The Aberrations of S.I.D.E.

No. 16: Powers Explained

"Remus, it's been four and a half hours," Virgil said, gently tugging at his friend's sleeve. "You gotta move."

Remus pulled away. "It's only seven-fifteen. I don't have to go to bed yet."

"You can't stay here forev---"

"I am not leaving until he wakes up."

Virgil let out a sigh. "Suit yourself, big guy."

Janus had been taken to the medical wing almost immediately after he'd passed out. Surprisingly, not a lot of the med staff were super worried---they assured Virgil that he'd be fine once he woke up, and he just needed to rest. In Remus-speak, that apparently meant "he's in serious danger and I need to stay with him just to make sure he doesn't die."

Love did weird things to your brain, apparently.

Nox still hadn't shown up again. Probably because he was too scared to deal with Virgil's anger.

Persephone stuck her head into the room. "He awake yet?"

"Not yet," Virgil responded.

"Pog." She walked in and sat down next to Remus. "Well, by the looks of it, he'll probably be up soon."

"Let's hope," Remus mumbled.

Virgil cleared his throat. "Um, I don't wanna sound insensitive, but what the hell was that?"

Persephone looked up. "What was what?"

"That."

"I wasn't there, Hayashi," she reminded him. "I got evacuated, remember?"

He exhaled. "Okay, well, your brother turned into a gazillion fanged mouths with tentacled tongues collected into a ten-foot-tall mass, and he scared the Circle agents so badly that they ran without even putting up a fight."

"Huh." She furrowed her brow. "Guess he was serious about saving that one for a special occasion."

"I'm sorry?"

Persephone looked over at Remus. "Do you want to explain, or should I?"

"You do it," Remus told her. "You do a better job."

"Right." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "So... you know that me and Jan share an ability, right?"

Virgil nodded. "Yeah. You're one of the only Aberration siblings that do, right?"

"I think we might be the only. I haven't been able to find any evidence of others, at least."

"Okay, but what does that have to do with---"

Persephone rolled her eyes and did a little hand motion in the air. Virgil instantly covered his mouth.

"Don't interrupt me, okay?" she said, sounding kind of tired. "I've had a long day."

Virgil gestured to Janus.

Persephone exhaled. "Okay, so... me and Jan have, like, levels to our shapeshifting. The first one is altering our appearance in little ways---making ourselves taller or shorter, stretching our limbs, that kind of stuff. Jan used it to hide his vitiligo when it first started showing up. That kind of shapeshifting? Super easy for us. We barely even have to try."

"And thank God for that," Remus muttered, smirking slightly.

She elbowed him in the ribs. "Shut it."

"What? I didn't say anything---"

"I am not in the mood to hear details about what you and Jan get up to in the bedroom, okay?"