Feather 1.02

	It was astounding. Seven could close lethal wounds within seconds with but a touch, but he could do so little for the mind. He had carried the teenage girl to the nurse's office, where she was now laying on the bed with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, a distant and glassy-eyed stare on her face. The experience had rendered her completely catatonic, and the nurse had already called 911 for an ambulance.

	Absentmindedly, he had managed to wipe some of the vomit off with a paper towel he was given, but he was going to need a change of clothes by the time he got to go home. "Is she going to be okay?" It was a rhetorical question. But it was one an 'ordinary' student would ask, right?

	The nurse glanced at him, her expression troubled but distant. As if this was just another day on the grind of her shift. "The doctors will be here soon. You shouldn't worry about it."

	She was right. He really shouldn't have. But this felt like a productive use of his time as a student. A lazy glance into the girl's future confirmed she would definitely recover with time.

	But there was something odd about her.

	When he glanced into the omens playing out in his mind, he could distinctly feel the sensation of a spider crawling along his neck, making him rub it with his hand instinctively. Nothing was there, of course. Was there more to this girl than he knew?

	Seven shook off the thought. He changed destiny so easily and so quickly, his visions were only trustworthy half of the time. And Seven was never good at following directions or omens. That and trying to focus on expanding his senses had a tendency to end with him walking face-first into trees. Sometimes even indoors.

	"...I said you can go." The nurse said, a bit more firmly, shaking him out of his thoughts.

	"Oh, right. Sorry." He glanced once more at the zombie-like girl staring off into space before walking away.

	He could have sworn she turned her head for a moment.

	The school day was thankfully over after that turn of events. His schedule didn't include a class after that, so he took to the streets once it was over. He could feel some stares on him as he walked about with his vomit-stained jacket and shirt and what was probably gossip. His biggest concern wasn't any of that, it was finding a space to safely dive out of sight.

	When Seven finally found an alley to duck into, he took the wand back out of his pocket and tapped his clothes twice with it. The vomit stains steadily shrank before vanishing out of existence, letting him sigh in relief. He still needed a shower, though.

	A quick check of his communicator showed that Spark had left a message for him. 'Gang wars with powers. Trying to I.D. the big players. Keep your head down. <3'

	Easy enough, right?

	"As if." Seven muttered before putting away the tiny hypertech phone and beginning to walk. He didn't have a destination in mind before finding a safe doorway to use for the Warehouse and surveying the town a little bit.

	Briefly, his mind drifted to the tablet in his jacket pocket. Maybe it would be good to sit down and read it, since he obviously knew very little about what he was getting into. Going in blind and using powers indiscriminately, killing indiscriminately, stealing indiscriminately, or loitering indiscriminately had all found ways to bite him in the ass before. Maybe he'd get to it once he finally found a quiet spot to be.

	"Speaking of which..." Seven turned to glance behind him as several figures had walked to surround him. Wearing the colors of a gang he didn't recognize, they formed a circle around him. He then looked to the sky and realized the sun was setting in the distance, and he was fairly close to the ocean. How long and how far had he been walking?

	"Can I help you?" He asked calmly.

	"You're in the wrong part of town, whitey." One of them said, brandishing a knife. The circle closed in around him, taking a few steps forward. It reeked of a simple intimidation tactic than an actual threat.

	"I was just going for a walk. Didn't think I was interrupting someone's pow-wow," He replied with a shrug. Banter wasn't really a gift of his, especially when he wasn't tapping into his abilities.

	That earned some laughter from most of the circle around him. At least two, however, were quiet and looked a little more anxious compared to their friends. One even took a step back. So they weren't all idiots.

	"Get the fuck out of here." The one with the knife said, pointing in the opposite direction. The smart thing to do would be to take the window and simply walk away. But somehow, that thought evaded his mind entirely as a smile crossed his lips. No, this was a perfect opportunity to get acquainted with his new power.

	"I'm not going anywhere, friend."

	The atmosphere changed and Seven found himself counting the seconds that passed. He had a number for everything. The number of assailants, how quickly they were moving, the angle of the oncoming swing of the knife. Still, Seven didn't move an inch. He didn't need to. The knife shattered like glass against his cheek.

	"What the fuck...?!" The one in front of him panicked just before Seven took hold of his wrist and twisted it like a bottlecap, the bone snapping audibly for all to hear. He let go, letting the young man collapse to the ground as he screamed in pain. The others all turned and ran immediately, to Seven's disappointment.

	"It's a cape! It's a fucking cape!" One of them called out as they ran away. This made Seven frown.

	"That was anticlimactic. What do you think, friend?"

	"Ffffuuuck you...!" The gang member hissed and cried in pain at Seven, growling in defiance.

	"Everyone's a critic." Seven mumbled as he stepped over the hunched form of his victim. He didn't actually get to utulize his power as much as he had hoped, and that was unfortunately a given. Ordinary humans simply didn't threaten him anymore.

	That's why the sound of a heavy pair of footsteps made him excited.

	Turning to face the sound, Seven was soon face to face with several pounds of muscle towering over him. His appearance and his tattoos were immediately irrelevant compared to the heat that was radiating around him, quickly growing in intensity.

	"Hello, there." Seven said as he stepped to the side, reducing his profile.

	No words were exchanged. If there were, he didn't care for any. All he knew was that he was in the mood to brawl. And so was his new 'friend'. Who promptly exploded into a torrent of fire, covering the empty sidewalk in flames. Seven felt the heat but only smiled as the fires washed over him, his clothes and his person completely untouched. If the dragon-man noticed, he didn't care, soon barreling towards him with two claws where his hands used to be.

	Timing his movement speed with his own reflexes, Seven lunged to meet him before bringing his right fist into the dragon-man's face. A distinct sound echoed into the distance before all the flames immediately died and the dragon-man wasn't a dragon anymore.

	There was an awkward pause between the two, with Seven's fist buried halfway into the side of man's face while the man had his fingers outstretched in what was supposed to be a scratch. Instead, this looked like the world's most awkward hug. This lasted for all of five seconds before Lung threw a punch at Seven's face. It actually made him stumble and take a step back, even though it failed to leave much of a bruise.

	"Ow. Come on, we were doing fine! Let's hug this out, okay?" He taunted with a cheshire grin on his face. The man screamed in fury before exploding a second time, beginning to transform and envelope the area in fire. This made Seven click his tongue in disappointment. "Kind of a one-trick dog, aren't you?"

	The brawl began anew. The two would throw punches at each other. Each hit with his right hand dispelled the man's transformed body with Imagine Breaker, only for the process to begin anew within seconds. Seven barely registered any pain aside from losing his balance from a few well-placed blows, and the occasional skin scratch from a lucky strike while the man was transformed.

	He felt like the fight could turn into an actual challenge if Seven finished letting him transform, but that wasn't a risk he felt like taking tonight.

	Finally, the dragon-man's retaliation and fury was becoming increasingly impotent, his blows awkward and clumsy. He was likely both too tired and exasperated to keep going. If some kind of emotion fueled his power, it was likely his anger and frustration was finally starting to run dry.

	Seven almost felt bad for shutting down his opponent so easily. The direct brutality of his foe, clearly a practiced fighter of some merit and great power, deserved a better matchup than such a humiliating stomp. Still, it wasn't like his Breaker had an off button, and it made him the natural bane of his transforming enemy.

	The two stared each other down, any onlookers standing a safe distance away by now. Seven was calm and standing still, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. The man, who some of the onlookers called 'Lung', was trying to catch his breath.

	"What are you supposed to be?" Lung asked. That wasn't a question of awe or respect. It was one of pure irritation.

	"Good question." That was all Seven said before raising his fist one more time. "I'd love to chat, but I've had my fun for today."

	That rekindled the spark of rage just enough for Lung to transform one more time. He shouted something that vaguely resembled human speech before opting to instead rip a streetlight off of the ground and swing it like a baseball bat. That was new. Seven would merely duck and roll underneath it before the light crashed into the fence beside him, leaping forward and focusing ki into his fight fist.

	Once it made impact with Lung's face, the force of the impact shattered the glass of every window around them, the force making the witnesses trip and stumble or cover their ears. The gang leader was sent flying across the street before crashing into the wall of a distant warehouse, leaving a sizeable dent in it.

	Seven took a deep breath before shaking his hand a little. Hand to hand wasn't his specialty, and his knuckles were sore after all of that. "I really need to practice a little more..." He mumbled. The onlookers all scurried and ran into the darkness once the brawl was over. He was vaguely aware of the sound of oncoming sirens. It was his cue to leave.

	Unknown to him, a certain pair had been watching the scene from afar, both carrying their own digital cameras hooked up to a laptop.

	"You got all that?" Über asked.

	"Oh yeah. Live." Leet replied with a grin.