Aberrant Pt. 01

Vanessa smirked at Sean, signing to him, "Legally speaking? Nothing!" She grinned broadly, blinking at Leon and rolling her eyes, shaking her head.

Gillian took in a slow breath, probably due to the fact she was a little green under the hood. It was needed for her to just gather enough energy to lift her head and reach up to grab Leon's shoulder. She pulled him down so he was at her head level and whispered, "My head feels like it's going to split. I kind of just want today to be over with so I can go hide under something dark with a bottle of Tylenol."

Sean almost missed Vanessa's reply as his attention was well stolen by Leon. Mostly because he tended to be amused by these antics.

Leon cooed. "Oh, my dearest roes...I could go to the nuses' office and get you some adrecoline?" He asked. "Because-"

Alexa scowled at Leon. "Buzz off, Shakespeare."

"You wound me, Alexa Firehair!" Leon clutched his hand to his heart. Then, looking back to Gillian - and away from Alexa making a vigorous masturbatory gesture - he said: "For you, my dearest flame, are surely a nova, for what but a nova could capture this humble poet's heart so?"

Gillian blew out a sigh as she closed her eyes before patting Leon on the shoulder, "Sorry, no. Not a Nova Leon, and I need a little space. Your voice is almost booming right now."

Leon whipped off the hat he wore, then bowed low, then backed away. As he vanished behind a mass of students - a few exclaiming as he bumped into them - Octavia shook her head. "That is a boy who doesn't know what OTT means..."

"Dramba," Gilliam mumbled aloud, which was a passable excuse if you ignored her almost drunken word change. Her hood was then tugged firmly back over her eyes.

Vanessa pulled out her phone and after a moment Linkara's voice bellowed out of it "Dude, she's just not that into you!".

Alexa blinked and raised her hand. "I don't know what OTT means."

A few kids laughed, while Octavia chuckled. "Of course you don't, you're a would be wrestler," she said, her eyes glittering playfully.

Vanessa grinned, holding up one hand flat, then sent her other hand flying over it.

"You know, I likely could doctor up something embarrassing including him and use it to blackmail him from bothering you." Sean offered quietly, almost as a ritual by now. It was only ever a half joke though, he was petty when someone was bothering his friends.

Alexa flexed again. "Or I could go kick his butt for ya."

"He doesn't bother me guys. I really have a killer headache," Gillian said after a few moments, "I mean, I'm not really in to him but can't fault a person for what like." She stopped and sighed, "For what a person likes. Fuuuck this hurts..." Gillian shook her head in frustration at the wording.

Octavia bit her lip. "Weren't you saying you had a pretty serious migraine yesterday?" she asked her girlfriend, looking at him.

Vanessa frowned, signing "You.. really should go to the nurse if it's that bad.." SHe said, biting her lip, looking at the other girl with a mix of nervousness and hope.

"Yeah, can't fault a guy for falling for you. Agreed." Sean agreed, teasing only a little. "Though seriously, I have some meds in my bag if you need them. Migraines are annoying at their best and brutal at their worse." He asked, sounding worried.

Vanessa smirked at Octavia, "I had a headache so bad yesterday I couldn't even talk!" She signed.

Alexa blinked. "I had a headache too yesterday," she said. "During my workouts at the training center. It was a real pain, almost made me drop a barbell on my chest."

Gillian reached out after a moment to give Sean's arm a light squeeze and nodded, "Can't miss the test. Sounds good 'till later."

Octavia giggled, quietly - but as she giggled, a bell rang. But as the bell rang, Gillian felt the pain throbbing in her head recede backwards, leaving her feeling only tired, rather than merely...aching slightly. Octavia, though, frowned. "...have all of you had headaches?" she asked, frowning slightly.

Vanessa Stacks: Vanessa smiled, signing, "Yes, but you did too. I.. know what you're thinking, but.. let's.. not.." She sighed softly.

Sean signed a blocky "Ha-Ha-Ha" at Van's joke. Aloud, he continued: "Uh, I get migraines regularly. A benefit of carrying a small computer lab around is it is easy to sneak in pill bottles." He shrugged. "Life's life. I just can't let them stop me from doing things. Would murder me to just only have the pain to think about."

Octavia shook her head. "You guys have fun at comp-sci. Keep an eye on my Vanny..." She smiled. "I get to go brave Mr. Shelly..." She said, shuddering dramatically. The band teacher was infamous for his dramatic tendencies. Like Leon, but with power, was how Octavia had described him.

"Safety in numbers, remember that." Sean teased before slowly making his way to class, ensuring his pace kept with the rest of the group.

Vanessa pouted, hugging Octavia and signing, putting her lips to the other girl's ear as if she was whispering something.

"You mean safety behind me," Alexa said, striding confidently at the front of the group.

Gillian passed Octavia a thumbs up. It was the best she had right then, even with the pain receding.

Octavia shivered, then caressed her girlfriend, then turned to go, leaving them to start towards comp-sci. As they walked along, they strode past a pair of teachers who were speaking to one another. They heard a faint snatch of the conversation: "No need to alarm anyone, it's over the Rockies, you know?"

But then they were in the comp-sci class. At that moment, all of them stood there...and...had their own complicated feelings about Miss Zhou. She was one of the harder teachers to have, due to her exacting requirements and her attention to detail. She didn't let people just...sleepwalk through comp-sci.

But...she was...just...dripping with the kind of sensual gorgeousness that would drive an eighteen year old's hormones into overdrive, then into the stratosphere, then into the vastness of space, faster than any quantum power could go. She was shortish and curvy, with large, full breasts and dark, raven black hair, which framed her round, adorable face, a pair of glasses perched on her button nose. She was large, but she owned her largeness with a bubbly, cheerful happiness that made every boy in her class' heart throb - those that weren't dicks who called her fat.

She wasn't fat.

She was just...

Thick.

"Welcome, welcome!" she said, cheerily as the four students walked to their work terminals, the keyboards all a few years old, meaning no holographic interfaces and no vocal readers. It was just LCDs and touchpads for school, making it feel downright archaic. But they still used eufiber cables - powerful fiber optic cables derived from the same material that was used to dress novas in their famous

'super suits.'

The four friends noticed that Jared Vance, the other friend they had in comp-sci, was missing. Jared was...kind of shady, but a good dude at the heart of it. The fact that a persistant rumor floated around that he and Miss Zhou were having an...well...the rumor always tap danced around exactness, but the words "tutor" were used with wiggled eyebrows and innuendo.

Miss Zhou did seem a bit miffed looking at his empty seat.

Alexa wasn't shy about the way her eyes wandered as she sat with her friends. Miss Zhou hadn't been the catalyst for waking the part of her that was attracted to girls - that had been the first time she'd gone into a gym shower and seen so many trim and fit young women just...standing around in the buff - but Zhou often showed up in her fantasies when she wasn't daydreaming about the few boys that she knew who weren't scared of her.

Gillian's headache seemed to clear the closer they got to class, more so with the help of Sean's pills. She was smiling when they finally arrived, happy in part to have the pain gone and also because she held her own little crush on Miss Zhou. It made it easier to enjoy and focus on class as well, which made any nerves about the next test less frustrating.

Vanessa Stacks: Vanessa moved to sit down at her seat, raising up her Viatablet as she always did in her continually probably unfunny joke. "Miss Zhou, someone took the vocal reader I had here, how am I supposed to type without it?!"

Miss Zhou chuckled, quietly. "I think we'll have to muddle along with keyboards . I know. How...quaint!" she said, her eyes sparkling. Some teachers would try and be hip and make a reference to a nova. Miss Zhou made Star Trek references. Everyone in the class giggled - because only a certain breed of kid took comp-sci.

The only thing that was a real sore spot in the class was the poster of Jennifer "Slider" Landers standing in a cutesy, playful pose, holding up her V for victory symbol. It was...a bit unsettling to remember that novas, for all their powers and popularity, could...die like Slider had died.

This class in particular was one of the few that Sean felt very motivated to pay attention in and work the hardest. Not because the teacher was hot, though that did help make the lessons more pleasant to sit through- in some ways not- but rather the matter that if you met her expectations and requirements for what you needed to learn that day she was lenient about Sean using his own gadgets in class.

Bonus drawing time.

Alexa simply kicked back in her chair, running through a new sequence of moves she wanted to try at practice later, half-paying attention. Occasionally her eyes wandered down to the swell of Miss Zhou's thick ass in her skirt.

The teacher smiled. "Now, today is your final..." she said. The ground shuddered slightly - the computer screens wobbling, the speakers clittering against one another. Miss Zhou chuckled. "That felt like a...3.4, you think?" She asked, trying to play it off lightly. But there was no Californian who wasn't a little nervous when an earthquake rumbled through.

Then a sound not unlike a series of fireworks going off - thump thump thump - sounded out and Miss Zhou's brow furrowed with a look of concentrated nervousness.

Vanessa frowned slightly, looking around, "Um.. is.. that what I think it is?" She signed, raising up her hands so anyone could see, even though she knew only three other people could understand it.

Gillian frowned slowly at the wobble, but it only got worse at the steady thumping. She looked about slowly before turning to the computer and clicking through things quickly.

Miss Zhou frowned. "What do you think it was, Vanessa?" she asked - one of the few teachers who had actually learned ASL.

Sean shrugged as a response, not knowing what was going on himself. Though he decided to ignore class etiquette and pulled out his phone, bringing up the breaking news feed.

As Gillian tapped away, she brought up the local news networks - and the bright, bold headline was: UTOPIAN BATTLES TERET ABOVE ROCKIES.

Vanessa held up her tablet after a moment "Nova fight. Little else combines fireworks and earthquakes. Unless it's Armageddon." Alexa watched the proceedings over Sean's shoulder.

"Holy FUCK" Gillian shouted, looking up. "Sean, Google Utopia and Rockies right now."

Sean nodded and rapidly tapped on the virtual keyboard that snapped into existence in the space over his phone. Vanessa blinked, doing some mental math and looking rather confused.

As she spoke, the ground shook again and Miss Zhou called out: "All right, everyone, get under your-"

And then the ceiling exploded.

It didn't explode downward, which saved everyone's life, but it did rip upwards and flip aside, shattering into a thousand million pieces. Debris rained down as the edges of the building's walls started to burn and flicker with greenish light. The far wall smashed down into the ground - and the stunned, battered, dazed but still mostly intact students gaped upwards. Floating above the building was a man, his body clad in a skintight black jumpsuit with a purple V along the chest. A snapping cape flared behind him - his body wreathed in crackling, purple lightning. He laughed. "Hah! That fucking worked! Holy shit that fucking worked!"

Vanessa, who had been slightly closer to the impact site, could only hear him faintly over the intense ringing in her ears. The others, though, noticed that the man was looking down not at them...but at a blue and silver clad woman who was sprawled against the wall.

They had all read comics. But...they had never seen what the actual impact of a nova's attack could be. The woman's face was hideously charred, some white showing along her jaw and forehead, while red flared around the blackened burn marks. Her left arm was a shriveled husk, while her suit still smoked with the impact of the power that had struck her down...and...she still breathed, hideous, rasping breaths.

The floating figure - the Teregen nova - didn't even seem to notice the gaping students and teacher looking up at him as he rubbed his palms together. "How to finish this Utopian off..." he muttered, gloatingly.

Vanessa gawked at him and then bit her lip, tensing, running at the nova and trying to grab her and roll out of the way of where she was, hoping to help her avoid the terat's attack, assuming the others would focus on him.

Or.. hide. That.. was probably the smarter option.

Gillian, like anyone else, jerked in surprise at the sudden noise and rain of debris, lifting her arms upwards over her head. When the worst was over and she was able to look up it stole her breath away. Not the destruction, or the man above, but the hurt woman in silver and blue. Her heart fluttered before everything kicked into place and the adrenaline rush began. There was almost no thought as she moved to grab hold of a heavy wireless mouse and drew back to throw while moving for a window. If anything, she hoped to distract long enough for a Nova to arrive.

Alexa immediately grabbed her chair, gauging it's weight. Not exactly a folding chair, but it's have to do. She followed Vanessa, making a lot of noise as she hefted the chair to smash the Nova in the head.

Sean, felt like he was out of his mind. The classroom was just shredded, concrete acted like it was paper under the power that the pair shrouded themselves in. Everyone here was at risk of facing a gruesome death and said Utopian was about to meet her end-

And on instinct he stood up and brought up his phone, turning it to live streaming as he pointed it upward, almost unphased by the situation around him.

"EXCUSE ME SIR! I AM SORRY I DO NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR COSTUME- MAY I SEND THIS OUT LIVE FOR COVERAGE AND GET YOUR NAME?" He called out to the Terragen. Internally his mind was screaming at himself, that he was a moron and an idiot, and dropping a lot worse insults.

Miss Zhou gaped at her students, while Vanessa reached the wounded Utopian. She whispered, her voice a pained wheeze: "No...get back..." she shook her head from side to side weakly as Vanessa moved to her, Alexa coming to cover them with a chair. A folding chair, something that would definitely stop a man who could turn aside tank shells with his force field.

But Sean drew a completely flabbergasted expression from the Terat, who gaped at him, then blinked slightly. "I...don't care what...you do, zip..." he said, sneering slightly. "Put that thing away, or I-"

And then a mouse bounced off the side of his head. He slowly looked down at Gillian. Then, scowling, he thrust out his palm back at the teenager who had just tossed the mouse at him. A searing bolt of lightning smashed out, and slammed into Gillian and...in a single instant, she was turned into so much ash. He laughed, shaking his head. "Fucking zip..." he said...

And then...to the surprise of everyone from the Terat to Alexa and her friends to Gillian herself...Gillian appeared behind her ash pile, standing there, smoking and wobbling slightly. ANd as if a switch had been flipped, similar explosions of power and potentiality surged through every single one of the small group. The migraines each had suffered from resolved with the clarity of an atomic bomb into a single moment measured so quickly that it was over almost before it begun...in that moment, everything was possible as within four minds, dormant Marzin-Rashound nodes, the source of any nova's power, awoken and fanned outwards.

As each nova erupted , the eufiber cabling in the room crackled with power, surging upwards and wrapping around them as well - the derived eufiber awakening under the power of four simultaneous eruptions!

Vanessa's hair bled out all the blue dye in it, replacing it with natural blue coloring, her skin turning chalk white and her eyes blood red as her body was warped with far more subtle changes a she grabbed at her head, then focused, looking out the window, where a man's voice cried out, "Hold right there, villain!"

The man in question was Caestus Pax - leader of Team Tomorrow, founding member of Project Utopia, and most powerful nova in the world.

Alexa felt like a power line had been jammed into the small of her back. All at once, her body slimmed down, fat burned away in an instant like water near the sun. In their place was a body that she'd only dreamed of attaining - muscles thickened and grew under her skin, her smooth tummy turned into a six pack, and she felt like she could suplex a mountain if she wanted to. Her hair became streaked with orange and red like a phoenix's plumage. The eufiber bonding to her turned into a singlet, streaked with the same colors as her hair, the shoulder straps with enough to cradle her breasts neatly. The chair she'd been hefting suddenly whipped around and smacked into the floor, cracking the tile and bending the chair in half. Alexa stared at it, her eyes wide. "Holy shit."

Gillian looked about as normal as she did moments ago, only with faint differences. She stood with more strength in her shoulders, with the plain acne of teenagedom gone. She filled out her clothing more perfectly, with her average appearance getting an upgrade with a more pert and filled out bottom and fuller, heavier chest. Even her hair looked sleeker, with a thin line of white running down one side now. Gillian stared down at her hands in shock, then up at the Terat. Her shock quickly grew into a grin as she clapped her hands together, and them slammed them down HARD onto the ground. Six more of her appeared in an explosion of smoke surrounding the original, each the perfect copy: Outside a different colored streak of hair. White, Black, Green, Blue, Red, Purple and Orange streaks in each one's hair.

The eufiber seemed to lance out at Sean, taking to stabbing his exposed skin instead of coiling around him to be a part of him. That dirty brown hair drew, his lazy white shirt and blue jeans, all turned pitch black as if it was infused with coal dust, that touch gritty and dirty. His rather plain features refined into that of an underwear model, his own lanky frame filling out ever so slightly to have him a smooth lithe youth.

But aside from that, from that aura of confidence that seemed to now cling to him, the posture of a Nova, he looked unchanged. No raging fire in his hands, no flashy lightshow to go with those changes, just those cables popping out of his skin- leaving him unharmed and rather flawless looking.

But he understood quite clearly just what had changed. He kept his phone up and walked towards the wounded Utopian, still broadcasting. "No name for the masses?" He called back out, somehow projecting his voice without yelling.

Alexa punched her fist through the floor and ripped it back up, a chunk of heavy lead pipe in her hand. It had felt like plunging her hand into water and yanking up a straw at the bottom of the bay. She rolled her shoulders, and the staccato pops she heard sent a thrill through her. "The man asked you your name, asshole!" she yelled at the Nova.