Power Swap: Can't You Feel My Blood Flow? (Open)

[Julien Duval]

It wasn't a normal day. A normal day meant that Julien woke up in his small apartment, went to work at the movie theater, and did other boring human stuff like college and dishes. At least, it was normal until he'd left his apartment to go to the lake to do some homework. That was when things started to get weird. Really weird.

Normally his life was boring, nothing too exciting at all. So when something to make his life more interesting was happening, Julien definitely took notice. That, and it was hard not to. Driving out to the lake was normal, but when he was walking out to a picnic table by the water to enjoy the fall weather and get going on his homework, he felt it.

It was indescribable. It was like he could feel his own blood pumping or something and he wasn't sure how else to explain it, but walking to that table felt like the longest trek of his life and when he finally got there, his headed pounded. There were several people around and he thought if he asked any of them what was happening, he'd surely look insane.

[Axelle Flint]

The tranquility of the lake and it's surroundings was shattered soon after the young man had arrived at his chosen table. Not too far away, and at the same time he had begun walking, the girl named Axelle Flint found herself in great danger.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!! I DIDN'T MEAN TO CALL YOUR MOTHER FAT!!" Axelle squealed, flailing as best she could as her new wings resolutely carried her away from the seething flock of seagulls she had accidently pissed off. She had been awakened soon after the crack of dawn because she could hear very off key voices singing outside her window. When she had realized that those voices had belonged to birds she naturally hadn't been able to go back to sleep. The wings that sprouted from her back shortly afterwards had also been a surprise...but a nice one. She'd promptly gone and tackled her father to wake him up, excitedly babbling that she wasn't strong anymore and that yes that might be cause for concern, the more important detail was that she could hug him as hard as she wanted and it would be okay. She'd insisted on a piggy back ride down the stairs and spent the entirety of him making breakfast in the kitchen with her arms stubbornly around him until her grandfather had entered and then she mobbed him too.

She'd been too excited to eat and as a result her wings kept sprouting. She'd calmed down enough to make them go away so she could sit down without knocking things over but as soon as she was done she was flitting about again, hugging both father and grandfather at random. SURELY THIS WAS THE GREATEST DAY EVER. She would freak out about her strength being gone later, for now...this was amazing. Flying was a bit harder though. Her father had a different power too, if his sudden affinity for turning into a raccoon was any indication and her grandfather shortly realized that his ability had vanished all together, completely gone. She had practiced a few times outside and realized that while her wings were strong, she wasn't entirely sure how to hold the rest of her body in flight. The result was rather comical; she hung there like a scruffed puppy as her wings confidently carried her from place to place. She'd work out how to fly properly later; she was far too busy trying to figure out how to talk to birds.

At first it was fun, there were hummingbirds out by the lake and they talked very quickly and lisped a lot, it was very cute. She talked to them for a long time, realizing in the back of her mind that she was using bird sounds to convey her messages but not really understanding the significance of this until a few minutes later…when she looked at a waddling seagull and snickered. “What a fat bird!” she laughed out loud…and then everything went downhill from there.

Which lead to the here and now as she careened towards the opposite side of the lake, squawking with apologies before the birds finally broke off, muttering about irritating humans and Axelle’s wings finally gave out, dropping her inland, away from the rocky shore. She panted heavily as her wings dropped around her, pulling herself up shakily, spying another person in the process. “Ugh…seagulls suck,”[ she sighed.

Except what he would hear was: “Squawk, squawk…..squawk.”

[Julien Duval]

And then something unexpected happened. A red head with wings flew downwards, landing nearby. And Julien's first thought was that was what he always wanted. Not to see a red head flying, but some sort of excitement in his life. But as she came closer and spoke, the blood pounding became louder and he instinctively took a shaky step backwards, wondering if it was her blood he was hearing. Not to mention he felt even crazier because he'd finally registered the sounds that had come from her, which weren't words, but rather noises. Noises of a bird.

"What is happening?" he asked aloud, although he wasn't sure if he'd get an answer or if she could even answer him anyway, considering she seemed to be squaking.

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle realized very quickly that he couldn't understand her, but she could understand him. "SHIT!"

"SQUAWK!"

"I'm trying to talk to you like a normal person but I'm a bird and I woke up this way -"

"Squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk and - oh there we go!" Axelle finally managed to push herself to her feet and shook herself out, tucking her feathers in a little so that she could look at this man looking at her. "Sorry about that, I was talking to some birds earlier and I got stuck. I wasn't able to do this yesterday. Hey...are you okay?" she asked when she noticed that he looked not so great and even a little worried.

[Julien Duval]

Julien wasn't so sure he'd woken up on the right side of the bed...that's what Americans said, right? To mean your day was off? Because his definitely was. It wasn't a normal day, he didn't just get up and attend college classes with the same people and go to work to sell the same overpriced popcorn. Isn't this what he wanted though? Things to be out of the ordinary? Interesting? Why was it scaring him so much?

She kept squacking over and over again and Julien was sure he was going mad or he was dreaming. And then finally some english which made him sigh in relief, although not as much as if it would have been french. "What do you mean you weren't able to do that yesterday?" he asked, confused. She even had wings, so he knew she had to be a meta. "You're a meta...you do that everyday."

He definitely wasn't okay. He was almost stumbling over his own feet as he moved backwards. "I can hear....your blood." What the hell?

[Axelle Flint]

His words puzzled her but she assumed that perhaps he was having a strange day. "Yeah but yesterday I didn't have wings, I could lift cars and stuff, you know...super strong?" she flexed her arms and was happy to see that despite losing most of her strength she was still defined from all of her boxing which meant she was at least a little stronger.

"You can hear my blood?!" she questioned on an exclamation. "Is it like singing or something? What's it saying?" she asked excitedly, mistakenly assuming for the moment that he meant something was being said to him rather than the sound of her blood flowing through her veins.

[Julien Duval]

"Oh...well...that's different," Julien managed to say. He was completely distracted by the blood pounding, a sound that was disturbing him more and more each second that passed by. He was beginning to feel slightly dizzy from it. "I couldn't do anything yesterday." He realized how that sounded and backtracked. "I mean...nevermind." He wasn't a meta, but admitting that to others was always hard and it came out bitterly. He'd just keep it to himself. When she flexed, he raised an eyebrow. "So...yesterday you had super strength...and today you can fly...and squawk?" What was going on? What had happened to turn his life upside down in such a short amount of time and why wasn't he more pleased by that fact?

"I don't know..I mean, yeah." Why was she so excited that he could hear her blood? "But I don't think that's normal." It was almost like he could feel the fluidity of it. It was making him nauseous. "No...and it's not squawking either." He wasn't really quite sure what it was doing, but it felt like it was rushing. "Do you feel okay?" He asked her, wondering why her blood seemed like it was rushing. If that's what he was hearing. "Am I doing that?"

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle was getting pretty worried about the guy she had stumbled upon. He seemed to be really struggling and he didn't look so well. Despite his attempt to cover up his admission, Axelle caught his words and interpreted them as "Today I'm a meta-human, yesterday I was not." Which would certainly explain his current behavior. "You don't look really well dude, do you need to sit down?" she asked worriedly as she approached him slowly. "Do you need to go to the doctor? I can go with you if you don't want to go alone," she offered without thinking about it because at least to her it seemed like the right thing to do.

[Julien Duval]

That was actually the case. He hadn't been a meta human yesterday and today he was. And he wasn't handling it very well, mostly because it didn't seem like a power he was sure people received. Didn't they get super strength and invisibility and telepathy? Why was he making someone's blood rush? And why did she have a different power than she had the day before? His head was spinning.

He was sort of weirded out by her calling him dude and all he wanted to do was take out his video camera and film this unusual insanity of his life, but he didn't feel well at all. She was certainly right about that and so oddly, he sat down in the grass. "I dunno. Could the doctor really do anything?"