An Ab-normal Life

During the dark day in the winter of the year, with the clouds hugging the sky James Palmer was celebrating his 18th birthday with his best friend Robert Holland and his girlfriend Penny Cooper. The whole 'party' as they called it was nothing more than a walk in a park, but for the three of them although it wasn’t much it was exactly what they needed. School life started getting too much for the group and nothing was better than a walk and some fresh air. "You know what my mom told me?" asked Robert. "The normal kids, you know… They go to high school till 18years old. Unlike ours that’s till 20. Don’t you think it’s unfair? I mean we have 2 more years of school." James didn’t answer, he seemed lost in his thoughts, the visible, from the cold, breath of Robert seemed more interesting to him. "Not really." answered Penny. "Our school has extra classes for Ab-normalities. It makes sense will need more time." After a long and uncomfortable pause Robert broke the silence. "Do you remember? They day you gained your powers?" "I was 12, and two months I think." spoke Penny. "A friend of mine was having a party but my parents told me I couldn’t go before I finish my homework. Next thing I remember is myself split in two. It was like a dream, initially I thought I was looking at a mirror, but there was a second me in the room. I ended up both studying and going to my friend’s party." "That sounds lame." laughed Robert. "It’s better than setting my house on fire!" cried Penny. Robert looked sad after her comment but they both laughed it off. "Well my story is even worse." said James. "I was 12 and 5 months old when I dropped a glass bottle. I was scared that my parents will find out. At first I was going to blame my twin sister but then the glass started flying and it got put together. I thought I was an Ab-normal with psychic powers, but it turned out I can only control glass."   After some time the group headed back to the school. The school for them wasn’t an ordinary school but essentially their homes. It was a massive building with multiple classes and rooms for the students to sleep in. A huge common room and a kitchen for the students that were attending across the globe. A school designed for Ab-normals. The school itself H.U. Brook, claimed to be one of the best and it was common for it to have some of the strongest Ab-normals, claiming it had the best chances of teaching them how to control their powers.   Upon arrival a few more classmates of Palmer’s congratulated him and wished him happy birthday. His twin sister Sara gave him a kiss in the cheek which made him blush. The rest of the day found everyone on their classes and studies before going to sleep. Robert always felt little jealous, he used to sleep with James and Marcus West in the same room but ever since James started dating Penny they started sleeping together as well. Tomorrow morning everyone got up early. The morning classes were scheduled for history, math, physics, economy. But everyone was excited about the afternoon class. Ab-normality classes were a two hour group activity in which students teamed up to accomplish certain tasks. James, Penny and Robert were often together, the tasks were for the most part simple, like the most common one, an obstacle course. The course itself wasn’t so easy to speak of for a normal human. That’s why they had to learn how to control their powers to accomplish their ‘missions’ as referred by the students. This class was what made the school for Ab-normals such an interesting school. “Class, quiet!” a woman’s voice echoed inside the auditorium. A beautiful woman figure walked towards the professor’s seat. James and　Robert could be seen looking at her from bottom to top; she was wearing white high heel boots and an all white tight outfit. Besides her beauty Evelyn Wright was the most loved professor in the whole school, her class was by far the most entertaining one and the young professor often had talks with some of the older students making her a very ‘laid back’ and ‘cool’ person.   Penny pinched James from his cheek and looked at him angrily. “Sorry…” was the only thing that James could speak of. Penny smiled and released his cheek. “Please come to the desk and write down your teammates for today’s activity.” said Evelyn. “Ok Evelyn.” screamed Robert and managed to get enough weird looks on him. “Miss Evelyn. Mr. Holland.” she tried to correct him so the class uproar would stop. While everyone was talking about the teams James went first for the desk, he wrote his name Penny’s and Robert’s. Once everyone has gotten himself into a team they started explaining today’s task. “Today I’ve prepared something very unique.” said Evelyn “We will go to the backyard. One group at a time will have to go from start point and cross the finish line, located in the end of the yard.” “That’s it?” asked Marcus. “While one team while try to use their powers to do that, everyone else will be given paintball guns and try to stop them. If a single bullet hits you, you are out. But if at least one member of your team crosses the line you pass the test. You’ll gain 1 point for each member crossing the finish line. Teams with no survivors don’t pass the test. While the team with the most point will get a special gift.” The whole class got excited, the yard was rather big with trees and hills the ‘gunners’ as told by everyone had a lot of hiding spots to set all kinds of ambushes. “The first team is Marcus West, Olivia Green, Erica Cole.” said Evelyn. “What a lucky guy.” cried Robert. All students got their paintball guns and tried to hide themselves. When Evelyn blew her whistle Erica used her super speed to scout the nearby area, she could run so fast that she went unnoticed. After a short while she had crossed the finish line. Marcus removed his shirt and two massive eagle like wings grew from his back. He flew straight to the finish line on top of the forest-part of the yard. The trees made impossible for anyone hiding in there to shoot Marcus in the sky. Olivia was always wearing a crop top shirt, her ability to grow four squid like tentacles from her lower back didn’t come in any use during the trial since she couldn’t block any of the paintball shots. “Pass! 2 points.” said Evelyn signaling for the next team to get ready. “Riley Cook, Melody Russell and Penelope Owen.” Melody had the ability to talk and control animals, an ability which many of the students believed had nothing to worry about since no animals were anywhere nearby the school grounds. Riley used her power to create a powerful wind wave cloaking all of the yard, again no one seemed to worry, due to the winds radius its strength was reduced. But they realized later that the new wind wave was carrying all short of birds, eagles, hawks and crows could be seeing masking the blue sky. The birds got high enough and after that decided to descent. In the mist of chaos and utter fear amongst the students, all the terrifying birds disappeared. “Amazing” laughed Evelyn. “Penelope created an illusion of birds diving straight at you all. You became paranoid that those birds were being controlled by Melody that you completely forgot about Penelope. That was a great run, 3 points.” “Next Adrian Thomson, Ben Ward and Danny Harrison.” In the blink of an eye Danny disappeared, in the place where she stood a dozen of butterflies started flying away in all directions, the butterflies met in the end were by forging together Danny’s  silhouette appeared.  Adrian could brainwash everyone he came into contact with for a short time, the problem was getting close to the ‘gunners’. Ben tried to help with that, he spread his hand towards Robert. A chain jumped from his palm wrapping Robert and bringing him closer. Adrian managed to touch the top of his head. They planned to use Robert as a human shield, since no one would shoot them if Robert was standing in front. Soon they realized the plan was flawed, no one seemed to care about Robert being hit, all of the ‘gunners’ started spraying them, Robert got most of it but eventually they hit both Adrian and Ben. “Pass… 1 point.” said Evelyn “Cameron Wood, Diego Parker and Brooke Morgan.” Cameron was one of the kids that were born Ab-normal; he was born without a shadow. He stood out in the yard and as soon as the whistle was heard his skin turned black, he started shrinking until he was a flat black circle on the ground. He became a shadow himself and run across the field. Everyone noticed and started shooting at the ground trying to hit his shadow, but he was smart enough to not show himself and instead he was hiding in the already existing shadows of other trees. Diego’s ability to transform himself to a beast, surely a frightening a sight, wasn’t ideal for the task. His nails transformed into claws, his teeth became sharp and he grew twice in size. That made him faster and stronger but also a bigger target and easier to hit. Soon after he was taken down. Brooke raised her hands in the air and cast a bright blinding light, in the confusion that she created she made a run for the finish line; she met an ambush in the last hill, acting quickly she created a bright circular, yellowish shield. The shield was created entirely by light but it had physical properties, managing to block most of the incoming shots. Most of them, apart from the one that hit her back. “1 point.” exclaimed Evelyn  “Oliver Dixon, Sara Palmer and Isabella Read”   “Last group; James Palmer, Penny Cooper and Robert Holland.” “You wrote her name before mine?” grilled James James stretched out his arms; a loud BANG was heard across the yard. The windows of the school broke and started flying toward James. They stopped before him, James raised his head and small pieces of glass run to all directions. The glass parts were aiming for the paintball guns, they were flying in search for them cutting them in half. No one was able to do anything about it, the attack itself wasn’t a quiet one; the flying glass could be heard cutting the air around it moving in a tremendous speed. But it was lethal enough, Penny and Robert didn’t have to do anything, with all the guns being torn apart they just walked towards the finish line. James recollected the glass shards and pieced them together, fixing the windows. Everyone was amazed; a long silence had met both students and Evelyn. Everyone besides Robert, who looked pissed on the missed opportunity to show his strength. James didn’t try to show off but he was rather scared Robert was going to go overboard and set everyone on fire. “3 points.” said Evelyn breaking the silence. “Holland, Penny, Riley, Melody and Penelope are all the winners with 3 points. The five of you can have the week of from school.” Penny, Riley, Melody and Penelope looked at each other with a wide smile. Robert still angry partly because he didn’t get to use his fire power and partly because he was referred to by his surname, being the only one, still managed to shack his shoulder and give a little smile of happiness. “James!” cried Evelyn. “Could you follow me to my office, please?”