4.2

Part 2

Rather then head home I went right for the Library, not wanting to risk being late.

I did call home. I didn't want Todd to worry, and considering the mess of the morning, I'm not sure how he'd react if I didn't at least check in.

Honestly I probably should have physically checked in, but another cape! Another new cape! Some one my age who wasn't on a team, who was friendly, and I could talk about all the crap I couldn't talk to anyone about!

If that wasn't some kind of sign I didn't know what would be. Maybe the heavens parting and angelic figures descending to the earth while not intending to mindrape everyone in the immediate area into walking time bombs?

Actually with my powers, and depending on the planer alignment it was possible I might eventually-

Okay none of that mattered right now. I got the message, and was grateful to whatever cosmic force had helped me out on this one.

Meanwhile in orbit: "Achoo!"

I stepped into the library, eyes scanning over for some sight of Taylor. In my enthusiasm I even considered triggering 'Detect Magic', again to try and scan for her.

I was quick to dismiss the utterly foolish idea. After all outside of potentially bringing all sorts of attention I didn't want, there was no point. I spotted her less then a minute in.

"Wow, you got here fast," I couldn't help but comment as I approached.

"Uh, yeah," she said a little nervous. "I pretty much came straight here."

"Likewise," Huh, so she lived closer? Or maybe she had a license? I mean car beat foot over any distance over half a block.

We then enjoyed a quiet moment of mutual awkwardness.

"SO!" I said aiming the good old social sledge hammer right at the metaphorical ice. "How about we go find a patrician to check over our research for the whole Comic Book project?" I asked her.

"That's sounds good," she agreed at once.

It didn't take too long to find a relatively isolated little second of the public terminals. Each of the outdated PC's isolated by modest sized walls but without any form of roof or back. Enough to keep the people around you from disrupting what you were doing, but leaving them exposed enough to see which were occupied or for someone to walk past and see what you were actually looking at.

Not exactly ideal... we needed a better place to meet up to talk about this stuff later. Maybe I could hunt down an internet Café? They sometimes had isolated booths. We'd probably have to find some place pretty up scale to find one willing to risk that though. Or maybe the opposite, one low class enough that they wouldn't care.

...Nah, at that standard they'd either be to worried about someone swiping their computers, or damaging the walls. Classy it was.

"So," Taylor said after we sat down.

"Yeah," I replied.

"...Your power is some kind of super sight?" she guessed.

Ah good, she took the initiative before things froze over again. I was a bit worried I'd have to bust out the icebreaker.

"Well... kind of," I admitted, looking around again. No one was close, but I still felt paranoid. "My power isn't simple. Rather then one big power it's more like a lot of little ones. The eyes are a new one," I explained.

She snapped in place looking right at me, "Wait you have multiple powers!?" she hissed out in as sharp a tone you could while whispering.

"It's not as awesome as it sounds," I admitted. No point in giving the wrong impression. "The eyes are a new one, if something's close enough, then they let me spot powers in use and give me a basic insight into their nature."

"I thought you said they were new?" she said flatly.

"That's kind of power number two. My powers are complicated, but I get an instruction manual," I said with a shrug. "I also really minor enhanced insight. Nothing I outright superhuman, just the equivalent of a few years education dumped right into my head. I can land a knife point end first in a target at five paces, nine times out of ten though," which was kind of depressing to have as a superpower.

"Ugh, you cheater," she chastised sounding kind of annoyed.

"What I lack in raw power I make up for in versatility," I boasted with a shrug. It was true enough.

"Well it doesn't sound so bad so far," she said. "What about the other three? Flight, super-strength, invulnerability?"

Huh, was she feeling jealous? Maybe I should elaborate a bit.

"Hah I wish," I snorted. "No I'm no Alexandria. I'm barely a cardboard cut out of Legend. My main combat power is an energy blast I'm still working on trying to work out a non-lethal version of," I explained. "Just because I have the manual to my powers, doesn't mean I have the actual skills to use them. I just know how they work, and what I can potentially do with them."

That got her attention, "So wait, you can actually change your blasts?"

"Eventually," I said with a nod. "Right now I'm working on a melee version, and shifting the energy around to stun rather then kill. Despite what starwars implies, lightsabering a guy isn't really very heroic most of the time."

She grunted, "Okay that's just not fair."

Yep definitely jealous. She probably didn't have a lot of firepower herself. Maybe she had one of those powers that was really easily shut down? A lot of enchantment effects didn't work if you couldn't hear them, or meet their eyes, or some other condition that could be locked down.

"Again, not as good as it sounds," I said. "It might get up to something actually super level if I work at it enough but right now it's basically just a really flashy nine millimeter with all the problems that implies."

"It's still a solid direct combat option," she offered. "And no one can disarm you right?"

"Well not unless they literally disarm me," I reminded her pointedly. "And I am not looking forward dealing with first guy who thinks of that."

She held up her hands defensively, "I'm only saying it's a useful power."

"Yeah well it's my main power for a reason," I admitted. "My endurance is somewhat augmented. No superhuman toughness, but I can actually take more of a beating than most people should. And by that I mean I can probably withstand twice as many bullets as your standard pedestrian before falling over dead, though again I can work on that with some practice. Last power lets me swim like a fish and breath underwater."

"You can breath underwater?" she asked a bit confused on that.

"Salt or freshwater," I nodded. "And possibly other oxygenated fluids. I can also swim at about the same speed I move on land. It's kind of situational," I admitted.

"So... your power is power detection, an instruction manual, super swimming, and low end energy blasts and super toughness?" she asked just to be sure.

"Basically yeah," I'd develop some more with time, but I'd keep that in reserve for now. No need to spill all my cards just yet, even if half the point of showing them was to convince her to want to work with me.

She sighed, "Well it's better then what I've got."

Finally.

"So what is it you do?" I asked her. I tapped by my eyes again. "I know you can cause supernatural influence... but I don't really have a clear picture of what kind."

She grimaced.