Power Swap: The Melting Moon (Open)

[Tsukiko Aoki]

It had begun yesterday morning, when she'd had a dream she was falling off a tower, falling, falling....and then woke up with a thud underneath the bed. She'd blinked in shock, heart racing, feeling above her, then rolled over, pushing aside the duster to crawl out from under her bed. She'd dismissed the incident as the product of her dream; she must have rolled off the bed and then under it, because she couldn't have fallen through her bed. And then she'd gone on her merry way.

Perhaps if she'd not dealt solely with the children she would have noticed that something was afoot, but her patients were too young to have meta abilities yet, and she was so wrapped up in work that any chaos in the rest of the hospital went unnoticed.

There had been no more incidents the rest of the day, and she'd woken up this morning in bed, rather than under it, and hadn't thought about it again.

And now, on lunch break, by herself in a tiny, two-person booth, she wasn't at all thinking of yesterday morning, instead concentrating on the menu and trying to decide if she wanted a salad or soup with her sandwich.

She leaned back in the booth, frowning at her menu -- and then gasped as she fell all the way through, and found herself staring at the back of the booth on the other side.

She gaped at the booth for a moment, only now recalling falling through the bed, and wondering if that really had been what happened.

"What the hell."

[Midori Hawkins]

Midori was well aware of the odd phenomena that had swept through Hammel. Training classes, and half of the academic classes, had been cancelled while the staff worked through it. She was glad she wasn’t in the teaching department, and had just kept to herself. There was a fantastic amount of paperwork to go through, and she still had an expense report to do up from her last trip. Needless to say, she was grateful when her lunch break rolled around.

Instead of holing up in her office, she’d called ahead to the babysitter and had swung by to pick Tory up. She was in the mood to go out and spend some time with her son. So, she’d headed to one of the small cafes, settled Tory in a high chair, and gone about trying to decide what she wanted.

Tory seemed content to gnaw on a plastic key ring as his mother perused the menu. Since Tory had been born, she’d been thrilled to go back to eating and drinking what she wanted. And today, she wanted coffee and a chicken BLT sandwich. With French fries. Tory seemed to like trying things, and fries would give him something to play with.

She was set to order, and was about to look up to see if she could spot her waitress when she realized she had company.

… A phaser, by the looks of it.

“Uh…hello?” She was used to powers misfiring, but usually by the woman’s age, they were almost fully under control. Tory glanced at their new arrival, smiling and jiggling his keys. “Are you all right?”

[Tsukiko Aoki]

Kiko twisted herself around awkwardly, trying her best to move herself to face the table while not kicking either the young woman or her baby.

Oh, shoot. A baby. She belatedly clapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry." She apologized. She tried to keep her language clean in front of children; she knew from experience parents weren't always keen on their babies hearing even such mild language as she had just used, but it had slipped out without thought.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She rapped her fist against the table. Yes, still solid. "I think. I have no idea what the h....what just happened."

She ran one hand through her hair, surreptitiously wondering if she could leave the table without asking the mother to move.

"It's not every day you fall through a booth, you know? Never had that happen before."

[Midori Hawkins]

Tory just continued to stare, the plastic keys held loosely in his hands. It wasn’t every day that he saw someone phase, either. Then again, if genetics worked like Mii was thinking they might, that wouldn’t be the case for very long.

“It’s all right.” She’d seen worse during her travels for Hammel. And at least this meant that she didn’t have to be so discreet on the metas topic. It was just… odd to see an adult with so little control over their own power. As far as she knew, the power switching mess was limited to Hammel, so that couldn’t be it.

“Well… it looked like phasing to me. Not that I’m an expert.” She offered a little smile to the woman. “I just see a lot of teenagers with newly developed powers.” They were the ones that so often accidentally phased through things, set curtains on fire when they were angry, made it storm violently outside in accordance with changing moods. She knew firsthand, it wasn’t easy for newly manifested metas.

But this woman couldn’t be new to this. Right? Well, maybe she could be. “Pardon my asking, but… did you go to Hammel?” There was no way she’d gone this long without being flagged.

[Tsukiko Aoki]

Kiko hadn't exactly been apologizing for the phasing, but if the other woman hadn't noticed that she'd just uttered hell one and a half times she wasn't going to draw attention to that fact.

"Teenagers with newly manifested powers must be fun." She observed wryly. Of course, she liked teenagers fine, but she preferred working with children herself, and she saw few of her patients go through manifestation. It had happened a handful of times, and that was always complicated, making sure that youth who were ill had access to both the training they needed to keep their powers in check as well as medical care. Being hit with leukemia and empathy at the same time had to be difficult; it certainly made those patients more emotionally fragile than even their non-meta peers.

"I've seen a few where I work, too." She straightened her blouse, sat a little taller. It didn't look like she was going to escape too easily, so she might as well chat with the other woman. She was friendly enough, anyway.

"But no, I didn't go to Hammel. My boyfriend did, but I went to a regular old public school." She shrugged, trying to act nonchalant about the phasing, "But maybe they'll want me to go now that I'm phasing through booths." She glared and poked the cushion of the booth, which stayed solid. "Although I didn't even know it was possible to not be meta until you were thirty. But what do I know."

She shrugged again. "I guess I should introduce myself, huh? I'm Tsukiko Aoki. Most people call me Kiko because the Tsu sound is too hard for them to pronounce. My parents were just sadistic enough to think a kid growing up in America should be saddled with a name no American can pronounce."

[Midori Hawkins]

Honestly, Tory had been exposed to worse words than hell. Though Mii made a conscious effort to keep her own language clean, and Eli never swore, the baby had visited Hammel a few times. There was no stopping the onslaught of rude words coming from the teenagers. Not to mention her own brother had quite the mouth on him, and had made no effort to keep it clean when he’d visited.

The recruiter had to smile a little at the wry comment. “Only some of them.” She’d been lucky – most of her recruits had been easy. But she’d heard the stories from her coworkers, ones that had been in the field for a lot longer than she had. Sooner or later, she’d run into trouble. She was content to keep that day as far away as possible. At least the upside was that she didn’t have to deal with the teens once they were inside Hammel’s walls. She’d move on to her next assignment, and the kids would get to know the school.

“Oh?” She wondered where that might be. She was about to ask when Tory started rattling his keys and squeaking. “Tory, shh, honey.” She reached over to give him a small blue dragon toy to keep him further occupied.

Honestly, Mii wasn’t sure what was going on. Never did manifestations come so late. “I don’t know, honestly.” She contemplated mentioning what was going on within Hammel, just in case it was affecting those outside of it. “... Something’s gone awry at the school. Half the students, and some of the staff, lost their powers and gained others’. I’m wondering if it’s reaching further than we originally thought.” It was just thinking out loud, but maybe it held some merit.

Oh. Introductions. That might have been a good thing to think about. Mii smiled sheepishly. “It’s okay, I know all about sadistic parents. I’m Midori, and don’t even ask where my parents came up with it, because I still don’t know.” Tory’s keys clattered on the high chair again. Mii smiled and gestured to him. “And that’s my son, Tory. It’s nice to meet you.” Even if their meeting was a touch unorthodox.

[Tsukiko Aoki]

"Aw, it's okay," Kiko assured Midori when she started shushing the baby, "I love babies." She smiled and wiggled her fingers at the child in greeting. "How old is....he?" She was guessing based purely on the style and color or clothing; she'd been wrong before, and it was always embarrassing.

She listened in consternation, however, as the other woman explained the trouble at Hammel. "Is that so? I can't believe it hasn't been all over the news by now." She sighed, leaning her elbows on the table and holding her head in her hands. If that was the case and she now had phasing she didn't really know what to do. Would she be expected to train? Would people with new powers have to train all over again? Could they even expect anyone to train if they might at a moment's notice switch powers?

"Do you have any idea....why....? I mean, I thought it was genetic, and if I were going to be meta a blood test would have shown that, right? And it certainly never has."

She sighed again. What a pain this was going to be.

However, she smiled when the other woman introduced herself. "Midori, is it? Were your parents Japanophiles?"

[Midori Hawkins]

Being a first time mother, Mii was never sure who was okay with a baby’s noises, and who might not be. As a general courtesy to others, she tried to keep Tory as quiet as possible while she had him in public. “Really?” She smiled and ran her fingers along Tory’s cheek. “He’s six months old now.” Amazing. Six months already. Time was flying.

“Well… most Hammel news stays within Hammel. And I doubt anyone wants to cause a panic.” She smiled slightly. “You’re lucky, though. If your boyfriend went to Hammel. He’ll be able to help you with this.” She was glad she hadn’t been affected. She couldn’t imagine ending up with someone like that out of control pyrokinetic’s power. It would put Tory in danger.

“It is genetic,” she assured. She’d had this discussion many times with concerned parents. “Considering it’s both metas and non-metas affected, I’d almost say someone’s power has gone completely haywire.” She sighed and rested her cheek on her palm. “Things like this happen when untrained metas are around. It just means it’s our job to find them and bring them in for training.” It was the only thing she could possibly think of.

The other woman’s question made her roll her eye a little. “Not that I know of. My brothers both got normal names, though I suppose you could argue that ‘Corbin’ isn’t that mainstream. I think they were just trying to be original.” She glanced over to Tory again, smiling at her son. “Thankfully, I didn’t do the same to him.” Considering the woman had said she liked children, Mii looked over at her. “Do you have children?” Might as well be friendly.

[Tsukiko Aoki]

"Six months! Aren't you a big boy." She smiled at Tory, continuing to wiggle her fingers at him. "He's so well-behaved, you must be pleased."

She didn't think she was all that fortunate that Rome went to Hammel; how was he supposed to help her with this? He had plant control, not phasing, and anyway, what if his own power had gone insane?

"That makes sense." She hoped that finding the person causing this (if that was what it was; she supposed it was the most logical cause considering where they were) would cause her to go back to being baseline, because she really didn't know how to deal with suddenly being a phaser. She knew some people had the ability to suppress powers, so perhaps having a suppressor shut their power switching off would make everything go back to normal.

Unless the damage was already done; she didn't think you could undo anything like pyrokinesis, so power switching might be the same way.

That would be unfortunate.

She didn't want to dwell on that, however, so she focused instead on the question of children.

"Oh, no. I don't. I work with them, but I don't have any." There was a pause and then she added, "Yet. I just need to get the boyfriend on board with this plan first."

[Midori Hawkins]

Tory seemed thrilled with the attention, smiling up at Kiko. Mii smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “He really is. I’ve been lucky. My brother’s daughter wasn’t nearly as good at this age.” She adored her niece, but Robyn had been a bit of a brat as a baby.

She’d meant that Kiko at least had support at home, by means of another meta. No one knew the confusion of a new manifestation better than them.

“I’m hoping it happens fast. We do have a meta tracker on our team… but so far we haven’t heard anything.” It was the only thing that really made sense in her mind. Things like this tended to happen during a new manifestation. At least things like this were usually reversible. … Usually.

It was really better not to dwell on it.

“Oh? What do you do?” Mii was actually liking Tsukiko. “I work at Hammel, for the recruiting team.” Considering the other woman had a meta boyfriend, she didn’t mind talking about it. “So I’ll be ready if Tory manifests.” She stirred her coffee and had to smile at the boyfriend comment. “At least you have the boyfriend thing covered first.”

[Tsukiko Aoki]

"I can't blame your tracker for having difficult, there are quite a lot of metas around Pilot Ridge, and with people like me getting surprise powers it's probably confusion time for him." She wrinkled her nose at this. It made sense, but she didn't have to like it.

Fortunately, the conversation shifted to work, a much more pleasant topic than whether or not she was stuck with faulty phasing powers for the remainder of her life. "I'm a pediatrician for Maddock," She explained, giving Tory another wave.

If he'd been born at Maddock some of her coworkers and friends would have cared for him, though they might not recall it; it wasn't the baby factory that hospitals nearer big cities were, but there were still enough that unless the baby had to have an extended stay they wouldn't necessarily remember them. And as Kiko didn't work in the maternity ward she wouldn't have had anything to do with baby Tory even had he stayed in the hospital more than a few days.

"Mmm. Yes, boyfriends are useful for having children." She agreed, unaware of Midori's plight. "Or better yet, husbands, that way he can escape much less easily. Not that Rome would, he loves children, too. He's actually a child psychologist."

And therefore she expected him to agree to have about six of them.

[Midori Hawkins]

Truth be told, Mii wasn’t sure what this was going to do to Tim. If he could detect the new powers in people that previously hadn’t had them. “Well, I’ll have to see if there’s anything we can do to fix this.” She still couldn’t believe the range. If this was a manifestation, this was one hell of a way to learn about your power.

Tory, being the congenial little man he was, mimicked Kiko’s wave, grinning as he did so. Mii smiled at her son, grateful once more for the fact he was so well behaved. “Oh! That’s good to know.” She didn’t think she had to ask Kiko if she liked her job. It was fairly evident. “That’s where Tory was born,” she explained. She remembered that all too well. Doing her best to crush Eli’s hand before her mother arrived to take his post, her harried call to Darryl. The sheer joy of seeing Tory for the first time.

Yes, boyfriends were useful for having children. So were little drunken flings. But she wasn’t going to mention that. She just smiled at Kiko’s outlook. “This is true. It’s how one of my brothers got roped into having a family, and why the other one won’t ever have kids.” Legitimate kids, anyway. She still figured that if anyone in the family was at risk for an unplanned pregnancy, it was Zach.

“That’s nice, that he loves kids.” She reached over to brush Tory’s bangs out of his eyes. “Tory’s father is a teacher at Hammel. More teenagers than kids, but it just means he’ll be prepared, I suppose.” Granted, if he took off again for months to film another movie, he’d never really be prepared for Tory growing up.

[Tsukiko Aoki]

Kiko brightened at the mention that Tory had been born at Maddock. Of course, if Tory had been born locally that was the only hospital he would have been born at, but there had been no reason to assume he had definitely been born in the area.

"It's a fantastic hospital, really, particularly for such a remote area." She gushed, quite fond of her employer. "We attract a lot of foreign talent, in particular." That was to be expected, as foreign doctors could expect a more compacted wait time for citizenship if they served in remote hospitals, which Maddock really was. It wasn't in New York City, or Los Angeles or Seattle or even Boston. It wasn't even in Burlington. And they were such good employers that a lot of people stayed even after their residency was up.

"A teacher? That'll be lucky, maybe he can deal with all the existential angst and whining." She laughed. In her profession teenagers were still under the umbrella of children, if only because they still had to have legal guardians of some variety, even if they lacked parents.

"And he can help with homework." She added helpfully, although she had done well enough in school she would be able to help with her own children's homework. It was entirely likely she wouldn't be able to stand watching Rome give homework assistance without butting in. Then she added as an after thought, "What does he teach?"

[Midori Hawkins]

Maddock hadn’t been such a bad place. Had it not been for the labor pains, and the frequent cursing, she might have actually taken in the scenery. But the prize at the end of it all had been worth it. And the nursing staff had been fabulous.

“It really was,” Mii agreed. “The doctors and nurses I had while I was there were great.” She supposed they had to be. She’d tried to censor herself during labor. She could only imagine the women that didn’t. “So I guess if, God forbid, anything happens to Tory, I’ll be looking for you.” The idea of the pretty Japanese woman being charged with her son’s care was an oddly soothing one. She was a very nice person.

Daryl? Deal with angst? ... Hell, he was barely an adult himself. She had to smile at that. And the idea of Daryl helping Tory with homework... well... only if he turned out to be a drama student. “He’s the drama teacher at Maddock. He’s actually an actor himself. He just spent the summer filming.” What, exactly, she wasn’t sure.

“Besides,” she mused. “My housemate and I will probably be the primary homework helpers.” Especially Eli. “Tory’s dad just... doesn’t see him much.” She shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “We aren’t together.” She could just hope that Kiko wasn’t all that judgemental.

[Event !]

Thank you for participating, this event is now closed.