"Time to Make a Change" by Alexander Underwood

Right then, I suppose I have to write this or Jonny'll get mad, and we wouldn't want that now, would we? It's not as though he's one of the few people here without powers or anything...

Anyway, my 'origin story'. There's not a lot to tell really, as I don't know how I got my ability and I don't really care how anyway, but if I don't write anything I'll have detention with that muscular oaf where I'll be made to do physical exercise. The thought of such a task makes me shudder, I doubt that kings and presidents are forced to do such a menial task so why am I? Although I suppose it is better than having to teach that swamp-creature how to speak proper English.

Anyhow, I digress, and I don't want to spend more time on this necessary.

There was a time when I wasn't Alexander Underwood, a time when I was Percy Buckminster - the youngest son of a farming couple. I was the scrawny one, the runt of the litter. Not like my two broad-shouldered brothers, oh how my parents loved them.

Not me though, not the academic. I wanted to learn, to better myself and improve my situation so I didn't end up working on a farm cleaning up pig much for the rest of my life. Every chance I got I spent reading textbooks or taking elocution lessons through a video course on my computer so I could get rid of the awful West Country accent I grew up with.

My brothers bullied the little snob they lived with. They were twins, tall and muscular from lugging around bales of hay like the Neanderthals that they were. They inherited their mother's red hair, both having it cut quite short, except James had grown side-burns so people could much more easily tell him apart from Toby. They were two years my elders, both being eighteen and old enough to leave the festering hell-hole I had to inhabit with them, but such lofty aspirations never entered their heads. Even if they had, someone had to look after the farm and it certainly wasn't going to be me.

I was no good at anything on the farm, that's why they bullied me. I couldn't drive, moving produce was too exhausting. In their eyes my entire purpose was to limit the amount of food they got. So every chance they got to torment me was taken with gusto.

Filling my shoes and coat pockets with manure was their favourite torture. If I could manage a week without that I could count myself lucky, or at least until they filled my tube of toothpaste with it the next week. Oh how I loathed them.

But my chance for vengeance eventually came. I discovered that I had powers during a simple visit to the shops. All that I wanted was a bottle of water, but what I got instead was an opportunity, a chance to change.

Change is in fact the operative word. It was change that I pulled out of my pocket just at the exact moment that my powers started.

Let me explain. Whenever I touch two different objects, one in each hand, the materials that the objects are made of swap. "Molecular transference" has a nice ring to it, or "tacto-transmutation". Our forbears would have called it alchemy, which has much more gravitas. It has a mystical aura, surrounded by power and might.

So as I reached into my pocket for a handful of coppers to count out my change, I picked up a water bottle with my free hand. I felt the bottle grow heavier, and when I looked at it I saw why. The plastic bottle was slowly turning to copper in my left hand, whilst my right hand contained nothing but coin-sized plastic disks.

Despite a mild feeling of lightheadedness, caused by exertion from my powers, I realised the importance of what I could do. I could finally get my own back on those oafs I called my brothers.

You may think me short-sighted in how I wanted to use my powers, but I had spent years thinking of vengeance and now I had the means. You may think it cruel, you may say that two wrings do not make a right, but after the torture I had endured my mind was clouded, and I took every opportunity I had.

My revenge came in many forms. I would turn their bedsheets to copper while they slept and leave the cloth penny on their bedside table. The pitchforks and shovels would be turned to pottery, rendering them useless. Their meat at mealtimes would trade places with their plates and their shoes would turn to stone. It was now I who had the power.

But I could not get away with it for that long. With all of the strange occurrences my family was bound to notice. Other people must have done as well, judging by a letter I received one day.

It was from some sort of boarding school, with all of the students having abilities like me. For the first time in my life I thought I was unique and important, but now I was being told that there was a school full of people like me.

But for once I thought of the bigger picture. I could be a part of something. I'd been tormented for years, perhaps these other individuals had too. I could help them, be there for them.

More than any of that though, it gave me a chance to escape the fetid pig-sty I resided in. I could finally flee and leave everything about my past behind. I could not forsake that opportunity.

Although I greatly disliked my family I could not simply leave them. My parents brought me into the world and as such they might miss me.

I gathered a few possessions and some clothes into a bag and kept it under my bed until the boat mentioned in the letter came into port at the mouth of the river Avon. While I waited I wrote a letter for my parents. I must confess that I was not sympathetic, telling them that they should forget about me completely, and that I was changing my name.

Despite my tactless letter I thought that I should give them some compensation for my leaving. So on the night that I left I took my brothers' matching gold rings (I know, how tacky) and went to the old aspen tree outside the house. I snapped off one of the branches and turned it gold with one of the rings. That would be how I got to the mouth of the Avon. The other ring I used on the entire tree. That was to help my family.

I was probably being too sentimental about them. With one less mouth to feed things would be much easier on them. But that wasn't the last sentimental thing I did. I kept those rings, to remind me that there will always be bullies in the world, but also to remind me that any problem could be overcome. As such, if I find a material I think may be useful and it's too large to carry, I bring it along in the form of one of the rings. Yes, it limits me, but it keeps me focused on what I need and what I can do without.

From then I made my way to the mouth of the Avon, handsomely paying a very generous lorry driver (not my kind of person, I know, but the only one on the road that night willing to take a hitchhiker). If only he'd known I could have given him so much more than just a gold stick.

Once at my destination I found the boat quite easily. It was a very ostentatious wooden ship, a frigate of sorts. Aboard were four other student who had journeyed from the colonies and were heading to the same place as I was. A rather quiet pain-sapping girl, a rather obnoxious young man who could manipulate electricity, and some twins who could drastically change their body temperature. Along with them was the captain, whom I have never seen leave his wheel, and the brutish PE teacher Helstrom.

It was a dull journey, as I had little with which to torment that obnoxious Gibson boy. I thought the ship would set on fire, what with him being struck by lightning three times as we passed through a storm. It was an ominous forewarning of what was to come at The Academy. I would have been better off attempting to swim back to England.

However, despite its shortcoming's this place has helped me. But I fear if I do not cut this tale short I may say some more things that make me seem like an actual human with emotions. I'm not quite sure how to end it though. Oh, this'll do. Now go do something worthwhile.