Chapter 1:

Clayme sat next to Kayla, reading their history textbook to her. It was a bothersome activity, partly because he was well aware Kayla could read it herself without losing concentration, partly because reading a book to her was sort-of uncomfortable, and partly because she sat as close as possible so she could lean on him. They hadn’t been going out for too long, but she had proved herself more than clingy enough to warrant being called ‘a clingy girlfriend’.

Kayla found the activity somewhat fun, as clinging to Clayne, who she just called ‘Clay’, was an activity she found rather enjoyable, it was also rather entertaining listening to him unenthusiastically exposit the contents of the text.

Clayme’s living room was part of a larger interior, the kitchen next to it. two couches and a TV faced a coffee table in between it all, with one side of the table empty of furniture to allow people to easily find a place to sit among the couches. Clayme and Kayla sat opposite of the TV, with filled mugs of tea standing upon it.

Clayme was dressed in his usual school clothes,with a buttoned up shirt and dark jeans. His hair was usually combed back, and he often caught himself when losing posture. That, combined with his dress always stood out as more formal as it needed to be.

Kayla, then, was practically the antithesis of his formality. She usually wore a small, colorfully designed poncho around her shoulders, and just slapped on whatever shirt fit underneath. She had a preference for short athletic shorts, and rarely took the time to wear much else, and although she didn’t wear them indoors, of her few pairs of shoes, she usually wore brown boots that looked a lot higher quality than they really wore. Her posture was similarly lacking in tact, and she liked to move rather giddily wherever she went.

On the other side of the room was Clayme’s younger sister, Leene, who stood at their kitchen table spreading peanut butter on some bread. Her face was contemplative and she had her backpack on, so she looked like she was rushing to leave. The front door was on the other side of the house. While the other two were both seventeen years old, she was only fourteen.

Kayla erratically sat straight then leaned down to pick up her cup of tea, in a mug shaped with the face of a gnome. She quickly carried it close to her face, splashing some of the tea on her hand. She yapped in pain, and her hand spasmed, releasing its hold on the mug’s handle. It fell to the wood floor, and about half of it shattered and slid across the ground in pieces after Kayla and Clayme raised their feet instinctively.

Kayla seemed heartwrenched “I loooved that mug…” her voice lowered dramatically “why did you have to die on me like that, gnomey…”

Clayme set the textbook on the table before speaking. He wasn’t sarcastic, but his failure to keep to Kayla’s tone, while still attempting to keep to her dramaticism would lead one to think he was “not Gnomey. He was a wonderful friend, I bought him myself at the thrift store two years ago.” The last part was definitely sarcastic though. He started to stand up from the couch, ready to get a towel for the spilled tea, which was approaching the carpet underneath the coffee table.

Kayla reached down slowly, to pick up the piece with the handle on it, she raised the cup up to the table, leaning forward. She stopped. Cup?

“Hey Clay?” Clay was taking the long way around the table, and had only taken a step in the direction opposite of Kayla before he looked back at her, then stopped as well. The cup was just as it was before, full and pristine, like it was made a second ago. He looked down, seeing its contents no longer splayed across the floor “this mug was definitely broken, right?”

“are we sure it was?” he knew what he saw for certain. The mug had broken, he saw the chips and pieces slide across the floor

“it was...right?” She repeated herself in her dumbfoundedness “I’m going to drop Gnomey again, ok?” her voice was gradually rising in pitch.

“feel free to…”

Kayla dropped the mug. The It fell to the wood floor, and about half of it shattered and slid across the ground in pieces, Kayla was burnt on her leg by the mug, in her reluctance to move. She reached down once more, their eyes glued to the leftover pieces. Kayla really did not want to reach down, and realise that she just broke a perfectly fine cup over a shared delusion. She grabbed the handle of the cup. She raised it in front of her face.

“What is going on over there?!” Leene had no humor in her voice, as if something had left her perturbed.

The sudden noise shook Clayme and Kayla, making them tense up. Kayla didn’t mind too much if the mug fell to the ground again, so she subconsciously used it as an excuse to drop it once more. The sound of shattering ceramics rang out for a third time. Leene tossed her toast upon her plate, halfway spread with jelly, then paced over to behind the couch, and looked down, to see the broken contents of the mug “oh great, a broken mug, just what I needed.” It didn’t affect her, but she was in a very bad mood to begin with. That said, she had ignored the first two times she had heard the shattering for that very reason, too perturbed to do more than move her eyes. She’d snapped for no real reason, and she knew it.

That said, even were her comments abrasive(and they weren’t) the two were far too stunned to care. It wasn’t that the two doubted their very eyes, but more that they wanted affirmation to confirm their memories. Some acknowledgment that their memories were real, and a part of the world. Kayla silently reached down and-picked the cup up once more.

Leene almost didn’t seem surprised “is this what I think it is?”

Kayla repeated the process in an out of character, silent fashion.

Leene sighed. She stood straight, with a bored expression. Her reaction brought a good deal of attention to herself. Kayla and Clayme looked at Leene, expecting her to say something drastic. Leene sighed once more, releasing a significant amount of her pent up stress that built up starting from the beginning of the day. She spoke again “same thing happened to me”

Silence. Patient attention gravitated itself upon Leene. She seemed to expect the two to immediately understand her words, but they were shaken and confused. She continued “Today, I got powers”

More silence. The utmost confusion was wrought upon Kayla and Clayme, and their minds were currently in a battle royale between a thousand different sides. Leene was their only hope to end the bloody war. “I mean, like…” after a few seconds of thought, she shrugged and gave the full, unedited story of her day. “So when I woke up, I did everything like normal, I got dressed, I packed some things, yada yada, and then I tried to brush my teeth and I saw we didn’t have toothpaste. I got annoyed we didn’t have toothpaste, and then suddenly toothpaste fell from in front of my face. I can like, make anything magically.”

“you can just… make anything?” Clayme’s voice was monotone and dead.

“yeah”

“Why did we not have toothpaste when I woke up?”

“The stuff I make dissipates after a bit...”

“oh.” That changed quite a bit, but simultaneously changed very little about his mind “well...I guess this is life now.”

Serra missed the bus. It was some simple mistake, she couldn’t find the book she’d been reading, and she had taken a bit of time to find it. She ran to the bus stop to catch it, but halfway to the stop, cold in the winter weather, she saw a tiny pool of ice in her neighbour’s yard. Her mind, for a second, thought about the few times when that pool was big enough to slide on. Then, she slid. She upheaved the bottom half of her body, tripping from the kinetic energy shehad built up in her running. She braced her fall with her arms, protecting her head. There was little snow, just some built up from less than an hour of snowfall. There was no way she could have slipped on it, running on hard concrete. She was on the ground, her back a little elevated and facing the ground, with her arms struggling to hold her body up on a very slippery surface. She turned her head to see something very strange. Underneath her arms and feet, where they touched the ground, was ice. It looked like the concrete entirely transformed into another substance. She carefully raised herself to her feet. Then she began to move them. wherever they moved, the concrete beneath turned a sheer blue, icy color, then returned to its normal state whenever she moved her feet away. She was a little confused, but decided to see what was happening before any judgements.

“what in the world…” she ignored the bus she could hear down the road, and began to skate on her shoes on the concrete. She slipped and fell a few times, but the massively entertaining action of skating on concrete, and watching the hardened cement turn into ice, and then back again, was fun. She got a little afraid every time she slipped, though, that she’d hit her head on the ground. It did happen, but not the way she expected. When her head fell on the ground, it liquified into a cement as viscous as water, falling off her hair all the same. She slid over to the nearby park, then began her research.

Sagaia was never a very liked person, she was always slow, methodical, and most aggravating of all, meddlesome. When time suddenly stopped as she stared at a fan’s blades, almost ready to sit and eat her prepared bowl of cereal. Looking around a bit, she noted the stop of the movement of time rather quickly. She could eat up information, but analysing that information took a while. Because of that, she was good at tests, not so much practical studies. She digressed from the off-topic, and began exploring her surroundings. Outside the cheap glass door that led to the outside, the sky glowed an unearthly whitish-yellow. Birds remained in the air, kept in stasis, and flowers laid still, ignorant of the gone-sun. Putting her focus inwards, she started searching around her house. Her little sister, Lele, almost a decade younger than herself-she chuckled at the self-aware thought-was stuck climbing onto the chair next to her own. She began her experimentation. She walked behind her sister and then placed her back on the ground, Lele was still in a bit of an awkward position, climbing a chair a few feet away from her. Sagaia began to lean down, but as she did, time resumed and her sister fell to the ground, though was caught by Sagaia before she could get hurt.

“what just happened, Saga? wasn’t I just on the chair...?”

Sagaia put her sister back in a normal position, then kneeled down to her sister’s eye height “Iiiiiii just stopped time. you better keep it a secret, okLele?” She unleashed her ultimate weapon of chaos upon the world-okLele-a phrase that always enticed her ever-adoring sister with hopes of a nastly little good fun.

“whaaaaat? you stopped time!? no way! I wanna stop time!” Her words were a little minced, she was trying to egg Sagaia into stopping time again by challenging it didn’t happen. Her real, unfiltered thoughts spoke loud and clear, though as “do it again” and Sagaia’s keen knowledge when it came to her sister let her immediately recognise that fact. She stood up again and looked at the fan, which spun too quickly for her eye to track. She willed it to stop, as she had done previously, and it paused unnaturally quickly. She looked to her sister to confirm what had happened, then walked behind her again, and leaned down to pick her up. Time unpaused again.

“WOAH, Saga! you just teleported!”

“And you’re about to too!” with a wink and a mischievous smile she stood up again, and repeated the same steps. This time, she bent only a little to pick up her sister, looping her arms around her armpits, then laboriously put her sister on her shoulders. Lele was really heavy. Probably a little more than two times as heavy as normal. Sagaia didn’t look fit, but she put a lot of effort into muscle training, as many had been wide-eyed to hear. She chuckled at her best friend’s expression when he had learnt how strong she was. She digressed. She willed time to stop without leaning down. Thankfully, she was able to.

“wahhhhhhhahahaha! so cool!” her sister was thrilled to have another adventure with her sister. Even though Lele and Sagaia were half sisters, they would always be BFFs.

“why don’t we go skip school and have some fun in the park?”

“yay! skip school~skip school~!”

“shush!” Sagaia placed a finger to her mouth and lowered her voice “be quiet, we don’t want anyone to catch wind of our little secret, right?”

Lele went quiet, placing a finger to her mouth and smiling in a similarly mischievous way to Sagaia.

Bam! the rays of sunlight burst into the scene, and she was in the park. Lele didn’t have much more to say other than a lowly keyed “woooooahhhh…”

Serra had met Sagaia via one of her friends before, and had seen her playing with her sister at the park multiple times. Sagaia wore a blackish-blue jacket, and wore a smile on her face most of the time. She moved rather slowly and methodically, in an unnerving kind of way, and just like her jacket, liked to wear a blank white shirt that had some well sewn on pink and cotton petals adorning the collar, and had an affinity for busted-up sweatpants. She was a good representation of a cat, Serra thought. But while it would be normal to see them playing at any other time, school was in session for both of them. That said, from her limited experience with the girl, she found it in-character for her to skip school. The small girl was playing frisbee with Sagaia, throwing it with little finesse, and Sagaia easily catching it, then throwing it back, only for the little girl to usually fail. Serra was trying to see what was going on with her own powers. She was slowly understanding them, but they were a little vague and nonsensical. From her observations, she was able to make certain things automatically happen. She could make the earth beneath her turn to ice or putting as she put her weight on it, she could make tailwinds accost her back to run with the wind behind her, and various other things. But all of them were just passive abilities she could make happen or not. The most ridiculous of abilities she made, was making a cinderblock wall massage her like a massage chair. One thing that did not work, was anything made of cells. Grass and wood chips weren’t affected at all. She had been jotting down the different-Blessings, she decided to call them-in an empty notebook, when the two sisters appeared out of nowhere. Jotting it off as a lack of attention on her part, she had ignored them. After looking up from her notebook, thinking of what else she had tried she possibly looked at the two playing frisbee. Something seemed off about Sagaia. She couldn’t tell what. Sagaia kept her eyes on Serra from a distance for some reason, and she moved with surprising swiftness, stuttering. She may have hesitated to assume supernatural reasons behind the stuttering, rubbing her eyes or whatnot, but she immediately did, she was certain what she saw. She jogged towards Sagaia, and noticed as she got closer, that she was sweating as if putting in a lot of effort, even though she was playing ordinary frisbee.

She had been observing the girl for a while now, taking note of her movements. She had seen the girl before, and she knew she went to a school that started thirty minutes earlier than her own, plus she seemed like the studious type. Someone like her skipping school to go to a park? unlikely. Sagaia was purposefully moving through time in a disorientating way. The sky kept blazing that unearthly glow, then suddenly resuming its normal circumstance. Although the power to stop time was only intuitively logical, it was still strange when she started and stopped time, with the sounds just phasing in and out, like she was putting her hands on her ears. Still, it was funny to see the girl’s face pass over a mixture of emotions upon further observation of Sagaia’s movements, so it was all worth it. Saigaia figured, if she wasn’t just like her, with a power, she would react, and if she wasn’t she would rub her eyes, or act confused for a prolonged period of time. She didn’t act either of those ways, and approached her immediately after noticing Sagaia’s stuttering movements.

“I’m not seeing things, am I?”

Sagaia thought for a moment, analysing the girl’s tone, posture, and words. She seemed unsurprised and perturbed-

“that is definitely not normal movement”

And very aware of the situation. Sagaia looked at the girl from the bottom up. She seemed a bit better off than herself, with ordinary, new jeans and a t-shirt that spelled ‘xparx’, with firecrackers, on a black background. Ordinary stuff, ordinary person.

“did…-”

“I guess you noticed then” Sagaia started her turn of speaking, being a little quiet and rather relaxed, “the fact that I’m…” she winked, giving the girl a funky smile and a wink “very athletic” she imputed the last two words as if they were said by another person, being rather loud and tonaly different. It was one last test to see what the girl would say.

She stared, confused for a moment, then she narrowed her eyes, then she tilted her head in acknowledgement, and her tone entirely changed as well, sounding a little more relaxed. “you didn’t happen to wake up today and learn you were a little more so, did you?”

“I guess I did. You didn’t by chance have anything immensely strange, dare I say, supernatural happen today, did you?”

The girl wasn’t really the one to run with jokes, so she bluntly said “If you mean the ground turning into ice beneath my feet, yes.”

Sagaia puffed up her cheeks, then bent down as she let out a series of laughter, finding the conversation they just had hilarious, then stood a little more erect for a moment, and appeared in front of the girl in an instant. She recoiled in surprise as Sagaia held her hand out “My name’s Sagaia, I can stop time, who are you?”

After a moment of processing by the girl, she took Sagaia’s hand “and my name is Serra...my power is a little weird...It gives people blessings...or something…nice to meet you,” He voice lacked the laxness, enthusiasm, or confidence of Sagaia’s, but she tried to respond in turn. Their handshake of comradery was broken up a bit by Lele, who gave some basic, loud exclamations. “Does she have a power too?”

Sagaia looked at her sister then back to Serra “I mean, I don’t think so, at least.”

Kaba was always a bit of a daredevil before this. He was born in the far northern americas, far north, in a small town. He wasn’t satisfied with his life by the time he was really able to choose what he would do for himself, but he knew what really sparked passion into himself he loved to explore, to learn things about the world no one else did, to go places no one he knew had seen. He would always show his friends the coolest places in the forest, and so he was always at the forefront of his friend group. Sahra was his best friend, and he always played the leader, while Kaba was the scout. Of course, the ‘leader’ dynamic changed from time to time, but he always saw Sahra as that. Once, he had found a bear cave, and led his friends to it, when a bear was there, and dangerously close because of Kaba’s recklessness, Sahra had come in his usual timely manner, with bear spray at hand. He always leaned on his friend, thinking him to be the coolest person around. Of course, being a scout is useless as an adult. What would you find, and who would care? No one in the town cared. He worked laboriously for years, hoping to find some meaning or passion in his life. With friends all around, a place to call home, and memories he could find that, right? After watching a documentary about an unexplored temple only researchers could enter, and only with a high level of education and specialisation, he wouldn’t have thought to do anything rash, normally. The documentary was inspiring because it showed to him that many things were yet to be discovered. That his scouting was still valuable. That wouldn’t be enough to push him to do anything ridiculously rash or anything, but some strange entity leaned over his shoulders told him he needed to go there, so for some reason, he thought it would be a great choice to infiltrate a high security ancient tomb for no reason. Yes, now that he wasn’t so drunk on weird magic stuff, he found his decisions more than a tad, pinch, grain, miniscule, infinitesimally reckless. When he arrived in the city nearby, he had been pushed by the entity to simply walk right into the temple, and so he did so. What ensued was the most hilariously ridiculous stroke of luck he would ever witness. The patrols were all gone, dealing with some raging drunk native screaming about the environment, and entirely with their guard down. The gate was wide open, and after he walked right past it some other patrolman not on duty was berated by someone with a white coat about the importance of security, and so he moved on. At the front door of the temple, it was an open entrance, another person in a white coat ran past him in a hurry, glancing a strange look at Kaba that revealed a terrified face. He had his phone in his hand, which was on speaker, and Kaba could hear the sound of someone crying through it. The entity said something that conveyed sorrow, but also interlaced laughter in response. Kaba, in the end, simply walked through the temple door. He heard even more sounds of chaos in the temporary tents and small buildings. He was excited, truly, for the first time in a long time. Inside, there was a hallway that spanned the perimeter of the temple, and a large pyramid ceilinged room in the middle, where the entrance continued into. The entity urged Kaba to look at the paintings, before the main event. It said many things, but talked of some past it had, remembering the old days as it used Kaba’s vision as a proxy. Although he was rather annoyed at that entity now, he recalled being entertained by her. It was a her, wasn’t it? he recalled the paintings fully, as if he saw them yesterday-wait he had-and they had the entity drawn on them, as a woman. After their little prouse of the art, they returned to the main chamber, which was as bland as it got. He was simply told to walk to one of the walls, and crack it down with a pickaxe he had brought. Inside the wall, in a position so random it would never have been found without prior knowledge or pure luck, was a box. Inside the box, was another box, and inside that box was another box. He still didn’t really understand why that was the case, because one way or another, he found a little...ethereal-looking candy inside a cane wrapping. As he had been instructed, he ate it. It actually tasted pretty good, despite being a millenia-old hard candy. That, as the being said, was his reward. He knew from the start he was being played by the entity, but the candy had somehow managed to take him off guard. Enough so, to not realise he had already done what the entity wanted. She ran off without a trace, after telling him it would be best if he sat and went to sleep.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Now that it was all over, he could only remember the entity’s existence as feelings. While he had always strewn his thoughts together with words, if he tried to articulate any pertaining to the entity, it would fail to articulate. It angered him not having full control of his mind, but his built up empathy for the entity, and his thankfulness for still being able to remember the last moments of his life made him not curse the entity. Well, no. he did that quite a bit, just not as much as he normally would. The reason why, would be because he was a lizard now.

Lele would be Kaba’s caretaker. That much was decided. She had too much fun with that man, his latent potential to spread chaos was amazing for her purposes. Now, just give him to the party, manipulate them together behind the scenes, and hilarity would ensue. She could do a lot, right now, as her sibling ravenously chased her down, but for the time being sitting back and relaxing would be fine.

Lele didn’t like school, but each day after she would feed her Little Devil some ants and watch him feast. Usually that was. Little Devil was gone from the cage. And she tried to say so to Sagaia, but she was too busy ‘cleaning’ you couldn’t be busy talking to your friends on the phone and cleaning at the same time! That was too unfair, Lele couldn’t do that because all she had was the home phone. She accidentally broke it, and she wasn’t telling sis that. Although she didn’t acknowledge it, or maybe didn’t know it, Lele knew her sister did even more for the establishment of their house than her mother did. That didn’t really mean much anymore, though. That said, her sister could stop time! Couldn’t she clean it all super duper quick?

Well, Sagaia wanted, and tried to, in all truth, but the increased gravity that strangely plagued the fourth dimension, combined with a strange effect that made her unable to regain her stamina inside it, made abusing it for menial tasks very tiring. It was the first day of running around the place, using it like a madwoman, and halfway in she felt like she could collapse at any moment. What she feared was jet lag, and her enemy was the alarm. She guessed, if she pushed herself just a little harder, she would be able to sleep the perfect amount of time. In the meantime, she was fueling her -what felt like- late night cleaning(it was four at night) with rage at her mother. Well, that made her sound particularly angy, but she was too tired and too used to this behavior coming from her mother to really care. After moving some books her mother had hoarded and placing them in another of the many, many piles that plagued every room of the house, she found the lizard. She had accidentally stacked a book on top of it, crushing it. It was a massive book, of a title she purposefully ignored. Well. That was unfortunate...her mind was normally very keen but slow, but due to the exhaustion she was both. First she cursed, and went to remove the book. Then, her mind caught up with reality. The lizard had phased through the book. it took a moment of staring aimlessly at the equally startled lizard before Lele walked into the room “have you seen will’ devil’” her speech was really good for her age, but ‘little’ always tripped her up. The house was practically in shambles all the time, filled to the brim with countless piles of useless garbage, garbage Sagaia had to throw out in secret all the time, avoiding her mother’s all-remembering memory and ill-used temper. It was pure luck, it seemed, that the lizard would show up after escaping its cage, despite the many hiding places. Sagaia guessed the lizard must be able to phase through objects, or something along those lines, so picking it up would require it to be a responsive listener...or, she could wait for its guard to be let down, then snag it with her abilities. Wait, no, the lizard would just escape no matter the container. Well, the situation was weird, and while she loved herself some weird situations, she was waaay too tired to put in more effort than she had to spare

“Lele, get me your ants, your lizard has superpowers so we need to bait him out of a book.”

Lele stood still for a moment, confused, then perked up and said “Ok!” enthusiastically, and ran out.

While she was away, Sagaia stared at the lizard. It seemed a little strange, it was moving its posture subtly, rather than freezing in place, like lizards usually did when scared or stressed. It was red and black, spiked all over, and could fit all its legs on her head with relative ease. It walked through the book, and leaped onto the ground. It didn’t catch its fall very well, and bounced off the floor, landing upside down. After struggling for a moment, it tilted itself up. Sagaia had expected it to stand still, but it seemed curious. Maybe it’s intelligence was due to its power? Sagaia slowly placed her foot above the lizard in a highly threatening fashion, then slowly pivoted her foot down upon it. Her foot, as she expected, passed through it like a hologram. It stared at her with it’s head, protruding through her foot. It looked between her foot and face, then skittered out. Sagaia stopped time, then attempted to catch the lizard with cupped hands. As she guessed, it didn’t work. Just like Serra’s ability, it functioned even when time was stopped. Though, she didn’t really understand how exactly the interaction worked. He hand passed right through it. After she unstopped time, returning to her original position, the lizard looked to the bookshelf, and a book fell from the top of it, through three other floors of the shelf, then bounced on the last, and fell to the ground, opened. The lizard looked to a desk shoved in the corner of the room hafhazardly, and ran to it, parkoured off some boxes Sagaia knew was filled with stupid dolls, and leaped into one of the drawers. a pencil fell out of it, along with the lizard, and with its tail, it dragged the pencil to the book, walking straight through a pile of socks. It then quite obviously, desperately began attempting to write, to no avail, since it had no arms, and the pencil was half its weight. Sagaia just picked up the pencil and said “point to the letters”. It was a book about egyptian mythology, and its spine was partly broken. It was at this time that Lele walked into the room with a sealed bag of ants “I got them! what are you doing with W-Little Devil?”

“Writing I guess. Come here and look at this.”

Lele seated herself in front of the book and stared down at Little Devil. He was hovering a claw at a “K.” Sagaia wrote the letter above the writing.”K”“a”“b”“a”“ ““n”“a”“m”“e”

“That’s your name?” Sagaia said. It hovered its claw on a “y” purposefully. Lele just sat, patiently aweing at what was happening. Well, Sagaia figured, I’m too tired for this. “Ok, just sit in your cage or something and we will figure this debacle out tomorrow, in the meantime…” she let the pent-up exhaustion consume her, and leaned back with a loud yawn, letting go of the pencil to hold her upper body up with her hands “Lele...just...give him the book, and write on a paper if you need to find out what he wants.” Lele placed her palm on the book, and the lizard walked on top of it. She held the lizard up, and scratched its weird spikes on her face affectionately.

Sagaia, while Lele rubbed spikes on her face, laid in her bed in an instant.

Kaba was surprised the teen picked up what was happening so quickly. He had seen a cliche in kid’s movies, where a kid’s dad turned into a dog or something, and just as they tried to explain it, something messed up and they couldn’t, but he didn’t even need to try, and it worked out as well as it could go. He knew, from his previous interactions with the entity, that there were some kids given superpowers, though he didn’t know the details, so maybe they were so unsurprised because they had already had superpowers? it was difficult to say. When he looked back at ‘Saga’ she had already left, like she’d teleported. It was a little galling, but she sounded as exhausted as it got. Now, he was going to be stuck in a room with this kid, ‘Lele’, and it was probably going to be boring. What wasn’t going to be boring about it, he rued, as Lele placed him in a glass cage filled with sand, and now a book, was the pile of dead ants he was left with. It, he presumed, would be weird, eating ants as a lizard, but he was once more happily surprised by the taste. It was kind of like eating a taco, if he had to compare it to anything, because while the ‘shell’ was bland, the insides were nice and juicy. A descriptor he was a little disgusted to put on ant guts, but that was what it was. Thankfully, once his meal was over and he began to ‘sleep’ he realised just how quickly time passed as a reptile. Not just that, but he could exchange his own mind with the lizard’s when he wanted to. It’s soul seemed to be overpowered by the willpower of a human soul with ease. Something along those lines. As he retreated to the back of his mind, he felt the entity’s presence return, though now it seemed to have less of a death hold on his mind, and was much more relaxed. He could, once more, speak with it.

“having fun?” she asked.

“As if, you turned me into a lizard” he was angry at the entity, but as he heard it’s voice once more, feelings he really didn’t want to surface tried to, like bubbles in a soda can, stirred by the can rattling. Ok, he admitted, that was a bad analogy. He felt the entity’s subconscious mind, now reawakened appended onto his own, agree with the sentiment. What did piss him off, was that the entity seemed to think it was perfectly fine to invade his mind and comment on his fragile feelings. Well, no, it knew it was rude, but did it anyways specifically because it was rude. That was the entity’s true nature after all.

She laughed consciously “well, it's a well loved one”

“Yeah. It certainly is. OI, LIZARD, STOP PEEING ON THE BOOK” that justified a laugh from the entity.

“Well, I thought since you liked adventure so much, you would enjoy being an animal.”

“Not really my preference, or idea of ‘adventure’ if you ask me”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I couldn’t morally put you in a human, so I just thought you would be fine with a lizard” it genuinely apologized, he could tell through its unconscious emotions. Though, it was still laughing at his emotions so he couldn’t really dispel his annoyance…

“so...am I like this forever?”

“no Idea” It was a heart wrenching statement for Kaba, and the entity quickly tried to cheer him up “I mean, I’ve been this for centuries, I’m sure you can handle being a lizard until you die, right?”

“is dying a reconciliation for losing my life?”

The entity was conflicted, and instead of communicating transmitted powerful emotions of sorrow, hope, and apology. It also gave him some implicit information, that roughly told him that it wasn’t its fault he was a lizard, and that if he died, it could always drudge his soul from the otherworld and they could have fun as long as he wanted. Sometimes the way it thought seemed like a child, and when questioned on it, it seemed to think that was how humans should think. It thought inconceivably, and maybe that was something that fed his fondness for it.

After the communication, he just said “let’s just rest” and closed his mind from thoughts, passively observing the world from the lizard’s eyes. Both him and the entity had a long day or two without sleep, they could do with a rest.

Gathering people with superpowers was supposed to be easy, just throw some ‘joking’ notices on lampposts around the neighbourhood about a get-together looking for people who gained superpowers recently, and they would come. It actually was, which Clayme was incredibly surprised about.

Clayme and Kayla sat on one couch, and Leene sat on the other. They waited to hear a knock on their door, though they doubted they would. Would others like them even choose to keep their powers secret?

“so,” Leene said, a little absent “what’re we gonna call ourselves then? we can’t keep calling ourselves ‘people with powers’ forever.”

Kayla spoke up “oh right! I wanted to call ourselves ‘the extras’”

Clayme just said “sounds good to me.”

A knock on the door silenced Leene’s response. Clayme walked to the door, halfway expecting a package or something not-ordinary.

Instead, he saw Serra, some other senior at his school, another girl with a jacket and athletic shorts, and a much younger girl with a lizard in her hair. He hadn’t been expecting people to come, just a day after he had posted the notices.

“is this the place with the ‘cool superpower meeting’?” Serra asked.

“yeah, my name is Clayme, you can come in” The three walked into the house and followed Clayme to the couches, where he sat next to his sister, and Kayla moved to sit next to him, leaving the other couch empty. The three sat down on it.

A bit of a silence followed, as Clayme did something on the computer that sat on the table, and walked to another room.

Kayla was the first to break the silence, and held her hand out “So I’m kayla, nice t’meet you!”

Sagaia grabbed her hand and shook it “I’m Sagaia” The silence continued, and so Sagaia started to say “So...I can-”

Leene interrupted her, keenly seeing what she intended to say “Don’t say anything about what you can do yet. Clayme is getting the papers.”

Lele was quiet, and bored, so she took out a notebook from her backpack and placed the lizard on it.

leene was confused “so...why does the girl have a weird spiky lizard?”

“he’s got a name you know,” Lele pouted a little “it’s Kaba, and I’m Lele”

“ok, Lele, why did you bring your lizard here?”

“It’s called Kaba!” she wasn’t going to let Leene get away with ignoring that.

“fine, why is Kaba here?”

“because he’s-”

Sagaia put a finger to her mouth “remember what Clayme said? don’t talk about its ability” She then moved her hand to scruffle Lele’s hair

“I wasn’t going to say what it was or anything…” Lele grumbled.

Clayme returned with a pile of papers, sat in a chair that he had moved to be below the TV, and started handing a paper to each of the others. He became aware, at this point, that all of them were girls “don’t tell me the lizard is a girl too…”

“it’s a guy.” Sagaia said. Lele was still pacified.

Clayme finished handing out the papers. He wasn’t exactly vain enough to care about a lizard’s gender, but it still might help explain the pattern of who the superpowers were given to.

“You didn’t give me a paper” Sagaia spoke up.

“what…” he clearly remembered doing so though. He sat for a moment. Then sent her a nasty look, and glanced at Leene and Kayla. Who shrugged.

Before he articulated what he was going to say, he heard another knock on the door. He pocketed his phone “barely on time...” He stood up, and walked to the door. Another girl stood on his porch, nevously fiddling with a notebook, holding it below her chest. The right side of her hair, which fell just below her neck, was dyed green. She was likely a year younger than Clayme.

“Is this the house?”

“probably” Clayme opened the door more to let the girl in. He sighed. Was it uncanny luck that made him be the only boy in the group, or was there something he didn’t know? “My name’s Clayme, just sit down at the couch, or wherever.”

The girl just pulled a bit of her hair with her right hand “Ok, uhh...my name’s Yahhn, sorry for being late”

Clayme walked to and kneeled down at his computer “You were on time. Barely, that is.” he printed another paper and went to pick it up from the other room.

Yahhn introduced herself to the rest of the group, then sat next to Kayla and Lenne. “So...what do we do here?”

The rest of the group was looking at the papers they were given. Lele wasn’t, though “I don’t know, sis just said she needed Kaba, and I know better than to trust her to be nice”

Her question wasn’t really answered though. Leene and Kayla had already known the contents of the paper, so they just glossed over it. Leene spoke first “Superpowers. We just group together, and we make democratic decisions on what we do with them.”

“democratic decisions?” she sounded a bit confused. She knew what the words meant, but something about the way the phrase was said confused her.

Clayme returned, and handed Yahhn and Sagaia a paper each. Sagaia separated the paper she was given, revealing that she was actually given two “You gave me an extra” she said, reclining in her seat.

Clayme looked from his computer to Yahhn, then to Sagaia, an indignant expression on his face “unlikely. Now that we are all seated, I’m going to read the contract to all of you.”

I pledge to follow club guidelines and rulings, as well as to not abuse or purposefully undermine those rulings without proper .

“Before you sign it, I also prepared a list of guidelines and rulings. Before you sign, I’ll read it out to you. We can then amend it democratically.” Clayme picked up a piece of looseleaf paper from the table.

Being apart of The Super Club means that you must follow these rules and guidelines

Rules: No member will reveal information judged ‘classified’ to non-members

(‘classified’ information includes information on member’s powers, as well as any information classified as such by democratic selection)

Members are held accountable to guidelines by other members. Willfully breaking a rule or guideline will result in potential exemption of club activities, if agreed upon by Manager and Secondary manager.

Secondary Manager is chosen by majority vote of members present at the beginning of each club meeting.

Guidelines:

1:Do not jeopardize Super Club’s secrecy from non-members

2:After the first meeting, people may only be allowed into the club by ⅔’s vote(rounded up) and The Manager’s approval

3:Do not use powers in a way that violates non-member’s human rights, without direct permission from The Manager and one other member. What classifies as a ‘human right’ can be changed with approval of the manager and a majority vote. Actions unrelated to powers are not considered in this rule.

4:The Manager overrules in case of ties.

5:The Manager is Clayme Ulemer. The title of Manager may only be moved to another person with permission from the current Manager.

6:Rules and guidelines may be changed, overruled, appended, or discarded without the approval of The Manager so long as all other members are in agreement.

“that’s about all we could come up with. It was a little scraped together, since this whole thing started yesterday.”

Sagaia looked a little contemplative, and worried. Lele looked at her in confusion, not entirely understanding what was said. Serra had a skeptical look, staring at Clayme, Leene and Kayla relaxed a little, and observed the table. Yahhn’s eyes flickered between each other person, a mix of confusion and concern on her face.

Kayla spoke, as upbeat as ever “essentially, we have rules and guidelines. Since this is kind-of a weird situation, we thought it would be best if we rounded up all the other kids like us, and get some rules down so we don’t risk anything in the process. We can test our powers out all we want in the club, but if you don’t want to be apart of the club, we can’t really be sure that something really bad could happen to you.

“so, this club is about grouping up to stay safe?” Serra said, less skeptical.

“preeetty much”

Sagaia was a little overwhelmed with information, so she just started her more personal concerns, and left the nitty-gritty to Serra “does this mean I can’t use my power unless the group says so..?”

“no, you just need to be generally ethical and not reveal anything to non-members about the group’s powers”

Sagaia looked to Serra, who seemed fairly content.

“Do you need powers to be a part of the club?” Yahhn seemed a little perplexed and nervous, still looking between each of the members, trying to glean information from their body language.

“No. There aren't any prerequisites to being a member, aside from being voted in,” Clayme quickly answered her question then looked at everyone, judging all the questions to have been answered “so, any other concerns?”

“The guideline about human rights, what counts? If I used my power to steal a piece of food from someone? would that count as violating their human rights?”

Clayme shrugged “Technically, yes”

“can you change the wording a bit?”

“sure, if everyone agrees”

“can you make it so that we need to ‘significantly’ violate their rights?”

Clayme produced a pencil from the pocket of his jeans, and placed it, ready to write, on the rules and guidelines paper “show of hands to approve”

Lele raised hers, seeing Sagaia raise her own, Serra followed, with Kayla and Leene agreeing as well. Yahhn seemed nervous, but raised her hand like the others without really thinking.

“unanimous approval…” Clayme erased and changed the writing.

Serra spoke up “I don’t see any way to enforce any of these rules, though. What does it mean to be ‘excluded from club activities’?

“Not much, but it could matter. We are dealing with magic here. However, since we have no practical way of enforcing any of the rules and guidelines. Ultimately, it's just up to the vote, how we deal with breaks of the rules. Once you are a member, you are always a member.”

“So it's just a glorified ‘in the know’ group”

“Yep. Aside from the club activities, the entire structure of The Super Club is a social one. Once everyone signs, we can begin activities.”

Kayla, Leene, and Serra gave Clayme their papers, then Yahhn turned hers in, then Sagaia turned in hers, and signed Lele’s for her “Does Kaba need to too?” Lele said.

“Uhh, no? I’ll just assume he did, I guess” Clayme was a little confused, but figured Lele was talking about the spiky lizard, so he entertained the kid’s question, a little. After confirming he had all of the papers, he tossed the pile, along with the Rules and Guidelines paper, to Leene, where the pile promptly disappeared in midair.

“Now, how about we get to introductions?”