A rather plain but large basement room, the walls obviously thick and reinforced. They arrive here by going down an elevator shaft. The walls show signs of soot scars and other markings.
Currently in the room are Kemp, Grey And Eric.
Peri
When she arrived, she looked around the room with a certain amount of discomfort. She didn’t like being the focus of attention, but she supposed it couldn’t be entirely avoided.
“So, uh... where do we start?”
Eric:
“The first places to start would be with looking at your parents. There is a good chance that your abilities may be related to one of them. Now your father, in broad strokes has a power that is mor or less in my realm. A power which effects other powers. A ‘meta’ power. The way to provoke that would likely be to attempt to use a power on you. Naturally in a way that would be harmless. Your other genetic propensity would appear to be towards Lady Grey’s realm. Powers of the mind. Specifically, some variety of empath, projective or otherwise.”
Peri
She couldn’t help but wonder who her mother was. She’d most likely died at some point in Peri’s first couple of years - which is why she had no memory of her - and her father had steadfastly refused to tell her anything more than that her mother was a good woman, and she was dead.
She nodded to signal her understanding.
“Ready whenever you’d like to start.”
Grey:
“So I am going to attempt to touch your mind. I will not delve deeply without your permission, I am merely trying to see if I can provoke a natural response. So do not be alarmed. Do you understand?”
Peri
She nodded.
She tried to clear her mind, with limited success. Too much to think about, to worry about.
She felt a light brush across her mind ... and then suddenly started feeling other minds in the room. Impressions, a jumble of thoughts, chaos to a mind unused to it.
Peri
It hit her all at once, a tsunami of thoughts, feelings, flashes of memories that weren't hers.She was pale, her eyes wide, and she was breathing a little heavily as she tried to keep her head above the waves. The only way she could keep from drowning was to try to focus, separate out the minds so they weren't just interference, like when a microphone and speaker got too close, or dissonant notes were played together.
She tried not to delve deeply, trying to keep each mind at arm's length.
One mind was all moving, interlocking parts, four dimensional fractals and whirring gears. Several threads of thought at once - curiosity, invention, analysis, and something else that she couldn't quite identify.
The next mind was cool - not in an off-putting way, but clear and calm and soothing like a freshwater lake on a hot summer's day. Precise focus could be sensed as a slight ripple on the surface. Still, she got the distinct impression that the lake was deeper than it seemed, and if you swam too far down you'd never break the surface.
The last one was a fortress on a hill. Strong, steady, enduring. The walls were weathered with the passing of time, but the foundation was solid.
Grey:
The contact is broken
“... Fascinating. Tell me, what just happened?”
Peri
She was a bit dazed, so it took her a moment to respond, and even then it wasn’t that coherent.
“I felt... your mind touch, then... noise and static and so many jumbled things that it just... I...”
She blinked a couple times.
“Quiet now though.”
Grey
"First time on that is always rough ..."
She pauses a long time.
"Yet that doesn't feel right. You don't feel like a telepath."
Eric:
He steps forward, and holds out a hand, putting on an air of concentration.
The feeling is very strange. She feels like a clamp is closing around her ...
Then she feels it loosen, and Eric winces and looks rather confused.
"What ...?"
Peri
She looked at Eric, raising her eyebrows in a gesture that seemed to say ‘Don’t ask me, all of this is weird to me too’
What actually came out of her mouth, though, was “I felt you try to... kind of lock me down. And then it stopped.”
What he had tried to do didn’t feel odd to her - for as long as she’d remembered, she’d felt that way. More or less. Her Dad blocking her powers. That felt normal, but the loosening of that grip brought her attention to the fact that she hadn’t felt that amorphous, disembodied weight around her since her Dad was taken away.
She tried to narrow down or identify how it felt when she’d (her best guess) stopped Eric from stopping her.
She looked at Grey and Eric.
“Try again. Both of you, same time but Eric starting like a second earlier.”
If she was doing what her father could - redirecting powers - she might be able to use Eric’s power to block Grey from touching her mind.
What resulted was extreme confusion. She felt minds ... and then everyone winces as if feels like a heavy field was lowering over the room. Then everything stops.
Eric:
“I ... have a different theory. It would require more tests to solidify it. I am thinking ... you are a power mimic? When you are touched by a power you evince some semblance of it yourself.”
Peri
She thought a moment. The suggestion did line up with what she was experiencing. It also had some potential to explain some things that didn’t quite line up before.
“Might be part of why I didn’t know about my powers. Didn’t run into many powered people.”
Eric:
“We are going to have to run more tests than we can here to firm that up, but it would also explain, if your father redirected powers, why yours would not show up. What would the manifestation of redirecting the power of redirection look like?
Peri
If her power was mimicking other people’s powers, then surely this was one of the places where she was most dangerous. She’d be less of a threat in her old school.
She didn’t say that, though. This place was a lot nicer, and she was already starting to make friends.
Grey:
“I do think, however, we can register you with a note that there are provisional updates to your registration as we discover more. Do you have any questions s to what that registration would mean, or any aspects of it?”
Peri
“Does it need to be renewed, or is it something that you only need to update if the information changes? Who can see it?”
Grey:
“It’s more of an update thing. And as far as who can see it ... mostly it is Eidolon and the law enforcement structure dealing with the powered and ‘appropriate’ government agencies. You know the alphabet soup. “
Peri
She nodded, not really having enough knowledge of these things to know what to ask.
She did have one question, though. She looked at Eric.
“So, if powers run in families, and my power is similar to yours... are we related?”
Eric:
“A question to which I know no answer. I am adopted, and my parentage unknown. Ther are instances of similar powers occurring in unrelated people. So, to give a politician’s answer, I can neither confirm nor deny.”
Peri
She tried not to show it, but despite her best efforts it was clear that she was a little bit disappointed. She’d never had any extended family, at least that she knew of, and having an uncle could be nice. Oh well, can’t miss what you never had.
“Apart from powers... I’m a sophomore, and a solid C- student. Not that smart. But I’ve learned to do a lot of practical things. If it breaks, I can fix it. Maybe not pretty, and not for long, but it’ll work for a bit. Cooking, cleaning, looking after money, laundry, patching up clothing. I’m good at taking junk and making it into something useful.”
She looked at the floor.
“Not going to be able to teach me much. But I want to be useful.”
She didn’t want to be useful, really - she needed to be useful, the same way that someone stranded in the middle of the ocean needed a raft. There was only so long she could tread water before she grew exhausted and was dragged under.
Eric
“Performance in an underfunded and failing school does not correlate well to innate capacity. We will find out where your particular gifts lie - in fixing, improvisation and the practical, and emphasize it. I suspect that you are more gifted than you believe. At the very least it seems you were able to handle a situation that most your age would not.”
Peri
“We all have, I think. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this place. Just... don’t be surprised when I don’t do great on the academic tests.”
She’d honestly missed a lot of school over the years.
Kemp:
“Probably pair you up with Hadassa and Blake. Hadassa had no formal schooling as far as we can tell and Blake had only some. You can all catch up together then.”
Don’t really have anything to add?
ok. then I'll move it on if youre ready.
She can move to,the common room, and I will be starting a new round of posts presently likely tomorrow,