Diego approached Nathan, and as he did he studied the incredible changeling. Unbeknownst to him, Nathan was studying him far more thoroughly, utilizing the prodigious new powers he possessed to swiftly and inhumanly create a full profile of his friend which detailed everything that the young man had ever endured and his reactions to it.
Nathan's mind was truly and utterly incredible, and far colder than the changeling's mind had once been. It was a thing of cold, calculating beauty and Nathan himself was able to make full use of the thing to have several distinctive trains of thought occurring at once with no difficulty. He was making use of that fact to seem fully present even though he was actively considering several different things all at once.
One of his trains of thought was focused on studying Diego. The young man had an impressive attribute distribution of twelve to fourteen across every single stat aside from grace, which was a measly eleven. He was the son of a successful Honduran businessman, and he himself had benefited from many of the privileges that came with attending such an exemplary school.
Another of the superhero's trains of thought was focused on the potency of the mutations that he possessed. He had an array of mutations, many of which were incredibly potent even beyond them affecting his powers, due to an ominously named mutation he himself possessed named "Pandemic" which allowed him to share his mutations with others.
He could, for example, bestow someone with his "Eternal" mutation, which would tremendously expand the lifespan of even a non-powered person. He himself lacked true immortality, but he would live for quite possibly billions of years before dying of old age due to the considerable power of the mutation that now filled him. He could also share his "Airbrush" mutation, which was the cause for his incredible aesthetic attractiveness, thereby allowing anyone that he decided to uplift to possess truly incredible beauty.
The mutations that Nathan possessed were part of the reason why any other superpowers being would have considered him incredibly dangerous. He possessed a staggering array of mutations which allowed him to do things from utilize his own powers subconsciously to not needing to sleep ever again. If he opted to share those abilities with anyone else they'd likely possess the ability to change the world, or at least permanently change their own lives for the better. With them the young man could easily start a cult, if he so chose, and he possessed both the ruthless cunning and the charisma to do that incredibly easily, but fortunately Nathan wasn't the sort of person who'd opt to do that.
The primary train of thought that the young man actively focused on was one that propelled him forward. He approached his friend, thankful that Diego had seen his social media pictures, and listened as Diego wished him a happy birthday with a smile on his face. When his peer rose his fist to Nathan, the world's newest, and first, superhero met the raised fist with one of his own, harmlessly bumping his friend's fist and wordlessly motioned for them to begin to head to class.
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Controlling my powers, be they my changeling abilities, or my traditional superpowers was as easy and natural as breathing. When Diego's fist made contact with mine during our fist bump I instinctively recognized that I could have easily sapped his attribute points from him, but, thankfully, resisting the urge to do so was easy.
I didn't want to actually take anything meaningful from anyone, and I didn't want to steal Diego's edge in things like class and sports. He was a talented athlete who specialized in karate and soccer, and had high grades in every class as well.
That said, I knew that there was a colder, rational voice in the back of my mind that saw even the slightest physical contact with someone else as a chance to grow stronger. I was aware that to master my parasitic touch I would need to actually use it, but that didn't mean I could do things like steal points every time I made contact with someone. Doing that might allow me to master my powers quickly, but it'd cost my moral compass and also make people vulnerable to a range of possibilities.
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Each point I drained from someone, even if it would ultimately come back later, left them weaker. And my abilities were largely optimized to maximize the rate at which I could successfully drain others of attribute points. For instance, I had an ability known as "Endocrinologist" which was from the yellow powerset and it bestowed me with the ability to manipulate someone's hormones. Doing that allowed me to easily make someone else feel various things, such as sexual desire or joy, and otherwise want to make contact with me more often, plus there was the fact that my parasitic touch could make someone more vulnerable to my more subtle powers.
If a mind was hard for me to psychically influence, I could subtly drain their attributes of intelligence and wisdom and then render them less able to resist my mental powers. If I wanted too, even making farms of attribute-points probably wouldn't be particularly difficult and would help me inch closer to both newer powers and to whole new ability sets, such as those of a vampire, incubus, or a siren, all three of which would also make acquiring new powers easier, due to their own potent abilities.
Diego and I steadily made our way to class, and as I listened to him I began to fully muse on how odd my life was going to be now. Now that I had superpowers, and ones that started off at a not weak level, I would forever be different from everyone else. As a changeling I had the ability to drain others of their attributes, and in the back of my mind I knew that eventually through touch alone I'd be able to drain them of more than attribute points alone. I could imagine a future where with my touch, not even my mind, I could absorb memories, conditions, and other things. My very touch had the ability to alter reality!
Right as I began to fully perform a mental deep-dive on that Diego and I entered the classroom where our teacher, an American known to us as Mr. Lancaster, and the earliest of our classmates, were having a discussion. As we entered the classroom we made our way to our desks and listened to the lively discussion on the impact of the spread of the fear of communism.
"It was very convenient for the Americans to have such a handy justification for their actions... And how often that sort of logic has hurt those of us throughout Central America." One of my classmates complained, causing me to smile.
American attitudes towards handy boogeymen, such as communism, had helped precipitate disastrous actions in Latin America throughout its history, and Honduras, especially, was a common victim of such courses of action. Little over a decade ago one such choice from the US government permanently altered Honduras by enabling no less than a coup d'etat that removed a left-wing president from power.
"Be careful Mirella, that sort of talk, around the wrong people, might put a target on your back." I warned, mostly jokingly. We were in academy filled to the brim with the children of the rich and powerful, some of whom played a direct role in the coup, and even subtle discussions about such things had angered some students in the past.
Mirella turned to look at me knowingly, and upon making eye contact with me her eyes widened. To be fair, I was now especially tall and, though it felt weird to think this about myself, rather good-looking. I was a specimen of masculinity, and I was as handsome as I could be, which could be quite jarring to someone unprepared to look at me.
"Oh... Thanks, Nathan. You're probably right." Mirella stammered out, her mind only just now processing my new appearance, unlike some of my classmates. Diego and a few others, including students in this particular class, had actually seen my pictures online and thus had had a chance to react to my new looks before now. Since Mirella hadn't, I was unsurprised that she need a moment to catch her breath.
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As more and more students made their way into the classroom, and we inched closer and closer to the actual beginning of class, I began to idly think about my powers. Or rather, I focused more of my attention on the idle train of thought that was fixated on my powers.
I completed the daily assignment of the class and participated in the class without really thinking about it, making comments that were at roughly the level of those that a college student may have said, impressing the teacher and unsurprising my classmates. I was a fairly nerdy student before being elevated and gaining my newfound powers. Now, with the ambient boosts granted to me by my ascension I was easily able to outperform even the best and brightest in my class.
That said, my attention wasn't really on my class. I was considering the synergies that came from having powers from all eight power sets. Even at tier one, my powers had an incredible amount of synergy and fed into each other quite well, allowing me to have intense potential and filling my mind, enhanced as it is, with a number of ideas for experiments to perform once I had had time to establish myself more securely than I was at the moment.
Some of the more fun powers I possessed were not powers I could truly test out at the moment, at least not without utilizing something like a memory-erasing power on an entire classroom filled with people.