Chapter 2
~TWO YEARS LATER~
"JORDAN!! Wake up, you can't be late for your first day!"
That's right, it was my first day back to school. Not only that, but it was also my first day of Highschool in New York City. It made sense to move there because, after all, my only living relatives where my grandparents.
I had truly come a long way since the accident.
It turns out that when you get in a metal chamber and have it explode around you- a lot of things happen. For one, I could finally walk again.
I had lost all lower body movement in the accident, but with the fancy little implants in my legs, and a whole lot of practice, I could move my legs with almost no concentration. It wasn't really walking, per say, because I couldn't really feel my legs, but because I could move the metal joints in my legs to make it look like the real thing.
A little confused? Well, so was I when I woke up and my legs were crushed under a giant hunk of metal. Not to mention the fact that I had a couple hundred needle like shards of it pierced throughout my body. I felt like an acupuncture dummy.
My grandma doesn't like it when I say that to people though. She says it's inappropriate, but I like to see the horrified look on peoples faces. It's totally funny.
The doctors said I shouldn't have lived. But I was standing here(kinda?) today, alive and well.
They also said I shouldn't have ever walked again, given that I had about a metric ton of metal fall on me, but I had gotten lucky somehow. And by lucky, I mean that my father's experiment had left me with some residual.... effects. I had noticed these effects a few days after the accident. First off, it was little things, Like the remote being a few inches closer to me when I needed it, or a spoon appearing out of nowhere when I forgot to get one for my ice cream.
I had tried to ignore it at first, thinking I had made it all up, because having powers felt unreal to me. But when my grandma walked in on me levitating my wheelchair? Well, let's just say I had a little explaining to do.
You could say my dads experiment was a semi success. Despite him being gone, I could now manipulate any metal or metal alloy in anyway I saw fit. Theoretically, If I wanted to strap aluminum to my feet and make myself fly(maybe do a little iron man cosplay), I could totally do it. Albeit immense concentration.
I know what your going to ask next, and no, I cannot create metal. It has to be easily accessible, and I can't pull a dam Percy Jackson and pull the elements from the ground. I'm not some demigod, I'm a 14 y/o nerd with dead parents and a superiority complex.
"JORDAN GET DOWN HERE NOW!"
Oops. Forgot. Angry grandma.
I quickly put on some jeans and a t-shirt, and ran downstairs to where my gran was. I took one look at her to know what she was going to ask.
"Where are your crutches? Jordan, we talked about this!"
My grandparents knew about my powers, they even encouraged me to practice them and make them my own. However, they didn't like that I had gotten them from being their son's experiment. They say they don't blame themselves for not realizing what was happening, but I know they did. They also thought that I shouldn't be using my powers all the time to walk around, I think it was something about not overusing them, but I didn't really care. I had finally mastered walking, even running(to some extent), and I wanted to not be the "weird kid with the crutches" at a new school.
It's not like being disabled was "weird", but I knew people would always treat me differently. It also didn't help that New York wasn't a very accessible friendly city, so I felt using my powers would just make my life easier. No crutches or wheel chairs, just clunky walking that kind of made me look like a robot.
I sighed, I didn't want to argue with gran. "Can I at least use the all metal ones? I'm not a fan of the bits of plastic in the ones the hospital gave me."
My grandpa smiled at me, because he was the one who made them. He was a carpenter/welder, and we had bonded over making those together.
My grandma just shook her head and smiled at me, I knew she was gunna cave.
"Fine, but get going now, midtown is a bit of a trek, and I need you to get there early."
At that I saluted her, grabbed my walking crutches, and left out the door of our small condo. I'd have to go through the busiest parts of downtown to get to midtown, and I wasn't about to go on the subway. It was a demon in itself. I don't care how easy people say taking the subway is, I didn't feel like sitting next to a bald guy in a hulk suit and an old man who kept sniffing my hair.
Not to mention the whole getting dirty looks for using crutches thing. They tended to take up a decent amount of space, and remember, New York wasn't very accessible friendly, and that included it's residents too. I would take a 30 min walk any day, if it meant I never had to take the subway.
About halfway through my walk I noticed that I was actually quite early, so I decided to go into my favorite coffee shop. It was a small but cute store and I had made it a mission of mine to visit at least once a week. Because I had been homeschooled for the past two years, and didn't actually have to leave my house. I had to make sure to at least have some social interaction.
At first it was hard, I'd never been a social kid. I was always too busy thinking about what my dad was going to make in his lab next. I was such a nerd for so many things that it was pitiful. So when I found out that the owner of this shop, Frank, was also a huge nerd, I had gained a new friend.
Well, friend in the sense that a 14 y/o hangs out with a man in his 50's, so I guess you could say he was more of a mentor/father figure.
"Hey J!" I Heard from behind the counter, a tall girl with blonde hair waved at me as I pushed my way inside, it was Frank's niece. She was nice enough, but she was a college senior and we didn't talk much.
"Oh! Hey Sam, how's Frank? He here today? "I was hoping to pick up a book from him that he had mentioned earlier last week. It was a limited edition on the Peloponnesian war, and I just needed to get my hands on it.
"Eh, I think he's out today. But he told me to give you this book- I think it's about Greece?"
I quickly grabbed the book out of her hands, turning it over.
That was it. That was the book, I could totally cry. How the heck was a guy who owned a coffee shop able to get his hands on a book that only had two known copies?
Unfortunately, in my haste to look over the book, I had made it clearly known that I was not using my crutches whatsoever. My powers kept me standing, but Sam didn't know that, and by the look she was giving me I could tell she very confused.
So I did the first thing that came to my mind, and fell over.
Now I didn't completely fall over, but I made it believable that I had forgotten to balance and stumbled forward, dropping the book, and leaning hard in my supports. Confusion trading for worry, I saw Sam run from behind the counter and she helped steady me. I gave her a weak smile, feeling bad about deceiving her, but knew it had worked.
"Jesus Jordan, I know you are a huge nerd for this stuff, but you need to be careful. If anything happened to you on my shift, uncle would be devastated."
I smiled at this, feeling warm that someone cared.
Sam saw me smile and rolled her eyes to herself, "y'know he thinks of you as his kid right? He loves that he can nerd out with you."
I flushed, rubbing the back of my neck stuttering a bit, " I uhh, um. yeah, I know. It's nice to know I have someone to talk to." I awkwardly motioned to my backpack, "can you, uh, help me out and put that book in my bag? I should probably get going, don't wanna be late... haha!"
Sam went around me and dropped the book in my bag, and then she sent me on my way with a little advice for Highschool- don't be weird.
I snickered to myself. Considering I could bend a car in half with my mind, that may not be possible.
Gathering my mind and waving back to Sam, I left the coffee shop and was practically knocked over for the second time that day. What I saw wasn't normal, or even remotely good, and I was definitely not going to make it to school that day. I don't think anyone could.