Saturday started with me out at the H.A.A.. I fed Princess, and took her with me, along with a backpack full of Tiramisu. She wasn't big enough yet to keep up with me running, but after a quick pit stop, I was on my way. I did stream for a while, talking about leaving school, and how I planned to use my extra time. I would start by memorizing the rest of my textbooks for high school, and expand, essentially learning every single class the school offered. This would give me a baseline of various education to work from, and by doing every merit badge for Scouts, I could expand even further beyond that. Mom gave me some basic college texts on philosophy, ethics, and sociology.

On skills and abilities, I was starting to hit my limit on active knowledge of karate. Sparring with Mackenzie was one thing, but karate as a martial art had its limitations. I needed more, to expand. It was naive to believe that the city, or the world, were just going to let me have whatever I wanted. It was crazy the degree to which I was advancing, not just in my abilities, but the thought process behind them. To achieve my dream, I would need every spare scrap of knowledge and wisdom, enough understanding across so many lines that even the adults would have to listen to me.

And that's when I saw it, and made an early stop. I must have passed this place a thousand times, and never really considered it. An old mall, it had been declining for some time, and whatever business had been left to it, the COVID lockdown and social distancing had been the final death blow. During lockdown, I'd been confined to the house of course, just like everyone else, and I'd watched a lot of Netflix. Amongst those shows, one had talked about how malls had come to be. The guy who originally came up with the idea... I couldn't remember his name, but he'd envisioned malls as having apartments attached. This was intended to create a sort of community within the mall, and now that I thought about it, I smiled. It was perfect. The city needed more housing, affordable housing that could compete against the various apartment complexes. It was like Monopoly, the game that had triggered my ban from board game night.

Partway through the game, I'd counted the number of houses, and realized something: There were only a specific number of houses, and they weren't enough to fill up the board, nowhere near it. In order to build hotels, you needed a monopoly, and four houses first, but if the houses were all bought up, then you couldn't build anything until a house went back in the bank. I stopped bothering with the larger properties, screw them, I traded and dealt to complete the monopolies along the start of the board instead. I even traded out Boardwalk to Mackenzie, since she had Park Place, getting Baltic and St. James. From there, armed with the three cheapest monopolies in the game, it really didn't matter what anyone else did, I could just run the board by controlling houses. I didn't need all of them, I just needed enough to empty the bank. I mortgaged out my remaining properties, and built up every property I could, using as many houses as possible. Some rolls later, I was pulling in enough money to finish it out, and everyone was ready for the hotels to come online, but even as they filled up, I just sat on the houses, bought any that got sold to the bank, and let everyone else scramble. Mackenzie fell first, then Mom, then Dad. The dice were immaterial, I even sat in jail for three full turns, even though I had a get out of jail free card. Movement didn't matter, the cards, dice, even all three players deciding to forego rent against each other, none of it mattered. They could all play against me, collude what they wanted, and I would just win, because the real monopoly of the game was housing.

Damn it. Games. I'd stopped playing games for the most part because they were too easy to beat with my powers and abilities, but I'd missed a key concept: Games were the earliest way to teach. Tic-Tac-Toe taught basic strategic thinking for children, Hide and Seek taught stealth and how to track and hunt at a basic level, Monopoly taught the issues of unrestrained capitalism as its main focus, Pandemic taught crisis management and teamwork. The same was even true in a lot of video games. I'd fucked up, I'd set myself back because I didn't consider the concept well-enough, it was infuriating. I needed to get on Steam, and get to work. This could be done, it was all just another version of a game, with less tightly confined rules. I remembered my anime, No Game No Life, the speech about the absolute rules of games. FUCK!

The mall could be my lab, it could be used to control conditions, and get me on the board the game for Portland was being played on. I hadn't even considered it 'til now, just straightly limited thinking on my part. I grabbed caffeine, and finished getting to the H.A.A.. I need to get this done, and shot off a message to my dad that we needed to talk urgently after the meeting.

It occurred to me as I stepped inside the H.A.A. that I looked absolutely weird as hell. I had this intense look on my face, but I was dressed in a pretty basic pair of sweats, wearing a Boy Scout T-shirt I'd bought online, my green and white plaid flannel, and cadet cap, with a puppy, and a giant bag of dessert for folks. My life is completely absurd.

Unlike last time, though, they were ready to get to work immediately, and I was able to use my pass to bypass most of the general impediments. Usually, I would've been stopped with the dog, but this is Portland, pretty much everyone had, used to have, or was in the process of getting a dog, and the huskies were legion around the city. It was a nothing commute, just keep moving.

I burst into Anna's office, fishing out one of the Tupperware containers of tiramisu as I did, "We need to talk."

She jumped out of her seat, which was... odd. Her telepathy should've told her I was there, that I was coming in, but she'd reacted like I suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Something was off, "Sorry for scaring you, I sort of assumed you would be able to sense me. Unless your powers are malfunctioning, you couldn't sense me."

She put a hand on her chest, and closed her eyes a moment, "My powers are not malfunctioning, I assure you."

Not a denial, but not a confirmation, "Alright then: What number am I thinking of?"

It was both a number, and a movie quote, '69, dude!'. She looked at me for a moment, and even if she couldn't sense me, she got it, "I was having trouble reading you last time, and now? You're like a blank space, like trying to hear ultra-sonic frequencies. I can sense everyone else in the building, just not you... or the dog, though that's more cause she isn't human. What's his name?"

"Her name's Princess," I said, passing her the tiramisu, and taking a seat across from her.

Anna sat back down, "Well, today is pretty straightforward. Adam's back in town, and we wanted to get another read on your powers. The H.A.A. is pretty certain we mis-categorized you on your initial assessment, due to the descriptor. How did you put it in your thoughts? 'I get slightly better at stuff'. It's pretty obvious now that we were all, yourself included, about as far off as we could be as to what the power- Oh my god, this is delicious! Where did you buy- wait, you made this, didn't you?"

"Thanks, and yeah, started yesterday, and just kept making more til I got it dead on. I've got more in my backpack, and I wanted to trade it with the cafeteria staff," Anna might be working with and for the H.A.A., but she took her job a counselor to the enhanced very seriously.

"Trade it for what?", she said, happily munching away at her dessert.

"Access to their kitchen. I want to learn cooking, but if I'm honest, Mom's gonna kill me if I keep bombing out the kitchen at home,"

She nodded, "Ah, a proper survival instinct. Okay, so let's start off by taking a moment here, and then we'll head off to talk with Adam."

"You just wanna finish your tiramisu."

So from there, we talked. Anna, aside from her powers, was a properly licensed therapist, specializing in child and enhanced development. It really didn't cost me anything to be more open with her, and she assured me that the sessions were private. I laid down a puppy pad for Princess and talked about everything, including the reason I'd been making so much food. Anna smiled, "It's good to hear that you've got a girlfriend. Supers can become... really isolated, by the nature of what we are. Believe it or not, as much as you scared the bejeezus out of me, it was kinda fun. I've gotten so used to just knowing what everyone's thinking, sensing everyone. Having to actually ask questions, rather than doing it for the sake of politeness is just nice."

I scratched at my chin. I'd forgotten to shave this morning, "Well, if you can promise me that you won't keep pressuring me about the academy, we could make this a more regular thing, assuming that you're willing to work with me. And by the way, Academy would be nearly useless for me, it would just be high school all over again, as soon as I start moving, I'll just blow through the learning. I'd be there maybe three months at the longest, and I'd just be done. Everything after that would be just me hanging around for the sake of it. I already memorized my original textbooks, and I'm getting the honors program textbooks. I figure those might take me another month... No, probably about two to three weeks. I don't have school to contend with anymore."

Anna deflated a bit, "I'd absolutely love to work with you, but to talk about something else important first, as much as you've described what has been happening with you, you don't talk about how it all feels, where you're at emotionally. It's important to explore your feelings, not just your actions, and so many people don't get that far, whether they're supers or not, children, adults, everyone tends to avoid emotions they're uncomfortable with, and I'm telling you, as someone who hears it all, it does so much damage. Talk about how you feel, get it out there, because it needs to go somewhere."

She wasn't wrong. It had been there, and all came out when I sparred with my sister. I breathed in, and readied myself, "I'm scared, I'm stressed, and I'm so frustrated, angry. I didn't want any of this, and I still don't want it. I want to just be the me that I was a month ago, but it's so useless to keep feeling like that. I can't tap it back, it's gone, that life is gone, and the more I've tried to hold onto it, the more it's holding me back from what I can be. I can't go back, I can't be that kid.

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"What really gets me mad, though, is what I see all around me. Teachers so beaten down by a broken system that beats the love of education out of them and their students. Homeless camps across the city, when we could house them all, and really get to work on the problems. Even you, right here, right now if we're honest. You can read the minds of everyone around you, and what are you doing with it?

Anna didn't quite respond, taken off guard with the sudden tone and direction shift, "You're sitting in an office, working for people who just want everything to stay the same, so they don't have to admit the world already changed. They can't go back, it can't be that world again. That world ended a decade ago, and the collective wisdom of the entire human race refuses to just acknowledge it. Everyone's trapped in this never-ending cycle of misery. I will be the end of that cycle, that useless, self-defeating wheel that keeps torturing us all."

I'm not going to stop the wheel, I'm going to break the wheel. I'd read the books, even if my parents hadn't let me watch the show yet. I understood more fully now, the emotions behind it. I didn't even realize I was standing, my fist slamming down on the desk as I said it. The anger was coming out, and I didn't know where it would stop, "Look at your power, the ability to read the thoughts and emotions of nearly everyone around you. How many of them could you help? How many could you heal the wounds of, and yet you're here, working a job that pays shit, all so the guys running it can try to pretend everything's normal, that they still have control. It's an illusion, and if it only affected them, then fine, but how many people have to suffer and die for their God Damn fan-fiction?!"

"It's not that simple-"

"YES, yes it is! You make a choice, you choose to help, you choose to save them! Or is that not what 'heroes' are supposed to do? What, does it only matter if they're at threat from supervillains or some natural disaster? Why didn't you train your ability up? Do you all think I'm an idiot?! There are three powers that are specifically geared that can be trained: Magic, Chi Manipulation, and Psychic abilities. Most the rest are locked in when they first awaken, and it's more about the user learning how to best use their power, but you, you could train yourself to be better."

Anger is good. Anger gets shit done. I had watched American Gods during a sick day, and I'm realizing now, it was more right than I knew. It wasn't anger that was the problem, it's how anger is used. Channeled into a proper direction, it could propel me forward, but unchecked, and like Aang's first attempt at firebending, it could hurt the ones I love.

And then I deflated. Anna was crying. I'd done that, and she didn't really deserve the rage. Voicing my frustration, sure, but I'd completely uncorked a month of rage in one giant torrent, "I'm sorry. You're right, and you didn't deserve that... I'll... go by the cafeteria, and... I get it if you don't wanna work with me now."

I grabbed Princess, and my things, and went to the cafeteria. I had to get a handle on my emotions, or they'd consume me. There had to be some way to train better balance to my emotional state, something I could do that would let me get a sense of balance, so I didn't keep accidentally hurting people. Apologizing only matters if you're doing what it takes to not keep doing the thing you apologized for in the first place.

The kitchen staff were similarly thrilled with the tiramisu, and on condition that I wrote out the recipe for them, they agreed to let me use the kitchen, but only during the slow times between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Once things were on, they needed to be able to work, and I totally got that. For now, I'd just be a hindrance, but I intended to change that equation. Learning to feed a large mass of people at once was something I would need for later. Step one: 1% incrementally improved prep work.

Dad texted back to let me know he'd swing by the H.A.A. to pick me up, and I took Princess outside for a bit, until Anna came to find me. She'd definitely teared up for a bit, "Hey Marcus. Adam is ready, we shouldn't keep him waiting."

I nodded, and we went back inside to the evaluation room, where Adam was waiting. I handed him the last bit of the tiramisu, and he smiled, "Oh, thanks. I'll have that in a bit. Okay, let's do this thing. Gotta confess, I don't usually do these things twice, and it's only been a month, so I'm not sure how much things'll have changed for you."

He didn't really remember me from how he was talking. I mean, I get it, he probably does so many of these things throughout the year. As before, I set my hands in front of me, palms up, and Adam placed his hands on top of mine... and that's when it went sideways. It was a fraction of a second, but I felt something inside me push back against the energy this time, and a discharge of purple energy shot out from between our hands. Adam was blown off his feet, and I reacted instantly, shooting forward, catching his waist, and the back of his neck, just before it connected with the steel desk behind him. He wasn't unconscious, but it took a moment to get his bearings, and I helped keep him steady. Finally, he blinked a few times, and his face screwed up, "The fuck was that?!"

I shrugged, "I don't know. I felt something in me pushing, and then suddenly, there was a purple explosion."

He stood fully, pulling him together, "That's never happened. I couldn't get a reading, nothing. I barely contacted you, and it blew up instantly."

Anna's worried expression spoke volumes. She'd been able to feel the whole thing from his side of it, "It was like you hit a wall of nothing. I couldn't feel what it was that pushed you out."

I could, though, "You go through the blood to assess, right?" He nodded, and I had a theory, "You can't do that anymore with me. My immune system. Between you doing it before, and being in school for a month with dozens of kids who get sent in sick, it got 1%'d. So uh... what now?"

Adam waived Anna off, "Okay, so let's go over this. I've seen the videos, your ability to advance at things, and this-"

"He's also immune to me," Anna chimed in.

Adam rolled his eyes, "Alright, so basically, you're getting immune to invasive powers, and you could win every Olympic event... and this was one month of having this ability of yours. I... I don't even know how to classify this by tier. By empirical capability, I'd say strong E-Tier, but your power is built to grow, and grow rapidly. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah, Crimson started B-Tier, and she worked it up in the academy with teachers helping her, but this? I have no idea what the hell this even is."

Anna seemed to come to a decision, "S-Tier."

Adam jolted, staring at Anna as his jaw went slack. Anna shrugged, "What else could it be? We don't even know there's a limitation to this, and like you said, all of it's been achieved in a month."

S-Tier... there were only three in the entire world. One in Africa, one in Japan, and one in Ireland. All three nations that housed them had rocketed up in power in the world. S-Tiers were essentially superpowers in human form. Anansi had the ability to read and manipulate the strands of fate, and resided... somewhere in Africa, though no one could place it any closer unless she chose. Spirit Fox (Seirei no Kitsune, strictly speaking) in Japan was the world's most powerful Chi user, and Cu Culainn in Ireland was an absolute physical badass, not only strong, agile, fast, and tough, but a master of absolutely any weapon or style of fighting that existed, and could summon armor and weapons instantaneously. Any one of them couple wipe the floor with a dozen A-tier, just as A-tier could house full teams of B-tier. By the time you got down to baseline humans, Navy SEALs might as well be generic mooks in a Bruce Lee movie. They just existed to get dropped.

The only restraints on them were the numbers of other heroes in the world, and one another. Crimson was expected to join the ranks of the S-tier eventually, giving the U.S. its first. If Anna was right, that would eventually give America two S-tiers.... the implications of that were global. Adam and I's shock was normal. Anna's calm about it was the weird one. I imagine a psychic who is simultaneously reading the thoughts and feelings of everyone in her radius likely develops a disturbing level of calm if they don't want to lose their minds, and then she'd gotten medical and psychiatric training.

Adam held the bridge of his nose, "Okay. Game plan: Anna may be right, but putting you to S-tier is dangerous as hell, and like I said, from what I can see, you're E-tier. We'll go with that, and no one outside of this room learns any different.

"Marcus... not your friends, not your family. No one, not even if there's patient/doctor or attorney/client privilege protecting it, not written down in a journal, nothing. Seriously, you aren't on or near that level yet. We need to change how we're approaching things with you, I'll admit, and yeah it's completely unfair, but if you really are that guy, we need you to get there, and fast. I'm putting in against academy training for you. If you tell anyone, you're putting them in insane danger. I'm not kidding on this. Even academy won't protect you if the world learns this before you're ready for it. Whatever you need to do to get stronger, do it, but don't do it here."

Adam had barely talked the last time we'd been together, and as he spoke, he was typing on his computer, obviously submitting the paperwork that would classify me E-tier. Submitted, he looked up, "Well Marcus, this is as far as we go. I can't be seen checking you out, so much as I'd love to learn more about you, that's just a good way to get you pinched."

He shook my hand for the first and only time, and headed out, leaving me and Anna together. She gave it a minute, then turned to me, "Marcus, I want to help."

She had my number, I nodded, and headed out. By the time I was at the front, Dad was there, waiting in the lobby. Princess had a moment of zoomies at seeing him, and we headed out, setting her in her princess bed in the back. Dad could see concern in my eyes, "Something wrong, kid?"

"I'm officially an E-tier, and I lost my temper on Anna. I mean, we were in session, and she wanted me to express my anger, but it doesn't make it feel any better," I was lying to my dad, but Adam's warning rang in my head. I had to commit, and I was going to have to hide the truth from a lot of people. The hard one would be Darryl. His knowledge of supers was obsessive, so sooner or later, he'd realize I wasn't in-line with where I should be by classification. I took a breath, and switched topics, "Oh, we need to make a stop on the way home. I wanna show you the thing we need to talk about."

I took him by the dead mall, and at first he didn't quite get why we were there, and then I just explained it, "We need to buy it. It's part of the overall plan. Malls were originally supposed to have places to live in them, and if they'd stuck to that, malls wouldn't have started dying out like they did."

He looked over it, "How do you figure that?"

"Okay, say you need a new suit for work. It's Portland, so it's raining, and the wind is kicking up off the gorge. Are you going across town, or just out into the main mall your apartment's attached to?" I was getting better at explaining things quickly. I noticed it was better to give people a scenario they understood and have them work it out themselves, than just actually explaining it to them.

Dad caught it, and he smiled, "The covered, climate-controlled mall, and of course, the rent I'm paying would go into the mall's pockets. It's a good thought, but there's a couple of immediate problems: You don't have the money to buy it, and I'm pretty sure people are going to get out of sorts about you launching a mall."

I did an amazing amount of sarcastic dismay, "Oh no, if only I had a superpower that let me constantly get better at making absurd amounts of money... Seriously though, no one'll bat an eyelash."

He looked over to consider me, "What makes you say that?"

"I'm a teenager buying a shopping mall. They'll just see a kid being silly with his money, and write me off," shrugging, I looked at it, "I'll do the same thing I did in school- let them see what they wanna see until it's too late to get in my way anymore. But we'll need to do a couple of things first. The money, obviously, but also, I need money to roll through Steam Store, and... I, uh, have a date tomorrow. Could I get a lift?"