Experimentation

When Wendy Webb gets home, she parks and walks to the park out behind the apartment complex. It's currently empty: All the kids are either still asleep or at school, and the adults have better things to do than walk around in the snow… so she has the four swings, both seesaws, and the sand pit all to herself.

“What'd that lady say in the dream? The cold is my sword and shield…” she pauses, “Obviously I should practice… I can probably make it fun. What was it I did earlier…”

Focusing, Wendy summons her armor; again there's the sound of a jet engine, and this time she can see that there's a massive wind blowing her way… no matter which way she looks when she's summoning her armor. “Am I making the armor out of thin air?” She wonders aloud.

She then examines herself, and realizes there's a slight tension… like she's holding something… an unfamiliar limb. Relaxing, the armor evaporates, and again she's surrounded by a dense fog… which she can see through, perfectly. Nodding, she tenses that new muscle again, and the winds rush to her, reforming the armor.

Taking a moment, Wendy examines the armor on her arm. It's mostly made of some transparent material, but is shot through with sky blue veins of something else. Checking the joints, she doesn't find any: It's just an even wrap of the material, which bends and flexes as much as she wants, to the point where she doesn't even notice if she's not paying attention.

Nodding, Wendy repeats something she did automatically earlier: Grabbing an icicle out of thin air. As she does, she notices a lesser version of the rocket roaring sound…”Yeah, I'm definitely collecting air. Extracting the water maybe? But this stuff doesn't look like any ice I've ever seen… and the air is DRY in winter. Hmm….” shrugging, she looks at the icicle in her hand, and finds it bends and shapes as she wants… until she loses contact. After that, it starts evaporating slowly.

“If it does whatever I want… what are the limits?” Thinking, she makes more of the material and forms it into four large round circles, each with a fan propeller inside (two set for clockwise and two set for counterclockwise), mounted around her at about shoulder level, connected to her armor. She then has the propellers spin.

“Faster… faster…” she mutters, as the snow at her feet starts to blow away. “Faster… faster…” as she starts to feel less weight on her feet. “Faster… faster…” and shortly thereafter, she feels her feet leave the ground as she rises into the air.

Smiling, Wendy focuses, and soon enough gets the hang of basic flight as a drone. She flies up to the roof of her apartment complex, and lands, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. On the roof, she then practices more: Thickening her armor and using it as a power suit, making airplane-style wings with propellers and using those to fly. Heading out to the bay and tossing a few of her icicles into the water to see what happens (answer: A big blob of ice forms around where it plops in, and then explodes into ice fragments after a little while). She also times holding her breath… and after ten minutes, gets bored and stops paying attention to the timer, instead finding out she can make an entire ship out of ice when she touches the water directly… but that looks like normal ice, not the transparent and sky blue veins that she gets when she makes it directly. She also finds ice made from water doesn't dissipate into fog like the other items, nor does it cause water to explode. It lasts a lot longer after she lets go, though… which of course, she tests by making an ice sculpture from the water in the bay: Touching the water to freeze a chunk, stretching that out into a leash, and using that connection to freeze more water into whatever shape she wants, and then having the sculpture walk to where she wants it… at which point, she disconnects the leash and tosses the leash back into the bay to collect more ice.

Someone with a house in the bay sees, and comes out in winter gear to have a look. That person calls a friend, who comes and watches… while posting pictures on social media. Not long after, hundreds of people watch Wendy as she makes her art. Soon enough, a van pulls up, with the big “X” logo of Xavier. It parks, and two women walk out: One carrying a news camera, the other a microphone,both bundled up for the weather to the point where it takes some effort to identify them as female.

…at least until the one with the microphone takes off her hat and scarf, showing her long black hair and lack of Adam’s apple, then begins talking as the other records, “This is Suzie Evans of Xavier: Your Evening Source for the news. Today we have a brand new super… who is apparently loving the art her powers can make. Let's see if the winter wonder woman will grant us an interview.”

The two then approach, and Suzie asks, “Hi, I'm…”

The camera girl interrupts, shaking her head as she sets her load down, “This isn't going to work.”

The reporter raises an eyebrow, “Oh?”

“She's not showing up on camera,” the woman behind the lens explains, “You look like you're talking to thin air.”

“But she's right here, you're saying…” the reporter starts.

“Look, I'm just telling you what I see. When I look at her with my eyeballs,” the camera lady points at her eyes, “then she's right there, plain as day. When I use this thing,” the woman hefts the camera, “she's not.”

Ms. Evans grabs the camera, which the camera woman releases easily as the reporter stumbles a little under the weight, “That's not possible, let me…” she pauses as she actually sees through the eyepiece, repeatedly opening and closing the non-covered eye, “Okay, that's trippy.”

“Can it hear me?” The subject of the conversation interjects.

“Nope,” the camera woman, earphones on, shakes her head.

“So what does that mean for me?” Wendy frowns.