Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 4: A New Home

After reading the papers, I started heading to the place that will now be my home, an apartment complex that comes as a tutor’s benefit.

My powers are strong, Nadir’s powers are strong too, but for the two of us who use a chip, they’re unstable and chaotic at times, demanding a lot more control.

When someone has a chip or core placed in their body, the power that comes depends on affinity, personality, type of life, body, personality — those things feed the chip and the core, which defines what vector the person is capable of controlling.

Since vectors require many calculations to use, everyone who uses vectorial powers needs to study the vectors they control a great deal.

Which brings me back to my six students. Some of them lose to my power, but others tie or even win, because my power is also space-type.

My power is [Star Manipulation of the Sky]. It allows me, through the creation of vectorial imaginary mass, to use and control the "sky" as a physical and tangible phenomenon, pulling, dragging, tearing, or deforming the "Sky" — a mild, inconsistent form of spatial manipulation. By pulling the sky, space warps, so the distance from one point to another shrinks or grows.

By dragging the sky, walls and barriers form, or it can even reflect physical attacks by shifting the direction of everything dragged along with the sky. Tearing allows me to partially destroy space, ripping through anything in the way as if it were a sheet of paper, despite the limited range.

And by deforming the sky, I can apply two forms of effects based on day and night. If it’s daytime, deforming the sky makes it possible to manipulate rays, electromagnetism, and gravity partially within the deformed area. When used at night, it allows me to manipulate zero gravity, concentrated stellar rays, and magnetism, as well as light gravitational attraction.

However, because it’s a flawed power that came from a chip and not a brain core, it causes intense pain. It’s a dangerous and catastrophic power, as well as unpredictable, capable of severely injuring the user herself. And even when used properly and in moderation, it causes extreme exhaustion.

’My power is so cool, but it comes with such annoying limitations.’ Since they are vectors, it depends heavily on the state of space and the sky, and that’s why whether it’s day or night changes what my vector controls.

Meanwhile, Nadir has a slightly more stable power. His power is different from mine, but since we are the same being, his followed a similar base, though he would have a lot of trouble in fights against those students I’m now tutoring.

Nadir’s power is [Lunar Inverted Sky]. It allows the ability to shape gravitational flow through any form of mass, manipulating vectors tied to density, weight, and mainly based on the mass of celestial bodies, being divided into three stages: Sun, Moon, and Earth.

When using one state, he cannot use the others simultaneously. Sun allows extreme heat release, along with increasing the weight of everything marked with the [Mark of the Sun]. In the Moon state, all physical attributes increase in exchange for leaving his resistance extremely low, but all attributes not tied to defense lose any limitation that gravity imposes, being free from any form of planetary pressure.

And the Earth State amplifies the powers of all allies marked with the [Mark of the Earth]. The Mark of the Earth is placed through sight, but it also significantly reduces the powers of enemies marked by the [Mark of the Earth].

Even though it’s also a power from the unstable chip instead of the stable core, it is far less self-destructive to the user, allowing use without many consequences besides exhaustion.

And it is precisely because of the Earth State that Nadir is a respected military commander, while I wasn’t as respected. Nadir’s power is perfect for strengthening an army.

While my chaotic power only destroys, gets in the way of nearby allies, and can even easily hurt other people.

"Well, I guess I’m lucky I can reflect and redirect attacks... you know what, fuck Nadir’s power!! Who wants to be a support? I’d rather handle everything myself!!" If my power were stable, I could be the strongest of my generation. Unfortunately, the instability ends up making me take risks, and sometimes using my power hurts a lot.

"...Looks like I’m here... yeah... huh... it’s honestly pretty bad." I stand there in disbelief when I arrive at the apartment where I’ll be living from now on. It’s ordinary, and that’s not the problem. From here, I can see the academy, which is immense, easily dozens of city blocks.

And instead of giving me a room inside the academy, they gave me a room outside. What does that tell me? Obvious — they’re afraid I’ll kill someone. I’m not evil, but old, broken war weapons like me aren’t safe, especially near developing students.

And I hate to agree, but I’m not really safe. Just the fact that I killed a bird on reflex because of its noise makes it clear that stupid teenage pranks would result in serious accidents, and the academy isn’t willing to have me breaking their "new war weapons" by accident.

And worse, my power warps and tears space, so wounds caused by it can hardly be healed, even by people who have healing vectors. After all, vectors have logical limits.

"At least they gave me a free house..." I climb to the top floor, which is where I’ll be living from today onward. I think a little about routine — what does a regular person do as a routine?

I don’t know. Since childhood, I’ve never had a "normal routine," since my life has always been chaotic, so I’m slightly curious about what normal people do.

"..." I reach the door and see the retinal scan on the lock. Seeing that machine gives me a slight disgust. Common technology has betrayed me many times in battle. After all, fear monsters have many varied powers.

"It’s just a retinal scan... not a monster or a seven-headed dragon..." I take a deep breath and place my eye in front of it. Scanning lines pass over my eye, and the door opens.

I step into the apartment, and my eyes dart to the window. The search for an escape route makes me feel more comfortable. My tail shoves the door shut while I focus more on what’s already in the house. It’s kind of small, but acceptable for me — better than sleeping buried in rubble.

It has the basics. The walls are a dull beige tone, and there’s only the most basic furniture, but since I was an army commander, I have quite a lot of money. I can buy things later.

"...H-Hahaha, hilarious... I have nothing..." I have no luggage, nothing, nothing but the clothes on my body, because before Nadir made me lose my post, everything I had were commander’s military clothes.

And aside from the clothes, nothing was left for me, so I just ended up grabbing some random casual outfit.

"I need to buy clothes, food, and repair tools... that bitch Astrid didn’t even give me a toolbox!! I knew being a teacher was shit." The repair equipment for my arms, legs, tail, and spine is expensive. They could’ve at least given me that.

That’s why all I can do is curse Astrid. She knows those things are very expensive, and even so, she didn’t give them to me as a "benefit," even though she knows I depend on those parts.

"...Okay... calm down... I just need to buy a phone, then I can come back home and order everything by delivery." I feel so "old." I’ve never had a cell phone, only communicators, so I’ll have to learn the absolute basics of everyday life.

CRACK

I stretch a bit, hearing the metallic pops of my spine and tail. I’ll have to add a bit of lubricant to the joints to stop them from cracking later.

"I wonder how much money I have in my account, considering that in years of service I never spent a thing." I throw myself onto the sofa, seeing that at least there’s a television.

"AI system, activate..." I try to see if it’s a more technological television or if they gave me old junk. Fortunately, the TV’s AI system activates, so it’s something new, or at least from a more updated generation.

"[Do you desire anything, Miss Zenith?]"

"Miss? What the hell is that? Just call me Zenith! I’m not some old-fashioned hag to be called ’Miss’ by an AI. Besides, give me the news channel with summaries from the last three months. I want to know everything important that happened in the city."

"...Also, search for good cell phones and their physical stores. I need one for work as a tutor and for bank access." I give orders to the AI, which has already been authenticated with my data since it knows my name.

"[Immediately, Miss Zenith, but I regret to inform you that your access is restricted, so you cannot change my form of addressing you.]"

"...Grudgy old hag..." I bet it was Astrid who did this.

"Never mind, just get started. I have limited time." If I don’t do maintenance on my equipment soon, some part might break, and then it’ll be even more expensive.

"[Affirmative.]" The television turns on fully, and while a channel is shown, on the side, in large letters, there’s a text summarizing data, information, and access that the public doesn’t normally have to data.

’At least she left the analytical data active for me.’ This puts me above the public in data collection through the television.

"Tsk... regular news only shows crap. Change the channel. I don’t want this crap full of censorship and manipulation to calm the public down. Go to the private channels."

"[There is a cost of—]"

"Just go. Put the costs on Astrid’s personal account. After all, she’s the one who gave me this apartment. Besides, I’m someone who works as a tutor at the academy, so Astrid, as director, is also responsible for other things of this sort. Plus, you’re part of the apartment, so you’re Astrid’s accounting responsibility, not mine." Let her deal with the costs.

"[...Affirmative.]"