Changing

Since Raven, Jason and I were all in 5th Year, we were in the same class for the 'normal subjects'. Zari left before us to walk with her friends to her classes, since she was two years younger than me but skipped one, since intelligence ran in the family.

As we walked to our home room for Physics a particularly stupid student who was walking behind us tried to shoot a fireball at me. Magic was banned in the halls and I wondered what could have possibly inspired such a stupid decision. Raven blocked it with a flame of her own, all of it getting sucked into a point in her chest.

But I was already in front of the student, my body flushed with pure power. I punched him in the chest and I saw a white-gold flame envelop my arm, and transfer to his body, where the color switched to black and blue.

Next thing I knew he was flying.

He was knocked back a full 23 meters, 69 decimeters, 14 centimeters and 87 millimeters. I produced 162,000 newtons with that punch. That would have only sent him 10 meters. The air resistance was 308 times weaker than it was supposed to be, which was also enough to take it to 0 newtons of drag. But I felt that the white flame produced something that made the punch stronger, and its darker cousin made the air resistance weaker. I could for some reason feel exactly how far he went and how much force I used.

Immediately after the feeling disappeared. I was back to being powerless.

People were staring badly, the whispers started instantly and some of my more frequent tormentors backed away. This was something I could get used to.

People generally show signs of changing before they actually do, an elemental would have said element go out of control around them or a SonaChroma would have sounds and colors go haywire.

I never heard of the phenomenon that just happened though.

I was excited though, I would finally Change and all my murderous impulses would finally be satiated, I would finally be able to walk among my friends and family without feeling like a disgrace.

I would finally be normal.

"What was that?" Jason asked.

"I have no clue, but it has to be a good sign right?" I reply, still giddy from the feeling.

The boy- his name was Eric Fads- was sent to the clinic, and got diagnosed with apparently 6 broken ribs and a collapsed lung, as well as concussion from shock trauma and a ruptured spleen.

I was shocked that I could do that much damage with a single nonchalant punch. I was also scared I would be called to the principal's office, but something told me this would be excused.

***

"Kyran, you can stop now. It's not like you can control it. I mean, at least you know it's coming so just sit tight, okay?" Zari said as we got off the return shuttle. She was getting annoyed with me since I was trying to recreate whatever happened, doing very stupid and random things.

"She's right bro. Just wait a bit and you'll be rolling with the best in no time." Jason said, proudly referring to himself.

"*sigh* I guess you're right. See you all at home." I say.

I had to go to the recycling plant to pick up some new materials. It was a hassle since the building changed positions every week ,because, as the guy at the front desk told me 'they were out to get them' which I just interpreted as paranoia and conspiracy theorist syndrome. 

Dad wanted me to engineer a new weapon for Orion, his private company. It was not only a private mercenary company, with the best soldiers, it also manufactured absolutely everything that could be manufactured.

And I was their Chief Engineer.

They walked in the direction of the mansion and I walked in the other.

The massive skyscrapers and floating structures, holograms and things of the sort were uncountable in Olympus. The wealth and innovation of the megacity blatantly showcased for all to see.

My neural interface flared as I connected to all the technology in the area, finding one that had the plant's current location in any of their memories.

Gotcha.

I walked to the nearest teleportation hub, assessing every detail around me, looking for a student of Elysium.

Although I emphasized how badly I was bullied and how defenseless I was, that was only in the confines of the Academy. The protocols they had against hacking were strong enough to completely disable me in it's walls.

Throughout half of 4th year I was bullied exponentially worse than I am now, due to the fact that back then, I wasn't friends with anyone other than Zari. So in the halls, I would be ganged up on and beaten. There was this particular asshole that had the ability to implant illusions into the minds of others, and would get to me regularly. The illusions he cooked up for me were so freaking torturous and horrifying that I attempted suicide multiple times, only for all of them to fail( since my dad had a regeneration spell on me). He even did so during one of my episodes, making the experience a trillion times worse.

Of course, when I was outside it was a different story.

Sadly for me, I didn't find anyone in the hub. I called in some Orion operatives and told them to get to the plant, since I would be there shortly. 

When I got to the front of the line, the scanner that preceded the 6-foot diameter circle, flashed red and trilled in a monotone voice, "Kyran Hunter, Age 17, Deviation Status: Imminent. Advised course of action: Do not let him teleport, it would cause catastrophic destruction."

The entire place went still. 

I was about to Change, and judging by the warning by the AI's warnings, it wasn't going to be pretty either. It also clued me in that I may get a spatial affinity, considering teleportation would agitate my spatial aether-since I was travelling through a patch of folded space that was linked to another point in it-and cause a forced Changing, which would obviously be catastrophic.

That was good, space was a really powerful and versatile element, with it's claws in every aspect of existence. It's only downside was the insane learning curve. But that wasn't a problem for me since I was addicted to both magic and science.

Everyone looked at me with looks at disgust at first, a lady who asked me if I needed help before was now looking at me and whispering to her child, until the implications that my Changing was going to be catastrophic was an indicative of the fact that my powers post-Change would probably be even more so.

Their expressions changed, and I could sense a physical wave of greed come from a few people, while some others gave off fear. It wasn't a gut feeling or instinct anymore. I could physically feel those emotions, and it felt like a slimy piece of rotten flesh was drilling into my skull.

And we didn't like it.

We don't know what he did, but a similar wave rolled off us, or more accurately a tsunami. It crashed into the crowd-their emotions- in a bright flash of blue and gold and they all recoiled, a lot of them falling.

This time the feeling didn't disappear, it wasn't even diminishing. Instead it got a thousand times stronger in an instant and kept that same momentum. We were starting to feel agitated and uncomfortable, it felt like our heads were full to the point of bursting, while our chest felt like it was being carved into.

The feeling was as if all the times he had suppressed us over the years, we gained power along with the one he had before, and we were bursting out.

We were Changing.

That discomfort turned into pain like we had never felt before, at the same time it was simple to ignore, easy to use, and a billion other views regarding this, and the feeling of bursting suddenly turned to the feeling of burning. As we ran to the nearest teleportation pad, one of the security men tried to stop us.

How dare they?! How dare the bastards stop my rise?!

He was just trying to do his job so I held back.

Yes, *giggle*, another victim. This will be fun.

They are required to be in the Second Deviation at least, wouldn't stop us. He attempted to punch our face, moving in slow motion in our eyes, why did they ever act with caution? He was weak. But before he could even touch us, Lost flexed that tsunami, and turned it into a wall instead.

His fist stopped inches from our face. His eyes widened in surprise.

BANG!

Lost flexed again, and he was sent flying until he crashed into the wall, which developed a crater. Spiderweb cracks rapidly spread from the point of impact up to the roof. He was just slightly dazed, not even really injured, and tried to get up.

One of the others took control of the power for a second, and used it as a sword. The next second, with absolutely no indication, a straight ravine appeared on the wall. It looked exactly like what would happen if an angry giant took a massive sword and sliced, without regard for how long it was. We looked outside through the gap and saw even more empty space.

Thank God he missed. By an inch

There were a few other things inside us, inside the Minds of our most eccentric. He chose some other new muscle that differed from the tsunami, the feeling it gave off was one of more dependence on others. He tapped into the Mind of it's owner, and ripped control away from him.

Lost used it, with the intent of keeping him down long enough as we ran by him. The first though in his mind was rope, but the muscle was inert. The next thought was made by the owner, and it was snake.

The sound of hissing was so deafening that it was probably heard for like 10 blocks. We turned behind us and saw the scariest living thing that we had seen until this point. It was a massive snake, probably around 30 meters long, with a midnight black hide, six massive white eyes and a gaping maw that was dripping liquid darkness. It looked at us and gave off urgency, until he remembered that we had somewhere to be going, the pain addling his thoughts just getting worse.

People were running around and screaming. They would have been long gone by now if not for tendrils of that same darkness covering the door.

We jumped onto the pad and put in the coordinates for his house, which he was forced to memorize. The feeling of teleporting resonated with him, the first ability thrumming strangely. 

He flexed it, mid-teleport, it played with the spatial aether, compressing it and expanding it in creative ways, creating tunnels and patches of unstable space, and felt something click into place, We felt at peace. Then he remembered that our teleportation and whatever he did after probably expanded the space around the hub, bringing a bunch of space in which nothing occupied into a populated area... that could have been seen as terrorism.

We felt nothing.

Until we felt ourselves falling.

Whatever he did probably messed with the teleportation, and now we were a good 300 meters above our destination.

Our Minds were clear, the ones that were calm suppressing the ones that weren't.

He tried using the tsunami, but it sputtered out before making any actual effect. It was probably due to the fact that we were still Changing, therefore our powers were not fully acclimated yet, and the pain was making him lose concentration. Our reserves of aether might have also been running low.

There were two more abilities that we hadn't used. They were very similar, almost identical, in fact, but only one was going to help me here.

He pulled on the third muscle, instead letting the user channel it, and felt a feeling in our eyes. The world turned from physical reality to a bunch of letters.

Runes he realized. It wasn't that shocking that the entire world could be seen as runes in a certain perspective. The sight toned down and we saw normally again, but we also felt more in tune with the world, since we understood what it was made of. He acted on instinct, raising our hand, and started to draw a rune sentence, a full spell.

The wind buffeted me, the ground getting nearer. One of us was dryly shocked at how slow time was moving in relation to our thinking speed.

I wonder, is it a trick of adrenaline? But no, that would be impossible seeing our... situation. It was probably due to a sharp increase in power, both physical and spiritual.

He wrote the rough equivalent of Slow me down very rapidly, and if I hit the ground at beyond 20 kilometers per hour, disperse all the force from my impact in Arcanil. Of course it wasn't actually so well worded, seeing as we were falling really, really fast.

The ground got even closer, he finished the sentence and channeled all we could into it, running us dry. It worked, we were slowing down, but we wouldn't land safely, it seemed.

We just closed our eyes.

BANG!

The impact was brutal but not fatal.

We crawled out of the little crater we made in our forest, and slowly trudged over to the front door, nearly dead, and the pain wasn't making it any better.

I stepped into range of our scanners, and collapsed, hoping we would wake up to my room, and my new powers.

It went dark.

***

Just as he collapsed, a large book materialized out of thin air and floated around Kyran. It was as if a piece of crumpled paper was just straightened out back into reality. The cover was a black, shifting, writhing mess of symbols and horrifying golden and blue eyes and mouths, which were only visible through the numerous giant cracks on it's cover.

It danced around, seemingly amused, blazing with fire, both blue-black and white-gold. It sensed a presence sweep over the area and knew people were coming. It made one last twirl and disappeared, just before a black haired man with deep blue eyes appeared right next to the boy's body.

He looked at him with loving eyes and smiled. Kyran's body started crackling with flame in the two colors, and lightning that looked like they were cracks in Reality itself, then the very fabric of everything around him was distorting, like a glitchy screen.

The man noticed this and smiled wider. He waved a hand and the distortion disappeared. He lifted up the body-which relaxed in the embrace of his father-and walked into the house, smiling all the way.