We entered the car, I went in the back with the two powered in the front, it was weird that it made me feel vulnerable, probably just because two strangers were driving me to a place I didn’t know. It was unsafe but there wouldn't be too much security in my life anymore...That wasn't new to me too though; I had led a pretty reckless life up to this point.
“So, will any of you explain to me exactly what we're going to do? You know, where you're taking me, for starts.”
“Right, right.” Spotlight started sounding like he had just remembered it. He turned to me in the car, and I felt glad he wasn't the one driving, that job going to LED, silently guiding the car through the streets. "We came to recruit you. As we said before we take the ones who have no more option, but that's not everything of course, people that understand how power works are valuable to us.”
“I guess I would be one of these people, but who exactly is ‘us’?”
He gave me a smile his eyes shining with mirth “More importantly than who we are would be what we do wouldn't it?”
“Is this your attempt at mystery, they are closely tied, I would like to know both of course.”
“Yeah yeah, I guess you'd have heard from us in the position you´ve been, but we mostly steal from the military and other rich people, things like that.
That pretty much confirmed my guess, there was an organization that was all but rumor; talk about it always resurfaced in the sleepwalkers forums, it was the wet dream of every one of them, a secret terrorist organization composed of powered individuals that frequently fought with the military, that by itself wouldn't raise the attention of the sleepwalkers, we as a group had no particular interest in the ‘villainous’ organization or individuals beyond their powers, this specific group had with it a rumor though, it was said that they’d recruit sleepwalkers from time to time and awaken them.
Wasn't that basically what was happening to me? It was, wasn't it.
“You're Dawnbreak members aren't you”
“Hah! Got it in one. Told ya he wasn’t a waste of time.”
Well, it seemed LED thought I wasn't worth it, was that why he stayed so quiet? Well, no matter “But why, I thought you were just an internet myth why do you guys gain out of it.”
“Well, we exist mostly by necessity” he said in a lecturing tone I haven't heard from him until now. “You see; the only thing the people who end up in our organization want is freedom. There's the people like you who would lose it in consequence of seeking power and there's also the people who trigger to powerful abilities and don't want to become a pawn of the government.”
“It's also the biggest sore spot for any of the big shots, so they label us the ugliest way they can, it's even weird to call us an organization, the amount of contact that we have to any other group is very limited, and it isn't like we have an overarching goal or anything.”
LED grunted at that, Spotlight getting the idea apparently because he launched onto another explanation. “Yeah yeah, there’s also part of the members that see us as an organization, they say we are just bidding for time and to them our goal is power freedom or something.”
“Power freedom? is the government locking it away or something?”
“Well in a sense. You remember what I told you about them crashing down on the forums? The people on the top want to always control the awakeners, any power that has some capability related to that is immediately poached or killed. In that sense they control who's in or not.”
I mulled that over for a bit, it really fitted perfectly in what I saw about society, suddenly the higher rates of powered individuals in specific lineages made more sense, the rich famous and the military always seemed to have more triggers, often better ones as well.
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“Always knew the thing about close relatives to powered being more likely to trigger didn't add up.”
“Yeah, they spread this kind of misinformation all the time, you’ll probably have to revisit some of what you know as we go along."
that was true enough, I had no problem with it as well, knowing more of the truth about powers would be helpful for me even if the Dawnbreakers turned out to be just empty talk. “So where are we going”
“Nowhere specific really, it’s not like we’re based on this town, we found a good hiding hole and we’re going there.”
We traveled a bit more to one of the more distanced neighborhoods, going to areas that were more rundown until we arrived at a big warehouse, LED drove to it and the door opened for us without any prompting, seems like they were waiting for us.
The inside of the warehouse was illuminated by some run down fluorescent light; the poor illumination made the place look eerie with lots of spots where the lights were broken, forming areas covered in shadows. Inside there was some old machinery completely rusted over and the door to an inside house was open, two people coming out as we exited the car.
One of them was another man, this one big and also strong looking, guess all the fighting with the military didn't let there be much weak people on this walk of life. This one was also heavyset like a classical lumberjack, together with him was a short haired young woman, triggering had no preference after all. They greeted Spotlight and LED the heavyset guy being gentle mannered and calm while the woman was more nervous.
“Those two here are Spyglass” he mentioned to the short haired woman who gave me a look that didn’t look much amused at my presence. “And Payback.” He mentioned the other guy who gave me an amicable smile. “Spyglass here is an ex-sleepwalker here like you.”
"Hey don't go around telling my life story around, and what I told you about being subtle, the cops are going to be on us any time now and we still have to make this bat’s awakening." she really seemed stressed but it was good to see at least someone cautious in this group, LED seemed impassive to everything and Spotlight wasn't any voice of reason.
“Come on guys, let's not fight in front of the new guy” Payback said, his gentle demeanor somehow at odds not with just his image but his nickname too, guess I shouldn't make him lose his temper.
He approached me offering his hand which I shook, “Welcome to the team, you probably don’t have a cape name yet so no need to introduce yourself.”
“No, it's okay.” Spotlight knew my name so I doubted these people didn't know it too, it wasn't any secret any way. “Name´s Joseph.”
LED’s voice again spoke out of nowhere “Let's start already, there’s no way to know how long it will take, after all.” He entered the little inside house then, Spyglass going after him and Spotlight followed gesturing for me to go too. Payback let me go first closing the door behind us. Inside it seemed to be a normal living room with a couch and tv, the walls made of wood planks, the floor being the bare concrete same as the outside. Spotlight threw himself at the run-down couch while LED waited standing for everyone to get inside.
“As you know we're going to awaken you” he produced three colored rings of light above his palm, they orbited each other for a bit and then combined into one white colored one. “A part of my power is that it can awaken people, but it works best at raising the chances of someone awakening.” he raised his other hand in Spotlight's direction and he threw the black vial in LED’s waiting hand.
“This thing your friend sent you together with my power will pretty much guarantee your awakening. Did he explain how it worked?”
“Not really, he did talk about how he came to awaken his power but not how it worked.”
He nodded at that his serious visage not changing one bit, and continued. “Inside here is some liquid that the guy's power produce, it functions as a strong hallucinogen, the kind that makes you go through a deep enlightening... Journey.”
I just nodded, not knowing what to expect in what way a forced wakening would occur, and the guy did talk about how his self-enlightening trips were what did the trick for him. And how he thought they were the way to go. So, I was suspecting something like that. Although I had little experience with this, having just tried for myself to awaken once, cause of course I did, when you were a sleepwalker for as long as me you had tried everything at least once. So, not exactly an expert but there was no fear as well.
“You seem okay with that so let's start already” he kept going not really caring for my reasons I thought. “My power will possibly amplify the experience, it's impossible to know.” At that he opened the vial and passed it to me.
I accepted it, holding it carefully aware of everything this little thing represented to me. Inside was a metallic looking liquid, shining with all sort of lights moving around it. There was a buzz inside of me, some kind of trepidation as if something would go wrong any moment but also excited expectancy, my hands shook a bit.
“This is it then” I said more to myself, psyching myself up.
Taking a sharp breath and in a sharper move I turned the entire vial, swallowing the whole thing together with it my doubts and second guesses. All the ‘what if it didn't work’. Feeling the cold sensation as it passed by my throat.
Waiting for it to settle down, I closed my eyes.