Nova Academy

Help

"Settle down everyone."

Connie was excited. She loved math and had become incredibly good at it. It was her second favorite class after Porn Philosophy which also made her brain gears work overtime. She liked to think, she liked writing down notes in class and she enjoyed when her efforts paid off with a high percentage score written in red ink with a smiley face.

Steven was sitting in front of her this time, she had insisted upon it despite his height making her have to lean to the side occasionally to see something important.

"We'll start with basic algebra. Pass the worksheets back and have it done by the end of class. This will help me place you all so I can teach the right things." The teacher adjusted her tie and sat on her chair, typing away noisily. "You can have partners if you want."

The class cheered and began to find their their friends to work with. No matter how old, working with partners was a win.

Connie didn't need partners. She loved her classmates, but her enthusiasm was hard to keep up with and she was better off alone for that.

The stack of papers was now nearing thin as she passed it up to Steven.

There were a few blissful moments of peace before he opened his mouth. She flew through the problems, some equations she could do in her head and some she had to scribble the formulas in the corner for. It was basic algebra, just with more confusing letters and PEMDAS. It was all rather convoluted, and that's why she adored it. Her childhood had been very convoluted with all of her extracurriculars and then with space travel and dismantling an empire. She enjoyed a little suffering, and so she liked math class.

She smiled at that. She had helped take down a group of despotic dictators and freed multiple generations from their monotonous existence filled with taking orders and taking lives. It was the kind of Sci-Fi fantasy she had been reading about for what felt like forever. She often was writing about it too, and when she wasn't studying anatomy or consent laws or english, she was weaving intricate stories of war and loss and occasionally romance.

Steven turned around and she almost told him to fuck all the way off, but his eyes were wide with panic.

"What's wrong?"

He grabbed his paper and pointed to an easy equation with a letter. "Why are there letters?"

She held back a laugh and tapped her pencil over it. "That signifies a value. Typically you'll receive what the value is for the letters, but this one is simple. You can get your stuff off of my desk now." She used her index finger to slide it off her own and it curved upwards.

"Please, Connie." He was visibly pained just on question #1, and there were 24 of them. "You've gotta help me."

She let out a deep sigh and relented.

"It's almost like a study date," He said giddily, a single curl bouncing next to his ear.

"You're going to end up putting your own foot in your mouth if you keep messing around. Let's start with the first one. Read it out loud, that helps me comprehend things sometimes."

He stared down at the paper. "4a(3+2^2)- 1."

She frowned. "You mixed up the numbers. It's 4a(8+ 2^2) - 1."

"Right. Yes." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I've found I struggle slightly with dyscalculia. I know basic math, but nothing with letters. I don't know why they are there."

"For this one you would use PEMDAS." She opened her notebook and wrote it on the top of page.

"Parakeet, Elixir, Meditation, Dog, Arctic Soda?" He said goofily and scrunched his face. "That sounds terrible."