Power Swap: Colors of the Wind [Closed]

[Levi Xu]

Wait, there was another meta school nearby? Levi sat up more, looking at Evan, seriously confused. "Of course you haven't heard about it. It has to stay a secret or else the humans would find out about us and we'd be in danger. I only told you about it because you're meta too. I've never heard of Hummel Institute. How big is it?" It couldn't be as big or as important as Evan was saying, or else Mr. Underwood would have said something about it, or maybe even sent him there.

Right?

He had never considered, not even once, that Mr. Underwood might not be completely legitimate in his intentions. But the compound really didn't feel like a school, even if he wasn't realizing until now.

He reached over and brushed some of the leaf bits out of his friend's hair, but it didn't help any more than Evan's hand did. "It looks kind of cool though. Like you just did something really exciting." Still smiling, he mimed the eccentric, now-exaggerated cowlick in the other boy's hair.

Leaning on him like that, Levi didn't notice the blush. He grinned, though, at the leaf in his hair. "Awesome. Never done that before. But being a puppy is kind of fun, anyway. So long as I avoid Jahel--he's one of the others who lives with Mr. Underwood, and hates dogs--people just seem to like me more, and that's nice. And when you're a dog, you can sleep anywhere you want and people are just okay with it." Also, he could snuggle up with Jake in his bed. But for some reason, he didn't want to mention that to Evan. It just sounded too weird. (And yes, it even sounded to weird to Levi, who had offered "fluffy hair" as a complement.)

[Evan Brackett]

Evan didn't even know what to say; this was just too weird and confusing. So he decided to start by answering the other boy's question. "Oh, it's huge. There are, I dunno, a few hundred students? Every meta-human has to go there for training. I can't believe you've never heard of it." It was easy to believe that when he thought Levi was just a regular human, since normal people weren’t suppose to know, but this was a different story entirely. Van sighed in frustration.

"I just don't get it." His thoughts flipped through a couple of possibilities, including one that involved the institute knowing about this other school and some kind of side experiment. None of his ideas seemed likely, however. And a kidnapping by a terrorist organization definitely wasn't the something his mind went to.

The boy shrugged. "What, playing with leaves isn't exciting?" he asked with a glint in his eyes. "Sure, it's not skydiving or something like that, but I have fun with it." He would have lied down in the leaves again, had his friend not moved to lean on him.

The smile on Levi's face made Evan happy, as did the boy’s insite on being a dog. "Sleep anywhere you want," he repeated with a chuckle. "I guess that can have its perks. But I like you either way.” Sure, the younger boy made a cute puppy, but he was just as cute as a person. “It's definitely easier to understand you when you're a human. I was having trouble interpreting the, um, tail wagging." Okay, so he was having trouble interpreting everything when Levi was a puppy, but he didn't want to make things awkward by bringing up the dog kisses.

[Levi Xu]

"But...that can't be right..." Levi trailed off, thinking. Whenever he'd been around town, he'd always seen a bunch of interesting people. And there were a disproportionate amount of them who looked young enough to still be in school. But no. Mr. Underwood told him that he was the one who trained metas. "Look, my power--the first one, not the shapeshifting--it started about a year ago now. That's why I was in the hospital. Everyone thought I was crazy. So I was there for a few months, and then they finally did a blood test on me and it turned out I'm Meta. Or maybe they tested right away and just didn't tell my dad, so they can keep an eye on me." There was a hint of bitterness in his voice, one that had wormed its way in sometime since he'd come to live at Mr. Underwood's estate.

Of course, he also wasn't thinking that he had been kidnapped by a terrorist.

"Skydiving? That would be awesome." Sorry, but Levi latched onto the wrong part of that comment. "Would you ever do that? Skydiving? Or hang-gliding, since you can control the wind."

The tail-wagging comment made him laugh. "When I was doing that, it meant I was excited, and happy to see you, because I like you . And that's what the yipping was for too..." Then he shrugged, "I guess it all meant that. When you're a dog, your emotions just get simplified." He laughed again and tossed another handful of leaves in the air, then whistled for Buccaneer, who came running up to them and jumped into his lap. He scratched the puppy's ears and added, "There's no nuance with it. All of a sudden, you either love or hate everything and everyone."