Meanwhile, Max and Ben were holed up in a dimly lit room, both attending to their tasks with a silent determination, only pausing to bounce ideas off each other.
They had both taken on the role of researcher, with two specific focuses. Ben would keep tabs on how the world was responding to the Shift, and try and track down the other four forerunners through reports of odd happenings. Needless to say, he wasn’t meeting with much success.
Max, as the most medically minded of their group, was tracking down possible improvements to the human body. He was currently combing through reports on evolutionary theory, looking for adaptations that weren’t of much use in modern society, and could possibly be repurposed.
In order to properly attend to their research, they had fled the Rogues base of operations for the modern-day Mecca of learning, where all proper pilgrims go to facilitate their scholarship.
That is to say, a coffee shop.
This particular establishment wore the name of the Golden Cup, and featured motifs of the Holy Grail all through its signage and décor. It catered mostly to the grad students and research assistants of their little college town, and was open 20 hours a day. During finals season, it was often packed to the rafters, but on this day, it was nearly deserted.
“Do you think we could track down the other four by looking for reports of the shifted animals acting aggressively?” Ben mused, sipping on an iced tea. He had never managed to get the hang of coffee.
“Only if they aren’t careful.” Max grunted, “And only then if we can narrow down exactly who they attacked.” He took a swig of his Iced Americano, black. He had never managed to get the hang of tea.
“Fair. I’ll set a google alert anyway.”
“Can’t hurt”, Max agreed and typed a line into an email he was sending to Chris, and copying into a word document. He couldn’t check out the prices for the shifts without access to the system himself, but he could compile a dossier for their forerunner to check.
Ben took his hands off the keyboard and rested one on his partners arm. They had laid claim to a pair of recliners in one of the shops back corners, both leather and overstuffed. He relaxed back into the chair and mused for a moment, a faint smile tugging at his lips. Ben had taken to the new world with the most abandon, and had thrown himself into preparation. He had always loved discovering things, and with their inside man, he had his sights set on academic firsts. The first to find truths about the world, and the system that was changing it.
Except for Sarah of course. But she didn’t count.
“Nova’s going to want backup plans. Contingencies on contingences.”
Max audibly chuckled at that, thinking of their leader’s proclivity for exit strategies. The group couldn’t go to a party without the boss making sure each of them knew exactly how they were leaving, and roughly when. She was always the first to volunteer to be their exit plan though, so they didn’t mind.
“She’ll already have some. Are you thinking teleportation?”
“Probably not. Energy cost would be too high, especially with other people. If Chris gets his super speed up and running, that could be our backup.”
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“Mm. She won’t be happy with that.” Max paused and raised his coffee to his lips, a common gesture when he wanted to buy time to think. “Healing?”
Ben leaned forward in his chair. “Nasty, but if we could handle it in house…” His fingers drummed out a rhythm on the base of his laptop. “What variety?”
“I’ll think of a few and send them out. There’s probably healing magic, energy transfer, some nonsense with nanobots…”
“There’s probably everything. Have we managed to think of anything that hasn’t had a shift yet? Chris turn up any error messages?”
“Point.”
****
Across town, the two unaccounted for Rogues were spread out in a tiny space, well lit by fluorescent lighting. Their laptops, bags, and various papers and belongings covered the table, and the whiteboards that lined the walls were a morass of swooping, smooth writing, constantly being erased and rewritten.
Juliette and Nova were occupying a study room in the school library, similarly deserted due to the break.
Juliette was currently taking a break from writing, and had her feet propped up on the table as she scanned the one whiteboard of the room’s four that she had managed to lay claim to. The writing that covered this board was small and clean, but scattered, and obeyed no coherent organizational structure. Her handwriting was precise, but artistic, containing lots of little flourishes and embellishments. The words themselves would be completely meaningless to anyone who hadn’t been in the room with the blonde-haired girl for the past hour, containing excerpts such as “Ritual Magic???”, “Neurochem Synthesis and Transfer”, and “Energy Assimilation”, the latter outlined twice.
Juliette, in her infinite wisdom, had been tasked with “Weird Shit”. In essence, her job was to assess the assumptions they were making about this system, and how to subvert them. Nothing was a given in this new world, and Juliette was talented at coming up with novel ways to address a problem.
Nova, however, was in constant motion. Her writing was large, and loopy, but well organized into tables and lists that could be read at a glance. She was in the process of adding “Procure Sewing Mach. f/ Altering Clothing” to a to do list when she heard Juliette’s soft alto at her back.
“Altering clothing? For superhero uniforms?”
Nova froze. She hadn’t considered that. She added “Uni” to the list item, in parentheses.
“Maybe eventually. We shouldn’t get into the superhero game yet, it’s far too early. Let’s wait until we’re sure we can defend ourselves. No, I was thinking that our bodies are going to change a lot, and I’d rather not have to buy a new wardrobe every time we drop a size.”
Juliette leaned back in her chair. “Not interested in trying out the oversized sweater look? It works for Tina.” Her friend shot her a glare, and she replied with a bright laugh. “What do you think you’re going to get?”
Nova was unfazed by the sudden change in topic, and moved fluidly to a section of one of her boards occupied by a 3x2 grid, each square labeled with the name of one of the group. The notes within were sparse, only a few ideas under each name. “Something with a lot of stopping power to start with.”
“Like a taser?”
“Exactly like a taser” she said, adding it under her name.
“Ever the pragmatist. Are you sure you don’t want something more, I don’t know, fantastical?”
“It can be a magic taser.” Nova replied, deadpan.
Juliette chucked an eraser at her inscrutable friend, who caught it, and used it to erase the word “Fantastical”, which she had added to modify “taser”.
“Okay, but what then? In your wildest dreams, what do you want to be able to do?”
Nova gave her head a brief shake, as if to clear it, which was her way of admitting that she didn’t know. She started writing conditions in a sublist under her name. “It needs to be scalable, so that it never outlives its usefulness. It needs to be impressive, as to act as a deterrent. I’d also like it to be broadly useful, not just for combat.” On the board, she wrote “Scalable”, “Shock and Awe”, and “Utility”.
“How about…” Juliette thought, her creative wheels turning behind shockingly blue eyes. “We give you the ability to absorb and store electricity in your blood, then give you the option to either discharge it or use it as fuel to improve your body?”
Nova ground to a standstill, like a clockwork doll running down, and considered. After a solid minute, she cracked a smile and said “I like it. Though I have no idea how to summarize that on the board.”
“Here,” Juliette said, standing from her chair and taking the whiteboard marker from her friend. She then proceeded to wipe Nova’s square clean and replace all the writing within with three words.
“Goddess of Lightning”.