“Now, this is going to sound a little crazy… well a lot crazy, actually. But everything I’m about to say is completely true, boys.”

Jonathan, who was still sitting around Tim’s dining table with his arms folded, raised an eyebrow at his father. Per Mr. Whitmore’s request, Tim had drawn up a chair as well and positioned it a small distance away from his own, an anxious look on his face that only grew more troubled at his father’s pronouncement. The glasses, timid expression, bad stutter and comic-book hero shorts spoke a lot about Tim’s persona, but the most interesting thing about him was how starkly it contrasted with how he looked.

His demeanor painted a picture of someone shy and introverted, who preferred to keep to his own space and was at high risk of imploding when faced with the slightest social interaction. But physically speaking, Tim was tall and muscular. His skin was rather pale, as though sun-deprived, his dark hair was combed forward across his forehead, and his eyes were a bright hazel brown.

They seemed a bit smaller than before without his glasses, which he had picked up though seemed reluctant to put back on. Without them he looked more like a stereotypical jock, except the expression on his face was similar to that of a small, frightened child.

“Listen, Jonny… this is really not the way your mother and I intended for you to find out. In fact, we had a whole plan arranged for how we were going to tell you one day but… Then she passed and… I guess I never got around to it.”

The way his voice tightened at the mention of his mother was like an arrow to the heart. Jonathan felt a wave of a familiar and completely unwelcome emotion wash over him, threatening to consume him the way it had when his father had first come to pick him up at school to deliver the news on that horrible day. “Tell me what?” he forced out, desperate to change the topic.

Mr. Whitmore took a deep, shaking breath, as if summoning the courage to force out his next two words.

“You’re adopted.”

Silence. Jonathan had expected to hear something that would cause the very world to fall away at his feet, or at least send a reasonably strong tremor through it. That was all? Sure it was still a shock, but the kind of urgency his father had exhibited before didn’t feel quite right following such a simple pronouncement. Even Tim looked rather underwhelmed, nose scrunched in confusion.

“What are you talking about?” Jonathan asked.

“You’re adopted,” repeated Mr. Whitmore, who looked slightly bemused himself at the reaction he had gotten. “You are still my son, in every other way that matters. Just not biologically. A while back, your mother and I were eager to start a family, but I guess the universe had other plans back then too. We must’ve visited a hundred fertility doctors, did everything they instructed us to do. But nothing worked. We’d just about given up, when something strange happened. And well, this is where it gets crazy.

“On our very last visit to the doctor, your mother was completely defeated. She wasn’t even sad, really. She was just numb. Being a mother meant everything to her, and for whatever reason she was denied the chance.

“She wouldn’t sleep, could barely eat, didn’t even move unless she had to go to work, and she eventually stopped doing that too. After three days of pleading, I managed to convince her to go out with me. I wanted to make her feel special, forget about everything else.”

“How did that turn out?”

“About as well as today did. It was such a horrible experience that we were barely out for two hours before she said she wanted to go home. So I brought her back, and when we got inside, there was somebody else there. Now of course we freaked out, considering that we locked every door before we left out. But he didn’t seem to want to harm us. In fact, he was pretty breezy about the whole thing. He told us that he knew what we were going through and offered us a proposition. To this day I don’t know why we even listened to him, but we were both in such a bad head space back then and he was telling us everything we wanted to hear.

“So we agreed to meet him at the place he gave us directions to. It was nowhere special, some old home whose owners had died the weeks before, and right there in the living room was a beautiful baby boy, sleeping in a crib. He explained to us that the kid’s real parents had died, but charged him with making sure that he ended up in a loving, safe home before they did. That kid was you, Jonny.”

Jonathan gaped at him, mouth slightly open. “Wh-what happened to my real parents then? How did they die?”

Mr. Whitmore hesitated before he answered, which is how Jonathan knew he was lying. “He never told us the full details. All we know is that he wanted you safe, and we were more than happy to have you. The other details weren’t important.”

Jonathan was frowning, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. In Jonathan’s temporary daze, Tim raised his hand, like a kindergarten student trying to catch the teacher’s attention.

“Sorry, this is really interesting and all, but you said it concerns me too. How?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I think your parents would have preferred to be the ones to tell you, and under different circumstances, but Jonathan wasn’t the only baby there. And my wife and I weren’t the only parents. There were five pairs in all, and five children — and you were one of those kids too.”

“That’s… that’s not true,” said Tim, looking stunned. “It can’t be.”

“I’m sorry, but it is. I still remember the look on Tony and Maria’s faces. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing either, but they were so excited at the chance to be parents, just like the rest of us.”

“Dad, this — this is crazy!” Jonathan said, breaking out of his stupor at last. “You really expect us to believe any of this?”

“Expect you to, not so much. But being crazy doesn’t make something untrue, does it? And that’s not all, either. That day, the man told us that the kids weren’t ordinary kids either. They were special. ‘The next generation of gods,’ is what he called you.”

“Unbelievable.” Jonathan rolled his eyes, his expression morphing from shock to anger in a mere instant. He looked over at Tim, whose mouth was still hanging open. “Sorry about this, I guess the fumes from the blown engine must have messed with his brain or something.”

“You want proof, Jonny?” said Mr. Whitmore, raising his voice slightly. “Before we left, that man gave each set of parents a different item that belonged to the child. Told us to make sure that each of them brought it with them at all times, to ensure they remained safe. And you have yours with you right now.” Jonathan’s eyes fell to where his father was pointing.

“Wh — my ring?” His feeling of disbelief resurged, more powerful than before.

Mr. Whitmore nodded. “Have you ever noticed how anxious your mother and I used to get whenever you took it off? Remember how she blew a gasket when we found out you tried to trade it for that doll? That ring doesn’t just have sentimental value, Jonny. It’s quite possibly what’s kept you alive for the past twelve years. And the same is true of Tim’s glasses.”

Tim glanced immediately at the pair of spectacles he was holding, as if suddenly suspicious it might explode. Jonathan, however, wasn’t convinced.

“You don’t believe me,” said Mr. Whitmore.

“Do you even believe you? Everything that’s coming out of your mouth is nonsense, and that’s putting it nicely.”

“Fine,” Mr. Whitmore said, and to Jonathan’s indignation he was smiling. “Fine. You want proof? Take off your ring.”

Jonathan hovered for a moment, indecisive, then decided to play along. It was fine as long as it helped to bring this colossal waste of time to a quicker end. He removed his ring, and all of a sudden the world felt a little bit colder, as though the shadow of his mother’s embrace had left him.

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“Now hold it up and say, ‘Orus!’”

Rolling his eyes, Jonathan held up the ring. “Orus!”

Tim let out a gasp of shock. At once, the sapphire in the center of the ring began to glow again, enveloped in a brilliant azure light. Jonathan dropped the ring and the floor was suffused in a blinding light, so fierce now that they had to cover their eyes with their hands. When at last the sapphire glare had died down, they looked back and saw that where the ring had been was now a long, double-sided sword, whose hilt was made of some strange greyish-green material that looked both metallic and rock-like at the same time. The sapphire too had changed: it had expanded from a pebble-sized shard to a large trilliant-shaped slab, embedded in the center of the handle.

“Oh my God,” Tim whispered, peering out at the sword from behind the counter where he had taken refuge. Jonathan knelt down and picked up the sword, examining the smooth, gleaming blade in the afternoon sunlight filtering in through the open windows.

“This is insane,” Jonathan said. “How —”

“Like I said, Jon. ‘Crazy’ doesn’t mean untrue,” said Mr. Whitmore, his expression grimmer than ever. “Now do you believe me?”

“I…” Jonathan looked around at Tim, though not sure exactly why. Perhaps he wanted support, to hear Tim renounce the idea as ludicrous. But how exactly could one do that, given what they just saw? Tim was clearly thinking along the same lines, as all he could do was shrug. “I… I guess,” said Jonathan. “It’s still a lot to digest.”

“And you’ll have time to let it sink in, but for right now we really need to go.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“That’s the thing, you don’t. And right now we’re on a clock. I’ll explain everything later. You just have to trust me, okay.” Mr. Whitmore looked at his son, not demanding, but pleading. At last, Jonathan relented.

“Okay.”

“Good. There’s a safe house not too far from here. The man who gave you to us that night told us that if anything like this ever happened we had to get there as soon as possible. It’s a bit of a hefty drive but if we leave now we can make it by nightfall, if we’re lucky. Tim, I suggest you grab a jacket, you’ll need to come with us too. Don’t worry, your parents already know the procedure,” he added, as Tim opened his mouth to protest. “You can call them while we’re on the way, they can vouch for everything I told you.”

Tim stood for a moment, indecisive. Jonathan expected him to rebuff the idea, but to his surprise, he nodded.

“Great. Now meet us outside. It’s gonna be a long drive.”

----------------------------------------

It seemed Mr. Whitmore had given up on any attempts to have his vehicle looked at. He called for a tow company to pick it up, but before the wrecker had even arrived another car came zooming into view. A sleek, white Dodge Durango that came to a halt at their feet. A rental, which had an odd smell lingering inside but was otherwise quite cozy. Tim sat in the backseat, anxiously fidgeting with his glasses while Jonathan and Mr. Whitmore took the front seats. His vision was still pretty blurry, but after seeing what had happened with Jonathan’s ring he was reluctant to put the glasses near his face again, despite Mr. Whitmore’s assurances it was safe.

Mr. Whitmore had instructed Jonathan to put on his seatbelt, which was a good idea in hindsight considering he was driving like a madman. At this rate whatever supernatural threats he was trying to avoid had less of a chance of noticing them than the police.

During the period they had waited for the rental to arrive, Tim had tried to call his parents multiple times. He was not successful, however. Every call was met with their voicemails, which did nothing to alleviate his worries.

He wanted to hear more about this situation from them. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Mr. Whitmore — he had provided undeniable proof, after all — but he felt he would have been able to handle this situation better if he had heard it coming from his own parents rather than a stranger. While Timothy had tried in vain to reach his parents, Mr. Whitmore had stood to the side, making frantic phone calls. Judging by the angry mutters and the way he was aggressively tapping the keypad, it didn’t seem like he was having better luck. After several futile attempts, however, it seemed he had finally gotten one person to pick up. From the snatches he and Jonathan heard of their conversation, it sounded as if he was talking with one of the other parents who had been there the night he had taken Jonathan in, and instructed them to meet their group wherever it was they were heading.

Mr. Whitmore continued his efforts to reach them while they drove, but he was met with the same results.

They tried to probe for more information on the way, but every time they invoked questions about their mystery caretaker, their supposedly dead birth parents, their other three siblings, or the fact that they were allegedly supernatural beings, Mr. Whitmore shut them down, insisting that all questions would be answered later. That wasn’t good enough for Tim.

He’d just learned that the entire basis of his life was a lie, that he had not one — but four siblings out there after being led to believe that he was an only child, on top of the revelation that he was supposedly born of divine lineage, and Mr. Whitmore refused to provide any answers.

He wanted to rage and storm, to demand answers, and yet he sat there, unable to do anything but fiddle with his glasses — which were apparently also a lie. It was pathetic, but that was Tim. He wished he had even an iota of Jonathan’s fierceness. A lot of things would have turned out differently if he did. Now dusk was upon them, and Mr. Whitmore was casting anxious glances through the window every few seconds, as if he was expecting something to come hurtling out of the sky and smash into their truck. Finally, it seemed Jonathan had had enough.

“Dad, will you please tell us what’s going on? Why do you keep looking out the window like a lunatic? What is coming after us?”

“I told you, I’ll answer all your questions la —”

“But why can’t you tell us now?”

“You know, I have no idea where you get this stubbornness from. It’s certainly not from me!”

“If Mom was here she would have told me!” snapped Jonathan.

For a moment Tim was worried the car was going to veer right off the road. Mr. Whitmore was so shocked he stared at Jonathan for several seconds before returning his gaze to the road in front of them. “That was a low blow, Jon.”

Tim privately agreed but kept his thoughts to himself. Awkward silence filled the car like an enormous, inflating balloon. Tim stared at the landscape beyond the windows. Green fields flew past them, dotted with the black, white and brown shapes of cattle and sheep. The sky above them steadily darkened as they drove, less and less vehicles appearing on the roads now. Twenty minutes of deeply charged silence later, Mr.. Whitmore actually spoke again.

“The man’s name was Sytris. He didn’t tell us the full details, just that the five of you didn’t come from this world. You were born in a place called Algyria, which exists outside of Earth. It was a place for higher beings, he said. Celestials. People who could live eternally, who had powers beyond human comprehension. But Algyria had a darker counterpart. While the place you came from enjoyed centuries of peace and prosperity, their sister dimension was ruled by savage, bloodthirsty, corrupted beings. For the most part the two civilizations ignored each other, until the dark gods — Harbingers — invaded Algyria.

“According to Sytris the Algyrians were completely unprepared. And the result was a genocide. Most of them were either killed off or enslaved. Your parents sent their loyal servant, Sytris, off along with their children, with the mission of keeping the kids safe.

“Sytris found five families who he believed were worthy to take in his masters’ only remaining children, and told them that the kids should never meet again under any circumstances.”

“Why?” asked Jonathan, who was listening raptly.

“Because of what happened back there with your ring and Tim’s glasses. Sytris explained that he enchanted five different objects before handing over the children, and gave each of you one of them. The objects appear completely mundane, but are infused with magic powerful enough to conceal your magical sides and make you effectively human. But once you come into contact with one another the objects react to each other and let off something like a flare. A powerful magical signature like that could attract unwanted attention, which means the Harbingers could be coming after you right now to do what they did to the rest of your people, to you.

“That’s why we’re heading where we’re going now. It’s part of a contingency plan, if ever something like this happened. I tried to reach out to the other parents but I only got through to one. I hope the others are okay.”

“But — but if they do come after us, what do we do then?” Tim asked. “How are we supposed to protect ourselves?”

“Remember how I said each of you got a special item? They’re bewitched to look like everyday items, but each one of them is actually a weapon made of Brightsteel, one of the most powerful weapons from your home planet, and the only thing that can kill a god — evil or not.”

“But how are we even sure these guys are going to come after us? I mean how far away from Earth is this Algyria place? What if they decide we’re not worth the trouble?”

“We can’t take the chance. These people are vicious and ruthless. And I doubt something as simple as physical distance would deter them.”

They came to a halt as the stoplight in front of them switched from orange to scarlet. Mr. Whitmore drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. “Come on, come on,” he muttered.

“Come on, Dad. It’s been hours,” Jonathan said, clearly trying to reassure his father. “If something was going to happen, don’t you think we would have at least seen some kind of sign by now?”

Mr. Whitmore expelled a deep breath. “I know, I know. I just don’t want to take the chan —”

There was a noise like an explosion, drowning out the sound of Mr. Whitmore’s voice.

Something crashed into the side of the car with the force of a battering ram. The blow was so powerful that Tim flew to the other side of the seat, shards of the window raining upon him. The car staggered, but another blow came raining on the vehicle again, sending them rolling across the street. The last thing Tim heard before darkness swallowed his vision was the Whitmores screaming from the front seat, followed by a deep, blood-chilling growl, and a flash of angry red eyes glaring in through the broken window.