Official superhero organisations tended not to sort powers into categories. As much as some people loved to be able to put things in neat, easily understood boxes, the fact of the matter was powers were too chaotic for that. If you were to really get down to it and make proper power classifications, you’d need dozens and dozens of them, which wouldn’t actually simplify things at all. Dr Shimada himself had once weighed in with his own categorisation system, but his had numbered well over a hundred, and was more focused on the type of ‘paths’ a person could walk with their power. It was awfully confusing, if admittedly fascinating.
Still, there were lots of unofficial ways of categorising powers. One that a lot of people liked was a relatively simple divide between enhancement or augmentation of the self, psychic control over a thing, and creation of a thing. But even something as basic as that still led to arguments, debating over which category powers fit into.
For official business, it was almost always preferable to just give a rundown of what an individual power was demonstrably capable of achieving. But that wasn’t to say they had no categorisation at all. They were just mostly uninterested in broadly defining what groups of powers could do. Ranks and Levels, for example, were widely used in both every day life and a formal capacity, like when news bulletins were warning of a villain.
But there was more than just that. Superheroes and law enforcement had their own categorisation metrics that worked with a colour gradient based primarily on the tangible danger a person’s power could pose, from green for harmless to red for deadly. It was almost entirely an in-house thing. You wouldn’t find someone’s rating listed officially anywhere online, though obviously it was discussed plenty, and there had been controversial leaks in the past.
Theoretically, you could find someone with mental self-augmentation abilities who got an S-rank on the Shimada Scale and had levelled up with dozens of Aspects, but they didn’t really pose an actual threat to the safety of people around them. In that case, they’d probably get some shade of green rating.
On the other hand, an F-rank Level 1 who could telekinetically affect an area the size of a pea less than five inches from their body would get something much closer to red, because that power was potentially lethal in the right circumstances.
Watching a sixteen-year-old girl fire bolts of lightning from her fingertips, I found myself wondering what colour she’d be given. Whether there even was a threat profile on her out there was tough to answer—hero agencies would be aware of the potential political ramifications if it was discovered they were even slightly hinting that Tempest’s daughter could be dangerous.
Objectively, she was. The bolts she was throwing around looked powerful enough to fry an enemy before they even knew what was coming, and the countless burn marks that were decidedly not on the target she was aiming for only spoke of greater hazard to anyone in the vicinity of said enemy. Hell, just the ear-shattering boom of thunder that followed her strikes were probably enough to earn her a decent threat rating.
And the impressiveness of her ability didn’t end there. We’d been at this for a good hour, and she showed no signs of fatigue. What she lacked in control, she more than made up for in stamina. Powerful abilities like hers usually took a lot out of the user, mentally and physically, but the only sweat on her brow came from the sun blazing down on us.
Another bone-shuddering boom rumbled through Alanna’s father’s private training ground. The massive open-air space was easily large enough to fit half a dozen basketball courts, but she seemed to only use a small part of it, furthest from the house. I wondered about that, but kept my thoughts to myself. The only ideas she wanted to hear from me today were any analyses I could give about her power signal. She’d been a bit stuck, apparently, and was willing to look for any leg up she could get.
The training ground stretched out from the back of Alanna’s house—an enormous modern mansion that was all dark walls and floor-to-ceiling windows—surrounded by tall walls that were well over twice my height and buzzed with electricity. They provided both security and privacy, apparently. Tempest and his daughter’s powers were not quiet, to say the least, and the neighbourhood was among the most expensive in the entirety of Foresight. Most of them wouldn’t appreciate claps of thunder right next door.
Being here was actually freaking me out a little, and an hour hadn’t been enough to get over it. Quite apart from literally hanging out in Tempest’s back yard, I never thought I’d find myself visiting a house in Greenwood, widely known as the most expensive area in the entire damn city. It was the neighbourhood of the rich and famous. The cheapest house here probably cost more than my entire family line had made in the past million generations combined. I felt so out of place. Like an intruder.
At least Tempest himself wasn't here. He was a busy man.
The three of us—Ashika, Alanna, and I—were at the far end of Alanna’s family training ground, standing against the eastern wall. Across from us stood an array of targets, currently static but capable of movement at the press of a button. I wondered how much this system cost. There was something similar at AA itself, I knew.
Powers had equalised the human race in some ways. In others, inequality persisted.
Alanna raised her hand, took a deep breath, and fired off another bolt of lightning. It struck the far wall between two targets, and she let out a frustrated whine, like a tea kettle.
“Ohhh, so close!” Ashika cried, pumping a fist with excitement. I didn’t think she’d ever get over her love of Alanna’s power. It wasn’t often I saw her enthused enough by someone else’s ability to spend an entire hour watching without finding herself overcome with the need to train her own. “Hey, you should hit me with a lightning bolt!”
I sighed. Never mind.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” Alanna said hesitantly.
“Not right now, obviously.” Ashika started moving, and her power signal came to life. “Once I’m properly charged up, I can run around, and you can try to hit me. All I have to do is make sure I don’t lose my boost, while you try to slow me down so you can zap me.”
“I’m not going to zap you,” Alanna said, gaining some humour now. Ashika had come and found me before I’d finished my run on the treadmill, a few days ago now, and I’d been able to introduce her to Alanna. They’d seemed to get along a little awkwardly at the time, with Ashika seeming unsure what to do with Alanna’s simultaneous gushing praise and self-flagellation. But they were fine now, it seemed.
Ashika mock glared at her. “Why not? Think I can’t handle it?”
“I’m worried my ego would take too much of a hit if you could handle it. I don’t want to find out.”
Ashika poked her tongue out. I smiled briefly, but it quickly dropped as I turned my attention to the various scorch marks scattering the ground and wall around the targets. Alanna’s control issues were two-fold: aim and power. If it was a matter of having to choose one or the other, she probably would’ve been able to make do. But being simultaneously unable to weaken the force of her lightning bolt and aim it with any kind of precision… yeah, that was a problem. I could see why she hadn’t been able to defend herself against Slash, even with her incredibly powerful ability. It was actually kind of admirable. In my estimation, most people would have panicked and used their power in that situation, and with her power, a lot of people would’ve gotten hurt.
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It was a strange conundrum. The kind of Revelation she needed should’ve been obvious (something that gave her the ability to aim or moderate the power of her lightning bolts), but she’d told me she had been struggling for a while to find one, which was a bit baffling.
She’d invited us here so I could use my signal sense to see if I could point out anything she didn’t already know. Things had started off promisingly. Immediately, I’d been able to tell her something she didn’t know: her power signal only activated in the fraction of a second her lightning struck.
(It hit my signal sense with about the same effect you’d think standing right near a lightning strike would. It was loud and scary and a little painful, but it happened so fast that it didn’t do any real damage, since it didn’t actually hit me directly.)
I couldn’t recall ever sensing anything like it. Most power signals built up. Hers was so instantaneous that it was hard to get any kind of read on it, and it took me a full hour of learning to glimpse split-second snapshots of her signal before I could be confident in my analysis. I might have said something sooner, if it wasn’t so surprising.
Alanna was a Level 2 C-rank. Decent for her age, and the power itself was, of course, very potent regardless of what the paperwork said. There were plenty of people of way higher rank and level who wouldn’t stand a chance against her lightning. Nothing about that was inherently out of the ordinary.
But I realised, as the session went on, that she was the first person whose signal I’d analysed so far that didn’t have a bunch of untapped potential for a new Aspect. That explained why she was still relatively low-level: it wasn’t that she couldn’t find the right Revelation, she simply didn’t have the unbound potential to give to a new Aspect. I didn’t know what to make of that, and, when I’d eventually told her about it, neither did she.
“What does that mean, in practice?” she’d asked, frowning, eyes distant in thought.
“Tough to say,” I’d replied with a shrug. “How long have you been on your current Level?”
“A few months.”
I’d blinked. “Huh. You’d think you’d build up more potential in that time.”
Alanna hadn’t had an answer for that, and the topic hadn’t come up again, though I was sure she was still thinking about it. I certainly was.
What even was that untapped potential? How did it build up? Why did it require a Revelation to form a new Aspect of the power, rather than just adding itself to an existing Aspect to strengthen it?
There was so much about powers we didn’t know. So many questions unanswered.
My new understanding of my signal sense gave me hope of finding those answers. It maybe said something about me that that excited me almost as much as the prospect of gaining a real power of my own, whatever form that took.
Eventually, it became clear I wasn’t going to get anything else out of Alanna’s power signal today. It flashed on and off too fast to get a good read of what her Foundation and Aspects actually were, but I asked her to hold off from telling me. I wanted to be able to figure it out for myself, in a future session with her. She told Ashika though, and Ashika gave me a mightily smug look as we made our way back towards the house.
We ended up hanging out on the dark decking that stretched from the glass doors of Alanna’s huge kitchen, and I was so lost in thought about powers and signals that I didn’t catch the topic of conversation until Ashika slammed her fist down on the table in outrage. The fact her outburst did no damage was testament to the furniture’s build quality. Even when Ashika’s power wasn’t ramped up, she was still several times stronger than a girl her size should be.
“It’s fucking bullshit, is what it is,” Ashika snarled. She and Alanna sat across from me in cushioned chairs, a thick wooden table between us. Alanna seemed enraptured with Ashika’s story. “Then, after all that, he had the audacity to leave me behind while he and his sister went and confronted the vice-principal by themselves! Can you believe that?!”
Alanna looked at me, eyes wide. “You confronted Marquise?”
I blinked, then grimaced. “You guys have been talking about the practical exam, huh?”
“Alanna got sponsored in, since she couldn’t really take the exam after everything that happened. But she wanted to know about the practical,” Ashika said. “I told her about mine, where I was awesome, and then we got to talking about yours, which was super messed up.”
“You confronted Marquise?” Alanna repeated. Her expression hadn’t changed. “From what Dad’s told me, I’m very surprised she let you get away with that.”
“Maisie didn’t give her much choice in the matter,” I said
Alanna shook her head. “And I thought you were impressive on the train. Not many people have the balls to face that woman. Even Dad treads lightly around her.”
“Tempest doesn’t trust Marquise?” I asked.
“Does anyone?” Ashika asked.
“Believe it or not, I think he actually respects her. He doesn’t talk to me about everything that goes on in his work, but I get the impression Marquise does a lot behind the scenes. She’s meant to be really strict.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” I grumbled. Louder, I said, “But respecting her isn’t trusting her, is it?”
Alanna shook her head, frowning.
“I think I feel the same, to be honest,” I said after a moment’s thought.
“You respect her?” Ashika asked, looking like she’s just swallowed something foul.
“I respect her choice to change sides and become a hero, at least.”
“Some people think she’s still a villain and this whole vice-principal thing is all some long con.”
“What does your dad think about that?”
Alanna gave me a dry look. “Dad’s not the type of guy who’d sit back and do nothing if he thought a supervillain was running an evil scheme in the school I want to attend. If there’s one thing he hates, it’s schemers.”
“Yeah, seems like he makes a point of emphasising that in every interview he gives. It’s a bit of a meme.” I shook my head. “Whether she’s a hero or not, she’s messing with AA in a way I really don’t like the sound of, even if I don’t have the full picture of the situation.”
“Not the kind of thing I thought I’d ever hear about AA, yeah.”
“Still think someone needs to punch that bitch in the nose,” Ashika said.
I snorted, not disagreeing. We lapsed into silence for a moment, listening to the sound of the wind. It struck me how quiet this place was. Even though it was only a few miles from where I lived, the sounds of the city were nonexistent here. No engines, no car horns, no distant shouts. It was peaceful. It made you feel like you had space to stop and think without interruption.
“I remember something Tempest said,” I said, eyeing Alanna. “He told me you didn’t want to take a sponsor slot. Why was that?”
Alanna just shrugged, alleviating my mild concern that the question might be a sore point. “I wanted to prove that I could do it on my own merits. Show that I was good enough to pass the tests and earn my place there, rather than relying on family connections. Nobody likes a nepo baby.”
“Yeah, that was the read I got on you,” I said. “And why do you want to be a hero?”
“What else am I meant to do?” Alanna said simply, shrugging one shoulder, like it was obvious.
I smiled. I liked that answer.
Ashika and I didn’t stay for much longer. I gave Alanna a rundown on everything I’d picked up about her power from her signal, which was a lot less than I’d been hoping for. Still, she seemed appreciative. She offered a tour of her house, but we declined. I’d never been into TV programs that showed off opulent celebrity houses, and I had the feeling gawking around at her mansion would just make her uncomfortable.
A part of me was intrigued about the home of Tempest. Seeing how one of the world’s most powerful heroes—one of the few S-ranks on record—lived his daily life did have an appeal. But that just made me even more against looking around. I’d feel like an intruder.
In the end, we went around the outside of the house to the front yard to say our goodbyes. Alanna saw us off, promising we’d meet up again in future for more testing.
“And I’m sure we’ll see each other at AA too,” she said with a smile.
That was when all the lights on the street went out, and a high-pitched whine filled the air. Like a siren. Or a high-pitched scream.
Next came the explosion.
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