6 chapter 6

Syonas was speechless and motionless. He never thought that such a beautiful girl would ever say such words to him, and immediately and without his consent, little Syonas began to react.

'I can't stay here.' Syonas thought to himself, stepping to the side and attempting to walk past her.

"hey! I'm talking to you." She said while reaching out in an attempt to block his path but Syonas manoeuvred past her like she wasn't even there. A score of fourteen in dexterity was not just for show.

Syonas kept his head down and focused on his breathing while slowly getting his member under control.

'think unattractive thoughts..... Grannies.... Bulldogs.... Mom.' At that thought Syonas arousal was immediately replaced with sadness and the underlying rage that accompanied his thoughts, whenever he thought of his parent's death. It saddened him that his memory of his parent's will be forever stained by his rage but he couldn't control what he felt, he could only hope revenge would end his rage.

Now that he was back to reality Syonas became conscious of the stares every one was sending him, it made him uncomfortable. Syonas was very mature for his age but he was still a teenage boy he couldn't help but feel a little insecure, wondering what they where thinking or feeling while looking at him.

In response to these inner thoughts, Syonas felt his gift stir into action as his first ability made itself known. The world exploded into an assortment of sights, sounds and colours that Syonas never thought where possible.

He saw greens, blues, reds and yellows, spanning the entire spectrum of the rainbow. He smelt things he had never smelt and heard sounds he couldn't describe even if you begged him to.

All this sensory information was beyond his scope, it almost instantly overwhelmed him, but once again sensing his distress his gifted automatically turned down his sensitivity just enough for him to process this new development and realize what this new ability was.

Empathic sense.

All of his senses now had access to another realm of information: emotions. He could feel them, smell them, hear them and most of all see them. They fluctuated around the bodies of the people around him like some sort of aura, maybe that's what it was: An aura.

Scanning those around him with a critical gaze, Syonas noticed the emotions of every body present was a mess, not surprising since every one here was a hormonal, emotional adolescent but that was not important, what was important was what they felt toward him.

Once again taking it's cue from Syonas his gift shifted again, and the resolution of everybody's aura changed. A great many of them turned grey with a splash of pink most likely signalling a slight interest but mostly indifferent, while a great many of the girls remained a radiant pink some even containing a sensual red and the boys also glowed pink but mostly with a shade of green, probably envy.

The knowledge of what everyone was feeling did not come out of nowhere it felt like he had a natural discernment for the meaning of these colours and sensations but knowing what every one felt about him gave him no solace, in fact, it only made him more nervous. Unconsciously Syonas came to a stop while he was processing all this and he felt a soft impact on his back, turning around and once again coming face to face with the life size Barbie doll, Syonas was greeted by a blazing pink aura.

'Well, I guess she is serious about me being her boyfriend.' Syonas thought as he turned around and began his march, not giving her time to say any thing to stop him. He didn't know where he was going but he just kept walking, maybe she would lose interest.

The girl still followed him and although he didn't look back, he could smell her, hear her, he could even feel her warm aura brushing up his back like a warm flame licking a piece of meat on a spit roast, constantly reminding him of her presence.

He didn't know how he ended up in the cafeteria he was just pushing doors open until he found himself there. He stomach released a thunderous rumble at the smell of food, stopping him in his tracks, he really wanted to leave the school building and avoid everyone but he was starving and he was here already, so why not eat? the stares where uncomfortable but Syonas was adaptable he was already getting used to it.

Walking up to the spread, Syonas picked a lot of food, mostly meat, he was hungry and he was pretty sure his appetite was a lot bigger after his evolution, so he made sure to stack it up high. He scanned the hall for an empty seat while carefully avoiding every one's gaze and made his way to an empty seat he found, with no further fanfare syonas dug in with the appetite of a starved lion.

"Ahem."

Syonas ignored her and continued to eat his food, that was all he could do to keep his composure in front of such an attractive girl, but it didn't seem to stop her from continuing.

"ahem!"

Releasing a sigh of dejection Syonas looked up and met those gorgeous electric blue eyes. It took all his willpower to keep a straight face.

".....what" Syonas said not able to keep a slight tremor out of his voice.

"you haven't answered my question" she said, with a slight pout. Her sandy blonde hair, cut in a bob that was held back around her ears using pink hair clips that matched her pink head band and pink high light........ So much pink...

"why so much pink?" the question left his mouth before he knew what was happening. Syonas was expecting anger but instead of an angry red, her aura flared joyful gold while radiating a bright pink that almost jumped out of her aura to grab him.

"Why pink? Because pink is the pinnacle of feminine beauty. Do you know pink symbolises happiness and......." this seemed like a point of interest for her. She didn't stop talking for a while, but it didn't bother Syonas, he hasn't had much social interaction which made him somewhat stiff but with her talking none stop, all he had to do was ask the occasional question and sit back to listen.

Her name was Sandrea: sandy for short. She liked the colour pink, rock music, horror movies, romance novels and a litany of other surprising things that seemed to contradict his initial impression of her. She was very dodgy about her family but Syonas assumed they where pretty well-off since they could afford this school.

'Actually, looking at her now she looks more like a goth Barbie than a normal Barbie.' Syonas thought to himself.

The first thing he noticed when he looked at her was an obvious abundance of pink but if you looked closer she wore skull ear rings, combat boots, a choker and even skull rings, although they where all either pink or bedazzled to infinity, with the exception of her black leggings, they still gave her a very gothic vibe. Add all this to her body that seemed a little more developed than normal and you have a unique beauty that Syonas had seen nothing like before.

"Hey are you listening"

Syonas was brought out of his thoughts by Sandy waving a hand in his face.

'Oh shit, I was staring.' Syonas thought as he left his reverie and noticed the slight red of annoyance that tinged Sandy's aura.

"uuhhh....... Yes?" Syonas said, his tone unsure.

"Really? then what did I say?" she said her tone interrogatory.

Syonas mind began to work in overdrive to remember what she said and his mind surprisingly brought her entire dialogue, word for word, to his remembrance with almost no effort. Syonas felt surprise and even a little happy. He began to speak, quickly jumping at the opportunity to impress her.

"Actually-" Syonas stopped midsentence.

Why did he care? Why did he need to justify himself to a girl he just met? He had some how been pulled into her momentum and was now even worried about her mood swings. Just because she was pretty? No not just that, Syonas also found her genuinely interesting but something about this whole thing made him uncomfortable.

"why do you ask me to be your boyfriend?" Syonas asked, his tone even and his formerly interested and slightly anxious expression easing into practised indifference.

"Of course because your handsome, who doesn't want a handsome boyfriend." She said immediately and without hesitation, her aura not showing any signs of embarrassment.

Why would she feel embarrassed anyway? She was most likely around the same age as him. Why would a girl his age approach a boy for any deeper reason. Still, it left a sour taste in his mouth.

"I have somewhere to be." Syonas said rising from his seat with a slight furrow in his brow

"Hey, wait you didn't answ-" she started.

"No" and Syonas finished.

"Huh?" she exclaimed in confused shock, she probably thought it was impossible for any boy no matter how good looking to tell her no. Regardless, Syonas wasn't any boy.

"the flesh can be easily wounded but also healed a true warrior has only one weak spot: the heart.

Guard it jealously."

The words of Unella Thorne rang through once more. It was no personal affront too her but Syonas knew his own state, he was a young, horny and emotionally starved teenage boy, a girl smiling in his direction was enough to make years of mental training come crashing down, turning him into a blushing idiot.

He had not experienced betrayal before but if every author he had read so far was correct: humans in general can only be trusted to be humans.

Meaning he needed to expect both good and bad, both loyalty and betrayal, and in his opinion a little grade school romance was not worth the risk of being discovered and turned into a lab experiment.

As for dating her while keeping it a secret, it was not possible. He thought of himself as a person with a strong will but if it really came down to it, most likely he would come clean after one kiss. So, the best course of action was to avoid all emotional entanglements entirely.

As he rose to his feet to leave the stunned sandy in her seat, the doors to the cafeteria opened again and the entire hall went silent, nobody dared to breathe loudly not to mention talk, nobody except Sandy that is.

"penny!" she said escaping her stupor and running across the hall into the waiting arms of none other than Penelope Snaer. She had a smile on her face that Syonas had never seen before, as she held Sandy in an intimate embrace.

'They seem pretty close.' Syonas thought to himself, with slight anxiety.

Although he had a crush on Penelope he didn't know anything about her personality, for all he knew she might be the over protective type that would beat up a guy for rejecting her friend. Syonas was not delusional enough too think he stood a chance against a mage in any shape or form. Understanding the gravity of the situation, Syonas began to head in the other direction toward a set of doors that lead out of the cafeteria.

'almost there.' Syonas thought, when he was about to open the doors out.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Sandy's voice rang out from behind him, Syonas pretended not to hear her and shoved the door open and closed it behind him.

As soon as he was out of sight, Syonas mind began to spin into action, and he felt time slow almost coming to a halt. He knew this was simply the time difference created by his speed of thought, he was beginning to understand that he really underestimated a fifteen in intelligence.

'System what does one unit of intelligence represent.' Syonas thought in his hyper stimulated mind but the system being a computer of such great ability easily kept up.

[ one unit of intelligence represents 20 IQ points]

Syonas felt shock reverberate through his mind, that meant he currently had an IQ of THRE-HUNDRED! The highest IQ recorded in public record was a girl with a cognitive ability who had an IQ of '278' and it broke every record till that point. Of course, that wasn't taking into account all the geniuses that didn't enter public record. Still, that meant Syonas IQ after evolution was in the same category as the most powerful cognitive gift users ever recorded and he didn't have a cognitive gift.

'....why?' Syonas thought in shock.

[Evolution is a process that advances the most useful parts of the host, and the only measure of how useful an organ or limb can be is by measuring how frequently it is used. The host has spent the majority of his life engaging in extremely laborious mental tasks, thereby strengthening your brain and allowing for a large increase in power after evolution.]

'What was my intelligence before evolution?' Syonas thought.

[7]

'an IQ of 140, that's still genius level but it is still a bicycle compared to the race car that my mind currently is.' Syonas thought as he began to scan his surroundings.

This exchange between him and the AI took milliseconds and now Syonas was back to the main task: escaping.

His eyes rapidly scanned the courtyard for an escape route, the score of fifteen in intelligence not only meant cognitive ability that was 1.5 the human limit but also senses of that magnitude. His vision and hearing weren't 20/20 but 30/30, and with these advanced senses he determined that the courtyard was approximately 50 metres on length and breadth.

The only exit was the door that he used to enter this courtyard and the walls surrounding the courtyard where more than ten feet tall, in other words, there was no exit. Syonas could feel the distinct warmth of Sandy's aura approaching by the millisecond and he was sure Penelope was not far behind.

He had at most 4 seconds to find an exit strategy.

.......3

He could now hear Sandy's voice.

........2

He heard the sound of her palms touching the door.

.........1

The door began to creek open

Syonas mind was working on overdrive trying to find a way out and in the moment of desperation, Syonas body took action before his mind could even realise, what he was doing.

He dashed left, his feet tearing away patches of earth in every bound. wind whipped around him, the speed of his movement displacing air wherever he passed. He covered the distance of 30 metres in a measly 4 seconds and when he was five feet from the wall Syonas leapt a ridiculous 8 feet into the air, just enough to find purchase on the top of the wall and flip over with cat-like grace.

Sandy opened the door just in time for her and Penelope to witness this supernatural display of physical prowess. They both stood there thunder struck by what they just saw.

"........that's your new boyfriend?" Penelope said her eyes locked on the wall that Syonas vanished over.

"Uuhhh... It's not official" Sandy replied in a daze.

While Penelope and Sandy where left starting at walls, Syonas had already crossed the street and entered an alley way. His body buzzed with excitement, he didn't know what came over him, it was like he didn't need to think he just needed to act and his body would figure out the rest.

'Are these bestial instincts?' Syonas thought to himself, he wasn't even breathing hard, those manoeuvres felt completely natural, effortless even.

'Haaaa...... That's was stressful, time to head home and try the astral technique.' Soon as thought to himself. While gathering himself and heading for the exit.