CLARKE was in her studio when it first happened. She was painting a landscape on a canvas when an empty feeling passed over her, yeyes glazing over to form a blank white.
Flashes passed through her mind- scenes of people she didn't know. A brother and sister fighting side by side, a goggled boy and his friend disappearing in mid air, a dark haired girl making the equipment in the workshop around her levitate. Clarke couldn't control herself, she simply had to paint. God knows how many canvases she went through before she woke up from the weird trance, almost covered from head to toe in different colors from her vision induced painting session.
Different scenes lay before her, none of which she could explain. A painting of an intense looking dark haired boy caught her eye first. His curly, messy hair had fallen into his eyes as he looked at his hands, glowing bright as the world around him bursts into flames. The same girl she saw while painting, the one she assumed was his sister stood next to him, face sullen as she backed away from him.
Dozens of canvases littered the floor around her, depicting scenes of the same sort, some were gory and brutal, others seemed to be calm and serene. One thing remained constant in all the pictures- the dark haired boy and his sister.
"I should warn them," Clarke told herself, wondering if the brother and sister were real. She looked closely of a painting of the two on a porch, both of them bloodied and broken, but still together. She read the address that was on the porch and typed it into her smart phone, discovering the precise location of the siblings. Within moments she was planning on driving to New Jersey.
BELLAMY was sure Octavia was kidding, but his little sister's face said otherwise.
"Bell, you have to trust me on this one," she insisted, following her brother around the kitchen as he worked on preparing a quick lunch before his shift at what she was sure was the last video rental store in all of New Jersey. "I got Murphy to come out and film it for proof this time. I'm not crazy."
Bellamy sighed, not approving of his sister hanging out with John Murphy, simply because the kid reminded him too much of how he used to be. He stopped stirring the pasta on the stove before turning to face his sister.
"You realize how unbelievable it sounds when you tell me you're incapable of dying, don't you?" Bellamy asked, trying to keep his voice from sounding condescending, because if there was one thing he didn't want to do it was hurting Octavia's feelings.
"As unbelievable as it sounds, it's true," Octavia insisted. She brought out her phone, a nice touchscreen device like all the other kids her age had, the same phone Bellamy had to spend hours of overtime working to pay for. She pulled up the camera roll, and clicked on a video of her standing atop a large rig of some sort out in a desolate area.
"Watch this," she said as she pressed the play button. Bellamy did all he could not to panic as he listened to her scream as she fell from the top of the rig and onto the rough, dusty land below. She had laid there seemingly lifeless for a moment before she stands, arm out of place, neck turned awkwardly, and something that resembled a bone a bit too much sticking out of her chest. Bellamy was frozen in shock as he watched her push the bone back into her skin, relocate her arm, and crack her neck back into place, walking towards the camera like she was having a nice stroll. As she paused the video, Bellamy noted that all her wounds had simply disappeared, leaving only blood as evidence.
"I'm Octavia Blake," she said on the video, breathing labored as she approaches. "And for all you know, that was attempt number one."
Bellamy looked at his sister, incapable of words. He was about to say something about just how grounded she would be when they heard the sizzle of pasta boiling over on the stove and a curt knock on the door.
"I'll get the door, you clean that up," Octavia said as she ran to the front of the house and looked out the window to see a nice car out front their almost decent house.
She opened the door to find a blonde, body covered in dried paint of various colors, some of it almost resembling the color of blood.
"Can I help you?" Octavia asked, looking at the older girl who seemed to be in a state of panic.
"I'm Clarke Griffin, and I think I just painted you," The girl, Clarke, said, and Octavia stepped aside to let her in. It wasn't the craziest thing that's happened, after all.
RAVEN was reaching for her wrench that was at the far end of the table, not wanting to overwork her deadweight of a leg by walking there and back. She didn't realize the wrench had flown into her hand until it actually did. Her eyes went wide in shock as she looked around the shop to see if anyone had noticed. No one did, and she realized how lucky she was for that matter. Her uber-religious uncle would have fired her on the spot. In fact, he probably would have accused her of witchcraft too, had he known.
She kept her newfound ability in the back of her mind the whole day, wondering if it was just an illusion her sleep deprived eyes had played on her. Her next attempt was at the end of the day as she eyed her car keys at the hook the exact opposite direction of where her car was parked. To test out her newfound power, she simply raised her hand towards the keys and willed them to her, within seconds she was walking out to her car, keys jangling in her hand.
As she got in the car Raven secretly wondered what would happen if she told someone about her ability, knowing deep down that it wouldn't be good. She knew that she needed to find an expert on this sort of thing before it got out of hand, before it became a hazard to the people around her. She pushed these thoughts to the back of her mind as she left the garage and headed back towards her house, knowing her problem was nothing a bit of research couldn't fix.
Halfway through the ride home she changed the station of the radio with her mind without really meaning to, and at that point she realized she couldn't work with her ability alone. As soon as she got to her apartment she pulled out a phone book and looked up local geneticists, and found a company of geneticists who happened to work out of Manhattan- ARK Research
JASPER was working in a cubicle at a phone company with his best friend right beside him when he discovered what he thought to be the best thing to happen to the pair.
Both of them knew they would never be employee of the month, mostly because half the time they came to work they were hungover after late nights with Monty's moonshine and occasionally they brought couple of pot brownies to work to get them through hours of phonecalls. Still, they valued their job because it payed their bills, but sometimes they couldn't help but daydream on the job, after all, they were in their prime.
Jasper was staring at his clock, watching as minutes passed by without anyone calling the help line for the cable company he worked at. As he focused harder, he watched as the clock sped up a bit faster, and five minutes passed in the blink of an eye.
Jasper didn't think anything of it. In the back of his mind he blamed it on the lasting effects of his latest buzz and got back to sitting and waiting for phone calls, letting his mind wander so he could think about what would be for dinner.
"I was thinking tacos," Monty said, peeking his head over the adjoining side of the cubicle.
Jasper raised an eyebrow, admiring how his friend was able to guess just what he was thinking so accurately.
"I know, it's a gift," Monty replied casually, as if oblivious to the fact that Jasper had yet to say anything.
Jasper wondered if his best friend actually possessed the ability to read his mind, and his suspicions were soon to be confirmed.
"Don't be ridiculous Jasper, you've been talking to me the whole-" Monty cut himself off, looking at his wordless friend who was staring at him from his rolling chair.
"I haven't even said a word," Jasper said, half of him in awe, the other half wondering just how much Monty has heard him thinking today.
"What does this mean?" Monty asks, brows furrowing as he tries to recall the point where he suddenly began to hear what people thought.
"This means that you're officially the cooler one of the two of us," Jasper says, standing up from his desk. "How would you feel about ditching work to figure this out?"
Monty gave a sigh of relief glancing back and forth.
"Thank you," He said before dropping his voice to a whisper, "I was getting tired of hearing Bryan in Accounting thinking about what foods are best for indigestion."
CLARKE didn't actually know their names until she eavesdropped on the sibling's argument and learned that she had painted Bellamy and Octavia Blake. She sat at their dining table (which she believed had the potential to fall apart any second) and she watched the Blake siblings as they bantered between one another, both occasionally throwing glances at Clarke.
It was a while and a few heavy sighs from Bellamy before she actually got involved in the conversation.
"So you drew us?" Bellamy asked like he was interrogating a criminal. "What did you draw?"
Clarke tried to find the words as she glanced between the siblings, trying to figure out how to explain that she painted them dying and living in so many ways.
"I drew you two dying, different ways, always together. I also drew a few scenes of you in Manhattan," she explained as she retrieved her phone from her purse, opening it to a photo album of all the pictures she took of her paintings.
She handed Bellamy the phone, allowing him to look through the paintings. His brow furrowed as he focused on some of the pictures, and she watched him zoom in on some pictures as Octavia peered over his shoulder, marveling at the images.
"This isn't Octavia," He said, turning to phone to face her. She saw one of the less graphic paintings, one of a girl making metallic objects float in the air as she pointed them towards an unseen foe while Bellamy held glowing hands out in the same direction.
"I'm afraid I don't have the answer as to who that is," Clarke said apologetically. "It was strange. I was painting a still life for a course I'm taking and I saw these flashes of images. The next thing I knew I had about thirteen canvases around me with paintings you two and whoever the other girl is."
Octavia looked at the phone again, eyes brightening as if she had a surge of recognition, which she quickly covered up with a stoic and serious look.
"You're implying that you see the future," Octavia accused, raising an eyebrow at the blonde who happened to be sitting at her chair at the table. "Why should we believe you?"
Clarke thought for a moment, glancing from her phone to the siblings before formulating her response.
"Because the only thing that shocked you two about these painting was the fact that one of the girls in it wasn't you, Octavia," Clarke pointed out, looking up at the girl who couldn't be more than a year younger. "My mom's a geneticist and she's been studying this type of thing since before I was born. Her company, ARK Research Centers specializes in the appearance of genetic anomalies that are causing abilities all over the world. It appears that you have regenerative qualities just like I can apparently see the future. My only question now is what your brother can do."
Clarke turned to Bellamy, who had been listening to every word. He backed up, shaking his head at Clarke's implication.
"I can't do anything," Bellamy insisted. "I'm just a guy who gets paid minimum wage to work at the Video Palace downtown."
"We'll see then, won't we?" Clarke pressed, standing from the table and extending a hand to the older Blake, which he took and shook curtly before walking to the raggedy coat rack that held his Video Palace vest. He pulled it on and grabbed a can of some energy drink from the fridge.
"See Clarke out, Octavia," He said as he walked towards the front door. He turned as he opened the door, flashing Clarke a grin as he called, "By the way, nice lockscreen, Princess."
Clarke flushed as she looked at the background of her phone, which just happened to be her and her roommate Lexa on her 21st birthday, both wearing plastic tiaras and looking drunk out of their minds. She heard the door slam, and the eldest Blake was gone with the turn of an engine outside.
"So," Octavia began, crossing her arms as she looked at Clarke, "You said your mom knows about this kind of stuff, right?"
Clarke wished she hadn't let that information slip, considering the rocky relationship they'd had since Lexa had gone missing shortly after a visit from her mother, who seemed to be much more than a meager geneticist.
"Yeah, my mom and a few business partners have been researching this for about 25 years now," Clarke admitted. "I don't know if she knows how to reverse it, though. Everything has been merely theoretical until now. I'm about to go to her office, see if maybe I can volunteer some of my DNA for testing. You're welcome to accompany me if you're willing to have a bit of bloodwork done as well."
Octavia looked distasteful of the invitation, but nodded anyway, for some reason that Clarke didn't understand. She headed over to the ratty coat rack and grabbed a purse, sticking her phone inside and looked at Clarke expectantly.
"Lead the way, Princess," She joked, and Clarke headed out to the car with a very confident Octavia behind her.
LEXA didn't know where she was. She knew the room around her was concrete, with a layer of lead lining every wall except the one that had a window into the observation room. The procaution of lead was for the better, she thought, because her powers were dangerous and unstable, and she had no way of stopping the impending explosion that pulsed through her veins.
She looked at the glass window into an observation room and saw the mother of the girl she couldn't help but fall for. She looked and she saw Abby Griffin, writing on a clipboard as she observed her behavior. Lexa felt her hands get hot, and when she looked down at them, they were pulsing with light that backlit the blue of her veins. She closed her eyes, envisioning something calming. She thought about the forest that she had visited on a girlscouts trip as a kid, of the waterfall they had all seen as a group. She felt herself calm down, and she locked eyes with Abby through the glass.
"You can't keep me here," Lexa said, voice as steady as she could make it, "You're friends with my father. You know me, , you know that I wouldn't hurt anyone."
Abby was indifferent to the girl's protests, simply tapping on her clipboard a few times before placing it down on a table and walking to the glass.
"You are responsible for the death of dozens in your apartment building, Lexa," Abby said stiffly. "The amounts of radiation that you put out due to your ability could endanger everyone around you. This isn't personal, Lexa, this is about keeping the people around you safe."
Lexa knew this was true, and her heart broke as she thought about the faces that she would see daily when she went out the door. She had befriended Indra, the outspoken woman from across the hall, had that resulted in her neighbor's death?
"How is Clarke?" Lexa spoke up, looking at Abby boldly, not showing the pain she felt about causing the deaths of so many just by existing near them,
"Clarke is fine, Lexa. She's a strong girl," Abby said, maybe with a hint of guilt for locking up her daughter's roommate.
"That she is," Lexa replied, standing up in her small cell and moving to her bed in the corner. "If you could, Abby, have my father drop by a few books from my apartment, a laptop even, if that's not too much to ask. I've decided that if I'm going to be here for a while I might as well get something done."
Abby only nodded before leaving the small observation room, and Lexa was left alone in the lead-lined once again.
MONTY was seriously conscerned about what Jasper thought about in his free time. His thoughts managed to fly by at a mile per minute, all ranging from his girlfriend Maya to something trivial like his favorite dog breeds.
"I'm kind of glad I don't read minds," Jasper said as he pulled into the parking lot of their apartment. "I don't even want to know what you think about Miller."
Monty tried to hide his embarassment as he got out of the car, heading over to the elevator and pressing the UP button.
"I still don't understand why you think we're a couple," Monty said while attempting to keep a straight face. It wasn't like he and Miller were a couple... yet. They had been talking about the prospect of just that for months and just couldn't seem to find a good way to officially date. Monty knew he would be in for a big "I told you so" from Jasper if they ever actually went through with a relationship.
Monty watched as Jasper stared down the clock on the wall as if willing it to move faster.
"You do know the Elevator doesn't take that long to arrive, right? We're not in a rush," Monty reminded him. As if to prove his point, the Elevator light lit up and rang out a ding into the parking garage.
Jasper nodded as the boarded the elevator together, and Monty could hear him thinking about something that had happened earlier.
"You moved the clock forward?" Monty asked, wondering if Jasper had an ability as well.
"It seemed like it," Jasper replied, attempting to seem indifferent. "I think I just thought it happened. Honestly I dont think I can do anything again until I can get a nap. I'm sleep deprived, can't you tell?"
Monty looked at Jasper and decided that was probably true, and when the elevator landed on the sixth floor they walked together to their apartment. Monty headed towards their desk and opened up their desktop, wanting to get information about whatever was going on with his new ability to read minds.
Jasper walked into his bedroom and started snoring shortly after.
"Well, laptop, I guess it's just me and you," Monty sighed as he looked up stories of people going through similar situations, trying to decide which were plausible and which were hoaxes. Most were the latter.
BELLAMY was working the register, helping the few people who still relied on this video store to provide the fuel for movie night. After an old couple left, the store was quiet, daylight streaming in through the windows around the front of the store near the register.
He had nothing to do, so he started going through the records of the past month, wanting to know how intense of a paycut he would recieve this month. Due to the outdated electronics that the old store had yet to replace, pulling up the records would take an unreasonable amount of time, but he pulled it up anyway.
Bellamy heard the bells above the door ring as someone new entered, an older guy with a scar on his mouth. He'd never been in the shop before, but there's a first time for anything. His skin appeared to be clammy, cheeks flushed and eyes dull. This guy looked sick, and Bellamy did not have time for whatever sickness he had.
"You okay?" Bellamy asked from behind the desk. The guy covered his ears as if Bellamy had just screamed into them.
"Just... shut up, okay?" The guy pleaded, covering his ears even more tightly and squeezing his eyes shut.
"You're not looking too great right now. Should I call someone?" Bellamy continued, picking up a phone from the reciever and preparing to dial a number.
"I said to shut up," The man repeated, this time holding up a gun to prove his point. Bellamy felt his heart beat at an alarming rate as the man walked closer.
"I need somewhere to hide out, and this is the only place in the area that I don't think anyone would come to. Cooperate or I'll shoot, got it? Don't speak, just nod," The man said forcefully, stepping behind the desk where Bellamy stood.
Bellamy nodded, hands not leaving the phone in his hands.
"What did you do?" Bellamy asked as quietly as possible, cringing at how shaky and afraid his voice sounded.
The man grimaced at the words said, and glared at Bellamy.
"I cut open a man's head and devoured part of his brain so I could gain a superpower that might not even be real," The man said with a sick sort of pride.
Bellamy nodded, heart leaping into his throat as he started to dial the police on the phone. Apparently, though, the man could hear.
"I thought I told you to cooperate?" He chastized as he lifted to gun to face Bellamy's chest and promptly shot him four times.
The computer beeped as an electronic file read, "Records Found."
Too late, Bellamy thought as he fell against the desk, hand grabbing at his Video Palace vest, fingers wet with fresh blood.
The last thought that crossed Bellamy's mind before he hit the floor was how disappointed that Octavia would be when she learned that he died because he couldn't shut up.
OCTAVIA never got calls from the Video Palace unless it was serious. That's why when those two words appeared on her caller ID her heart skipped a beat. She knew Bellamy worked in a bad part of town, and she knew that he had a hero complex that couldn't be stopped. That's why she gripped her seatbelt tightly as she answered the phone
"Bellamy?" She asked shakily into the phone, worried that it wouldn't be him this time.
"O, where are you?" Bellamy asked into the phone, breath uneven between his words.
"I'm in the car with Clarke, we're driving to meet her mom at her office. Are you okay Bell?" Octavia answered, ultimately reverting the conversation back to her worries about her brother's situation.
"It's hard to explain," Bellamy said after a long pause. "Could you have Clarke swing by Video Palace to take me with you two?"
Octavia turned to Clarke and mentioned Bellamy's request, which Clarke quickly accepted and asked for directions. Octavia began to direct her to Video Palace, still worried about what Bellamy had gotten into this time. As soon as they arrived Octavia rushed in, almost retching at the metallic smell of blood in the air.
She saw Bellamy standing against one of the movie racks, face going pale when she noticed the bloodied holes that were in the front of his shirt.
"Oh my god, Bell," She muttered, rushing to where he stood before Bellamy could protest. "We need to get you to a hospital, this is bad."
"I'm fine, Octavia," Bellamy replied steadily. Octavia gave him an incredulous look as she put his arm over her shoulder to help him out.
"You got shot, Bellamy," She yelled. "How is that fine?"
Bellamy shrugged his arm off of her and lifted his shirt. The blood was there, the bullet holes were not.
"I guess healing runs in the family," He said, trying to explain it to himself as well.
"Who did this?" Octavia asked, the worry passing through her and leaving her simmering with rage. Had her brother not healed he would almost definitely been dead, and whoever attempted to put him in that condition would suffer the wrath of his sister.
"He's been dealt with O, don't worry," Bellamy reassured, eyes flickering behind the desk a few times.
"You killed him, didn't you?" Octavia asked, eyes going wide.
"I did what I had to do," Bellamy said as he headed out the door and to Clarke's car, ignoring Octavia's warnings about getting blood on Clarke's upholstered seats.
Octavia stayed behind, itching to look at the aftermath of the double murder behind the desk. When she looked back there she found nothing but a blood stain on the ground and a gun.
Taken aback, Octavia slowly exited, ignoring the feeling that she was being watched until she got into the car.
Bellamy must have noticed her unsteady expression, because he turned back and gave her a puzzled look.
"Everything okay?" Bellamy asked her, grabbing her hand.
"I guess so," Octavia said, the memory of what had made her so shaken in the first place had slipped her mind. "If it was important I wouldn't have forgotten though, right?"
Bellamy nodded and turned back to Clarke, who restarted the car and pulled back onto the main road.
"So we're headed to your mom's office?" Bellamy asked Clarke, who glanced between Bellamy and the road ever so often.
"Yes," Clarke answered simply. After the moment of silence that followed, Clarke decided to elaborate. "My mom's a geneticist. She and a few partners have been researching genetic anomalies like this for a while. She'll be interested about Octavia and I, but I think the really important one here is Bellamy."
"Why Bellamy?" Octavia asked, "Doesn't he have the same powers I have?"
Clarke shrugged, pulling to a stop when the traffic light went red.
"It appears that way now, but the way I painted him portrayed him with multiple powers. I'm guessing that he can alter his own DNA and take the powers of others," Clarke explained to the siblings.
"I guess there's one way to find out," Octavia remarked as the light turned green and they proceeded on their journey to New York.
RAVEN had arrived at the New York branch of ARK Research Center at precisely 4:02 in the afternoon, still dressed in a grease stained tee shirt that read the name of the family garage and a pair of baggy boyfriend jeans. She saw a guy sitting at a desk, so she headed over.
"Are you the secretary or something?" She asked the guy behind the desk with the sandy blonde hair. He looked up and laughed, handing her a clipboard to sign in with.
"I guess you could call me that," he replied. "I'm Kyle, most people just call me Wick." Raven raised an eyebrow as she wrote her name onto the clipboard, stating her reason for coming as the discovery of telekenetic powers. She looked at the words and scribbled them out, instead writing that she had discovered a new ability.
"What kind of nickname is Wick?" Raven asked, sliding the clipboard back to him.
"And what kind of name is Raven Reyes? Sounds pretentious to me," He joked, watching as she headed away from the desk and to one of the uncomfortable looking chairs lining the walls. "It's my last name, by the way. If you were actually wondering."
"Your name is Kyle Wick? Doesn't roll off the tongue right, don't you think?" She said as she grabbed a far too outdated magazine from a table and opened it to an article that she didn't actually care about.
Wick laughed from behind the desk, pressing a button to call Abby in to deal with the matter of the telekenetic girl. "I guess you're right. You should ask my mom about her questionable choices."
"I would, if I cared," Raven retorted, looking up from the article to lock eyes with him. She watched as he stayed quiet, turning to his computer to a bit before facing her once more.
"Your a mechanic, aren't you? That's what your shirt said, at least," He commented, earning an eye roll from Raven, who finally decided to give up on trying to read the magazine.
"Wow, great guess. You nailed it," She replied sarcastically, wondering when the damned doctor would rescue her from this torture.
"Wanna know how I guessed? Beside the shirt, I mean," He pressed on, wanting her attention. Raven sighed, raising an eyebrow as an invitation to tell her how he guessed. "You've got the attitude of a grease monkey. You might not notice, but I do."
"Let me guess, engineer?" Raven said exhasperatedly, clasping her hands together in front of her. She saw his nod and leaned back in her chair. "Not suprising, never hard to spot one of you. You've got the aura of self importance."
Before their conversation could progress, Abby Griffin walked into the office with a mildly agitated expression on her face.
"You didn't schedule an appointment Ms-" She trailed off, picking up the clipboard from the desk to learn the name of the girl who supposedly had an ability, "Ms. Reyes. You're lucky we're not full today."
"Sorry, Dr. Griffin," Raven said as she stood and extended her hand in greeting, which Abby pretended not to notice. "I figured that it was urgent."
"You wrote here you have an ability," Abby said, looking up at the girl in front of her. "I'd like you to demonstrate it."
Raven looked at her with wide eyes, worried she wouldn't be able to get the abilities to work and that she'd be kicked out. "Right here?" She asked, looking from Abby to WIck, who was seriously interested in the conversation.
"This is as good of a place as any. Besides, there isn't any important equipment in here that you could destroy, should your power be unstable," Abby explained, growing tired of Raven's stalling. Raven nodded and closed her eyes to concentrate, when she opened her eyes, she made the magazine she had read earlier float in mid air, turning the pages one by one with her mind. She made the magazine go back to the table and turned to Abby.
"That's it," She said, crossing her arms and waiting for Abby's response.
"You discovered these powers today?" Abby asked, uptight expression replaced with shock.
"Yeah, I found out at work today," Raven answered, wondering why it was relevant.
Abby opened the door behind her and led Raven through a corridor of rooms, opening the last door in the hall, revealing a nice office with a view of the city. Abby sat down at a large desk and gestsured for Raven to sit at the chair in front of her. As Raven sat, she glanced out the window, getting a glimpse of Central Park in the distance.
"It's a beautiful view, isn't it?" Abby asks, pulling out a few papers from within her desk. Raven glanced at the papers warily when she saw all the places to sign. These contracts were long and wordy, and Raven was afraid she would be pressured into signing without getting a chance to really read them.
"I guess we should get to business now, shouldn't we?" Abby said when she noticed Raven eyeing the papers. Raven nodded, and Abby slid the contracts over to her.
"We want to study your brain, Raven. See how everything is working in there. People with abilities like yours are evidence of evolution, and we want to pinpoint the reason for these changes," Abby explained, keeping eyecontact with Raven, who seemed to be taking the information well. "We just want to do a few tests, keep you in our facility while we do so. It's nothing dangerous or harmful to you, we just want to see how you tick."
Raven swallowed hard, glancing out the window again before turning back to Abby, "I'm in. Where do I sign?"
MONTY had finally come to a breakthrough. After reading a pirated copy of a geneticist's book online, Monty was pointed in the director of ARK Research Center, Abby Griffin. Through e-mail, Monty explain his situation and how he had discovered it, recieving a hasty reply inviting him to visit the office for an examination. After scheduling an appointment in an hour, Monty went to wake Jasper, who was fast asleep while still wearing his polo with the company logo emblazoned on it.
"Hey Jasper," Monty said as he sat down, nudging his roommate. Jasper begrudgingly woke up, moving to sit up beside his friend. "I found a doctor that would help me figure out how to deal with my new ability. I figured that you would want to come with me."
"Yeah, where does this doctor work?" Jasper asked, changing from his polo into an old band tee shirt that he had bought from a secondhand store.
"New York," Monty explained, grabbing a shirt of similar origin from Jasper's closet and changing into it. Jasper wouldn't mind, after all. "You've heard of ARK Research Centers, haven't you?"
Jasper nodded, running a hand through his hair and heading back to the living room, Monty following behind.
"When do we have to be there?" Jasper asked, secretly wondering if he had time to grab some lunch from a fast food chain.
"In an hour," Monty replied. "And no, Jasper, I'd rather we not stop for food."
Japer sighed and grabbed Monty's arm to pull him along.
"Let's go," Jasper said, and suddenly they weren't in the shabby hall of their appartment building, but they had somehow been transported to Time Square, bright and crowded with tourists who weren't concerned in the slightest about how the two boys had gotten there.
"Did you do that?" Monty asked, eyes wide.
Jasper shook his head, not knowing if he had actually transported them into New York. Monty broke into a laugh, and Jasper did the same, no doubt looking ridiculous to the people around them.
"Jasper? Monty?" A female voice said behind them. They both turned, finding themselves face to face with a blonde haired girl. Monty noticed that her clothes were nice while her hands were stained with charcoal and paint, an artist, most likely.
"Do we know you?" Monty asked, looking at the stranger in front of him. The girl wasn't having it, crossing her arms and giving them a look of annoyance.
"Now is not the time for jokes. Cage is still out in the city and you two had time to change clothes? You're coming back right now. Bellamy thinks he's pinpointed the time of the explosion. We need to hurry," the blonde said, not caring about the strange looks from the people around her.
"Look, lady, we literally don't know you," Jasper said, almost snapped, actually. A look of realization passed over the Blonde's face, and she walked closer, expression softening.
"What month is it?" She asked, voice not losing its serious tone, but still less severe.
"It's August, August 5th," Monty replied wondering why that was even a question. The blonde turned to Jasper, an intense expression on her face.
"You've jumped forward a few months, because right now it's November. Go back to March and go to Abby Griffin's office. It's important that we all meet there that day. Don't listen to a word that woman says, but don't let her or anyone around you know that ARK is corrupt. Everything relies on you, Jasper," she said before turning to leave.
"What's your name?" Monty asked. The blonde turned back for a moment and gave a grin that was so different from her serious actions from only moments ago.
"Go to Abby's office and find out, why don't you?" She called before heading off in the other direction.
So Jasper grabbed onto Monty's arm and took them back to New York in the right time, and as they walked into the office they saw a familiar blonde head of hair.