“Before we wrap things up for the day, any st minute questions?”

  As usual this question was met with absolute silence, though I suspected that there were plenty of students who had multiple questions they wanted to ask about the lesson. Still they wouldn’t ask in such a public space like the cssroom.

  There wasn’t any shame in being confused about school work, or rather, diligent students were the ones who asked questions, it wasn’t a sign of being stupid. Though most people didn’t think so, instead they saw the need to ask questions as a sign of being slow or dim.

  Ms. Henderson looked at the silent css, obvious displeasure in her face, “Don’t forget we have a test on Friday,” she added as extra motivation for the css to speak up but still no one took the bait, the old woman let out a heavy sigh, “Fine, css is dismissed then.”

  Before she had finished her sentence the quiet room was quickly filled with the sounds of ptops closing, notebooks being gathered, and the hissing of backpack zippers. Like they had super speed, half the css was already out the door in under a minute.

  I remained in my seat, not really in a rush to get out of the room just yet. Not only did I still have some things I needed to set up before heading home, but I was also waiting for my little sister.

  It was common for her to stay behind a few minutes to get scolded by her teachers for her antics here and there, it used to be annoying, but now I just focused on the silver lining, which was that I could take things slow instead of getting crushed between the student body trying to cram out of the door.

  “I’m totally going to fail that test,” a soft voice from my left called out to me, it was my best friend, George, who was slumped over his desk while using his hands as a form of pillows, it seemed that the day’s lessons had taken a toll on him, “I mean, do we really need math after we get out of school? Has Henderson ever heard of a calcutor? Or AI? Geez, I feel like she teaches math in a foreign nguage or something, maybe even an alien nguage!”

  I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at his remark, “Let me guess, this is the part where your selfless best friend comes to the rescue with a study session?”

  Spinning on his seat with blinding speed, George, who could have been confused with a corpse not a second ago, looked at me with lively eyes, like those of a puppy who had just heard the word walk.

  “Oh! Bestie! I knew I could count on you! I think I would have failed so many csses without your help,” she said, his fake eagerness on full dispy. Undoubtedly this study session would be just like all the ones before it, with me spending most of my time trying to corral him into actually paying attention, but it was either that or have him fail for real.

  “Did I hear ‘study session at Morgan’s pce’? Don’t mind if I invite myself to that please and thank you!”

  Kevin, my very good friend, chimed in from the seat next to George, he grinned as he invited himself to the study session, though it was all in good fun, he was obviously invited.

  “Did I hear ‘free tutoring at Morgan’s’? Consider this my RSVP then! Uhh, when is this by the way?” Bke, my other very good friend said from behind George.

  The trio had been my core friend group for the better part of seven years now, they had their faults here and there like everyone else, but they were good people at heart and as the only friend in the group with completely perfect grades, it wasn’t too much to tutor them sometimes.

  “Hmm, today is definitely a no-go, I have a thing with El today,” I caught my entire group of friends make a face at the mention of Stel, but I choose to ignore it for the one millionth time, “But I am free tomorrow, right after school, does that sound good for you guys? We can meet up in my room,” I asked while making a mental note to clean up the house just in case I or El missed anything from st time.

  My suggestion was met with a disorganized chorus of agreement while we started to gather our stuff as we prepared to head out.

  “Also did you hear?” George suddenly spoke barely above a whisper, a telltale sign that he was about to drop some gossip on us, but like usual, we had to respond to his rhetorical question first.

  “Hear about what?” I took the bait which caused George to smirk while he gnced around the room for a second. There were still some students at their desks talking to each other, and while I could feel some gnces fall into our group, no one was really eavesdropping or anything.

  George must have agreed with me, or not really cared about being overheard in the first pce, the tter most likely, but I didn’t dwell on it.

  “Apparently a freshman girl, Kelly Webster,” she paused to look at us to see if we recognized the name, but it wasn’t someone I knew, and the same applied to everyone who instead merely waited for George to continue, “Well according to the rumors, she got tackled pretty badly during football practice and it looked like she might have broken an arm but then she suddenly went through anagenesis and bam! Her arm twisted back into pce and her injury completely healed!”

  “Oh for real? Damn, that girl is so lucky! So what she just has powers now? Is she still here or did the government already get to her?” Kevin called out, his excitement at the prospect of seeing these powers clearly on dispy.

  I was also incredibly curious to hear more though, more so than what my friends might consider curiosity.

  Anagenesis was the process in which a human could undergo rapid and sudden evolution that resulted in drastic and sometimes powerful effects on the human body. It was always something a little different, and some people got really lucky with cool abilities, while some got stuck with deformities or weird abilities, but it was also nothing really new, these anagenesis events had started to pop up around 300 years ago or so and were well documented.

  People with powers were still quite rare, the test census said that out of every one hundred people, 1.2 people would go through the process. What exactly triggered it was up for debate, sometimes it occurred when a person was severely injured or fearing for their lives, and sometimes it just happened when a person was reading a book. It seemed there was little rhyme or reason behind the catalyst for the event, even after extensive research.

  Some people saw this as a blessing from God, but plenty of people weren’t at all happy with the phenomenon as it brought just as much bad as it did good, maybe even more.

  For starters, the level of crime that the world saw had escated dramatically in the past 300 years. I didn’t mean that there was more crime now, there wasn’t, just that the amount of destruction and casualties from crime had increased in proportion to the power of new powers. When random criminals were suddenly able to shoot out beams from their hands or fly away from police things tended to get a bit complicated.

  Thankfully, just as there were people who abused their powers for their own benefit, there were also plenty of people who used their newfound strength to protect others. Heroes, or vigintes, I didn’t have an opinion on which was better, so long as you were helping people, you were alright in my book.

  In many ways, I suppose this was a form of bance, but the other effect that anagenesis was having had no counterbance and was a real threat against humanity as a whole; the declining male birth rate.

  I said it was an effect of anagenesis, but that is only a theory, not a conspiracy theory, but more like the theory of evolution, all but guaranteed to be reted. Both phenomena started around the same time, and even after decades of genetic research, no amount of science had been able to overcome this effect. The declining male birth rate was noticed exactly one day after it started, with over a hundred thousand male baby miscarriages being reported.

  It spiraled from that moment on and the situation began to deteriorate quickly, at first the male to female ratio plummeted to 1:2, but now, over 300 years ter, the situation was dire with a devastating 1:13 ratio.

  IVF was still a viable method of reproduction, but there was a deep sense of loss and longing for connection, perhaps an evolutionary trait that demanded two parents. Experts of the time suggested that humans would adapt to the situation, like they always did, and new generations would turn to homosexual in search of companionship and comfort, but the opposite was true.

  Many of the women born after this saw the old world, where men and women lived in a one to one ratio as the world that should have been theirs. It was hard for them to accept that they would not have a male partner, and this feeling soon turned to anger and bitterness.

  Perhaps things might have turned out differently if in those initial years the world could have come together and tackled the issue with all their resources and intelligence, but the history of humanity is a history of violence.

  The US was the one who struck first, not with an army, a missile, or even a covert operation, but with policy and economic might. This was more than enough for military retaliation.

  The US announced that effective immediately, they would be accepting any and all males that wished to immigrate to the US with open arms and a 3,000 dolr monthly stipend along with housing and job opportunities.

  The US saw over a million male immigrants within a week of the announcement.

  China took Russia through a bloody year-long war, then the US siphoned most of the willing men from South American countries. Things became dire for others, with no little to no men, even with tripled IVF pregnancies, poputions started to quickly decline all around the world.

  Japan was perhaps one of the worst hit by this, the country had already been facing low birth rates prior to this, and afterwards it seemed that their birth rate had dropped down to effectively nothing.

  China took advantage of this weakness to try to take the isnd nation, but their efforts were curbed by US intervention, which marked the first conflict between the two nations since the Korean War.

  The csh sted for several years, with no nation able, or rather willing to deal decisive blows and overextend themselves, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from others.

  China however stopped trying to take Japan after realizing the US was not willing to back down and the war unofficially ended without much fanfare.

  The US hadn’t acted out of a sense of good will however, and demanded that Japan be turned into a vassal state. Japan would remain mostly autonomous, with some US oversight on important policies, and in exchange, Japanese women would be allowed to fly to the US with the express purpose of finding a man to have a child with.

  They would be allowed to return home once they were pregnant, unless the baby was a male, in which case the mother would be given housing and financial help until the child was sixteen years old. At that point the child would be allowed to choose to remain in the US or go back to Japan.

  The Japanese government objected to much of this, but the people themselves welcomed it with open arms.

  This was just one of the many policies that would come from the desire to monopolize men who were now more of a luxury item than the dominant sex.

  The world from 300 years ago was like an alien ndscape compared to the world of today, and that was without even touching on the powers that anagenesis brought.

  “The government got to her,” George repeated, adding air quotes to emphasize how silly Kevin sounded, “She was offered a position in Vanguard academy so she’s moved on to new and better things I guess.”

  I felt happy for her, even though I had never met the girl, I knew that she was likely over the moon to be able to go to Vanguard academy. It was commonly known that children, both boys and girls, all dreamed of one day getting powers and going to train on how to be a hero from Vanguard academy, the government-backed institute that had created some of the strongest and most popur heroes in the world.

  Our most popur local hero here in Northmoor, Silver Aegis, graduated from Vanguard, and that woman always had good things to say about the academy.

  “Well good for her, I guess…” Bke said, a clear disappointment to him.

  “Oh quit moping you crybaby, cuz I’m sure you would be invited to Vanguard if you somehow got powers,” George teased, “You’d probably end up with a me power and cry even more so shush!”

  It wasn’t impossible for men to go through anagenesis, it was just quite rare, so for the few men that were around, the possibility of being a hero was very low.

  The same could be said about-

  “So you guys are having a study session?”

  The voice of a woman called out, Melissa Figueroa, I believe, I vaguely recognized her voice without turning around, but facing the girl and confirming my guess, I was met with a trio of girls who looked like they wanted to bolt at once.

  Next to Melissa, who was acting as the leader of the three, was Veronica and Abigail, all three were students in most of my csses so despite not talking to them much I knew their character. They were decent enough people, at least to me.

  Taking a gnce at them, I took a snapshot of their current emotional state.

  Jessica was the most confident, still, this was only skin-deep courage, but just beyond that dim shine was a deep-rooted anxiety that threatened to take hold of her psyche and drag her to the murky depths. It was the fear of rejection, I believe, and her two friends were not better off.

  While Melissa managed to hold back those fears and put on a brave face, Veronica and Abigail had absolutely no confidence, to the point where I imagined that Jessica had to drag them here at gunpoint. Instead they used the confidence of Jessica as a shield for themselves, letting the girl take the spotlight and in turn, the brunt of scrutiny.

  Even though I was sitting down I could tell that Melissa was a few inches taller than me, and her brunette hair was tied up into a simple ponytail. Her face, fair-skinned and mostly free from acne, was good enough that she shouldn’t have too much trouble getting a guy’s attention, at least, I thought so.

  In simpler terms, I thought she was pretty.

  The same could be said for the two behind her, though admittedly, their ck of confidence hindered their charm. It wasn’t the worst thing ever though, at least it was something they could easily work on.

  All three wore the school uniform, a white dress shirt, white and bck pid skirt, and a dark grey cardigan with the logo of the school on their chest.

  Incidentally, I attended St. Aimo high school, a private catholic high school, tuition was around fifteen-thousand, which I personally found expensive, but it was our mother’s wish that we attend a high school of her choosing and the school was paid from our trust fund.

  We weren’t rich by any means, but we had some money saved up and we would receive the money our mother left behind for us when we reached eighteen. Even without that, thanks to the US popution growth initiative, or PGI fund, I was receiving around 3,000 a month to regurly donate sperm to our local sperm bank.

  That money went a long way, so while not rich, we weren’t needy or anything close to that, actually, despite the unfortunate passing of our mom, I would say that we were quite blessed.

  Either way, it did me no good to get lost in thought, so my focus returned to the waking world as George flickered his attention to the girls who approached us. A small ripple of annoyance came off his as she spoke.

  “Eww, were you creeps eavesdropping? Get lost,” he mocked them with a wicked grin that instantly cratered any confidence Melissa was able to gather.

  I instantly cringed at the harsh words. My friends were good people, I knew that for a fact, but they could also be quite vicious against women in general, though I didn’t bme them, it wasn’t really their fault.

  With men falling in numbers so drastically and with the practice of polygamy unable to catch up, the amount of women that ended up partner-less was on the rise which in turn made sexual assault and rape cases against men skyrocket. Coupled with the disproportionate amount of powers held by each sex, it was easy for anyone to notice that men were starting to become more and more vulnerable in the world.

  George and the guys were mean to the girls, but I didn't believe they were being mean for the sake of being mean, it was just a preemptive defense mechanism. Simirly, the girls in front of us weren’t seeking to harm us, I could sense their emotional state.

  Sure, it was mostly lust, desire, and a healthy amount of love, but they held no real malice inside them.

  They were just girls trying to catch the eyes of the boys in the css, deathly afraid of rejection yet still willing to stick their necks out.

  In many ways, I admired them for their efforts. I too was afraid of being rejected, as was everyone else I had met, but unlike them, I hadn’t ever had to put myself out there, vulnerable.

  I cracked a smile while raising my hands to signal George to settle down, “Come on George, don’t be so mean to them, I mean we were talking a bit loud anyway.” I knew that this was true at least, though it was also probably true that the girls were paying close attention to our conversation.

  George rolled his eyes at this while the rest of the guys watched the interaction with no hidden excitement, like they were chomping at the bit to get some gossip.

  “We were pnning on meeting up tomorrow right after school, does that sound good to you guys? We’re meeting at my pce by the way,” I expined, keeping my focus on George and the guys who weren’t looking all too pleased with me.

  To her benefit, she wisely avoided rising up to George’s insults, and instead focused on the productive parts of the conversation.

  “Your house? I- Uh-” Melissa wasn’t the only one confused, Veronica and Abigail were simirly lost for words at this, not that they had contributed much to the conversation.

  “Oh, right, you don’t know where that is,” I realized the source of their confusion at the st second, I lifted my shirt sleeve up to reveal the dark bracelet that was my Link, the test model too!

  Holding up my wrist to Melissa, she stared for a moment, completely lost, but she quickly understood my gesture and she lifted her own sleeve to reveal a white Link which she held up to mine.

  A soft chime in my ears signaled that we had exchanged information and I gave Melissa a small smile, “I’ll text you the details ter, is that fine with you?”

  The girl still looked a bit lost, but she managed to give me a slight nod which I took as a yes so I turned to look at the other girls, “Veronica, Abigail, do you also want to exchange contact info? Or do you just want Melissa to message you ter?”

  The question snapped them out of their thoughts and they quickly, or rather, desperately rolled up their sleeves to expose their own Links which they held out for me.

  Two chimes ter we were done exchanging info.

  “Great, just bring your something to take notes, your brain, and your A-game, cuz I don’t do half-measures, okay?” I said while finally getting ready to leave for real this time. The three merely nodded their heads at my words, but I think they got the idea.

  Veronica, a much smaller girl than Melissa, looked at me with an unspoken question on her face. I considered ignoring it to avoid putting the girl on the spot since I was leaving already, but it looked like she was really thinking hard about whatever was on her mind.

  Moreover, she wasn’t as afraid now as she had been at the beginning, her confidence had grown to be just as strong as Melissa’s had been at the start of the conversation. This left a warm fuzzy feeling inside me, to think that I might have improved a person’s outlook, even if only slightly.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, making sure to direct my attention solely on her.

  I almost ughed at how the small girl squeaked at my question, like I had just given her a jump scare, but my poker face remained ever-present. Instantly her anxiety spiked and I didn’t need to use my powers to see this, I could feel George and the guys perk up and I immediately knew I had fucked up and there was now blood in the water.

  Her face flushed red in an instant and continued to grow redder with each passing second, but what little confidence she had managed to gain in our short conversation allowed her to keep her composure, “No, I was just a bit surprised you knew my name is all,” she managed to speak and the next second I heard a snort from behind me.

  It seemed that George was finally done listening.

  “What? Morgan knows everyone’s name,” he expined, which was partially true, I knew the names of everyone in my year, and plenty of names from the seniors too. It was true that I wasn’t paying special attention to Veronica, but it was needless to say it in such a matter, “This is why girls are the worst, you get a bit of attention and a guy’s number and suddenly they think they’re special.”

  “George! Knock it off,” I let out more of a hiss than a sentence, I hated how things would always devolve into conflict for no reason.

  Kevin was there to back him up though, “Morgan you’re too innocent to notice, but these guys don’t care about studying, they just want to get in your pants, you know?” He added, and I sensed anger start to fre up in the group of girls for the first time.

  Why can’t people just be nice to each other?

  “I’m not trying to get in his pants!” Veronica shouted, her anger and her newfound confidence carrying her voice farther than what she had intended, and immediately I felt her embarrassment, though she managed to keep a straight face.

  It didn’t st.

  “What did you say?”

  I recognized that voice right away, and judging by the waves of fear that ran through the room, the rest of the css did too.

  El, my little sister was standing in the door frame of the room, her arms folded around her chest and a mean scowl on her face. Her eyes narrowed on Veronica, who had been caught saying something unfortunate, the poor girl was already losing the flush she had sported as color drained from her face like a wilting flower.

  Many people found El to be quite intimidating, and she had the reputation of beating people who looked at her the wrong way, which was unfortunately true.

  She wore the same uniform that all girls wore, though her goth aesthetic managed to shine right through thanks to the multiple silver cross neckces she wore, the half ear wraps with crosses, bck lipstick, and dark smokey eyeshadow.

  She wasn’t very religious, but she wore these accessories because they were the only ones that the school would allow her to use on school grounds.

  Even though she was my little sister, she was quite a bit taller than me, and underneath her clothes she was quite fit, something that she had used to have an edge in fights before, not that she needed those muscles now anyway.

  She had straight long bck hair with bangs which seemed to encase her in shadow when the light was dim enough, frankly, she was a bit cool as a little sister.

  Her eyes were also quite eye-catching, they had a way to bore right through you, as though you were nothing more than a bug before her. I had never felt so, but plenty of people had mentioned it to me in the past.

  I personally thought her blue eyes were her best feature, but my opinion alone could not change the mind of the entire student body.

  “Huh? No, I was just-”

  I needed to break things up before things really started to spiral.

  “El! I was waiting for you, let’s go! I don’t want to go out if it gets too te so let’s book it,” I said while crossing the distance in the blink of an eye and unwrapping her arms so I could take her by the hand.

  Without warning our connection lit up and instantly a warmth spread throughout my body, it coiled inside me, like a serpent made of molten iron, hot and powerful, wrapping itself tightly with each passing second, building more and more energy that was ready to unleash into the world.

  It was there, just beneath our skin, unstoppable power.

  I ignored it.

  Instead I set up a different connection with El, and sent her warm and calming thoughts, happy emotions which she eagerly accepted, though she had no choice in the matter.

  Either way she was aware of what I was doing and instead of trying to fight back she locked her fingers with mine and stopped staring at Veronica who was looking paler than a ghost.

  “Fine, let’s get going,” she relented and I fshed her a genuine smile.

  Turning back to the group I started to wave at them even as El dragged me out the room, “Bye! Don’t fight anymore!”

  The hallways weren’t as packed as they were right as school ended, but there were still plenty of students in the halls, many of them flickered their gazes towards us, to me. I had gotten used to the attention before, but now things were different, quite different, it was like the attention had doubled overnight and now I could even feel what others felt in general and towards me.

  It was like a whole new world had been revealed to me, though thankfully things were quite intuitive or I would have had to take time off from school to adjust.

  “So what was that about getting in your pants? Do I have to beat someone up?” El called out from my side, and I managed to give her a pointed stare and a whisk of annoyance from our connection.

  “Does it look like I need someone to beat people up for me? And it was just George teasing those girls about a study session I set up for tomorrow, you know how he is,” I said, happy to expin the situation and put the matter to rest before El misunderstood something and got into trouble again.

  She hummed at my response, “I see…,” she whispered back, though it was clear she wanted to say more, I stayed quiet to let her speak her mind, “George can be a little bitch sometimes, but I trust him to keep you safe in my absence, those guys you were with want to fuck you, you know that, right?”

  Going through anagenesis had brought me a ton of realizations and surprises, but my newfound ability to sense and induce emotions had been the most problematic. It wasn’t mind reading, but it was almost better, unlike your own thoughts which you had control over, emotions came and went independent of your will.

  It wasn’t as detailed as mind reading, I suppose, but I imagined it was more true to a person’s character.

  I didn’t want to appear conceited, even in the safety of my own mind, but I was acutely aware that I was a person that could be considered a good partner and there was no shortage of courting from fellow students. In some ways, it was hard for me to think I wasn’t attractive, but there was always a doubt in your mind in these matters.

  Was this person really paying special attention to me, or am I overthinking the situation? Does this person fancy me, or was I just being self-conscious?

  All those doubts and thoughts disappeared when I obtained my powers. Not only could I sense the love that people held for me, I could sense their lust, envy, and even hatred in some cases. They were all like open books to me, but still, their contents were hard to believe.

  Until now, I hadn’t met any woman who wasn’t attracted to me, even strangers on the streets. Even some kids and old women had showered me with lust, those were perhaps the most awkward times to read a person’s emotions, but it wasn’t like I could turn off this sense, at least I didn’t know how to do it.

  I had been practicing with them for over a month, and while I had gotten good enough to pull off some tricks and learn how my powers worked, it felt like I hadn’t really scratched the surface.

  To El’s point, those girls indeed held quite a bit of lust towards me, but did that mean that they only interacted with me in the hopes of having sex with me? I’d like to think that this wasn’t the case.

  Besides, when I said that I hadn’t quite met a woman who didn’t hold some lust for me, I had included El in that statement.

  My sister had abundant love and lust for me, more love and lust than anyone else so far, but did that mean she wanted to sleep with me? I doubted it.

  It was more probable that my understanding of what lust was wasn’t quite correct. Maybe rather than a conscious lust for a person’s body, the lust I was sensing was a natural physiological reaction that was independent of a person’s desires.

  I needed more practice before I knew for sure, of that, at the very least, I was sure of.

  Reaching our car in the parking lot, my Link automatically unlocked the doors and I waved the trunk to open. We threw our backpacks in before we strapped into the sleek dark car which had no windows or a steering wheel.

  The inside was a bit spacious, with five plush white leather seats facing the center of the car and a small isnd in the middle. The inside was momentarily lit up by the lights inside the car, but a soft chime from my Link ter and the car came to life properly. The interior walls were actually composed of screens that streamed the outside of the car via cameras.

  “So the same pce as st time?” I asked El who was really leaning into her seat while unbuttoning her shirt, uncaring as she exposed her underwear to me.

  I had the decency to look away as she started to change.

  “Don’t be such a prude,” she called as she threw her shirt over to me, though I swatted it away, “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  “Sure, when we were little kids,” I said while shifting my attention to my Link and giving it a location, immediately the car started to drive towards Northmoor Pine Forest, a forest at the edge of town, “That was what, like a decade ago? Sorry if not wanting to stare at my little sister’s chest makes me a prude.”

  “Well I forgive you,” she sarcastically replied while she threw her skirt over to me, but this time I didn’t bother to swat it, she wanted me to py into her antics, “But why do we have to go all the way to the forest? It’s like 30 minutes away, the ride is so long!”

  I would have shot her a look if she wasn’t still changing, “Did you hit your head on a rock or something? We have to go to the forest if we want to practice flying without alerting the government. Remind me again whose idea it was to hide our anagenesis from the government? If it was up to me I would have talked to the FBM already, at least to register our abilities and, I don’t know? Stay out of jail!”

  My outburst was met with a hand covering my mouth, “Don’t say that out loud! They’re probably listening in!”

  I stared at her with a deadpan stare, she stared back with her usual grin that signaled she knew she was annoying me. At least she was wearing a hoodie now.

  I started licking her hand.

  “Eww! You weirdo! You got your germs on me,” she shouted in between cackles as I went on the offensive by throwing her back to her chair and worming my hands to her armpits, which she guarded by closing her arms as close to torso as she could.

  “Shut it with your usual conspiracy theory nonsense!” I said while testing her defenses but finding no openings, “The FBM doesn’t make people with powers disappear, if anything, we are breaking the w by not registering our powers.”

  She kept her grin on her face during this exchange, happy to see me fail at tickling her.

  I kept falling into her rhythm, I sighed and went back to my seat, my Link was already alerting me that I had left my seat and the car would pull over if I didn’t return to it soon.

  “And stop talking to me while wearing your panties for Christ’s sake,” I barked at her, my final attempt to curb her in some way.

  “Oh you’re getting wilder by the day, you want me to take them off?” she teased me, but I just ignored whatever she was doing outside my vision and instead focused on the duffel bag she had been pulling out her clothes from.

  “Just put on your pants already!”

  The rest of the drive was spent in uneventful silence and El absolutely didn’t continue to tease me the entire time.

  [X]

  “Bandanas?” I asked El as I stepped out of the car, already changed into the outfit she had brought for me, far too goth for my own style, but it didn’t really matter I guess.

  “Yeah, you said to bring something to hide our faces, right? I can wrap it for you if you don’t know how,” she said from just ahead in a small clearing.

  Her school uniform was crumpled into a pile back in the car, and it had been repced with a bck hoodie, and dark grey joggers. Her usual ptform boots were swapped out for running shoes, but my eyes were focused on the bandana she was wearing, it was one of those that covered half your face with a skull design.

  “Yeah, but I meant something more like a ski-mask, something that would cover our entire faces and something that won’t fly away from a strong wind,” I expined while waving the bandana she had given me.

  At least the outfit wasn’t too bad, a simple grey t-shirt, a leather jacket, and dark jeans. I had asked her to bring dark colors to avoid catching the attention of anyone who could be watching, so she had done that part right.

  “Yeah? Well you should have said that instead of saying ‘bring something to cover our faces’ because that’s what I did, so do you know how to tie it or do you need help?”

  I waved the bandana towards her in surrender, and she smiled as she bounded across the clearing in the blink of an eye. Snatching the piece of fabric from my hands with abundant glee, she got behind me and started to work on tying it up.

  A few seconds ter, she circled me, as though appraising some merchandise.

  “Hmm, so what’s the verdict sis, can you recognize me?” I asked, striking a pose like a model.

  She paused as she looked at me with an analytical eye, she rubbed her chin for a second, as though she was in deep thought, then she smiled, “Who is this handsome devil that I have never met before and what have you done with my handsome devil of a brother?”

  “I’d tear off the bandana and show my face just to reveal the second act plot twist that your sibling was the vilin all along, but I actually don’t know how to tie the bandana again so just pretend that I did that and called you a fool while cackling like a maniac, alright?” I joked while heading into the clearing and doing some simple stretches.

  “So how are we doing this?” El said, mimicking my moves, “Wanna race? Or do you want to see how fast we go when we hold hands? That was crazy st time, right?” she said, her excitement growing by the second.

  “Yes to the race thing, no to the hand thing,” I said while I pushed myself off the ground and floated a few feet into the air.

  Flying was actually the easiest power to control, it was like an innate sense had settled into my brain after a few flying lessons. I wasn’t saying that I was perfect at it, just that I had no trouble flying and nding, which was most of the things you needed to know.

  I had no way of measuring how fast we were going, but we could easily reach supersonic speeds. I knew that because the first time we tried to fly for real we created a sonic boom. The worst part was that when I said we easily reached supersonic speed, I mean really easily. In fact it was actually harder to stay below Mach 1, than to go below that speed.

  I had no idea what our top speed was, or how we would even go about measuring it, and trying to fly at those speeds would only get the attention of the authorities.

  Adding hand holding to the mix would only spell disaster.

  Why was hand holding so dangerous? For some reason when we made physical contact a surge of energy would be generated, and our abilities would be greatly enhanced. We hadn’t tested this too much, mainly because I felt it was too dangerous, but from limited contact we had discovered several things.

  For starters, the effect was based on reciprocity, if one of us wasn’t willing to participate then nothing would happen. This meant that either one of us could veto the other when in physical contact and sever the power buildup.

  What’s more, the energy created would dissipate instantly the moment physical contact was broken. There was no lingering boost or anything like that, all the power was just gone the moment we let go of each other.

  I had done some research into siblings who went through anagenesis, and while it was more likely for the siblings of a person who went through anagenesis to undergo anagenesis themselves, it wasn’t exactly a common occurrence. There were cases of twins developing the exact same power, even if they went through anagenesis at different times, and powers developed were simir for siblings.

  Despite this, there wasn’t much of anything in synergy between these cases, at least not anything like what I had with El. That was a dead end, but it was also possible that the government was hiding anything they knew about that.

  “Wait what? I thought we brought the masks so we could try the hand thing without getting discovered,” El asked, genuine surprise at my answer.

  “Didn’t you get the smart power?” I teased while ying down in the air, pretending that I was sitting on an invisible couch in the air, “With your great analytical mind you should already know what I’m talking about.”

  Her reply was a scowl, she was unhappy to hear that, but it wasn’t like she didn’t already know we would get caught if we tried something like that. She was hoping that I hadn’t noticed so we could try it anyway, but even without the powers she had gotten, there was no way for me to miss something so simple.

  Our masks were only meant to protect us from snapshots from people who may spot us, but it would do little else.

  If we caught the attention of the authorities, and they chose to investigate two people flying in the forest like idiots, then they would easily find out about us. Links could be used to track people, and while we had left ours in the car, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that the two Links nearby the area would be a good pce to start looking.

  No, we needed to keep things on the down low.

  “That’s boring,” a whisper from my right tickled my ear, “But whatever you cay captain,” she mocked as she gave me a half hearted salute while hovering directly above me.

  I floated away from her to get some room and get a good bird eye’s view on the forest. There were luscious pine trees till the eye could see, and my eyes were able to see quite far, not nearly as far as El could see, but I could still make out the slight scratch marks left behind by bird talons on a tree branch five miles out.

  It was a clear sunny day, perfect for a hike out in the local forest, but despite this not many people chose to come out here so the pce was fairly desote.

  Satisfied with my cursory observations, I spied the rge jagged pteau in the distance, I had no clue how far it was, but it was a good mark for a goal.

  “Alright, let’s do this,” I said, not losing sight of the pteau, “First one to touch those rocks and back wins, and remember, no sonic booms, alright?”

  She hummed in thought, though she had a spike of mischief, the only signal I got before she burst out in a blur of motion, “OKAY!”

  I did not hesitate to shoot out behind her, our speed easily surpassing that of any car we had ever been in, despite this it wasn’t uncomfortable or scary. Rather it was somehow comforting, flying gave you a feeling of freedom unlike anything else.

  “YOU CHEATER!” I shouted from just behind her, though judging by the speed we were traveling I didn’t know if she could even hear me, the wind was rather deafening.

  We crossed the forest and reached the pteau, slowing down sharply as we gave the rge rocks a gentle tap before we shot back the way we came, though now I was leading just ahead of El.

  “Sorry slowpoke! Guess I’ll be taking this one!” I teased her while continuing to angle my body close to the ground, shaving off some distance to the imaginary finish line in the clearing.

  The distance to the goal was now only a few seconds away, the entire race had been roughly around thirty seconds, give or take, but victory was within my grasp.

  Then I felt a shockwave knock me off course, nearly sending me crashing down to the tall pine trees. Catching myself in the air before I hit the forest, I came to a quick halt as I looked ahead at the speeding bullet that was my idiot of a sister.

  She had reached the finish line already, going too fast to properly stop in time so instead of nding she had cratered the clearing and sent dirt and dust scattering all over the pce like the aftermath of a bomb.

  Less than a second ter her sonic boom hit my ears with a thunderous burst that shattered the tops of the pine trees around us, a bit of the splintered wood struck me at high speeds that would easily puncture a normal human, I ignored them and stared at my sister.

  She fshed me a grin in the middle of the mess she had caused.

  “Stel,” I called out as I approached her, all mirth gone from my voice, I was pissed, “What the hell was that?”

  Her grin didn’t falter, but immediately I felt a bubble of guilt rise from within her, and my searing hot anger cooled significantly.

  It was hard to stay mad at people when I could physically feel how bad they felt about their actions.

  But I wasn’t going to let her get away with this so easily.

  “We said no going supersonic, what the hell was that?” I demanded more than asked, and Stel had the decency to at least let her poker face drop a little to look a bit regretful.

  “Uhh, yeah, sorry about that Morgan,” she relented, rubbing the back of her head, not even noticing that her bandana had flown off somewhere in her mad rush, “I thought I was going to lose, and I just wanted to win so I tried to go faster, you know? Before I knew it I had shot past the limit and well yeah, sorry.”

  In some ways I could understand, flying slower than the speed of sound was actually harder than flying faster than it so it could be hard to limit your speed. We don’t have a way to measure our speed so sometimes you just go faster than what you expect. Still, Stel’s powers allowed her to more easily control herself and her speed so it wasn’t really a good excuse.

  Landing next to her, I took off my bandana and shook my head at her, “Whatever loser, we have to go home now. I don’t know if you realized this, but you were super loud, I wouldn’t be shocked if someone called the police about the sound by now. And your nding wasn’t all that graceful either, someone probably thinks that a bomb went off in the forest, ugh.”

  “Wait, we’re leaving already? But we just started!” she compined, already rising a few inches above the ground, “We can just move a bit further away and-”

  “Stop!”

  My blood froze.

  Standing on a silver hard light circur ptform several meters away was a very recognizable woman, Silver Aegis.

  She wore her usual uniform, a full-body silver suit with bck accents that ran through her arms and torso. I wasn’t sure what material it was made out of, but the joints looked flexible though most of her body was covered with some form of armor pting.

  Her helmet, a rather form-fitting piece of metallic tech with a full-face visor that showed the face of a beautiful woman in her mid-twenties. Her real name was public knowledge, though I was bnking on it at the moment, either way, she looked serious as she stared at us.

  Fuck.

  My thoughts continued to run a hundred miles a second, pns were made and discarded as my brain tried to figure out what our next move should be.

  With her powers, El should be able to think and analyze the situation much better than me, and, although it pained me to do so, I should leave our course of action to her.

  Her fingers interlocked with mine before Silver Aegis started speaking again.

  “Don’t try anything, I’ve already contacted FBM, so there is no escape.” she barked out, her voice much louder than what I would have expected from her small frame, still things were getting dire.

  She must have seen us fly so there was no way to pretend we didn’t have powers, and if she already contacted the FBM then there was no way to de-escate without being taken in by the authorities.

  My focus turned to Silver Aegis, the hero was quite popur in Northmoor due to her fshy powers which allowed her to create constructs of silver light. She mainly used this to create shields and ptforms to fly on, but she could also make projectiles and unch them at high speeds.

  Fighting her was out of the question.

  I don’t know if we could beat her, she was a properly trained hero with years of experience after all, but that wasn’t the issue.

  If we got taken in now there would be consequences for hiding our powers, but as far as I was aware the highest penalty for such a crime was five years in prison, though I also heard that you could reduce that sentence to a year if you cooperated with the FBM. It wasn’t a good result, but fighting her would only increase the trouble we would get in, moreover it would be a waste of time if she had already contacted others about our presence and location.

  Running away was more viable, right?

  No, that too was a dead end.

  We could potentially outrun her, but then where would we go? It would be easy for the Northmoor police department to find our car and Links, plus I think that heroes have cameras integrated into their suits so perhaps our faces were already being researched to find our identities.

  Even if we did get away, there was no chance that the government wouldn’t find us and chase us down.

  My hand was unbearably hot.

  “Get on the ground! Hands behind your back!” Silver Aegis shouted, her circur ptform approaching us slowly, deliberately so, as though she was trying not to spook us.

  I didn’t bother to look at her anymore.

  It was my hand, the heat was overwhelming, like a fme that burned and burned but didn’t hurt. It spread throughout my body like ripples through a pond, with each wave more intense than the st, each second another tidal wave of intense power that coursed through every inch of my flesh.

  It wanted to be free, to be let out, to stab into the world itself.

  At that moment, I felt like I could do anything.

  It begged me to let it out, I looked at El’s expression, she had been considering all the variables that I had considered, and she had made her decision.

  “Fuck it.”

  I listened.

  [X]

  His vision— no the sky, or rather the world had no color anymore.

  It wasn’t blue, or bck, or anything in between. At this speed— faster than sound, faster than thought— it melted into an endless tunnel of streaking white and light. The world blurred beneath him in a chaos of continents and cloud systems, smeared like oil paint under his eyes.

  Their skin glowed white-hot. Not from the sun, but from the air itself screaming against their body. The psma sheath around them fred and danced in electric blues, violent purples, even bursts of green flickering at the edges. The atmosphere couldn’t move fast enough to get out of their way, so it simply ignited.

  Morgan didn’t notice the heat, the world, or anything aside from his sister, who he held onto for guidance. He was completely blind at this speed, but she wasn’t, she noticed the rhythm.

  One heartbeat and North America was starting to disappear behind them.

  Two.

  They sliced above the Atntic. Diving slightly, the ocean frothed beneath their wake, hurricanes rippling open like gss shattered underfoot.

  Ten.

  Africa was starting to appear just ahead of the pair. Cities far below blinked out in power grid surges as they passed— their psma tail briefly drowning out entire satellite bands.

  Stel’s mind worked faster than lightning, her thoughts as sharp as the air she cut. They’ll see this, she thought. Every sensor on Earth just screamed as they continued their meteoric flight.

  The corners of her mouth twitched. A smirk. She didn’t care, it didn’t matter what anyone else did, at this moment there was nothing above her. She spotted a rge city down below, she guided Morgan to dip lower, fast enough that their shockwave cracked the sky. Somewhere beneath, windows exploded in Cairo. Arms. Panic.

  Good.

  She directed her brother to follow her as they rolled through the upper stratosphere, flipping zily like a child swimming through water, the world a toy globe beneath them. She could see the curve of the Earth now, like a living thing with breath and skin and blood. And she was above it. They were beyond it.

  Above all of them.

  She exhaled slowly, psma wreathing her lips like smoke, here she spoke soundless words that reached no one.

  [X]

  Inside Watchtower Six, the temperature never changed. The underground facility was buried deep beneath a Nordic mountain range, surrounded by gcial stone, armored steel, and enough concrete to survive a nuclear winter. It was meant to be silent. Predictable. Calm.

  Today, it was not.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Agent Kade snapped up from his terminal, the edge of a half-finished coffee vibrating on the console. Every screen in front of him lit up at once—radar bands, LIDAR sweeps, infrared telemetry, deep-atmosphere drag signatures.

  All of them screamed the same thing.

  Object detected. Atmospheric intrusion. Velocity: Mach 905. Altitude: 76 kilometers. Direction: Global.

  One object.

  Kade’s hands moved before his brain caught up. He flicked through spectrum overys, isoting the heat trail: a line of pure white psma bending across the globe like a glowing whip. It shouldn’t be possible. No known aircraft could move that fast in-atmosphere without disintegrating, not to his knowledge.

  He ran it against orbital debris logs. Missiles. Spacepnes. Nothing matched.

  “Recenter,” he barked.

  The satellite feed shifted. Over northern Africa, the air split— just for a second. A bloom of violet light fred in the upper atmosphere, rippling down like thunder made of gss. Ten milliseconds ter, Cairo went dark. Entire grids offline. Kade’s pulse spiked.

  “No impact. No warhead. It just… passed through.”

  He leaned closer to the screen, and there on a single frame out of a million captured frames, he saw it.

  Not a ship. Not a missile.

  Humans.

  Holding hands, arms forward, streaking across the exosphere like a comet. Psma fire pouring from their skin. The camera barely held focus before it burned out.

  Kade's voice dropped to a whisper, throat dry.

  “Holy shit, metahumans? But who?”

  Behind him, another operator swore.

  “They’re not slowing down or descending, I think they’re making a full orbit. At this speed they’ll be back around in under two minutes.”

  Kade's stomach sank. The implications hit like a punch to the chest.

  This was fast, inhumanly so, beyond even what the fastest metahumans could achieve, impossible to intercept.

  “Sound the global alert. Level Nine. I don’t know what we’re seeing here, but this is big... this is a pnetary threat.”

  He didn’t say the other part aloud.

  If those people wanted to, they could kill every head of state in under five minutes.

  And no one would see her coming until they were already dead.