"While I can certainly see the pragmatic benefits of this ability, I have... several questions about it." Nathan began, readying himself for what was to come. He was met with silence, which both unsurprised and slightly annoyed him. He wanted to get immediate answers from the self-proclaimed "System" he had received.
"If I use my 'Attribute Drain' superpower are the attribute points I take permanently drained from the person I take them from?" He asked, opting to begin by asking the most important question he could think of at the time. This time he did get a response from the system, a nearly instantaneous one at that!
"No. Not at your level of skill with your power, anyway. More mature changelings can do a lot with 'Attribute Drain', as you've decided to call it, but you are a novice with this superpower. To truly master it requires training, intent, skill, and more. The afflicted attribute will begin to inch towards its natural state within minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months, depending on the power and skill of the changeling who absorbed their attribute points." The voice explained, causing Nathan to quietly sigh with relief. This caused him to approach the child, but he did not yet place his hands on the little one.
"Does draining attribute points from someone hurt them?" He asked as he glanced at the boy.
"No, it doesn't, though again... This is mostly for young and inexperienced changelings. Draining someone's attribute score or scores does, however, weaken any and all of their abilities or traits related to the attribute or attributes you took from. For example, if you take attribute points from someone's might score you leave them physically weaker. If you take points from someone's charm score you make them less suave. It's also worth noting that dropping someone's, as in another person's, score below a certain threshold, for example dropping a human's intelligence below three, is impossible for new changelings, but even making someone reach that threshold for any attribute score will have obvious, immediate, physical, and mental effects on them." The system replied, allowing Nathan to more clearly understand the impact of each attribute.
"To most effectively drain someone, especially for changelings who are only just beginning to learn about their changeling powers, you need to touch key parts of the body related to the score in question. For intelligence and wisdom, the key areas are the head or the chest. For might and toughness, the key areas are the arms and legs. For charisma, it's someone's head or their intimate areas, and for grace, the key area tends to be the legs. This is also great for gaining the experience needed to break through certain key limits 'Attribute Drain' possesses in the beginning." The strange and disembodied "Consciousness", for lack of a better word, revealed.
"I take it that the normal limits for humans are scores of twenty?" Nathan asked, curiously. The system itself seemed to chuckle once it heard this question and Nathan felt the thing almost nod at him, approvingly. The young man felt rather proud of his knowledge of the popular tabletop, role-playing game and found it quite handy at this particular moment.
"You're absolutely correct! You, however, are uncapped in all six attributes and depending on the powers you possess you may well already start off with some attributes already possessing a score of twenty. Your mutations are beginning to manifest, but you won't be fully yourself until your powers awake." The disembodied being revealed, causing Nathan's eyes to widen in pleasant surprise.
Nathan paused for a moment and fell silent. As he did he kept an eye on the child he had decided to approach. The child was perfectly average and had no special qualities that Nathan could identify at a glance. The man sighed and then placed his hand on the child's unkempt hair.
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Alejandro's hair was warm to the touch. As I touched it I found myself distantly able to sense a strange new voice in my mind, an eerie and far-off one that I somehow, perhaps instinctually, knew was Alejandro's even though I couldn't quite make out whatever words the voice was saying. The voice was slow and nearly impossible for me to understand, which was both frustrating and interesting. I knew, perhaps due to that "Natural Harmony" mutation that the system had mentioned, that the voice was far off because my abilities were currently weak and that in all likelihood I'd someday be able to read minds with a touch.
The head was a key place for several attribute scores, and as I touched Alejandro's, I began to imagine various ways that draining him of an attribute score might be detrimental to the boy. I was able to imagine various scenarios where a drained attribute score, even one like charm, might hurt him. The different scenarios played out across my mind like a hundred different movies playing at once, but my enhanced mind was able to make sense of each of the scenarios and coldly weigh how draining each of his attributes might benefit me versus how they might hurt him.
After spending what felt like a few minutes considering what to do I quietly decided to drain the child of a single point in charm. Nearly the same instant that I made my decision I felt some of the little one's force of will, his personality, seep out of him and into myself. I didn't gain any particular bits of his personality but instead felt my own personality increase in something akin to volume but for charm and social poise. It felt good to drink in the child's attribute point, and I quietly chuckled as I moved my hand off of his head.
"So... That's what my 'Attribute Drain' is like, huh?" I asked out loud, and rhetorically. "What an ability..." I muttered, as my mind, which I sensed beginning to mutate further.
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"You really are a natural... Excellent! That'll make adjusting to your other powers far easier." The system uttered, shock and awe clearly audible in its voice. I smirked as I heard that, eager for the vote of confidence.
"There are eight primary types of powers for creatures such as yourself, ones who possess natural, genetic powers. I will categorize them by... color, to make it simple. The first power type I will discuss is that of the red color. These are powers that focus on self-enhancement in various ways, all of which seek primarily to enhance the body without bestowing it with clear, externally visible, supernatural features. Powers like superstrength, supersenses, inhuman durability, superspeed, basic immortality, and flight, are all among the possible applications of this power type." The voice explained, causing me to mentally conjure images of superheroes like Superman, which turned my smirk into an awed grin.
"This is, along with the blue power type, the simplest sorts of power sets available to you. Red and blue powers grant you great power without directly changing your form in inhuman or supernatural ways. The blue power type focuses on the mind, granting you psionic abilities and enhanced intellect. If you were to chose to pursue a mostly normal life you could feasibly choose to focus on the blue powerset, along with a few others, and gain powers that subtly improve things like your mental faculties and your body in other, non-visibly-superpowered ways." The system explained as I imagined superheroes like Charles Xavier, Legion, Psylocke, and to a different extent, Martian Manhunter.
"Now we begin to inch towards the stranger powersets... Let's begin with the violet power set. This set is all about the manipulation of energy. By investing time and energy into this set you will gain powers such as the ability to project energy bolts made of light, the power to create constructs made of various forms of energy, and eventually even things like intangibility, and the power to move at speeds beyond that of the speed of light." The entity informed me, bringing a smile to my face as I imagined one of my favorite superheroes; Starfire.
"The green power set is magic. I mean there are more precise terms, in non-human languages, for what it is, but magic is the simplest and most widespread term. It is as diverse as you imagine magic would be. Interestingly, there are others capable of using magic in this world but their spells are child's play compared to what you could do with this form of magic at your disposal. The next powersets are all incredibly weird, but also unbelievably powerful for those with the patience to properly master them." The voice in my head teased while allowing my mind to fill with images of sorcerers and sorceresses like Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch, Zatanna, and John Constantine.
"The grey powerset is, in some ways, a more specialized form of the blue powerset. With it, you can become a sort of ultra-genius in various fields and gain the ability to effortlessly master various skills that are physically possible for your species. For example, if you chose to specialize in the grey powerset you can gain powers that allow you to do things like nearly instantly master things as diverse as a style of sword fighting, boxing, musical composition, and cooking, over the course of half an hour. It is also a power set that could be used to hide your nature as a superpowered being, but if you want to, you could use it to advance all of humanity." The system revealed, making me think of someone like Iron Man or an altruistic Lex Luthor.
"The powerset most conducive to mastering the powers of a changeling would be the black powerset. These powers are useful for stealth, assassination, and infiltration, and are incredible for creatures like changelings, vampires, and to a much lesser extent ones like sirens, succubi, and incubi. They allow for deception, trickery, and subterfuge." The voice revealed, making me think of heroes like Batman.
"The yellow powerset is a quirky one. Its true power depends on one's knowledge and creativity, but basically, it focuses on the transformation of living creatures, including the user, in potent ways. At the lowest tier, you can do things like partially shapeshift yourself, gain photosynthesis, and even gain an animal-like form that increases your power, speed, and senses, to considerable degrees." The voice explained, making me think of werewolves and villains like Poison Ivy.
"The orange powerset gives its wielders various 'kinesis' abilities, such as lumokinesis, pyrokinesis, aquakinesis, and aerokinesis. As you increase in power over this powerset you can utilize more impressive kinesis abilities, such as sound control and metal control. This power can be truly astounding if mastered, but takes a long time to master." The system revealed, informing me of the final powerset. As I mulled over that powerset I thought of heroes like Aang and Korra, elemental "benders" who could cleverly manipulate the elements themselves.
"Eight powersets, plus my changeling abilities..." I uttered, thoughtfully. As soon as I said that I heard the system make a noise to cut me off.
"Actually... As a changeling, you possess the enviable ability to invest the attribute points you steal from others into yourself and gain the powers of other kinds of creatures! For instance, if you steal enough might, toughness, and grace, and gain a few other abilities, you can invest your points in yourself and gain the powers of a werewolf. Investing your points is also how you gain new superpowers. By draining enough points of various kinds you can buy whole new abilities. Points you drain also stay inside of yourself for a few weeks, for now, until you have mastered your 'Attribute Drain' touch, at which point attribute points you've acquired through theft stay inside of you forever, or until you invest them in something." The system explained, quite kindly.
"Now... That's awesome." I remarked, fascinated by the potential there.
"I'm glad you think so! I've finished scanning you, and you are innately quite powerful. You possess a staggering array of mutations, including the maximum tier of the 'Polymorphic' mutation, which allows you to use every single type of powerset without any difficulties, despite the fact that most superbeings can only use one type of power at a time. That is incredible because it allows you to maximally utilize the full synergy that exists between every powerset. And that brings me to an important topic... Your actual superpowers!" The voice in my head, my apparent constant companion moving forward, uttered.
I waited and listened excitedly, even as I felt my powers beginning to awaken deep within myself, and my subconscious mind beginning to fill with knowledge about them and about the mutations I possessed.