May 12th, 2022. Midnight.

After hugging her brother and removing the shades concealing her eyes, Ava walked into her home. Scanning the living room upon entering the chamber, she recognized her darling younger brother. Archer smiled under the scarf and waved at his sister’s familiar face. Without skipping a beat, she widely grinned, allowing her arms to wrap around his neck as she warped right beside him.

“Agh, get off, get off!” He pushed her away.

“Aww, come on, don’t be like that! You know how much I miss my baby brother!” Ava said.

Watching from the doorframe peering into the room, Talen turned to his mother. “Is it always like this?” he asked.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

They walked forward, plopping down into their proper seats while Ava removed her arms from Archer’s neck. To recover from his sister’s assault, he picked the joint from the ashtray and lit it at the end. The gray mist emanating from the end traveled around the room, slipping the scent into his sister’s deprived nose.

“Ooh, I didn’t know you smoked now. What gives?”

Removing the spliff from his lips after taking a pull, he looked at her. “College entrance exams. It helps ease my stress,” he said; smoke leaking out his mouth.

“I thought it was for sleeping better-“

“Does it matter?” Talen interrupted.

Their eyes turned to the eldest son, awaiting what he had to say regarding the explanation for his spontaneous reappearance. Archer took one more puff from the joint, tilting his body just the slightest to hand it to Ava beside him.

“So, my son? What is it you came here to tell us? We’re all waiting.”

Talen nodded at his mother. He sharply inhaled and began speaking.

“Two days ago, I was confronted by the King. He said that the night before, three assassins from the Syndicate were not only trying to kill him but steal the Crown in the process. He attempted to ask me to help him, but honestly, I’m conflicted. After everything that’s happened, I doubt I can do what he wants without losing myself in the process.”

The mother glanced at her two other children, then looked back at Talen. “What is it he’s asking you to do?” she asked.

“Knowing Barron, he probably wants me to slaughter all of the Syndicate without any strings attached. I’m the only one capable of doing it, but that’s not all,” Tal rested his knuckles on his chin.

“If you go along with the plan and flawlessly execute each member of the Syndicate, I’m sure the King will dispose of you afterward. Thus ridding himself of not only his biggest competitor within the kingdom but the only individual capable of rivaling his strength,” Archer said.

“Wait, I’m confused. Didn’t you know all of this already? I know you didn’t just come here to discuss whether or not you should commit mass murder for the King, right?” Ava asked.

“Of course not,” Tal said. “I’ve learned my lesson with issues like that already. What I’m mainly focused on is whoever’s trying to steal the Crown.”

“Isn’t that thing bound to whoever it chooses to be its host?” asked Val.

Talen shook his head. “There are only two other people who should be able to use the Crown besides the King. But, Uri’s dead and nobody’s seen Marie in years. There’s something bigger going on here and I wanted everyone’s help figuring out what to do. I want to make sure the choice I make… is the right one.”

Everyone else looked at one another, sharing an identical stare that darted back to the oldest son. Extending her hand to rest over his shoulder, Valentina raised his head, sending a caring look into her son’s green eyes.

“No matter what you choose, we will always stand beside you. If you wish for us to aid you, I can call in sick and take off work for a few days,” his mother said.

“No, you don’t have to worry about that. I can handle—“

Talen’s pupils shrunk. Surging through his mind was an image of the future, leaving his body no other choice but to duck over his mother and collapse to the carpeted floor. Ava followed her older brother’s movement, immediately throwing herself right onto Archer. The wall behind where the oldest Amit's son previously sat had detonated without any prior warning, leaving nothing but fire and rubble in its wake.

Retracting his arm from over Valentina, Talen’s gaze shot to the silhouettes standing in the hole the explosion had created. Retreating from the shadows with Fate auras powering them, the Syndicate assassins raised their open palms, preparing to incinerate their floored targets.

‘Archer!’ Talen called.

His younger brother pushed Ava away and threw the scarf hiding his lips aside. Just that action was enough to send the infiltrators to shiver, even before he even invoked an attack. Upon widely opening his mouth, Archer screamed a repulsing telekinetic wave that sent them flying through the sky and past the moon without so much as lifting a finger.

‘Ava, do me a favor and take the three knocked-down assassins upstairs. Arch, repair the house. Mom, fight with me outside.’

‘Right!’

Once the family agreed in unison via Archer’s psychic link, they went to work obeying their orders. Talen and Valentina jumped through the hole the detonation formed while Arch telekinetically repaired it. Ava, on the other hand, lifted the three assassins and threw them over her shoulder, quickly fleeing from the living room to try and make a break for upstairs.

Just before she could, the main entrance exploded, leaving her momentarily disoriented. In the middle of repairing the coffee table, Archer heard the second explosion and looked at his peripheral.

‘You alright over there?’ He asked his sister.

Ava quickly recovered after the blast knocked her to the floor, rising from the ground and looking at her shoulder at the blood spilling like a downpour down her back.

‘Fine. But it looks like two of these assassins were decapitated at the same time they blasted off the front door. Only one of them’s still alive,’ she replied.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

‘That’s good enough. Warp him upstairs and take them out with Arch,’ Tal ordered her.

Just as he was about done fixing the living room, Archer barely began jolting forward.

‘No, put a field around the house. I’ll crush these ants myself…’

As she assigned her little brother another task, she punched her palm and cracked her knuckles. Flashing a fanged smirk at her armed opponents, she wasted no time dashing ahead and punching each of her opponents square in the face. In no time flat, they all fell onto their backs; helmets cracked and noses bloody.

Peeking from the living room after she dispersed her foes, Archer strolled from behind her with pocketed hands and gazed where she formerly stood. She was already gone. Shrugging his shoulders, he waved his fingers and repaired the door, turning his back as it magically screwed itself back onto the front entrance.

‘Don’t die out there, you three.’

While Archer carried the leftover assassin up the stairs to begin interrogation, the other three were dispersing the invading Syndicate members around the house. Valentina’s flying sideways kick threw her enemy to the ground, effectively alerting the ignorant enforcers to her presence. Immediately, a barrage of bullets fired at their target, ingraining holes into the soil ground below.

Before she started running, she threw her arm forward, throwing but a single projectile in the shape of a purple plasma star. One of the assassins was unfortunate enough to watch it fly into their rifle, leaving them to stare down at it in utter confusion.

‘Predestined Power: Course Correction.’

Valentina continued running around, the sound of the explosion behind her leaving her ears ringing—but it never mattered. She continued moving regardless.

Watching from a hovering drone surveying the nighttime battle through its lenses, the shadowed mastermind recounted her abilities.

Valentina Amit’s Predestined Power and aura is tied to an ulterior dimension. She uses it to defeat her enemy. Once they graze her target even the tiniest amount, Fate will correct whatever influence the bygone item has wrought and decimate whoever’s reaped her wrath.’

He smirked from behind the screen, scratching his chin while watching the chaos.

“I see you haven’t changed a bit, Mrs. Amit…”

Valentina ran past the numerous soldiers stationed around the house, speedily grazing them with the staff between her fingers. Having finished running behind the armed assassins, she returned the weapon to another portal and turned around, watching as the guards were engulfed in the anomaly plaguing their bodies. By the time five seconds had passed, all of their bodies had entirely vanished.

‘Tal, is everything alright on your end?’

Talen stepped back, occasionally raising both arms that deflected the metal slashes slipping from his attacker’s blade. Before the sword could lower into his skull, Amit caught the sharpness with his hand and crushed it between his fingers.

An invisible fist hit the swordsman assassin in the cheek, throwing them aside and rendering them unconscious. Just then, another assassin appeared right behind him. With the help of the Unconquerable technique amplifying his senses, he threw his fist back and slammed it into his enemy’s masked skull.

‘Fine. But this is too easy. Ava, clear up the rest then meet us inside,’ Tal said.

‘Way ahead of you!’

Having received his sister’s reply, he clasped both hands together—interlocking all of his fingers. By way of his inherited technique, he and Valentina warped right back into their family home. While they rendezvoused with Archer upstairs, Ava obeyed her brother’s orders and continuously dispersed the Syndicate’s guards.

Throwing a flying kick into one guard’s skull, she landed with bent knees onto the soil while they thudded flat on their back. More came rushing right at her, mostly unarmed. Ava uppercut one into the air, swiftly spinning around to kick another rushing behind her across the face.

Her darting pupils spotted more imminent enemies, to which she sighed. With but a glance, she could see that none of the enforcers matched the strength she wished to challenge. And with that confirmed, she needn’t waste any more time on these useless pawns. So, her hand extended.

‘Predestined Power: Cosmos.’

Opting against mercilessly slaughtering her foes, her open palm transmitted the energy necessary for long-range teleportation and thus, warped all of the remaining assassins away from her dear home’s perimeter. In less than a second after her technique’s activation, not only had she returned to the house, but all of the armed assassins attacking the family had vanished too. Needless to say, she’d accomplished her goal.

“I thought I told you to put a field around the house!” Ava yelled up the stairs.

‘Kinda busy over here,’ Archer replied.

Cheekily smirking, the Amit sister snapped her fingers, thereby placing an impenetrable force field over her cherished abode. After that, she ran upstairs and reconvened with the rest of her family.

The drone surveying everything above closed its lens, facing the sky above itself and then flying off into the deep, night sky. Behind the screen the bot was projecting onto, there stood the infamous mastermind. Closing the laptop with one hand, he sighed and slicked back his long hair, allowing snowy strands to dangle over his temples.

Looking at his hand, he maintained that permanent smile, using his fingers to count.

“Course Correction, Cosmos and Unconquerable. That’s three out of four. In all honesty, I’d much rather deal with that quartet on their lonesome than with their wretched old man added. Finding a way to immobilize one Unconquerable technique is much easier than finding a way for two. Then again, not by much, I suppose. Heh~”

Using the data he accumulated from the battle he orchestrated, the mastermind started formulating a plot that would soon usurp the Supreme King.

Fortunately for the Amits, they had an inside source in the form of a kidnapped Syndicate assassin. Misty eyes shone grey, and Archer’s fingers sunk into his temples as he telepathically searched his target’s mind. Removing his hands from his head, he stood tall and faced the two stationed behind.

“It looks like they were ordered to throw the fight in exchange for proper data on the ‘targets’. I guess whoever was puppeteering these guys wanted to evaluate our abilities,” Archer informed his brother.

“Got a name?” Tal asked, his arms crossed.

“Uh, I think so. But, it’s an alias. The assassins call the puppet master behind this attack ‘Angel’.”

“Does that mean anything to you?” Valentina asked her oldest son.

Scratching his chin, he shook his head. “No. But I guess we can infer that the puppet master behind this attack is also the same person who sent three assassins after the King.”

“But who could do this? Someone with enough manpower to puppeteer the whole Syndicate, capable of frightening multiple Fate-users into submission without a fight?” Ava asked.

Their mother groaned, furrowing her eyebrow while looking away. As her children worriedly stared at her, she removed the hand from her head and opened her mouth.

“I could think of one person…”

Once the sun rose on a new day, the heavens’ light enlightened the back of his jacket while the man stood over an indistinguishable tombstone. Briefly, he bent the knee, placing a bouquet in front of the grave before rising completely. Opening his closed eyes, the indigo coloration of his pupils briefly shone until the bearded man turned his head.

Directly behind him, leaning against a convertible was none other than Talen Amit.

Grinning as he rubbed his beard, the man chuckled.

“It’s nice to see you again, son.”