Antecedent 0.4

He has been silent for the past five minutes, staring at me incredulously. His eyebrows are arched in bewilderment, with some very visible creases in his forehead. I don't fully understand this reaction. Sure, the information I've just told him is surprising, to say the least, but I can't see what merits this much shock.

To combat the awkward silence, I have been doing a little bit of percussion on my knees as I wait for his response. I start with a standard four-four beat, advancing to a slightly more complex six-four, regressing to five-four…

I am just starting to get a groove that I like going when he speaks up.

"...Is this why?" I stop and frown slightly for a moment. He just interrupted my flow. My flow. I force myself to calm down; I'm sure he didn't mean to interrupt my flow, so I stomach my gripe.

"Is what why?" His face becomes more serious, somehow.

"Why you've been different? The whole argument we had this morning?" I search my mind for that argument, but I cannot find it. The whole morning is a blur. I nod anyway.

"Yes. Right. That's why. I did not know what to tell you. My apologies." He seems to hesitate, perhaps from my absolutely natural delivery of that sentence. He appears to shake it off as he asks another question.

"What exactly do they…do?" Ah. He wants the specifics.

"Well…" How much should I tell him? "So far, I can control insects and manipulate them with simple commands. It's limited, however." It isn't, as far as I've seen, but he doesn't need to know. Same with the "simple commands". He sighs, obviously conflicted.

"...You know what I think about parahumans."

"Yes."

"You know what I think about the PRT."

"Yes."

"You know what I think about the Ward program."

"Yes, I do. Yet I still want to do it." He looks as if he's still processing it. I start to pick up the groove again for a few moments before he speaks up again.

"What about going independent? Do you have to work for the Protectorate?" Hm. I had expected this resistance. I have an ace up my sleeve, however.

"...I've seen the bills, father. We're still paying for her funeral and the house with money we don't have." I grab his right hand with my own. I see him flinch slightly and feel his hand tense; perhaps mine are cold. "This will provide a good extra income. Besides, I have these powers for a reason, a purpose. I believe that that purpose is to do good. To help others." Just because I don't have a moral compass anymore doesn't mean I can't tell the difference between good or bad. I already tried the bad and it didn't fit me. Why not try the other? I keep this thought to myself as he looks me up and down. "I have a chance to do all that. Please do not deny me it." There is silence between us. He loosens his hand. The corners of his mouth turn up slightly. He sighs.

"…Alright." The corner of mine twitches slightly. "I'll arrange a meeting in a…maybe a week or two; I'll have to check." I nod, satisfied with my success. Money is a very powerful clincher for people like us.

"Thank you for the opportunity you've given me." He nods back with a confused smile. I have succeeded in my goal. I let go of his hand, stand up, and walk away. I ignore the man's sudden confusion as I go to get ready for school.

As I walk off the bus and towards the school, I decide to call a few flies to me in case any troublesome girls have any plans of messing with me today. I send them in a shaky line down my usual route, checking the courtyard, the entrance, the hall; walls, corners, places an average sized teenage girl, or three, could fit in and use to prank me. Thankfully, I find nothing. Before I can enter, however, I am stopped by a strange tingle in my head.

My head swivels to the side, presumably towards the source. It's a moaning, as it is out of my control, but my miffiness fades when I see something interesting. Sitting on a low hanging leaf is a beetle. It looks plain enough; flat, brown, six legs, nothing out of the ordinary. I do not know if it is my intuition or my connection with the beetle, but something feels different about this one. I feel the tingle in my head move, before I feel a creeping nausea following it.

It may not be graceful, but I am able to stumble into the bathroom without much difficulty. I couldn't have cared less what others thought when they saw me tripping on myself like a drunk, but it might have raised someone's suspicions of something. This unmitigated paranoia might be a symptom of whatever is ailing me, so I put it to rest for now. I turn to the mirror. I look vile. Sweat trails down my face in little salty drops. I am shaking slightly. My eyes are wide and, ironically enough, buggy. I do not know what to do. I am too focused on my appearance to notice someone entering the room. I do not know they are there until I hear the door closed. I look to the side. Sophia is standing alone. That is the same moment I realize that there is no one else in the bathroom.

For a few seconds, she just stands there. A faint wisp of confusion is visible on her face for a few seconds, possibly owing to my current appearance, but it is quickly replaced by a confident sneer.

"Wow. You already look like shit. I don't even have to beat you up." Her face hardens. "Still going to, though." She starts to walk towards me. "You see, worms like you, Hebert, need to know their place, and…"

I turn away, uninterested. As she blabbers on about predators and prey like an overexcited biology undergrad, I try to focus on the tingle, which has dropped down to my chest. It feels…scared? The tingle has feelings? Some air escapes my nose at the idea that a bodily function has more emotion than me.

"Oh, I'm sorry, is this funny to you?" Oh, right, she's still here. I wipe a drop of sweat off as I reply, still facing the mirror.

"No, it was something I thought of; I wasn't listening. Go on." I can quite literally feel her anger rise.

"Alright, if that's how you want it." I hear her sneakers squeak over the humid floor. The tingle speeds its way to just below my shoulder. It starts to scream. Instinctively, I tense the muscle it landed in and…

I feel a small tap on my arm.

I turn to the only other person near me.

"Yes?" I see that she has her fist outstretched, the knuckles grazing where I had just tensed. I raise my eyebrow. Did she punch me? Why didn't I feel anything? Sophia seems to have the same question herself, as she is now frozen in shock. I, however, have learned to keep questions in mind for later, so I hurry out of the room before she realizes what has happened. As I leave, I pull my sleeve up to inspect my arm. I feel the tingle fade just as I see a small patch of brown below my shoulder. It disappears into my skin, and I'm left with more confusion than I've ever felt in my life.

It is now near midnight, a now-hallowed time for me. Though I stopped with my short-lived criminal activities, I have not stopped with my nocturnal tradition of strolling down the Boardwalk. The night air is cool, yet still not enough to wear a sweater. The light gusts hit my nearly bare arms as I keep a light step.

This atmosphere is perfect for taking a breather or simply allowing myself to think. At the moment, it is the latter. As I have already been walking for an hour or two at this point, most of my thinking is done. I can surmise from the past day that I apparently have a new power.

Double triggers aren't unheard of, but they are exceedingly rare. I haven't heard of a specific case, but it's public knowledge that something along those lines is possible. So, what was my second trigger event?

I figured that one out before the first half hour had passed. My original event consisted of two events: the locker and the ambulance. I had spent almost the full day in there before someone got me out, drowning in waste. I might have gotten my first ability, the bugs, from that. Then, in the ambulance, I died. I came back, yes, but it was incredibly painful. Most probably painful enough to elicit another trigger, something that could seem very useful.

When I had gotten home in the afternoon, I immediately went up to my room and searched for 'large flat brown beetle six legs tough shell'. After a bit of digging, I found an almost exact match for the one I had seen earlier. It had quite the name too. 'Diabolical Ironclad Beetle'. 'Can withstand thirty-nine thousand times its body weight'. 'To display, collectors usually use drills instead of pins'. Fascinating.

The actual ability reminded me of this Aleph movie that got to us recently; I think it was in the theater recently: X-Men First Class. Good movie, but what I was thinking of was one specific hero in it, a man called Darwin. He had the power to adapt his body to whatever the situation needed. The technicality is more similar to that Ward hero Aegis, but the body changing looked like what had happened at school.

My brain feels a bit overloaded thinking about everything, so I spread the discomfort across whatever insects are nearby; another perk of my fist power. The feeling of having about seven hundred minds and seven hundred eyes and the senses of seven hundred different creatures is difficult to get used to, but I feel as though I'm adapting quickly. I hear the buzzing of flies from other flies, I hear the clacking of lobster claws from sand fleas, I hear the rush of the shallow waters from the fish. It is a complicated feeling, but strangely serene.

I stop at one part and stand still, looking out at the beach. My attention is fixed on a lone crab that stops its little sidestepping to face me as well. It has large spider-like legs, it is brown with a faint bluish tint on the edges of its carapace, and a left claw twice as big as its right. I walk over to it. As I stand over it, I try to mentally command it to raise the bigger claw. It works. Fascinating. I put my own hand next to it, comparing sizes. It stares at me blankly through its black dots.

A small jolt goes through my hand, causing it to flinch slightly. The crab follows the motion, like an orchestra with me as its swaying conductor. The jolt continues, coursing through my palm as if there were hundreds of little mites digging just under the epidermis. What does this sensation mean? I look back at the crab, look back at my palm, and instinctively tense up my hand.

I see something growing. I feel something hardening. A few crackling noises can be heard. It is strange; the reformation of bones doesn't hurt as much as I'd have imagined. Fascinating. Before I can fully understand this sensation, it disappears. I stay frozen in place for a few seconds, unsure what just happened. I realize that I have descended into a squat, and am now staring into the crab's little upturned beads. I stare back at myself through them. I look vile.

I look down at my hand. It has a certain sheen to it now. I bring my other hand to it and touch it. My soft flesh is now stiff and cold. In the faint moonlight, a small glimmer is reflected, allowing me to see its new brownish shade. I stop tensing it up and the sheen fades, my flesh soft once again. Absolutely fascinating.

I nod to the crab in camaraderie before standing up and walking back to the Boardwalk. It seems my father will be getting two shocks in a row this week. Poor man.