A hard choice

We were all silent as Don contemplated the phial. 'I don't know.' he said, looking at it hard, as if hoping to find an answer in it's swirling liquid as he swung it gently. 'On the one hand, yeah, having an ability would be cool, and I wouldn't feel so weird round you lot, but then again, I mean, John used to be a friend of this Damian person, right? You all met him and liked him, and then he got a power and it corrupted him and he kidnapped Pete and got all those extra powers by force and now he's trying to kill you all. And me, now I've been dragged into all of this, thank you very much.'

'Hey, how were we supposed to know that Leech bloke was going to turn up on John's orders?'

'I'm not blaming you, but it WAS because I was hanging out with you that I got involved.'

Dragon looked around at everyone, staring unashamedly at Don. 'Everyone, why don't we leave Don with Tempest and go and show these newcomers round the rest of the base?'

Everyone else left and Don looked at me, asking 'Those people you got your extra powers from, they didn't want them either, did they?'

'Mostly. The man with Phasing liked his ability, but was misusing it, and his brother made me take it from him. Some didn't like them because of accidents they'd had, but I think they'd have learned to love them. The man that had the wormholes liked his power, but didn't like the attention from the American government it got him, so he had to choose. but yes, some people were unlucky enough to hate their powers.'

'What about the people Cleo's got powers from?'

'Ah, well...she works rather differently to me and Pete. She tends not to ask, for one thing. She just finds one she likes, and, takes it. She used to kill the people she took them from, but I think we're a good influence on her.'

'Oh, yeah. Having an ability would be useful, but what if it's one I don't like? Or can't control? What if it changes me, or it's a good power but costs me, I don't know, my ability to move or something?'

'Pete can always remove it if you don't want it. And remember. We're all here, to help if your ability starts to mess with you.'

'If you had the choice, would you have your ability.'

'Yes. But only because I know what I'd be missing.'

Pete and Precog came in, and Pete excitedly grabbed Don's arm. 'I've had an idea! Come on!'

He dragged him away upstairs and I turned to Precog, who didn't seem his usual cheerful self. 'You know what he's going to do, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'Do you know what would happen if he chose differently?'
'Yes.'
'How much can you see?'
'I know the outcome of every decision he could make about that phial. Using it, not using it, using it in a month, a year, destroying it, pouring down a sink. I can see every option he has, and every consequence.'
'Any happy endings?
'Four. Only one of which ends up with him having an ability.'
'Does he make the right choice?'
'No.'
'Does he regret it?'
'Oh yes. More than any of you can imagine.'
'Can't you go and tell him?'
Precog stared at me, clearly shocked. 'If I did, not only would I be going against my visions, but I would create a paradox. If I went and told him the right choice, he would make that one. My visions say he doesn't, so if he did, my ability would have been wrong, which is impossible. I see things that will happen, one way or another, or I don't see things. I never see things that are wrong. If he made the right choice, I would have seen that, and felt no need to advise him, meaning he is quite likely to make his original wrong choice, meaning I would want to advise him, which means he'd make the right choice, which means I wouldn't need to advise him. See? Paradox.'
'Er, yes. Probably. Yeah, that makes sense. But couldn't you have your vision of him making the right choice, AND tell him the right choice to make sure he does it?'
'Not if I didn't see myself telling him. I can't do something AGAINST my visions, I have to work round them, allowing for the vision to come true AND twist the outcome if possible.
'You didn't care about your visions when we were changing the future by rescuing Omni from that cavern.'
'Yes, well.......Visions....and Time....and indeed Fate.....work..differently in that place. Things can change while you're in there. So Cleo may have come out better than my vision showed. I hope so.'

Precog keeled over at that point, his eyes glowing, and he rasped 'Oh gods....events..changing....that phial......shouldn't exist.....Double and Don.....unprotected phial...short range vision....John wants that...'

BANG!

The door burst open as John stormed in, yelling 'I sense an unprotected phial! GIVE IT TO ME!'
Don, who still had the phial, was to far away to hear the exact words, so John's control failed, and he didn't know who to concentrate on for the mental part of his control, so nobody came and gave it to him. He roared, and aimed a blast at us, so I made a forcefield round us and lifted us into the air, saying to precog: 'That wasn't like your normal visions, you talked during it and didn't draw anything!'
'I know! It's been happening more and more recently. Short range visions of small things that are going to happen around me in a few seconds or a couple of minutes time. It's like I keep getting short flashes of my near future!'

The cricket bat, like my staff, is made of wood, meaning my nature power can control it, and I made it whack John on the head as it zoomed towards me. I handed it to Precog and landed him behind John in another forcefield while I kept him busy. I could hear voices and running upstairs as I sent an icy blast of wind at John, and Precog hit him with the bat. John turned and shot a laser at Precog, but Precog was already off to the side, and I could see his eyes were completely white again. 'HA! I saw that coming!' he yelled triumphantly, and gave John another whack with the bat, this time in the shin. I froze John's feet to the floor with Ice, sent a jet of fire at his chest, and dodged a ball of radioactive light. John roared again and let loose more lasers, but they were met by ones from Blast, who caused them to veer off and miss everyone. they clattered down the stairs and joined the fray, and John was definitely coming out worse when Don, leaping down the last few steps ahead of a grinning Pete, charged John with his fist forwards, meeting John with a huge cracking sound. John screamed with pain and was thrown out of one of the windows, smashing it, and colliding with the wall on the other side of the alley with a nasty squelchy sound. Diffy gave a cry of shock and ran to the window, where the pile of videos he'd turned into a castle that morning had fallen down. 'You smashed my dishplay!' He called to Don, and set about putting them up again. We were all staring at Don in surprise, but Doolittle knelt down to Diffy and said quietly 'But Diffy, sweetie, this isn't even a real shop! It doesn't matter.' He stuck his tongue out and said grumpily: 'Its a dishplay window, yes? Dishplay windows are for dishplaying stuff.' and went back to his building.

'Um, what just happened?' asked Healthbar, staring at Don.
'Did you take it?' I asked.
'It was convenient that you got Super-strength.' muttered Dragon.
'Nope.' he grinned and showed us his right hand, which now had a thin silver band on it's middle finger. 'Pete took me to that trunk you told us about and found me this. apparently you didn't want super strength, so you made it one of these experiments?'
'Oh Yeah! I forgot about that one! I can't control physical powers like strength and speed as well as I can do mental and elemental, they're more sort of mind related, I had trouble turning that off and I kept breaking everything, so we put it in a ring because the girl that had it didn't want it, she kept breaking things too. This way it's an on/off power, you can just take the ring off and stop having it, I just never needed it so I forgot about it.'

'Well, it'll do until I make up by mind about this.' Don held up the phial and pointed at John's body, which Blast was now completely destroying 'Was that the real one?'

Playwrite and Tingle both sighed. 'Clone' they said at the same time.

A bit later Don came to me and pointed out his big problem. 'If I take the serum, I may get a power I hate, and it may do major harm before you lot can help. But if I don't take it, I'll always be haunted by not knowing what my true ability is. I guess I'll just keep using this ring whenever I HAVE to have an ability.'

I know Precog's right, but really, I wish he could just chip in some advice. I don't like the sound of those consequences.