Disclaimer: I do not own Sky High.
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She unlocked the door to her apartment, and the five followed her inside. She motioned for them to sit on the couch, and she went to the fridge. She pulled out some soda, water, and a few bags of chips. She made her way back to the seating area, and put the snacks on the table between them. Layla, Will and Magenta all sat on the couch, while Zach sat on a chair, and Warren leaned against the small fireplace behind the chair Ivy sat in. No one, not even Zach, touched the food. They were all waiting for Ivy to speak.
Breathe.
"Every Super, or mutant, or whatever you want to call them, has one specific set of genes that codes for their powers. If you have more than one power, like me and Will, you have more than one set of mutated genes. Basically, each power has a set of genes, and then there are the normal genes for everything else. But there are a few hundred people in the world who don't have any genes to code for their shape-shifting. Like, looking at the genes, there is nothing other than their normal human ones and their standard powers. Like the shifting doesn't genetically exist." She took a deep breath, and continued. "I'm one of those cases. I have genes for my skin, for my empathy and for the light control, but nothing for the panther. My genes make me an unnaturally large panther, but I've heard others are hawks, sharks, eagles, foxes, wolves. All of them are larger than normal animals. Sometimes two or three times larger. It makes them stronger, less vulnerable."
She shook her head and stood up. She walked over to the window. The light outside darkened, and she turned her back to the window. She realized how much darker the room had gotten, and she looked at her friends in color, not for the first time, but this time noticing what they looked like, not just what they were wearing. Zach was pale, with very light blonde hair. Magenta wore purple and black in her hair with slightly tanned skin. Will had brown hair and eyes. And Layla had beautiful red hair with light ivory-toned skin. Ivy smiled to herself, and all her friends' faces went from listening to confused. She ignored their questioning eyebrows and continued speaking, with her back against the window.
"When you're in animal form, you don't have much, if any, control. You can change any body part you want at any time you want, but when you're in complete form, you lose most control over what you do. It's like you're there, you're watching it, and you yell to stop before you hurt someone, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't make a difference really. My mom was very persistent in training my Absolute form to respond to the name "Stone", so if I ever go crazy, say it and I'll back off or whatever. It's like a safe-word. It's the only thing that keeps me grounded when I'm in cat-form. The only thing I have a substantial amount of control over is when to change back, obviously. I don't always have control changing, though. Like today with Taylor. I got angry and my cat side fought its way out." She shook her had slightly.
"That must be so cool, man. On Halloween you can like, go out with your tail hangin' out and stuff." Zach laughed to himself. Everyone else just looked at him. He stopped laughing and caught on to the silence, and he shrunk a bit in his seat.
"The only problem with staying in the Absolute form, is that if you stay for too long, you could get stuck there. The longest I've stayed was thirty minutes. It seems short, but it's an eternity when you're looking at it from a panther's point of view. And even then, I almost got stuck in it."
"Stuck?" Layla looked worried.
"Yeah. It was hard to change back, and not as fast as normal. Not all of me came back either. I couldn't reverse my eyes completely, so the pupils are the tiniest bit split, and I see in black and white."
"Like you're color blind?" Will asked.
Warren snorted.
"No, I see in shades of black, gray and white instead of colors. But only when it's light out. When it's dark I see color again. I don't know why, though. In panther form I always saw in black and white. But either way, my pupils and my sight never went back. Neither did my reflexes, so instead of have human ones, I have super-cat ones."
Magenta looked utterly confused, and the look on her face forced a laugh to escape Ivy. "I can jump up to forty feet and land standing. My hearing is also above average, but it's not as good as when I'm all 'rawr'" She made a claw-shape with her hand for emphasis.
"You said there were others like you. Have you ever met any of them?" Will finally took a bag of chips and opened it.
"No." She paused. "Not until that night at the club." Warren took a step forward. "The guy I was dancing with is also an Absolute."
"How do you know? Can you like, sense it?" Layla took a chip from Will.
"No, he had started to change right before Warren came out to find me. You have to understand, the Absolutes think they're the next stage of being a Super. They think they're above everyone else, and their main concern is to find all the others and continue to build and expand the Coven they've made. My mom had scanned a few Absolutes' minds, and found that a Seer, like a prophet-type had a vision about a white panther. The panther apparently is the strongest Absolute, and is supposed to break the Coven. She did all she could to protect me, but somehow, they found me. One of the older Absolutes of the Coven can track us all, so whenever I change if he's trying to find me, he can. That's one of the many reasons I don't do it."
"My head hurts. This is so much to take in. How do you do it?" Magenta rolled her finger over her temple.
Ivy shrugged and went back to the table. She took a chip and sat back down in her chair. "I don't know how Blake found me, or what he wants. I just hope he leaves me alone." She broke the chip in half, but didn't eat it.
Layla walked over to her, and kneeled down beside the chair. "Whatever his problem is, we're here to help you, OK?" Ivy looked at her with thankful eyes and nodded. Layla squeezed Ivy's hand and went back to the couch where her boyfriend and best friend sat munching.
"Yeah, I agree with Layla. We can totally take this guy." Zach smiled excitedly, and Ivy couldn't help but smile back at him. "Yo, Ivy, didn't you say you had more than one power?"
Ivy stopped smiling and her face paled. She turned to look at Warren who looked back at her and then walked toward the window. He copied Ivy by staring out the window. But Warren didn't turn back around. Ivy looked down at the floor, then back at Zach. She smiled weakly and opened her mouth a bit to speak.
"My skin-- Um-- It--" She panicked and looked at Warren for help.
He sensed the eyes on the back of his head and spoke. "She'll flambé you if you touch her skin to skin."
Ivy looked at him and her pleading expression turned angry for an instant. "Gee, thanks for being so nice about it."
He turned back to face her. "Anytime."
Ivy scowled and returned her attention to the others. "If you touch me, skin to skin, I'll burn you. If you touch me long enough, I can set you on fire."
Layla looked down at her hand and saw nothing. "But I just..." She looked back at Ivy confused.
"The doctor I mentioned earlier was a really good friend of my moms. Karmichael specializes in Supers with uncontrollable powers that are hazardous to others. Like me. He developed a serum that I can take that suppresses my skin for two days at a time. I've used two doses of it already. One on Friday before the club, and one this morning."
"That's why you didn't want Speed to touch you at school, huh?" Magenta drank some soda and Ivy nodded.
"Yeah. I hadn't had any contact for years. Not even my mom could touch me. Except when I was in cat form, but being snuggly isn't exactly my alter ego's favorite hobby." A faint smile crossed her face. A smile that held a memory and a longing of something that wasn't as happy chasing bunnies for fun. She looked back at Warren who was looking back out the window. The light faded more as Ivy's eyes fell to the floor.
Layla looked out the window. "How'd it get so dark all of a sudden? It was so pretty earlier!" She looked so upset that Ivy smiled again.
"My fault, sorry." She closed her eyes, and the outside light grew bright again, making the apartment light and making her vision black and white again. She opened her eyes and shrugged. "I can also control light. Not like, electricity, but light itself. I can bury light, make it fold in on itself so that it doesn't shine outward. It's pretty cool, but it tends to darken automatically when I'm sad. I could never really figure that part out." She shrugged again.
Will munched a bit more. "Anything else we should know about?" He chuckled a bit, but Ivy seriously thought for a moment.
"Absolute, light, skin. Hm. Oh! I have minor empath abilities, but when I say minor, I mean like, if someone's angry enough to kill someone my skin will burn white hot with their anger. Like, pure emotion I can feel, but nothing else. Like right now I can't feel crap." She drank some water and continued. "And I don't know if my hair is connected to the empath thing, or if it's just weird on its own, but when I'm filled with some pure emotion my hair changes colors."
"Like in the gym today after you socked Boomer?" Zach asked.
"Yeah. It turned red, huh?" They all nodded. "Yeah, red when I'm angry, black when I'm grieving. I've never had any other colors, though. I can also control it slightly. Like the black in my hair now is my doing. It fades after a little while, but its fun while it lasts." She shrugged.
"What about the cat-eyes?" Warren growled his corner.
Ivy looked towards him. "Eh?"
"In the gym, your eyes went back to being the panthers, but the pupils were red, not white." He turned around again, and rested his back against the window.
"It's only happened a few times in my life. I don't know why it happens, or what triggers it." She stood up and walked over to Warren. She stopped short when he turned his back to her. She ran a hand through her hair, then shoved them both into her pockets. "I'm sorry, Warren. I shouldn't have been so mean to you." She returned to Layla and the rest who looked at her with admiration for having just apologized to Warren for something other than trying to sit with him at lunch, or dropping something in his way.
"I'll see you guys tomorrow." Warren grabbed his bag and left the apartment before anyone had time to react.
"Did I do something wrong?" Ivy looked at Will first.
Will just shook his head sadly. "No. He isn't big on sentimental moments."
"Oh." Her face fell. "I wasn't trying to be sentimental. I was wrong, and I was just trying to apologize."
"Like I said, sentimental." Will tried to smile.
"Oh." She was silent for a moment. "Speaking of apologizing, I should call my aunt and see how Boomer's eye is." They all smiled at the thought of Boomer having a black and blue eye, even Layla.
The five supers sat around Ivy's table for an hour more before deciding they should head home. After everyone left, Ivy called her aunt and explained what happened. The principal told her that Boomer had explained the situation earlier, and that he was okay. She reprimanded Ivy for not having self-control, but in the end understood why she had been so angry, and said that Boomer should have talked to them both about how Ivy was to play Save the Citizen fairly and not threateningly, first. They talked for a few minutes more and decided to go out to dinner that night.
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Thanks for the reviews everyone!! I hope I explained everything enough... =\ Anyway, I'll update again soon. Lemme know what you think!