XX Start XX
Chapter 3: The Reveal
The weekend came quicker than Michael thought it would, thus causing his surprise when his alarm didn't go off to alert him that he needed to get up to get ready for school. He had already worked out everything with his mom so that she knows that he won't be here for a couple of hours.
Anyway, Michael got up and dressed around 9 am so as to give him plenty of time to eat and get everything he needed for the hours to come.
"Jeez," Michael thought to himself as he put a notebook and pencil into an empty bag. "so much has changed in the past year. I've trained extensively in mastering my abilities, trained Ostin to where he can actually hold up in a fight, and now I'm going to meet someone who might have similar abilities to me. *sigh* Where has the time gone?" finishing his internal monologue, Michael looked down to see that he had apparently been packing his bag on auto-pilot.
"Well, I guess I'm done, time to eat before I have to leave." Michael spoke to absolutely no-one.
As soon as Michael sat down at the table with a bowl of cereal as his mother had to go into work earlier than usual today. Just as he was about to take a bite, there came a knock on his door.
Sighing, the teenager got up before heading over to see who was at his door this early in the morning, though he had an idea.
Michael opened the door to see his best friend, Ostin, standing on the other side with a bag, which was probably filled with research material, hung over his right shoulder.
"Hey, good morning. Getting ready to go over to the cheerleader's house?" Ostin asked as he walked inside and set his bag on his couch.
"Yeah, was just about to eat some breakfast. If you want any, you know where the cereal is." Michael replied before sitting back down to eat his breakfast.
"You know, I thought you'd be a bit more excited about meeting someone who might have similar abilities to you." Ostin said off-handedly as he was trying to choose between two cereals.
"I will be excited if she is the real deal and not some phony who is trying to sell me out to the government for science experiments." Was his over-exaggerated reply.
"I guess you have a point. But, in that case should we bring any precautions besides your own abilities?" Ostin asked, already calculating every outcome he can possibly think up and their chances of survival.
"Like what?" Michael asked, not knowing anything that would be effective at disabling someone, but would also not draw any suspicion should they be caught with it.
"Like pepper spray or something. That way we will not have to rely on just our bodies." Ostin answered after a moment of thought.
"Then she would just do what she did to Poulson before we could do any real damage. I think our best bet is using the element of surprise. And still, we don't even know if she is going against us. So, until we see any hostility from her, we stay friendly." Michael concluded as Ostin nodded his head to Michael's plan.
"I know this seems a bit much but we have been planning like this ever since we entertained the thought of what the government might do when they heard of my abilities. So this is absolutely necessary." Michael thought to no-one, trying to find an excuse for them being so defensive from a high school girl.
The two friends took the rest of the time until it was time to leave just pondering what they thought Taylor's ability was and what the similarities were between their two abilities.
So far, this is what they had written down:
Ability that deals with the brain and can be used to confuse or disorientate the target. It does not need a conductor like Michael's does and can be used for possibly more than disorientation. Not sure if it uses electricity, but if it is like Michael's, then there might be a connection to how they got their abilities.
SKIN-TO-SKIN AND SKIN-TO-METAL CONTACT IS PROHIBITED UNTIL FURTHER DATA IS RECORDED!
They would need to make sure to record any and all information she gives them, whether purposefully or not. After all, any information can lead to something much more.
When it was about 10 minutes before the meet time, Michael and Ostin grabbed their bags and headed out to Taylor's house, using a GPS on Michael's phone to find the location.
After walking for a couple of minutes, the two teenagers came upon a tan house with pink flamingoes in the front yard.
After knocking on the door, Michael stepped back when the door swung open to allow Taylor Ridley to come into view. Today she wore a pink long-sleeved blouse over a white tank top. She also wore jeans and white converse.
When she opened the door, she smiled when she saw Michael, only to lose that smile for a more unsure expression when she noticed Ostin. Michael, seeing her expression, gave her a look that said 'Play nice'.
"Hey, come on in. Would you guys want some lemonade?" Taylor said, the last part after they made it into the living room.
"Sure." They replied simultaneously.
After about a minute of waiting, Taylor came back with two glasses filled with a diluted yellow color.
"Here you go. Now if you don't mind, can we get straight to business?" Taylor asked when she handed them their drinks.
"Sure, now if you don't mind, I would like you to demonstrate your abilities first. Before you argue, you should try and see it from our perspective. You invite us over to your home on the premise that you have similar "abilities" as me. This could very well be true, but you also could be leading us into an ambush." Michael explained after cutting off her argument.
"*sigh* I guess you're right. Ok, I have the ability to 'reboot' people. This allows me to cause someone to forget what they were just doing and it lets me to sort of rewrite their short-term memory to make them think they were doing something else. I can also read the mind of anyone I touch, or if we are both touching metal." Taylor explained the best they could, all while Michael and Ostin were writing most of what she said.
"Can you please show a demonstration?" Ostin asked, ready to write any observations.
As Ostin was getting ready to write, he suddenly looked up confused.
"What was I doing?" Ostin asked completely serious.
"Hm, it seems Taylor was telling the truth about her abilities. She can manipulate the mind to an extent." Michael reminded him.
"She just 'rebooted' me didn't she?" Ostin asked, slightly worried about the implications or side effects of her power.
"Yeah, and you seem to have absolutely no memory of it ever happening. That seems like a pretty useful ability. Now I'm guessing you want me to provide a demonstration?" seeing her nod, Michael held up his hand before pulsing enough so that electricity sparked between his fingers.
"I have the ability to create and manipulate electricity from within my body. I can use it to shock people, create electrical constructs, and enhance my physical abilities. Also, we learned that bananas and physical exercise can increase my electricity. I don't know if physical exercise will help you as your ability is mind based, but we can see if you're willing." Michael explained after shutting down his pulse.
"Woah, do you think that our powers are somehow related?" Taylor asked, looking in awe at the lightshow before it ended.
"Yes, something you said in your description leads me to believe that they are related somehow. Your power can work through contact with skin and metal, and probably other conductive materials, which leads me to believe that your abilities are also electricity based. This supports the theory that our abilities have similar origins." Michael theorized after a moment of contemplation.
"Hmm, this is getting interesting. I'm getting excited at the prospect of what we will uncover." Ostin said giddily.
Line Break
After that meeting, the three teenagers had a couple of more meetings, talking about schedules, training, and how they should act socially. To be honest, they were all excited about this new discovery. They all had entertained the thought that, if there are two of them, why can't there be more? There could be plenty of others with similar powers.
Then, with these thoughts in mind, they decided to do some searching. They both found out that they had their birthdays close together, which raised some speculations.
So, naturally, they searched for their hospital records, only to find that the records had an eleven day gap directly around their birthdays. Wanting to help out in some way, Ostin offered to search in his free time for any leads on the missing records.
So, after Michael's birthday party on the Saturday after the previous meeting, Ostin shared that he had found out the disturbing news that, out of the 59 births during that time and at the Pasadena General Hospital, 42 of those children didn't make it to their third day of being alive.
They theorized that whoever was the cause of those deaths had to be the ones that destroyed the records.
Line Break
After another meeting with the Taylor, Michael and Ostin were walking to their apartment building, making small talk about the various theories they came up with.
When they got about halfway, Michael looked around as he heard what sounded like a bug zapper going off. After hearing it a couple more times, he followed the sound to look at his right arm just in time to see a spark of electricity arc across his skin before flying over the short distance between his skin and the fly that flew too close to him.
Michael, looking up in surprise, raised his arm to tap on Ostin's shoulder to get his take on this new development. As soon as Michael's hand got about an inch away from Ostin's shoulder, another spark of electricity shot from his hand to his friends exposed neck.
"Oww, what was that for?" Ostin exclaimed in shock and pain.
Michael jumped back and raised his hands in surprise. "I'm sorry! I wasn't trying to shock you. I wasn't even aware that I was charging electricity."
"Hmm, this is bad. If your electricity keeps increasing at the rate that it is, you're going to have to constantly concentrate just to keep from shocking every person you walk by." Ostin said in thought as he looked in close at his arm.
"Is there any way that I can expel electricity constantly without drawing attention to myself?" Michael asked, thinking of the consequences of his powers being exposed.
"I'll think of something by Monday. Until then just try and find everyday normal objects that you can interact with that wouldn't draw suspicion if you had it on you at all times. That way you can expel your electricity inconspicuously." Ostin said after a moment of thought.
"Right, I'll try." Michael said, already in thought before he noticed that they had already arrived at the apartment building.
"Hm, ok. Well, I'll talk to you later." Michael said before entering his apartment to see his mother sitting on the couch, watching TV. There was some news report about a new up and coming energy company, but his mother turned the TV off before he could see the name.
"Oh, you're finally home. Did you have fun?" she asked with a small smile.
"Yeah, we really just hung out and talked the whole time, but it was fun." Michael said on his way to the kitchen.
"That's good. Well, there's some dinner in the oven if you're hungry and I just made some tea so it's still hot." She said with a smile.
"Thank you. Do you want anything while I'm in here?" he called out while getting a plate of lasagna.
"No thanks, I already ate." She replied.
"So, what was on that news report?" Michael asked, as she usually never turned the TV off when he came in…well once when he was younger, but that was because a sex scene had come on and she obviously didn't want me to see that.
"Oh, nothing. Just some up and coming energy company who thinks that they have the solution to all the world's problems." She explained in a slightly lower tone than before.
"Huh, well, I bet nothing they have can be better than having a me in every household." He joked, trying to get his mother out of her funk.
Unfortunately, that only made her look at him in worry.
"What?"
"Nothing, I think I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight dear, and don't stay up too late." She said as she went down the hallway to her bedroom.
"Hmm." Michael hummed in thought as he wondered what had triggered his mom's sudden mood change.
Timeskip
It was Monday morning and Michael and Ostin were walking down the street towards the school, talking about anything that came to mind as they didn't really have a lot on their minds at the moment.
The main topic they had been discussing in Michael's quarter that he keeps flipping every once in a while.
"So, here's what it's doing. Your excess electricity is entering the coin as you hold it, making the electricity act as potential energy. When you flip it, you're releasing that energy much like kinetic energy. This way, it won't look like electricity is leaving your body, now it just looks like you picked up a strange habit." Ostin explained as they were nearing the halfway mark.
"Thanks Ostin, this is pretty cool." Michael said in glee as he wouldn't need to constantly concentrate on keeping his electricity inside his body, like he had to do over the weekend so his mother didn't get worried.
"No problem. So, what are we going to do now? Just go on with our normal lives and just include Taylor in training or what?" Ostin asked curiously.
"I'm not sure; we will see when we get inside." Michael replied, causing Ostin to look up at the school building before him.
"Yeah, I guess we will." Ostin said, noticing the time on his watch.
After they entered the building, Michael and Ostin went on their usual route to their classes before they split up.
Michael, when he finally reached his classroom, noticed Taylor was already sitting in her seat. Nodding to her, Michael proceeded to his seat before taking out a piece of paper with the training schedule on it.
"Here, just come to the ones that don't clash with your schedule with cheerleading if you want." Michael said, handing the paper to her before he took his seat.
This was the start of a new friendship, as well as a new force to be reckoned with. The name of this force? Well, that's what Taylor read at the top of the schedule.
The Electroclan
Time Skip
Just when Michael was getting his lunch, Ostin came up to him and urgently told him to find Taylor and to meet him in the courtyard.
After finding him in the courtyard, Michael and Taylor walked up to him and asked about his worried expression.
"Hey, you know how we were theorizing the cause of the deaths?" he paused, waiting for their affirmative nods. "Well, I did some digging and found this." He held up a piece of paper showing an article about a medical equipment provider called Elgen Inc.
After reading the entirety of the article, they both looked at Ostin, knowing he would continue on his train of thought.
"So, don't you think it's a bit suspicious that the exact day that the machine was turned on, the deaths started and as soon as the machine was turned off, they stopped?
"The machine must be the cause. And the machine's waves must have traveled through the hospital, affecting all of the babies that they reached. Causing us to develop our powers and the rest to die." Michael finished.
"Exactly. Also, Taylor, where did you look up those first hospital records?" Ostin asked, looking worried.
"Umm, on my computer at home. Why?" she replied, now sporting a similar expression.
"I was worried about that. See, the people that caused this, the Elgen, could've set up spiders." Seeing Taylor's confused expression he explained. "Spiders scour the Web for any searches referencing certain words or phrases. I think these Elgen may have set up spiders for anyone searching for the hospital records for this specific week. You need to go home and clear everything off of your computer, your cookies, history, everything." Ostin explained, now really worried.
"Wait, follow me to my locker." And so they did. "Here check this out."
She handed them a brochure which showed a school campus with the headline being, The Elgen Academy of Pasadena.
"A man come to my house the other day and talked to my parents about this prestigious school that only accepted 17 people a year and that their students could basically name their college of choice and they would get a full ride." Taylor explained nervously.
"Elgen? So they already found us. Ok, you need to warn your parents about this. If it takes you telling them about your abilities and explain what we found, then so be it. Do you mind if I keep this?" Michael asked.
His only response was a nod before he tucked it in his back pocket. He was about to continue before a voice came on the intercom.
"Will Michael Vey come to the principal's office, please? Michael Vey to the principal's office."
"What's that about?" Ostin asked.
"I don't know. But, I have my suspicions." He replied, touching the pocket the brochure was in before starting his walk to Dallstrom's office.
Elsewhere
"Things are going according to plan. The children's training is following the schedule as well as the electric factories that have been increasing in number as well as popularity. More and more countries are calling for a meeting with us." A man in a pinstripe suit said, talking to a man over the phone.
"Good, we don't need any complications this late in the game. We are doing well in both progress and wealth. The more they rely on our energy, the more dependent they will be when we completely take over their power grids." A voice over the phone said.
"Right, I completely understand. We will continue as planned and I will call again soon, whether it's for our regular progress report or a complication, is yet to be seen. Goodbye, Chairman." The man said.
"Yes, goodbye Hatch." the newly named Chairman said before he hung up the phone.
"Soon, all will bow before the Elgen." Hatch said, speaking to an empty room before a knock came from his door. "Enter."
"Sir, we are ready to begin with the extraction." A handsome boy with blonde hair and a thin beard came in and spoke confidently.
"Thank you, Quentin. Let's go." He said, walking out first.
XX End XX
And done! That took far longer than it should have and for that I'm sorry. I had to go back and edit some things before I could post it or it would be all jumbled. I will be uploading a chapter for a Red vs Blue story line that I have in mind soon, so I would really like your feedback on that when I post it. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and if you did please tell me in review form and tell me any suggestions or ideas you all have. Well, until next time…Seeya!