Jaclyn swept her hair as she sped past the other visitors. She was trying to find the exit, but seemed to have gotten lost. Now she was wandering around the competition preparation rooms.

Rounding a corner, she spotted Klaus standing hesitant by a door. He was still wearing his combat uniform, ripped and smudged at the sleeves and pant legs from his last fight. As she got closer, she also noticed the char marks across his chest where Chmlin’s whips had hit him during the final moments. 

He jumped at her greeting. “Oh, hey Jac!” 

“Whatcha doing?”

“Oh i'm... Waiting for Chim! She locked the door, so.” He gestured with his shoulder to the preparation room door. “I wanted to ask her about our fight. I didn't get a chance to, they took me to the ER to see to my wounds. I wanted to ask if she ah… felt ‘intimidated’, at any point.”

Jaclyn frowned. “She doesn't strike me as the type to be intimidated.” 

Klaus looked back at her with his best attempt at puppy eyes, but the targets that replaced his pupils made it difficult “Not even a little bit..?”

Jaclyn glanced around, realizing what Klaus was fishing for and quickly came up with something better to say “I admire your determination to get better, but maybeee it's best you leave the questions until after the tournament? She's probably in there preparing to take on James, from Class B, non?” 

Klaus was about to respond, when the door flew open. Chimlin walked out so fast she almost crashed into Klaus, who sidestepped just in time. Startled, she questioned “What are you two doing here? I don’t need bodyguards in front of the room y’know-”

Jaclyn waved her hands, about to start excusing herself when from the other corridor, Tadashi and Winona came running to Chimlin. 

“Ah!” Tadashi smiled. “We've caught you just in time!” Tadashi gestured to Winona who in turn waved a greeting to her other two classmates as well. Jaclyn and Klaus glanced at each other, it seemed like neither of them were going to be able to get a word in anymore. 

Chimlin turned to the other pair that had just appeared, crossing her arms. “What’s up? You do know I have another fight to be heading to-” 

Tadashi butted in “Precisely for that reason this is a matter of great urgency - Since my fight with James ended, Winona and I have been pondering the possible mechanics of his quirk. It started with a conversation about how various emitter quirks can potentially interact with reality and the physics of these interactions.” 

Klaus was already zoning out, urging Jaclyn to elbow him. 

“For example, some quirks simply work with the invisible forces of nature that are already out there, such as yours where you manifest whips of electricity by chaining together the electrons that are actually always around us. For others, they have to create the forces themselves, powered by their own bodies.” 

Tadashi glanced at Winona, who nodded in support of his explanation. That is also when Winona took over “And we spent a while trying to decipher which category James fit into- were the copies projections of him that came from the instance in which his core body split, or did he manifest them using the forces around him?”

“So what? How is knowing the difference going to help in fighting? Either way the copies would still behave the same way-” 

Winona grinned her knowing smile, “Well. Just thinking about this allowed Tadashi to recall an observation-” 

Tadashi took the queue, “When I struck James’ copies, I experienced a residual shock, leading me to believe that James’ copies are able to manifest by making use of electro-magnetic forces.” 

Chimlin’s face lit up “Why didn’t you just start with this?? Why the whole lead up with your pontifications”

Winona shrugged “We wouldn’t be giving away our hard SO easily, Chim. Besides, building the suspense to the scientific revelation is more than worth it-” 

“Wait,” Klaus spoke up, now once more invested in the conversation as it started to concern battle strategy. “Does this mean that Chim could-”