f a n f i c t i o n n a v i g a t i o n
when the rain begins to fall
don't dream it's over
dare to dream
never underestimate fate
christmas treats
awards
recommendations
Part 38
Call me childish, but I’m still miffed about Ava sending Alec away. I have needs, damn it! Needs that demand to be fulfilled and Alec looked pretty willing to take care of that for me.
Being miffed brings back the old miffed-ness regarding Ava never letting me know that she knew that I was in Seattle, so I’m double-miffed. And sulking.
Last time we talked about her non-acknowledgement of my being here we got sidetracked by my powers, but not this time. I can hold a grudge with the best of them, damn it.
Ava is smirking at me. “Don’t worry, lover-boy will be back. Trust me. He looked…hungry.” And she smirks again.
I glare at her for a moment. Pause. Then I just blur it out, sounding every bit as accusing as I’d intended. “Why did you hide from me for so long? You know, a quick ‘Hey Liz, what brought you to this lovely shit-hole of a city?’ really wouldn’t have been too much to ask. I thought we were friends.” Low blow, I know, but damn it, I’m angry. And I have every right to be.
Understanding dawns on Ava. “Ah, so that’s what the pout is about.”
“Partly,” I growl.
“I wasn’t hiding from you Liz.”
I raise my brow at her.
“Okay, at first I was, but as I said, I wanted to make sure you were alone here without the alien entourage. So after I saw you in TC, first chance I got I asked Calvin about you. He could only tell me that he thought you were here on your own, but he didn’t know for sure, and that you knew Joshua. So I tried to get the information out of Joshua, but he hardly knows me so he clammed up and wouldn’t tell me anything.
“By the time I got around to casually prying some information out of Alec, more than a week had passed. Then I went out of town for a few days to get more supplies and then the hostage situation happened, and here we are. I swear, I had literally no time to get in touch with you, besides the fact that I had no idea where you lived and never saw you in TC again.”
Okay, this sounds too reasonable to stay mad. “So you were trying to get in touch with me?”
She nods, rolls her eyes at me. “Of course I was, cornball.”
I snort. Then sigh, relent. “Okay, but I’m still mad about you interrupting my…breakfast.”
Ava smirks. “Can’t blame you for that, girl.”
****
“I have the powers of all four of them. Blasting, healing, dream-walking and mind-warping.”
Ava looks impressed, a bit surprised, but not half as shocked as she should be if you ask me. She just keeps on munching on one of my doughnuts.
I’ve spent the past ten minutes filling her in about everything that happened since she left Roswell in regards to my powers and so far, nothing seemed to surprise her. Until now, that is.
“That’s strange,” she says. "I only expected you to have our general powers and one or two unique powers of your own. But, wow, four uniques? Tight.”
“You know, a little warning would have been nice. The phrase ‘Max healed you and now you’re different’ isn’t really a sufficient preparation for this kind of life-changing event. And I have a unique power of my own,” I add, sending a spark into the air. I’m getting really good at that.
Now she really looks impressed. She almost chokes on her doughnut.
“Woah. Is that electricity? That is so neat. You know, it’s really rare for women to have strong physical powers on Antar, and it’s even rarer to have so many unique powers. That’s really special. You’d be high society if we were on Antar. The average person there only has two or maybe three unique powers, having more than four is definitely not ordinary. Unless you’re royalty. King Zan for example – not Max, his father…he was a great king by the way – he had nine unique powers if memory serves me right.”
Somehow I don’t see any reason to be happy about my unique status even among Antarians. “Yeah, well, I’d kind of prefer being ordinary right now. Having powers you have no control over sucks.” After a moment, “Why do I have so many unique powers? I mean, it doesn’t make much sense. I’m human...mostly.”
“I have a theory on that. As I said before, your ability to access your powers is one of the factors that influence their strength. The more energy you have to use to access them, the less you have left to use them.”
I nod. That makes sense.
“But there’s another factor. Brain capacity, or as you would call it, intelligence. The smarter you are, the stronger your powers are. And since you’re pretty smart- oh, don’t even try to deny it,” she tells me as I open my mouth to say something. “No need to fake modesty with me.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I protest. And what does she mean with ‘fake’ anyway?
“Anyway,” she goes on. “The smarter you are, the stronger your powers are, and the more unique powers you usually have. Now, blasting and dreamwalking are fairly common powers. Most women can dream-walk to some extent and most men can blast. In rare cases, it’s the other way around. Having both of those powers is kind of unusual, but not that rare. The electricity thing you can do is rarer than normal blasting abilities, but not quite as rare as healing and mind-warping. Mind-warping is actually pretty rare, even rarer than healing.”
Is this supposed to make me feel better? If so, not working.
“How’d you know all this?” I ask her.
“Mostly from Kal…our protector. He gave us endless lectures about the glory days of Antar. Before he abandoned us, that is. Some of it comes from my memories of Antar.”
Now that spikes my curiosity. “Do you remember a lot of your life on Antar?”
Ava stiffens ever so slightly, I almost miss it. “Not much. Just bits and pieces. Don’t really want to remember. What’s the point? It’s in the past.”
I hold back the questions that are rapidly piling up in my mind. Somehow I have the distinct feeling that Ava doesn’t want to talk about this. So I change the subject.
“So if human DNA doesn’t necessarily hamper the strength of your powers, how come the Pod-Squad has so much weaker powers than your set?”
“I think it has to do with the DNA that our original DNA was mixed with. The human donors that were picked...well, they weren’t exactly the Einsteins of your race. The operation was supposed to remain top secret – on both planets – and so they picked people who either lived rather isolated, or who nobody would believe anyway, the dense kind.”
“But they’re not stupid,” I protest. “I mean, Isabel always had good grades, Max’s were even better. Michael reads James Joyce. You have to be more than just smart to understand that. Trust me, I know. I tried, and failed miserably.”
“Chill,” Ava tells me, practically laughing at me. “I didn’t say they were stupid or anything. Just saying that the human essence that was mixed with their DNA affected the part of the brain that is used for our powers, and not in the good way. The original Royal Four, the ones on Antar, were pretty smart from what I heard, and from what I remember, and the human DNA added to their own didn’t affect their general intelligence in any significant way.
“But, well, it did affect some part of their brain. I know my powers are weaker than they were in my last life, even though the difference isn’t that noticeable. The difference should be more prominent within the other group though, since they received more human DNA and from what you told me, it is. Besides, they never had anybody train them. I’m surprised they got where they are all on their own. I also think that they all have powers they have yet to tap into.”
“Really? How come?”
“Well, back on Antar, they all had the powers they’ve discovered so far, but they had other powers as well. Of course, the human DNA that was mixed with their original DNA might prevent some of them from ever manifesting themselves in this life, but they should develop at least one or two more powers each.”
“What kind of powers?”
“Oh, all sorts of stuff…telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, clairvoyance, empathy, dream-manipulation…the list is endless. But actually, I kind of came here for a completely different reason.”
“Oh?”
Ava almost looks flustered. “Yeah, just wanted to, you know, make sure that you’re okay. I mean, after what happened yesterday. You were really drained. Thought you might need a little power boost.”
Aww, isn’t she cute, worrying about me like that. Now who’s the cornball? “I’m fine. But…to be honest, I don’t really remember much of what happened yesterday. Last thing I know, we’re in the bus and it won’t start. Then, poof, I wake up in TC.”
Ava looks confused. “I thought Alec would have filled you in by now.”
I fight the blush that’s threatening to shoot into my cheeks. “Um, yeah, we didn’t really do much talking last night.”
Ava raises an eyebrow at me.
“We slept!” I insist.
Ava smirks. “I’m sure you did.”
I narrow my eyes at her. Someone here needs to get her mind out of the gutter. Even if that someone technically has a point.
“So, what happened?” I ask, very effectively changing the subject.
“Well, we got onto the bus – you remember that, right? – but when Max tried to start it, it didn’t work. So she was up there in the driver’s seat cursing and beating the steering-wheel and we were ready to move out again and come up with a new plan when you leaned forward and started the car with your powers. Guess that was the electricity thing, huh? I was wondering.
“Anyway, the bus started and so we drove off. Oh, and you fainted. Used up too much energy I guess. Man, Alec freaked out. He was yelling at me the whole time about what I had done to you, really made it hard to concentrate on my mind-warp.”
She must have seen the worried look on my face. “Oh, no biggie. We were already kinda far away. Max was driving like a lunatic. Besides, I just had to hold up the mind-warp of the bus still being there, not conceal any people like before…that’s not that hard. A minute later I dropped it altogether. Would have loved the see the faces of those people when the bus just disappeared right in front of their eyes though, ‘specially White.”
She turns her attention back to me. “So, you okay cornball? No need for an energy boost?”
I shake my head.
Ava smirks at me. “Didn’t think so. You sure looked like you were up for some morning sport when I came into the room.”
I just glare at her.
Chapter: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
back