Aberrant: 2011 - (TBO) With Great Power

[Percivald]

It’s been nearly a whole day, a full twenty four hours since I turned up at the Project’s camp as a volunteer. I thought, being nearby, that it was practically my duty as a nova, no, as a fellow human being, to help all the people in Los Angeles. Plus, my telekinesis would surely come in useful. I was prepared to fly in and start, I don’t know, moving rubble out the way, rescuing children or something. Instead, they rounded us all up, gave us bunks and low-quality food, and told us to stay put. I pestered the high-ups enough that they told me it was some sort of political or bureaucratic thing, and that really got me annoyed. How could they let people die while they played at politics? They calmed me down saying everything would be resolved by early morning today. Turned out to be either a miscalculation or a deliberate lie, I’m still lying here in a makeshift hammock, surrounded by equally restless and grumbling volunteers. A break to the monotony comes when a beautiful afroamerican girl comes up to me to strike some conversation. I swear she has the most perfect hips ever bestowed upon a woman, and the rest of her isn’t much worse either.

“Hey there, I’m Tina,” she says, looking down at me. A small part of my brain wonders why she’s come to talk to me specifically, but most of it is wondering what it would be like to kiss those lips. Either this girl is exceptional or my self control isn’t doing too well. Probably both.

I smile, lazily, and answer, “Percivald.”

“Percy?” she smiles, but I wince, I mainly associate the nickname with burly kids flushing my head down toilets, but I don’t really complain, it sounds cute coming from her, “some guys told me you

were a nova.”

Well, that explains why she’s talking to me. I hate when that happens, I never seem to be approached without some ulterior motive. Even though my status as nova is not a very well-guarded secret, she catches me off-guard. Between the surprise and some instinctual ogling, I soon realize I’ve been looking at her without answering for a bit too long, and her good-natured smile (I wonder if it’s fake, just there to meet a nova) is turning into a frown. So I break the silence with the first thing that pops into my head.

“Yeah, my super power is to stare at cute girls.”

Yeah, I’ve had better.

I can tell she doesn’t know whether to blush or slap me in the face, or both. She mostly just glares at me, a reminder of why I shouldn’t try lame pick-up lines when dormed, I simply can’t pull them off.

“I thought Brits were supposed to be courteous,” she says, acidly. And here was me thinking I’d lost my accent.

“I must be going native,” I answer. Though I don’t want to be trading quips with her all afternoon, it’s still better than

being pestered about my novahood.

She rolls her eyes, and crushes my hopes of an idle chat. “You don’t much look like a nova,” she says.

“What were you expecting?” I say, and I’m planning ways of dodging the question indefinitely when a wicked idea pops into my mind. I really shouldn’t, and it goes against all kinds of vows I took when leaving England, although I must admit those promises have been looking frayed at the edges for months. Yet I have this incredible desire to impress her, to have those beautiful eyes looking at me with admiration. And it can be so easy when you

know how…

I close my eyes and let the juice flow through me. I can feel the nearly imperceptible changes, the way my bones and muscles move to adjust themselves to a slightly different body, how my face moulds itself into a more harmonious shape. I’m still recognizable as Percivald Newcombe, but when I open my eyes, they sparkle with charm. I must admit, the feeling’s a rush, and having her gasp and stare at me, much in the same way as I had been staring at her earlier, warms my heart incredibly. A part of me tells me it’s wrong, but I’ve been reconsidering my whole Buddhist morality since I was with Steve, and this certainly was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.