Unfortunately for Beth, the thoughts that Devon had towards her weren't exactly confidence-boosting. According to him, talking to her would be too much of a hassle, so he probably wouldn't ever actually engage her in conversation. While Beth was a little relieved because it meant that he wouldn't be coming any closer, the sting of his words-er, thoughts-still made her feel ashamed of herself.
She was distracted from these thoughts by another vehicle turning up the road. Inside was a boy named Nikolai and a man whose wariness implied that Nikolai hadn't really come willingly to the academy. Normally, seeing that there was another boy would have sent a spike of adrenaline through her system, but it seemed that Beth was out, as the only thing she did upon seeing Nikolai leave the vehicle was tense slightly.
Though the boy opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out, which was odd and not something that many would notice. Beth wouldn't have either if she hadn't been able to read his mind and know that he was trying to show off his ability, but couldn't due to a dry throat like the one she had suffered from on the way to the academy.
Rosy telling her and Anzhelika that her name was, in fact, Rose. She didn't seem interested in engaging them beyond that, however, adjusting her earphones and taking a couple of steps backwards like the small group was oppressive. The thoughts of music in her mind were coming back like before, though they were interrupted by an image of a piece of paper and a maze that flared into existence upon her accidental contact with Ray, the boy with white hair and red eyes.
Another vehicle then pulled up into the drive, this one bearing a driver named John and a girl named Raven. John had mixed emotions concerning Raven, which Beth found hard to interpret with the thoughts of the others bombarding her. The only thing that stuck out was that Raven wasn't a bad person. As she approached the group, however, Beth found herself wondering how he had developed that opinion of her. If the face devoid of emotion wasn't enough to indicate that you shouldn't bother her, the fact that she was purposely clearing her mind was.
Beth was at least able to smile at Anzhelika when she formally introduced herself, though she didn't extend a hand. Even though Anzhelika was clearly not a male, the idea of being touched by anyone was enough to make Beth sweat with anxiety. She seemed to be content to observe the others after her introduction, though Beth knew that the reason for that is that Anzhelika didn't want to embarrass herself with her less-than-perfect English, not that she was bad by any stretch of the imagination. She was just concerned that she would make a mistake that would be considered stupid by the others, which was a feeling Beth could relate too.
Noticing a bunch of pebbles dancing around Devon confirmed Beth's suspicion that each and every single one of them had some special power or another. It was also interesting to note that, according to him, the weight of the pebbles wasn't even a fraction of the weight he could lift with his telekinesis. In fact, she got the distinct impression that he considered the weight of the pebbles beneath his notice. His powers seemed to be a bit easy to lose control over, however, as he mentally chided himself to learn to control his emotions better after the stones became jagged and sharp and launched into the sky. Hopefully she wouldn’t be anywhere near him when someone touched a nerve.
He seemed to find Arson worthy of talking to, however, walking over and introducing himself. Part of the reason was because Arson had a cat, according to Devon's thoughts anyway. It actually wasn't until the cat was mentioned that Beth became aware of the kitty's less-obtrusive thoughts. Despite herself, she couldn't help but smile when she realized that there was an animal on campus. She loved animals because they were so unobtrusive, and she was really glad that there would be one on campus.
Arson's thoughts were actually pretty hard to pin down. They seemed to jump all over the place and back again. That didn't prevent her from reading his mind, but it did make it a little harder to follow along with what he was thinking. One thought in particular that had stuck out was his compulsion to engage the ones being quiet in order to make them more energetic and sociable. Momentarily afraid that he would come closer to her, Beth tensed up visibly, though she relaxed again when his thoughts jumped somewhere else.
Seeing everyone else practicing their powers made Beth curious as to whether or not they would feel the touch of her mind on theirs if she reached out to them. But, she was unable to do anything of the sort at the moment due to the drugs in her system. While the physical effects had dissipated, except for the weakness in her legs, her mind still felt like it was surrounded by a wall of fuzz. For some reason, that seemed to stick around longer than the actual side-effects of the drugs, as she had discovered once when taking Nyquil for a cold.
Feeling a sudden... lack, Beth looked around and tallied the people that were there in the drive of the campus, nodding when she came up one short. Someone, Raven, had left the campus for whatever reason. Soon, she and John, the driver, were pulling back into the drive. A moment passed where Raven explained that she wasn't very sociable to John before she got out of the vehicle and settled upon waiting for things to actually start.
Devon was once again lifting pebbles off the ground, his thoughts explaining that he didn't see a need to keep his ability secret. There was logic in that considering everyone there had supernatural abilities, but Beth didn't think that the other students would appreciate knowing that their thoughts might as well have been spoken aloud for all the good it did them. But it seemed like he was doing it to show Arson what is abilities were, as he followed up the display by asking Arson if he had any special abilities of his own. His attempt at showing off caused Beth to roll her eyes, however. That was just rather childish.
A thought with a touch of envy to it came from Silas, the kid who could apparently teleport according to his prior thoughts. Seems like he thought that Devon's power was the cooler of the two, though Beth would argue that teleportation was pretty nifty too. Not that she knew exactly how his power worked. For all she knew it could be a rather unpleasant process. His thoughts communicated to her his desire to keep his power a secret for the meantime, which made her feel kind of guilty because she already knew what it was. Not that it was her fault, but that still didn't stop her from silently promising to tell no one what his ability was if he didn't want them to know. It was the least she could do to make up for invading his privacy, however unintentional.
Ray's glowing tattoos and eyes as he was praying were pretty nifty, and Beth wondered if they had something to do with his powers. None of Ray's thoughts clarified the issue, so Beth assumed that the answer was a yes. Really, however, she was interested in what potential connection Ray and Devon could have had, as they both seemed to think the other was familiar, but couldn't quite place why that was. They didn't look enough alike to be related, so maybe it had been just a chance encounter somewhere? It didn't much matter, but it was an interesting piece of trivia to think about.
While Ray's glowing had been going on, Arson had apparently been getting ready to show Devon his own ability, pulling out a pair of brown gloves and slipping them on before noticing the red light coming from Ray and stopping to watch. His thoughts gave her no clue as to what he could do except that it was something he considered phenomenal. Honestly, the thought made her more than a little frustrated that he had stopped. If it had even been as showy as Devon's telekinesis, it would have been worth seeing.
Nikolai seemed to overcome the effects of the sedative rather quickly, as Beth could hear him mentally... tuning his voice? That was really the only word to describe what he was doing, and it was fitting considering the intensity of the sound that came out of his mouth wasn't natural. Obviously his power was something to do with manipulating sound, which he demonstrated by using sonic bullets to destroy the windows of a car, which Raven had had the foresight to get away from. The aftereffects of his demonstration left a ringing in Beth's ears, though that didn't stop her from noticing that he was coming closer and tensing up. Thankfully, he didn't come closer than five feet from the group, which was like seven feet for her.
Rosy seemed pretty frightened by Nikolai's display of power, backing up into a tree before her thoughts suddenly turned to images and sounds from an event in 1978 where a man died. Beth looked to her with concern, though Ray also seemed to be a little concerned and went over to try and snap her out of the trance she was in. The slap had to have stung, but Beth knew from Rosy's thoughts that she didn't even really feel it at all. Before too long, however, she was back out of the trance, perfectly healthy, if breathing a tad heavier than normal, and explaining what had happened to Ray, especially concerning the fact that there were things she called triggers that set off her ability.
Devon hadn't had a much better reaction to Nikolai's demonstration. He had been annoyed with him the moment he spoke, but Devon seemed only to get angrier after Nikolai had destroyed with windows of the car without rhyme or reason, collecting the glass shard with his telekinesis and creating a giant shard with which to kill Nikolai, though he seemed to think better of it and launched it into the sky instead. Arson's acceptance of what Devon had been about to do chilled Beth, though she knew that he had figured Devon wouldn't have gone through with it.
Anzhelika suddenly saying her name caused Beth to focus on what was going on in her more immediate vicinity, though she had heard her tell Nikolai to calm down. Mentally, Beth understood it perfectly, though she actually didn't understand what Anzhelika had said with her mouth. Regardless, she asked Beth if she would mind being used for a demonstration. “I wouldn't mind,” Beth said, though she was a little wary of what it was she wanted to do. If it was something like Devon, it could be bad, and fast. But, all she did was transform into an exact visual replica of Beth. Despite herself, Beth couldn't help but blink at how exact the copy was, though she knew that it was Anzhelika and that it was just an illusion she had created. “That was super cool,” she said, smiling and clapping to further emphasize her point.
Silas's thoughts that there were some people there who should just not be there, heavily implying that they were better off dead, kind of ruined the mood Beth was in. Though she did understand why his thoughts had been so... dark. She could tell that he was feeling rather uncomfortable with how bizarre everything was, and that kind of thing could make anyone harsher than they intended to be, though it didn't excuse his behavior entirely.
“So, Anzhelika - did I say that right?- when do you think we'll be allowed into the academy?” Beth asked, pronouncing the other girl's name slowly to make sure that she got it right. She didn't want to offend the other girl by mispronouncing her name. Almost as if on cue, a bolt of lightning forked across the clear blue sky, accompanied by the sound of thunder roaring as if it was right over their heads. In addition to that little display, Beth could feel the minds of another person coming down from the campus, a tall man who was rather excited to meet them all.
Stopping in front of them, he seemed pretty pleased with himself. “Welcome to all of you! My name is Joseph Tynedale, and I'm the headmaster of the academy!” he said, proudly introducing himself. “Now, we have to wait on my assistant, who is running a little behind today. So why don't we introduce ourselves and share our abilities with one another?” He seemed perfectly confident that everyone would tell everyone else what their ability was, a sentiment that Beth found aggravating.
“What if we don't to tell each other what our abilities are?” she responded, wondering what he would do in that case. He merely smirked as she realized that he hadn't actually said anything out loud. It had all been in his head. Mistaking thoughts for actual words did sometimes happen to her, much like it had then. “That was a dirty trick,” she said, pouting slightly.
“As I told Beth here, I would like for each and every one of you to at least tell us what your ability is while we wait for my assistant,” he said, smiling that same smile he had since arriving. “Clearly, Beth is a telepath. So let's go ahead and move right along with... you! Yes, you with the red eyes and white hair. Go ahead and tell us your name and what your ability is. Don't worry, I'm not going to make you explain it in detail. Just give us the cliff-notes version.”
