Creation 1.D

There was something very wrong with Dean's new teammate.

Dean had seen many things before. Classmates suffering from depression, alcoholic rage in a mugger, Oni Lee's grim determination as he pulled a pin, the last emotions of a jumper he'd been trying to talk down, even. Emotions were glowing auras to him, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn't turn it off. Yes, Dean had seen a lot of things.

His new teammate was hard to look at.

Michael, or Materia, was an eight year old boy. A little chubby, glasses, the kind of cute that might be a looker one day, if he lost the fat. Dean had seen eight year olds before, and their auras were far from as simple as they acted sometimes; by eight, every kid already has secrets, and some kids are even starting puberty. They were far from being teens, actually closer to a boring adult in terms of emotion, usually.

Materia was not usual.

Gallant had done a double-take upon seeing that the aura he had sensed belonged to a kid. It should have belonged on a hard criminal, or a war-torn soldier, or a cape come from an Endbringer fight. It was hard, and dark, and sad. It was being covered by a thin veneer of happiness, and inquiry, and all the little things most third graders felt meeting Wards; but that just made it worse, like a PTSD victim wearing an 8-year-old. There was determination holding the veneer on like a string, but Gallant knew it might not hold. It was not healthy, whatever the case.

He tried to take him aside, but every time he tried to get his attention, he had looked away. Not that he'd had a chance anyway, since the afternoon had pretty much not given him a chance to talk to him anyway, especially after the whole Sophia thing. He'd left, and Dean had put it out of mind, resolving to tell their therapist so they would be ready for it.

He'd enjoyed his Thanksgiving as much as the next trust fundie, spending it taking Vicky to the mall, then to the movies, then she took him to a tower rooftop for a sunset. The inevitable conclusion occurred; he was asked to dinner the next night, which he accepted because he was a sucker for her. The dinner was awkward, with how many problems the Dallons had, but Dean just didn't know how to bring it up without irrevocably hurting his relationship with them. He may hit rough patches with Vicky from time to time, but he cared about her, and knew she was the kind of person who would hate him for talking about her family in those terms, so he just tried to ignore the auras around the table, anchoring himself to Vicky's instead.

The next day, Materia's power was scheduled for testing. Most of the team decided to come; Dennis begged off to spend time with his family, and Aegis was on patrol, with Sophia on console. Despite the issue with his aura, Dean was genuinely interested in seeing his powers. By the sound of it, he might be powerful, and it was either this or sit at home, alone with his giant, empty house. It went okay, too; the planning bit had some major power indicators already, and his terrakinetic abilities showed versatility. Any cape could have done well with just that and the Thinker rating they discovered. For him, it was the tip of the gigantic iceberg.

He almost lost his lunch when they got to fire generation.

He had been staring straight at Materia, wondering what the boy was doing. He had tried several times to produce even a spark, but was meeting no success, and had gone still, his aura shifting with disappointment and realization – then the bubble popped.

For a few seconds, Gallant stared into an abyss of self-deprecating, all-consuming depression. Worse, it was tinged with normal emotions, but they could not pierce the center. He watched as Materia took his emotions apart, assessed them, and fed his depression into his power, all to make a ball of fire. He had to leave. He couldn't watch that again.

He sat outside, almost running back in when there was a resounding BANG, but he needed to think about it all. What was wrong with Materia? What kind of 8-year-old could do that to themselves?

He would have thought he was mastered, but a master wouldn't need to do that to the target, and what kind of long game was joining the Wards at 8? What could cause that kind of trauma, and why, oh why, had he decided not to take psychology? Maybe if he hadn't wanted to share a class with Vicky, he might have been able to understand. There was nothing for it, in the end; he would advise their therapist about it, next Monday, and hopefully they could help him.

He headed back in.

Materia was meditating, he could tell; he was standing, but his emotions were being suppressed. They had formed a new system of layers, with the depression now separate and present in the bubble of surface feelings, and the bubble interacted with the lower layers more. He was relieved to hear that Materia could not affect blood, since that was just a terrifying prospect in general. He'd heard about Watch, who could pinch small sections of blood vessels and nerves and left his victims crippled at best.

Finally, they decided to test his dream world. He laid down, closed his eyes, and all his emotions flickered for a moment. Then, a quick series of emotions; pleasure, wonder, crushed by self-deprecation, then mild confusion; and then the normal set returned, with occasional wonder seeping past the bubble of calm. Why suppress his own sense of wonder? What was all that at the beginning?

Materia's mother had a growing sense of worry as more and more things were tried in an attempt to wake him, but it was fine; Materia woke up a few seconds past two minutes, and all was well. Then, an argument was had over something he had 'said', and a few minutes of waiting later, an announcement went out. They were going to test his shaker power here, and maybe he would get some answers, at least to his most recent questions.

Materia paused a moment more, then Gallant was distracted by the sight before him. The gym was blooming. It was the best way to describe the look of stairs unfolding from the now-stony floor, then watching as the stairs folded in on each other, becoming a labyrinthine maze of folded space. That was the backdrop for a courtyard easily 150 feet across, in a fat cross pattern, with gardens of Pink-leaved trees and black flowers speckled with white. Gallant also noticed that everyone experienced similar senses of wonder, even as their focuses were on different things in the courtyard.

Materia told them not to go into the maze, and everyone spread out around the area. Gallant walked over to Kid Win. "Wow, some power, am I right?" Kid said. "I already have a few ideas about some equipment, and maybe a small Idea on a staff for him." "What staff? He didn't have a staff when I left?" "Oh yeah, he got an idea that he might be able to work even better with a rod or staff, and it gave him a big boost. I was thinking a taser staff, with some gravity tech built in, but I need to think more on it. You have any ideas?"

Gallant wanted to say, but it wasn't his place to talk about other's emotions. Instead, he smiled and said, "I was thinking how much synergy he and Vista will have, if he can really do this in combat. He makes it, she shapes it, and he hits them down if they get close." Kid nodded, smiling. "I wonder if he can affect the environment, make it rain or something. I doubt it's a projection, since my thermals aren't picking up on cold spots from the gym equipment."

The conversation went on like that for a while, pausing when the room found out the cape had a potentially unlimited pool of these worlds, but continuing until testing resumed. Materia was versatile, powerful, eager to learn, and oh so broken inside. It didn't hurt to look so much, now, but that just made it easier to stare at the veneer, to try to stare past it. First thing Monday, he would talk to the therapist about this.

He just hoped they could help him.