Issue 1 Downtime

Alex sat in a corner of the hedge maze. No, not the middle, he could never find that. It would take too long, too, so he just found a convenient dead end that he could get to quickly and that he was sure wouldn't get a lot of traffic. It usually worked, and he had privacy to work on his power control without people bugging him or making fun of him or asking dumb questions.

Currently he had a lot of chunks of metal that... all looked a lot the same. He was going through them, trying to figure out which ones he could turn into, or even if he was turning into them correctly.

"Someone's using the hedge maze to do something besides cry or make out?" Regan says, floating through the wall, "I think that's against the rules."

"You're going to have to leave."

"I think you took a wrong turn," Alex said, "The crying section is over back there, just before you get to the sulking and ranting section."

"Please tell me this isn't the making out section then," Regan says, "The last thing I need to see is that tall freak of your girlfriend getting her freak on."

"Yeah, I wish," Alex muttered, picking up another chunk of metal and bonding with it.

"What's the matter? Did you get the relationship flu? Apparently that's a thing that has been going around."

He sighed. "I think she did," he admitted. "All she freaking thinks about is stressing over Kay and Theresa. I mean yeah, it sucks, but seems pretty straightforward to me. Theresa was a bitch, so call her on it and lay down the law. Not going to say that, though, only time I seem to see her is when she's trying to not choose between them."

"Maybe she's got a crush on the weather bitch," Regan says.

"Thought she had better taste than that," Alex muttered. "I- ah, shit," he muttered as he tried shifting a new metal sample, only resulting in trace metals and other elements falling out. "So much for that. Damn. So what are you doing in the makeout section of the maze?"

"Killing time," Regan says.

"You know it's been a screwed up week if it takes me a minute to figure out what you mean," he sighed, shifting back to flesh and bone again.

"Obviously I was murdering an abstract concept," Regan says, "Obviously."

"Obviously," Alex agreed. "It didn't stand a chance, I take it?"

"Please, I cleaned its clock."

Ugh. The narrator in no way approves of that pun.

"Oh that was just bad," Alex said, rolling his eyes. "So what are they teaching you, anyway? Advanced Haunting?"

"Magic," Regan says, "I'm going to be the first XU graduate with a degree in the Necromatic Arts."

"...Is that, like, painting with blood and formaldehyde or something?"

"And making zombie sculptures," Regan says, "Hauntings as performance art. That sort of thing."

"Synchronized corpse-floating? Interior tomb decorating?" Alex suggested. He was fairly sure he'd missed something, but he was determined to play along like he'd been joking.

"All of those sound awesome," Regan says, "What are they teaching you?"

"Getting a crash course in metalurgy," he admitted. "Some of it makes sense, some of it..." he made a 'whooshing' motion right over his head. "I'll tell you something, not having someone to crib your power off of sucks. The only thing they really have for people that turn to metal is 'how to hit things harder.'"

"Well, you could turn into mercury and poison everyone," Regan suggests.

"...Don't know how to," he admitted. "I'd have to handle it a lot to learn to turn into it, and that might kill me. ANd unlike some of us, for me it'd probably take."

"Yeesh, be more of a whining baby about it," Regan says.

"Hey, you asked, I'm just answering."

"What about turning into sodium?" Regan asks, "Then you could jump into a lake and explode. That'd be cool."

"So do you get any ideas that don't involve people getting killed?" Alex shot back, starting to get a little annoyed.

"I was trying to help," Regan says, "Why don't you try turning into a metal that makes you less of an asshole."

"Yeah, because stuff that'll kill other people or me is such a helpful suggestion," Alex shot back.

"It's a start," Regan says, "Better than 'ah bwu hu hu no will help me figure out my powers'."

"God, seriously, what the hell. No wonder no one can stand you," Alex said, rolling his eyes and picking up another piece of steel.

"The important thing is that I love myself," Regan deadpans.

"Yeah, that's totally why you're set on everyone hating you," Alex shot back.

"That's just a hobby."

"Oh whatever," Alex said, shifting along. "You want to actually talk like normal people? Let me know."

"I'm trying," Regan says, "Jeez."

He looked up at her. "Seriously?" he asked.

Regan rolls her eyes, "I'm sorry I'm not...like, nice or anything stupid like that. But I'm not trying to piss you off. Okay?"

"It's a start I guess," he said, shrugging, his voice getting that weird metallic echo it got when he shifted. Either way, he didnt seem pissed off.

Regan frowned.

Then she had an idea.

Regan drew her soulblade and held it out, "Could you shift into this?"