BEN
While sitting in my room at about 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon, I opened the blinds to let in some nice natural light. I don't like the waste of electricity, especially since artificial light kills your sleep cycle. It was nice and bright and the voices in my head were leaving me be for the moment. I was all alone in my solitude...and then the door opened.
Hiro came in and turned on the light as he entered. He then sat down at his desk and turned his desk lamp on. I looked at him. He didn't seem to notice my problem.

I got up and walked over to the switch of the large light. I turned it off and sat back down.
Hiro then looked at me. "Why did you do that?" he asked. He stood up and turned the light off. I looked at him again.
"Do we really need that on, considering your lamp is on and the blinds are open?"
"Yes."
"What the heck do you mean yes[interrobang]" I shouted.

There was a knock at the door. We both said enter, and Eric stepped in. He immediately looked at the light, chuckled, and turned it off.
"Hiro, Ben is right that it doesn't need to be on."
"Thank you," I replied.
"Ben, you need to quiet down. I can hear you through the wall."
* * *
BEN
We dropped into the rainforested world. Being the one closest to the portal, I dropped in first. I rolled out of the way (figuring the others would land on me if I didn't). I immediately became aware of three things. 1 - Jenny was yelling at me, 2 - this rainforest couldn't possibly be one of our current Earth , and 3 - I was filled with power, so much I felt I would burst. I immediately set about remedying the first problem. I focused my entire conscious mind on suppressing my power. I put a check on it, so to speak. I wasn't quite sure what this power even was, but I figured it was a result of going through the portal. This was what it meant by superpower. I didn't bother trying to figure out what it was though. Instead, I just put the limit in my mind, and set a simple command to break the limit.

The next thing I attended to was looking at this alien world...and alien was right. Many of the plants seemed vaguely familiar, as did a couple of the animals, but many were like nothing I had ever seen. It was almost as if evolution had gone wild. For a moment, I felt glad that we had these powers. In this new world, we'd need them. I looked backward and saw that the portal had disappeared. There had to be a way back, I was sure of it.

Now that I had dealt with my power and taken in the world, it was time to listen to Jenny, who was still freaking out. She wasn't even saying anything intelligible anymore. She just sounded afraid, annoyed and angry all at the same time. "Jenny," I said quietly and calmly, "you need to calm down. I can barely hear myself think."
I heard her take some deep breathes (does a disembodied voice even need to breathe?) and she then said, "Okay, I think we're cool now. I think I've calmed down."
"Remember, you're riding in my body. You have nothing to fear."
"That doesn't mean I can't be freaked out..."

I looked at the other people in the group. They were beginning to get up to their feet. Some looked like they had just gotten off of a roller coaster, but many seemed to be unchanged, relatively speaking. Then I saw Murray.
He was literally a robot. No more jokes about his robotness, he was an actual robot.
I was a tad unnerved by this. "Hey Murray, are you okay?"
"Affirmative. I am okay." His voice sounded like his own, but with a mechanical touch to it. When everyone heard him speak, those who hadn't looked at him yet did so, and had a similar reaction to my own.
"Are you sure?" Tyler asked.
"Affirmative."
"You do know you're a robot?"
Murray was taken aback by this comment (if a robot could be taken aback) until he looked at his arm. "Well, what do you know. It is true. I am indeed a robot, and a pretty awesome one at that."
"How does being a robot feel?" Casey asked. "Does it feel different?"
"Not really. I feel more or less the same, although my speaking patterns seem to have differed slightly."
"Well, that's cool," Casey said, putting his hand on Murray's new robotic shoulder. Or rather, he would have, had his hand not gone straight through Murray's shoulder. Casey almost feel forward. He then began to sink, rather quickly. I realized the problem.

"Well Casey, you've gone and made yourself intangible," I said as he began to sink further into the ground. "Focus on your hand and make it touchable again."
"Okay, I'll try..." His hand then disappeared. I swore under my breath (and Jenny yelled at me for my language).
"Casey, I can't grab your hand if I can't see it." He looked at his hand and noticed it had disappeared.
"What the heck is going on?" I reached out and grabbed his hand as soon as it became visible again. I pulled him up (helped by the robot) and he sat on the ground. "Are you sure I won't fall in again?"
"Casey, you just need to concentrate on not letting your powers get out of hand. Apparently, you have both invisibility and intangibility. You should take a bit to make sure that you won't disappear or fall into the center of the Earth again."
"Heh heh," he laughed nervously. "Okay, I'll do my best captain."

I looked at everyone else. "Judging by Murray and Casey, I think it's safe to say that we have all gotten some superpowers, or at least most of us. Remember, you must maintain control. Some powers can be very dangerous, as Casey just learned."
"That sounds reasonable," Tyler said. "But what if we don't think we have any powers or feel different? I know I feel the same..."
"Well, I don't know. You could look through the book if you want to." I tossed it at him and he caught it. "I can't say it'll answer that question though."

"Here's a good question that that book probably could answer," Derek said. "The portal just disappeared. How the heck do we get back?"
"Actually," I responded, "the portal disappeared as you all were getting to your feet. But I would guess there would be some way, considering the portal is the thing that gave us these powers. I say the best thing to do would be to try and find some other people. Maybe this happens a lot here."
"Or maybe it never happens and they'll shoot us on sight!"
"Well then, if that's the case we would at least know where we are. We'd be in Texas."
"Hey now," Daniel said. "You and I both know this ain't Texas."
"You're right, too much green."

"Don't mess with Texas," he said, pointing his finger at me. Something amazing then happened. His hand transformed into a revolver fused to his wrist, still pointed at me. You could tell who was paying attention to what was happening, because they all gasped. I actually chuckled.
"Nice power Daniel."
"I know, right? I could be really destructive with this..." He changed his hand back to normal, and then focused a bit. In seconds, his entire arm changed into a shotgun. He changed it back. "Cool."

"Anyway, I do think we should explore some," I continued from before. "Anyone have a compass?"
"I have one in my new systems," Murray answered. He turned and pointed. "North is this direction."
"Good. I say we split up into smaller groups, seeing as 19 is a rather large number. Each group will head in one direction. We'll stay in touch with these," I said, pulling 4 walkie-talkies from my backpack. "Murray, you have the compass, so you head the group going north." I handed him a walkie-talkie. "Jordan, you head the group headed east," I said, handing him one as well. "Meg," I said handing my sister the third walkie-talkie, "you can take the group headed to the west. Try not to get too distracted by the animals, okay?"
"I can't make any promises..."
"Just try. I'll head the last group, headed south. We can communicate with these...any problems or concerns, relay them to the other group leaders." I paused for a second, thinking. "We'll go in a direction for 30 to 60 minutes, then turn back. Don't get lost."
I looked at the group. We had fifteen people, so three of us got four and the last one gets three.

I was about to try and divide them myself, until Jenny said "Maybe it would be a wise idea to see who all knows of their powers before dividing them up. It seems dumb not to, because you could have three powered people and leave Murray with four powerless saps, or something of the like." I thought the idea was really good, so I addressed the group again.
"Okay, now, I would like to divide us into groups, but it just occurred to me that I should first see who has powers and who doesn't so that we get an even division. So, let's first split into three groups - those who have powers and know what they are, those who know they have powers but don't know what they are, and those who seem to be without powers."
People started moving around, those with known powers by Daniel and Murray, those with unknown powers grouped together by Jordan and my sister, and it appeared only Tyler and Meghan felt that they didn't have any powers. I surveyed the scene. In the known powers group, aside from Daniel, Murray and Casey, we also had Rachel, JoHanna and Hiro. I walked over to that group, and noted that a lot of people could feel the power within them, but didn't know what it was.

"Okay, Murray, Jordan, my sister and I will now separate and decide who goes with whom." We talked it over for a minute or two, and then came to a rough consensus, which I then announced. "Alright," I said, "my group will have Eric, Paul, Meghan and Hiro. Murray's group will be Tyler, Casey, Derek and JoHanna. My sister will take Fabrizzio, Rachel and Michael, and that leaves Jordan with Ojash, Lori, Daniel and Tim." I consulted Murray for the direction again, and the four groups prepared to set out. "Remember," I said to the leader, "call me if something weird or important happens, and stop and turn around after a decent amount of time." They all nodded, and we set out in our separate directions.

I was happy that I no longer had to look after eighteen bodies and nineteen people, but I was still worried about the other groups. We made sure that each group had at least one person who knew their power, and I put the invisible person with the one who has heat detection software. I gave my sister the smallest group, seeing as she probably has the smallest attention span if there are any fuzzy or cute animals nearby, and I gave Jordan, the person who I felt was the best fit to lead, the people who I felt would need the most supervision, like Tim and Ojash. Still, I had to wonder if we would all be okay. However, I put those thoughts out of my mind and focused on my little group.

"So," I said, turning to Hiro while we walked, "You say you know what you're powers are?" He nodded. "So, what are they?"
He looked at me. "I noticed that I no longer have problems understanding you, even when you speak faster. I still have problems speaking though."
"Je ne comprend pas..."
"Wow, I can understand that too...but I still cannot speak it."
I paused. Really? His powers allow him to understand every language? That's it?

Don't knock his power. I would imagine it could be very useful.
True, but I put another person who knew his powers in this group because I don't wish to use mine, I feel it's too dangerous. Plus, I did it to make up for the person who doesn't think she has any powers.
Well then, you just made a really bad choice, didn't you?
Yeah, I guess I did.

I sighed. "So, Paul, Eric, you two have power in you, but you don't know what it is?"
"Yeah, that sounds right," Eric responded.
"Coolio." Paul said.
I looked at him. "What was that?"
Eric responded for Paul, thankfully. "He thinks he's old-school, just ignore it."
"Ah, okay. Well, do you two have any clue what your power might be?"
"Well," Eric said, "I'm not quite sure. I can feel it inside me, but I don't know what it is."
"Same here yo." Paul said. I glared at him and shook my head.
"Really Paul, you're going to have to stop." Paul just rolled his eyes.

I turned to Meghan. "So Miss Raebel, what about you? You don't think you have any powers?"
"Well, it's not that I don't think that I have powers, because I'm sure that I do. I feel very different that I did when we went through the portal. At the same time, I don't feel like the power is in me somehow...it just seems like it's there, ready and waiting. I just don't know what it is."
"So you went in that category because it was the best fit?"
"Yep, sounds about right."
"Okay. Good to know, I guess."

We weren't encountering any animals, though we could see plenty. Jenny was constantly making comments about how cool some of these things were, how scary others were. The plants didn't seem to behave much different, though I did see what looked like a monstrously huge Venus flytrap. The trees were starting to get thinner after fifteen minutes, and we chatted about a couple random things, like college itself and such. Before we knew it (and after another fifteen minutes of walking), we were at a beach. It was actually decently cool for a beach, and we all took a short break to sit down in the sand. Looking out, it seemed the water continued for as far as we could see. We were on a coast. "Well, it appears we will be staying here since we can't head anymore south. Don't have too much fun now," I said, lying back on the sand. It was soft, but didn't seem to be getting in my clothes, which was very nice. I was relaxing and was almost asleep when some water splashed on my face. I sat up and noticed that there was a large sea creature in the horizon, and I was the only one facing it. "Guys," I said, "We may have a problem."

Paul looked and saw it first. "Whoa...that thing looks huge!"
Eric looked in response. "Yep, huge would definitely be the first word I would use to describe it, followed by menacing.
Hiro looked at it. "I cannot put into words how I would describe it. It is just so large and...large."
"Yes, I think we have the size thing down," Meghan said. "I would worry about if it is hostile or not."
"Sounds like a good worry," I replied. The creature looked really corny, almost like something out of a bad parody of The Powerpuff Girls. It was shaped like the top of a balloon (at least the part we could see) and it was teal in color. It had weird hand-like fins that it was flailing, and a large O-shaped mouth that looked to have sharp triangle-shaped teeth inside it. The lips and fins were an orangish-redish color. It roared, which did, like Eric said, sound menacing.
It was much closer now, almost to shore. It saw us and smashed a large flipper into the water. This caused a large wave to shoot up into the air. We all braced for impact, but it didn't hit. I looked up and saw that Paul was stopping the water. His hands were held out in front of him, holding the water back. He noticed it too. "Cool..." He then pushed his hands toward the creature, which sent the water flying back at it. He then put his hands down, then brought his arms up, taking small portions of water with. He then shaped them into water spears and shot them at the creature...but to no avail. Water seemed not to phase this monster. It then spat at us. Paul brought up some water to act as a shield for us, and it worked decently.
The creature then roared. Paul was about to try something when Hiro motioned him to stop.
"I can understand the creature," he said.

And you doubted that power.
Shut up.

"What is it saying," I said as the creature roared again.
"It's apologizing for being here. It says it was washed in by the tide, and was too tired to get back to sea."
"I can remedy that," Paul said. He created a huge wave and pushed it back into the ocean. We were all on edge, and just as we were about to relax, my walkie-talkie sounded, causing us all to jump. I picked it up.

"Yello?"
"Hey Ben, its Murray."
"Hey Murray. What are you calling about?"
"Well, you know how you told us to call if anything important happened?"
"Yes..."
"Well, I was just wondering...is setting off a volcano an important happening?"
"WHAT[interrobang]" I shouted. "Murray? Come in Murray! Are you okay?" There was no response. The signal was lost.

MURRAY
Accessing data banks...
Acquiring data from banks...
Transmitting...
ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!

Just kidding. Even though the Sptoeretlael turned my body into one of robotics, my mind was left mainly unchanged. A few intricacies in the speech pattern were changed, but other than that, I am still good old Murray Stoffa on the inside.
Ben sent me and my team to travel north. I got three people who knew their powers because I also got one thought he had none and another who would need a lot of help with his powers. Ben even checked to make sure I had ways of finding Casey if he became invisible. He is smart like that. I do have to wonder though. He joined the "people who have powers and know them group," but neglected to mention what his powers were. I am, however, sure it was unimportant.
Anyway, my group set out heading north, where my scanners were telling me was a mountain range. From the scanner's map, it looked as if Jordan's group, the one headed east, would end up in the range, near the southeastern tip of the mountains, while my group would hit the northwestern tip.

Speaking of my group, I then figured I would acknowledge their existence. I looked at them, and I noticed I could analyze them to an extent. I could tell that Derek and Casey had very defensive powers, and could also tell that Tyler's power was elaborate and simple at the same time. However, it was JoHanna's power that intrigued me the most, and seeing as she knew what it was, I figured I would ask her about it.
"JoHanna," I addressed her. "You say you know what you're powers are? Would you mind informing us?"
"Ah, well...I'd rather show you. That way, I can test it out as well." She paused for a second, then continued walking. However, another copy of herself stayed paused, then began walking behind the first. She did this another time as well. There were now three walking copies and another standing. I could tell that one was the original, but they all had separate minds and appeared to all have the regular functions of JoHanna. The original looked at me. "I can duplicate myself, see?"
"Do you know the extent of this power?"
"I wish I did, but no, I don't."

I then turned to Casey. "How comfortable are you with your powers?"
"I'm kinda afraid to turn them on. Apparently, gravity still affects me when I'm intangible or not..."
"Don't be afraid. Fear will only lead to more problems. Besides, you have to learn to embrace your powers."
"Easy for you to say. You're a badass robot...me, I'm just a...I don't even know."
"You're practically a ghost. You can become invisible or intangible or even both. Badass robot or not, if you wanted, I'd never be able to touch you."
"I suppose you're right. But I still need to make sure my feet stay tangible. I don't want to slip again."

Turning to Derek, I was about to speak, but he cut me off before I had the chance. "I know you're going to ask me about my powers. All I can say is that they are there. I can't actually tell what they are though."
"You're abilities are those chiefly used for defense. I can analyze a small amount of data on your powers, but not enough to tell you what they actually are. However, I can say this. Casey can make himself impossible to see or touch. Your powers appear to be on the other side of the defensive spectrum."
"Wow...um, okay. I guess that's a good thing."
"Yes, it is."
"Well, I'm glad that's settled."

"Let me guess," Tyler said, "you're going to tell me that, sadly enough, I don't have any powers."
"Actually, you do have very intriguing powers. While I cannot determine what they are, I can still assure you that they are, indeed, interesting."
"Well that's nice I guess. I get to have powers but not know what they are. If I was a character in a story, I'd be awfully mad."
"Hey, that is getting really close to breaking the fourth wall, and I do not allow that kind of talk."
"Okay, I'm fine with that."

We were quickly approaching the volcano, and it was getting hotter. "So, where exactly are we headed to in this heat?" Casey asked me.
"A volcano."
"What[interrobang] A volcano? But...but...how?"
"We got assigned north. A mountain range is on the northeast of this land, while a beach is in the south. The forest just gets thicker to the west."
Great," Derek said, "just great. Where do we get? The volcano. Of course! It had to be the hot place."
"Yep, sounds about right," Tyler responded.

We walked in silence and I mused over my new programming. It was rather amazing. My scanners could tell me numerous things I had never even thought of before. I appeared to have increased strength and partially extending arms (not sure about the legs). It seemed I was better in almost every way. However, the problem is that I could feel the robot in me trying to exert its control. It was like man versus machine inside of me, and it was really creepy. I have to say that I did not like the feeling. However, I put it out of my mind as we got to the base of the volcano...and as it got hotter.

"So...this volcano is hot," Casey said.
"How hot is it?" JoHanna said.
"Um...really hot?"
Tyler booed him. "You ruined the joke Casey."
"There was a joke?"
"As much as I love this filler conversation," Derek said, "I really think that should perhaps worry about how we get over or around this..."
"Hey," I shouted (as much as a robot can shout at least), "what did I say about breaking the fourth wall?"
"Sorry Murray," Derek said.
"Nah, I am kidding."
"Oh okay..."

There was silence until we got to the top of the volcano. We looked down into, and saw that it was active but involatile. Casey kicked a stone into. "Wow...that's deep." He went to kick another one, and as he brought his one foot back, the other became intangible...and he fell into the volcano. My programming was shocked but my brain reacted quickly, and I shot out a new extending arm and caught him. Thankfully he was tangible again, but that didn't stop him from freaking out. He screamed and yelled...which was a very bad idea. His screams actually caused a mini rockslide inside the volcano, which caused the volcano's lava to begin to rise. As I finished hauling him up, it was already too late. The volcano was beginning to erupt. We hurried down the side as I called Ben to inform him of what happened.

It rang twice, and then Ben picked up. "Yello?"
"Hey Ben, its Murray."
"Hey Murray. What are you calling about?"
"Well, you know how you told us to call if anything important happened?" I really did not want to tell him...
"Yes..."
"Well, I was just wondering...is setting off a volcano an important happening?"
"WHAT[interrobang]" I was amazed. He sounded more concerned than angry. "Murray? Come...Murray!...okay?" The connection was lost, most likely due to the alteration of the magnetic from the volcanic activity...speaking of which, I started feeling a tad sluggish...

Updated: 10/13/09 7:39 PM Log in to comment! | Share this!