LeftOvers - How to Become a SuperVillain and Take Over the World

Power

The girl stood beside Annabelle drawing an interesting contrast between the two. Lillian was a head taller than Anna, and her bright golden hair almost glowed beside Anna's black and pink curls.

The moment she had set foot in the room I felt both my hackles rise and my stomach drop. Annabelle was still smiling, but even she could feel the tension rise by a few notches. "William, before you say anything, listen," she cautioned. Turning to Lillian, she said, "Lillian, you can speak."

Lillian straightened to her full height, but her icey blue eyes never turned to me. She was ignoring me so hard that I felt watched.

Slowly I stood up, pushing my chair back with a scrape that felt like fingernails on chalk. "Lillian," I said, nodding my head in greeting.

"Will," she replied, still not meeting my eyes. Her gaze turned down, and I saw a bit of redness growing on her cheeks. With a deep breath, she spoke, "I apologize."

"Huh?"

"It seems as though I made a small mistake," she said, then she and Anna gave each other a look. "And then I compounded my mistake with a bigger one." Lillian looked up, her gaze meeting mine. I felt like a rabbit who looked up in time to see the eagle swooping down, talons out and beak curved in a hungry smile. A bead of sweat rolled down my back.

"Could you explain? I messed up too," I said in a rush. "I think we could work through this if we just explained each other's actions. We have to, for the good of the team." I thanked my father for the hours and hours of training that allowed me to not stammer like a maiden on her wedding night.

Lillian looked at the three of us in turn, then began to walk across the room. Her hands were clasped together above her belly and she was hunching forwards a little. "Would you mind if I sit?"

Annabelle snorted. "Come on, Lili, this ain't a trial!"

Anna was hustling Lillian towards the last seat in the room when the barkeep walked in, a tray balanced in one hand. He smiled at Anna and placed it in the centre of the table. A moment later he waltzed out of the room leaving us with a small selection of drinks (a few of the alcoholic sort) and a bowl full of peanuts.

We settled ourselves, thanking Annabelle for setting up our little snack and trying to make ourselves comfortable. Then Lillian continued. "I suppose everything would make more sense if I explained my power."

I froze, a beer halfway to my mouth. Powers were important to Supers. So much so that most only rarely flaunted them. And fewer still explained their abilities to anyone else. The ability you had that your adversary did not know about was the one you could use as a trump.

"If you're going to, then..." Clarence looked at all of us in turn. "Then I suppose we should all tell each other what we can do?"

Annabelle shrugged, then nodded. Lillian looked at the table and said nothing and I spoke up, "Fair enough. Who wants to start?"

"Oh, I will!" Annabelle said while bouncing in her seat.

"I will," Lillian said with such finality that even Annabelle simpered down. "Afterwards... we can flip a coin or somesuch."

"I have a three-sided die," Clarence said, pulling one out and displaying it for all to see. None of us were too surprised. A few rolls later and our order was chosen. Lillian, Anna, Clarence, me.

Lillian shuffled in her chair. "Does anyone have a knife?" she asked.

Did that have anything to do with her power, go did she want to slit my throat already? I reached into my jacket and pulled out a bare knife. Six inches of black, high-carbon steel with a micarta grip. "Here." I passed it to her hilt-first.

She grabbed the knife and checked its edge with her thumb, then nodded to herself. She placed the knife against the inside of her arm and swept outwards, gasping as the knife sliced through her clothes and opened a gaping wound in her arm.

Blood was pouring out of the cut. I heard my chair clatter to the ground behind me and realized that I was now standing up.

"It's fine. No need to panic," she said. She closed her eyes. I watched, jaw loose, as her skin closed itself, her blood flowed back into her and her clothes came back together. It was like watching a recording backwards. "All good," she said, tossing the knife my way. I caught it without thinking and readjusted my chair before sitting back down.

"You're a Warper 7, right?" I asked. "That was not healing."

She made a sound of agreement. "I'm a time manipulator. I can make myself and anything within very close proximity to me move back and forth through time. I can extend my range a little more and lock time around an area too."

Time manipulation. Shit. One of the rarer and far, far more powerful abilities. Also, the ability most commonly tied to heroes who lost their minds. Paradoxes were impossible (though I never did understand why not), but that did not make twisting time around your pinky easy to understand. Even our language had a hard time coping with that sort of Super.

English teachers everywhere were still reeling at the very long and convoluted public debrief that happened after a time manipulating hero took out a time manipulating villain some years ago. Sentences like: 'he would have had had will have killed the hostages will I have had not saved them in time,' were pretty common in that case. Multiple whiteboards were needed to explain anything.

Clarence was grinning. "Could you explain a little more? What's your range? Both time wise and distance. Can you move through space as well? Do you recall when you move? What are your secondary abilities?"

She gave the kid a little smile. "I can go back... the longest I've gone is a year and a half."

I managed not to let my jaw drop this time. Some of the best, the very best, could move back and forth within a few hours, maybe a day. A year and a half was a lot more than a day.

"As for... space. Not quite. I can travel, but only to where I have been. I can remember what I'm going to do, or what will happen to me, most of the time, but I can't stop time and move about through it. My power can be... erratic. It allows me to move back and forth within my own timestream. I can undo anything that I've done, or see what my actions will result in... more or less."

Erratic powers were always a source for concern. In fact, someone who could not control his abilities was on the fast lane to getting Stilled or locked up. But time manipulators were finicky at the best of times, and rare enough that they could get away with a lot. "So that... incident a few days ago, after the conference? That was..." I let the words hang.

A bit of red touched her high cheekboned face. "That was me becoming very angry and slipping back a few days. I remembered everything you had done to me, and when I saw Matt coming in. I should have kept my composure, but... It won't happen again."

We were silent for a while. Having a time manipulator on any team was a huge boon. Having one that owed me a favour... well, I could use that sort of thing. With Clarence to think and Lillian to scout ahead (of time, not of space) we should be able to walk into any situation aware of what we were facing. I'd have to pry into what she could do and what the limits of her abilities were, but I didn't want to turn the informal meeting into an interrogation. "That's... quite something, Lillian," I said. "So, who's next?"

Anna was practically humming with anticipation, looking like nothing more than a bumblebee stuck under an upturned glass. "I am!" she squeaked.

A/N:

I know, I know, lame place to end. But next week it's the rest of the gang's turn!