1 Prologue Many things happen by chance and one event can change the very course of one's life. Take Christopher Kirby for instance. A year ago from this moment he had decided that his life had become too hectic and stressful. Chris, in some ways very much by chance, is a natural leader. His coach made him captain of the football team his junior year of high school. He was quickly promoted to floor manager at the local retail store where he worked. After his friends talked him into running for a position for Student Council he was overwhelmingly elected. But his responsibilities became too much for him. Too many people looked up to him and expected too much out of him. He didn't want to be a leader. When he came to college he decided that this would be four years with minimal responsibilities. He would enjoy what he had left of adolescence care-free. Yet, now he finds himself barking orders like he used to back on the football field or in his store as he yells, "Ron!! Try and cut Dave off before he gets across the hall!!! I'll create an opening for you! Lee!! Keep Delauney contained!!!" The only difference is that now the peers that he's leading have their lives at stake. Chris fires off a beam of energy in between Ron Werden and Kenneth Jones, disrupting the hand-to-hand combat they were engaged in. Chris looks around him, trying to analyze everything that is happening and decide what is best to do. He has found himself leading a group of college kids who have all acquired some sort of supernatural ability. Mike Lee’s ability is one of the strangest, as he is able to produce duplicates of himself that he can reabsorb at will. The number of duplicates he has are the only thing holding down Bill Delauney, whose powers to move at super speed make him a priority for Chris if he and his friends are to accomplish their goal. Ever since Mike’s accident with his superpowers he's been afraid to use them again. It had gotten to the point where he no longer knew who he really was. It was the worst kind of identity crisis to have. But he got over it. Chris had shown him that life was worth living and, despite the danger of their mission, he was enjoying himself. 2 Assured that Mike is holding his own, Chris turns to see another member of his group in an indomitable battle of wills with another one of the students. Amanda Zemen, who has the amazing ability of telekinesis, is using it with all of her might to hold back the flames produced by the pyrokinetic Veronica Levafuoco. Amanda is here for her own personal reasons. She has a score to settle with Dave, a vendetta that she doesn't want to be robbed from. She wishes she were using her telekinesis against him instead of this other girl that she barely knows. But her desire for vengeance keeps her fighting and pushes her towards victory in this duel. Slowly and steadily she pushes back the flames that Veronica conjures. Each effort Amanda exerts gives her a clearer view of her revenge, and the more she fights back the more power Veronica drains. Happy to see that Amanda seems to be on the winning side of that confrontation Chris looks back to see if Ron Werden has followed Dave, and if he needs any help. Instead, Chris finds that Ron is still engaged in hand to hand combat with Kenneth Jones. Chris demonstrates his own special ability once more, firing a beam of energy at Ken. Surprisingly, Ken does not fly back from the beam and so Chris continues to pour out energy towards him to hold him in place. “Ron, go see where Dave ran off to! I’ll keep this other guy here!” Chris commands. Without reply, Ron follows his orders. As Chris continues to fire his beam of energy at Ken he unexpectedly feels the gentle touch of a woman’s hands against his shoulder. “No more o’ that, now, ok?” Tanya Meyers sweetly whispers in his ear. And before Chris knows it he and Tanya are gone, her ability to teleport instantly transporting them outside of the museum. Ron catches sight of Dave running down a different corridor of the museum and follows him, without any knowledge of Chris’s current problems. For David Shaw it has always been about power. Dave has always struggled to be the best at everything he's ever done. And when he does become the best he revels in his own power and superiority above others. Tonight he's reveling in his powers more than he's been given the chance to since he first received them. Ron, on the other hand, is very hesitant about having to use his power and 3 deplores how he currently has to use them in. Ron was always a man of thought, not of action. The ability to reason was what separated man from animal, and giving into the emotions that arise during battle was tantamount to devolution. Now Ron struggles to restrain those emotions and retain his reason as he battles in a way his body never would have been able to a year ago. That becomes particularly difficult to do when Dave, using his powers to manipulate metal, causes the metal grating that holds the floor up to erupt out of the floor. The metal melds together, and before Ron can think enough to react he is encapsulated in a metal sphere. Dave taunts, "I hope your strength can get you free from there...before you suffocate!!" The sphere crashes to the ground and rolls into the hole that Dave made in the floor to create it. The ball falls three stories, and with his foe disposed of, Dave continues towards his goal, under the impression that no one is left to stop him. He is totally unaware that someone is slowly and silently following him. Lilia Coolwater's powers may blind her from Dave's sense of sight, but not from his sense of sound. She has to be careful and make sure that he cannot hear the scuffling of her feet or the sound of her breathing. She has to follow Dave because he can get into the room they have all been trying to get into. His special powers can get past the museum’s security, while Lilia’s can’t. It only makes sense that all ten of the students who received their powers are here tonight. That's the reason Lilia is here, because she wants to get to the source of her powers. In the room that they are heading towards is a moonstone that in some way gave all of them their powers back in what seems like a totally different time to Lilia. Everything changed on the first of October. It was a normal enough day, but it being the first of October seemed reason enough for Professor Stuart Jorley to come to his 10:00 a.m. Freshman Chemistry class dressed in bright orange. He strode down the aisle of the lecture hall, towards the table where he had already placed a couple beakers filled with liquid, a couple of rocks and his lecture notes, seemingly proud of the fact that 4 he was wearing a bright orange shirt featuring cartoon pumpkins to class. Once he reached the table, he turned around with a sudden expression of anger and shouted, "ATTENTION CLASS!!!" It was like a clarion call for the entire room to awaken. His facial expression changed just as suddenly again, towards the gentle goofy-looking face of an eccentric old man that the class was used to as he whispered, "It is exactly 10 o'clock and class is scheduled to begin." He resumed his normal speaking voice as he continued, "As most of you should be aware, today is the first of October. This has always been a special day for me, because at our house it means we get to put up Halloween decorations. For me, this day is even more significant because it's the first day I'm wearing-" Jorley paused as he stepped up on the chair near his table, swung his left leg across it and set his foot down on it for the entire class to see. "-My new orange tennis shoes." A few people giggled at the professor. Many others were unimpressed; they had sat through antics like this for over a month now. Jorley continued, "But even more important, probably, for all of you is that your mid-term examination is next week! That means we need to wrap up all the material covered in that mid-term so you can wrap your minds around it, completely absorb it and be able to spit it back out to me in your tests!" With that preface that lecture began: "We left off yesterday talking about Oxidation- Reduction reactions. These are reactions in which the oxidation number of the atoms involved changes. What's an oxidation number you may ask? Well, you shouldn't be asking that question if you've been paying attention the past few days, so LOOK AT YOUR NOTES! I can't be bothered re-explaining things every day. "More specifically, last class period we discussed Metal Displacement Reactions. In this type of oxidation-reduction reaction you have, in aqueous solution, one metal and one salt compound, and during the reaction the anion and the metal switch creating a new metal and new salt compound with different oxidation numbers.