Academy World Karting

Chapter Two - Apparently I'm Not Supposed To Drink Vodka

"We won't be karting until next week."

I bet Romain didn't think that comment would send the room into chaos like it did.

"What? We came here to-"

"But I thought we-"

"It's not fair!"

"I can't go that long, I'm already having withdrawal!"

I hear Kimi, who is sitting next to me, snicker at that last one. I look over at him, and he makes eye contact with me before looking back up at Romain. How ironic. An eighteen-year-old being taught by a sixteen-year-old. Slowly the room settles down with hushing and whisper-yelling. Everyone looks attentively to our teacher.

"This absolutely devastating and earth-shattering fact is because..." He pauses for dramatic effect, "I am required to give you the region-mandated safety course before we can legally teach anything with the karts." My classmates groan around me. "It is completely fair that I must teach this, though, as these karts are completely different from any you've driven before. They are similar to a Formula level car: they're fast, they're smooth, and they're dangerous."

Lando raises his hand.

"Yes?"

"Just how dangerous are they? Like, have you ever seen an accident with one of these karts before?" Lando asks. Romain's face darkens and he looks as though he is contemplating whether he should actually tell us or not.

He pulls off his fingerless gloves, revealing terrible scarring. "I was in an accident. I put it through the barrier and almost didn't make it out. Thankfully, due to the safety features, I got out only missing one shoe, which melted onto the gas pedal, and with burns on my hands."

The air feels thick with the silence of us realising how awful that must have been.

"You panicked and caused the fire, didn't you? The kart didn't do that itself." Kimi speaks up. Romain tilts his head. "I did not. My power is fire resistance, not fire manipulation."

"Then how did you get burns?" The Fin presses.

"Someone gifted me their power afterwards so it wouldn't happen again."

Kimi merely looks at Romain, presumably picking through his thoughts to find if he's lying or not. He finds his answer and is satisfied to find that Romain is not lying to him. "Very well, then. Continue."

"You can give people powers?" A voice I don't recognize speaks up from the back. I look. The guy who spoke is... I can't remember his name. I think it was Carl.

"Some people are born with the ability to hand off their power to someone else. Like a baton in a cross country race, if you will. The person who receives it, however, has to have no existing power and cannot trade after it is given to them." Romain sits on the teacher's desk at the front of the room.

"You sound like a damn google page." Someone else speaks. Carl laughs.

"Pierre, language."

"English."

I think Carl is going to cry from holding in his laughter. This Pierre guy simply looks at Romain like he has no idea what he has done wrong.

"You know what I meant. The coaches are not going to be as nice about it as I am, so I suggest you get your act together real quick. Christian can be really bad about swearing sometimes." The Frenchman stands and grabs a marker from behind him. He begins to write on the whiteboard.

"Okay! Starting our lesson, today we are going to be learning about fire safety and- well are you just going to sit and stare or are you going to write notes? I'm not doing this for fun."