Chapter 1.1

It had been an...interesting summer for Ben, to say the least.

He was staying at his brother’s house, D’von having housed him for the last five years due to their parents freaking out about the emergence of his powers at age fourteen. (He had accidentally regurgitated a white-hot ball of electricity at the dinner table after his parents had a particularly heated argument, and his sudden outburst only made things worse.) D’von, for the record, was gifted as well, but much more capable of flying under the radar. He was so inconspicuous, in fact, that he had never been diagnosed with superpowers and thus, never received a formal education in using them, but he was doing fine on his own. Their parents still had no idea. His gift was mind control, and honestly, he could have brought about world peace if he was put in front of the right world leaders, but he was of the staunch opinion that he didn’t owe anything to the world, so he spent his days working as a bartender and using his power to finesse exuberant tips out of his guests, which was how the Taylor-Moore boys were able to afford their comfortable two-story house.

Ben, on the other hand, was much less adept at using his power.

For example: towards the end of summer, he was behind the counter of the convenience store where he worked, minding his own business, waiting for a customer at 3 AM, when a masked gunman barged in and stuck him up, demanding he open the register. So he did, and then the man demanded with a gun pressed to his temple that he open the safe, too.

The robber was so practiced at this, there was no emotional reading coming off of him. To him, Ben was just another splatter on the ground if he didn't open that safe.

Which he didn't know the combination to.

And he couldn't so much as muster a spark.

It was a good thing Bombshell showed up in the nick of time.

Go Fork Yourself had had a field day extracting the gunman from the building, and Ben probably should have been in counseling, but at least he wasn't dead.

***

"God, turn your blinker off, you fuckin' idiot!" Oriana swore at the car in front of her before swerving recklessly around it, shaking her head. In the passenger's seat of her silver sedan, Ben clutched the armrests.

His car was in the shop: he had accidentally fried the battery with a misfire of his powers. Luckily, his cousin was available to drive him to school for move-in day. "Slow down, Ori! Someone's gonna recognize your driving if you're not careful!"

"This far from Blackwater City? Nah. Especially not in my civvy car. Out here, I'm just a maniac in a Honda Accord." She hung a sharp left and weaved her way down the feeder road.

"Just try'n not kill us."

"Relax, I'm a great driver."

"But you're on edge. You're jumpy, you've lost sleep...wait. You aren't still e-stalking Big Tech, are you?"

"It's not stalking, it's research. Besides, newsflash: you agreed to help me!"

"I was along for the ride at first, but I don't think this level of obsession is healthy."

"I can't help it!" Oriana squirmed in her seat. "He's so...driven. So brazen, so...so 'fuck-the-system.' I see a lot of myself in him. Or maybe I see him in me, haha! It makes me want to just--"

"Cool it Oriana. I can taste your feelings, remember? And this...this is weird."

"Sorry. Hmm. Tax fraud. Swine flu. How to get rust out of bathroom grout."

"Better," he sighed. "Hey, can you still take me to the shop to get my car a week from now?"

"Barring any emergency. Why can't D'von take you?"

"He can't get out of work on a Friday."

"Yes he can! He's the most powerful compulse in the state that I'm aware of! He can mind control his way out of anything!"

"Yeah, but he thinks the restaurant will fall apart without him." It probably would. Antonio's Mex-Italian Cantina's menu was a mess. Without D'von there to keep the establishment's patrons in their seats, ordering and tipping, the place would have folded already.

She hung a right on West Main and finally, finally, dropped Ben and his suitcases off in front of the brick archways that served as the facade of the school. "You need help getting your stuff to your dorm?"

"I'll be fine," said Ben.

"Listen, any trouble and you call the hotline, okay?"

"Bet."

With that, she sped off.

***

Ben had mixed feelings about returning for his sophomore year at the Bellevue Academy for the Gifted. On the one hand, he might actually start the year right. He had lost twenty pounds over the summer, if only because he mostly only spoke to his brother and Oriana. D’von was pretty emotionally closed-off, and Oriana...well, let's just say she kept herself busy. He was still chubby, but some progress was better than none, right? On the other hand, classes were demanding, he had never been a great student, and every semester seemed to drive him further from his childhood best friend and longtime crush, who was clearly more talented than he could hope to be.

As he hauled his things into the dorm for the start of term, he was stopped by his friend Blake, another misfit who mostly kept to the on-campus LGBT club. “Sup, man? I heard you had a close encounter with Bombshell.”

Not wanting to seem uncool, Ben shrugged, leaned against the wall, and said, “Yeah. I had the mo'fucker on the ropes, but it was nice of her to come finish him off for me.”

He had never actually been in a single fight in his life, but ‘I’m secretly a take-no-names badass using the whole 'hapless' front to keep everyone off their guard’ was a much more appealing vibe than ‘I can still barely control this superpower thing,’ so since last year, he had been running with it.

"What was she like?"

"Well, she was wearing orange…"

"Cut the crap. Did you get her number, or what?" asked Blake. "Personally, she leaves a bit to be desired for me...namely the lack of something between the legs. But hey, you swing both ways, and you're totally her type."

Ben wanted to blurt out, 'That's my cousin!' But it wouldn't do to compromise Bombshell's identity like that. "Everyone has her number. It's posted in public on her Twitter. But it ain't like that, man. She likes someone else."

"Oh really? Anyone we've heard of?"

"She wouldn't give me many hints," Ben lied, "but it's someone on the super scene. And he works in Blackwater City. And don't quote me on this, but he might be self-made rather than born in."

"Don't tell me it's Big Tech," said Blake. "That would be so...unlike her. Then again...there's a conspiracy theory going around amongst the freshman that he only became a villain because he wants her to smack him. We're pretty sure Heather Greene started the rumor. And it's a far stretch, but...have you heard of feedism?"

"Have I? Maybe?" D'von and Oriana were both card-carrying members. Everyone knew Bombshell was a feeder; the way she used biomanipulation to whack crooks with the weight-gain stick to impede the progress of their crimes, how could they not? And D'von brought home a new pudgy paramour every week, sometimes more than one, sometimes more than one at a time. It was weird, having a cousin and a brother who were both of the opinion that fat was the most delightful substance on planet earth...meanwhile, for Ben, it was just part of his everyday reality.

And then...then, there she was.

Walking toward him, a vision in her summer dress with a sash tied around her waist, was the Felicity Cohen.

Every inch of her tall, slender frame exuded confidence from her golden blonde curls to the toes of her pink kitten heels, and really, why wouldn't she be confident? She was well-read, intelligent, and had a natural mastery over her enhanced physicality: endowed with the powers of flight, immense strength, and superhuman durability, she was a Goddess even among the gifted. She was also, by consensus of the student body, the most beautiful girl in school. Her talents with her powers had earned her instant popularity last year, and these days she was usually surrounded by a posse of rich kids and model students. He wondered how she had been able to shake off her clique to come and see him. "You cut your hair," he noted. It was long before the start of summer, but now fell just above her shoulders. "I like it."

"And you got held at gunpoint, so I heard!" said Felicity. She was worried. Her concern overwhelmed him. As she threw herself around him in a hug, it felt to him like being lovingly fed hot soup in bed...forcefully...through a beer bong.

He waved Blake along to allow them some privacy. He’d need to adjust to this much social interaction. “Aight, Lissy, lemme explain, but first, imma need you to dial it back a little bit. You know how I have trouble with these feelings things.”

He went around the corner, by the windows, after throwing his stuff past the entrance of his room, hoping she would follow. “Everything was fine. Bombshell came.”

"Good, good...she didn't accidentally hit you, did she?"

"What? No! Lissy, I been fat since ninth grade."

Since he came into his powers.

Electro-empathy: that was what the doctor had called his ability to turn others' emotions into electrical output. Only, for some reason, most of the time his body converted it into blood glucose instead. Between high school and the start of college, he'd gained eighty pounds, and not in any traditional way. The empathic energy he ran into every day sustained him so well, he didn't even have to eat anymore. He subsisted these days on multivitamins and grapefruit LaCroix.

"You told me. I'm just still getting used to the new you. Not that it should matter."

They'd lost touch in eighth grade. That was when Felicity's family moved to Michigan. But prior to that, they'd been next-door neighbors. Born three months apart, they'd been in diapers together. Their mothers used to golf together. Their fathers used to fish.

Then, Felicity was gone, and everything changed. He turned into a super freak. Oriana became Bombshell practically overnight. His parents had a falling out over the whole powers thing. His dad insisted Mom should be more accepting. Mom said Dad should have told her he had freakazoid blood. They were now in the middle of a messy divorce.

Along the line, he started at Bellvue, only to learn that the girl he used to play in the leaf piles with, whose cuts he bandaged and whose bullies he fought, was in his graduating class, having become the ideological successor to Power Lass.

"Are you sure the weight gain isn't due to stress? What with the ongoing divorce and all," said Felicity. "Might be worth looking into."

"Nah, the doctor made it pretty clear when I was diagnosed: my powers are basically ricocheting into me all the time."

"I can't even imagine. The ricochet effect sounds so rough."

"You get used to it. Anyway, where's your dorm? And lemme get one of those for you,” said Ben, taking one of Felicity's bags off her hands and slinging it over his own shoulder. He knew she was more than capable, but since he’d already dropped of his own stuff, he didn’t want to be a jerk and let her bear the whole load while he himself was unburdened. It wasn’t heavy to him; not now. She was radiating a warm energy that he couldn’t quite place a name to, but he was sure it would sustain him all day.

"Anyway, I'm sorry I was so distant last year. I guess I just got swept up in things...this year will be different. I promise."

“I’d...I’d like that,” he said.

"Come with me to dinner?"

"Sure."

He accompanied Felicity to the dining hall, settling for his usual grapefruit LaCroix while she took her pickings of the food.

Just as they sat down, a new voice sounded from behind him. “Hey Felicity!”

He turned around in his seat. Oh, God. It was Miranda, one of the popular girls. “Good to see you back! Hey listen, me and Lola Freeley were gonna try out for the cheer squad next week, and we were wondering if we’d see you there? Also, Jason McCafrey will not shut up about you. You know Jason, tall, blond, plays lacrosse, telekinetic...anyway, just a heads up, he’s probably going to ask you to the fall formal. Oh, who are you?” she asked, seeming to notice Ben for the first time.

“I’m Ben, we had intro to enhanced physics together last year?” he reminded her.

“Oh, that’s what your name is!” said Miranda. “Did you do something different with your hair?”

He hadn’t; it was in the same slightly-gelled style he kept it in to prevent it from sticking out crazily that he wore last year. “I lost twenty pounds.”

“Good for you,” said Miranda, even though last year she was one of the first to hop on the train when people made fun of him. “I took off about fifteen over the summer, myself.”

“Yeah, but you’re a shapeshifter, so…”

“Anyway, Felicity,” said Miranda, forgetting about Ben once more. “Have you heard anything about Jessica Sims? I haven’t seen her, but Jason says he heard it from Brock Kensington that she got pregnant!"

Her stream of gossipy malice coiled through him unpleasantly. He took a deep breath and tried to channel it out slowly, as an imperceptible static into the air…

Only, the electricity that came out of his fingertips was way too strong and made the soda can he was holding burn to the touch. He dropped it, wincing in pain and spilling the remainder of the soda in his crotch before the can rolled off his lap and hit the floor with an empty clatter.

Fuck! That was going to be a second degree burn.

"Ben!" exclaimed Felicity. "Let me take you to the infirmary!"

“Hang on, I don’t want to litter,” said Ben, reaching under the table for the soda can, but he didn’t need to touch it to feel the heat still radiating off of it. He grabbed a cloth napkin off the table to pick it up and chuck it in the trash on their way out into the hall while Felicity led the way to the nurse's.

“It’s not your fault; even if she wasn’t talking about it, she would’ve still been thinking it,” he said in regards to Melinda’s voracious thirst for the misfortune of others, in this case Jessie’s mysterious absence. Why did some of the most blessed people have the darkest hearts? If he had been gifted with natural charisma, an innate mastery of his powers, and stereotypical good looks, he would simply enjoy his life and mind his own business without trying to bring others down.

By the time they reached the infirmary, he had managed to dry most of the soda off of his pants with the napkin, but it still looked like he had pissed himself. “It’s grapefruit LaCroix,” he said before the nurse could ask.

The nurse examined his injury, then glanced at Felicity. “You’re a good friend for bringing him in so quickly. Fortunately, the damage is minimal. He could have hurt himself worse with a hot stove. You kids wait here, and I’ll be right back.”

While the nurse was away, Ben decided to make smalltalk. “So what classes are you taking? I’ve already gotten approved for Superhumans in Literature and Field First Aid on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, then on Thursday I have a four hour seminar on Combat Thermodynamics.” A few of the guys in Q and A who had heat and flame related powers had convinced him to sign up, since his power manifested as electricity, but he was nervous about embarrassing himself, especially if he would have to spar with anyone. “Then I got Wartime History of Human and Super-Human Experimentation on Tuesday/Thursday and I’m on the waitlist for Gifted Home Economics.” Not too beefy a schedule, except for that combat class that he was worried about.

"Oh, I can get you into that home-ec course. I teacher aided for Blonsky over the summer, she likes me."

Soon, the nurse returned to sanitize his burns (he struggled to disguise an expression of pain), apply some burn cream, and wrap his hand up in gauze. “I can accelerate your healing process, but you have to give me something to work with. A happy memory, perhaps?”

“Of course.” He’d had this nurse before; her powers were emphatically based, too, but instead of being able to use others’ emotions as a weapon or a fuel source, she could use it to heal others’ injuries. He defaulted to a memory of riding bikes with Felicity all around the neighborhood, an eternity ago when things were much less complicated, while the nurse squeezed his hand between both of hers.

“There. You should be better in two days tops, and if you can’t hold a pen right now, go to administration and they’ll provide you with a tablet to take notes for classes.”

Once he was dismissed, he accompanied Felicity back into the hall and asked, “Want to go find your dorm? I can help you unpack your stuff if you want. Unless you’d rather bond with your new roommate alone.” He was hogging her time and he knew it. He just missed her after all summer without her.

"Sure. I just have to swing by the office to see where it is."

So they swung by. As Felicity was handed her key, Ben couldn’t help but overhear she had been put on financial aid. He wanted to ask her about it, but it looked like she wanted to keep moving, and it wasn’t until they reached her room that she finally opened up.

"Look, you should know...my parents didn't take well to the powers thing. They think I'm an affront before God. They threw me out last year. I've been living in shelters."

Ben’s heart dropped.

All he could say at first was, “Yike.”

Even as she spoke, he could tell she was tempering her mood. “That’s got to be rough, Lissy. Hey listen though, if you need help with money, for whatever the school won’t cover like clothes and bus fare and things, I got you.” He didn’t want to brag, but his brother made at least ten stacks a month at his restaurant job, which was way more than they needed for their mortgage, and Ben usually put whatever D’von sent him into savings. “Consider it payment: I bet you finna be having to help me a lot in that combat class. I also know the fall formal coming up, and even if you don’t go with Jason McCafrey, you deserve to treat yourself to a nice outfit.”

And how secretly happy had he been to feel her disinterest when the subject of Jason had come up over lunch! That guy was so juvenile. Honestly. Using his telekinesis to take her stuff and rile her up...it was like he was in third grade, pulling on a girl’s pigtails because he lacked the wherewithal to just say he liked her. Ask Ben, Felicity deserved someone who was emotionally mature, intelligent, and good to her. He wished he could be that person, but he would never want to bring her down with his own faults.

“And hey. If you want to stay with me and my brother over the breaks, we have a couple extra rooms. It would be no trouble at all. You would have your own bathroom and everything. Also he’s a really good cook. We could watch Netflix, and he keeps the liquor cabinet stocked...only if you want to, though. And hopefully your parents change their mind…”

That much he knew was wishful thinking. Supers were largely misunderstood by most of society. But he couldn’t help but wish the best case scenario on Felicity.

"You'd really do that for me?"

"I would do anything for you."

When they got to her dorm, it was dark, and her roommate had still yet to arrive. "Hey Ben? Would you mind...staying with me tonight? Maybe watch a movie? I have a sleeping bag, you can take the bed."

"I'll just take your roommate's bed, it's fine."

"Oh, yeah. Two beds. I'm stupid."

"You're not stupid," said Ben. "You've just been through a lot recently." He settled into Felicity's absentee roommate's bed and turned on the TV.

They fell asleep watching Diced.