A Unified Theory of Superpowers

The thing about powers is that, most of the time, they're natural: passed down through families, emerging in times of stress, or awoken by trauma. Sometimes they need an external trigger – like drug trials, for instance – sometimes it's just a quirk of genetics that manifests in the same straightforward manner as black hair. And sometimes aliens are involved, because aliens just can't keep their skinny fingers out of other species' business. The point is, most of the time, powers are part of you. Something you were born with, or at least born with the potential for.

Clovis is different. There's nothing natural about his abilities.

They don't look that different in action. Black and faded grey rectangles are a bit showy as power effects go, but they're also subdued in a sense. Quiet. Regular. Symmetrical. And, most importantly, secretive – they don't betray what his power actually does. They're perfect for him. Which makes it all the more ironic that they're completely foreign.

Gravity-manipulation has been the province of a few supers, hero and villain alike, but none of them have been like him. It's not a boast. It's a lament, or perhaps a prayer. The reason Clovis is different is that these powers aren't his at all. They were stolen and they know it, and every moment with them pressing against his brain is spent waiting for rejection. Every use of them floods him with energy that struggles to escape his control. He's counting the days until they've had enough and start killing him like a transplant gone wrong. They're a phantom limb in reverse, pieces of a stranger grafted where there should be nothing. A parasite, latched onto his system. A steroid boost he can't live without.

Selan, when he asked, described using her power as 'kinda like flexing a muscle in my brain. Brainmuscle. Musclebrain.' Selanio said using his strength was just punching, and that his energy bolts were 'like punching and then punching again. Double punches.' Xeno used the muscle metaphor, but he also went on a short tangent about aliens, and which muscle groups his telepathy and telekinesis might correspond to. Tavarius's answer veered closer to the Baron's, which he'd no doubt be horrified to learn: his powers are just part of his baseline condition. Tynan described himself as 'full of static charge' that he just had to direct.

Clovis did not ask Cath what his powers felt like, but the blond was in the room when he asked Tynan. He felt the weight of Cath's beady eyes on his back as he left. The actual conversation was put off until almost a month later on a rooftop, when the urgency had faded to the back of Clovis's mind, and Cath was napping. At least, Clovis had thought he was, until he spoke.

“I've never been able to just direct it.”

Clovis raised an eyebrow.

“My powers,” he clarified. “They're not as strong as Tynan's. I need to build a charge, and even then, it doesn't wanna do what I want it to. Either I don't build enough static or I can't control it. Story of my life.”

“You can't control them?”

“I can!” Cath protested. “Just not well. He's always coming up with new creative uses for electricity. I can barely get it to sit down and shut up.”

The way he phrases things is ridiculous, but Clovis can empathize. In this, they are the same. His powers want more than he can give them, too.