Aberrant: Mutant High - Learnin' the Ropes

[Warren Verona]

Between classes, counseling and detention Warren hadn't had nearly as much time to spend with Oneca as he'd of liked. Was slightly infatuated? Oh, hell yes, but it seemed a bit more than that as the two of them sat in the commons rooms and talked or watched T.V. at night. They walked the campus and sneaked around trying to learn the 'lay of the land' as he put it, and getting into a few places they probably shouldn't have been.

She was fun. She was brave. She was always down for a little bit of excitement, and his kissing skills had improved ten fold (although despite his request she refused to put that in writing). Despite all that he still hadn't built up the courage to actually ask her if the rumors floating about the school were true, about them 'dating'.

Not that he cared if they were or not... of course.

After classes that afternoon he was waiting for her her outside her dorm room, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. "Hey," he said, trying to conceal the ardor laden smile and failing miserably. "Got plans? Mostly because I thought I might turn out good o my promise and we'd do some practice with those powers of yours today. I found a great place where we won't have to worry about collateral damage."

"If you like this girl Revenant," Eileen Gomez's voice echoed in his thoughts as he remembered back to his counseling sessions earlier in the week. "Don't be afraid to tell her how you feel. There's no harm in complimenting her, and every woman loves to be complimented. Try it the next time you see her."

"Oh, uhh," He added as almost an afterthought. "You look nice today too."

[z020]

Oneca, true to form as both a girl and a girl smitten with a boy, preened at the compliment. She leaned up and kissed him lightly before ducking into her room on the assumption that he'd follow after. "Sure, that sounds great! Let me text Anya and Emilee and let them know I won't be around this afternoon."

She ditched her books in a pile on the bed and scooped up her cloak from where it had been tossed the night before while simultaneously texting one-handedly to the two other friends she'd managed to make so far at the school. Once she got her message off and the return beeps of acknowledgement from the two other teen mutants, she planted her hands on her hips and surveyed the room, ending with him. "Anything I need to bring along? Are we skipping dinner or do you think we'll be done by then?"

She was trying not to let her excitement show too much, but she'd had a great time so far at LHA, and most of it was due to him. He got her, at least most of the time, and he wasn't a creep like the other couple of guys she'd ever gone out with had been. Sure, he was still a boy, which meant that he was kinda dumb at times, but at least he tried. He wasn't bad at making out, either, and she was learning just how much that counted these days. It was an act of will to wait for his answer instead of just tugging him down onto the bed and finding ways to waste the next hour or so.

[Warren Verona]

"Well, not sure how long it'll take." The door silently closed with a 'click' as he let himself in behind her. "Kinda up to you, y'know? When you get tired or bored we can call it a day."

How she managed to drop her books, grab her cloak, carry a conversation and text one handed was completely lost on Warren. He had a super enhanced agility and like an idiot still managed to slip and fall on ice on a near regular basis. Inwardly he laughed at himself and his observation and suddenly something dawned on him. "Oh, might wanna dress warm. We'll be inside, but there's no heat. I found an old abandoned barn opposite the lake, perfect for finding old junk and stuff to test accuracy. Y'know, boards or bottles n' stuff."

"Step outside the box Revenant." Elieen Gomez's instructions came back to the forefront of his mind. "Step outside your comfort zone, for her sake. Suggest thing you wouldn't normally consider. See if she's interested."

The idea of getting love advice from his therapist was kinda embarrassing, he had to admit, but he had no on else to talk to about her, except Alex but he could hardly understand him through the British accent and Warren's complete lack of caring about anything Alex said. Alex was on thin ice over a hair band argument that didn't end well.

"Glacia keeps the lake frozen pretty solid, I heard. For the kids to skate on. I thought, uhh..." He tried to find the words, and she was slowly catching on that 'uhh' meant he was unsure of either himself, or the reaction his next phrase might get. "You'd maybe like to try ice skating over there."

"Together, I mean." As if she thought perhaps he'd meet her there and cheer on from the opposite shore...

[z020]

"Uh, sure. Lemme see if I can find my skates." She began pulling things out of the trunk at the foot of her bed, then emptied out the bottom of her closet before finally coming up with a pair of sturdy and somewhat worn brown ice skates. She grabbed her backpack and stuffed it with the fleece throw blanket from the foot of her bed, along with a wool cap, scarf, gloves, and purloined from the back middle drawer of her desk, a bottle of raspberry Merlot that her father had sent her as a settling-in present.

She grinned triumphantly once she was packed, and asked, "Do you have skates? Or are there like ones you can borrow from the school?" She seemed surprised at the thought that he might own skates, given what he'd told her of his life before the Academy. She blushed, realizing that he didn't really have any reason to have thought she'd own skates. "Um....we usually vacation in Iceland with my mother's family a couple times a year. Skating is pretty much their walking, so....yeah."

[Warren Verona]

His expression remained amused the entire time she tore through the room. How could one girl own so much and keep it in such a small area?

"I don't own a pair of skates," He grinned at her mischievously. "Well, at least I didn't until that Hotstreak dude left his where he couldn't see em' for a moment. Hopefully he'll learn next time."

"I nabbed a pair for you too," He shrugged nonchalantly as he opened the door for her. "Being from L.A. n' all. But I was curious where your accent came from, it certainly sound 'South Central'." She leaned into him offering up a playful nudge as she smiled and rolled her lovely amber eyes. As faint as her accent was, a gift from her mother who had a thicker accent, he heard it. "It must be nice up there. The Facility was in Finland for awhile, but they never let us out to see it."

Snow blindness caught them both for a moment as they hit the back door of the Dorm and started off for the lake. The fields that made up the campus were expansive and several hundreds of mutants were out in the snow making fools of themselves with elaborate snowball fights, snow sculptures and every manner of snow playing game the couple could imagine. One and all seemed to be placing their genetic heretic aside for a little while and were just acting like teenagers should act.

They shared a laugh or two at the antics of their classmen, it was hard not to given the amount of pure silliness going on for the next several hundred yards. Through it all a few couples, students who were already together before break or those new arrivals who had just found someone recently, waded through the war zone mutant caliber snowballs and walking autonomous snow men.

Warren glanced at the couples and took a few mental notes. They ended the clearing of what was quite possibly a snowball fight young Tyler the Feral would have dubbed 'the bestest ever!' and continued to make their way towards the lake. "So tell me about Iceland," He asked suddenly while reaching down to collect a pair of skates he had stashed behind some out of season storage on the side of the now infamous boathouse.

[z020]

She sat down and starting making the transition from cool-looking goth girl to practical girl about to skate across a lake. Out came the cap, gloves, scarf and skates, in went the boots, leaving the backpack much lighter than before. She shrugged.

"It's cold. Pretty in the summer. Very green. Mostly like here except that people sound different and don't each as much crap food. There's less cars and more walking paths and gardens, and nearly never any traffic when we were there."

She bit her lip and gave him a surreptitious look. She wasn't quite sure what they were yet (translation of girl-thought: he hadn't explicitly asked her out yet or called her his girlfriend in earshot of her), but she was feeling brave today, especially with her skates on. "Um, I could see if you could come with us this summer. If you want. We always go for at least a couple of weeks and go fishing and hang out with Mom's family and friends. It can feel like an Amazon convention, but....it could be fun. With someone else around."

Her cheeks were red and she was pretending that they were hot from the exertion of getting the skates and other accouterments of winter on. She stood up and held out her hands for the extra pair of skates, to stuff them in her bag, seeming to have no problem balancing on the thin blades touching the ground. She never quite met his eyes while she waited for his reply.

[Warren Verona]

Following her routine he laced up hi own skates. Her transition from goth to practical certainly didn't leaver her any less attractive. He sometimes felt a bit bad for always considering her so pretty, she had an exotic attractiveness that could lure a man from a block away just to answer the age old 'who is that girl?' question. He couldn't help it though, he was a young man infatuated with a gorgeous young woman, were it not for all the good times they had he would have beaten himself up more for being so enamored by her beauty.

"Sounds like a pretty cool place." He offered he a slight smile, more of acknowledgment that he was listening while distracted with his skates than anything else. He was paying attention, but was quickly realizing that lacing up skates and listening were two things he'd never tried before and the skates were winning his war for his concentration.

He looked up at her when she mentioned taking him along. His skates were laced up, it was hastily done and wouldn't win any Olympic medals, but they were laced up. To be invited along on a family vacation was a pretty big step in a committed teenage relationship, she must have really liked him. Had her 'boyfriend' not been locked up in a government lab for six years and not in the loop of reality for the past two he might have known that or at least heard it from classmates or the internet. "Now that," she pointed and enthusuastically smiled. "Is an ass-kicking idea. I'd love to go to someplace like that..."

Sometimes he was a sweet guy and other times 'charm' was something he tripped over on accident. This moment was one was on those tripping moments, "...and to be there with you, that'd make a trip like even more breath taking."

He stood up to compose and attempt balance himself. "Wow... feels weird having these on... heh." He grinned and wobbled a bit.

[z020]

She grinned a flushed again, ducking her head away to hide just how pleased she was with his answer. She mince-stepped her way over to him, wrapping an arm around him to help him balance. "Okay, you have to take little steps until you get on the ice. And once you're on the ice, don't try to take steps. Just glide."

The two of them did their best impression of the penguin waddle towards the lake, laughing and falling over several times before they acutlly made it to the shoreline. Once they stepped out on to the ice, evrything changed. Oneca kept hold of him, but he could feel her start to move differently, sliding over the cold surface of the lake with the easy practice of years of experience. Having her pressed up close to him usually did strange things to his concentration, but being able to feel how she balances and moved, which was sort of like swimming and sort of like a controlled fall that somehow never actually fell, helped him get his own legs under himself.

Once they were both moving more or less towards the other side of the lake, she asked, "So, where is this barn? The last time I was out here, Ren was making castles out of....whatever it is he makes casltes out of. Æther or something."

[Warren Verona]

Fact. Warren had superior dexterity and hyper enhanced agility. Fact. Warren could make Olympic-class gymnasts look like amateurs. Fact. None of that meant squat when the damn fool had never ice skated before.

To his credit he did not fall, but 'Neca was more than amused on a few occasions where his 'near' misses caused him to introduce a few new faces and arm gestures to his repertoire that would be causing her to giggle at random for the next few days, a the least.

"Not hard to get to, in fact it'll be faster on the ice," he half-laughed as he floundered a bit to find his 'legs'. He was a quick study, but still was being caught of guard on occasion as he couldn't quite get his mind off the fact that he wasn't in boots and on solid soil. "Across the lake on the north side, you see those hills and the small copse of trees?"

He pointed across the way, gliding slowly along the ice. "It's actually right there, just hard to see from here. I was putzing around, exploring a couple days ago and found it. Looked like a great spot to get away from the school for a bit. Cold as hell though."

They skated along a bit, well, she did, he slowly pushed himself along but seemed to begin to understand that it wasn't as hard as he thought once he started applying what she was telling him all along. Like any man though he had to do it his way until he found a way to make it look like was doing it all by himself but was really just doing what the woman suggested from the start.

"You and Ren were out here?." He said softly. Castles were so much better than ice skating, but it was all he could think up with there being a lake... and ice... and skates, oh, and his complete lack of being able make castles from Æther, yeah, there was that too. His lack of confidence reared its ugly head as pang of jealousy crept up to steal away his mirth. He didn't know she could already ice skate, or was, like, way better at it than he was. He felt like it was like taking a person to their job for a date; they did it all day long, why take them there and cal it 'new and fun'?

Castles! The dude makes castles appear from nothing... way cooler than skating, dumbass. Real swift. Maybe I'll get her a Garth Brooks CD next... oh yeah... she'll really be impressed with that! He was sort of silent and distant for a moment. "You guys, uhh, hang out here a lot?"

He would have been better off just saying: 'Hi, I'm jealous and I want to pry and be nosy because, well, I'm jealous.' It would have been far more subtle.

[z020]

She shrugged and shook her head. "Nope. I haven't really seen him much since then. Sonja did her usually Barbazilla routine and he's been pretty much AWOL since then. I saw him at the New Year's party , but, uh, let's say I wasn't on his priority list. Guess he didn't want to have to deal with the monster-in-pink."

She circled close to him, taking his arm gently so as not to knock him off balance. "Besides, from what I hear, he's pretty much all head games and fluff, anyways. Maybe fun for a bit, but how could you really trust someone that can make you see anything they want you to, and don't bother to ask first? The barn might be cold, but it's real and it'll be there later."

They slowly made their way to the far shore, the barn peeking it's way out of the woods the closer they got. Oneca angled for a convenient tree near the edge of the ice to skate towards and then lean on while she switched out her skates back for the boots, though the other clothes stayed on. He was right, it was cold out here. She peered curiously up at the barn.

"So....how are we going to do this?"

[Warren Verona]

"Simple enough." He said while unlacing his stolen skates. His mind was a bit at ease once she explained things to him about Ren. He had a slight complex about keeping her interested in him, given his little experience with the opposite sex. With his faith restored (and it showed a bit), he was back to normal. "We're going to go up there, I'm going to steal your powers and assess them, then help you understand what exactly you got going on in there."

Already sliding his boots on he continued. "If there's one thing I know, it's mutant powers. That's what I did at the Facility, I was their power guinea pig. I could survive some of the tests that the weaker mutants couldn't." He paused and his eye seemed distant for a moment, memories were kindled by that unpleasant place. "Not scare you Oneca, but I'll become you. I won't have your memories or anything like that. Mentally I'm still me aside from borrowing a few of you personality quirks. But physically, I'll be you. Hair, blood, ovaries. Whole nine. Including your X-Gene."

"So, them's the facts. If it creeps you out and you don't want to, I'm cool with it. We don't have to do anything you don't want to." He stood up took a few steps in place, letting his feet acclimate to the snow and ground again. "Man, that feels weird."

[z020]

Her eyes went wide and she would have laughed if she hadn't been quite so shocked. "You're going to turn into a girl?"

It was her turn to beat herself up over saying something stupid, but it really had caught her off guard. "I mean....you'll be me?" She bit her lip, that twinkle coming into her eye. "We've totally got to go mess with Sonja. I think her head would explode at seeing two of me."

She slithered up to him, still grinning, and put her arms around his neck to lean up and kiss him. "Besides, I'm narcissistic enough to be curious, now."

[Warren Verona]

He laughed a bit and gave her an affectionate, caring smile. "Yep, I'll become you. Even have a sports bra in my jacket pocket." He winked and slid his arms around her slipping his thumbs through her belt loops so his finger tips rested gently on her posterior. A little brave for him she had to admit, but his focus seemed more on her than what he was doing with his hands.

"You'll see soon enough," he leaned in a kissed her softly on her lips. "But, in all seriousness, it can be strange. You'll see. It's not a good disguise, that's for sure. C'mon. sooner we get there Miss Narcissist the sooner you can see it." His hand knotted with hers as he broke the embrace and lead her up to the old barn...

It wasn't fancy. Half a roof and a series of rotting wood joists and metal siding. 'Barn' was probably being kind to it, it was more akin to an over sized tool shed that had seen better days. There was a blackened patch of earth under the roofed side, so it was obvious some of the students had found this place before and made use of it. "Well, here we go. It's not much but the foreman says I'm due for a promotion soon sweetie and things'll get better." He grinned and hoped she got his humor. "Can't beat the rent."

[z020]

She grinned and giggled, rolling her eyes at the joke. She laid the backpack down in the corner that had the most protection, over near the remnants of what looked like a fire pit and then turned back to him, hands shoved in her pocket and a little nervous now.

"Okay...well, I guess we're ready to go? Unless you've got something else you want to do first?" Her question was probably unintentionally provocative, if only because when she felt like being sexy or suggestive, she was usually more strait forward about it. That didn't keep a whole range of 'other things to do' from running through the teenage boy's mind, though.

[Warren Verona]

He unzipped his thick leather jacket and the black hoodie beneath it, all while keeping his eyes locked on hers. They fell the dirt beside him and he walked over to her pulling his shirt up and over his head as he approached.

Warren's long black hair brushed against his shoulders as it fell just a little ways past his neck. His body was toned to a measure of superior fitness, and although she knew he owed it to his mutant health and physique, she could hardly bring her self to care, his health and fitness would far surpass any Olympic athlete. He wasn't perfect, scars decorated his body in seemingly random patterns. She counted at least seven with a casual glance and they appeared well healed, unlike Kazuo who had suffered severe trauma and left mangled, Revenant's were stitched up allowed to heal with care. Like dozens of operations. A broad chest chiseled muscles honed perfectly in sync with his graceful and lithe frame.

His breath danced away on a wispy cloud as he approached her and leaned in to kiss her softly, romantically. His lips pressed upon hers with an unspoken passionate desire she honestly wasn't aware her possessed. He parted from her, their lips clinging gently as if to say they didn't want to be apart despite what their owners desired until finally they gave and the kiss was over and left them with eyes still closed and hunger in their hearts. "Just that," he whispered in a manner that poured through her ears with a sensual seduction. "For now."

He twitched as she opened her eyes and it startled her slightly. It seemed out of character given the moment they were sharing. His fists clenched as his body rippled as muscles expanded and contracted. His skin darkened into a deathly shade of grey, all his arteries becoming visible as dark purple while veins seemed to tattoo his flesh from beneath as black.

He shrunk slightly to match his date's height as fingernails blackened and his now sexy, petite lips darkened into a black. 'Her' tattoo was unlike Oneca's. It was jagged and twisted like bent wire and slithered about with a mock grace that was nearly blasphemous to the original.

What stood before her was a nightmare. A horrid abomination of her own visage, warped and corrupted by his power. This 'Dark Oneca' seemed to radiate a palpable aura as a warning of what lived deep inside her somewhere.

As she took in the sight, 'he' popped 'his' neck both ways letting a loud cracking echo in the air for a moment. Not interfering with her investigation at all, 'he' slipped over 'his' head the sports bra he claimed 'he' brought with 'him', and took a moment to properly 'adjust' 'his' new baggage.

Finishing, he slipped his arms out to the sides and looked at her. His eyes... his eyes hadn't changed, they were hers, but they were left uncorrupted and still beautiful to gaze upon. "Well?" His voice was hers, echoed slightly by something netherworldly. "What do you think?"

[z020]

Oneca watched the transformation while reminding herself that the 'slackjaw' look was so totally last season. She reached out, running her fingertips over the jagged lines of her dark reflection's tattoo. Part of her was repulsed at this ebony mockery of herself; it gibbered in primordial fear and lashed out with anger, trying to control her. But she'd summoned a demon and hell if she was going to let some lizard-response part of her own soul tell her what to do. Besides, this was just too fucking cool!

Her smile slowly melted into a sultry grin and she let her fingers explore over the skin and newly-created flesh of her 'boyfriend', knowing just how to touch there and caress here and score lightly across there to drive 'him' insane without ever touching 'him' anywhere inappropriate or overly clothed. She leaned in close to 'him', the heat of her breath travelling in little swirls and eddies over 'his' skin.

"Interesting...." she tasted the word out, letting it linger between them. "Definitely not vanilla."

[Warren Verona]

"No," her words were a dark sensual whisper overlapped by a tone of corruption and despair as her blackened lips twisted into a sexy grin. "Definitely not."

"I'm now capable of anything you are," She held up her hands palms up as strange waves of invisible energy rippled off his hands like summer heat on blacktop. "Except looking as good as you do in a dress. I'll help you as much as I can, just tell me what part of your powers is the biggest mystery to you and we'll start there. I'm not an expert though, but this is better than needles and genetic tests, I'm still learning to control my own abilities, but we mutants can learn more from each other than the humans could ever teach us."

Her body pulsed with a sudden surge of energy the seemed to take 'Warren' by surprise. "Wow... you're really packin'." Her eyes met her 'girlfriends' and he grinned again. "And that's not a corset joke.

[z020]

She pulled back just enough to be able to watch 'him' and laughed at his surprise. "Packing? What do you mean by that?"

"Hmn, as for the power that's most mysterious to me...." Her expression fell a little, but she emotionally picked herself back up quickly. "I guess it'd be the whole destroying things with a touch. I mean, I know how to turn it off and on...most of the time....but that's about it. It's about as a subtle or useful as running around with a torch."

She kicked off the ground, floating just a foot or so above the dirt, "Flying's easy, and while I don't much get how I do it, I haven't hit much of wall on what I can do with it. I also haven't tried out-flying a jet or anything either."

[Warren Verona]

"Well, I mean you have a lot of power within you." She looked at her hands and back to the floating Oneca. The dark mockery of Oneca walked around her, looking her over. "I've absorbed a lot of different powers in my rather short career, but never anything like this. You're pretty amazing."

In an almost studious gesture she wagged her index finger at Oneca a few times. "But you're using them on reflex, well except flying, that's the first problem. Thankfully it's the easiest hurtle to jump though."

D. 'Neca reached up and gently clasped the hand of her 'girlfriend' and tugged her along, since she was floating she sort of just kept pace as she gentler tugged her along. "We'll need a few things to break so I started a small pile of junk we can trash while we practice. Learning control is easy, but it takes time. But you're right about one thing, I've no idea how we do this stuff either, so I don't try figuring it out. Although I have to admit, having a girlfriend who can fly is pretty cool, it's going to save a ton on gas money when we go out on dates. Well, that and me having to steal one of the school's cars, they probably wouldn't appreciate that."

[z020]

She tried to hide the silly-ass grin that came to her face when Warren called her his girlfriend; luckily she was a little behind 'him', so she got a mild reprieve while she let herself be tugged weightlessly across the space of the barn. The 'small pile of junk' was a collection of old boards, broken shed tools, and random bits and pieces that other students must have left lying around after their own illicit trysts in the crumbling edifice. They took a moment to pull out what to start with: a moldy old blanket, a broken two by four, and a bent metal spade.

"Okay....so, what do you want me to do? I mean, the only time I've ever really used those powers was either in a circle or when I was pissed off. Should I try to get angry or something?" Her tone was dubious about that; she was just in too good of a mood right now to want to think about things that pissed her off.

[Warren Verona]

Neca-Reven smirked slightly as he placed a few pieces of debris atop an old wood splitting log. "That'd probably work," Hearing her own shadowed voice overlapped upon his own was both wicked and creepy all at once. "But if you're like me when you're pissed we'd be out one hiding place because this barn would be in ruins. I figured we'd start small, with a little lesson, I guess."

"M'kay," Oneca wrapped her arms around her dark reflections waist, tucking them within the warmth of Warren's heavy leather jacket. Warren was not for social situations to begin with, let alone dealing with women so the idea of how he managed to go from jaded loner to having a smoking hot, lusty girlfriend all in the span of a week or so was still trying to catch up to him... and at times it was tired from all the running. Her scent, her touch, they way every word floated past her lips like a hypnotic melody... it was enough to drive him crazy with desire. "I'm all yours Yoda, teach me the ways of the Force and make me a Jedi like my father before me."

"That wasn't at all geeky." He quipped with a quirked brow.

"Late night in the rec-room," She retorted in her defense. "Everyone decided to watch all six movies back to back all day. Drumm had a faculty meeting in the library andI have a paper due when classes resume. I was trapped with Star Wars in the background for hours while I wrote it up. Thankfully I got there somewhere in the middle of the last two. But, c'mon, show me something..."

"Okay," He raised his hand, holding half of an old bottle. "First thing is first, you have to know what you can do if you're going to use it. Up to now you've been going on memory and reflex, which is how I did it until I had someone show me the ropes. Now, in our ludicrous efforts to 'change' and be perfect, we try to fashion a perfect world for ourselves. We start to imagine that we are actually in control of our world, which is further from reality than Kazuo winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The universe, our universe, is out of our control. We live on a speck drifting around in an infinite vacuum with countless trillions of other specks. Our world is in a perpetual state of perfect chaos and entropy, with everything falling apart and dying and being born haphazardly. Meanwhile, we try to make life as neat and clean and orderly as a computer research facility, when in fact it is more like a junkyard. It always has been, and it always will be, no matter how much fussing and sweating and striving we do to make it different.”

The bottle in 'her' hand began to crack suddenly and for no apparent reason. Every slight structural weakness it possessed on a molecular level just simply failed all and once and with no dramatic shattering it just simply crumbled away into several small shards of glass that fell to the ground, jingling like shards of ice. "That's where you come in. The power of causality, the reminder to us all of that one, universal truth: all things break down and die. There are no perfect worlds." It was borderline sexy the way he taught. "Entropy is your bitch, and I have to say, I'm kinda jealous." He handed her an old rusted beer can. "Give it a try. "Now that you know what model you're driving, take it for a spin. Clear your mind, and focus. Entropy, decay, chaos... let those concepts fill your thoughts while you conjure the power within..."

As much as Warren loved her arms wrapped around him, she didn't fail to notice him taking a few steps away in case her thoughts went off into some 'left field'...

[z020]

He makes me sound so cool! her inner girl-voice squee'd in completely non-Oneca manner. She took the loss of boyfriend-bodyheat with as much grace as she could muster and took the beer can carefully. There was something vaguely defined as 'gunk' clinging to one side of the metal; she made sure she wasn't getting any on her fingers and then stared at it, focusing on thoughts of decay and entropy and chaos.

Slowly she could feel the places in the can that were weak, almost see them, though it didn't quite feel like that. The dim red glow that could sometimes be seen around her in the dark intensified around her hand and the smell of brimstone began to spread. She flexed her hand just a little, not using her parahuman strength at all: the can crumpled in her hand, disintegrating into rust and metal flecks. Even the gunk burned and was gone. She laughed and held up her fleck-covered hand for Warren to see. "I did it!"

Power Use

She's using Claws here, not Entropy Control, but her Claw flavor is applying entropic decay at touch range from her hands.

[Warren Verona]

With a smile he held out his hands to her, as if directing her to her own accomplishment. "Told ya! You just have to know where to start."

He kept the lessons simple, focusing only a single aspect of her power for this session and with the better part of an hour Oneca was really getting the hang of it. Although they were quickly running out of junk, Warren knew a quick stop to the school's recycling depot would set them with empty can's for life, providing he could get there before the trucks came every Wednesday. One by one she shredded the the junk he'd collected until it almost became second nature to her. While still far from mastering her ability she was one step closer to being able to use it without having to try so hard.

She was positively giddy and he could tell, despite all she'd learned to do was decimate anything she touched. Oddly enough he didn't find it the slightest bit creepy. When she turned to 'him' after another successfully disintegrated beer can. "Oh, careful." Warren backed up a step, avoiding her hands. "Remember, those things are live."

"Sorry," she was slightly embarrassed, but 'shook' the active power from her hands. "Actually not used to having it this active for this long."

"It's cool." He blew it off, understanding from experience how the excitement could go to ones head. "C'mon you look cold, let's make a fire and relax for a minute or two."

She watched as his stolen shape reverse itself as he walked into the barn and just like that he was Warren again. He threw an old towel off of a small stack of well piled kindling (oh yeah, he planned this...) and got to work preparing a fire. Picking up a very small twig his hand glimmered with purplish energy and transfered to what he held in his hand. He dropped it and it reacted almost instantly, exploding with a small, but rather loud 'poof' that ignited the kindling giving them a small, but warm fire. He looked up and rubbed his thumb over his other fingers. "It's uh, unstable energy. I excite molecules in an object and cause it to become unstable. The result can be anything from blowing up a house, to just a simple fire. Usually it's just a painful kinetic blast." He chuckled. "You should see me pitch baseball."

[z020]

She laughed. "I remember the snowball."

She nabbed her backpack and pulled out the blanket she'd packed, laying it down underneath them and then settled down next to him, quickly worming her way back inside his coat even as she pulled the extra width of the blanket over the the both of them. She looked up him, true gratitude across her expression as she snuggled in closer, "Thanks, by the way. This was really fun and hopefully I won't burn off my sister's arm next time she pisses me off. At least, not on accident."

She leaned up and kissed him deeply, her usual silent thank-you that followed the actual words. She sighed as she stared at the flames, "You know, if it could just be like this - no one yelling at us or hunting us, just the two of us like this, I think I could really get to like that. I know it won't be like that. Eventually some idiot with a genetic axe to grind will attack the school or we'll graduate, but I really like this, right here and now." She leaned back against him and pulled his arm over her waist, hugging it against her and kissing his hand as she watched the flames leap and dance in front of them. "So...thank you for that, too. You make me happy and no one's done that since Saja died. Even if it doesn't last for whatever, thank you."

[Warren Verona]

The small barn where the two teens hid away was little more than a yellowish-orange flicker on it's reflection across the mirror-like sheen of the frozen lake beside which it rest. There the two huddled in close to one another and let the confined walls warm up and try to hold in what they could after years of disrepair.

"Um... I, uh..." He stuttered like a fool, trying to find the right words, but none of them seem to come forward. I make her happy? She's thanking me? Warren was never the best in situations like this, and truth be told kinda felt like he was about to wet his pants. For all his bravado and chest pounding he stood transfixed and powerless before the one thing in the universe that no man had any defense against: love. Granted they had only been together for a short time, and they seemingly got along great, Oneca made Warren's heart swell with feelings and emotions that were intense and unlike anything he remembered in his life. It dawned on him that underneath his tough guy exterior, she made him happy as well. Happy and accepted in a world that he had grown to despise.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd loved anything. Reading, television, traveling, fighting... all of these things he was good at and they were things to help him pass the time, but never could he claim that he 'loved' any of them; they were chores or tasks or reflexes and nothing more. So what was it about her that made it different?

“Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe," He finally managed to find a verse that would escape his lips. "Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.”

"That's beautiful." Her eyes were hypnotic in the firelight and all he could do was gaze for a moment.

"It's Harlan Ellison, he's a writer." He ran a finger down her cheek, still lost in those eyes.

"What's it mean," She asked him, their lips slowly getting closer. "To you, I mean?"

He smiled softly, not realizing that often times he was quite the charmer, as long as he wasn't trying to be. "It means that all we have sometimes are our memories. That no matter what you and I have to go through no one can take this moment from us. No matter where we are, where go, how far apart fate pulls us; we will always have this moment whenever we close our eyes. I guess, that if we're going to have moments, we should make them ones worth remembering."

"I'm kind of a fuck up, Oneca," He admitted, slightly embarrassed. "I'm happy too. Happy that I'm finally doing something right for a change..." With that he leaned forward and kissed her.