I jumped down, spreading my hands wide as I landed, crouched, and closed my eyes.
"Giving up already?" Fang's voice taunted from behind my eyelids. I smirked, and focused on the grit underneath my palm. I could feel it getting bigger, feel it morph.
"Not quite." I jumped up and pushed my hands out, releasing the newly-changed grit and flinging it straight at Fang's head.
He caught it. And looked at me.
"A puppy?" He raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He held the small puppy away from him.
I shrugged bashfully. "I thought it would distract while I do this." I dived down, took off my shoe and threw it. Just as it left my fingers, it transformed into three soccer balls, flying straight at Fang's chest.
His eyes widen just as they hit him, all aimed perfectly, hitting him square in his torso. He let out a huge exhalation of air as the momentum him sent him flying onto his back.
Suddenly, there was a knock.
Nudge opened the door. "I know we're not supposed to interrupt training sessions," she began, and then held up a Scottie puppy, who was panting and grinning at me. "But this guy interrupt mine and Angel's session so I figured..."
I waved a guilty hand, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. It was a distraction for Fang."
"He's rather disorientated, you know." Nudge reprimanded me. "Apparently you threw him at some-one's head."
"That would be me," Fang raised a hand , lifting his slightly from the ground and then slumping it back down. "Sheesh, Max, three soccer balls? They were breaking speed limits as well."
"You were about to melt away, I know you were," I pointed accusatively at him. He groaned, and sat up.
"Well, that's kind of my power, idiot." He brushed himself off and stood up.
"Yeah, yeah," I rolled my eyes. "You control shadows, can turn invisible, blah, blah, blah."
He folded his arms. "Like yours in any better. Morphing stuff. Big deal. Anyway, you know you get this stupid face when you morph stuff? Like this." He scrunched up his face and grunted in a high-pitched tone, balling up his fists and shaking them around like a crying baby.
I narrowed my eyes. "Yeah, well you-"
"Nudge, are you coming back? Your wasp keeps stinging me." Angel emerged, ducking underneath Nudge's outstretched arm and batted a small black dot away. Her arm was already mottled with sting marks.
"Oh!" Nudge clapped her hands to her mouth. "Sorry, Angel, I forgot. Stop it, William!" She twinkled her fingers and the black dot suddenly wavered, and flew away in the opposite direction.
"You named the wasp William?" I grinned.
She stuck her tongue out at me.
Suddenly, there was an explosion in the other room. I sighed as a yell escaped through the wall: "Iggy! We agreed no bombs!"
Iggy's reply also came through the wall. "Well, Max said we had to do it like it was in reality, and if I was really fighting someone, I wouldn't hold back on the bombs!"
"Guys!" I yelled. "Quit it, its lunchtime."
Then, a chorus: "Food!"
Fang frowned at me. "Do we even have food in the house?"
I bit my lip, thinking. "Erm... Nope." I clapped my hands together, changing tactics. "Who wants pizza?"
"I do." Gazzy said as he and Iggy walked into the room – Gazzy's eyebrows were black and scorched, as was the front of his hair. That reminded me, he needed a haircut. We all did.
We moved into the kitchen, Gazzy and Iggy launched into a bickering session about the use of bombs in training. Nudge was making conversation with the puppy while Angel petted it's head. I went over to the sink to start washing up last night's dirty dishes otherwise it would never get done.
Just as I was running the hot water, I felt a strange tickling sensation on my shoulder. After years of experience, I knew only too well what this meant. I didn't turn around, only batting my hand to the prickling sensation was coming from.
"Ow!" An outraged yelp came from behind me. I switched the water off and turned round to see Fang rubbing his nose gingerly, glaring at me. "That hurt." He whimpered.
"Don't sneak up on me then." I retorted. He continued to glare at me. "Just go order the pizza." I instructed him, pointing at the phone that lived constantly next to the pizza anything.
He rolled his eyes, and went to do so. "The usual?"
I nodded, but the rest of them heard, and decided to input what the 'usual' meant.
"Ham and Pineapple without the ham!"
"Pepperoni!"
"Margarita for me!"
"I want sea food!"
Fang and I shared a look, one that clearly didn't understand the need to reaffirm their favourites.
"Wait, can I try a Vegetarian?" Nudge suddenly piped up.
I turned to her with a raised eyebrow. "Nudge, what happened the last time you tried Vegetarian?"
She ducked her head, and muttered, "I didn't like it."
"And when was the last time you tried a Vegetarian?"
"Two months ago."
"And why do you think your taste has changed in the past two months?"
Her head snapped back up, and she looked at me with big, wide eyes. "But, Max, that could've been because some-one sneezed on it, and of course I didn't like Sneezed-On-Vegetarian, I bet you wouldn't like it either! And since I am a vegetarian, I should really like vegetarian pizza, and-"
"Nudge," I groaned. "Just shush."
I should probably explain about the puppy now, and the training. See, we don't know why and we don't know how, but somehow all six of us have powers.
For example, Nudge, with her dark, wild hair and mocha skin, has a way with animals. And by 'a way', I mean she can talk to them. Though, less talk, more chat. She also has a certain way of knowing if animals are in the vicinity.
And Gazzy can shape shift, his blue eyes and blonde hair can change into anything he wants it to, as can the rest of his body.
Iggy is blind, which makes his control over technology even more impressive. I cannot tell you how many times he's managed to fix the fridge using a screwdriver, gum and an old fish tank we found at the dump.
Angel is the youngest out of us and could pass for an actual angel with her blonde locks and baby blue eyes. She can read minds, which makes buying her birthday present incredibly difficult. She knows all our secrets, which mean none of us have secrets. Luckily, she only can read minds, she can't control them, if she could control minds we'd probably all be playing teddy bear picnic with her all day.
Fang, my right hand man and the only one who can read my mind without special powers. His cold black eyes are creepy enough but add his power of using, controlling and becoming shadows then he reaches a new scale of creepy.
And me? I can make stuff morph. Which explains turning a pebble into a puppy. I can't explain how it works, I just need to visualise what I want in my head and if I concentrate really hard, it works. I can't create stuff though (believe me, I've tried), it has to change from something else. I don't know the physics of it, I just know that it works.
But unfortunately, it doesn't quite work with food as well as I would have hoped. Don't get me wrong, raw, uncooked food I'm great with; we haven't been grocery shopping in three years. However, cooked food; that's my downfall. I tried it once, at Christmas, the first Christmas after Jeb left and, well, it didn't get so brilliantly. The turkey was over cooked and the stuffing had merged with the vegetables to make some sort of lumpy mash.
"That pizza's taking a long time..." Fang mused. I looked at the clock, frowning. We had ordered the pizza forty minutes ago – the pizza take-away place was only quarter of an hour away.
"Maybe there was traffic." Nudge offered.
I raised an eyebrow at her. "Nudge, the nearest town is pushing its luck with a pizza parlour. There's hardly going to be traffic, especially at three in the afternoon."
"You definitely told them we wanted it delivered right?" Iggy questioned Fang.
Fang narrowed his eyes. "Yes Iggy. I've bought pizza before."
"Are you narrowing your eyes at me?" Iggy inquired.
"Course he is." Gazzy interrupted.
"If the pizza doesn't get here within the next 20 minutes we get it free." Nudge shrugged.
"Yeah but it'll be cold." Gazzy whined.
"And after 40 minutes it'll be warmer?" I questioned dryly.
"Total's getting hungry." Nudge said.
"Total?" Fang questioned.
"The dog!" Angel enthused.
"We're not seriously keeping the dog." I argued.
"But Max!" Angel protested.
"It's a pebble dog!" I reminded Angel of Total's origins. Total whined.
"That's not very nice Max. Think of how total feels!" Nudge whined; forever the 'animal's have feeling's too!' protester. The strict vegetarian that only has pineapple on her pizza. This leads to constant argument about how pineapple works on pizza without ham and then we all digress into defence for our favourite pizza topping.
This is why we order six pizzas.
There was a knock on the door. Fang and I went to go answer it – though we are all blessed with extra-ordinary strength, balancing six extra-large pizzas is a feat only accomplished between at least two people.
I opened the door. "Was there traffic?" I say conversationally to our usual pizza delivery guy, Josh, a spotty youth with a small ginger moustache growing.
Except it wasn't Josh.
Sophie: Well that was fun. I wrote an argument about pizza XD
Tilly: Shut up. What will happen next, dearest readers?
Sophie: How're they going to know? I don't know!
Tilly: Me neither. This poses a problem.
Sophie: Meh. We'll overcome it eventually. We'll update as soon as we can, but that probably won't be very soon.
Tilly: Yeah – you have like, twenty thousands fics to finish-
Sophie: It's only five. I counted this morning.
Tilly: - And I have Everybody Needs Family.
Sophie: That's just a promotion for yourself, isn't it? Maybe we should stop the a/n here.
Tilly: NO. WE MUST PROMOTE YOU AS WELL IN AN EQUALLY SHAMELESS FASHION.
Sophie: Fine. If you've read Tilly's 'To Live' go read my 'To Obsess'. Because it's just my excuse to be fangirly. Now we're stopping. Tilly's gone to rave. So yeah. Bye.