject.

"Hey. Look at me "

"I am looking at you"

Ava shook her head

"No, both eyes "

"..."

"..."

"That’s not..."

Before the situation could escalate, Ava’s watch suddenly beeped. She brought it closer to her face and looked like she was reading something.

"That’s not right "

She looked at Zen.

"I’ve got to go. Come on Blue "

The bird immediately flew into her palm and Ava quickly ran towards the exit.

"She’s cute" Lilith suddenly remarked.

"Yeah,i guess. Something you need?" Zen replied absentmindedly.

"I keep getting confused whenever you talk. Who the hell is Q? What mission? Who even are you people? I asked the other one but she just kept laughing at me"

Zen sighed.

"Right, well -"

Before Zen could continue, he felt someone wrap there arm around his neck.

"Hey buddy. Looks like you and that Ryder girl are getting pretty close. Anything i should know?"

Zen ignored Sable’s question and picked another chocolate.

Slowly all the others gathered at that spot, whether it was coincidence or premeditated, Zen didn’t know.

"So what do we do now?"

Sable asked, looking bored

Diane yawned,bored

"Yeah,we beat our fights pretty easily, and with everything we already won tonight stupidly easily,betting no longer seems as fun as before, and no one even wants to fight us anymore "

Zaria thought for a bit.

"We could bet on Zen and Neo again"

Maximilian snorted.

"You think anyone’s gonna fight Neo and risk their body parts?"

"What about Zen?"

"Yeah,i like not being admitted into a psych hospital as well as i like not using a prosthetic. I doubt any person who wasn’t confident and couldn’t one shot them would take the risk"

Neo groaned in slight pain

"I’m full. Fuck, how many appetizers can you eat before it’s considered a full meal on its own"

Xavier stretched a bit.

"Yeah, I don’t know about you guys, but this all got really boring really fast"

"Really? I thought you’d be all over the place fighting your heart out "

Xavier seemed a bit annoyed as he answered.

"Yeah, but most people are scared I’ll permanently take their ability. Bunch of cowards,too scared to fight without their abilities "

Zen looked around and suddenly noticed something wrong.

"Where’s Jade?"

Zaria and Diane looked behind them, suprised.

"She was right behind us"

Neo, Sable Zen and Xavier instinctively looked at Maximilian. It had become a sort of understanding they built back on that planet to look for Max if they needed to find something.

"Just found her. You might not be happy with where though"

************

"Seriously?"

Jade was currently hectically trying to clean up a huge mess while someone was yelling at her.

They quickly went to see what was going on and the moment Jade saw them, she struggled to smile even though it looked like she was about to cry.

Zen looked to the side and saw a girl who was covered in bits and pieces of food and mess.

"What’s going on?"

"It was an accident. I..i was walking and i accidentally bumped into -"

"Shut the fuck up!!!"

The girl turned to face them.

"This bitch just ruined my entire evening, and now I’m going to make sure she pays for it"

The girl pointed to her body guards.

"Get this bitch out of here!"

"Wait"

Zaria quickly stopped them.

"She said it was an accident, and she already apologized. Don’t you think she’s suffered enough? Just let her clean up and we can put this all behind us"

"Oh, you think she’s suffered? What about me? That’s not enough! I won’t be satisfied until she pays dearly "

Zen had stayed silent the whole time. With his newly activated soul eyes he could see the red flame of rage circling the girl like a snake or a string, similar to the one Gary had. He didn’t know why he just started seeing it now but he suspected it was because her emotions were very intense. He quickly created a soul bridge between them and started utilizing his technique to absorb her rage to form his flame of wrath. Zen focused on the red string and his vision changed as he saw everything that happened. It was just as Jade said,an accident, but that wasn’t the only cause of her anger.

Zen came back in less than a second, focusing on harnessing her rage.

"Well there should be a better way to solve this, right?"

"No there isn’t. She’ll -"

"What about the arena?"

Zen suddenly spoke up.

"She wins, you forget about this whole thing"

The girl smiled.

"Fine, but I win, I get to punish her myself"

"Okay"

Jade looked at Zen worriedly but Zen didn’t react.

"Since you challenged me, I’ll pick the rules and arena"

Zen shrugged.

He checked her name using the system and realized she was called Melanie Frazier.

Melanie pointed at someone standing next to her.

"He will represent me in this match. As for the arena, it doesn’t matter "

"Hey,you can’t do that!" Jade protested.

"You can get someone to fight for you as well, as long as it isn’t anyone from the top families,or those two" She said pointing to Zen and Neo.

"Fine " Zen shrugged.

"She’ll fight herself"