Aiden can’t help but be impressed by Jesse. Just a little bit.
At the first Endercon Building Competition he ever saw them at, the familiar green hoodie and huge build of Axel, even back then, and the green beanie over bouncy pigtails of Olivia overshadowing a tiny girl with short brown hair, a red pin pressed into it, her extremely dark green eyes practically glowing with excitement, he thought she looked like a five-year-old.
(He couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when she said she was eight years old, puffing her cheeks out and crossing her arms playfully. She seemed to think he was joking.)
(He hadn’t been.)
She was short and very nice even when Aiden started calling her names, Lukas shooting Aiden a disapproving look and Maya simply following his lead. Gill was a little slower on the uptake but finally also began to be rude to Jesse.
Six years later, six years of teasing and mocking and smirks and taunting when they lost the competition-- every year-- when they arrived at the Building Competition, Jesse was gone. Instead, there was a short boy with chocolatey brown hair and bright green eyes, a warm grin dancing across his lips and his red suspenders pulling up a pair of slightly-too-big pants.
“I see you’ve ditched Jesse,” he snarks at Olivia and Axel. “What, she finally got too annoying for you?”
The boy gives an awkward cough, one that is oddly familiar. When Aiden stares intently at him, he suddenly is able to pick out tiny little mannerisms and quirks. The way they tilt their head. The way their bright green eyes shift awkwardly when they’re trying not to be rude. The way he was shifting his weight awkwardly.
“Uh... actually, I’m Jesse.”
It takes a few minutes for the boy to stammer out a brief explanation. How he recently got the ability to shapeshift, about half a year before this year’s competition. How he can change his appearance at will, and even alter his height and weight to an extent.
Instantly, he couldn’t help but be jealous. The only other people he’d heard of having superpowers was the Order of the Stone, so for Jesse to have superpowers was incredible.
(Incredible, but what did they do to deserve it?)
Jesse toggles between being a boy or a girl from day-to-day life-- when they’re asked, they blush profusely and mumble something about being genderfluid. Their appearance changes, their face can morph in an instant, skin tones warping every time to an impressive degree.
So now he’s kicking himself for realizing that of course the Founder wouldn’t be able to spot Jesse in a crowd. If they wanted to, they could change into somebody completely different and slip away.
A huge commotion rises up, and Aiden looks up to see Jesse, Lukas, and that weird bearded guy (Ivor?) being dragged to the front of the crowd by several guards. Jesse’s a girl this time, with long black hair, bright green eyes, and a golden pin pinning back her thick hair.
She gives a sheepish little smile and a wave when she realizes the Founder is staring coldly down at her. “Um... hi. I’m Jesse.”
It's not that common, but every good hero has them, anybody worth telling stories about or looking up to. The best adventurers can do so much for not only themselves, but everyone around them, using sharpened wits and charm right alongside honed natural talents.
Olivia's spent a long time torn between feeling as lucky as she knows she is and ungrateful for a gift some people can't even understand.
Because, for an engineer? Like her? Who wants to work with redstone?
Super strength is kind of a pain.
In the sense that she can crush rocks in the palm of her hand, which she doesn't need to do often, and crush redstone into expensive glitter or send it flying when she means to only adjust it a little, which is something she does and miscalculates often.
Confidence goes a long way and she's better now than she was when she was a nobody, easily manipulated by the looks people threw their way and the pressure that made her fingers tremble, but even now it occasionally happens.
She's a new hero, and that's as confidence-boosting as it is anxiety inducing, because now so many more people care about what she does, so many more are watching her.
They depend on her and rely on her, on what new inventions she can make and use, and that's a new pressure.
It steels her in a way that stills her fingers, keeps them as stable and gentle as needed, but makes her heart clench.
Powers don't define people, shouldn't, but sometimes they manage to anyway.
It's the sort of thing that makes people a target, Jesse's lack of powers making her easy for the Ocelots to tease for years even though Lukas seemingly had none himself, and makes other people want to lie about or hide them.
Lukas, it turns out, does have a power, though he put off using it until he had to. The ability to control shadows, to melt into them, isn't a common one.
(Not outside of being used by villains in stories.)
And Olivia couldn't figure out how a spider bite gave Petra the ability to control rocks, since it was a normal cave spider and the two seem entirely unrelated, but powers are weird and fickle and it's not like she could explain hers any better even now; Olivia's always had hers, and plenty of people out there don't discover or gain theirs until something weird and random happens.
Still, it made a lot more sense once Petra admitted she'd been lying, about the spider thing. She just didn't want people to think that her power was the only reason she's cool, and that makes sense to Olivia.
(As much as the Order faking always having powers to seem cooler and make their story more believable does, at least.)
They're both good examples of people, heroes, who refuse to bow to what they should be.
Lukas is a hero, though Olivia doesn't know where to find him, where he went to after they saved the world and he left. He's not a coward or a villain, as mixed as her feelings might still be about how he stood aside and let them be bullied before, and he likes cats and cookies way more than he likes stealing or hurting people.
And Petra's like Olivia, not fitting into what kind of hero people expect her to be.
Ellegaard, the engineer, had the ability to control metal, to move it and control it at will. It's Gabriel, the warrior, who has super strength, the ability to defend and attack at great length. Axel at least is like Magnus, with the ability to create fire and explosions.
(And more harmless spark effects that look like fireworks, dazzling at night and more calming than anything when the teasing gets to be too much or she and Jesse are feeling down.
A power that can destroy so much doesn't keep him from creating or being kind.)
Olivia prefers working with redstone instead of weapons, prefers even a bow to the sword, and Petra's far more skilled at using her body as a weapon and her weapons as extensions of her body. The rock control is useful, especially whenever Petra goes on a mining trip or when a boulder can finish off a battle, but it doesn't define her in any sense.
(Maya has the ability to move and bend metal at will, just like Ellegaard. Olivia would say she's not bitter, but she'd be lying. She's been bitter about that since the first time it was thrown in her face, used to push her down.)
Olivia's spent most of her life fighting against what her power has labeled her, what her power can have her do. She's fought against battle and violence, turning towards it only recently to protect and help her friends, only started using it in training so she can better it.
And now?
Now, Aiden's shirt collar peeking out from under his armor and held tightly in one of her fists, now she's going to embrace it more than she ever did before. The night wind is cool, managing to tickle its way under her cap and to play with the ends of her hair, and the branch under her foot breaks in one loud crunch as she presses her boot down on it.
And he’s not saying anything, not making any more threats and not even trying to scream.
She’s not expecting him to be scared, but Aiden’s thing is voice amplification. His scream could probably take her down, but he’s too quiet right now.
He’s still quiet when she throws him and he lands between two trees, groaning enough to let her know he’s not hurt.
Not badly, and that’s what matters.
There's something gratifying about being able to just pick up and throw Aiden out of the way, make him look as insignificant as he's made her feel, and it's the one time she's really had a chance to without making trouble for herself or the others.
This?
This is self-defense; he threatened them, all of them, after they saved his life and everyone else's, and it goes way beyond teasing or bullying.
Maybe it's because he's been so cocky about his new gear, wherever they got it or whoever they stole it from. Probably the same place as the strength potions, his breath reeking of ash and sparks while she can nearly see the blaze powder lighting up his eyes. None of it kept her from being able to twist the sword out of his hand.
Or maybe it's because she's never used her power against him before. Knowing she has it hasn't taught him to really be aware of what she can do when he's never had to worry about it.
It might explain why Maya and Gill still seem like they’re in shock.
(She's Olivia, the one with fraying gloves and goggles that Aiden used to steal until Axel lit one of his sleeves on fire after he made fun of them for 'being a couple'. She's the loser he picked on every year, whose dry retorts never do the same damage to Aiden as he does to her. She's the inventor who never wins. She's the one who'll never beat Maya, no matter how hard she practices and studies, because her power isn't meant for it.
And she packs a punch.)
Whatever the reason, it feels good, energy pounding in her ears as it mingles with the worn adrenaline of having already been through an adventure before this, and she doesn’t bother hiding her grin as Axel laughs and Jesse gives some kind of sheepish one-liner about having warned Aiden.
Jesie’s super power is abnormally fast regeneration
He doesn’t care about a super identity and the only real ‘costume’ he has is a crappy name tag with the word “Super Guy” scribbled on and put on top of whatever he is wearing.
