Chapter 5 [Erin]

The mood in the red-orange common room after dinner was a peculiar mixture of sleepiness, boredom, and anxiety. Not a single girl was vertical—everyone was draped around and across couches and armchairs haphazardly, disregarding the function for which the furniture was made. Erin lay sprawled on her stomach on the rug, with colored pencils scattered around her, concentrating hard on her drawing. She had to. This had to be perfect. She loved to draw, but if she didn’t do it perfectly, she’d hate herself for it… actually, most things she drew didn’t come out perfect. That was why she didn’t look through her old sketchpads or even keep them with her. She would throw them out or, if someone showed particular interest in one, give them away. She had a never-look-back policy.

So when her old school, for the brief period that she had gone, had taken such delight in a picture she drew in art class that they blew it up and made it a mural in the cafeteria, she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t stand having to look at it all day, because every time she did her eyes would find something else wrong, some bleeding color or backwards hand, some bizarre proportion. And when she did, the beast would come. She didn’t go there anymore. It was an experiment, and it had failed.

She drew with little flicks of her mechanical pencil, framing the hair around the catgirl’s face as she brandished her sword. She envied the girl in the drawing. So… so two-dimensional. Stuck in one place, not having to worry about change. One of the girl’s hairs accidentally crossed into her eye. A brief wave of panic surged over Erin as she grabbed her eraser and fiercely rubbed out the perceived error, ready to redraw it—oh, hell. She got part of the chin accidentally. She should just redraw the entire face. The eraser vibrated over the picture, and she was thankful for the extra-thick, extra-high-quality paper that made up the sketchpad, that took down lines clearly and then allowed them to be erased without trouble and without wrinkling the page. That would ruin it completely.

“Hey!” said a voice from up above. Erin dropped her pencil and twisted around to where the sound came from; it was a tall, dirty-blonde girl with her hair tied back in a ponytail, slightly chubby, with clear blue eyes framed by round glasses.

“What’re you working on?” she asked, kneeling down and then resting on her stomach like Erin, propping her chin up in her hands. “I saw you working earlier today, but I couldn’t see what it was.” She scrutinized the page with interest. “Ooh, you’re drawing anime? Wow… that’s, that’s incredible!”

“T- thanks…” Erin muttered, looking at the picture to avoid having to maintain eye contact with the girl whose name she couldn’t remember. Unfortunately, looking at the picture produced different problems. The girl, she saw, was too skinny. Down came the eraser, rubbing out the offending line, and then her mechanical pencil whipped out, drawing a line that was almost identical, about a millimeter further to the left.

“Is that character anyone in particular?” asked the strange girl, attempting to make conversation. “Does she have a name?”

“No,” replied Erin. She is a distraction. “Shut up!”

“Woah, sorry! Didn’t… mean to anger you, really.”

“No! No… oh god…” she put her head in her hands. “I—I didn’t mean that… not to you…” The other girl looked thoroughly confused.

“Wait, what? But then who were you saying it to?”

She keeps talking. “No! Not—nobody. Nobody at all. I was talking to myself. That’s the truth.”
“Oh, well, um, if that’s the truth…” she said, and was silent as a frowning Erin returned to her work. She blew on the paper to brush the eraser shreds off, and continued with the detail. The little rings in her chain-link vest, all evenly-sized. Then the background—perspective, drawing that door just right in proportion to her… much better. Now she could color.

“Have you drawn for long?” asked the girl, who Erin suddenly remembered was named Nikki. She was trying to be friendly.

“Y- yeah,” said Erin, starting with the first basic color for the girl’s face. A little yellow, around the edges and then spreading down to her neck, hands, legs… “Since before forever.”

“I can’t draw to save my life,” Nikki said, smiling a little. “Can you teach me?”

She would waste our time? “Ugh—um, yes, yes, I could do that. I could teach you.”

“Ooh!” That was from elsewhere in the room—both Erin and Nikki looked up to see another girl—the short Mexican one, with black wavy hair that swirled around her head and rectangular glasses that looked to be about a centimeter thick. “Is someone drawing?” She landed with a flop across from Erin, so that to her the drawing must have seemed upside-down.

“Wow! Is this yours?” she asked, her entire person seemingly vibrating with excitement. “Can I see?” Erin weakly let go of the paper as the girl—Anita—spun it around so that it was right side up for her. “That is amazing! That’s so much better than anything I could do! Here, color it! Go ahead! Can I watch?” she spun the paper back around.

“Oh, um, sure,” Erin said, reaching for another colored pencil and struggling to not make eye contact with either of the people who were avidly watching her. I can smell them. They are too close. “Stop!” she cried, and Nikki and Anita sat up, stunned. Erin’s hand, curled into a fist, was increasingly covered in a fine white hair. “I… I’m sorry. I need to leave,” she said, keeping her head down as she picked up her supplies and retreated to her room, shedding pencils and spare papers everywhere. She ducked inside and slammed the door behind her, dropping her things on the table just as her fingernails started to lengthen.

So weak, said the beast, almost snidely. All of them, and you as well. You are powerless against the world. The minute you accept this is the minute all this nonsense can stop.

“Never!” she retorted, gripping her wrist, trying to restrain the fur growing down her arm.
They are pathetic! Pathetic in their desires, pathetic in their jealousy. And so weak! Flesh like paper, so easy to rend!

“They are my friends!” she cried.

They hate you! They judge you! Their only feelings towards you are jealousy! They hear you now and think you are crazy! You are crazy! Destroy them! Her teeth started to lengthen, the bones of her face rearranging, elongating into a more animal form.

“You—will—not—” she growled, her words marred by her increasingly less and less human tongue, “Control—me!” A clawed hand reached for the light switch and flicked it on. The sudden flood of light caused her vertical pupils to contract, blinding her—the beast let out an animal howl in her mind, and she took the opportunity to regain control. Her teeth shrank and her skeletal structure rearranged. The fur faded from her hands and legs, as if sucked back beneath her skin. She gripped the desk and stood there, panting, as the last of the beast’s changes faded from her body. She fell onto the chair and slumped there, panting from fatigue. She could feel the beast back inside her mind, too tired and blind to attack again, but still there, and all the more angry for having been bested.

After a few minutes of sitting there with her head tilted back, looking full- on at the fluorescent light, somebody knocked on her door.

“Who?” she asked weakly.

“I- it’s Carrie,” said the other girl, opening the door a crack. “I was just wondering… we’re, uh, going to play Apples to Apples. Do you… want to come play too?” Erin studied the girl, doubtless that she was wondering what had just happened, remembering the beast’s cruel words: they think you are crazy. Of course. But that was the beast. You did not listen to the beast.
“Ok,” she said, pushing herself up. “How… how do you play exactly?”

“C’mon, I’ll show you,” said Carrie, and the two of them sat down in the common room in a circle along with Bridget (who had come out of her room), Nikki, Keli, and Anita. A brief explanation of the rules was given and hands were dealt and they began.

“You know,” said Anita, “I like to draw anime too actually. Maybe we could share tips with each other?”

“I think I can draw,” laughed Carrie, “But I’m no good with people. Animals are my specialty—well, Pokémon really. It’s the truth,” she said, shrugging.

“I like drawing anime too. Well, manga, actually, although the art style is ‘anime’—but ‘anime’ means ‘cartoon’ so it’s not technically correct either.” That was Keli.

“Wow! Is everyone here a huge artist slash japanophile slash nerd?” joked Nikki.

“Nah, not really. Tess doesn’t watch anime, and can’t draw to save her life. She’ll admit it,” said Carrie. “She’s more of a gamer geek. And not even good games, either—just kids’ games for the DS. RPGs and things.”

“You think you could not trash your friend every time she’s not around?” asked Nikki, critically.
“Eh, she’s around. But you may be right,” said Carrie, sighing. “The point I was trying to make is that everyone here—everyone here—we all have similar interests.”

“Neeeerrrrds,” teased Bridget. “I don’t draw or play video games or anything. But I do think that anime is awesome.”

“Hey. You’re every bit as big a nerd as we are. Don’t deny it,” retorted Carrie.

“I’m not saying that I’m not, I’m just saying that you guys are.”

“Guys, guys, are we going to play or not? Did I bring this thing here for nothing?” asked Nikki, brandishing her hand of cards.

“Sorry,” Carrie and Bridget apologized, and the game began. Nikki was up first, pulling out “sturdy” for an adjective, and the girls around the circle considered their options briefly before each tossing in a card.

“Still, though,” Carrie continued as Nikki passed judgment, handing the first green card to Keli for her use of ‘Don Quijote,’ “What a coincidence that they’d put all the nerdy girls in one league. Right?”

“I doubt it’s a coincidence,” said Keli, drawing the next adjective (gregarious). “We are to assume they planned the leagues, yes? Then they picked people with compatible personalities. I mean, honestly. They’re called leagues. That was intentional, I swear.”

“Yeah, yeah, I figured that out. Like ‘justice league,’ am I right?” said Nikki.

“I suppose it’s on the basis that when we grow up, we’re less likely to turn villain if we’re okay with working with other people. I mean, especially with the anti-vigilante act. Solo heroes get busted.”

“Yeah. Nowadays, if heroes want to... y'know, be heroes, you have to pretty much go military," remarked Nikki pensively.

"It's better than the alternative though! Vigilantes always just turn into criminals. This way it's easier."

"I wouldn't assume that," said Keli quietly. "I mean, groups-- leagues-- are inherently less mobile than individuals. And villains aren't bound by that. Communications can be intercepted, and then they're gone."

"Wait, but that makes no sense," said Anita. "Wouldn't having more heroes make it easier to catch people? You could spread out and stuff."

"I think we've gotten a bit far off the subject," remarked Nikki, chuckling. "The point is that they're training us by putting us together in leagues, yes?"

"I think so," said Carrie.

"Yeah, and they group us depending on personality compatibility," said Keli. "I wish colleges and things would do that more often."

"It's still surprising that so many of us were so similar," said Bridget. "I didn't know there were that many antisocial female nerds anywhere! No offense."

"Hey! That sounds kinda offensive to me!" retorted Carrie.

"It's only a matter of cause and effect," explained Keli. "We're empowered, which means we avoid close contact with others, right? Even if we're not usually antisocial, I mean, if we have social personalities," she glanced at Bridget when she said this, "we're forced to adopt the air of an outcast. And, I dunno. Maybe liking anime is genetic or something."

"Or perhaps it's all just a coincidence, eh? Your turn, Carrie," Nikki said, drawing an adjective for her (Bizarre).

Erin stayed silent, listening to the girls' conversation. She was too tired to put in her own response; the best she could do was robotically put down a card for every action. She didn't mind being an outsider in this conversation, really; with the beast quiet, she didn't get angry about being walked over, ignored. The less attention they paid her, the less they put themselves at risk. And it was nice that they had similar interests; she had seldom had friends who actually liked what she liked. They just tagged along because they admired her worthless drawings. Actually, come to think of it, she seldom had friends.

"I think that pop art is definitely bizarre," Carrie concluded. "Whose is it?" Erin meekly raised a hand. "Good call! Here you go," she said, tossing Erin the spoils of her victory. "It's your turn to judge."

The sudden shift of attention made her uneasy; the beast whined in her head, still too quiet to hear. She drew an adjective. Ferocious. How coincidental. The other four girls put down a card each, and she looked at her choices. Capitalism, Tarzan, The Middle Ages, Oprah. She picked up the last one.

"What's up with this?" she asked. Carrie started giggling uncontrollably.

"I dunno. I thought it was funny. Plus I just wanted to get rid of the card."

“Um, ok,” she said, pushing it aside. She looked over her choices once more—capitalism, Tarzan, the Middle Ages. None of them seemed at all ferocious, but she tossed the economic system and the time period, since they seemed like further wisecracking, and settled on Tarzan. Keli nodded and sagely took the card for her reward. They played on into the night, and when the stack of nouns was finished, Nikki pulled out a deck of regular cards. Carrie then proceeded to educate everyone about the rules of a card game called Presidents, and they played a few more rounds of that before Anita retired to bed. By ten thirty, Carrie and Bridget had gone to bed as well, and then Nikki and Keli, leaving Erin as the sole remaining person in the common room. The beast was irritable, but it was weary—Erin had been laughing, which hurt it and silenced it.

She was not going to sleep, however. She walked into her room, which was eerily quiet—she was the only person in the red- orange league to have a single room, which was for the better. She didn’t want to risk falling asleep and having the beast take over when there was someone nearby. She locked the door behind her and didn’t turn on the lights—she could see fine, better in fact, in the dark. She reached into her personal duffel bag and pulled out a handheld game system—a Gameboy SP (her parents hadn’t gotten her the latest system). She turned it on and played, disregarding the time—she rarely got this chance, to play unrestricted, with nobody telling her what to do. She relished the freedom.

Her conscience heckled her—a voice in her head that was not alien, but stern, and parental. It told her, in an approximation of her mother’s voice, that she should go to sleep because classes were going to start the next day. She brushed it off, focusing on her game. She always tried to minimize the amount of sleep she got, because although she did need it to rest and recover, the beast also would recover while she slept. It never slept, and if she stayed asleep for too long then it would eventually overpower her.

The school would teach her about the beast, they said. They said that she would be able to work with it, overpower it, rule it. To not live in fear. But that wasn’t what she wanted, or what her parents wanted. She just wanted it to go away, forever. She wanted them to use their science to lock the beast away, either in an unbreakable cage deep within the recesses of her mind or outside, where it could harm no one and control her no more. She was an “empowered,” her abilities a “gift,” they said. That wasn’t true. It might be for those with the lovely powers like being able to make plants grow or heal or fly, but for her it was nothing short of a curse.

Super powered alter egos were a class C power, they told her, but the beast wasn’t just an Empowerment. It was literally a separate mind. She wasn’t just a weirdo empowered kid; she had other problems, problems the psychiatrists saw when the homicidal beast went away. She couldn’t talk to people, she couldn’t understand them. She didn’t want to listen to anyone, least of all herself. She had to face the fact that even if she could be fully cured of the beast’s evil, she would never be perfect, or have friends, or fit in. She closed her eyes, her Gameboy still turned on and lying on her lap, and drifted off into sleep.

The landscape was a blank, uninterrupted white, with a grey horizon. She was standing waist- deep in snow, and she could see flakes being blown everywhere, but could feel no wind. She did not feel any cold through her thick fur. She could see her hot breath rising in clouds as she exhaled. She took a deep breath, the scents telling her more than her carnivore’s eyes ever could. No less than seven hearts were beating nearby. Seven repositories of life like herself, seven lovely… friends…

Suddenly she was standing at the opposite end of the snow field, looking across at the beast, standing there inhaling. She knew what it was thinking, and it knew what she was thinking. She stepped forward, or tried to, but her legs couldn’t push through the snow. She was locked into place. Looking down at herself, she saw that she was wearing the summer uniform, her bare legs and arms exposed to the elements. This time the cold cut through her like a knife, her pale human skin not up to the winter chill. She shrieked, startled,
And sat up. Her sheets had fallen to the floor, and a breeze from the open window was blowing across her legs. Her body was on its side, curled in on itself for warmth. You are awake, remarked the beast, now functioning. A shame, but it will not be long before you sleep again.
Erin did not reply, because she heard a small electronic noise from down beneath the bed. She found her gameboy, which hadn’t been turned off, and she panicked for a second before realizing it was paused and sighing in relief. She saved, turned it off, and attached it to the charger.

She looked back at the bed. She was sleepy, but she wasn’t going to permit herself to go back to sleep while the beast was still talking. So she pulled out her sketchpad and colored pencils and sat down to draw. The red lights on the digital clock told her it was two-thirty in the morning. Sleep dragged at her eyelids, so she furiously rubbed at them, the crust that had built up falling away in little flakes. She put pencil to paper and shaded the background a little harshly, creating a darker mark that contrasted with the rest of the light colors—so, irritated, she had to return to everything she had drawn before and color it slightly darker to match with the new shade.
Eventually, though, her frustration subsided, and she was able to relax into the rhythm of the drawing—color, erase, color, erase. Eventually it was done, and she flipped the page over and started on a new one, this time a butterfly-winged girl seated on a toadstool.

She worked into the night, and by dawn she had finished two more pieces and had resigned herself to snooze for the remainder of the night. She was awoken by the sound of feet shuffling outside her door, and she looked at the clock—seven thirty in the morning. The first class (gym) was at nine, giving her time to go eat breakfast. But I don’t want breakfast, she told herself, denying her stomach’s rumbling. You do not need to eat, rumbled the beast. Return to slumber and I shall sustain us.

“No!” she cried, the first word she had spoken out loud since last night. The beast shrank back, surprised at the sudden noise. She threw off her covers and walked to the bathroom. On the way there she realized she had never changed out of her regular clothes before falling asleep—they were wrinkled around her body, and she had red marks on her arm and chest where the buttons had been pushed into her skin as she slept. No matter, really—she was going to be wearing the uniform, anyway. She brushed her teeth, washing the foul taste from her mouth, and pulled off the multitude of hair ties that kept her hair locked into two long pigtails. She brushed through her hair for the first time in a while, getting the brush wet and forcing it through painfully until all the knots were out. She then retied it, putting the ties in rainbow order again. Beast or no beast, she knew the importance of a first impression, and messy hair would detract from that. All the while she was preparing, the other girls ran to and from their rooms, doing the same. All three of the showers were going as each of the girls prepared for the first day they would meet their teachers and, formally, the red-blue league.

Erin returned to the room and went into the closet. Hanging there were multiple uniforms, all adult small, as well as a jacket and a windbreaker. She took down one of the uniforms. It was almost reminiscent of a Japanese schoolgirl uniform. It was predominantly red, but the short sleeves and skirt were orange, for her league. There was a patch over the left breast that displayed the school’s logo—crossed swords behind a shield with “GA” written on it. Looking through the closet, she noted that there was another option with pants instead of a skirt, but she was rather partial to skirts so she settled on that. Besides, pants were often a hazard should the beast take over—not that she was going to allow it to, but if it did, the shifting bones and growing muscles in her legs often split pants apart at the seams.

She put on the clothes, taking great care to not look at herself in the mirror, for fear that the outfit was unflattering and that she would be subjected to cruel remarks by the beast. They fit her well—the school had asked for her measurements when they invited her.

She stepped outside, where Carrie and Tess hovered, talking. They were both clothed in their uniforms as well—Carrie wore a skirt, while the slight Tess took the pants option. Carrie waved upon seeing Erin.

“Hey, good morning!” she said, smiling cheerfully. “Did you sleep well? Are you ready for your first day of school?”

She’s trying too hard, Erin thought to herself. She looked at the girl and nodded, almost imperceptibly, without saying anything. She noticed that, strapped to Carrie’s backpack, was a staff just a little bit shorter than Carrie herself.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing. Carrie, confused, looked to either side of herself before realizing what Erin was asking, and she pulled it out from behind her and held it forward.
“You mean this?” she asked, and Erin nodded. “Oh! Well, this is my summoning staff. I can summon by drawing with anything, mostly, but this works best. It’s a… a family heirloom. It helps me focus. Um. C’mon, let’s go to breakfast. I’m starved. Here, Tess,” she addressed her friend. “Can you put it back for me? I don’t wanna bother… thanks,” she said, as the girl took it from her hands and stuck it back underneath the straps on her backpack. The three girls then walked out towards the Social Studies building cafeteria, which was nearest to the gym where their first class would be. The bell tolled again. it was eight o’clock.

They ate without much ado; Carrie and Tess chatted, and Carrie threw some questions towards Erin sometimes. Erin could see that the girl was deliberately trying to include her in the conversation; she replied quietly and shortly, not giving the other girl much to work with. She didn’t enjoy being forced to eat, but she had to in the presence of these two—she knew that if she didn’t eat, they would notice. Then they would think she was a freak, for not liking food. Even if they didn’t think she was a freak already. She realized it was the beast that was influencing her self-deprecating thoughts and screened them out, eating a slice of apple so that the crunching drowned out the voices in her head. They were done in half an hour, or rather long before then, but they remained at the table after their food was done and chatted.

Finally, Carrie (who had become the leader of the small trio and was well aware of it) stood up and announced that they should get to gym early. Erin and Tess gave her wordless assent, and they left the building. The gym building was behind it, right next to a track. The dewy grass dragged at Erin’s shoes, dripping in and getting her feet wet. They quickly located a path and shook their feet out disdainfully, droplets flying from their toes. While they were walking, Carrie seemed fixed on something over by the track—there was somebody running there. Erin squinted her eyes (it being difficult for her to see in the bright morning light) and saw that it was a boy, clothed in the red sports uniform. He was running incredibly fast. Carrie lifted an arm hesitantly, but from that far off Erin doubted that he could see her, whoever he was.

They entered the gym building, following the signs that told them to proceed to their locker rooms. When they got there, Bridget and Keli were already present, and they informed them that Nikki was in the gym already. Erin went to her assigned locker number and pulled out her gym clothes, which looked suspiciously like spandex. There was a short skirt with short legs underneath—a “skort,” she supposed. There was also a red tee-shirt, socks, and a water bottle with the school logo on it. She overheard Tess complaining about how she had to wear a skirt, and Carrie telling her to suck it up. Erin changed with little ado. The clothes were stretchy and very easy to move in, if not the most attractive. The girls changed up, with Anita and Lucy arriving slightly later, and reported to the gym.

It was a wide-open building with a vaulted ceiling. It had all the fixings of a regular high school gymnasium, plus some that you wouldn’t expect. There was a scoreboard hanging on one wall, and basketball hoops at either end, plus some soccer goals pushed off into a corner. There were bars for doing pull-ups, folded-up mats that could be laid out for gymnastics. Erin then realized that the circular panel in the middle which displayed the school’s logo could probably be raised or lowered, to create a platform. There were also deep ruts around the perimeter.

“I dunno, they’re probably for walls,” said Carrie when Erin pointed them out. “I mean, like, in case there’s some game that needs to be closed in, like hockey or something, then they can probably raise them up.” Erin thought about this a little and decided that it was a good enough explanation. She looked up to the ceiling, which had ropes and rope ladders strapped to it. It all seemed fairly normal; everything was polished and looked brand new.

“Uh, hey, guys? I think we’re supposed to head outside actually, seeing as nobody’s here,” pointed out Bridget. Carrie laughed and they headed out one of the doors marked EXIT, which was conveniently propped open. They were outside facing the track, and the sunlight was finally warming up. If Erin squinted, she could see mist rising off the grassy field. It smelled fresh and peaceful. The beast was silent.

They heard voices from the track, and they arrived there to see the entire red- blue league already there. Some, including the boy that Carrie had seemed interested in earlier, were running laps. When they saw the girls, some of them waved.

Reaching the track, they stood and talked and waited for the gym teacher to arrive. He did arrive shortly after, carrying no equipment but a clipboard and a pencil. The running boys slowed down as soon as they saw him, and the sixteen boys and girls gathered around, all quietly enthusiastic.

“Welcome to Gladiator Academy!” he said, his voice sharp. “I will read your name off this clipboard, and you will step forward and demonstrate your powers. Is that clear?” Everybody nodded, but Erin felt sick to her stomach. Would she have to let the beast take over? Do what the man says, it told her. She stayed silent, a frown on her face.

“Tyler Asta, please step forward!” said the gym teacher. A nervous-looking boy with acne and messy brown hair stepped up.

“Um, hey,” he said. “Um, my power is, I can go intangible.” He frowned, trying to concentrate, and then started in surprise when his foot fell through the solid ground. “S- sorry,” he said, and pulled his sneaker out, now caked with damp dirt.

“Good. You may go back in line. Bridget Baker,” he called, and Bridget stepped forward.
“I have super strength,” she said. “Um… hey, you,” she said, pointing to the intangible boy. “C’mere, and stay solid please.” She placed her hands around his waist and lifted. He came up off the ground effortlessly, like he was made of Styrofoam. She waved him around her head a few times before setting him down shaken, but unhurt.

“Good,” he told her, checking her off the list. “You may go back in line. Frederick Cacophon.” The boy that stepped forward this time had curly dark brown hair and glasses; he looked Jewish.

“Um, I’m afraid I can’t show my power here,” he said. He didn’t seem embarrassed.

“Why not?”

“Well, my power is to generate sonic booms, but to do that I need a guitar. Preferably acoustic, since electric guitars don’t actually make that much sound on their own. I could go get one…” he trailed off.

“No, that’s all right. You shall demonstrate your powers at a later date. Next. Anita Checkers?” Anita shuffled forward, eyes down.

“I, um, can fly, b- but… I’d rather not…” she fiddled with her belt, which had an emblem on it that Erin could make out as being a stylized cloud and wings. “N- not out here, at least. I might… drift off and not be able to come down again…”

“Fine,” he said, writing down a note on his clipboard. “That belt you have—is it a power nullifier?”

“No, it’s a gravity distortion mechanism or something,” she said. “I don’t know what it does exactly. But it basically returns my body’s gravity to normal.”

“It has the logo of the Coalition of Peace on it. I wasn’t aware they provided such services to Empowereds in general.”

“Oh, um. I got it from my parents. They… know them, I mean they have connections,” she said, looking slightly uneasy.

“Very well. You can go back in line, and you shall demonstrate your powers to me at a later date. You too, Cacophon,” he told the previous boy, who nodded in assent.

“Vitor Chiaroscuro,” he said, and the Brazilian boy stepped up without saying anything. He held out a hand towards the gym teacher. The shadow he cast on the grass beneath him—a stretched-out man-shape—began to distort, and then rise from the ground, a mass of black and dark brown and green. It made Erin’s head hurt.

“Interesting. Can you explain what your powers do?” asked the teacher.

“I can grab things, and move them,” said Vitor. “And… I think, with enough practice, I could become a shadow as well.”

“We shall see. Step back in line now… Kurt Durham?” This boy had messy, shoulder- length brown hair and wore a grey pimp hat which conflicted with the otherwise formal uniform. Erin found him slightly intimidating.

“Aw, man, do I have to demonstrate my powers?” he groaned. “I can regenerate any injury I receive in seconds, but it still hurts like hell… oh, hey, I could do this though. Look,” he said, and he held out his thumb, on which a sliver of fingernail—about a quarter inch—was visible. Bringing his thumb to his mouth, he bit down with one tooth and tore off the nail, opening up the quick underneath and causing a little blood to well out (which Erin could smell). As soon as it was exposed, though, the nail began growing, until it was indistinguishable from what it looked like ten seconds before.

“All right,” said the gym teacher, checking him off. “I understand your aversion to demonstrating your abilities in this case. Next up is Lucy Fortuna.” The little Chinese girl stepped up shyly, and Erin knew what was coming—the inevitable explanation of how she didn’t know what her powers were, etcetera. She saw the looks of surprise pass briefly over the faces of the teacher and the boys, and then Lucy was asked to please return to her place in line.

“Okay, next. Carlos Haylor.” Carlos was short, white, and bespectacled; he demonstrated his ability to alter his body’s temperature at will. Erin became increasingly uncomfortable as her turn neared. The beast growled expectantly, as if waiting. He had let the others go free without showing their powers, but what if… what about her? What if he forced her to shift? Oh, yes, we shall show him our power. No! She thought, unable to say anything out loud. The hair on her arms began lengthening again, and she had to devote her full attention to keeping the beast repressed. After Carlos came Nikki, who had difficulty locating something metallic before finding the metal clip on his clipboard and lifting it out of the man’s hands for a few seconds before dropping it down again. After her came Tess and Carrie, but Erin was too busy fighting an internal battle to pay any attention to them.

Some boys came next—Tybalt, or Ty as he politely asked to be called, couldn’t demonstrate his abilities because they apparently only manifested when he held a sword in his hand. Kyle Pepper, however, was able to shoot balls of fire from his hands with ease, and got a bit carried away and ended up scorching the grass to either side of him. After Kyle was Austen Silver, who preferred to be called by his last name, who had superspeed and incredibly fast reflexes; he sprinted at the speed of an Olympic runner without much visible effort, and told them with a sizeable helping of ego that, with training, he could probably run far faster than that. Meanwhile, Erin’s fingernails had grown into curved claws, and the white fur had spread to the backs of both hands—the beast was winning.

Now it was just Keli before it was Erin’s turn to go. She watched, almost painfully, as Keli stepped forward and drew a stream of water out from her fingers. The people standing around Erin noticed that she was growling under her breath, and shuffled away. They think you are a freak. They fear us! said the beast triumphantly, its influence spreading up her arms in a new surge of energy.

“Erin Stevens,” said the teacher, his voice seeming to echo despite the fact that they were out in the open. “Erin Stevens? Is she—”

“Here,” Erin gasped, her voice raspy. “No—stop—” Heads turned and those that hadn’t seen her gasped, stepping back with fright. There was one short scream from someone in the crowd, and Erin felt her control slip completely.

Her teeth lengthened and her facial plates and muscles rearranged into a snout. Her eyes opened wide, yellow and slit-pupilled. The space around her grew wider still, as the others backed up, one step at a time. Hair grew to cover her arms and legs. Muscles bulged out of her previously frail frame, causing the previously loose tee- shirt and bra to grow tight on her, digging into her skin and then, with an audible snap, coming off. The same happened with her shoes and socks, as her toes lengthened into talons and ripped through her footwear. The elastic skirt remained, stretched nearly to its breaking point, and the shorts that were underneath it hung down around her legs, burst at the seams. Three-inch-thick fur covered her from head to toe, and as she stretched to her full height, she stood seven feet tall. The beast that had been Erin howled, victorious. As if to indicate the change’s completion, a white furry tail whipped out from under her shirt.

The beast inhaled deeply, bringing in scents that it hadn’t been able to experience firsthand in months. The last time it was free had been March, when the girl had been expelled from her previous school after it had compelled her to attack the teacher. Now, it felt the wind ruffle its fur again, the damp grass between its claws—and the many terrified little bags of flesh that stood around it. It could smell their fear, hear their beating hearts. And it was starved. The girl never nourished herself. It would start with the nearest one, the meaty- looking female. With a roar, it lashed out with a massive, clawed paw—

Something caught it before it could strike its target. Nikki was stunned for a second, looking with confusion at the paw with the fierce, curved talons, before realization that she had nearly been killed kicked in, and she ran. The beast pulled at its paw and roared, furious, trying to figure out what it was that had stopped its attack. A tightly-coiled, flesh-colored rope was wrapped all the way up its arm. The beast’s eyes followed the rope to its source, where the gym teacher stood, still wearing the same stern expression, his arm having stretched to an impossible length. The beast brought back its other paw to strike the nuisance, but in an eyeblink that was restrained as well, pulling the beasts’ arms behind its back like a handcuffed criminal.

The beast, frustrated, thrashed against its bindings and flailed its head, trying to sink its teeth into the arms that bound it. Twist as it might, it couldn’t reach its arms. Some other fleshy appendage—a finger?—whipped out to secure the beast’s mouth as well. Unable to bite or claw, the beast lost its balance and crashed to the ground, still fighting its bonds.

“You,” the teacher called to the speedy boy, his voice as even as it had been before. “Go into the gym. There’s a room just to the left of the door as you come in. Right inside there is a box labeled ‘emergency.’ Grab it, and bring it here. Fast,” he said, the last word the only hint that he was struggling. Silver paused, again unsure, before running back to the gym and returning in less than twenty seconds with said box, which was plastic and full of a number of contraptions.

“I had hoped we wouldn’t have to do this. Open it,” he commanded, and the boy did, revealing several plastic devices that looked like syringes. “Those are—erh—temporary power repressors. Give them to some other kids and stand about fifteen feet away. Press the button when I say. Go!” Silver didn’t pause this time—he grabbed two of the devices, leaving them in the hands of the two nearest classmates (Kurt and Lucy). Meanwhile, the other kids—those that weren’t powerless in the face of the threat—were readying their powers for defense. Carrie stood behind a spirit deer (a doe, but the large creature seemed imposing all the same), Tess’ palms crackled with sparks, and Vitor had brought his shadow out to form a sort of translucent barrier between the beast and the group.

Kurt, Lucy, and Silver spread out around the beast, holding the power repressors awkwardly, still not entirely sure how to use them—they seemed like crude devices, a plastic fluid chamber mounted on a grip with a thumb trigger in the back. The beast managed to open its mouth with a roar of triumph, and the finger that had been restraining it whipped back to the hand it had come from with a snapping noise. More fingers extended but were fought off by the snapping teeth.

“Now!!”

All three kids fired their guns at once. Silver’s went right over the beast’s head, and Kurt’s just barely avoided the beast’s foot, going instead through the crowd to hit Vitor’s shadow-shield, which dissipated immediately as the boy fell to the ground, startled and powerless. But Lucy’s shot was straight and true—the pressurized liquid projectile struck the beast square in the chest, miraculously missing the waving appendages of the teacher.

A few tense seconds passed, where the warm morning seemed to freeze. Everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see if it would work. Even the beast stopped thrashing for a second, startled by the clear liquid that was dripping down the fur on its chest—and then it let out a noise that seemed genuinely unnatural, not a roar but a shriek, as the fur on its chest seemed to suck back into its body. It collapsed in onto itself, undergoing the whole growth process in reverse, the change starting from the area where it was hit and radiating outward. In less than ten seconds, the last of the white fur had vanished from Erin’s hands, and the girl lay face down in the dewy grass, naked except for her ripped skirt. The whole class, even the gym teacher, stepped towards her hesitantly. Was she out cold?

Only when they got close enough to her did she realize she was crying, at first quietly and then in big, racking sobs that made her whole body convulse. The teacher said nothing to her, and instead unhooked a transceiver from his waist and spoke something into it. Shortly afterwards some paramedics arrived with two stretchers: one for Erin and one for the accidentally power- stripped Vitor.
-------
Author's note:

Eh. Erin. She needs development, and I need practice writing her. You won't be seeing much more of her, as she's out for most of the day. But I'd like some feedback on her character. How could I improve the beast's speech and better show her split personality? What did I do well?

...Oh, yeah, and this shows the last of the boys, doesn't it? Meet Fred, Tybalt (he gets a better nickname later), and Carlos (who you will most likely never hear from again). Fred likes to play music (he's part of Kurt's hypothetical band; his power was originally Kurt's, actually, but I thought the Instrument of Murder better suited him). Tybalt, I don't even know actually. He's just there. He thinks swords are cool so he probably gets along with Silver. Carlos is short, nerdy, and Tyler Asta's best friend; the two are red-blue's equivalent of Carrie and Tess, now that I think about it. (now there's a crack pairing if I ever saw one! Carlos/Tess!) His powers involve altering the temperature of himself and things around him, which is incredibly lame and I should replace it with something.

Chapter 4 [Carrie]

The single sheet of eight and a half by eleven paper was filled with names, which was slightly discouraging to Carrie, but she swallowed her apprehension and wrote her own down before passing it to the person sitting to her right. She was in the auditorium again, prepared to audition with a song and a monologue. Once the paper was filled out and handed back to the drama director—the colorful, wiry woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Franklin. She had already introduced herself to the group, and Carrie was surprised to find that she didn’t actually have any powers. She felt like the teacher was the first person she’d seen in weeks without them—although she did make up for it by having what turned out to be a very convincing prosthetic covering of a mechanical leg replacement leg, that enabled her to jump particularly high. Everyone here was special in their own way, it seemed.

Mrs. Franklin took the list of names when it was filled out, and then called the first person up on stage, asking them to introduce themselves and give their name, age and league, and then a prepared monologue and song. The first girl up was short, but she didn’t look particularly nervous, despite being first. She wore a cloth cover over her hair, so Carrie assumed she must be Muslim. She introduced herself as Sasha Adar, seventeen years old, from white- orange league. Immediately, Carrie felt more nervous—a seventeen- year- old? She gave her song and audition, which were good from what Carrie could tell although she couldn’t hear the girl all that well. Next up was another girl, this one Asian of some persuasion, with spiky, short black hair tied back into a stubby ponytail. She introduced herself as Sophie from the Blue- red league; a sophomore. Her song was much more confident than the previous girl’s, but her monologue faltered, and she dropped character to apologize halfway through.

The list dwindled, getting closer and closer to Carrie’s turn—she was one of the last, having arrived at auditions slightly late, and every person that performed before her made her more and more nervous. She recognized a smattering of people from the auditions—the boy Drew from the tour yesterday, and Lucas and Aubrey, with whom she had eaten dinner.
Several auditions before her turn, Mrs. Franklin called out, “Austen Silver?” A boy stood up and made his way to the stage.

“I’m Silver, fourteen, red-blue league.” This told Carrie four things: one, that he was a freshman, two, that he was in the league associated with hers, three, that he for whatever reason did not use his first name, and four, that his voice was something she’d never expected to come out of that mouth: it was deep and velvety, harmonious to the degree that it sounded like two people speaking at once.

“Silver? Not Austen?”

“No, not Austen,” he said in his extraordinary voice. He wasn’t exceptionally attractive, Carrie thought; he was tall and lanky, as if he had yet to grow into his body completely; however, his eyes were a dark brown, almost black, and mesmerizing. Carrie realized what she was thinking and caught herself. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. That was the sort of thing that happened in stories, in comic books, in movies—not—

She almost missed it when he started monologuing, and even then she found it hard to concentrate on the words he was saying; the sound of his voice superseded what he was trying to say. Then he moved on to singing and from then she had little doubt that he would get a lead role, even if he couldn’t act to save his life. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could get the part of the love interest. Maybe—oh, god dangit, I’m thinking it again she realized. Well. I mean, I was bound to have a crush eventually, right? Best to get that part over with ahead of time.

Finished, he stepped down from the stage and returned to his seat, although Carrie was too lost in thought to pay attention to the next two auditions, and only when the person to her left stood up did she fully regain her composure. She shook her head to clear it, went over the song and speech she was going to give in her head, and when it was her turn, she was readier than she’d ever be—if only those god dang butterflies would leave her stomach. Perhaps they’re spirit butterflies, she mused rather nonsensically as she climbed up on stage.

She introduced herself as Carrie Mann, age fourteen, from red-orange league. Looking out across the audience, she saw him turn his head to watch her. She gulped, scrambled to remember the song and speech she was auditioning with, and then began. She felt rather silly, reading a poem instead of a dramatic monologue like most people were doing (especially for a play that was adapted from Shakespeare). When she named her song and the artist, some of the staff and older students chuckled. She grinned nervously—it was from a band that she was rather fond of, that she had chosen because she knew the song well; although in retrospect, it might not have been the best song to audition with, since it didn’t display her range entirely well. Nevertheless, she sang it as confidently as she could, and she thought she was fairly in tune, even though her voice paled in comparison to Silver’s.

The few remaining auditioners performed, and then it was time for the dance auditions. Carrie got up on stage uneasily, dancing not being her forte.

“Pair off,” said Mrs. Franklin. “Same gender, opposite gender, doesn’t matter. We’re going to learn to waltz.” People drifted together; Carrie, slow on the uptake, was one of the last people standing towards the back of the stage without a partner. Looking across to stage right, she saw Silver also standing there, a bit awkwardly.

In a tremendous surge of courage, she walked up to him and asked, “Um, hey, partners?” He looked at her outstretched hand for a second, then at her, and shrugged.

“Okay.”

Mrs. Franklin grabbed someone from the throng, a senior who she apparently knew rather well, and demonstrated to everyone how to waltz. Most people knew already, but for Carrie, it was her first time. Fortunately, it seemed to be Silver’s too—he picked it up rather quickly, though, and soon they were stepping in time to Mrs. Franklin’s “One- two- three, One- two three, One- two three” count. Carrie stared at their feet, in part to make sure they remembered the steps and in part to keep from looking up at his eyes, and to keep her mind off the fact that he was holding his hands. Mrs. Franklin sped up the count, which forced them to keep their full attention on their feet—almost to Carrie’s relief. Then she stopped counting, telling them to waltz freely. The group continued to dance, some pairs slowing down and others keeping the rapid speed Mrs. Franklin had left them on. Silver kept at that speed, and Carrie matched his pace. He soon began moving faster and faster, however, and it was all Carrie could do to keep up with him without tripping or crashing into someone—she quickly became aware of the fact that he probably shouldn’t be able to move at this pace naturally. Glancing upwards, she saw that he wasn’t looking at her; his eyes were fixed on some distant point as they whirled.

“Hey, can you—” she managed to say, her heart pounding with actual effort, not just nerves. “Can you—slow down—a little? I—can’t—keep up!” His eyes refocused and he looked at her, stunned for a second to be pulled back into the real world. Then he looked at their feet, and at the people around him.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, and their pace slowed back down to normal. Carrie relaxed a little, before becoming aware again of the fact that she was holding his hands. They stayed at a respectable speed until Mrs. Franklin called the group to a halt. The group stepped down off the stage, aware that the auditions were over, but no more relaxed than they had been when auditions began. Carrie, in fact, was more anxious than she had ever been since she came to the school, including the time when she set off the alarm in the science building.

“Thank you all for auditioning for Gladiator Academy’s Fall musical! As you all know, the play will be a modernized version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. You all did excellently; remember that whether or not you get the part that you were hoping for, you all did wonderfully, and I hope that you all take something positive away from this experience. Have a lovely rest of your day!” The group gathered its stuff and headed outside. Carrie saw Silver through the crowd and again approached him.

“Um,” she said, searching for something to say that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot. “T- thanks for, um, being my dance partner.” Oh, whoops, that did sound pretty idiotic. He looked at her, confused.

“Um, you’re welcome…?”

“But, um, so I was sort of wondering, what was going on that time when you got really fast? It seemed like you were moving faster than—”

“Oh, yes, that. Sorry about that. I have superspeed.”

“…Oh.” That explained it. “I… I thought as much.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking away from Carrie. A wave of awkward silence crashed over the two of them, with Carrie anxiously wondering if she had said something wrong, or if she should back out now, or was it painfully obvious that she was just talking to him for the sake of talking—
“Hey, so you said you were in… red-orange league?” He asked, making her jump.

“Oh, um. Yeah! Yeah, I am,” she stuttered, impulsively running her hand through her curly brown hair. “That… that means we’re in the same league. I mean, not league. We’re in the same classes. We have classes together. Um.” He gave her a bewildered look.

“…Yeah?”

“S- so why did you try out for the musical, anyway? You… like singing?”

“Yeah, sorta.” He shrugged. “I was in a couple plays back home, before.”

“Really? What plays?”

“Oh. Uh. I’m not sure you would know them… one was an original production by our school. I helped write the script.”

“You like to write?”

“…Sometimes.”

“That’s cool!” she said, grinning (nervously). “I love writing! I went to writing camp once. This November, I’m—have you heard of National Novel—"

“—Writing month? Yeah. I did it last year.”

“Wow! Really? That’s… that’s so cool! Did… did you win? Did you get to forty thousand or however many words you’re supposed to reach?”

“Fifty thousand, and no,” he said, a little guiltily. “Schoolwork got to be too much, and my dad forbade me from continuing it after I had about fifteen thousand words in.”

“You… you gonna do it again this year, then?”

“No… I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t have time,” he said, shrugging. “I have to keep my physical training up, and if I get into the musical I’ll have even less time.”

“You should do it! We can both do it, and we can be… writing…” her voice faltered. “…cohorts.”

“Nope, sorry.”

“Aw, c’mon. It’ll be fun! I don’t want to be the only person doing it in the whole—”

“I’m sorry, Carrie, but—no,” he told her, and then turned in a separate direction and walked off. Something about his retreating back told Carrie she shouldn’t follow, coupled with a growing hurt. It had felt more than just a refusal to write; it seemed to Carrie more like utter rejection. What—did she do something wrong? Was she coming on too strong? She must have scared him off… and now he thought she was a creep. The first cute guy she meets, with cool interests and a lovely voice, and she’d blown it already. She stood where he had left her for about a minute before continuing in a different direction, towards the building with the club fair.

Only when she had passed the café did she realize that he had used her name—he had remembered her name! The memory of hearing it in his voice sent shivers down her spine, before she mentally kicked herself for being all sappy and romantic, and banished the thought to the back of her mind, turning her thoughts to other matters. The club fair looked interesting, so that even if the whole musical thing fell through she could still find something to fill her occupational free blocks with. She hoped it wasn’t over already—it was already 2 p.m. and the fair had been going since 10 a.m.

It was a fairly long trek. The arts and theatre building was at the complete opposite end of campus from the Social Studies building where they were holding the fair (incidentally, in the same cafeteria where Carrie and Tess had met with the tour the day before). As Carrie neared the building, she scanned the area for familiar faces—although, truth be told, she didn’t have any of her leaguemates’ faces imprinted on her mind’s eye just yet. Heck, she’d only met them the day before, so she had a legitimate excuse. She went over their names once more in her head—her, Tess, Nikki, Bridget, Keli, Anita, Erin, Lucy… a motley crew. And she could only guess at what their male counterparts would be like—besides, of course, Silver. She could already tell that this whole situation with him was going to be a disaster.

She reached the large double doors and pushed one of them open, peeking inside the well- lit cafeteria area. It wasn’t very active, but there were still people sitting at booths, hawking their extracurricular activities to the sparse passersby. She walked along the first row, considering such ideas as the student faculty senate, or the calligraphy club, or the Jewish club, or the Chinese yo- yo club. Those three were ruled out almost immediately—while policymaking was kind of interesting to her, she knew from experience that those kinds of organizations barely influenced anything, with the exception of purchasing new recycling bins. Calligraphy was nowhere near her realm of interests, and while she was ethnically Jewish (Israeli, technically, although she wasn’t even that; she was a Russian Jew), she never followed the religion itself. She remembered having tried Chinese yo-yo once and almost breaking the thing. The next row housed some mildly interesting clubs, and she did put down her e-mail for the art club, and for the empty booth that the sign indicated was the drama club (the club directors, or whoever it was who handled the booth, had the courtesy to leave an “out to lunch!” sign). The writing club seemed mildly interesting, too, although she didn’t know what they would do at club meetings (…write?)

She passed by some other clubs; clubs for charities, clubs for sports teams, and clubs for wackier things like investigating paranormal phenomena (of which there was no deficit in this school), enlivening the student body (like a glee club, she wondered?) and anime. The latter had two people managing the desk—a senior, already wearing his white uniform, and a younger boy who must have been a sophomore, who had his feet up on his desk and was playing a handheld game and intermittently glancing at the TV screen, upon which they were showing the media that was the focus of their club. Carrie smiled when she saw it and looked around for somewhere to sign her e-mail.

“Oh, you wanna join?” asked the senior. “We don’t have a sign-up sheet, just come whenever you want. No worries. We meet on Tuesdays during the occupational.” Carrie thanked him and walked off, mentally tallying up what she had signed up for. Art club, Monday. Anime and Writing club, Tuesday. Drama club, Thursday. There were no clubs on Wednesday or Friday, which meant that she would have a free block those days—or not, if she got cast in the musical, which met on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, plus weekends. She wasn’t banking on that, though. The competition was, she admitted, pretty steep.

As she was leaving, she saw someone familiar coming down the stairs. It took her a few seconds to pin a name to her face—it was Nikki, from her league.

“Hey,” she said casually.

“Hey,” said the girl in return. “How was the fair?”

“Oh… interesting, I guess. I signed up for a lot of stuff.”

“Wait, you did the musical, didn’t you? How’d that go?”

Carrie’s stomach turned over. To mention Silver or not? Nikki would get to know him soon enough anyway… like tomorrow, in class. She figured she could get away with simply not mentioning that she had developed a spontaneous crush on him.

“It went fine, I think, but there was a mishap with the dance auditions,” she said simply. “my partner had superspeed.”

“…Ouch,” Nikki said, entirely sympathetic. “Well, good luck anyway. What clubs did you sign up for?”

“Like I said, a lot,” Carrie told her. “Art club, drama club, anime club…” for each club she named, she raised a finger, and by the time she had gotten through her list, she was sure that she had one more finger than club and had all but lost track of where she was going. “Uh, I need a planner or something…”

“Me too,” admitted Nikki. “H- hey, did you say you were in the anime club?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You like anime?”

“Of course! Otherwise I wouldn’t join, would I?” she gave Nikki a sidelong look.

“Yeah, no, I got that. It’s just that you didn’t strike me as the type to be… into that sort of thing, is all.” She shrugged.

“Well, you learn something new every day,” Carrie told her, smiling a little. “Um… I’m going back to the dorm, I think. That okay?” Nikki nodded dumbly and Carrie waved to her, then turned and strolled back to the red-orange dorm, where she planned on browsing the internet on her laptop. When she opened the door to her room, she found Tess sitting on her lower bunk, hunched over a DS. She didn’t look up until Carrie tapped her shoulder.

“’Ey!” she said, hands on hips. “What’re you doing playing games? It’s a beautiful day!”

“Sorry,” said Tess. “What else am I supposed to do? I’m not gonna play sports or anything.”

“Haven’t you been to the club fair?” asked Carrie sternly.

“Nope, not interested.”

“What?! Why not?! C’mon Tess! You can’t just cut yourself off from the rest of everyone like that!”

“I’m not,” she said, closing her DS. “I’ve got you. I don’t need to worry.”

“Well, yes, but—I’m busy! Go! Get up! Get out! Make friends!” Carrie commanded, grabbing Tess’s upper arm and hoisting her to her feet.

“I will, I will,” she grumbled. “I just don’t think I need to do it actively.”

“Join some clubs, at least! There’s tons of stuff that even you’d be interested in! C’mon, video games club?”

“Not interested,” Tess muttered. “I’ve got plenty of games here. Plus, it’ll just be full of nerdy boys who only want to play Halo.”

“…Okay, point made. Still. How about Anime club? I’m joining that.”

“Doesn’t interest me,” Tess said, motioning to go sit down again.

“C’mon. Let’s head outside at least,” Carrie said, resisting against Tess and dragging her towards the door.

“But—the sunlight glare means I can’t see the screen—”

“Oh, you’ll find a way to work around it,” Carrie told her as the two descended the stairs and headed out to the courtyard between the boys’ and girls’ buildings. There were a few people there already—two girls, both of them reading, and then farther up the hill some freshmen were throwing a Frisbee.

“Here, take a seat,” she said, gesturing towards one of the benches for the picnic table. Tess did so, reluctantly, and Carrie sat down beside her. She twisted around, looking for anyone familiar, and as she did so, she recognized a figure up on top of the hill. She immediately turned away, hoping he hadn’t seen her, but it was too late—she could have sworn that his eyes met hers. She sighed deeply.

One of the girls at the other table—a petite Indian girl—got up and approached them.

“Hey, uh… you ok?” she asked Carrie, whose head was down. She jerked her neck up in surprise, accidentally twisting it painfully in the process, and lowered it with a groan. The Indian girl winced too.

“I’m fine,” mumbled Carrie. “Talk to her, she’s the one with problems,” she said, pointing at Tess without looking at her.

“You’re not fine,” said the girl, hands on hips. “You’re in love.”

Tess looked massively confused. Carrie sat up slowly and carefully this time—her neck still smarted—and asked, as calmly as she could, “What?!”

“I’m an empath,” the girl said, shrugging. “I can read peoples’ emotions, and control them. And you are in love. And you are confused,” she told Tess, “but don’t worry. I think she just saw the guy she liked up on that hill. Is that right?”

“Who… who ARE you?”

“Sarita Gomez,” she introduced herself, holding out a hand which Carrie weakly shook. “I’m in red-yellow dorm.”

“Cool. We’re in red-orange,” said Tess, while Carrie was silent. The other girl sitting at the opposite picnic table got up and came over.

“Sari, are you messing with them again?” she asked playfully, crossing her arms.

“I’m not messing with anyone!” she said, raising her arms defensively. “I just felt a surge of emotion from this girl here… and I thought it was interesting, so…”

“Ooh, who was it?” asked she other girl. She was Caucasian, with an oval- shaped face and straight brown hair tied back in a ponytail. “I mean, I heard you talking about someone she had a crush on. So who was it?”

Carrie, not wanting to let him think they were talking about him (unless he was a mind reader as well, in which case he would already know), glanced up in his direction for a second before flipping her hand towards him. “Up by the tree. His name’s Silver. Or, well, that’s not really his name, but—”

“Is he the one doing flips off the tree?” asked the brown- haired girl. Carrie, surprised, looked. Sure enough, just as she looked, he backed up about five feet and began sprinting impossibly fast, so that one second he was standing vertically and the next he was horizontal in midair. His feet went over his head, but for a split second it seemed that he would fall on his face. Then he extended his arms and caught himself, rolling over a shoulder and bouncing to his feet again. He glanced down the hill to the four girls who were watching him. Sarita clapped. He gave a short bow and then backed up to do it again.

“Wow,” said the other girl. “That was… odd…” Carrie hid her head in her hands.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Sarita told her, flapping her wrist at Carrie. It was like a cool wave had washed all the anxiety away—her heart stopped thudding, and her face relaxed, free of worry.
“...Wow!” she exclaimed. “That—that was—”

“My power? Yeah. I’ve had lots of practice. It’s one of those powers that you can have, and nobody will guess as long as you make it seem natural.” She smiled.

“Can you use it on me?” inquired Tess. Sarita glanced at her, smiling, and Tess broke into a broad, bracy grin, and started laughing—something she hardly ever did. Carrie looked on, fascinated; the most she had ever seen her laugh that she could remember was a quiet snigger.
“Heh heh. Ha ha ha ha! Ha—that’s—ha—awesome! Why—ha ha—can’t my powers—be cool like that? Heh,” Tess gasped, in between fits of laughter.

“What are your powers?” asked Sarita.

“Oh, um—heh—electricity,” she said, coming off of her high.

“Really? That’s—that’s so cool! What a coincidence! Hey, Skye—” she turned to where her friend had been standing a moment before, but the space was empty. “Oh, don’t do this again,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Hang on a sec.” She closed her eyes and frowned, concentrating. Then she pointed up towards the hill. “There she is—invisible, and messing with your boyfriend, it looks like.”

As Carrie watched in half- terror, half- laughter, Silver backed up to spring into the tree again, but when he pushed off, he tripped. His arms flashed out, faster than the eye could see, to catch himself. Shifting his weight, he brought his legs around in a sweep. Skye flickered back into visibility, letting out a startled cry and falling onto the grassy hill. They both looked equally startled. Silver stood up and brushed the grass stains off his knees; Skye rubbed her shoulder, which she had fallen on.

They spoke, and although Carrie couldn’t hear the whole conversation, she caught snippets.

“—did you do that? What was that about?” he asked, not angry exactly; he was actually grinning crookedly.

“Just to see—react,” she heard Skye say. “But that hurt!” she rubbed her shoulder, making a big show of it. The three listeners moved higher up on the hill, trying to get in earshot.

“Sorry,” he told her, shrugging. “But wasn’t that totally cool? What a clean sweep! Took your legs right out from under you. Oh yeah, I’ve still got it.”

“That hurt,” she whined.

“Would have hurt me more if I hadn’t caught myself.”

“Okay, true.” She shrugged. “Sorry for trying to trip you.”

“It was a good test of my reflexes. Say, is one of those girls down there listening to us named Carrie?” Carrie’s heart stopped, or felt like it did—she panicked until she felt a wave of sympathetic energy wash over her, courtesy of Sarita.

“…I think so. I only just met her. Why?”

“Just that she’s in red-orange league, so she’s in my classes… plus, I just thought she should know that she can never out-ninja me, ever.” He looked around the tree, where Carrie, Tess, and Sarita were hiding. Carrie waved, shyly.

“H-hi,” she said, making herself look like a fool again. Sarita was frowning, concentrating on something.

“Hello. Were you admiring my wall-jumping skills? It’s all got to do with inertia, and I can do it anywhere, provided I have enough space for a running start and a suitably sturdy object to brace against. I’ve made it eight feet up once, before jumping—that was epic. Of course, my power has something to do with it, too. Although there’s plenty of ninja that weren’t mutants who could climb higher than me, which just proves that you don’t need powers to be awesome.”

“Wha—” Carrie was speechless. Was this the same guy that had snubbed her, not an hour ago? She quickly glimpsed at Sarita, who was still frowning and muttering to herself, and an uncomfortable premonition rolled over her. Was Sarita—was she messing with him? Was she messing with Carrie? What was she doing?

“Do you know anything about martial arts?” he asked.

“Um,” Carrie answered. “Some. I, uh, trained before I came here.” That was true. It had been a fairly big decision, leaving her studio behind.

“For how long? What belt rank were you?”

“Oh, um, seven years, I think. I had just gotten my black belt…”

“That’s cool! I’ve trained in lots of different styles over the years, so I’ve just sort of developed my own style from what I’ve learned. I call it Chijutsu.”

“Tha—that’s cool! Can I learn it?” asked Carrie. “I had to quit my training in order to come here. Although I don’t think I have much free time…”

“I doubt you could manage the training regimen,” he said, shrugging.

“Because I’m a girl?” she interjected, suddenly angry.

“No! Not because you’re a girl. It’s because I specifically designed it to be tailored to me, as in people with superspeed. Unless you think you can run ten laps around the track in five minutes? Because that’s how I warm up at 6 A.M. each morning. And ten’s getting too easy. I should raise it to fifteen.”

“Woah.”

“Yeah. And now I’m doing the agility training—they told me I’m super-agile as well as being super fast, so I don’t think you or the average student could do this either,” he said, backing up and sprinting up the tree again. His feet thudded twice against the trunk as he kicked off, caught himself on his hands, and sprung backwards to his feet. While he did this, Carrie cast her gaze around for the other girls and realized they had left—they were down at the base of the hill again, reading or playing. Panic seized her—now that Sarita wasn’t there to theoretically control his feelings, would he reject her outright again?

“What style of martial arts do you do?” he asked in his velvet voice, causing her to jump. She sat on the boulder near the base of the tree, and he came and sat next to her.

“Oh, um. Kenpo, I think? With a N. Or maybe it was Kempo with an M? I’m, uh, not sure.”

“We’ll have to spar sometime.” He was completely serious.

“I think we’d be a little… mismatched. Not just because I’m a girl, or that I’m not as fit as you…”

“Oh, I’ll slow down,” he assured her.

“Like on the waltz?”

“…”

“Didn’t think so,” she said, grinning. “Don’t worry, I’m not mad about that or anything. I think it would be better to just do… like, Tai Chi or something. I was never really good at sparring, either.”

“I could do Tai Chi, too,” he agreed. “What do you know?”

“N- not much…” she admitted. “I was kind of hoping you would know something about it. It’s the thing where you’re simultaneously pushing and pulling, tense and relaxed?”

“That’s pretty much it,” he told her. “Here, you just put your hands together with another person and take turns resisting and giving, resisting and giving…”

“…Right,” she said, and a warm zephyr blew through. He was silent, as was she; she refused to say that the silence was awkward, because naming it would ruin the moment. If there was a moment there at all. She sighed.

“What’s up?”

“N- nothing… I’m… I’m sorry, this is all so confusing,” she said, feeling despaired. “I… I need to go hang out with Tess. We’ll… talk later, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, not particularly concerned. As she walked down the hill, though, he ran to catch up with her.

“Wait! There’s—you—” the romantic within Carrie noticed how close his face was, and how messy his hair was from rolling on the dirt. “You never told me what your powers were.”

“Oh,” she said. “I can summon animal spirits.”

Suddenly, the warm day seemed a little colder. “Like, ghosts?”

“Um, I guess you could call them that, but they’re a little more like… well, all the lore calls them spirits… they’re like a bunch of animal ghosts roped together, I guess. I can… show you…” she said, but he had turned away.

“See you tomorrow,” she barely heard him say, and again she was left watching him leave, confused and disappointed. It had been so lovely, so—so close—and then…

Walking down the hill, she rejoined the three girls at the bottom.

“How’d it go?” asked Tess cheerfully, but Sarita looked concerned.

“You’re unhappy,” she told her. “You were so happy, up until thirty seconds ago. What happened? What did he say? What did you say?”

“Were you messing with him?” Carrie demanded.

“Me? God, no,” Sarita said, raising her palms. “I may have made you a bit more confident, but that’s it.” Calming energy washed over Carrie, but it couldn’t pierce her sudden sullenness.

“I don’t actually know what happened,” she said, putting her chin on her hands. “He just asked about my powers, so I told him, and then he suddenly got all cold like earlier today—what did I say?”

“What did you say? What are your powers?”

“Summoning animal spirits,” she replied with a shrug. “I don’t really see how that’s related at all… I mean, what could be offensive about that?”

Sarita exchanged glances with Skye. “Um… I don’t know really, but it sounds like… I mean, the last time there was someone with the power to revive the dead…”

“Which last time? I don’t know what you’re—” the school bell pealed, telling the campus that it was time for dinner. Sarita and Skye closed their books, and Tess shoved her DS into her pocket.
“You mean you really don’t know?” asked Skye. “Well, I daresay you’ll find out soon enough… I mean, it’s common history. Although if nobody taught you specifically, you might not know the details of course…”

“Just tell me!” she said despairingly.

“Dinnertime,” Sarita said as she left. “Ask a teacher, maybe. They’ll be able to explain it better than me, I’ll bet.”

Carrie pounded the table with her fist, hurting it. “God dang—why can’t anybody just tell me these things?” Tess shrugged, and the two of them started walking across the campus towards the main dining hall.
-------
Author's note

Can youuu count the references and cameos? Especially in the Audition and Club sections. I almost literally laughed, rereading it.

So, Silver. What can I say? He really, really is like that, and woe to the poor, lovesick Carrie that would fall for him. (They make a lovely socially awkward couple, don't they? The melodramatic and the narcissistic.) This is a-- no, better make it the-- romantic plot tumor in this book. (there are other subplots of course, but this being a triangle... oh, that's two chapters from now.) Hope you like it, otherwise you are free to skip all of Carrie's chapters, because they basically boil down to just that (not to mention abusing Tess and decrying her general failure. Yeah, I'm not nice to either of them. Ironic, considering...)

Sarita's utterly unlike her real-life counterpart, personalitywise. *shrug* She has one of the coolest powers, imo. (Why didn't I give it to a main character? Hindsight is 20-20.) Skye has a wonderful name and is also minor character. At first she was Tia, but that would be too convenient for reasons unrevealed.

Chapter 3 [Nikki]

Nikki was the first person in the common room—she had unpacked and settled into her room and everything. The other three girls who would be her roommates had simply dumped their stuff. They hadn’t even claimed a bed yet. She was playing on a PSP when the other girls came in.

“Hey,” she said, waving a hand casually. She recognized Keli but not the other two. “How’d it go? Did I miss much?”

“You didn’t stay for the rules?” asked Keli in disbelief.

“I didn’t stay for dinner. I ate with some upperclassmen at the café. It was really cool. But really, what did I miss?”

“Well, our principal’s a supervillain,” Keli said, rolling her eyes. “He talked a lot about the Black Rapture and our duty as the future of humankind, blah blah blah really. The rules are in the student handbook we’re supposed to have.”

“Woah, wait, back up a sec. He’s a supervillain?”

“Ex- supervillain, obviously,” interjected Carrie. “You would know if you’d gone.”

“Eh, I don’t regret it really,” she said, shrugging. Seeing where Carrie was headed, she said, “Hey, you’re my roommate? What’s your name?”

“Um. I think so. I’m Carrie.” She walked inside the room, followed by Tess. Keli sat on the couch and got out a book (Nikki couldn’t make out what it was, but it had ‘vampire’ in the title). Gradually, other people started to trickle in as well—a tall, freckled caucasian girl with glasses and bushy auburn hair, who shared a room with Keli. Then a nervous- looking Chinese girl entered with a short Mexican girl with very thick glasses, who chattered energetically. Last was a scruffy- looking, dirty- blonde girl with long pigtails wrapped up in multicolored hair bands, who entered the single room at the end of the hall nearest to the bathrooms. Fifteen minutes more passed as people unpacked, talked, and trickled in to the common room.

“So!” said the redhead, stretching her arms up to the ceiling. “Who are you people?”

“We might ask the same of you,” said Nikki.

“Okay, sure, whatever. I’m Bridget Baker, and I have super strength.” Nikki raised an eyebrow at her. It seemed like an appropriate power for the girl to have— she was solidly built, almost like an Amazon, and well- endowed. She seemed to be positively brimming with energy.

The girl to her left, the short Mexican girl, clued in to the conversation. “Oh! Hi! I’m Anita,” she said, smiling. “I can fly! But not now, ‘cause I wear this special belt and boots.” Nikki now looked closely at the belt around her jeans, which seemed to be made of leather but with some sort of metal weight on the front. Her shoes were also customized. Both the shoes and the belt had a special logo on them, but Nikki couldn’t make out what it was.

Next to her was Carrie. “I’m Carrie Mann, and I’m tired of introducing myself.” A couple people chuckled. “I can summon spirit animals. I’ll show you later,” she added, seeing the curious looks on peoples’ faces. “I think I’ve exceeded my quota for today.”

“I’m Tess Larson,” said the girl to her right, “and I can generate static electricity.” She held up a finger, and a spark jumped from its tip to the metal rim of her glasses.

“She’s a Spark,” Carrie added. “None of you are going to get that reference, though.”

“Right. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” That was Keli. “I’m Keli Spencer, and I have… I think the proper term is aquakinesis? Hydrokinesis? Something like that. I can control water and I have gills.” She brought her webbed hands together and lazily drew them apart, strings of water hanging from between her fingers.

“Oh, it’s my turn, I guess. I’m Nikki Kivan, and I can generate magnetic fields.” She twitched her hands at the wrists, turning them back and forth in jazzhands.

“Ha! You’re like that guy, that villain dude from the comics…” pointed out Bridget. “I don’t remember his name, since I don’t read them, I just saw the movies…”

“I know who you’re talking about, and Magnetism isn’t exactly uncommon, as powers go,” Nikki raised an eyebrow. “Why does everyone think of him whenever I tell them? God… think of a hero or something, will ya? Anyway, whatever.” She looked at the girl to her right.

“Oh, m- me? Is it my turn? Um.” That was the girl with the rainbow pigtails. “Um. I’m, uh, Erin Stevens… um.”

“What’s your power?” asked Carrie.

“Uh. I can, well… I’m a lycanthrope,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

“A werewolf?!” exclaimed Bridget. “Awesome!”

“N- not a wolf actually… I’m this sort of… fuzzy… bear.” She kept her eyes down, and Nikki noticed that she was deliberately covering the back of her right hand. Looking more closely, she could see that underneath her hand there was a flash of grimy white fur.

“Isn’t that technically not a lycanthrope, though?” mused Carrie. “I mean, the ‘lycan’ part of lycanthrope means ‘wolf,’ right? So if you turn into a bear, you’d be more like an ursathrope or something, I don’t know.”

“It’s a bit of a wolf-like bear,” she muttered, still not making eye contact.

There was a pause before the last person to speak— the Chinese girl— realized that it was her turn. She looked around, pushed her glasses up her nose, and blinked. The realization set in, and she exclaimed, “Oh! My name is Lucy, and I… well, I don’t know what my powers are actually.”

“What?!” exclaimed several people, Nikki included.

“How… how did you get in here, then?” asked Carrie.

“Um. It’s a… funny story. Do… do you want me to tell you?”

“Go right ahead!

“…I’d rather not… It’s kind of, not easy for me, you understand?”

“Can you try?”

“…Um. I guess… I went to this school last year. It was… a school for Empowered people, who hadn’t shown yet. When kids did, they moved them up to another class… my friends vanished one by one, until I was the last person left. Their tests were coming out positive, but I still don’t have any powers.” She shrugged. “I… They couldn’t figure out what to do with me, so they sent me home and I went to normal school. But then I got the letter from here, and, well, I dunno.” She clasped her hands together, her eyes lowered. “I hope you won’t hate me if I’m kicked out from here, too."

“Don’t worry,” said Keli, “Powers or no powers, we’ll treat you with respect.”

“You could have powers that you just don’t know about,” suggested Tess.

“I didn’t know there were other schools for supers,” mused Carrie.

“Well, most people don’t. The school I went to kept it secret until your powers manifested. Our parents didn’t even know.”

***

“…Well. Is that everyone?” asked Bridget. “Wait. Lemme see if I can remember everyone’s names. I’m Bridget, you’re… Nikki? Right. Caroline…”

“Carrie.”

“Carrie, Tess, Keli… wait, hang on, I’ve got this…”

“Anita,” she offered.

“Right. Anita. Gotcha. Anita, Erin, Lucy.”

“My turn!” said Nikki. “There’s me, Nikki, and then… Carrie, Tess, Keli, A… Anita? Anita, Erin, Lucy, Bridget. Oh yeah, I’ve still got it.”

“Can I try?” said Carrie. “I’m terrible with names though, so you’ll have to forgive me. I’m Carrie, and you are… well, gol- darnit, I’ve forgotten,” she laughed, turning to Tess. This didn’t elicit a reaction from the group, so she stopped laughing and said “Tess, Um… Keli, right? Yeah, I know we talked earlier and all. I told you, I’m bad with names! Anita, Erin, Lucy… Aw. I know your name starts with a D…”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Bridget. “How could you forget me? I’m Bridget!”

“…Sorry, Bridget, you were the first to introduce yourself, I must have spaced for a second. Nikki. Right. That’s all of us.”

“And we have to remember, since we’ll be having most of our classes and things together,” said Nikki. “Well. What now?”

“I’m going to check my facebook,” said Bridget, standing up.

“Facebook. Pshaww, what a waste of time… wait, you got internet?” Carrie asked in disbelief. “How’d that work?”

“Oh, well, you just go to the bottom floor of the dorm building and ask the dean. They give you the password and everything.”

“But my computer wasn’t detecting any wireless networks before…”

“Maybe they turned it on since you last checked? I don’t know. Go ask.”

“I think I’ll do that,” she said, standing up. “See you guys later.” She walked into her room and left after a minute, carrying a laptop under one arm. Keli remained sitting where she was on the couch, reading her vampire book. Anita, Tess, and Erin retreated to their rooms. Nikki yawned and put in her iPod headphones, thinking to herself that she should be putting her free time to use while she still had it, but then shrugging and starting to zone out. The red-orange dorm was quiet for some time, the most noise coming in little tinny sounds from Bridget’s room as she played music from her computer, and from upstairs, where the red-yellow dorm seemed a bit more active.

Ten minutes later, the silence was broken when Carrie came running up the stairs again, holding her laptop awkwardly under one arm while the other held a sheaf of papers.

“Schedules are out! Plus I have internet,” she exclaimed, grinning broadly.

“Huh. That was fast,” remarked Nikki.

“Here, and here,” Carrie said, handing a sheet of paper to her and Keli. “I’ll go deliver the rest, too.” She scurried into one of the rooms. Nikki looked over her sheet, expression blank. They still had a day to go before term started, but once it did…

“Aw, geez!” she exclaimed. “Look at this! What’s with all the phys. ed? I hate phys. ed… and look! Two classes a day! No fair!”

“Get over it,” Keli told her. “I have lots of gym classes on mine too—I think it’s part of the curriculum. Like, physical training.”

“Why would they be—oh, right. For our powers.” An exclamation from the second room indicated that Bridget had found the gym classes on her schedule as well—although this was more of a whoop of joy than an expression of rage.

“What classes do you have besides that?” asked Keli. Nikki scrutinized her paper again.

“Oh, just the usual… well, there’s History of Superpowers instead of whatever usual history class we’d have in a regular high school, but yeah. Um, geometry, literature, science… I’ve got some free time most days, too.”

“I’ve got an ‘occupational free block’ pretty much every day, in the afternoon…”

Nikki scrutinized her sheet again. “…Huh. That’s funny, so do I. What do you suppose it means?”
“Oh, the occupational free?” That was Carrie, who had just walked into the room. “I asked about that, actually—it’s for any extracurricular activities, like if you’re joining clubs and things. Like, since I’m gonna take part in that musical they mentioned…”

“What, seriously? You can… sing?” asked Keli.

“Well, er, sorta. I like to, at least. I dunno.” She shrugged. “I think it’s a good way to meet new people or something.”

“Don’t be shy! You’re allowed to sing if you like it!”

“No she isn’t,” said Tess, coming up from behind. “You haven’t heard her singing. It should be illegal.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true,” she shrugged. Carrie playfully thwacked the back of her head.

“Stop that, you’re giving me a bad name,” she said, but she was smiling while she said it.

Nikki yawned. “Well, as exciting as it was meeting all of you, I’m gonna go get some shut-eye.” She opened the door to her room and sat down on the bottom bunk, swinging her legs up without taking off her shoes. She lay back, closed her eyes, and thought.

What a mess, she thought. It’s a beautiful mess, but a mess all the same. How am I going to remember all these names? Everyone seems like they’ve known one another for forever… actually, it seems like Carrie and Tess do know each other from somewhere. I’ll have to ask them about it. She turned over so that she was facing the wall. I mean, the only one that I’m even remotely familiar with is Keli… I just… hope they’ll accept me, is all.
She thought herself to sleep.

***

Nikki was woken up shortly afterwards by Carrie, Tess, and Lucy, who were gathering their stuff to get ready to sleep, and groggily she realized that she probably should too. She kicked off her shoes, changed into more sleep- appropriate clothes and brushed her teeth, rinsing the bitter taste from her mouth. She went to bed in short order, and this time slept all through morning.

Nobody woke her up—when she opened her eyes and reached for her cell phone, it was 9 p.m. She experienced a momentary panic when she didn’t know where she was, and then panic again at having slept in so late, until realizing that she had no responsibilities for the day. She lay in bed uselessly for a little while longer until her brain convinced her that it was a beautiful day she was wasting. She threw off the sheets and got dressed, then stuffed her wallet into her jeans pocket and left the dorms to get breakfast at the café.

As she was heading out, she noticed that Erin was still in her room, hunched over a table and concentrating very hard on something. Her hands seemed entirely free of the fur Nikki had seen last night. Putting it to the back of her mind with a reminder to ask later, she descended the stairs and left the building.

She walked out onto the brick path of the main way, relishing the clear summer day—it wouldn’t be long, she reminded herself, before the warmth would succumb to Canadian frost. Oh, Canada. It didn’t seem that much different from home, really; just colder and with different trees. More differences would probably become apparent later.

The entered the café, where several students were standing around, sipping at coffee or munching on sandwiches and pastries. An upperclassman was even managing the cash register—she expected the café was entirely run by a student organization. She bought an underpriced coffee (discounts for students, for some reason, even though those were probably their only customers… just how did they pay for everything, anyway? Free food, free supplies…)
She stepped outside into the light and looked around for a table to sit at. She recognized a group of boys sitting at one of the tables—Kyle and Vitor, from the bus ride, as well as two other guys. Kyle waved at her.

“Hey, aren’t you Nikki? You looking for somewhere to sit?” he gestured to an empty seat at the table. “Join us! Guys, this is Nikki—she’s in the red-orange league, so she’s gonna be in all our classes.”

“Hey,” said one of the guys, who looked slightly imposing—he had shoulder-length brown hair and wore a loud shirt that had some band name on it. “I’m Kurt.”

“And I’m, um, Tyler,” said the other, who was smaller, with an acne-ridden face and messy brown hair.

“Nikki Kivan,” she said, aware that she had already been introduced. “So what’s up? What are we supposed to do today? I mean term doesn’t start…”

“…Till tomorrow? Yeah,” said Kurt. “I don’t know. I’m just chilling—I slept in ‘til eight- thirty. Apparently now’s your chance to sign up for clubs and things. There’s a fair in the social studies building caf.”

“Are you going to join any clubs?” she asked.

“Ah, well, I dunno. I was hoping to join a band, to be honest,” he said, laughing a little. “But I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to start my own?”

“We were talking about this before you came,” explained Kyle. “Like I was saying, I can write song lyrics, and I’m an okay rapper, if I can say. Plus I have like this program on my laptop that can mix beats.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” said Kyle. “Hey, do you think anyone in your dorm would want to play in a band? We could use some girls. Even out the gender barrier, y’know.”

“Well, Carrie said she could sing, or at least she thought she did,” said Nikki, recalling last night. “But she’s auditioning for the musical, so I dunno if she’d have time. I don’t know about Bridget either, but she seems more like the type that would want to play in a band.” She made another mental note to mention it to them—what was that, three now? Ask about Carrie and Tess, ask about Erin, and now ask about the band… she needed an iPhone or something to keep track of it all.

“Hey, speaking of the red- orange girls… I’m sorry if this sounds weird, but… are any of them hot?” asked Kyle, smiling guiltily. Vitor punched his arm, reminding Nikki of Tess and Carrie.
“Uh… no, that’s not really weird, but…” Nikki thought a little. “None of them are really all that hot, except…” Keli’s face flashed in her mind, with its delicate features, and she shook her mind to clear it, pushing away the image and blushing a little. “Um. Bridget, uh, has a big rack… so does Carrie, now that I think about it, but, um. I dunno. You’d be better off asking a guy, or seeing for yourself. I really… I don’t know.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Kyle, shrugging. “There’s plenty of choices. I’ll see for myself tomorrow. Thanks, though. Sorry if that was awkward, It was an awkward question to ask to a girl that I barely know, I know. You probably think I’m some sort of sex- obsessed pervert, right?”

"N- no! Not really, I have an older brother… I’m sort of used to it all.”

“You have a brother? How old?” asked Kurt.

“Um, he’s 20. He… he’s in the army.” Nikki looked at her shoes. Her brother was a difficult subject for her. “I- if we could, like, not talk about him, that’d be best.”

“Right! Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up a sensitive subject.”

“No, I brought it up. Doesn’t matter.” She said. “I’m just used to guy talk, is all.” In fact, she found she got along better with guys on average. Perhaps it was because she was into motorcycles and metal and other, distinctly non-girly stuff.”

Tyler reached for his coffee cup, but when his fingers tried to close around it, they passed right through it. “Oh, geez,” he groaned. “Not again…”

“What’s up?” asked Nikki, with interest. He waved his hand back and forth, it distinctly passing through the coffee cup every time.

“It’s doing it again, oh, god damnit,” he said, as his hand stopped, solidifying with his fingers lodged within the cup. The top popped off, and he lifted his hand up, fingers embedded inside the cardboard. He grabbed it with his other hand and pushed; it came off, coffee pouring out the holes where his fingers used to be.

“This happens way too often,” he groaned, sucking on a coffee-covered finger. Seeing Nikki’s questioning look, he said, “I’m intangible. Or, I mean, parts of my body go intangible randomly; I can’t control it. It’s kind of a sucky power, to be honest… once, my legs went intangible up to my waist, and they had to dig me out of the floor. At least… at least I don’t go fully intangible. I’d fall to the center of the earth and get burned alive.”

“Well, technically you wouldn’t, actually,” pointed out Kurt. “Since I assume there’s no resistance, the laws of physics say that you’d pass through the center of gravity until you came out the other side. Equal and opposite reaction and all that.”

“What, really? Okay, that makes me feel a little better, but not much,” he said. “I mean, then where do I end up? The Indian Ocean? And that still doesn’t solve the problem of part of me suddenly becoming tangible while I’m falling. Let me tell you, it sucks.”

“Yeah, that does sort of suck,” admitted Kyle, “But hey. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Why does gravity affect you if you have no mass?” inquired Vitor. All eyes at the table looked at him in surprise—it was the first time he had spoken the entire time.”

“What do you mean?"

“You heard me. If you have no mass, you won’t feel the pull of gravity, so you’d float, right? Simple science.”

“I don’t think there’s anything simple about that,” groaned Tyler. “I mean, of course, nothing’s simple with superpowers…”

“Right. I shouldn’t be able to generate magnetic fields,” said Nikki, “but, hey, I can.”

“What, really?” asked Kurt. “That’s seriously cool. Like Mag—”

“Yes,” groaned Nikki, pressing her fingers against her forehead. She held out her hand and concentrated on the metal chair a foot away from her. She started sweating, but then it moved an inch and she relaxed.

“Did you do that?” asked Kyle.

“No, it was the wind,” chided Nikki. “Yes, of course I did it.”

“Cool. You have a class B power like me and Kyle and Vitor,” said Kurt.

“Class… B?”

“Yeah. There’s three classes of powers… they say we’re not supposed to use them because they’re racist or elitist or something, I don’t know. Everyone uses them though, and I don’t see what’s so offensive about ‘em. Basically,” he said, “Class C powers are like Tyler’s, that affect only the Empowered person. Stuff like super strength or flight or stretching or my regeneration powers,” he said, pausing for emphasis. “They’re the most common; I mean, as common as having extremely rare powers is. And then there’s class B, which is all of us—it’s the ability to control things outside of yourself. Basically, telekinesis, and things like principal Luciparr’s light powers, Kyle’s fire powers, etcetera. And then there’s class A, which is the rarest of the rare—you see people with ‘em once in a blue moon. Those are the powers which affect reality itself.”

“Aubrey’s power is Class A,” Kyle added. Nikki thought that Carrie’s abilities might also be considered Class A as well.

“And there’s rankings within powers, too, although you can generally change those by working at it. The lowest is rank 3 and the highest rank 1, with an A-1 being pretty much god. Rank 3 indicates that it’s subconscious or extremely limited. I think we’re all mostly rank 3,” Kurt added.

“I might be rank 2,” Kyle suggested, a little meekly. He held out his palm, with a tuft of flame burning in it, to prove his point.

“I think you’re probably a 2.5, no offense or anything, we just can all afford to improve. Rank 2 indicates adept control, and Rank 1 indicates mastery.”

“Well, I think I’ve learned a lot more than I intended to today,” Nikki said jokingly. “What would powers like… mind control fall under, for example?”

“Hmm… I’d say B, since it’s power over thoughts… but I don’t know, actually. Maybe psychic powers should be their own subset.”

“Do you know anyone with psychic powers?” asked Vitor.

“No, but I’m sure they’re around. It’s one of the most commonly- displayed powers, y’know, in stories and things. Next to stuff like flight and super strength, of course.” That was Kyle.

“Huh.” Nikki stood up and walked to the trash can to throw away her now- empty coffee cup. “Well, it was fun talking with you guys, but I think I’m gonna go stretch my legs and check out that club fair you were talking about. See you tomorrow in whatever classes out leagues have together!”
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Author's Note:

Introductions, pseudoscientific discussions complete with lampshade hanging, and exposition, oh my! This was one of the more fun chapters to write, if you can excuse the blatant wordcount-boosting abuse towards the top.

The boys were fun to write. xD They go like such: Kurt is a punk rocker/metalhead, and looks the part, but he's actually a really nice guy. Kyle is huge, football-player-ish, and loves to laugh and have fun. Vitor is short, cynical, and sarcastic. Tyler's geeky and a bit of a wuss. (there are four other boys in red-blue as well, which you will soon meet as well.)