ic Superpowered Babysitters Wanted

[Supercape]

Rev

 

Rev toned down her personality. She was feeling sorry for Laurence and she didn't honestly know if that was a good or a bad thing. Probably a bit of both. 

 

"It's ok kid, nothing wrong with being wrong. Sometime's its right" she said, tripping over her own Faux-zen. 

 

"Zhu and me felt pretty strange growing up. And I guess things got even stranger. But it worked out all right in the end. Sort of" she said, smiling. 

 

"You can tell us, you know. We won't judge..."

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Lawrence looked between the two teenage girls a moment, then shrugged his shoulders slightly again.  "I guess it is just a number of things really."  He stated.  "I generally like a lot of the same things they do, but…I guess I just see them a bit differently?" 

 

"I mean, I like most of the kids at my school and have friends, it..it is just kind of complicated.  My parents hoped that having me at the Nicolson School would help with things as opposed to going to a local school here in North Bay and I guess it does?"

[BlazingCoconut]

Zhu scooted closer to Lawrence, folding her legs up under her, letting her skirt dangle around the high kitchen chair.  She looked at the boy in earnest, "what do you mean see them differently?  Lexa is right, you can tell us... it's okay.  We've both had similar issues with school.  I found myself smarter than my peers and ostracized as they resented that I didn't have to work like they did.  I actually had a YouTube channel that did pretty well as I made movies with my spare time."

 

She folded her hands in her lap, the pizza only half eaten, "Lexa's got her own story, but yeah, I guess I understand not seeing thing the way that others do.  Like... do you ever think, 'I could be programming instead of watching that movie?'  I'm pretty sure that's not normal and I think that all the time."

[Thevshi]

GM

 

"Well…." Lawrence seemed very hesitant about whether he should say anything more, but after a few moments his reached over to pick up his glass of juice from the table.  Turning to hold it out over the floor where Zhu and Lexa could see it, he focused on the glass a moment, then turned it over and dumped out the juice.

Just as he did, he opened his right hand and the juice froze in midair like a waterfall suspended in motion.  "I can see the flow of time, and in a limited area control it."  He turned his right hand slowly toward the right, and the waterfall of juice slowly continued its fall toward the floor before stopping once more.  Lawrence then turned his hand to the left, and the juice flowed back upward as if being rewound. 

 

Lawrence then held the empty glass beneath the stream of juice and closed his right hand.  The juice began falling at normal speed once more and spilling into the glass.

[Supercape]

Rev

 

"Man, that's spooky!" said Rev, fascinated. "Kind of like a rewind button, I guess? Makes your whole life a video game...you can press reset!" she gasped when she started thinking about the ramifications. 

 

A part of her was a little scared, or perhaps uncomfortable. 

 

"How does it feel?" she asked in response. "I mean, it kind of feels a bit dangerous to me. Or maybe not dangerous at all. If anything goes wrong you can just go back and make sure it doesn't happen?"

 

Thats a lot of power in the hands of a kid...

[BlazingCoconut]

Zhu's mind boggled along a very similar track as Rev's, that was an incredibly powerful ability and there were so many different ways that it could be used... or abused.

 

"Can you control it for yourself?  Make a bubble of time where you could say... get all of your homework done and still have enough time to go out and play?  Also... do your parents know about this?"

 

Because that was an item that was not listed along with the contacts and bed time!

 

 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

"No, I cannot do that."  Lawrence replied when Lexa talked about going back and changing something that went wrong.  "Right now I cannot control over more than a small area, not much larger than that bit of juice.  But even then, my dad has talked to me from as early as I can remember about the problems with trying to change time.  He has an advanced degree from Cambridge in theoretical physics.  They call it the Many Worlds Hypothesis.  He explained it to me like this, say you were walking down a path and came to point where it split into two paths and you choose the one to the right.  Even if you went back in time and made yourself chose the path to the left, all you do is create a new timeline where that different path is taken.  The timeline where you took the path to the right is still there, continuing on unchanged."

 

He then glanced over at Zhu as she asked her questions.  "Well, I don't exactly create a bubble around myself, but I am able to do things like homework a lot faster than normal.  And…yeah, my parents know about my powers, that is why the put me in the Nicholson School and eventually I will go to Claremont."

[BlazingCoconut]

Zhu nodded thinking about the possibilities, of course her mind always went to movie analogies first.  Hermione Granger with her time bending magic allowed her to be in multiple places at once, which Lawrence said wasn't a possibility.  However, she was able to do homework for more classes which was why she asked the question in the first place.  That power seemed like an extreme luxury that she would have loved to do... not that she had issues with homework, but more time meant more time to invent things, or shoot clips, or anything really.  She wondered if he thought of his abilities as a curse or a bessing?

 

"Ah, you did say that.  I know a few students at Claremont who went to Nicholson.  Well, you should have a better start than I did.  I had a speedster destroy my luggage and ruin all my clothes.  Believe me, you don't want to put on a bra that has pulverized silicon all over it..." she paused and looked at him, "sorry... that might have been to much information.   Anyway, I still get really suprised when people use odd powers even through I shouldn't.  So you're going to have a great time there, I'm sure of it.  I mean... I met my best friend there!"

 

To which she made a little heart sign with her hands directed at Lexa.  It was cheesy and sappy, but then Zhu didn't mind cheesy and sappy.

[Supercape]

Rev

 

Rev scratched her head pondering all this stuff about physics and many worlds and time and space and...

 

No. She was lost. 

 

She made the heart sign though. That, she did get. 

 

"Sounds like you are often to a swell start, kid" she said, encouraging. "Just don't forget to play a bit, yeah? Homework is great and all, but a bit of time on a skateboard never hurt anybody. Well, except for some scar tissue on your knees and elbows. But that's worth it!" she said, full of encouragement. 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

"That does not sound like fun." Lawrence said as Zhu described the fate of her luggage and clothes, although he did not quite seem to get what she had meant by pulverized silicon. 

 

He smiled at Zhu and Lexa's further comments and interaction.  "Yeah, that is often what my mom says."  He said in response to Lexa's comments about being sure to take time to play in addition to homework. "My dad somewhat as well, but mainly my mom."

 

The ten year old then went back to eating his pizza, appearing to be much more at ease.

[BlazingCoconut]

Zhu smiled, happy that the boy seemed to be relaxing, she had been in his shoes not long ago.

 

"So what is the plan tonight?" she asked, looking between Rev and Lawrence, "although, if you are looking for ideas, you should really ask her.  She comes up with the most fun stuff.  I think we're up to just about anything... well anything that's not on the prohibited list from your parents that is."

[Supercape]

Rev

 

"But what? That list's got the best stuu.....ahhh...."

 

OK, so Rev was a rebel, but Zhu had it right this time. 

 

"....the best stuuupid stupidness on it. Pfah! Who would want to do that stuff anyway. Bo---ring!" she said, determined to emphasise how quite devoid of fun and excitement anything naughty was. She mimed a magnificent yawn. 

 

"And we do have to keep you out of trouble" she added, trying to be serious. It was a valiant effort but was a little lacking in execution. 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

The trio finished their dinner, with plenty of leftovers that were placed in the refrigerator and then Lawrence began a small tour of the ground floor of the house for Zhu and Lexa.

 

There was the formal dining room, sitting rooms and living rooms, all elegantly furnished.  Of course there were also restrooms, pantries and other storage rooms.  Next to a living room was his father’s study, which was about what one would expect from an Englishman who dabbled in academia, bookcase covered walls, two large leather chairs, a antique globe in one corner and a table with a computer.  Toward the back of the house on one wing was a room his mother had converted into a dance studio, wood floors, mirrors on the walls and a sound system.

 

Then he led them downstairs, to a good sized home theater, with a large screen on one wall.  "So, with this we can get TV or movies."  He said.  "Or it is hooked to several game systems."

[BlazingCoconut]

Zhu nearly wet herself looking, and prying into all of the equipment as Lawrence gave them the tour.  This wasn't the commercial grade pfaff that most people shopped for, it was stuff that was in the attic above the top shelf.  Thankfully, she only walked into one wall as they took the tour as she examined the state of the art security and home automation.

 

"Sorry..." she murmmered as shrugged in embarrassment.  "I got distracted..."

 

If the rest of the house was impressive, the home theater room was doubly so.  She knew that Lawrence was speaking, but was so busy checking components she didn't even know existed that it took a moment to respond. 

 

"Wow... how old are you?"  She looked over to Lexa, "it would be wrong to ask him to marry me, right?  I'm sure it would..."

Edited February 8, 2018 by BlazingCoconut

[Supercape]

Rev

 

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that would be illegal" answered Rev, raising an eyebrow. Her family had not been terribly poor, but had been on the poorer side. She had certainly never seen anything like this and honestly she was not entirely sure how she felt about it. A pang of resentment, maybe, even if it was misplaced. 

 

She wiggled her thumbs and fingers. 

 

"Any street racing games?" she asked, wanting to move her mind to safer places. "That's my favourite...errr....ahhh.....games that is. Not actual street racing. That would be super naughty" she added, unable to keep a grin from her mouth and a glint from her eye. 

Edited February 8, 2018 by Supercape

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Lawrence blushed slightly at Zhu's comment about asking to marry him.  He instead focused on Lexa's question about street racing games.  "Umm, yeah, I have a couple.  But they are the ones without any violence, as my mom does not like those."

 

Lawrence then turned on the screen and fired up one of the game systems and brought the controllers over to where the three were sitting.  Soon they were racing various types of cars down the streets of Monte Carlo, Freedom City and other places around the world.

 

Over an hour later, Zhu and Lexa were in a very tight race down the streets of Singapore when suddenly the screen went blue with the words "No Signal" across the center. 

 

"Huh."  Lawrence commented as he went over to check the game box.  It was then that Zhu realized her phone was not getting any signal either.

[BlazingCoconut]

To make things fair, Zhu had refrained from just taking over the game system and using her mind to control the game.  Her increased reactions would have made the game nearly pointless, so it had been a brilliant hour as they laughed and competed.  Even if Rev just seemed to have more natural ability when it came to anything related to car, they still had a blast.  When the system went down, her mind naturally went out to the system to see what was wrong.  Yet what became a suddenly more imminent problem was that her gateway to the internet and more knowledge than she could ever hope to have on her own, disappeared.

 

Standing up, she looked around, "Um... there's something really wrong around here.  My phone just got cut off too."

 

BOTNET STATS: ACTIVE
UNITS ON LINE: 102.7m    UNIT RANGE: 33.9m    SIGNAL COHERENCY: 99.98%

COMMAND> EX SCAN_LOCAL (D: 360, R:100m, L: /opt/log/scanres.log) GO

 

She activated the botnet and sent them silently around the area to see if this was a localized problem or not.  The invisible cloud thankfully did not suffer from the same issues that plagued the same wavelengths as her phone and whatever powered the game system.

[Supercape]

Rev

 

"Hey, that's not good, is it? And i was beating you too...." muttered Rev, annoyed. 

 

"Kid, be careful, huh..." she told Lawrence. "This is probably just a power cut or something" she explained, although she was pretty sure it wasn't. 

 

"And if it isn't get ready to hide, or run, or something. We'll look after you" she added, smiling reassuring at him. 

 

She kicked off her sneakers all the same, going barefoot. She didn't want to burn through another pair with high powered plasma jets...

[Thevshi]

GM

 

"If it was a power problem the television and lights should be off as well."  Lawrence commented as he walked back over to where Zhu and Lex were.

 

Zhu's botnet began fanning out, not finding anything they could identify as an issue within the house.  Power was still on in other parts of the house, there just seemed to be no outside signals to anything.

 

Then suddenly there were two figures up near the exits of the room, one standing in each of the isles along the outside of the seats in the home theater.  It was Megan and Robert, or at least at first glance it looked just like them.  Only, there seemed something off about them, like they were slightly off hue in color.  Zhu could not understand where they had come from, they had not been anywhere in the hall leading up to the room when her botnet had spread out.

 

"Lawrence dear you need to come with us."  Said the figure that looked like Megan, but her voice was devoid of the warmth the girls had heard from the woman that had met them at the door.

 

"You're not my mother."  Lawrence responded, though there was a bit of fear in his voice.

[BlazingCoconut]

Zhu stepped in front of Lawrence and anxiously spoke to Rev, "Lexa I was um.. searching... the area, these two weren't here a minute ago.  At all."

 

She replied to the pair as calm as she could, proud that her voice only quivered a little bit, "I'm sorry, but we're responsible for Lawrence tonight and you were not on the approved guest list.  I'm going to have to ask you to leave as you were not on the approved guest list.  I'm sure if you come back tomorrow, his parents will be more than happy to speak with you."

[Thevshi]

GM

 

The two figures seemed unmoved by Zhu's attempt to dismiss them, and started to move down the isles.

 

Behind Zhu, Lawrence reached up with both hands, each grabbing the hand of one of the teenage girls.  At his touch, both Zhu and Lexa felt the world around them seem to shift.  Everything seemed to slow down ever so slightly, or perhaps they sped up.  It was difficult to quantify exactly, but something had certainly changed.

"We should get out of here."  Lawrence stated as he released the two girls' hands. 

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Sounds about right" agreed Rev. 

 

"Lets blow these guys off, hey?"

 

She put both her hands up, and felt the jets click and reconfigure in her hands. Then, there was a blast of swirling hot air. 

 

She had worked out how to angle this particular furious jet just so; creating a vortex. A hurricane. A twister. 

 

Ready to blow papers and small objects around the home. It would be a job to clean up all the shattered glass. But it was also their to blow back to the two "Parents". 

 

Maintaining the last ebbs of the vortex with one hand, she scooped up Lawrence with another. "Hold on tight, kiddo....we are going for a ride!"

 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Luckily the home theater was in the basement, so there was much less chance of causing too much unintended collateral damage. Rev aimed her mini-twister at the thing that looked like Megan, which almost dodged aside, but was still caught in the effect and sent flying back into one of the side walls of the room.  Hitting the wall hard, the…whatever it was, fell to the ground, looking dazed.

 

Meanwhile the thing that looked like Robert continued to walk forward, raising one hand which he pointed toward Rev.  A blue beam shot from his hand, which Rev just managed to dodge.  The beam struck the wall beneath the screen, but did not cause any apparent physical damage.

[BlazingCoconut]

'NOT THE TV!' though Zhu as the battle commenced.  That was state of the art visualization and she would have given at least part of an arm to have one!  Immediately she regretted it, that was not what her first thoughts should have towards.  The pre Amp was an amazing piece of technology that was nearly irreplaceable from what she could tell!  No no!  Babysitting!  Responsibility! 

 

While she was used to Rev moving around at one step shy of ludicrous speed, she certainly felt faster now and while she was pretty impressive in her coding, things just seemed to move that much quicker and efficient as she wrote entire routines before the Not people could corner them completely. 

 

"I'll hold them Lexa, get Lawrence out of here!" she shouted and thankfully all the practice that Giang had been making her do paid off as she stepped back and ran her custom piece of code through the botnet.  Instantly a thick sturdy looking wall sprang into existence walling off Not!Robert and leaving them a hopefully easy path to the door.  She was especially proud of the collision routine she put in place to seal it tight against the ceiling and floors!  Checking the solidity of her work, she smiled and prepared to deal with Not!Megan while Rev fled with Lawrence.  She knew that she could not keep up with her friend, but she could slow down the others.

Edited February 9, 2018 by BlazingCoconut

[Supercape]

Rev

 

"Errr...." 

 

Rev had no intention of leaving Zhu behind. But on the other hand she had a kid in her arm and she had no intention of leaving him behind either. 

 

"You rip me up, Zhu!" she grunted, not happy. "You better be right behind or I'll do something reckless..."

 

I'll probably do something reckless anyway, so that's no threat. 

 

And she knows I'll probably do something reckless anyway, so is really no threat at all...

 

But it was sentiment. Maybe that would do. 

 

"Hang on to your hat, kid. Kansas is going bye bye!" she said Lawrence, and started running out of the house. No time for Jets yet. She didn't want to accidentally burn the house down...but once they got outdoors....