"Everything remained pretty quiet for the rest of the year, we all knew that someone had found us, found them, but it didn't seem that they were going to do anything about it but watch so other than a reasonable amount of wariness we did our best to ignore the whole thing. We stayed away from the cave, a place I really had no desire to visit anyways, and other than the occasional recreational use of powers, lived for all the world as if the four of us, instead of just one, were normal human teens."
"Prom was the most exciting event of the year, the boys suffered through the limos and tuxes and flower buying and us girls has the time of our lives picking out dresses and, with Kat here, doing our hair and makeup was a snap."
Liz, Maria, and even Isabel, all grinned at that one, her and Kat exchanging smug nods.
"We all suffered through the rounds of picture taking by the parents, at each house of course. And enjoyed the highlight of the evening, Kat and Devin being crowned the Junior Class's Prom King and Queen."
She smiled at Kat's half blushing, half proud face and then grinned at the faint mocking applause Michael bestowed upon the two of them, Maria slapping his hands causing the rest of the room to laugh, she was glad to see that the ice had broken, that their story, however hard it had been to relive, had it seemed, gained their trust just as she had been hoping.
"That summer was tough but only because we were all split up, Devin's dad took him to Europe, I was visiting family in California and Sean and Kat were stuck at their parent's cabin by a lake north of our town. We all talked every night on the phone, worried because we all, excluding Devin, could tell we were still being watched and were worried that whoever it was would choose to do whatever it was they wanted to do while we are all separated and vulnerable. Sean, especially, was worried about me since I had no alien powers at my disposal to protect myself with."
"However, we all survived the summer unscathed and probably surprised our parents with how happy we were to have school starting again." She said with a lopsided smile. "Then, just a little ways into our senior year, everything changed again."
Winter laughed as Sean 'danced' around her, his rhythmic abilities, or rather lack thereof, amusing everyone in range. The party was in full swing and everyone was smiling, in part she was sure due to the rather large quantities of alcohol available to those who chose to partake of it. Sean and the others had experimented with alcohol on their own, luckily out of range of people and knew that it wasn't something they should ever do again. So, there was absolutely nothing to blame for his current exuberant capering.
She shook her head and suddenly the room spun around her for a moment and she almost fell, feeling as though her temperature had suddenly been raised about fifty degrees. Sean stopped dancing and touched her shoulder in concern, she flinched away, shocked by the pain that ran through her at his touch. He felt her pain through their connection and without a word pushed a path through the crowd, leading her outside, into the cool night air. As soon as they passed the door she collapsed on the ground, leaning against the wall and staring at her hand, it was moving in and out of focus, coming in really close and then appearing really far away even though she knew she hadn't moved it.
She heard Sean gasp and realized he was pulling her away from the wall, the pain of his touch lost in the pain of the steadily increasing heat of her body. She realized he was trying to show her something and struggled to make her eyes focus; the wall she had been leaning against had an impression of her melted into it. It was a steel portable building, and somehow she had heated it to its melting point, the edges of the impression were still cherry red.
Sean pushed a button on his cell phone and held it to his ear, waving his free hand over the wall and returning it to its original state, his eyes never leaving her face, worry lines etched around them. "Devin? Get Kat and meet us at the cave, something's happening to Winter." He barely waited for the affirmative response before hanging up and guiding her towards his car, opening the door for her but being careful not to touch her.
She hesitated before getting in, "What if I...melt your car?" He frowned, then glancing around to make sure no one else had come out, held his hand out towards the seat, a shimmering green barrier appearing over it and the floor where her feet would be.
"Can you sit on that? Does it hurt?"
She tested it with her hand and then nodded at him, carefully sitting down and doing her best to ignore the increase in her pain. "Let's go." She said, giving him as brave a smile as she could muster. He shut her door and got in himself, putting the car in gear and maneuvering his way around the haphazardly parked cars. He pulled onto the road and a few miles later turned onto the highway, retracing a route he hadn't followed in almost two years.
"The cave was exactly as it had been, none of us had gone near it until now for fear of drawing attention to it and everything they owned that related to their heritage was in that cave. What Sean was after was the book. We beat Kat and Devin to the cave and while I sat on the ground and tried not to move in an attempt to stave off the dizzy attacks, he was frantically flipping through it."
By the time the other two had arrived he had reached the section on their powers and was intending to pass it by when Kat took the book from him.
"What's going on Sean, why are we here?" Devin was standing next to where she was sitting, huddled by the hollow in the cave wall where they kept the book and the stones, glancing worriedly at her in between watching the other two and the entrance to the cave to make sure no one had followed them.
She could tell Sean was resisting the urge to come to her and instead leaned defeatedly against the rock wall. "Something's happening to Winter. She said she's been having dizzy spells and hot flashes for almost a week now and at the party she..." He looked at her once more and then back at Kat "I think she's changing, I don't know how but she can do things now, or, well, one thing at least."
A faint chuckle interrupted him and Winter raised her head, giving a pained smile, "Really, I've always been able to melt solid steel, I just didn't want to intimidate you all by telling you."
Devin and Kat smiled back but Sean just looked more worried, "I think it was me, I can't even touch her now." He leaned his head backwards too fast and knocked it against the cave wall causing the other two to wince though he didn't seem to notice the pain.
Kat touched his arm, "We'll figure it out, I'm sure she'll be ok." He just stared at her, a hangdog look in his brown eyes. She ignored it and sat down with the book, reading through it much more slowly than Sean had been while the other three watched, stopping every now and then on a particular passage until finally she looked up at them and smiled, "I think I know what's going on."
Winter shifted slightly in Sean's arms, the next bit was a little more technical and scientific and science, while interesting, especially in this case, just wasn't her thing. "Now, we knew that their powers were of human rather than alien origin, powers that were in the human genetic code but that as a race we hadn't evolved to the point where we were even aware of them, much less able to access them. But while the powers were human, the energy that fueled those powers was wholly alien, a part of the essence that they had inherited from their former lives. And each of them had their own energy signature, all of their energies were different which was one of the reasons that their powers were different, at least some of them."
"Also, the type of individual powers they each had was determined by the sorts of abilities they had in their former lives. Antarians do have abilities, just as someday we humans will. And from what was in the book we've guessed that the shapeshifters that came to earth retain those abilities, that whatever powers they possess here, are similar to the powers you hybrids possessed on Antar."
She saw the other three hybrids exchanging glances as they processed this information, they were certainly understanding it far faster than she had and even Liz seemed to be interestedly following every word she said though Kyle and Maria had similarly glazed expressions on their faces.
"So, whenever they used their powers they were expending some of that alien energy and if they used them on a human, it was possible for that energy to 'contaminate' the individual. When Sean had healed me, some of his essence, his energy, had been transferred over to me, and given long enough, that energy was changing me. Beginning to do what thousands of years of evolution would accomplish for the rest of the human race."
"Now, I, though I had a 4.0 and was probably what people would have called a geek when it came to school, was not into science. However," here she paused and grinned at Kat, "Our lovely and popular alien princess was quite the science nerd at heart, though she took pains to conceal it, and it was her that managed to figure most of this out."
"She and Devin left the cave and fetched a microscope and a few other things from her house, making sure not to disturb her parents who were sound asleep at that point and returned a little less than an hour later, bringing some food for everyone as well. They already knew their blood cells were different; they had studied themselves years ago in an attempt to isolate every factor of their biology that could give them away and prevent anyone else from noticing any of them."
"So we took a sample of my blood and compared it to one of theirs. The results proved that Kat was just as smart as we thought she was. My blood had changed. It didn't look quite like theirs, my cells were still a normal human pink vs. their green but their shape had changed, they now looked exactly like theirs did, even grouped the same way. I was no longer quite human." Liz's expression had become more and more introspective and analytical as she revealed just how changed they were, and strangely enough Kyle too was just as involved in her description."
"The pain had subsided and as long as Sean and I stayed away from each other the flashes of heat seemed to stay away. Kat theorized that until my body had adapted to the changes it was going through, being near Sean was causing the alien energy in me to react, being near Kat and Devin didn't hurt since it wasn't their energy that had changed me. Over the next few weeks we experimented, had me try to do the things they could do but apparently being able to produce heat was the only physical power that I had gained. As for mental abilities, I had always been able to get flashes from Sean and I could connect with him to a certain extent but not like the other three could."
"They always knew where each of the others was and if they were in danger, as long as they weren't blocking, and since the incident with Desi they had worked on increasing those abilities until they could communicate with each other mentally if necessary, it was more communication by images then true telepathy but it was significantly less traceable then a cell phone. And now that I had changed, I began to be able to tap into those connections as well; I could now sense Devin and Kat as well as Sean and was beginning to be able to communicate with them as well though my attempts at it succeeded only fifty percent of the time."
"I was having a lot of fun trying to send them images during classes, though their reactions to some of those images got them in trouble a few times until they finally decided to block me out while we were in school." She grinned, "It took Sean a little longer to get to that point but then, I think he rather enjoyed the images I was sending him, once he finally got over himself to the point where I could send them." The others gave her a puzzled look and she knew Sean was blushing behind her.
"When he realized the ramifications of my change, the fact that I was now in just as much danger as they were since the government would be just as happy to dissect me now as they would be to dissect him he decided that I shouldn't be placed in any more danger than was necessary and even though I had finally gotten a hold of my new abilities to the point where we could be close again he refused. Saying that us being together was what had put me in this much danger in the first place and that he needed to stay away from me so that nothing else happened to put me in danger."
She shook her head, the expression on her face clearly showing the exasperation she felt at his past stupidity, causing Maria and Liz to giggle. "Kat and Devin were on my side throughout this and continually told him how stupid he was being though he persisted in being dense and refused to listen. Luckily certain events that were happening at that time changed his mind."
"Two weeks after all of this had happened, and while I was still working on controlling my powers though the dizziness and hot flashes had gone, an exchange student arrived from Spain to study English at our school. Since I was the best student in the Honors English program, my teacher decided I would be the perfect tour guide and could show the young man around, help him with his studies, etc. He of course was charming, funny, and devastatingly handsome, I was the envy of all the girls in school since they knew Sean and I were on the outs and I was going to have this lovely young man all to myself."
Kat nodded to confirm his gorgeousness when the other three girls shot her a questioning look. "He was absolutely delicious." She said, earning a faintly jealous "Hey!" from Devin. She just laughed and kissed him, then gestured for Winter to continue.
"He was also a ladies man and was flirting shamelessly with me by the end of his first day there. I didn't flirt back, at first, but I didn't protest at his doing so either and after the appropriate amount of time had passed for me to 'recover' from being dumped, about three days, I finally began to return the attention, knowing full well that it would drive Sean crazy."
All the girls in the room nodded, exchanging knowing glances while the guys just grinned at the increasingly red color of Sean's face.
"I let him take me on a few dates, conspicuously public places of course where I knew we would be seen and talked about." She added with a wink.
"This lasted about two weeks until one day, at lunch, we were sitting on the lawn in front of the school with Devin and Kat when he leaned over and kissed me in front of everyone, including Sean."
She was unable to hold back a laugh and just grinned at the others when the males gave her odd looks, the girls merely grinning with her, "I'm sorry, it was just so funny. He stormed over, ripped the guy off of me and then pulled me to my feet and proceeded to swoop me into his arms and passionately kiss me to the applause of every one of the students nearby"
"It's true." Devin said, grinning at the now furiously blushing hero of the story.
"I, of course, relented immediately." Winter said with a lofty expression on her face which quickly dissolved into repressed giggles as Sean tickled her until she cracked, "Ok, ok, I made him suffer for a bit, which, was only fair I think."
The girls all nodded while the guys gave Sean sympathetic looks, they'd all been on the receiving end of 'only fair suffering' at one time or another.
At Sean's snort Winter turned around, one eyebrow raised "If you hadn't been so stubborn about 'protecting me' in the first place then none of it would have happened at all now would it?"
He intelligently declined to answer and she gave him a little triumphant smile before relenting and giving him a nice long kiss before turning back around to receive the amused grins of her audience, and in time to catch the identical winks that Michael and Devin sent her lover.
She gave them mock glares before continuing her story. "After that our time was spent acting as normally as possible when in public, and experimenting with our powers in the cave whenever we could get away. We discovered that the other three could draw power from each other through their connection and that while I could not draw power from them, they could now draw it from me which could be extremely useful in a situation where they actually needed their powers for defense, it could buy the extra time we might need to escape."
"We did our best to perfect both our method of communication and our control over all of our powers, me frequently acting as observer and cheerleader since the extent of my powers was, and is, rather limited compared to theirs.
"Our Senior year came to an end all too quickly. We had all decided to travel together for a year before attending college, mostly for fun and, as we told our parents, 'to broaden our minds and expose ourselves to the various cultures of America'. We were going to hit all the National Monuments and the like, and of course all the fun places too, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Vegas, Hollywood, New York, plus visiting the various colleges we were interested in and Sean and Kat's older brother and his family in Texas. However, before we started this road trip across America we were going to take a trip to the beaches of California as a joint Graduation present from all our parents."
"Now, to rewind a bit. Kat had expressed a concern when we first learning about the changes that were happening to me that I had not only received some of Sean's energy but some of Desi's as well since she had used her powers on me. We hadn't seen any evidence of this as of yet. We had decided, tentatively of course, that since Sean's powers were physical it made sense that the one I picked up was as well and since I evidenced no special mental powers, simply the ones we all had, we concluded that Desi's attack on me hadn't affected me on anything more than a surface level. However, we were wrong."
Winter and Kat lay on large beach towels, soaking in the sun and lazily watching the two boys chase a Frisbee through the crashing surf, occasionally exchanging comments and laughs but mostly just enjoying the absolute lack of anything they had to do at that moment. School was done, at least for a year, they didn't think they had been followed to California and life was good. The sun was warm, the sand was endless and the ocean was a beautiful and ever-changing wonder, a far cry from the endless hills and fields of home. While they had been distracted by contemplating the fabulousness of it all the boys had managed to 'find' a bucket and proceeded to dump freezing cold seawater over both of them before taking off down the beach. The girls spluttered and then leapt up to chase after them swearing revenge in between bouts of breathless laughter as they pounded across the sand.
Searing pain pierced through Winter's head and her eyes grew blurry as a cacophony of thoughts and feelings sprung to life in her mind, blanketing every thought of her own. She fell to her knees, her hands over her ears trying to block out the ceaseless barrage. Sean felt some of what she was feeling through their connection and turning around raced back down the beach towards her and Kat who was kneeling next to her on the sand, trying to get her attention.
Winter was muttering loudly, disconnected sentences that didn't make much sense, every now and then a comprehensible phrase coming through though those weren't all that sensical either. Other people on the beach had noticed and were beginning to gather, a few of them asking if she was ok but all of them standing back a ways, clearly wary of this apparent crazy fit.
Sean reached them, Devin not far behind and tried to connect to her, the sudden rush of images and feelings and bits of thoughts nearly causing him to fall over, he closed off the connection and had a brief mental conversation with the others. They all three reached out mentally and pushed her into unconsciousness, stopping the muttering and causing her to slump limply to the ground. Sean picked her up and followed Kat and Devin through the small crowd of people, reassuring those who asked that she was ok, just a really bad migraine and hurrying as fast as they could to their car.
Their hotel room, or suite rather, had a back way in, courtesy of the power of Devin's father's name and money and they went in that way, letting the valet take the car. They had reached the room and laid Winter on the bed when Sean realized they had left their bag in the car, he went to get it after firmly admonishing the other two to not take their eyes off of her, two minutes after he left they 'heard' his scream through their connection and then he was silent, the spot where he usually was in their mind gone, too faint to connect with.
Kat was out the door before Devin could stop her, one last "Don't leave her!" the only thing she said. He almost punched the wall and punched the cushion of a chair instead, she was right, he couldn't just leave Winter here like this but what had happened to Sean? And what was going to happen to Kat? She was going to get herself caught or worse by whoever had gotten Sean; she would take too many risks for her brother, always had...
"It turned out we had been followed to California, as we learned later, by the government or rather by a secret branch hidden within it, made up of members of the FBI, the CIA, a few state and local law enforcers, and some civilian contractors, mostly scientists. We had seen the trials on TV two years ago with that Agent Pierce guy and knowing that there had been a group hunting out there, hunting for us, was terrifying, but since Congress had voted to disband it we had hoped the government no longer posed a threat provided we did nothing to draw their attention to us."
"However the government, and this Pierce we assume, had only been aware of part of the organization. There was a special unit in the FBI, but some of its members were part of a larger organization, an organization that has no name so as to prevent anyone from learning it. It was this organization that had been watching us since Desi disappeared; it was this organization that had taken Sean."
"When I had collapsed on the beach it had made us vulnerable, they knew we had powers and they knew, we can only assume from contact with other aliens, that our powers were enhanced when we were together, with me out of the picture our powers were decreased and when Sean left the hotel room alone it provided an opportunity they couldn't pass up. While Devin kept watch over me, Kat was trying to find Sean, trying to follow him through their faint connection."
The others were trying to keep up with the story, things seemed to keep happening one right after the other and trying to process the ramifications of each of them while continuing to listen was proving a challenge. This information about the governmental group was the biggest; the implications of it were staggering.
Before Winter could continue Kyle tentatively raised a hand, causing her to smile and gesture for him to speak. "Could we take a break? Get something to eat, have some time to process a bit."
Winter blushed, a guilty expression visible in her eyes. "Oh my gosh, you all must be starving, I totally forgot, and yes, time to process would definitely be good."
The others all smiled, Kyle replying with "No, its ok, we all got caught up in the story, but, seriously, my stomach is like eating itself."
Everyone chuckled and Winter grinned, "Well we have room service so if you want to tell Devin here what you would like he could call and order."
He gave her the squinty eyes "Thanks for volunteering me Sis." He said in a sarcastic voice, she smiled sweetly at him and gave a gracious half bow from her position on the floor.
"So...what kinda food do you all feel like?"