《Powerful Beginnings》
The Power of Words
And just when he thought public school couldnt get any more frustrating, it happened. He had started 9th grade a few months ago, and because someone decided being sent to a new school at seemingly random times was a good idea; he had to leave the Middle School he had all his friends at and had gotten used to navigating, to start going to a new school that not all of his old friends would go to, with more than five times as many people attending it. But that wasnt what made his day worse this time.
Joe Smith had gotten used to being the generic one wherever he went, he had gotten used to people teasing him for things that made no sense C half the time not even to the people teasing him C and he had even gotten used to being only average in grades, looks, height, and everything else. No, what happened this time to make school life worse was something else entirely. He was stuck in yet another math class, though they finally stopped calling it 6th Grade Math, 7th Grade Math, etc, and actually gave it a name this time: Algebra. Maybe they would finally get some creativity in math? In any case, the day went as it often did, the teacher taught them the same thing they learned the day before with only a little bit of added complexity, and then started calling on random people in the room to work out problems based on the new information.
As happened about as often to him as to anyone else, he had been called on to work through a problem on the board. As always seemed to happen, he made an average number of mistakes, and his teacher used this chance to teach the rest of the class the nuances of the new technique they were supposed to learn that day. Looking bored and slightly annoyed, trying to keep the embarrassment from showing, he read the various posters around the classroom for the umpteenth time. However, this day had a new way of making High School difficult for him.
No, today was different, today was a new kind of trial for Joe. Today, his Words had Effects on the world around him. No, not like words always effect the world around you, though you should always make sure to be kind to those around you, it costs you nothing and more people spreading good throughout the world makes the world easier to live in in general. No, this time his Words had become True.
Joe, what did you do wrong in this part right here? His teacher asked, trying to help everyone learn through the power of shared embarrassment.
. I dont know ?
Joe at least try to figure it out... His teacher sighed.
That negative before the b in the quadratic solution thingy wasnt supposed to be there?
No, of course its supposed wait, youre right? That shouldnt be the case... A look of confused contemplation started growing on the teachers face.
And that was when Joe learned just how poorly things could go when superpowers change the rules of how math worked. It started off with little things. The edges of the walls didnt quite meet up right with each other. The desks didnt look quite right. Other things started happening in strangely logically illogical ways.
Of course the negative belongs there! I was just kidding! he said, unnerved by the distinct wrongness he was seeing.
Right, I thought so. Yeah, see, it even says so in the textbook. The teacher rushed to say, confused. That wasnt what I was talking about. On the third line there you seem to have written a plus sign where a minus sign goes.
Oh, yeah, I do that more often than Id like. Still trying not to show how weirded out he was by what had just happened, Joe continued the conversation. So now that Ive corrected that the answer I get is 3 and -2.
The day continued on, and little coincidences kept adding on to each other throughout the day. That night, after dinner, Joe tested his theory as to what was going on using his familys fridge. There is an ice cream bar with my name on it waiting for me in the freezer. He said. No use testing it on something I wont enjoy he thought, opening the door to the freezer.
And there it was. A Joe Smith brand ice cream bar, sitting among the ice in the tray for the built in ice maker. That was rather odd, as such a brand didnt exist, as far as Joe knew. I guess I wont be the most average Joe around anymore, eh? he thought to himself, as he grabbed the ice cream bar and ate it. Next, he went to his room and checked his dresser first, then said Theres a candy bar in my top drawer. Opening it excitedly, he saw that there was indeed a candy bar in his sock drawer.
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The next day he had a rather bad stomachache, and had not really slept very well the night before, making school a bit of a chore. He still used his new Power to play little pranks on his classmates and teachers. None of the dry erase markers work today. was one of his less well thought out pranks. The news a few days later even had a short story about the strange worldwide coincidence that resulted. After a few other major and minor miscalculations, Joe soon learned to avoid saying anything as though it was a fact out loud on purpose. He still made a few mistakes from time to time though
And in other news, we have James Cameron Cameron on site to tell us about the mini giraffes that have recently turned into quite the scourge in Russia; James? The newscaster started.
Yes, thank you Karen. As you can see behind me, even farmers fields have not been spared, and(gunshots in the background) somewhat typical drastic measures have been taken. There is some good news, as some locals have started pet and food industries surrounding the new phenomenon. But if you are listening from anywhere near Russia, you might want to reinforce your fences, buy a guard dog, or build a pasture. Because these cute little guys dont seem to be going away anytime soon.
Another of the more minor mistakes ended up creating a bit of a stir As Joe was riding back from school he asked a friend about the amusement park next to Lane Park downtown.
What? Theres no amusement park in that part of town. Stop being silly. His friend scoffed.
And before he could stop himself, he blurted out; Of course there is. Its got roller-coasters and everything! And then everyone heard a faint, but deep THUNK, and turned to look towards downtown, and there, where an empty lot used to be, was a brand new, shiny, owner-less, amusement park. Amid the cries of Woaaahhh, and Thats so cooool! and such from the other students in the bus, his friend turned to him with a weird look in his eyes, and stopped talking.
Joe never managed to find his friend after that point in time and later learned his friends family moved out of the city because the father was a very suspicious type and was worried about builder ghosts kidnapping his kids.
This wasnt the end of his troubles, and lets just say that while everyone knows about leap days, few remember that February used to have 30 days before a certain unfortunate conversation Joe had with his sister. There was also the time when Joe claimed to know karate to show off in front of a girl he liked, and suddenly had a bit of a migraine as knowledge flooded his brain. His muscles were sore for weeks after as well, as they were forced to adapt to his training that seemed to take effect much more gradually than most of what his power did.
As one might guess, waking up in the nurse''s office an hour later with a splitting headache is not the best way to boost one''s confidence in front of a girl one likes. As such, Joe didn''t find out until later that the girl in question hated violence of any kind, and his attempt to show off had landed quite poorly indeed. But at least now he knew karate, which was awesome even if the way it happened was not at all like how they showed it in that movie about human powered machines and mind bending reality in the simulation of life.
He kept making mistakes like that, frequently paying with a bad headache or some time unconscious, and he thought he had mostly gotten the hang of giving himself abilities until he made another big mistake:
You know, George, I am incredibly strong, like super-humanly strong! Joe claimed one day. He wasn''t really trying to give himself extra powers, but was just bragging like any other average teenage boy. In fact, I can lift more than anyone else at school!
This was, from his perspective, a hundred percent true. Unfortunately for Joe, his newfound power didn''t see it that way, and he was quickly made aware of his muscles'' increasing levels of pain. They remade themselves right then and there, constantly tearing themselves apart, and healing, over and over until he was visibly ripped and shredded. Which is to say his muscles had grown so noticeably that by the time he could focus on what was going on around him again, George was sitting back, practically laying down, as he scooted away from the freakish display in front of him.
Owwowowow.... that hurt. Shit, I have super healing factor to!? Which then caused another round of pain, though this was more like ants crawling through every nerve he had, slowly making them all itch, and before he knew what he was doing, he had already scratched patches of skin off his arms, which quickly grew back. This then resulted in a rather odd sight of a perfectly healthy boy sitting surrounded by bloody skin with no sign of a scratch on him, aside from all the blood.
Ok, yeah, that was actually somehow worse. Yeouch. I guess I should go to the showers or something. He rambled, more in shock than practical. George had at this point fainted, not ready for what he saw that day in the slightest. So Joe just went to the P.E. locker room, and showered, clothes and all, ending the experience by turning to a confused face nearby to say; I''m all dry now.
While events like this happened quite rarely, it started to happen often enough that other people began to take notice, and Joe was forced to make another factual statement that fundamentally changed reality on purpose once more. Those around him kept mentioning the weird things going on, and he knew sooner or later they would figure out the source was him, so one day, he turned to one of his classmates as they walked to their next class and said:
Wanna know something awesome? It''s super secret, and I''m sure the government has been trying to cover it up, but... Superheros are real now!
Shut up, Joe! That can''t be real. Everyone knows that those are just internet rumors and doctored videos. His classmate replied, moving further away from Joe as he dodged a puddle from the rain the night before.
So you say now, but they won''t be able to cover it up for much longer. You''ll see. Joe said, making sure to double down so that his power had to activate. I hope I awaken a really cool ability, like flying or telekinesis.
Yeah, right, you''ll probably get something dumb like glowing when you hold your breath hard enough. His classmate joked back, enjoying the topic.
That''d be weird, why would anyone want that? If I got something that bad, you''d probably get stuck only able to heal plants or something like that. Joe cracked, as they continued towards their next class.
This was right before The Great Awakening began, and the rest of that particular effect Joe''s power had you all know all too well. Things kept going in a similar fashion for a while, and Joe quickly stopped being a topic of interest, as other new super-humans started taking the focus off of him. But there exists a file in a secret government database somewhere that lists him as the first known super-human, and one of the most dangerous.
Strength Isnt Everything
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have been putting that off for a bit too long.
A Glowing Review
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th version, was a light-based long range ray-gun, and thankfully, this time, it didn''t explode when he channeled his new power through it and down the range at his target. No, this time, instead of trying to push a projectile down the barrel and out of the gun, his power itself was the ammo, and when he hit his target, it exploded into flames. Finally a gun capable of harnessing his powers had been built.
Can You See Me Now?
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she was different. And she needed practice, and more endurance.
him, she stopped her trick, and the other guy got really scared, and the creepy guy chased the shabby guy away. That was kinda sad, cause she thought the shabby guy actually looked quite nice, but that''s the price she paid willingly to stay unseen as a shy girl. Anyways, she kept getting better at this, and even started playing around at football games to see if she could get the candid camera to pick specific people.
A Slippery Businessman
The office was always an unfortunately chaotic place. Order was maintained, but there was always that one joker trying to break the tension in ways that went just slightly too far. Alfred Honeywell was a middle manager of a tech giant company that was just high enough on the ladder to make a ridiculous yearly salary, while being low enough on the corporate ladder not to be well-known himself or in the public eye.
He considered himself rather fortunate to have the position he had, even if he was often sent to other offices to smooth out fires or help a particularly troublesome employee find a better area to spend their excess energy. This particular day, he had been back in his home office for a few weeks, an absolute rarity these days, as the superhero outbreak had caused the troublemakers in every office to have more energy than they knew what to do with. Alfred also thought himself particularly overqualified to handle just about any form of chaos, even super-powered chaos. He had helped more than one employee work their way through the awkward first few weeks of being powered.
Having just finished such a case in a satellite campus in Kansas, he came back to his home office to find one of his regular problem coworkers being silly, but not really disrupting anyone''s work too much with his antics. Having already redirected the said coworker''s silly office skits into a mostly productive in-office mini-series on the company intranet, and making sure he knew not to spend more than a certain amount of time per work day on it, Alfred was now relaxing in his office, looking through his emails to check for anything else that he needed to take care of.
There were no high priority items, so he started responding to low priority complaints and helping the local managers to either understand better, or make small suggestions to, their particular problematic employees. It was rewarding work, as he was able to smooth the wrinkles and grease the squeaky wheels that would otherwise have reduced the profits of the company and, just as bad, let chaos and disorder ruin everyone''s days at work. Once he finished his work for the day, and it was quitting time, he left the building, and made his way home.
The next day, things continued along the same theme, no big messes to clean up, nothing truly stuck out as a particularly difficult problem to solve. That is, until he was walking back from the break room to his office at the end of his first break. As he passed a certain coworker''s cubicle, one certain person he frequently counseled with, he suddenly slipped on the carpet as though it was the slickest of ice.
Amanda! What have you done this time? Alfred groaned as he got up. This was a new one for her, as she usually liked to spread silly, mostly harmless at first glance, rumors. Ones that quickly grew to be much more disruptive than she intended.
What boss? Came the reply, as the troublemaker in question popped her head out of her cubicle to see what was going on. Her confusion and concern looked quite genuine, as did her surprise when she saw him. After helping him get back up, much to both of their surprise, she saw him slip on seemingly normal carpet once more, and as she took a step forward to help, she also slipped, and fell right on top of him. Ooomph!
Owww... I take it this isn''t your doing then? I didn''t think this was the type of thing you liked doing, but your cubicle is right there... Alfred rambled, as he got his thoughts together. Whatever was going on, Amanda didn''t seem to be the one responsible for it. And as he got back up again, he and Amanda helping each other to achieve the surprisingly difficult feat, he realized that their troubles were by no means over.
As a crowd gathered, they kept slipping and sliding as though they were putting on a skit, much like the kind the fellow he just finished helping liked to put on. Being who he was, and well enough known at least in this particular office, everyone else quickly realized that something was indeed not going right. As the number of people slipping and sliding grew, and the number of people working shrank, Alfred knew he had to change how he was handling things. By now he and Amanda were surrounded by several people in both directions down the hallway.
As he observed the situation further, Alfred realized something strange; the further they got from him, the more people recovered. Acting on his suspicions, he had everyone but Amanda back away, and hold onto something for a bit. Soon only he and she were still slipping on everything, and he tried having one person help each of them move away from each other. As Howard from a few cubicles down grabbed his hand, they kept slipping, and Amanda and her helper slowly got better.
It''s me? He wondered aloud. Well, there''s a first time for everything I guess. Howard, help me to my office, and I''ll handle things from there.
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Soon Alfred was back in his office, sitting on his C now much slipperier C chair, he took stock, and gathered his wits again. Protocol dictated who he should notify, and he began typing the email, which took far longer than it should have as his fingers kept slipping off of the keys and hitting other keys. After sending emails back and forth with his supervisor for a while, it was determined that he should spend some time in the company special house getting the hang of his new condition.
The company had long since come up with the retreat for retraining employees who awakened such that they could continue their lives, leading to more than one local hero gaining control of their powers and quietly helping their communities in their off time. He had never imagined he would find himself there, his life was quite how he liked it, order was important to him, after all. But being sent there turned out to be the beginning of yet another troublesome session of chaos unleashed.
The normal way people were sent to the Special House was to be bussed there. The problem with this was that as soon as he touched the bus, it started sliding away from him. He quickly released his hold on the doorway, and soon it came to a stop. They decided that he couldn''t take a bus there, and the next thing they tried was to send him there on a helicopter.
People usually don''t think about the physics involved in how a helicopter flies, but to make a long story short, they don''t do a very good job of flying when the friction between the blades and the air is taken away. They are also much quieter when the blades don''t have to push the air out of the way. This was a new experience not only for him and his supervisors, but also for the drivers and pilots he variously met as they tried to figure out a way to get him to the Special House.
Eventually they settled on putting him in an enclosed sled, which was attached via chains to a truck which was then driven to the retreat. To say that there was much awkwardness and chaos involved in the process would be putting his frustrations lightly. Alfred did NOT enjoy chaos, he enjoyed resolving chaos, bringing order to disorder. Being the solution to the problems the company faced was the main thing he liked about his job. It was what sent him home with a smile on his face.
It actually took a few days and the eggheads in the development department to come up with the method that finally got him to the Special House. They were strangely excited to interact with someone who seemed immune to friction, and even made him a few sets of clothes specifically designed to be less.... awkward... for a person with his condition to wear. Buttons tended not to work quite right, as did velcro. Zippers worked OK but they needed easier to grip handles.
Alfred spent his time at the Special House with people who seemed to enjoy the chaotic energy and atmosphere of the place. Having helped nearly everyone who was there to get there, he had to experience the embarrassing reunions with each of them almost one at a time, as they tended to need unique environments during the early days of getting used to their new powers. They all seemed quite happy there, and their enthusiasm helped to calm his nerves and help him to settle in.
The young woman with sticky fingers, literally, everything she touched got sticky, was a surprisingly useful friend to make. Whenever they hung out with each other, their powers interfered with each other, usually making life easier on both, other than the times when they seemed to switch and suddenly everything was both slippery AND stick, in unpredictable ways. Clearly, they were not each others'' solution to controlling their powers. But Alfred did seem to learn more about controlling his powers when he spent time with her, and she seemed to have a similar effect in her attempts to control hers as well.
As it turned out, when his powers were going haywire and behaving unpredictably C in other words, when he was least happy C was when it was easiest to feel them working, and how they worked. Seeing as that was the first step to learning to control them, both Alfred and Hazel, the sticky girl, were happy to spend more time with each other. Hazel was much happier than Alfred though, as she seemed to thrive on the chaos, and he... well, he did not enjoy it one bit, which gave him that much more focus and determination to gain control.
A few weeks after entering the Special House, another powered came whose powers interacted directly with theirs showed up, someone who was also familiar to Alfred. Amanda had shown up, and her powers were something he would have never thought of. In fact, they were so strange it was nearly impossible to describe what they even did. In any case, they spent a lot of time together with Hazel, and the other residents started teasing Alfred about his little harem, which was absurd, as he did not even think of coworkers romantically ever.
There was no company policy against it, but he had seen enough chaos caused from couples at the company coexisting poorly when at different levels of the company ladder, that he had long since stopped looking at people at work as potential romantic endeavors. Anyways, as he spent more time with them, he understood more about how his, and their powers worked, not well enough to describe Amanda''s powers to anyone, but enough to get a better hold on his own. It was somewhat embarrassing to have someone from his home office watch him occasionally slip up, often literally falling on his backside right in front of her.
A few weeks later, they were spending time with each other at Hazel''s villa, and Alfred thought he had a good control over his powers, when Arthur came over for a visit. His powers were rather unfortunate, making him cause people to look at him at random times, unable to look away for a few moments before being able to continue acting as they wished. As Alfred looked at Arthur, his concentration was disrupted, and everything in the entire villa suddenly became slippery, completely frictionless. This wasn''t that different from how it normally was, as Hazel''s powers made it necessary to put her in a very slippery environment in the first place, to help offset her powers. Events like this were happening less frequently now, and Alfred knew he would soon be able to return to work.
A week later, he was proven right, as he finally could control when his powers triggered, for how far, and for how long. As he returned to the office, and started getting back to solving problems, he occasionally had to fix problems he had caused in a moment of distraction, bringing his visits a new level of enjoyment to those he tried to help, much to his embarrassment. Another power had appeared, and a new entry was made, as another person came to understand their new capabilities.
A Romance with no Momentum
still treated her just like everyone else.
far longer than it should have. It took it a full minute to stop spinning, and by then, one of her coworkers had stopped to watch, and drawn a small crowd. When it finally fell she looked up to see at least ten people looking over the edge of her cubicle to watch the spectacle. One of them finally spoke up as they looked at each other in confusion;
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Slow Down Turbo
much faster than that, as she couldn''t think of any other time she had rung her own bell this hard.
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control said difference, and she spent the next hour trying to trigger it on purpose, crashing more often than she would like to admit. Once she even zoomed right off of the track and crashed into one of the ''roid-tards as she thought of them. You know the type, they use steroids to bulk up and then go to the gym to try and bulk up further. He went flying, Jenni barely caught herself, and while Jenni was unhurt, the ''roid freak was not so lucky.
more meetings and other such things as it only took her moments to get from one side of town to the other. Except that she didn''t. Her bosses insisted that she actually slow down with her side projects and she had to spend more time idle than she had had since she was ten years old.
Reaching a bit Further
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An Unfortunate Departure from Normal
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four knives! Two knives were poking out of each hand, and as Zachary stood there staring at his hands, Joe started laughing uproariously, before plucking two of them out of Zachary''s hands before heading off towards the mess hall.
Not Quite So Heavy A Topic
whump'' on the grass. It was such a gentle fall that it had to have had its weight changed, or whatever it was that Hunter did. Quickly Hunter went through his various sensing techniques that he had been learning to try and sense how he was changing its weight, as he pulled the large truck back upright.
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Thats Just The Way The Puddle Pools
how literally she was melting into the chair, her body was nearly a quarter gone before she freaked out and started pulling herself back together. This time it took a bit longer, and her brother almost noticed she was acting weird before she managed to get up and rush off to her room. And when she glanced back at the comfy chair that almost ate her, she was surprised to see it was completely dry.
them behind. Her aunt had all kinds of advice on how to handle them, ranging from makeup cover-ups to eating habits that sounded absolutely gross.
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breathing! That jolt of panic helped her focus, oddly enough, and soon she had pulled herself out of her bedding entirely and was just pooling on her bed, slowly pulling herself back together.
Thorny Conundrums
really wanted to gain some sort of powers. His friend even managed to gain the power to glow when he held his breath, and even managed to turn it into something useful. That happened at the end of the last school year, and now, halfway through the next school year, Greg was getting frustrated at not being able to do anything special.
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A Ghostly “Science”
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Moving to the Sound of the Beat
th grade. In fact, now that he was a junior in High School, he won first or second place in both of the biannual talent shows that he had access to every year for the last four years. This was more of an accomplishment than it might have been in his parents'' time, as he was competing against literal super-humans on the stage.
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The Path Least Traveled
Kayla Stork had long been called all sorts of things by people who were trying to understand her, people who were dismissive of her, and people who were trying to be mean to her alike. Almost none of them came anywhere close to truly describing her, and while labels such as airhead, distracted, ADHD, goofy, silly, stupid, and zany had been thrown around, none of them were really accurate. Sure, she enjoyed being silly when there was no reason not to be, and she did at times stop keeping track of what was going on around her.
But why would she bother with things that didn''t matter? She had been a straight A student since kindergarten, and being a Junior in High School. And Kayla figured that record stood on its own merits to show that when it mattered, she paid attention and got things done. Just because she liked getting high on the natural joys of life and didn''t go out seeking uncouth sources of titillation didn''t mean that she was anything more than a happy person enjoying life.
Did she sometimes walk into objects she wasn''t expecting to be in her path because she was thinking about other things? Sure, of course that happened when she let her mind wander too far afield. Did that mean she was an airhead who was too stupid to pay attention? Of course it didn''t, she just spent her time on the things she cared about, and let other things pass her by.
She had quit cheer-leading when she started High School and focused more on gymnastics because the other members of the squad started pursuing boys in ways that made her uncomfortable. She still wanted to stay active in a similar sport, and it was pretty fun too, so she stuck with it. She was contemplating a new move she wanted to incorporate into her routine as she walked to her next class between periods when she noticed her surroundings didn''t look quite right.
She had taken a turn at the end of a building, but instead of leading to the hallway that she was expecting, she had somehow ended up inside of a Walmart store. The nearest one to her school was at least a few blocks away, and she didn''t understand how that was possible. She did a perfect 180 and started walking back the way she came, distracted by how weird things were, and found herself back where she had started, at that same corner she had turned at before.
Confused, but not really caring about it, she turned back around, looked where she was going, and went on with her trip to her next class. Physics was a nice enough class, but they didn''t really get into the really interesting stuff until a few courses later and until after a few calculus classes. And so her thoughts meandered away as she kept walking to her class.
She didn''t even really give the weird trip any thought until the next day, when she once again found herself somewhere strange after taking a turn at a slightly different angle than she normally did. This time there was a group of her classmates talking to each other where she normally walked, and she turned to go around them, kept walking, and found herself in a doctor''s office waiting room. It wasn''t one she had been to before, but she had had to take physicals every year for ages now, and she knew how to get out of such places, so she wasn''t worried.
Besides, the last time this happened, she just used her athletic prowess and familiarity with her own body to do a perfect 180 and was able to get back on track easily, so she just repeated the performance and was able to repeat the feat and go on with her day. She did spend some time thinking about how weird it was to suddenly show up places she wasn''t expecting to, but her thoughts didn''t really stay on that train after she sat down in her seat and got ready for her next class. Anomalous anomalies will remain mysterious until a pattern emerges, after all.
Her next surprise actually came that same day as she was walking home, and suddenly found herself in her own room after taking a turn down an alleyway she knew was way too far away for her to have gotten lost in thought for that long. Now, this one was a bit more discomfiting, as she didn''t like the idea of people randomly finding themselves in her room in her home, so she took a closer look around her as soon as she noticed the change.
But nothing was amiss. No walls were missing, no strange doors appeared, nothing seemed different than normal. So she looked closer, turning slower as she peered at her room suspiciously. And then she started to see them. Slivers of paths in nearly every direction, except, not quite in any of the three dimensional directions she was used to.
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It was like there were paths between spaces where there was no gap. Confused, she picked on that looked interesting, and started walking, leaving her backpack on her bed were she had put it down when she got home. This path lead to a storeroom of some sort, full of crates of fruits and vegetables and cardboard boxes of all different sizes. Continuing on, she picked another path and found herself in what seemed to be the back end of a police station, to the shock and outrage of several police officers who quickly hid a card game from the table.
Deciding she didn''t want to stick around there much longer, she picked a strangely greyscale looking path and found herself in a strange endless landscape of grey dust, feeling oddly lighter than normal. And then she turned to look at the sun, and saw the Earth sitting next to it, and realized she was on the moon, and had probably better pick a more colorful path, and fast.
She next found herself in a very nice park, full of green plants and people with really nice tans that didn''t seem to be speaking a language she recognized. And then she started getting concerned, because she realized that the temperature was all wrong, and the plants seemed to be showing signs of spring, instead of the fall she left behind. She used a phone app to find north, and picked a path going directly that way, and a few paths later she was hearing people speak Spanish.
As soon as she found herself in an area with English speakers, she stopped using the strange paths between space itself, and made her way to a church she saw nearby and took a nap on one of the benches. She was feeling really tired, and maybe even a bit too scared to think straight, so she figured finding a safe place to rest and get her head back in order was a good plan. When she woke up, she used her phone''s map app to find out where she was, which was apparently somewhere in New Mexico, and pointed herself roughly in the direction where her home should be and started taking paths in that direction.
Now, while she had definitely gotten her emotions back into some level of order, it was still hard to avoid the fear and panic trying to force their way back to the forefront, so it took her until long after dinner to make her way back home. As night was falling, and it was started to get dark, she finally found her way onto a street near where she lived, and went the rest of the way using good old mundane sidewalks.
As scared and relieved and excited and worried as she was, her parents quickly realized this was different than the times she would lose track of time and just forget to come home soon enough. As her mother pulled her into a hug and she returned it with more force than she realized, they started talking about what happened. Thankfully people manifesting powers was a regular occurrence these days, so it wasn''t as difficult as Kayla had feared to convince her parents that she had experienced what she had.
The outcome of that little family meeting however, was that Kayla had to have location services locked on using parental controls on her phone, and she had to promise to pay more attention to where she was going. She also had to quit normal P.E., which she didn''t really mind as they mostly did boring stuff that wasn''t nearly to the standard she liked to work out at on her own. The part she did mind was the manifestation training classes, as they frankly seemed to do more harm than help for her.
Kayla finally proved to the teachers that she was fully able to choose when she used her powers by walking down a path that took her out of the special gymnasium manifestation class was in and into another building. Unfortunately, that particular path lead to the middle of the school''s pool, and before she could take another step, she fell into it, and had to make her way to the side of the pool and get out to concentrate enough to find the paths again.
She came back into the manifestation paths class soaking wet in her P.E. uniform, and a bit embarrassed, but the teachers finally stopped trying to get her to feel for her powers and learn to use them on purpose. They then focused on having her learn how to control them better and helping her discover elements of her abilities that might enable her to use them more safely. She appreciated the new focus and thew herself into trying to flesh out her skill set into something more easily controlled.
Over the next few weeks Kayla found herself in a men''s changing room for some gym C thankfully not the one she used C in an operating room currently in use in a hospital, both of which she quickly left, and various other strange places she hadn''t intended to go to. Once she even found herself miles up in the air, and had to use the momentum gravity and air friction gave her to pick a path to safety. She had to wear a specialized squirrel suit when practicing after that. It had a life jacket built in and a pull cord that turned the whole outfit into a giant balloon of nylon like a personal airbag, just in case anything happened.
But even as she found more awkward places to suddenly arrive at, Kayla slowly got a better handle on how to pick where to go and even managed to get a rough idea of where she was going. She was far from mastering her powers, and even walked into embarrassing locations accidentally all the time, like the bar that was in the middle of a sports game fueled frenzy that she stumbled into. When she arrived she nearly knocked a giant of a man over and quickly jumped back, a method she had developed to avoid having to turn around first before escaping a bad landing as she had taken to calling them.
As her junior year came to an end, however, she was in enough control of her abilities to graduate from manifestation class, and her records were updated, and sent to the mainframe. Kayla didn''t really care about that, and the release forms had been done away with a year ago when the list had become mandatory anyways, so there wasn''t really anything she could do about it, even if she did. She did have to be careful with her gymnastics routines now, as she didn''t want to find herself somewhere unexpected in the middle of a competition.
The Wide Receivers Rebound
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It was rather surprising that anyone would still take the risk of being a bully when the scrawny nerd you''re about to punch could randomly exhibit superpowers, but some people just couldn''t handle their home life without acting out elsewhere even now. So when the would be bully pulled himself back to his feet, and saw that Greg had already gotten back up and was walking towards him, he let out a snarling growl and charged right at him.
Putting the “inic” in Dominic
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Laying a Different Kind of Tiles
He worked alone, so nobody ever bothered him at his office unless they had a complaint about work he had already done, or a request for a job they wanted done. Tim enjoyed his solitude between jobs, and the quality of his work let him charge quite the premium for it, so he made enough to live quite a comfortable life. He had just finished reviewing the design for his next commission when he noticed another geometric design embedded in the placement and shapes of the tiles within it.
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The morning they were scheduled to leave, he read in the paper about a lawyers'' office in a rather familiar location that closed down. The reason they claimed to be the cause of the office''s closure was the apparent inability of anyone on the premises to lie. As unlikely as that seemed to him, Tim was aware of how superpowers seemed to be appearing all over the place lately, so he just chuckled at the irony of the incident and went on with his vacation plans.
and healing, and shared his insight with his family. His wife was wary and quite unconvinced of the cause of the change, but they had a schedule to keep, and they were both rather strict with keeping to schedules, so they continued on, and postponed discussing this further until they got to their next scheduled stop.
An Interlude of Disappointment
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