The music was off and Apollo sat atop his desk with his legs spread.
He twirled a metallic ruler in his hand.
"Okay, I'm sure you guys have questions, so let's get those out of the way now."
A boy immediately shot his hand up.
Apollo pointed the ruler at him.
"Are you god?"
Apollo blinked, before laughing.
"No, if I was I wouldn't be on this rock, I'll tell ya that much." He winked, "Next question!"
"Was that magic?!"
A woman this time.
Apollo shook his head.
"Magic doesn't exist, silly girl."
I raised my hand.
Apollo pointed his ruler at me.
"You there, in the back."
I took a deep breath.
"Where do you store it?"
He blinked, "Excuse me?"
I sighed.
"The heat, the heat that should've killed us all. Where do you store it? Also, where do you pull the energy to convert elements? You'd need a nuclear reactor to break the molecular bonds and reshape them."
I lowered my hand.
"And another thing, that barrier you made when the guy was punching you. What was that? And how was Erika able to bypass it?"
Apollo smirked.
"What's your name?"
"Marcus."
"Marcus," he said slowly, testing the name. "You're an observant fellow, I can tell."
He stood to his feet, grabbing a piece of chalk.
He turned towards the chalkboard, drawing a large circle and drawing a line through it.
Then, he drew an arrow on one half and wrote, 'us'.
Then on the other half, he drew another arrow, 'storage'.
Then he labeled the dividing line 'veil'.
"Alright, Marcus. This is just for you, so pay close attention." He pointed his finger at the 'us' arrow. "This is your average pilot, they exist in what we like to call, reality A."
He tapped the board.
"When our pilot friend wants to activate their light, they tap into their storage." He drew a line across the veil and stopped at the 'storage' arrow. "This storage is located in what we like to call reality B. It's a sort of mirror reality."
He continued.
"Reality B stores the energy that we pull to alter reality A. For your average pilot, this creates excess heat around them. That heat has to go somewhere, it's usually either the ground or the air."
He turned to me.
"But you asked why I can delay that, right?"
I nodded, my mind spinning with more questions the more he spoke.
He grinned.
"It's because I put the excess heat back into reality B. I create a sort of temporary loop. Think of it like holding your breath. As long as I keep that loop open, I can store as much energy into it as I want."
He spread his arms.
"But whenever I want to close that loop, I have to get rid of that energy. Otherwise, when it snaps back it'll hit me, and that'll be all she wrote."
He clapped his hands together, making a loud pop.
He tilted his head.
"As for the second question. I first need to explain how we as pilots interact with reality B."
He looked over at us.
"Besides the cultist, have any of you met a pilot or heard of the 'light' they use?"
Everyone looked around curiously.
I'm pretty sure I was the only one who ever met a pilot, and she was the one who put me in prison in the first place.
I raised my hand with a sigh.
"I've interacted with one, but she didn't use any light. She just showed up in a mech and blew away half our camp in one shot."
Apollo nodded.
"You really are a special one." He took a long breath. "Okay, I'm going to need you to pay close attention to this."
He turned back towards the chalkboard and began to draw.
He drew a stick figure.
A mech.
And a circle.
He pointed to the circle.
"In this circle is a pool of something we like to call cosmic dust, or light. We don't know what this substance is exactly, but we do know it acts as a sort of conduit between realities."
He gestured towards the stick figure.
"Pilots are dipped into this substance, and when they emerge. They have the ability to pull energy from reality B to alter reality A. But what alters reality is the light itself, think of them as highly advanced nanites that react to your instructions. If you want to build a bridge, they pull energy from reality B, follow your instructions, and bam, you have a bridge. But you also have a lot of waste heat to vent."
He moved over to the mech.
"That's where mechs come in, they have these heat sinks called thermal capacitors. With these heat sinks, even a normal pilot can rival me for a time. Creating truly unimaginable power output."
He chuckled.
"But that's information for later, you're asking about my barrier." He drew a shield around the stick figure, "I created a 1mm thick wall of cosmic dust around my body, programmed to harden on impact. It's a kinetic filter."
"And the burning of that one guy's fists?"
"I redirect the kinetic energy back into whatever hit me. That way I don't burn myself alive."
"So… if I moved slow enough, could I touch you?"
Apollo nodded.
"Precisely."
"Can I learn this?"
"Theoretically? Yes. Practically? No, the mental fortitude needed to not only create the shield, but maintain it is enough to kill the average person. Plus I use this because I don't fight in mechs, that won't be the case for you."
I nodded.
Apollo chuckled softly.
"I know that was a lot to go over and you don't have to remember it all. You guys won't even see cosmic dust until next year. For now, we're going to focus on your specializations, the reason you're all here."
He turned to the second board and began writing.
Pilot classification.
Physics:
Chemistry:
Biology:
Engineering:
"Most pilots fall into one of these four categories, and that determines their fighting style."
He continued.
"For example, someone in physics might turn themselves invisible because they can bend the light around themselves."
He pointed to a boy in the front.
"You, what were you arrested for?"
The boy smiled sheepishly, "I uh… I was deemed a terrorist for making bombs in my mom's basement. But I wasn't going to use them, I swear!"
Apollo raised an eyebrow.
"Alright, name?"
"Daniel."
Apollo wrote his name under chemistry, before pointing out another student. A woman.
"You, what are you in for?"
The woman had her feet kicked up on her desk. "Illegal body modification and surgery."
"Name?"
"Lumina."
He wrote her name under biology.
This continued with him asking names and what they were arrested for. I realized that everyone here was chosen because they had a deep understanding of their field.
Eventually, Apollo got to me, notably skipping over the cultist.
"Marcus, what were you arrested for?"
I sighed.
"Illegal weapons manufacturing for the sisterhood of steel: 11th chapter."
Lumina looked over at me, her eyes narrowed.
Apollo chuckled.
"You know I think I remember hearing about that, a pilot told me she arrested a kid who was with the sisterhood. Were you making high-powered rifles at 14? For a group of psychos?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"It's not like I wanted to, I was forcibly adopted. Not like your pilot friend bothered to ask before blasting my only family off the map."
"That's fair."
Apollo stepped back from the board, looking over it with a firm expression.
"Alright, you guys take some free time, I'll be back." He turned towards Monica. "I'll leave them in your capable hands, please don't kill them."
Monica pulled up her gasmask.
"It's up to them whether I fill the air with a nerve agent or not."