Chaos Simulation

"So Jen who are we searching for?' Ralnas glanced around the after party set-up while allowing his sister to drag him around.

"Leon Roberts." She answered resolutely. Before glancing back and sticking her tongue out at her brother.

Ralnas sighed and continued to allow himself to get dragged all over the hall watching as delicious food zoomed past him just out of reach. "If you wanted to talk to your crush then why are you dragging me along?" Ralnas m.o.a.n.e.d to himself.

Finally spotting her target Jenira shifted her body posture to that of a starstruck fangirl. The change was so fast that if Ralnas didn't know his sister so well he wouldn't have been able to tell. "I've seen her do this before with Mr. Chiron," he thought to himself.

"Mr. Leon! Oh Mr.Leon could we have your attention for a minute!" Jenira seemed a completely different person than the one who had been dragging Ralnas all over the party a second before. Ralnas looked at his sister thoroughly impressed by her switch in demeanor and voice.

Leon Roberts was standing next to one of the high-top tables the school had set up for people to place their drinks on while chatting. There wasn't anyone around him and he seemed to be giving off a vibe of "leave me alone". Ralnas wondered if that's why his sister had changed her tactics after observing his behavior. "Note to self, avoid making Jenira mad." Ralnas reminded himself, not for the first time.

Leon looked up from his notepad that he had been typing furiously on. He noticed what looked like a fangirl who was eyeing him and sighed to himself. He motioned for her to join him and expected her to ask for a picture an then disappear. As she approached he straightened his back and flashed one of his trademark smirks. "And to what do I owe the p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e of the third and fourth highest ranked students at this school?"

Jenira's facade of fangirl wavered just long enough for Leon to realize there was something more serious than a picture behind this request for attention. Leaning forward like a panther ready to pounce he examined the two teenagers in front of him.

Ralnas felt Leon's eyes assessing his very soul and shuddered before wondering what exactly his sister had done in the seconds between getting his attention and walking up to him that prompted such a radical change in body posture from the man in front of him.

Jenira straightened her back and looked Leon right in the eyes before asking, "What does Jayce's potential score mean?"

Leon was impressed this girl hadn't wilted under his gaze and was further impressed that she had noticed his reaction during Jayce's score announcement. "Well Ms. Marrow, it was Marrow right?" She nodded. "You probably don't know because you haven't left the human safe zone since you've been in the CS..."

Ralnas perked up, "CS?"

Leon glanced at him with a small amount of annoyance, "Shorthand for Chaos Simulation." After Ralnas made an "ahh" sound Leon continued, " As I was saying you probably haven't left the human-safe zone, have you?"

Jenira and Ralnas looked at each other, "I'm sorry Mr. Leon but I'm not sure I understand. Human-safe zone?" Jenira asked sweetly.

Leon smiled, "Okay Ms. Marrow you can stop with the act. To be able to lie so well at sixteen sends a shiver down my spine."

Jenira blushed before nodding her head. "Alright, Mr. Leon please explain. Mr. Chiron is a great martial arts teacher but his knowledge about the Chaos Simul... the CS was pretty low."

Leon nodded, "Most people don't know much either. In fact, most don't even know that they're in the human-safe zone. Or that such a thing even exists." He sighed with disappointment before continuing, "You see when we were teleported here ten years ago the Overwatchers gave us the old human domain. Every race has a domain that only allows one race to settle there. Most races have only the very basics in their safe zones because the safe zones are really limited in what items can be acquired compared to the three major hubs."

Leon looked at the two to ensure that they understood what he was saying. He continued, "One of the most important things about safe zones is that their knowledge base isn't shared. Sort of like state secrets from Earth governments. All the information here is taken directly from Earth's internet or from what the previous humans left behind in data stores when they won the grand prize. So it is really limited in practicality. This is both to protect the races from having all their information accessible to every other race, and so that there is an incentive to migrate to the major hubs."

He tried to remember if there was a relationship between the Marrows and that Jayce kid. "Is Jayce your friend?" Leon finally decided to just ask for the real reason they wanted to know about negative potential.

Jenira hesitated before nodding. Ralnas was about to nod right away but after noticing his sister holding back he too hesitated. "Jen, what the hell have you gotten us into now?" Ralnas wondered.

"I thought so. You probably tried looking up negative potential on your watches didn't you?" Without waiting for any sort of answer Leon continued, "And all you found were articles about King Arthur from centuries ago?" This time he waited until they nodded their heads. Ralnas was beginning to feel like a bobble head from all the nodding he had been doing lately.

"Well, that's because all the information you need is in the hubs. Don't worry, if you're anticipating joining the Capability exams tomorrow then you'll have to take the train into hub one. While there make sure to look up negative potential somewhere quiet and then I advise you not to share Jayce's potential with anyone." He paused and cupped his chin in his hand, "In fact, all three of you shouldn't tell anyone but people you trust your potential scores. That is unless you like being swarmed by every lower level team that exists non-stop until you join a team."

Jenira and Ralnas nodded again, not sure if they should say anything in case they made this fountain of information shut off.

Leon pondered something for couple seconds, "and you should tell those two, Micu and Isabel to be careful too." He then smiled at the two teenagers, "That's pretty much as much as I can tell you because I've got to get going. But look me up sometime Jenira." He pulled a business card out of his coat pocket, "We always have a need for more reporters and believe me there is no more secretive business in this world than getting scoops on elite teams." He smiled as he pressed a button on his notepad that turned it into an ordinary looking pen and he slipped it into his coat.

Jenira sputtered, "But you didn't even tell me what negative potential meant!"

Leon laughed softly, "If I told you what to think then I wouldn't be a reporter but a cult leader. I gave you the guidance to make your own opinions about negative potential. Plus I am curious to hear what you discover. I actually don't know much about it. It rarely comes up in the pro circuit. The only concrete information I can give you is that the leader of team Eternity has a potential of negative six." He then winked at the two of them and strode out into the night.

Jenira wrinkled her nose, "Well they do say never meet your heroes."

Ralnas was dumbstruck. "Jen he literally told us everything he knew! How can you think poorly of him now?"

"You actually think he told us everything he knew? Why did his jaw almost fall off his face when he heard that Jayce had negative ten potential if he doesn't know anything about it?" Jenira eyed her brother warily.

Ralnas bounced the idea around his head for a bit before answering, "Well I guess not, but I don't think he was doing it out of bad intentions..."

Jenira smiled at her brother, "Thank god for you dear Ral and your pure heart. I smell something fishy with Mr. Leon and you can bet that I will get to the bottom of it." A fire burned in Jenira's eyes that Ralnas was very familiar with.

Ralnas rolled his eyes, "You know if this whole fighter job thing doesn't work out then you should definitely take him up on his offer to be an investigative reporter. Those teams would shake with fear if they had you snooping around."

Jenira's expression changed in an instant and she looked at her brother sweetly. "Why not both?"

Ralnas was too stunned from her sudden change to answer and Jenira walked off to find their other friends. Ralnas shook his head and followed after her muttering to himself, "Sometimes I wonder who the older sibling really is."

Micu had just finished waving his parents off as they stepped into their flying car and took off into the night when Jenira appeared and hugged him. "We did it Micu!" He laughed and hugged her back, 'We certainly did Jen! And to think our band of misfits somehow ended up with the top four potentials out of the entire class!"

"Well, there were only 16 of us..." Ralnas snarkily replied to Micu's statement. He then laughed at the annoyance that sprouted on both of his friend's faces.

"Whatever, top 25% belong to our team no matter how you cut it." Jenira smiled and let go of Micu.

"Team?" Micu asked. "Well, I guess we can choose to enter the capability competition as a team of four. So we should come up with a cool team name before tomorrow..." He rubbed his face with his hand.

Ralnas' eyes sparked and he jumped up. "We should be the... Assassins Doom!"

Jenira and Micu looked at him before bursting out laughing. "Ral hahaha what in the world?" "Assassins Doom??? Where do you even think this stuff up?" "Assassins Doom sounds like a comic book superhero team name?"

His friends rolling on the ground laughing at him made Ralnas shrink back and mumble, "It actually was in one of the comic books I bought..."

This brought another round of laughter from Jenira and Micu. "Please stop Ral please I can't take this trolling right now." "A comic book!? What was it about? Assassins fighting demons who are going to destroy the world?"

Ralnas shrunk even further in stature. "Maybe..."

Jenira couldn't stop laughing and was beginning to turn red from lack of oxygen. Micu was crying and holding his hands around his waist as he rolled around on the ground. "Ral please I beg of you please stop I'm going to laugh myself to death" Ralnas snorted with frustration and started walking away.

"Whatever I'm going to find Jayce!" Ralnas stormed off leaving Jenira and Micu still rolling on the floor as parents watched them wondering what could inspire such carefree laughter.