As Lucas listened to her speak, he felt less and less interested in the pizza. He quietly let her keep speaking, and it was visibly apparent that she had a hard time talking about it around others. He found it appropriate that her friend’s powers were more mental based, as opposed to his, but he frowned and felt a growing pity inside him for the anonymous girl. Sure, Lucas also needed some degree of mental control and stability to keep his unpredictable powers in check, but the way Alice had put it… Well, she made it seem the girl’s power wasn’t so much a gift as a curse.

When Alice finished talking, Lucas kept quiet for a few seconds more to make sure she was done and also to make sure she wouldn’t break out crying or something because it looked like she was about to do just that. When neither happened, though, Lucas sighed deeply.

“Wow,” he said without much emotion at all, not wanting to make eye contact with her. “I didn’t know having powers could be such a… burden.” The atmosphere in the room now was completely depressed, almost on the verge of draining.

However, he was glad that Alice was telling him all this. It gave him the chance to reflect on his own powers. He began to realize that having powers wasn’t really as fun as it seemed; it was like a full time job. After all, electricity was dangerous, unstable, and sometimes lethal. He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting anyone with them, which is why he only ever played around with them in isolation.

“It seems like your friend tells you a lot,” he said, giving an attempt to keep the conversation going just a little bit longer.