Smoke billowed relentlessly out of the wide beakers and vats in the laboratory. Out of the smoke emerged a whithered old man in a greying lab coat followed by a girl with thick orange hair and blue-grey eyes. The man lead her over to a set of glasses standing alone on the tabletop at the center of the room.
"My dear," He muttered quietly "in these glasses rests a liquid that can turn even the most mundane of humans into a great super-hero! I am giving you the choice of becoming a super-powered being, child. Will you do it?"
The girl gazed at the shimmering glasses with rapture before quietly asking,
"What will the powers be, Doctor?"
The man laughed and stepped back from the table, spreading his thin arms wide and exclaiming with a profound excitement,
"Girl, your powers will be whatever you choose! When you drink the mixture you must think long and hard about what you would like your powers to be. Choose wisely, for it is an irreversible potion, and think of all details of the power. Now go!"
The girl stepped forward and grasped the first glass in her knobbly hands. It was warm beneath her fingers; the liquid seemed to come alive upon contact. She raised the glass to her lips, trembling, and taking a huge breath she swallowed the contents in one mighty gulp.
"Now think girl, think!"
She nodded and closed her eyes.
Super Powers can be classified into two categories, which is unknown to many people first dappling with the realm of super powers. The first of these can be labeled as 'Conventional Super Powers'. Under this heading you could be sure to find powers that popular culture have let the world become great associated with over the last few decads. Things like flight, invisibility, and super strength or speed. Typical powers that everyone is comfy with, and if anyone they knew suddenly emerged with one of these powers we might stop and think 'Cool' before heading off on our merry way.
"I know!" the girl muttered, "For a conventional super power, I think I'll choose breathing underwater. It would make a lot of sense, seeing as my plans for the future involve a lot of underwater exploration." She smiled to herself, eyes still closed.
"Don't forget the details, child, the details..." a voice in the back of her head muttered as the strange potion she had just ingested swirled it's way through the cardiac sphincter into her stomach.
"Of course. I would have small gills behind my ears, so that no one could sea them when I was out of the water, because my hair will fall over them! They will filter water into separate lungs so as not to interrupt my normal respiration when I am not under the ocean's mighty surface. It would be terrible if I could not breath on land anymore...I don't want to live in the sea forever. And breathing underwater would help me investigate the ship wrecks that could otherwise continue to rot away or be pillaged by unruly treasure hunters. I think it would be for the best, you know, if I could breath underwater. It would help my work, and my enjoyment! Imagine all the sea life I would be able to observe."
"It seems like you've thought of everything. That is very good. But what of the second glass?" The old man crooned from his place in the shadows. He was pleased that is experiment was turning out so well, and he could already catch a glimpse of small gills forming behind the girl's ears.
The willowy girl opened her wide eyes and stared about the room for a moment, taking deep breaths and running her hands over the thin flaps behind her ears. They moved gently back and forth with each breath but did nothing to inhibit her normal 'land' breathing.
"Of course sir." She grinned widely and swiftly clasped the second glass, throwing the pink liquid down the back of her throat with satisfaction.
Another category of Super Power is far less known, and usually requires a touch of explanation when it comes to deciphering it from the average sorts. These powers can be found under the label of "Unconventional Super Powers" and they would be the sort that no one has heard of. Strange and unique powers found in only one person in the world such as 'X-ray breath' and 'Colour-changing skin'. These powers are usually scoffed at by others, but if one really thinks about them hard enough could...possibly...serve a purpose to society. Maybe?
"Oh I do have an idea." She grinned and closed her eyes as the liquid lept it's way joyfully through her stomach and into the duodenum, "As I didn't choose the power of flight as a conventional power, I'll need something to get quickly from place to place, no matter how awkward the location might be! I think...I think I'll chose 'Bridge Power'!
This power would allow me to point with my fingers at any space in the world, and command a bridge to spring forth. It could be any sort of bridge too, not just one sort. Suppose I was being chased by a wide, off balance man? I could command a bridge (in my head, mind you..we can't have everyone knowing how to do it) to appear that was only made of two-by-fours oddly nailed together. I could easily race across, and when I had safely reached the other side, the bridge would vanish. However I could always leave the bridge there forever. What if an agrestic town needed a new bridge across a river to their grazing commons, and the old bridge had been washed out in the previous year's winter storms? It could actually be a very useful power. Imagine being able to send a beautiful suspension bridge across the Grand Canyon itself? That would be glorious!"
The girl opened her eyes once more and looked around the room. She glanced at a shelf about 10 feet from her and raised her hand. As soon as the thought
'a bridge of matchsticks' came into her head, there was a small snapping sound and a red and brown arc rose from the floor and ended at the base of the shelf.
"This is amazing! Now I can not only swim forever, but I can leap tall buildings in a single...um...bridge! Thank you so much sir." She raced over to the old man and shook his pale hand with grand enthusiasm.
"Not a problem girl, not a problem at all." he smiled tiredly, just pleased that his experiment which ad been years in the making had finally worked. He was too pleased to mention the various other failed attempts locked in the back rooms of the laboratory, "But you have to promise me one thing child. Never tell anyone where you gained your powers. Fabricate a story that they will be forced to believe, for I do not want the military to find out about this invention. The world has enough war as it is without terrors from Plan 9 raging about them. Can you promise me this?"
"Of course I can. I'll make the most brilliant story up and no one will even suspect you." She nodded her head vigorously to the request. She could only imagine the horror that would ensue if a certain country to the south ever found the technology to fabricate their own super powers.
"Good girl. But I can't be totally reliant on your word..there is one other precaution I must take" With that the man drew a third glass from a cupboard and hastily swallowed the liquid.
"I will be invisible, and everthing I touch in the next 5 minutes will also become invisible, lost to the visual world forever."
When the girl looked back at the lab from the top of the path, she saw nothing but a clearing and the imprint on the earth where once a mighty brilliant rested. With a small fox-like grin she created a bridge from the hill to the edge of a cliff in the shape of a slide and slid off into the mighty sparkling sea.
The End.
-Robyn
This story stemmed from a wonderful conversation aboard the tall ship Pacific Swift in the summer of 2008. My watch was discussing the ups and downs of various super-powers when the question was posed by the first mate "What would your conventional and unconventional super powers be?"
Bridge power was invented by myself during that discussion. Now, we had hit a massive storm that morning crossing the Strait of Georgia, and had to take shelter in a strange little town called Deep Bay. After we had anchored, we'd gone ashore to visit a small convenience store. As we sat on deck hours later a girl in my watch muttered,
"I wish we could go back and get more candy."
to which I said happily,
"Bridge-power doesn't seem so silly now, does it? "
It's true~
Have a nice day!
