63 Polite Conversation

Opening my mouth, I answer with a sunny smile.

"Well, I think it would probably be easier to just show you.~"

Then, without giving her a moment to prepare herself, I bring my hands up to my head, putting one palm under my chin and the other on the back of my head.

And with a sudden movement, I 𝘱𝘶𝘴𝘩 and the next moment I find myself looking at the fridge behind me.

𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱!

The sound of my neck breaking must have been deafening if not for the fact that it is quickly out done by the sound of my neck snapping back into place as my vision blurs and suddenly I am looking forward again, staring straight into April's shocked eyes.

Ahhh, that actually felt pretty good you know?

Not the breaking part, but now that my necks back to normal it feels like I just visited the best chiropractor ever.

"Couldn't you have just like, said 'regeneration'? Cuz that was gross." April says as she turns her scrunched face up at me.

"Sure I could have, but where would be the fun in that?~" I respond with a mischievous smile, wiggling my brows at her.

A soft snort leaves her which I count as a win and I open my mouth again before she can ask any more questions, because it's my turn.

"Well, I've shown you mine, don't you think you should show me yours?~" I say while giving her an exaggerated wink.

She seems to mull things over for a second before ultimately deciding that it's only fair to show a little honesty.

"I'm pretty good at timing, as in I could probably choreograph a city wide operation down to the second, and I can turn things I touch into bombs." Is her bland response.

The timing thing sounds impressive, but kind of boring so naturally I focus on the much more interesting part.

"You can turn things into bombs?~ Mind giving a demonstration? Unless the explosions are too big of course.~" I ask, getting mildly excited by the thought of explosions.

Explosions are cool, sue me.

She just shrugs her shoulders and picks up her empty mug when out of nowhere, spreading from her point of contact with the mug is what can only be described as a watermark, or perhaps one of those ink blot things used in psychology.

The watermark starts spreading over the mug and when it is about to reach its apex, she turns and throws it behind her into the living room.

The moment the mug is in the absolute centre of the room, it explodes. The force of the blast isn't enough to scorch the walls from the centre of the room, but I do notice one rather important result of the explosion.

"My cards..." I quetly bemoan as my cards are scattered about the room from where they were.

I was only a few moves away from winning.

Teary eyes, I turn back to April and give a pitiable sniffle.

"How could you." I whisper, heartbroken.

Then she suddenly starts laughing at me and my sad face rather rapidly transitions into an irritated one.

"Oi, you're supposed to apologise." I complain in monotone, but she clearly doesn't care.

"Hahahaha! Sorry- haha- sorry, sorry. You just looked so stupid! Hahahahaha!" She can barely get her words out as she clutches her stomach and I can't help but think that it really wasn't that funny.

"'Oh nyo~ my cards' hahahahaha!" She bounces her head side to side as she speaks with a mocking tone, imitating my voice in that annoying way children do.

Ok, now that's just mean.

It takes her a moment to calm down enough that she is just huffing and breathing heavily and I try to bring the conversation back on track with a roll of my eyes.

"Is that Manton limited?" I ask, getting a confused look from her still amused eyes but I don't know what she's confused about so I just raise my eyebrow in question.

"Hehe- sorry." She starts quietly before clearing her throat with a cough and starting again properly. "What's a Manton limit?"

Oh right, she's not just new but also a literal child, so she doesn't know things and stuff.

Man, it's just like mini James... I really gotta stop hanging out with kids, it's getting weird.

Shaking off the random thoughts I answer Aprils question.

"The Manton limit, named after Doctor William Manton, is the term for when a parahumans power can only affect either organic or inorganic matter. It's the reason pyrokinetic and such can't just spawn a fire inside of your brain and insta-kill you."

She seems thoughtful after my brief explanation but I decide to give another example just to make sure she actually understands, because I know mini James would struggle to understand things that weren't clearly explained.

Damn, should I have been a teacher or something? I seem to be good at this.

Nah, that'd be boring as fuck.

"Think about Chevalier, you know him right? Second in command hero here in NY? Well, his power lets him combine two things into one, keeping the properties he wants from each of them. The Manton limit is what's stopping him from being able to mix people together, or like, trees n' shit."

With a more in depth explanation, April clicks her fingers as if she just had a eureka moment which I take to mean she understands now, something she confirms not a moment later.

"I get it. So are you asking if I can make organic stuff explode, just like inorganic?" She asks, looking mightily curious herself.

"Yup!" I confirm with a sunny smile.

"I don't know to be honest." She confides, still looking thoughtful.

Still, I can't let an opportunity like this go just after she laughed at me, so I make sure to put on my most mocking and condescending face as I respond.

"You 'don't know'? You don't even know how your own power works? What are you, stupid?"

That immediately knocks her out of her thoughts and makes her scowl at me once more, something that makes me smile.

"I haven't had them long!" She rapidly defends with vigour before continuing more sedately, "besides, I haven't really had the opportunity to test them out. I've been busy."

Ah yes, busy getting as fucked up as humanly possible, such an unavoidable circumstance.

Still, I don't call her out for it, partly because she had just been through her trigger and no one makes good decisions following that.

She gives me a queer look after I don't respond immediately.

"Aren't you supposed to tell me that I shouldn't have been wasting my time doing what I've been doing?" She asks, seeming genuinely confused.

"Why should I?" I respond, matching her confused tone, something she clearly notices going by the way her eye twitches.

"You 𝘥𝘰 know I've been 'busy' doing drugs and alcohol right? Isn't that something you should tell me to keep away from?" The scepticality is practically dripping from her voice as she levels a pair of half closed eyes at me, filled with suspicion.

I'm almost insulted at the accusation.

Me? Doing something responsible?

Like that could ever happen.

"Hey, fun's fun, no matter how you have it, so long as you are enjoying yourself I have nothing to say about how you live your life." I answer with a wry smile.

I do, genuinely and truly believe that everyone should simply enjoy themselves and have fun. What's the point in even being alive if you're not enjoying yourself after all?

"Huh. Cool." Is her lame response and I decide to once again bring the conversation back to where we were.

"Yup. Anyway, you wanna find out if you're Manton limited or what?" I ask with a grin of anticipation, one that she rapidly finds herself matching.

"Sure, but how exactly should we go about doing that?" She asks, making me roll my eyes at the obvious question.

I roll one of my sleeves back and offer the arm to her.

"Just use your power on me." I say but she looks hesitant so I quickly add, "it'll be fine~ I'll get better.~"

Apparently she didn't need much convincing because as soon as I finish speaking she reaches forward and places her hand on my own.

We both watch in fascination as the watermark appears and starts to spread across my hand.

It doesn't take as long as the mug to reach its apex and when it does I can tell it works from the sudden pain of having my hand eviscerated.

However, if that was not enough to tell that the power works just fine on organic material, the explosion of blood and gore that completely covers not just my counter but also my face, her face, the cupboards and even the fucking ceiling.

Wow.

Just, wow.

It's like a funking Jackson Pollock painting.

I hope Uppercrust has people that come in and clean here, because I am not dealing with that.

"Holy shit." Is the amazed whisper that leaves the blood covered April as she stares at her own hands.

𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘱!

Clapping my hands to get her attention is both just a good way of getting attention but also a subtle flex of my own powers because it's nice to remind people that you have them and I don't want her getting too big a head.

"Welp! Unless you are fond of wearing 𝘮𝘦, I'd imagine you'd want a shower right about now. We can continue this lovely discussion afterwards." I say with a smile, noticing the way her eyes, filled with interest, follow my newly regenerated hand.

In the end we both shower and I give her another set of my clothing, leaving me in my only clean set left.

Do you think Uppercrusts cleaning people include people who do laundry? I don't really feel like doing it myself and I've never asked.

Well, now that I think about it, I've been here for nearly three weeks and haven't done a single piece of laundry despite my clothes being clean every time I put them on.

So I think it's safe to assume there are cleaners, which is great news.

Eventually, we are both seated in the living room, a fresh coffee in front of us both that we sip from sedately, both thinking about our own things.

"So," I begin, getting her attention from where she was staring into her new mug (she really is working her way through all my shit) "now that that's all over and done with. What do you plan to do now? Or in the future at least?"

"What's it to you?" Is her immediate response that makes me roll my eyes with a sigh.

"You're wearing my clothes and have literally just been covered in my blood after turning my hand into a confetti cannon. I should think that we're past the point of being pointlessly defensive about menial things."

My deadpan reminder makes her flush slightly as she seems to concede the point and starts thinking to herself, no doubt about what it is she wants to do with her life and, more specifically, her powers.

It doesn't seem to take her long to come to her decision.

"I want to play the game." She says, and while I have an idea of what she means, I still want to hear her say it herself.

"What do you mean exactly? What 'game'?" I raise an eyebrow and lean forward with supressed excitement.

"You know.." she starts, waiving her hand around as if to gesture to the world itself like her answer is just that obvious, "the Game. Of Heroes and Villains, going out and fighting each other with drama and schemes and plots and stuff. I wanna play."

At this point, I am not bothering to hold back my grin and I have no doubt that it grows to positively devilish proportions.

"Well,~ in that case, I have an offer that you might be interested in.~"

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Bleh, March is here and I am happy about that, but she isn't 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 yet, so I kinda struggled to write her, cuz right now she is a 13/14 year old girl who's just gone through an incredibly traumatic event and is positively fucked up because of it, so she isn't quite as fun as I'd liker her to be yet.

Not to mention, I just don't like this kind of domestic conversation. There's no Drama, no Excitement, just two people talking over coffee ;-;

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