Chapter 7:

A Kitsune’s Ascent 07:

The Troublesome Teacher Thoroughly Teaches Testicular Torsion Testily To Twin Tentacled Tyrants

After Zack acquired a new minion and set him up with a guaranteed alcohol addiction, she rode her bike over to Bobby’s dorm, sending poor Emo Dude to the class ahead of her.

She was fairly certain that bikes weren’t meant to ride up stairs, but something told her to try it regardless, and she made it up just fine so it was probably okay. But if it wasn’t? Well, she could afford a replacement.

“Bobby! Let’s go to the class!” she told him as she banged on his door, an aura of shenanigans pouring off of her as she laid perfectly on her bike and balanced on the back wheel outside his room.

Instead of opening the door, she heard steps behind her. Bobby stepped out of the bathroom in trunks and with a towel over his shoulder, clearly having just left the shower.

“Zack, buddy, you know that stuff’s for outside, right?” Bobby said with a grin, gently scoffing the back of her head before he unlocked his apartment.

“Make yourself at home while I get dressed,” Bobby said, stepping into his bedroom and closing the bedroom door behind him as he did.

This left Zack in the room alone in Bobby’s apartment for a minute. Famous boxers and wrestler posters were on the walls, there were very… austere, furniture made of boards and cinderblocks, and yet it all felt very Bobby. On one table next to a PC were old and very familiar figurines from a show they’d watched in their childhood.

Zack smirked. Bobby had still kept the beat up Johnny Speed action figure from all those years ago.

“Heh. Johny may have been a sellout, but if there was ever one guy that I dun mind seeing everywhere, it was this guy,” she chuckled, noting that it sounded mildly perverted and horny coming from a female.

Meh, who cared. Man looked good, and she could admit it, no matter her gender.

Bobby came out dressed in jeans and a muscle shirt that looked good on him, his horns oddly shiny, like he’d used some sort of polish or wax on his horns. But he looked oddly annoyed. “Okay, that is getting weird. The socks are one thing, but now I look at my change bowl and all the pennies are gone. Not the quarters, the freaking pennies? Like the weirdest thief is on the loose.”

“Huh,” she sniffed the house and looked around. “Either the Thief ate a lot of mushroom soup and was lactose intolerant, or the thief is literally a fungus,” she claimed with a grunt.

Bobby’s eyebrows climbed up briefly. “Dang, you really do got a blood hound nose now, don’t you?”

Ugh. Comparing her to a dog? She cringed at the thought.

Bobby stiffened immediately. “Ah shit, sorry. Won’t say that shit again, just came out. Still getting used to all this, you know?”

“No problem Bobby,” she waved it off, her tail swaying as she finally stood beside her bike. And then promptly stuffed it into her backpack, despite the size being much smaller than her bike.

Funny how she didn’t really think about it until after she did it, but once she did, it just made sense to do so.

“Well ain’t that convenient,” Bobby chuckled. “Man, gotta learn that trick sometime, if I can.” Bobby slapped his hands together. “Well, time’s a wasting. To Professor Oujii’s lecture?”

“Yus!” she bounced, and zoomed out the door, before stopping at the top of the stairs. “For some reason, cheese sandwiches sound good tonight.”

Bobby glanced out a window at the full moon. “Guess it is that time. We can get some later. Know a place, great grilled bacon and cheese sandwiches. More a breakfast thing, but fuck it, they’ll make it to order.”

“Let’s rollout!” she grinned, and nyoomed speedily down the stairs.

Zack sped down the stairs but noticed a blur out of the corner of her eye followed by a thud that sounded like it came from the bottom of the stairs. Once she reached the bottom, she found Bobby leaning against the door casually. “Took ya long enough,” he said with a grin, fangs showing cockily.

“Race you to the class,” Zack growled playfully.

Twenty minutes later, Bobby’s grin was insufferable as they reached the Old Science building where the lecture was taking place.

“Damnit, I’ll beat you next time!” she shook her fist at him in faux outrage before smiling.

It was only a fun little competition, and it surely taught her a thing or two about her body. Notably, that she could have kept going for several tens of times longer than that with negligible drain on her stamina.

Two, was that she felt as though she was missing a key ability to boost her speed to his level, but he instinctively used one the entire time. Maybe something to do with her Gravity affinity would help?

She could certainly train like Sun Moku if she figured out how to make gravity higher for herself. And if she did that, well. When she finally unleashed her true power, she’d be unstoppable!

Just like Mighty Lee!

The Old Science Building looked, well, old. Not decrepit, but definitely made in a style more common 30 years ago with lots of brick. The newer building was all glass and shine.

Signs led them to the lecture hall Professor Oujii was using, and it was surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, packed despite how spacious things were.

As elsewhere, there were a lot of students here, but it was more than just that. There were faculty members, what looked like parents, even some off duty construction workers, people in suits, and more all crowded into the hall. Some of the bigger attendees, like the centaurs and OrK had to stand, but for the most part everyone had a place.

The front of the hall was dominated by something of a stage, with a lectern, desk, projector, and more, but that was typical school stuff. On the stage itself was a large table, lots of tools, and car batteries hooked up.

Professor Sokitaa Oujii was up there, as well, speaking with another black coated teacher, although it was impossible to discern what was being said.

“Alright, let’s see what the teacher’s cooking with this,” Zack said, slipping into a seat and pulling Bobby in beside her.

Her tail wrapped around his waist when she realized it was chilly in there, and it might be good to give him something to warm his hands in, because he wasn’t wearing gloves.

He was surprisingly warm, his skin near hot to the touch.

A few minutes of chat later, and Professor Oujii stepped up to the mic.

“Greetings, everyone. Welcome to my impromptu lecture on System affinities because apparently everyone else is just abjectly terrible at figuring this shit out,” he began.

There was some grumbling at that, but Oujii really didn’t sound as if he had any fuck’s to give.

“First off, show of hands. Since the change days ago now, how many of you have actually checked your menus over, top to bottom?” he asked. Most hands went up, but not all.

Oujii looked pained at seeing as many hands that remained down as he did. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“So here is the thing about the System, as I’ve learned from studying it about day one. It is minimalistic in the extreme. It gives basic explanations, but does not bother going beyond that. It either doesn’t care, or its creators didn’t, and assumes you have the basic context to understand it. That might be well and good for someone born with it their whole life as I figure it must be given this is intelligently designed, but it’s proper shit for everyone else,” he explained, walking back and fourth.

Wut. People didn’t look at it after it was pointed out? She groaned a little at that, remembering that it took him telling her about it for her to do so in depth. But it was very clear once she did that that she needed to do something with it.

But she was still having trouble figuring out the Madness affinity. But you know what they said, the definition of insanity was to do things over and over and over and, what was the saying again?

Cheese was good. She wanted cheese.

Bobby was looking at her a little funny, but the pause in the Professor’s speech ended as he continued.

“Case in point, affinities,” Oujii said. He lifted his hand up, fingers splayed, and lighting danced over his finger tips that he shot off to dissipate harmlessly in the air. There was lots of oohs and ahs at this. “Lightning affinity seems to be the one universal literally everyone gets, at various levels, but everyone gets it.

“I figured out how to do this this out on day two, but I can guarantee you that was pure luck. How many people here can actually use any of their affinities?” Professor Oujii asked.

A fair number of students and attendees raised their hands, although a lot didn’t and seemed sullen about it. The ones who did raise their hands seemed to be the most changed. A yuki-onna who’d cause mayhem with ice at Zack’s dorm, a few winged people from harpies to Raven-kin who’d been flying earlier, etc.

“Some who seem the most changed access it instinctively. Air, for flight, being a common one if you got the wings for it, but, well, as before, the System didn’t give instructions on how to awaken the affinity. Most are just latent. How I figured out lightning? I literally shocked myself on a bit of wiring in my workshop, and just like that, I had my lightning affinity unlocked.”

“Surprisingly hardcore,” Zack chuckled.

“Damn, I already respected the guy, former kendo champ, but seriously? Wow,” Bobby commented.

“After my heart stopped trying to rip its way out of my chest, I found the System had changed my lightning affinity to “awakened”. Toying around with it, I have found you need exposure to the affinity in question to make it wake up, be accessible, and even get a system ability or two for you,” the Professor said, to a lot of interest.

He gestured at the table with the car batteries setup. “Unlike myself, I have a smaller and safer setup here. I believe in the vast majority of cases, a small but notable shock is more than sufficient, and I can demonstrate this that said, let’s get a few volunteers. Hands up!” he ordered.

“Hell yes!” Zack said, raising her hand, her fluffy tail wagging and sticking up as well.

Oujii studied the crowd, before pointing out half a dozen students. He almost skipped over her and Bobby, but stopped as he seemingly recognized them, and gestured them up front.

There was a lot of awkward stepping past people, over people, and no small amount of ass in face to get up to the stage, but it was eventually over, and Zack and Bobby found themselves on stage with hundreds of eyes on them while Oujii adjusted the batteries and the contraption.

He looked around and gestured at Zack. “I remember you. Zack, was it? Come up here, and press on this pad,” he said, gesturing at the setup. “You will feel a strong shock, but it is safe.”

With that, he gestured at her to take the plunge in front of a massive audience.

Zack grinned, and pressed the pad.

What happened next was silly.

She felt a Zap, Jumped a little, the fur on her body standing up all at once as she lost cohesive form and became an actual fox right in front of everyone. And as staticky and fluffy as she was, she looked like a furball stuck within a pile of her own clothes.

“… I wanna touch the fluff,” a male voice said.

“Don’t you dare,” another spoke up.

“I’mma do it,” the first said.

“Don’t!”

And just like that the voice coalesced as a Frog-kin leaped out of the audience surprisingly far, tried to pet her before she could react, and then got launched back into the audience as a powerful shock immediately ran into him.

“… Told you,” the Frog-kin’s friend said.

“Worth it,” the Frog-kin croaked.

Laughter followed.

“Anyway,” Oujii growled. “If the clown show is over and no one else feels like harassing the first volunteer…” he said, glaring out at the audience. Sparks came off him as he said this, nearly a match for the one that launched the Frog-kin. “Are you alright, Miss Zack?” he asked, kneeling before her.

“Kon!” she said, even though she was trying to say yes.

This was going to be embarrassing later. She could tell.

~~~~

AN:

HiddenMaster: We did not even get through all that was planned here, but the chapter was a lot of fun, although what Kitsu did with the subtitle is damn near unforgiveable XD.

Kitsu: What subtitle? There was a subtitle?

Anyway, while Hidden hallucinates a Subtitle into existence with OrK logic, this Kitsune will set up the linkies!

Kitsu’s Foxxo Shrine: https://aikoakiyoshi.carrd.co/

HiddenMaster’s Archive: https://hiddenmasterarchive.carrd.co/