Aberrant: 200X - Must Focus Contessa-san!

[Contessa]

Surprised, Ming Xao (AKA: Mixie, AKA: Mixleplix, AKA: Contessa’s best friend EVAR!) quietly approached the bedroom door of the one girl she adored more than anything in the multiverse. She pressed her ear up for only a moment, long enough to hear the room’s occupant grumble about nothing to wear. Rolling her eyes and smirking she entered without a knock.

“Hey Mix.” Contessa said casually, kneeling in front of her dresser in a fluffy pink towel throwing clothes from over her shoulder onto her bed.

“Damn! How’d you know it was me?” She stood up straight, casting aside her plans for an elaborate stealth attack.

“Multi-Spatial Perception.” She said flatly, more focused on her clothes digging than anything else.

“Ah, right.” Mixie looked around the room. Her closet door was open where several cardboard boxes had been stacked neatly on the side she didn’t use for hanging clothes. Her bed was a mess, and her computer chair seemed to have become victimized too. “Uh… what’re you doing?”

“I’m looking for my Grognak the Barbarian t-shirt.” Contessa replied, closing her last drawer, defeated that she never found it. “The one I got with my Fallout 3 pre-order and Gamestop?”

“It’s in the dryer.” The asian girl said with an assurance that made clear that she usually knew what was going on in the Danae household better than the Danae’s did.

“Oh! Forgot about that!” Like a bolt she flew upwards. Instead of her head crashing through the ceiling however the flat space simply rippled like water and Contessa was the stone that disrupted it’s surface.

Up through the floor she rippled a few moments later, shirt in hand and look of glee to go with it. That was until she saw Mixie sitting on her floor outside her closet going through the boxes she had packed away. Various articles of clothing, from attractive tops to tight fitting jeans and short dresses were mingled among the mess of Contessa’s other clothes. “Mix!”

“Shadap!” She shot back, silencing her friends attempt to stop her from being nosey. She had already done it, she was nosey and had won, time to move on. “Ceej, where did you get this stuff? I love this dress.” She raised a red, tight fitting dress from one of the boxes and already Mixie’s mind was on where she could wear it. Although not appropriate for a day of school, she could wear it to a party, a date (if she ever got one), or out one night when she and Tessa went to the movies.

Contessa sighed. She had planned on throwing them all out before Mixie had gotten her mitts into them, but had forgotten. “It’s yours if you want it. I’m never going to wear it.”

“Cool, thanks.” There was some hesitation in her acceptance. Tessa was never one to give up clothes to Ming this easily without a fight. “But I didn’t ask for it, I asked where you got all this stuff. Dude, you could stock your closet three times over with all this stuff.”

“My mom sent it all.” She padded through the mess of clothes until she made it to her dresser to procure something to put on under her towel. “She designed it all, when she upped and abandoned my dad and me she moved to New York. Now she designs her own clothing line, and thinks I should care. A testament to how she thinks. I’m sixteen Mixie and she sends me clothes that’ll make me look like a tramp. The woman is not right.”

“Actually, Tessers, these are all really nice.” Ming continued to rummage around, because that was her nature, nosey and invasive. “Okay, maybe a little tight for your tastes, but you’d not look like a tramp in any of this stuff. It’s all very nice.”

“Huh. In one of them there’s a whole array of ‘bust enhancers’ and underwear that no sixteen year old needs to be wearing. She’s a fruitloop. She thinks women are all just better off using their looks instead of their brains to get what they want.”

“Then how did she get where she is?” Ming asked as she discovered the box Tessa was talking about a moment ago. “New York is killer Ceej. For her to go there with nothing and end up a fashion designer who runs her own company… sounds like your mom is pretty smart to me. And these are really not that bad Ceej.”

“Then you wear them. Have at it, you can have it all, Ming. I’m not going to wear any of that stuff, like, ever.” The lovely blond nova was almost completely dressed; having taken the liberty while Ming’s back was turned. Despite being best friends, she was never comfortable about showing skin around people, Mixie was an exception but not completely so.

“Pass. Love ya, but pass.” Ming stood up and walked over close to where Tessa was. Even after almost a year she grinned as her friend was struggling with the clasp of her ‘bust enhancer’. “You know, if you clasp it first then just turn it around and slide the straps over your shoulder, it a lot easier. All your brains, and you’re out done by a bra. That’s a trip.”

Tess’s arms covered herself as she felt Ming looking in her direction. “Yeah, well, never really wore ‘em much, and by that I mean, ever. I didn’t even think about it, I was talking to you.” She nearly jumped from her skin as Ming’s fingers touched her back. A wave of panic swam over her as her entire opinion of her best friend flipped around 180 degrees while a conversation of ‘I don’t like you in that way’ already began to script itself in her mind. And just like that the clasps were secured.

“There. Next time I’m charging. Friend prices of course, but work is work.” Mixie collapsed onto her bed, heedless of the mountain of clothes. “Designing is an Art C.J.. I think it’s really cool of her to send you clothes like that, those are her work, her life. She’s sent you a piece of her heart, I can’t take that from you. Sorry, as much as I love stealin’ your shit, I can’t swipe that stuff. And get the dumb look off your face, it was a bra clasp going on, not off. When I’m ready for hot lesbian sexcapades, you’ll be the first I call, but for now, get a grip.”

She relaxed. Ming was right, as least about the bra anyway, she was only trying to help and the her way with words helped added a certain levity to Tess’s own insecurities that made it easy for her to take the harmless touching in stride. “Yeah, well she can have it back Mix. I don’t want her clothes, her butt floss, her fancy dresses and certainly don’t want her heart.” The Fallout 3 t-shirt slid over her frame and stretched about as far as fabric could around her perfect, gravity defying body. “I have to be at the Rashoud Clinic like, ten minutes ago. Can you drive me?”

“Sure!” Ming leapt up from the bed and was already at the door. She let the topic of Tess’s mother go. “What’s up there?”

“Power training. Two days a week.”

“Oh, crap. I’m a day off, I thought it was leftovers night.” Ming snapped her fingers.

“Nope, meatloaf.” Tess grinned with perfectly glossed rose-colored lips. “And Dad’s cooking.”

“Dude, I say we make a run for the border.” The two slipped through the door giggling about how atrocious Peter Danae’s cooking was.

[Contessa]

She sat in the locker room; a pink and white eufiber uniform in her hands. They were kind enough to find her something that suited her upbeat and cheerful personality, pink seemed to be the match. It wasn't 'true' eufiber and she knew that, what she held was simply a composite fiber that, while it attuned to a nova's quantum signature, didn't change it's shape or hold a reserve quantum charge.

Several WiFi induction pads were sewn into the suit across all major nerve endings which broadcast her mental and emotional state as well as heart rate and physical condition. She'd have been lying if she said there was something about the material, the comfort of soft cotton yet with the density and smoothness of rubber, that felt comfortable on her body. The induction pads prevented her from wearing any clothing beneath it, which she didn't understand, but never bothered to ask the scientists about it.

She stood up from the bench and stifled a laugh. The suit was huge! Nearly ten sized to large for her with eufiber just hanging off her like she was wearing a really obese Pink Rangers skin. Okay, that was gross...

She concentrated for a few seconds, like she was taught, and the suit slowly began to shrink, conforming itself tightly to her perfect body. Cupping under chest, between her fingers, and even tightly squeezing her buttocks, Contessa found herself feeling like a super heroine. She had always asked herself why their costumes didn't seem to conform around their body, but instead up into their body. She walked passed the mirror on the way to the exit, the uniform was polished to such a sheen she could almost catch her reflection in it from the mirrors surface.

Wow... here I stand in a Utopian locker room wearing skin tight pink EuRubber... if Mixie ever knew this, she'd have to die, I'd be ruined. Smirking at her own devious humor she stepped out, tying her hair up tightly in a ponytail on her way out to the training area.

*****

Just like the Danger Room from her comics, the huge cylindrical chamber she was in was dark and relatively bare. The lighting was all in the floor, dim and covered by extra thick sheets of plexi-glass. Along one section was a massive observation window, mirrored so she could not see who was observing her. She found that odd, but never really cared, since having people watch her would only have made her more nervous.

"Looking good Contessa." A modulated voice echoed through out the chamber.

"Very funny Dr. May." She spoke to the air, knowing he could hear her. "You know I hate this thing. Pink rubber, are you guys serious? I mean come on, are thigh high heels and a whip next?"

"We don't design them Contessa, and you asked for pink."

"It was better than the black. Hey, why can't you guys just sew these induction pads into... I dunno, spandex?" She asked as she made her way to the center of the chamber. Her feet padded softly on the cold dark blue floor of the chamber.

"Believe it or not, we tried it that way awhile back." A circular area in the chamber floor split apart and opened, from it rose a table made from the same dark blue metal. Upon it were several objects, all of which she used for training. "It works, but the readings don't mesh as well as when we use eufiber. The natural way the fiber attunes to your signature allows us to get much more accurate readings. Personally, since we are monitoring your health and well being, I'd much rather go with the eufiber suits."

I'm sure the view is nice too, jerks. "Okay, what first?" she asked, faking the bubbly tone of excitement in her voice.

[Contessa]

"Same as last week, Tessa," Dr. May's came through the room. "Focused gravity fields on single objects. This should be easy for you by now."

"So I'm a slow learner, big deal." She shot back, a little irritated by the doctors sudden critique. She hated the power trainings. Her lack of focus was dangerous, but it only seemed to be an issue while these doctors looked over her shoulder. She'd messed around with Mixie a few times, dropping gravity fields about the basement of her house so they could play in zero-g for a bit, but a focused gravity field seemed more difficult. "I'll get it." Eventually...

Her quantum field slowly sprang to life around her, although not an anima per se the manipulation of gravity caused her signature to be come faintly visible when she activated her rarely used talents. Faint traces of purple vapor encompassed her hands, a product of excited mythical gravitons becoming visible to the naked eye.

The world slipped away, farther and farther she let her senses regress until all that was left was a muted heartbeat thumping in her ears. Her breathing relaxed and her hand raised slowly towards the direction of the table and the items scattered across it. Her eyes snapped, empty and glossy black like the depths a collapsed star, traces of a vapor floated up from them like a smokey purplish tears.

The power of gravity was hers to command.

"Focus Tessa, just like we taught you..." came the modulated voice of Dr. May, but she was too far-gone to hear him. She was focused and like always she was too focused.

From off the table floated a simple Randal Portman lunch box, surrounded by the vaporous purple anima. Palm out Contessa controlled its path upwards and it just bobbed there in the air, surrounded by a zero-g field.

“Careful… careful. Now, Contessa, collapse the field slowly. This should help provide finer manipulation of the object.”

With her vision warped into a world of perception that very few novas could imagine, a hazy dark world of gravitational pulls, ebbs, and flows, she carefully closed her fingers and clenched her fist to bring the field in tighter. Mentally he tried to ‘pull the strings’ of gravity around the tightened field like a puppeteer might do wit ha marionette; make gravity dance to her tune, but still keep it focused an under control.

A twitch in her stance told the doctors behind the glass that something was wrong. The force she was exerting with her node was greater than the strength of the room around her. She felt the loss of control coming on, but the harder she pulled to maintain that control the more power she let seep into the air where the pull simply absorbed it and grew stronger.

The lunch box crumpled like foil and just kept folding in on itself, smaller and smaller it shrunk until there was barely anything left as it’s shape was lost within that dark sphere that grew up in it’s place surrounded by a vaporous purple aura.

The room began to buckle as the bending of metal resounded from everywhere. The table rocked and the objects atop it flew off into the sphere crackling and crunching briefly before fading away completely.

“Contessa! Shut it down! Shut it down! Now!" The safety glass cracked and splintered, even twenty meters away the pull could be felt, and if the glass gave way all those within the room could see what fate held in store for them…

[Contessa]

Her stance became less casual as she planted herself firmly against the pull of the gravity she created. Oh god, oh god, oh god... crap, crap, crap!

The power of gravity coursed down each arm as she summoned the power to tear the 'strings' of quantum apart. With arms outstretched wide she pulled away from the sphere the purple quantum mist that made her power possible. With her mind in a panic she glanced from the quantum singularity before her to the cracking glass.

"Negate the field," a panicked should echoed through the room. "Get security!"

"I'm trying!" She shouted back, tears already pour down her cheeks, a product of the stress, worry, and intensity of he situation.

Splinters of glass filled the room briefly before the tug of the singularity pulled them inward. The men inside the observation room, Dr. May and his two assistants were pulled right along as they tumbled end over end through the air. Their screams filled her ears and she watched in terror the three men barreling towards her creation.

Please, oh my god, please... just go away... with teeth gritted she clenched her fists and called upon the power of her node once more. An assistant of the doctor tumbled into her knocking her over and they slid several feet away from the Event Horizon.

A single piece of crushed lunchbox, a perfect sphere the size of a marble, tapped gently against the floor falling and rolling off on its own. After the assistant had rolled off of her she sat up on her knees and just cried with her face in her hands.

"It's alright Contessa." Dr. May rest his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to console her. "You did it. We're all safe, that's all that matters. We'll try again in a few weeks, alright?"

Without a word she batted his hand off her polished shoulder and just ran off into the locker room as fast as she could.