The Anchor [Brallon-ish]

8

Dallon sits across from me on my bed, legs crossed, left forearm held out between us. He holds his sleeve back with his right hand. The gloves sit on his nightstand. He's already been able to replicate my ability, there's no use in keeping the barrier up between us.

"Frosted Flakes tiger collage."

He flexes his hand and the skin of his arm ripples into a dark outline of Tony the Tiger eating cereal with the Honey Nut Cheerios bee. It's late and he's tired, so it takes a moment to fully settle and gain the color he wants. "The bee wasn't requested, but definitely necessary."

"Agreed. Favorite CSI: Las Vegas character."

The cereal mascots shift into a portrait of George Eads in the light of the lamp. "Nick Stokes."

"Acceptable. Miami?"

Eads is replaced by Emily Proctor. "Calleigh Duquesne."

"Acceptable. Now turn into Batman."

He frowns. "Christian Bale? Adam West? Ben Affleck?"

I forgot there were so many Batman actors. "I want to see Bruce Wayne from The Dark Knight."

It takes a few seconds, but surely enough, Christian Bale is sitting in front of me with a sly smirk. "Easy," he drawls, "give me something else."

A shiver runs down my spine, not because I love Christian Bale, but because that was so simple and effortless for him. He turns into different people and barely a week into discovering it, he wants a challenge.

Since he walked out after the first day of group counseling, we took training into our own hands. He came back, and chose to focus on each ability he gains until he'd reached proficiency at it, and mine would be an ongoing learning session. He's gotten pretty good at it, but females are still difficult. It's not the body type that throws him off, but the hair.

"Fine. Show me Taylor."

Christian Bale morphs back into Dallon for a moment. He shuts his eyes and holds his breath, and his skin flips in waves until I'm sitting face to face with porcelain skin, red lips, blue eyes, and shoulder length cropped blonde hair.

"Your hair is a little too short."

Dallon glances down and brings a hand to touch the curled ends. "It's passable, right?" He turns back into himself and hits me with the puppy dog eyes. I'm not sure why, he isn't being tested, but they're on full blast.

"I don't believe it. I'll pretend you're Taylor. Say something she would say."

He clears his throat and closes his eyes, and when they snap open he has the same cold gleam in her eyes. "The next time I open up to someone is during my autopsy."

"Good one. Which counselor did you have this afternoon anyways?"

His right eye twitches while he tries to recall the name, but he ends up changing into a tall slender woman with red hair slicked into a low ponytail, and thick framed glasses, just for a couple seconds, then back to his normal self. "Whoever she is. I forget."

"Does it really matter? We'll probably never see her again anyways. All these sessions are over within the week. What did she talk to you about?"

The counseling was more supposed to gain an introspection into each kid to pinpoint what sort of mentor and trainer they would work best with. Some people have already started training, and a few still have yet to have a perfect match. They were also looking for red flags, but nobody found any, so we were in the clear. If someone else threw up a flag, you bet an investigation would've been launched on every person enrolled, and the slight privacy we were provided with would be snatched away.