Aberrant Pt. 02

"Hey. I didn't say anything about anything. I was just thinking it, very unrepentantly." Jay grinned.

"Thank god. I was terrified my illusory abilities might be the cause of the moon being knocked out of orbit." Vanessa said, smirking as she carried her girlfriend off to the caff. "And you be sure to eat all you need, Tavi. I will not have any ladylike nonsense making you pass out again!"

Gillian let out a breath, "Awesome, chance to blow off some steam." She said, sounding grateful for the chance. She rolled her shoulders as she looked down the halls, "Uh, is there a room we should report too after food?"

Ska snorted, quietly. "Well, maybe think a bit louder, I'm curious now..." She said, nodding to jay, before grinning at Vanessa. "And, hey, wait until I tell you a story about this guy I knew and some creative use of powers. And yup! It's the gymnasium at the back." She nodded. "I'll be waiting there."

Tavi, meanwhile, had stuck her nose into the air. "I can eat in a dignified way without gorging myself, Vanessa..."

"So, like the band?" Sean asked with a smirk, letting the others get excited over the promise of food. Oddly enough he wasn't hungry but with the food quality here he was going to pick at a plate. "Though for me, I think it comes down to not using some of them." He admitted with a shrug.

"Think as loud as you want if you join me for a burger or six?" Jay offers, grinning. Truly erupting had turned their friend into no less of a monster. He still hit on anything that moved.

Vanessa dropped Tavi down in her arms and smiled, "My dear I'm sure you could find a dignified way to do literally anything." She said, gently kissing the other girl's lips. She raised an eyebrow to Sean's latter statement.

Ska rolled her eyes. "I think I'll pass on the hamburgers. I can breathe in space, don't exactly need a hamburger anymore." She said, sticking her tongue out at Jay before walking on.

Tavi blushed. "Darn tooting," she said, sniffing slightly.

"Killer. See you in a few then," Gillian said after offering a thumbs up to Alaska. She scratched her neck before turning to find her way to the cafeteria to finish fueling herself up for the day.

"Damn. Opportunity lost," Jared laments, snapping his fingers. Then the hunger pangs rattle his gut demanding once again, and he makes for the cafeteria.

Catching the look Sean shrugged. "It will likely get shown off in the gym. But it's very one dimensional in how it can be used." He offered to Vanessa while being annoying vague. And with that he left to make his way to the caff.

Alexa followed the others, already drooling at the thought of the metric ton of cheesburgers she was about to scarf down. They arrived at the caff - with Tavi sitting at the table next to Vanessa, and the rest of them piling their plates up. Fortunately, for those who had eaten earlier, their hunger pangs were not quite as intense...but Octavia made up for it, as did Jay.

However, Tavi did manage to eat rather daintily, despite her clear hunger. As she ate, she asked: "So...you wanted to talk about plans. I know that its-" she paused to sip from her cup with a quiet sluuuurp "-a bit early, since we haven't really figured out our powers, but...it's a good idea to have some plans, right?"

Alexa smiled. "I know I am thinking of starting a band?"

"I mean. I don't know about you guys, but I was just gonna keep... " Jay wipes out about half a hamburger in one bite, swallowing before finally finishing, "Being me."

Octavia muttered, not quite quietly enough: "Fucking a married teacher?" Her voice was a bit judgmental.

"I'd suggest we work as a unified group of freelancers, trying to sell ourselves as a unit even when only one of us is working for anyone to leverage the incredibly impressive potential power of a group of novas this large. I would suggest Utopia, but.." Vanessa sighed, "They have.. morals clause issues..."

Alexa pointed at Jay before seemingly unhinging her jaw and devouring a burger. "I'm mith Hay," she mumbled around a mouthful of beef and cheese. Then she swallowed. "Wait, what about fucking a married teacher?"

Vanessa kissed Octavia's cheek, speaking softly, "Do you know everything about their situation, love?"

"Fucking a who now?" Jay asks of Tavi, incredulous. Then he makes another cheeseburger disappear.

Octavia looked at her girlfriend, frowning slightly. "Well...no... "she admitted. Then, looking back at Jay, she narrowed her eyes. Jay looked completely innocent. "It's just a rumor, isn't it?" She asked, sighing slightly, looking a bit embarrassed now.

Gillian blew out a breath, head ducking just before she could take a bite of her burger. She stared forward for a few seconds before just shaking her head and digging in without comment. She'd only pause to sip at the two containers of soda.

"Well-" Sean started, not seeming to care about anyone that might be listening in, "I'm thinking we go independent. For the Utopia offer we should likely tell them to politely stuff it. Putting a bunch of hormone controlled teenagers as the centerpiece of a new team promotion can only lead to headaches for everyone." He pointed out as he cut another piece of that steak.

"It's fucking high school. What -isn't- a rumor?" Jay pounds back a few gulps of Coke. "What, are there rumors about me running a pot empire in the senior class too, or something?"

"Well, yes, but that's just silly..." Tavi said, waving her hand airily, before picking up another bite of food.

"I believe ya, Jay," Alexa offered. "About you NOT running a pot empire or banging a married teacher that is."

Jay just snorts. He gives Alexa a grateful look, and then asks, "What Utopia offer, anyway?"

Vanessa, though, was regarding Jay with knowing eyes. She smirked slightly, then jerked her chin at him. "Hey Jay. Might want to work a bit before you go on the nova poker circuit. Though if it is true I would appreciate you being honest with the details since it might actually affect us. And Utopia wants a Teen Tomorrow." She said, sighing. "Which I'm against because I doubt they'd want to be open about Tavi and I."

Tavi nodded. "They're not big on their Tomorrowites, teen or otherwise, doing...things." She shook her head. "I'm sure half of us have seen...all of us have seen Hardballers..."Well, yes. What teenager wouldn't find a copy of the Andre Corbin produced hard core "art film." Though, it felt a bit weird to watch now, considering Andre Corbin had gone on to murder his former teammate, Jennifer Slider.

Jay glosses over the first half of Vanessa's response with a few mouthfuls of burger. To the other half, he comments, "So if you guys don't want to do their thing, don't do their thing."

Gillian, for her credit, was moving onto her third burger since sitting down, silently chewing away between pauses to slurp of soda with her noisy straw. She took a few seconds longer than she should have once hitting ice before switching cups.

"Just because we're all crazy superhumans now doesn't mean our personal lives are less important than some trumped up PR campaign," Jay muttered.

"Well, you kinda were -the kid- for getting weed at school." Sean pointed out calmly, pointing his knife accusingly.

"But whether you and a teacher did get together doesn't mater. She is an adult and can make her choices, so long as it was consensual on your end- and I know it would be, you're 18 now and could admit to anything." Sean pointed out.

"And yeah, Teen Tomorrow is a dead concept. They haven't checked out my background or made the links yet. PR would flip once they found out." Sean snickered.

"You all can probably guess what I'm about," Alexa said, putting her feet up on the table. "We should stay independent. We shouldn't have to answer to anyone."

Vanessa sighed, "I'm serious, Jay. If we are going to leverage us as a group, we need to know about stuff that might come to bite us in the ass." She grumbled slightly. "Not saying I'm going to get involved, just saying I want to be prepared for it.." She looked to Sean, "And it does matter because if we don't know about it before hand we'll look like fools when someone finds it out and that will hurt us."

Jay points to Alexa as if to say 'bingo', then moves on to burger number... three, four? He lost count.

"Though.. if you wanted.. we could at least attempt bullying Utopia." Vanessa said thoughtfully.

"Okay," Jay says after finishing a bite. "Hold on a second. I just woke up, and I'm trying to eat. My head is still throbbing a little, so maybe I missed something."

Tavi nodded slightly. "S-Shocking to everyone, I know, but I agree with Vanessa. My biggest dramatic reveal is that I'm into girls." She said, smiling shyly.

"How did us getting superpowers turn into us automatically having to make our own group on the first day, and how did -that- turn into rumors about me fucking a teacher?" Jay asked. "I'm trying to process everything here."

"Fucking tell me about it..." Gillian mumbled in response to Jay before reaching to grab her sixth and final burger.

Tavi nodded. "Fortunately, the pills helped..." she said, smiling. "Did you take yours, Jay?"

"The rumors were always there, because it is really hard to hide how Mei looked at you." Sean pointed out. "And I assumed we would want to stay together and watch eachothers backs in this, because we are stepping into the tall grass blind, and there are snakes."

"It turned into us making a group since we are a relatively massive group of independent novas. And you fucking a teacher is only important because if we don't know about it, we can be potentially damaged by itself. But if we do, we can prepare a way to deal with it." Vanessa said, sighing and crossing her arms over her chest. "And of course if we stay together we can demand a massive amount of money."

"I like money," Alexa said, rubbing her hands together like a cartoon villain.

Tavi smiled, squeezing her girlfriend's thigh under the table, leaning against her - her other hand buisily put more food into her mouth. She smiled, putting her arm around Tavi's waist and pulling her close.

"Anyone is free to leave, no obligations to each other, no hard feelings over it. I don't want to drag anyone away from the path they want to take. But this stuff is important to figure out." Sean added, moving onto the mashed potatoes.

"So, if I was fucking a teacher..." Jay said, looking skeptical. "Not that I am confirming I am."

Vanessa sighed, "Like I said, we're not judging. I'm just saying." She shook her head, then snickered, "And technically, we already have a million dollar resource just by being novas. We could have almost no powers and we could still make insane amounts of money with licensing and promoting products."

"That is the exact opposite of being subtle," Jay said, looking even more skeptical.

Tavi opened her mouth, then closed it before she said what she was thinking.

"You guys realize how dangerous being a Nova is? The more we put our name out there, the more people eventually try to kill us," Jay said, looking around at the others.

Gillian finished her final burger and licked her fingers clean. Her soda went next and she promptly tossed in the trash before taking her cafeteria tray up towards the collections along the way to be washed at the end of the day before folding her hands into her pockets to march herself wordlessly out the cafeteria. Probably to the gym.

"Who said we should be subtle?" Vanessa frowned, "Also, not to sound like I'm complaining, but some of us lack the option. And what's up, Tavi?" She said curiously. Tavi shook her head -- indicating she wanted to bring it up later.

"But if you're needing our own dirty laundry aired to prove you're not the most perverted one in having your a-Mei-zing fantasy fulfilled there- I drew porn for money for the last while." Sean said with a shrug.

"It's more about knowing because once we become public knowledge we can expect everything of our history to be gone through with a fine tooth comb. London Fog got ousted as trans despite a lot of care and effort to not have that aired out in the open." Sean added.

Alexa paused, a burger halfway to her mouth. "Wait, London Fog is trans?"

Vanessa frowned, kissing her lover's cheek and standing up, "I'm gonna go check on Gill." She said, waiting for a bit before heading after her.

"Okay. If we're going to talk about everybody's dirty secrets, why don't we wait until we're all out of here?" Jay finishes burger number six and the rest of his coke, content with that for the time being. "Let's do our training thing, go get our homework early for a few days from school, and talk about this shit together somewhere quiet?"

Vanessa nodded to Jay before heading out. "Good point."

Tavi blinked. "Wait, you never HEARD that!?" she asked, looking at Alexa as Vanessa and Gillian headed out.

Jay just rolls his eyes at the conversation running parallel to his, and then gets up to go follow after Gillian and Vanessa.

Sean just shrugged at Jay, "you do you then." He offered as he stood and carried the tray over to the disposal counter. With that done he followed after Gillian.

Coming around the corner of the cafeteria, Vanessa, Jay and Sean saw Gill jogging. They didn't catch up to her until they came to the gym - and by then, Tavi and Alexa were hurrying to catch up.

The gym itself, built up by years of comics and TV shows and streaming movies, was a disappointment. No holographic displays, no autonomous robot drones to fight. There wasn't even high-tech walls that would absorb energies. Instead, the place looked almost exactly like the high school gymnasium they were used to seeing, with a practice mat for wrestling in the corner, heavy duty punching bags, a few running machines and weights of various levels. Only the scales were strange - some of those weights were immensely heavy, some were rated for tons or even more!

Alaska clapped her hands as they came in, beaming at them - unaware of Gillian's expression of set annoyance, and the confusion and concern on the faces of her friends. "Hello everyone!" she said, cheerily. "Raise your hands if you have superhuman strength! I want you super-strength folks to practice your hand at lifting heavy weights, and getting used to moving around things that will feel weightiness to you without destroying them!" She nodded - though they noticed that she had a tablet in her other hand and was checking it as if to double check their powers, abilities and readouts.

Gillian took a deep breath and mastered her expression, slipping into something more calm after arriving to the Gym. She peeled off her jacket before waving up at Alaska, "I think I might have it. Tore the slip on my bag on accident because I didn't know I'd pull with so much force."

Alexa raised a hang and moved over to the weight rack. She blinked. She was used to increments of ten, but these weights went up in increments of 50, then a hundred. A slow grin spread across her face. "Go big or go fucking home," she muttered. She piled 1000 pounds of weight onto a barbell and assumed a deadlift position.

Vanessa moved over to Gillian, muttering softly, "You okay? You seem upset." She said gently. Jay looks, for a moment, like he's going to approach Gillian. But then Vanessa heads him off, and so he just casually leans against a wall. Time to see what everybody else can do.

Gillian shifted after a second, glancing over her shoulder. "Was going to say something stupid. Didn't want too." She offered to Vanessa quickly with a slightly apologetic expression before glancing back up.

Vanessa smiled to Gillian, speaking softly, "Did you want to say it to me to get it out of your system?" She said playfully.

Sean just watched and waited, intent on following their new teacher's direction. His hand was in his pocket, curled around his phone to pass messages around, but he backed down from the idea as he listened in. Alexa bent over, and made to lift a thousand pounds onto her shoulders. She expected it to be strenuous. It felt like lifting a suitcase onto her shoulders. She actually overcorrected on her lift, staggering back a few paces before lifting half a ton of weight above her head in triumph. She began to cackle madly.

Ska grinned and nodded. "Nice..." she said, walking around Alexa. "So, good news for all of you with superhuman strength - or stamina, or dexterity, or anything like that?" She shook her head. "You never lose it. You could lay in bed for five months straight eating nothing but butter, and you'll still be toned and strong and fit." She laughed. "Neat, huh?"

"Careful, 'Lexa!" Jay calls out, laughing. "You look like you're really struggling, there!"

"No, I really want to say it when I don't feel my blood boiling. No offense Vanessa, I kind of want to work out my tension." Gillian said under her breath, looking back over her shoulder again to Vanessa.

Vanessa nodded, "Fair enough. Just thought I'd offer." She said pleasantly. She looked to Alaska now, "How about those of us who, to pick a reference most people won't get, went all Captain America?"

Sean nodded. "Good to know we won't be needing to hit the gym constantly."

Gillian let out a pent up breath before moving forward to join Alexa, testing to see what weights would test her before settling on anything. Alexa set the barbell down, piled another five hundred pounds on it, then lifted it again. Now she felt it, but it still did not feel like she was carrying the better part of a ton on her shoulders. "This is fucking badass," she said, grinning wide and showing teeth.

Alaska blinked. "Who now?" she asked, looking confused. "Well, uh, you got holopowers?" She asked, nodding. "I want you to start making holograms in the corner." She said, smiling, as Octavia beamed at her girlfriend.

"Human ideal. Olympiad genius, etc. But all human max, not above for most of it." Vanessa said, then looked to Alaska, "Anything specific or just random stuff?"

"Hey, I got that reference." Sean said to Vanessa after it whiffed over the teacher's head.

"So how are we supposed to know -what- we can do anyway, Ska? Like... I don't feel stronger, or tougher, or like I have laser eyes." Jay makes a motion with one hand. "Don't want to fuck something up just guessing about my powers. Or lack thereof."

Ska rubbed her chin, walking around Jay. "Do you...feel tougher or anything?" She asked, then looked over at Vanessa. "Start with simple cubes, then work your way up to more sophisticated stuff. Try and see if you can make it solid - I want to know if you can cause any damage with it."

Alexa felt fire flowing through her. She had to know. She set the barbell down, and piled another five hundred pounds on it for an even ton. A freaking ton was about to be put on her shoulders. There was no fear any more, only exhilaration. With a grunt of effort, Alexa lifted two thousand pounds onto her shoulders and stood triumphant. "Fuck. Yes!"

"Uh... I feel like trying to poke me with a needle is a bad idea?" Jay offers, shrugging.

Vanessa shrugged, heading into the corner, making simply geometric shapes and focusing on them, trying to force as much energy into them as she could.

Meanwhile, Gillian settled on, of all things, the five-thousand pound weight that was settled into some protective set, with a very serious warning on it. She rolled her shoulders before bowing her head and clapping her hands. Smoke exploded behind here as two copies of Gillian appeared, one with a black streak in her brown hair and another with a blonde streak. The original Gillian with the white streak pointed out her target and all three set to work in an effort to get the impossible weight out of it's base. Over the course of a few minutes she managed to accomplish that with personal teamwork, each Gillian huffing and straining with the effort as they clearly lifted the heavy weight up.