Dylan didn’t look back at the school as he angrily strode towards the subway. Everything was going stupid today. And the worst part was that at least some of it was his fault. He didn’t think that he could be blamed for the confrontation with his groupmates. It wasn’t unreasonable to ask them to actually do their work. But the whole confrontation with Mike could have been avoided if he’d just apologized the first time. But Dylan had been pissed, and he’d wanted to teach the boy a lesson. And, in a way, he’d called on his powers to do that. Not directly, no, but if he weren’t a super, he’d have had no way to move the larger boy.

  Dylan felt a shock of nervousness run through him. What if he got found out? Surely somebody would realize that he shouldn’t have been able to manhandle Mike like he had. Every hall was plastered with cameras, and he could bet that they’d be combing over the footage of the incident once they realized what had taken place. High Schools had to have been the place with the highest alertness towards newly emerging supers. Powers most often emerged in people who were between 12 and 18. He might have been fine had he gone to a small school, but Bay Highschool was not a small school. It had thousands of students, and was in one of the largest cities in the country. He walked on, trying to push down his nervousness. It would be ok. It would have to be. They couldn’t prove anything. It wasn’t over. They didn’t know. They couldn’t have.

  The shadow of the tall city buildings fell over Dylan. Callahan city was so alien to him. It was a behemoth, compared to Baylorville. The metro area alone was nearly the size of the town he’d grown up in. And Dylan was still adjusting to city life. The rush, the near hostility of strangers, the constant hum and flow of traffic.

  Dylan felt like he was adjusting nicely, but he sometimes still missed his old life. Maybe later, after longer than a month, he’d truly get used to it. It didn’t seem like his parents were having any problems. But it just didn’t feel like there was any place for him, here. It wasn’t comfortable, wasn’t familiar. The absence of friends wasn’t helping him either.

  Eventually, he reached the entrance to the subway. It was a narrow corridor, leading straight down into the ground. A wide staircase, split down the middle by a railing. It was an hour before rush hour, and yet the staircase still featured a steady trickle of people going up and down.

  He descended, following the flow of the crowd, trying not to get pushed around. Dylan did his best, but he was still jostled more than he would like. Moving with a crowd took some amount of skill, skill that he was still developing. He felt a particularly rough shove, and then was treated to a view of the grimy tiles that lined the subway wall. Dylan felt his temper flare, and forcefully pushed it down.

  Eventually, he made it into the station. Almost everyone else filed into the train. It filled up before Dylan was able to step on. As the packed train left, he noticed that the station was significantly emptier than before. There were still quite a few people, but it was no longer crowded.

  A few more trickled in, while they waited, but Dylan hardly noticed. He was in his own head. Eventually, he heard the sounds of another train echoing down the tunnel. He let out a sigh, and prepared to board. A few seconds later, he heard the squealing of the breaks as the train barreled into the station. It was at a full stop in moments, and he stepped on, searching for a seat. A few people filed in after him.

  Dylan took a seat. A few empty spaces remained around him. What was he going to do? He’d be lucky if his parents didn’t get a call from the school, for the fight he’d gotten in. Well, it wasn’t really a fight, but he knew how the school would see it. They wouldn’t permit any form of conflict, at all. At the very least, he’d likely get called into the office tomorrow. It could get bad, since that super girl was involved as well. Altercations with supers were taken very seriously, even if nothing really happened. Especially since he was still considered a “non-powered persons” by the government. Unless they found him out, he’d probably be receiving pretty harsh consequences. If they had found him out, he was probably in for prison time, unless he could convince the powers that be that he had been unaware of his abilities.

  Dylan stirred, as his chain of thought was broken. Somebody had sat down right next to him. They spotted gray, chin length hair, and a long, slightly tattered black coat. As Dylan turned to look at him, the man glanced over in return, causing the front of the jacket to spread, revealing a stained, white T-Shirt underneath. A rough coating of stubble lined the man's face, and Dylan thought he could smell alcohol on the man's breath.

  Disgusted, Dylan turned away. That was another thing that people who grew up in the city could do that he’d never learned. Their ability to ignore the weird people they saw in public was impressive. Dylan struggled to keep his emotions off of his face.

  He sat there, purposefully not looking over at the stranger who had encroached upon his space. Dylan even leaned away, trying to put as much space between himself and the stranger as possible. He would have gotten up and switched seats, but that seemed too much like letting the bum win, and Dylan wasn’t in the mood for that right now. The man didn’t give him the same consideration, slouching over, seemingly trying to take up as much space as humanly possible.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  After a few minutes passed, the man spoke.

  “You seem pissed, kid.”

  At first, Dylan wasn’t sure who he was talking to. But after a few more seconds of silence, the man turned to look at him, expectantly, and Dylan realized that he had been unwittingly engaged in a conversation.

  “What? No, I’m fine,” Dylan responded, trying to be curt. He didn’t want to talk to the stranger.

  The stranger, seemingly not getting the hint, pressed on.

  “Don’t bullshit me, kid. I can tell, you know. You have that look about you. You’re like a little ball of anger, just waiting to explode.”

  Dylan felt a flash of irritation at that, but he suppressed it.

  “Sure, whatever,” he said, as dismissively as he could.

  But the stranger wasn’t to be deterred.

  “Try to act dismissive all you want, kid. You’re not fooling me, and you’re certainly not fooling yourself. But if you want to keep playing those games, go ahead. It’s no skin off my back, if you make yourself miserable. What happened, did mommy not buy you what you wanted? Maybe the newest game, or a new car?”

  Dylan's mind went white hot.

  “What do you know? You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what it’s like to be me. You think that just because I’m young, I don’t know what real problems are?”

  He took a deep breath, but he couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of his mouth.

  “I don’t know why you think you’re so high and mighty, judging me. You look homeless, but you don’t see me telling you to go get a job, do you? You should do that, instead of loafing about on the subway, trying to start fights with the people who have real problems.”

  The grungy man smiled.

  “Kid, you don’t know the first thing about problems. All I’m hearing from your little tirade is me me me. Do you ever bother thinking about other people? You’ll learn real trouble, when you’re older, when you have actual responsibilities. Until then, I don’t want to hear it. You’re basically just throwing a tantrum.”

  Dylan tried to sputter out a response, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. So instead, he sat, fuming, purposefully not looking at the gray haired man, impatiently counting down the stops until he could get off.

  It felt like it took forever, but eventually, the name of his station flashed across the screens mounted above the car doors. He stiffly got up, and walked out of the train. Hopefully, he’d never have to see that homeless asshole again. Dylan didn’t know if he could take it.

  —----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  John Benesmer watched as the kid walked off the train, and sighed. Yep, he was right pissed. John certainly hadn’t helped. He wished he was better with words, but mildly abrasive was about the nicest he could manage, so sweet talking the kid into telling him what was wrong was out of the question.

  He had been able to tell that the youth was mad, right from when he saw him. Most anyone could, he’d reckon. But, he knew something that everybody else didn’t, something that took the kid from a typical angsty teenager to a potential threat: The kid was powered.

  Or, at least, that’s what John's instincts were telling him. He probably wouldn’t bet the fate of the world on it, but his instincts were telling him that the young man was gifted. And John could typically tell. It was likely a power assisted intuition, something gained from years and years of stress. John couldn’t think of any other super who had a similar tertiary power, although they probably existed. He supposed that the WCSs heavy hitter could probably do the same, but he didn’t feel like asking the man.

  When John saw the kid walk on the train, he knew that he should do something. He hated his job, but he wasn’t so much of a sociopath that he’d let a super attack a buncha random civilians.

  At first, he just watched, and waited, to see if the super would attack anybody. When he didn’t, John relaxed a little. When he was sure that there wouldn’t be a fight, at least not unprompted, he relaxed a little.

  But John wasn’t done. So he went, sat down by the kid, and started to bother him. He’d hoped that he’d anger the young man into revealing what was bothering him, but no dice. Whatever it was, he was keeping it close to his chest.

  But the goading had accomplished something else. John figured that it was sort of like stepping on an old mine, to see if it would still go off. Dangerous, yes, and pretty stupid, but also effective.

  It had turned out well, he figured. The kid hadn’t gone off. Which meant that, probably, if somebody else bothered him, he wouldn’t fly off the handle and maim or kill them. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was good enough for John.

  Still, not for the first time, he wished he knew how to be something other than crass. How to do something the subtle way, the smart way. But that had never been how he rolled. And so, with a sigh, he shut his eyes, and tried to nap until the train made it to his stop.