THE GIGER COUNTER (IC)

[K. El-Amrani]

Ms. Zenda made a forced sort of smile in response to Ian's display. It was quite strange to see more than one of him. If anything, that was the last thing she needed in her science class, or else he'd be the only one ever answering questions.

[BCOLOR=#000000]"Very impressive, Ian."[/BCOLOR] she told him. "Now I know that there's no question you'll do every project I assign to you, on time."

Imagining a robot, Kate created a minuscule red robot that laid in her outstretched hand tenderly. The object swung it's legs by itself as it sat down on her hand and seemed to look around the room as if alive. Allowing the robot to walk around she watched as it made its first couple of hesitant steps and then began to walk. Picking up the robot again she whispered.

Clearly, the quiet Kate still had it. Ms. Zenda remembered seeing a similar display from her, at a time when Kate probably thought no one was watching her.

"Very good, Kate." she reassured the girl, but as expected, Kate said little in response. Whatever her issue was, Ms. Zenda noted that it would have to be addressed later, lest Kate find herself in a situation where she is unable to will herself to use her powers. She jotted down those notes on her clipboard.

At first it may have seemed that nothing was happening, but if one paid close attention they would notice her skin taking on a distinctively pink palor and eventually a fluorescence. Light popping sounds would indicate the shifting of bones and the sinew around it as she began to morph into a different state of being right before their very eyes. Wings emerged from her back, and feelers sprouted from her head. And within the span of a moment, but what may have felt like forever, there was a colorful, fluttering, uncomfortably large butterfly in the room. In retrospect she may have chosen something that didn't fly as Nell was causing quite the gusts of wind. At least she landed when she noticed the problem of loose papers and anything not heavy falling from their respective places around the room and landed daintily.

"What do ya think?" She spoke plain as day.

Ms. Zenda's ponytail flew back from the gusts, but the sight of such a gigantic butterfly in front of her was almost impossible to believe. And from what the science teacher had witnessed, Nell had multiple forms under her belt. Could she transform into just any insect? These were questions Ms. Zenda was sure to put down in her clipboard.

"It's very nice, Nell. Very nice indeed." she told the girl, fixing her glasses as she watched her transform back and with such a soft landing.

It was Sia's turn. Luckily, there was a curtain attached to a rod that was portable like the one in the nurse's office. Sia walked over to the curtain and dragged it in front of the group was. She stood on the side of the curtain where no one was standing. Sia then grew to the point where her neck up was visible. Her clothes started to come apart unable to support her size. Sia then reverted back to her normal size trying to spare her the clothes she was wearing now. "Does anyone have a change of clothes?" Sia shouted from behind the curtain.

Somehow, Sia had seemed comfortable enough to go ahead and use her growth powers anyway. Luckily, the discarded curtain served as makeshift barrier lest her fellow teenage students see a little too much of her. Seeing Sia grow well above the curtain's height made Ms. Zenda wonder how the girl's skeletal structure, even at an increased size, could support the increased mass. Jotting some more notes down, she assumed it just had something to do with the way newgen powers worked.

"Oh, Sia, you didn't have to." she told the girl. Ms. Zenda's eyes darted around the area, before they spotted the bag of spare clothes she had put aside earlier in the day. Picking them up, she handed them to Sia through the curtains with her head turned away.

"Hopefully those fit you well enough. We'll have to sort through the clothing problem with your powers somehow."

With that, Ms. Zenda finally addressed the one and only dissenter, Hector.

"So you think you can just steal us away to some basement? Get us performing for eachother? Ms. Zenda: I don't know what to tell you, but it's going to take more than a little pep-talk and some history to convince me to join your little band of superfriends. I'm trying to get a scholarship, make something of myself. I can't... I can't be dealing with... All of this." The Athlete pointed firmly at the bizzare images of Ian fanning out before him. It seemed like he was being ignored, however, as Kate took the stage.

"Superfriends?" Ms. Zenda said, somewhat confused. "I think you're mistaken, Hector. This is not some supergroup I'm forming."

She held tightly onto her clipboard again. "In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm not letting any of you get left alone in this stage of your young developing lives."

"So as your science teacher and as a responsible adult, I'm going to help you control these powers of yours. I want to make sure that none of you are danger to yourselves, or anyone else. But by all means, understand this."

"I forbid you from fighting crime. You're all too young and too inexperienced, and there's no way I'm going to let of my students get themselves into harm's way."

Despite her serious tone and demeanor by the way, it seemed Hector was not convinced. Ian-Prime let out a very unsatisfied response in the meantime.

"What? Are you serious? You bring us to the Guardians headquarters and ask us to show our powers and then tell us we CAN'T use them to fight crime?" he complained, quite loudly.

His other two clones were quick to back him up. "HOW UNFAIR CAN YOU BE?"

"Complain all you like, but it's the way it has to be." Ms. Zenda said, steadfast in her decision. "It's bad enough as it is that I'm going to have to help keep this from your respective parents."

She eyed Hector again. "But if you feel you don't want to be involved, by all means, I won't keep you here nor will I force you into my "special needs" group. You can leave anytime you like, Hector."

Ms. Zenda went back to her clipboard, jotting down notes on the boy. She had witnessed him show abilities that hinted he could manipulate the force of velocity, but that's all she knew. Hopefully, the teacher thought, Hector's personality would get the better of him and he would find some reason to stay with the rest of the students despite Ms. Zenda's offer to let him go.

Hopefully.

 

[Harvey Randall]

Wings emerged from her back, and feelers sprouted from her head. And within the span of a moment, but what may have felt like forever, there was a colorful, fluttering, uncomfortably large butterfly in the room. ... "What do ya think?" She spoke plain as day.

"... Well, that's uh. Okay." Hector blinked. He shuffled away from butterfly Nell a little, both eyebrows raised. "I think you looked a lot prettier without the feelers. But that's... Actually pretty cool." Hector flashed a smirk. His shoulders relaxed a little bit and, despite the absurdity of the situation, he winked at the enormous butterfly.

Sia walked over to the curtain and dragged it in front of the group was. She stood on the side of the curtain where no one was standing. Sia then grew to the point where her neck up was visible.

"Aand remind me not to get you mad, either." Hector chuckled, but the expression quickly faded as Ms. Zenda turned towards him. The athlete's shoulders squared, his brow set into a heavy frown.

"Superfriends?" Ms. Zenda said, somewhat confused. "I think you're mistaken, Hector. This is not some supergroup I'm forming."

She held tightly onto her clipboard again. "In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm not letting any of you get left alone in this stage of your young developing lives."

"So as your science teacher and as a responsible adult, I'm going to help you control these powers of yours. I want to make sure that none of you are danger to yourselves, or anyone else. But by all means, understand this."

"I forbid you from fighting crime. You're all too young and too inexperienced, and there's no way I'm going to let of my students get themselves into harm's way."

Hector looked at her for a long time. His green eyes reflected the faint glow of the displays in the distance with a certain intensity. His frown deepened.

"Not a danger..." Hector repeated. He'd been having nightmares since he'd saved Ms. Zenda; The soft smile of his mother, the electric laughter of his brothers, even his father came to mind, with his stern face and voice like thunder. His hands would reach out towards them, energy crackling just as it had when his newgen manifested. They would scream and fly into a sky horrifically open and blue sky, and like Icarus they would vanish into the burning light of the sun. He would chase after them for hours but they never came down, screaming their names until he awoke to a cold sweat.

She eyed Hector again. "But if you feel you don't want to be involved, by all means, I won't keep you here nor will I force you into my "special needs" group. You can leave anytime you like, Hector."

Hector sighed at Ms. Zenda. He looked down at his feet. "Fine."

"What? Are you serious? You bring us to the Guardians headquarters and ask us to show our powers and then tell us we CAN'T use them to fight crime?" he complained, quite loudly.

His other two clones were quick to back him up. "HOW UNFAIR CAN YOU BE?"

"She's right, Ian. We're kids." Hector shoved his hands into his pocket and scuffed his feet into an open area of the room to display his powers. He gritted his teeth, drew his face into a wide smile and waved one hand. "Yo, I'm Hector. I can run fast and make other things fast. Like this."

Hector took a deep breath and focused. There was a bright flash of yellow energy that crackled around him, and he was gone. The papers - rustled from Nell's transformation still - flew into the air as a path was hewn through them by a seemingly invisible force. The speedster ran a lap around each of Ian's clones - a firecracker laugh fell into the air as he zipped around the four corners of the room, before darting deeper into the facility. Within moments, he returned with a basketball from one of the old exercise facilities the Guardians used. He blew the dust from it with a gust of air, and threw it. As his arm swung, it crackled yellow and shot off in the far corner of the room, bouncing up the vacant elevator shaft. After a couple of bounces, the ball burst and its skin floated to the ground.

"Yo, good news: We got a LOT of storage space down here. Gym's neat, too." Hector chuckled, his heart hammering in his chest, his brown hair blown upwards. "Someone's going to need to dust off the running machines though. Dibs not me."

 

[TheImagineer]

The good thing about transforming was that the opposite direction was a lot less climactic. Nell felt pretty happy that butterflies couldn't blush, or it might have been sort of embarrassing when Hector winked at her. She wasn't all that used to getting actual compliments instead of sarcastic turns of phrase or outright criticisms. That was why the first thing that she did when she was back to her regular "self" was say, "Ah, thanks, Hector. Oh, and you really are super fast! It's awesome!"

She had paid attention to her fellow classmates as they displayed their powers as well. And all of them could do such amazing things! If she were a bard, it would be easy to make up some cool song about their badassery! Yet... she was pretty sure that Ms. Zenda wouldn't like it for her to use such language, so that thought, at least, she kept to herself, which was asking a lot considering Nell was quite the loquacious type of girl despite her quirks. She could still tell her emotions without singing though. Turning to Ian, she smiled, "I bet you're really good at multi-tasking, and Sia! You'd be the idol of girls everywhere! I bet you can reach even the tallest cabinets!" Of course, she had directed her gaze to the growing girl when she spoke to her, even if she was getting dressed at the moment Nell was sure that she could still be heard.

Peeking past the clones to the small girl that had returned to sitting after her display, she toned down her high beam grin to something a lot softer. She didn't want to scare her. Frankly, Kate seemed a little skittish to the short-haired bug enthusiast, so it might help to get her to talk if she calmed herself, "Your power is epic too, Kate. Can you make anything? I can only turn into to stuff I see. I tried to make up a bug before and boy that didn't go so well in the end, lemme tell ya."

It was true. Her body had not been happy with her about it either. Finally, she addressed Ms. Zenda, "So, if we don't get to fight crime, then how come we have to worry about our powers? It's not like we've been gallivanting around campus or anything." Hector was right. They were kids, and she sure as heck didn't know how to fight bad guys, but still. She didn't see why there was danger if she wouldn't be using her skills for anything. It seemed to her like she had lost an afternoon off her project time... Although to be fair, she may have made some cool new friends out of it. That was always fine in her book.

 

[EternalMusic]

Kate didn't say anything, why should she when everyone else doing all the talking for her. Listening to this was good enough for her. What was the need to speak when there wasn't anyone that needed to listen. Kate... She is speaking gibberish again... Sighing she listened as the conversation got thrown from one person to the other then back to another and the others began to argue with the teacher about the fact that they had to fight monsters. Does this mean Kate can live her video games in real life...? Tilting her head, Kate couldn't help but think that would be fun. She had never thought about the fact that it was possible that she would be able to actually live her video games. Looking at the ones that were rejecting the idea, Kate frowned slightly. Why doesn't humans think like Kate. Groaning Kate thought to herself again that she was human, But Kate's guess is that Kate wants to be a robot. Nodding to her thoughts Kate began to go off into her own world and then blinked as more shouts carried out.

Why are these humans so noisy... Now giving up reminding herself that she was human, Kate just looked at the others with a slightly annoyed expression. Then she watched as slowly one by one more of them began to argue with Ms Zenda. She wanted to say something but her personality wouldn't let her. She didn't want all of the eyes on her, that would just be plain annoying. What was the point of putting herself through something like that. Sighign once more she decided to play with her powers for a little while she waited for them to finish. Picking up her cellphone she transformed it into a 3DS and then produced a game card from her pocket. Smiling softly as she began to play Pokemon on the device. Ignoring the conversation now, Kate began to become engrossed with the game and sighed with relief as she grew more comfortable with the world that she was now entering. Games are much better than reality in Kate's mind.

 

[RareSecret]

Sia took the clothes Ms. Zenda handed her and put them on. They were a bit baggy but at least it's better than having ripped clothes on. Sia knew she didn't have to but other people were admitting they were newgens and showing off their powers. Maybe this will help Sia gain their trust when she will eventually take advantage of them. You have to make use of people in this world in order to survive, especially in Eastbank.

"So as your science teacher and as a responsible adult, I'm going to help you control these powers of yours. I want to make sure that none of you are danger to yourselves, or anyone else. But by all means, understand this. I forbid you from fighting crime. You're all too young and too inexperienced, and there's no way I'm going to let of my students get themselves into harm's way." Ms. Zenda explained. All the students complained. Sia had to agree with them. What's the whole point of them coming down here if they weren't going to do anything other than show off and train? Training is like homework. Something to make you get better at something you don't need. "What a waste of time." Sia complained.

 

[K. El-Amrani]

Ms. Zenda continued to write notes on her clipboard, adding even more detail to the already copious observations. She felt a strange sense of excitement, being able to witness displays of newgen power like this. After all, she had never been saved by the likes of Henry the Lion, and thus, had very rarely seen powers first hand.

She thought to herself, noting the powers present inside the students before her. The details were written down, sure, but Ms, Zenda still felt the need to clarify it in her head.

Ian could duplicate himself. Kate had the power to change matter. Nell could shape-shift into enormous arthropods. Hector could run faster than the speed of sound. Sia could dramatically increase her size.

But of all the newgens that had been in Giger City over the years, the speed powers of the hero Breakneck was the only thing Ms. Zenda could compare to those of her students. All in all, they were quite the unorthodox mix. Their power-set, at least as group, was very unlike the more straightforward powers of the Guardians or Henry the Lion.

The memories of Allan his exploits were flooding back. Ms. Zenda replayed her voice in her head, where she made it very clear that she was forbidding her students from fighting crime.

But had she meant those words? Ms. Zenda assured herself internally that she did, of course, but there was a part of her that felt like turning a blind eye. There was a part of her that felt like she had no right to meddle in whatever it was these students of hers decided to do with their powers.

At the very least, she had to make sure they knew what they were doing. She had to make sure they had adequate control.

As Ms. Zenda looked through her notes, ideas for training exercises already running through her head, she was alarmed when her phone began vibrating loudly in her pocket. Quickly picking it up, the focused expression on Ms. Zenda's face faded as she saw exactly who it was calling.

Mr. Acelrar's name showing up as the caller on her buzzing phone was quite literally the last thing the science teacher needed right now. She glanced up at her students, and contemplated ignoring the call.

But she knew she couldn't, at least, not after the whole fiasco that had developed with Mr. Acelrar threatening to pull Hector from the soccer team. It was only through a blatant lie that Ms. Zendahad convinced Hector's father to stay the execution of Hector's soccer career if she gave him a part-time job after school.

"Excuse me, everyone, but this phone call is important." she told them, brushing past them and going back onto the floor-elevator.

Lifting the handle on the mechanical pencil sharpener, the elevator began to soundlessly lift upwards, bringing the desks and detention room floor with it.

"Just stay here, and please, try not to make a mess of things. I'll be back in a little while!" she shouted at the them, finally answering the buzzing phone as the elevator and the entire detention floor situated on it disappeared from view.

And with the elevator gone, the group of teenagers were effectively stuck in the Guardians headquarters until Ms. Zenda did indeed return.

Ian sighed audibly, but his clones beat him to his own statement. "MAN, EVEN IF WE WANTED TO SNEAK OUT AND FIGHT CRIME, MS. ZENDA JUST TOOK THE ONLY WAY OUT!"

Ian-Prime rubbed his chin and looked up at the huge service shaft leading upwards.

"That can't be the ONLY way out. I mean, how else would the Guardians have done such a good job protecting Giger City back in the day? There's gotta be another way out of this place, among other things."

The other two Ians perked up. "YOU MEAN LIKE SECRETS?"

Ian-Prime nodded before turning his attention to Hector. "I can only guess, but there's a 99.9% chance that's the case. It all depends on if Flash here found anything worthwhile while zipping around."

Ian snickered to himself, applauding his own engorged intelligence for being able to come up with what he considered such a "clever" nickname.

Far more clever than Specs, Ian thought.​

 

[EternalMusic]

"Excuse me, everyone, but this phone call is important." she told them, brushing past them and going back onto the floor-elevator.

Lifting the handle on the mechanical pencil sharpener, the elevator began to soundlessly lift upwards, bringing the desks and detention room floor with it.

"Just stay here, and please, try not to make a mess of things. I'll be back in a little while!" she shouted at the them, finally answering the buzzing phone as the elevator and the entire detention floor situated on it disappeared from view.

And with the elevator gone, the group of teenagers were effectively stuck in the Guardians headquarters until Ms. Zenda did indeed return.​

Kate blinked slightly as she focused in on what had just happened and thought about wether Ms Zenda was alright. Shaking her head and shrugging Kate threw the thought away and sighed softly thinking about how she was now stuck here with these pesky people. Turning her attention back to the game consol in her hands she shook her head and focused only on the game consol not thinking about what the others were doing and such.

Ian sighed audibly, but his clones beat him to his own statement. "MAN, EVEN IF WE WANTED TO SNEAK OUT AND FIGHT CRIME, MS. ZENDA JUST TOOK THE ONLY WAY OUT!"

Ian-Prime rubbed his chin and looked up at the huge service shaft leading upwards.

"That can't be the ONLY way out. I mean, how else would the Guardians have done such a good job protecting Giger City back in the day? There's gotta be another way out of this place, among other things."

The other two Ians perked up. "YOU MEAN LIKE SECRETS?"

Ian-Prime nodded before turning his attention to Hector. "I can only guess, but there's a 99.9% chance that's the case. It all depends on if Flash here found anything worthwhile while zipping around."

Ian snickered to himself, applauding his own engorged intelligence for being able to come up with what he considered such a "clever" nickname.

Far more clever than Specs, Ian thought.​

Kate blinked as the duplications of the boy with the glasses began to speak all at once about fighting crime and then and talkign about secrets and such. Sighing she went to place her head phones over her ears so that she could only focus on her game but then stopped thinking that it would be best to have her ears on the look out for any sounds that were not part of the conversation. Wrapping the head phones around her neck she finished her pokemon battle and then looked up and gazed arond silently not saying a word or anything else.