“Just look for the old guy in the stereotype professor jacket, he should be around here somewhere.” Lynx said as she started to leave “I have other things to attend to, so I’ll catch up with you later.” And so I was left to search for this Arc guy. I weaved around from giant bookshelf to giant bookshelf, until finally I found an old guy wearing glasses, the ‘professor’ jacket (you know the one, it has the patches on the elbows) and a slight gray beard. She wasn’t kidding; this guy really looks did look like a stereotypical professor.

                “Are you… Arc?”

                “Yes, I’m called Arc. And I presume you’re Wesley?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Splendid! Well then I suppose it is time for you to learn about the Nine?”

                “ Nine?“

                “Ah. The powers that everyone here has at least one of.”

                “Yeah, I guess that’s what I was sent to you for.”

                “Well then, come take a walk around the library with me, Wesley.”

                “So what are the powers exactly?”

                “Excellent question. The Nine are powers that is quite a rarity; though with the such a high population there are many with them. Our two organizations consist of all members with the power of the Nine. The Nine are each different forms of using a mysterious special energy unique to each individual user. We call the users of the Nine ‘divers’. The forms of our powers are flight, strength, wave, pulse, barrier, shadow, dexterity, and sprint. Which would you like to hear about any of them in particular?”

                “You can just tell me in any order you want to, I guess.”

                “Very well, the first is flight, the power that everyone with the ability to use the Nine has. Flight is the board that you saw Lynx on, she has a gold energy; thus her board was golden. Each individual has a different color and board… well I suppose you could call it board ‘texture’. Strength is quite obviously the ability for multiplying one’s strength with their energy, its one of the few skills that is used interiorly. Wave is the ability to emit blasts of energy to attack an enemy, whether it is visible or not depends on the type of wave the Diver uses. Pulse is simply the ability to sense other divers—”

                “So I was found with pulse?”

                “Precisely! I see you’re picking this up well enough given your current situation, stress is not a great thing to have when one is learning new things. Moving on, barrier is an ability that is countered primarily by wave, barrier can either protect the diver or the area around the diver; depending on their proficiency with it. Shadow is the ability to hide your presence, or the presence of the area the diver is in. Against other diver’s pulse ability, and also gives one the proficiency in stealth; such as making your steps quieter.”

                “Does this organization have someone with ‘shadow’?”

                “Yes, I am one of them; I hide this base. We have to keep the enemy from using pulse to find this place. Dexterity is the diver’s proficiency with weaponry and combat; one would not think it is not anything special. However, a diver with an affinity for the dexterity ability has inhuman reflexes when fighting; making them harder targets to hit. The last one I will tell you about is sprint, which is the ability to move extremely fast. Powerful sprinters seem as if they are teleporting; rather nasty to dispatch.”

                “Arc?”

                “Yes, Wesley?”

                “Isn’t that only eight powers?”

                “The ninth is too rare; you will learn about it when you get farther into your training.”

                “Training?”

                “What? Did you think your powers would develop over night? We have to learn which ones you have, Wesley. That is what I am here for.”

                “And how are we going to do this?”

                “You will see, Wesley. Ah! Here we are!” and with that Arc pulled a book entitled ‘Welcome to the Lion’s Den’ from the shelf.

                That book led to one painful psychological paper cut.