“Jackson Daniels is a criminal on the run from the United States,” Dad said with a heavy sigh. “Our attorney Abraham Hauff called to tell me earlier, I didn't want to ruin your guys's day and your birthday Eli, but it's time for us to make a plan.”
Eli sat on the tiny patio of their beach cabin while he stared out into the horizon. His stomach was full from dinner at the Shorefront and from an excessive amount of cake his parents had made together. But it felt like a knife jutted against his heart. His mouth puckered into a frown at what he had heard as he tried to process it.
Dad sat next to him awkwardly while he cradled a water bottle in his hands that crinkled with his every anxious motion. Lana bristled with outrage and confusion. Silverlight pulsed across her body as it shaped itself into armor again and again. Lyra stared off into the distance with the shell-shocked expression that she always wore, especially around Eli or their parents. Mom glowered with an impotent rage as flurries of snow billowed off her skin for a moment before she caught it and stopped her new starter power.
“Are you serious?” Lana growled as she paced furiously. “We were alone with him! While Eli was off galivanting to Springridge Mall, I had to sit and wait with him for you to pick me up! And he’s a criminal?”
“What did he do, Rick?” Mom asked with a cold, sharp tone like the rumbling crack of a frozen river.
“Apparently, he’s been selling government secrets. Inciting rebellion, and... and the murder of an entire squad of his Superpower Task Force team.” Dad squeezed the water bottle with a harsh pop. “They’re also pretty sure he’s been working for Sandra and Dave Farley.”
“No! Rick, what the fuck? Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Mom hissed as she paced with her arms crossed. “We need to go. Leave! Daniels knows where we live!”
“Where would we go?” Eli scoffed as he turned to glance at both of his parents. “He knows our powers. Where we live, yes, but you don’t think that they have people watching us? Reporting our movements? They raided a mall in broad daylight!”
“The police...” Lyra whispered as she looked up from her dissociation. “They didn’t move from their barricades.”
“You’re right!” Dad said as he turned towards her, then frowned. “You’re right. When we could finally leave, they said that they were ordered to not go inside! They were only supposed to keep the terrorists penned in until the Superpower Task Force arrived.”
“But they never did?” Eli asked as he glanced at his parents and Lyra. “When I teleported over, I saw no one coming. It was only the police and ambulances outside.”
“No. They didn’t. Once it was clear most of the prisoners were subdued, the police rushed in to arrest and kill any prisoners still fighting and to get people out.” Dad said while Mom picked at the hem of her dress while she stared into nothing.
Back on the other side of the cabins, laughter roared around the bonfire.
“Do they know where Dave and Sandra even are?” Eli asked. Both of his sisters turned to stare at him as if bewildered he understood who these people actually were. He supposed that Dad probably only talked to him about it.
“They tracked them down to the border of Mexico when they disappeared in the ambush that killed Daniels’s team. His assistant Grant or something was the only one to escape. He reported what happened. Only his ashes were found in the hotel room he tried to hide in a few towns over.”
Conversation stilled into silence. Eli could only hear the laughter and murmur of his friends talking and the whisper of the ocean’s waves.
“So. What do we do about it?” Eli asked as he stood up as he ran a dim, but still noticeable current of radiance through his body. His metal arm sparked with white-gold light.
“Well.” Dad said with a frown, light reflected off his glasses. “I think we could hole up somewhere. Maybe at a hotel or get a new house.”
“I’d rather we stay with my parents.” Mom said as snow spun around her in a blizzard. “They live far enough in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest. My parents both have strong enough powers that they could help us and they have our old house that isn’t really being used. We’d be safe there.“
“I don’t want to endanger anyone else though, Addy... Sandra is ruthless. Remember how she ruined her maid’s life by planting drugs in that woman’s son’s car then she fired her for bringing around ‘undesirable influences’ into her home? She will gladly destroy anyone around us. And Dave! Don’t get me started on Dave. He always took things to extremes before. And now they both have powers.”
“We can’t stay here though!” Mom protested hotly as she glared at Dad. “We only even moved out here for work and so we could get away from them and the mud they fucking dragged us through! Come on kids, what do you think?”
“I think I’d rather stay at Ava’s house.” Lyra stood up while she looked at both of their parents. “I... I keep remembering the mall. It was a normal day, but people died and got hurt. I bled and they hunted us down... because of you two. Both of you fought and destroyed so much… I... I had to burn someone alive with a solid illusion because they were about to kill you Mom. Therapy isn’t enough. Talking about it with you or some doctor doesn’t help. I’m afraid to be at school knowing that basically everyone there has powers! I just want to be safe.”
Lyra left.
Mom started to chase after her, but Dad held her back with a shake of his head. Lana frowned as she stared after Lyra, glanced at Eli and his parents, before she followed her.
Eli’s throat felt swollen as he winced throughout Lyra’s speech and beratement of their parents. He could imagine it all too well. How he’d come swooping in with overwhelming force as he fired shards of glass, rays of scorching light, and whatever else he could teleport around to fight. But it hadn’t been enough.
He’d been hurt, humiliated, brutalized and disfigured until he figured out how to restore his arm. All because of his parents in the first place, but also because he had felt the need to step in. Instead of being thanked or even apologized to for it or anything at all, he’d been yelled at. Lectured. But Lyra had been there for all of it.
He had made a choice, and he stood by it, even now. She had just been there.
He would do it again. But he wouldn’t risk himself needlessly. Not anymore.
Eli watched both of them talk to each other as they tried to plan. Tried to decide what they were going to do. He considered just leaving. He could go anywhere with ease. Hole himself up in his void and wander as he pleased. He frowned as he considered it though.
He’d be living the life of a ghost though.
Chatter and laughter echoed as someone said something around the light of the bonfire away from the cold and dark patio overlooking the sea. Powers and fear didn’t rule his life.
He did.
Eli wanted more than a life of fear and of him looking over his shoulder constantly. A life where he had to live knowing his family’s safety was in danger. He wanted to go to college and be free. Have fun. Make all kinds of power tech with Roman like his pair of gauntlets that rested in a spatial bubble inside of his void. He could do so much more than run and hide with his powers. But would that even be possible?
He glanced over at his parents while he thought about how the terrorists in the mall had shot down multiple people. Their powers had been beyond basic from what he’d seen, but if the ascent to power was to murder a few people that were at least as strong or stronger than you... then he wouldn’t get to have that either. If Mom had to accept that the old world was gone, then so did he.
Eli’s heart pounded as he thought about the seeds of rebellion. Several states were in open martial law. News was lagging internationally. Fights were blowing up everywhere as were other attacks. Other parts of the world surely had to be worse. Hell, the United States wasn’t any better. Part of his heart shattered at the thought.
Jackson Daniels hadn’t seemed amazing or anything. He’d willingly forced a school full of people to undergo invasive dream-like simulations of traumatic events just to see what they might do or could be capable of under duress.
Eli had scored as fully Lethal in those tests. He hadn’t just survived or weathered every event forced upon him. Every situation he endured. No. He’d overcome. Eli squeezed his fists before he glanced at his parents with a shake of his head before he walked away. His parents didn’t understand, and maybe they never would.
That was fine.
He couldn’t protect them forever, but he could at least help them escape before he left on his own. Whether that was college or wandering, he’d do it alone. Light from a flickering bonfire glowed across the sand where everyone had gathered in a circle. Lyra, Ava, Lana, Roman, and Theo were all gathered together as they celebrated.
Well, hopefully not totally alone.
He sat down beside Roman while he reached out with Voidspace to teleport a flat rock into his hand while he equipped both Imbue and Lumengust and listened to their stories with a smile. Imbue felt like an elastic but adhesive power as he pushed and stretched it over and through the structure of the rock until he felt it settle. Solidify.
It was ready for him to give it something.
Eli nudged against it with Imbue and tilted his head at how it seemed like it wanted something else. He drew on his ambient light as he tried to shine a light on it so he could inspect it when he felt the Imbued rock grab onto that light and guzzle it into its structure. Colors swam across the once dull rock as it became a thing of vibrant dazzling specks of minerals as it shone with its own light.
He tried to push at it with Body of Light to see if he could dim or brighten it but then he blinked as the rock floated above his palm for a split second before it flashed and dropped back into his hand, dead. All of its light spent like that.
He did it again.
And again.
Over and over until he had a heap of gently glowing rocks piled up next to him from a series of teleports. He felt every single one of them with his light attuned senses from Body of Light, Voidspace Mastery, and even the faint sense of whatever he’d imbued into them. He swept them all into a spatial bubble and packed it into his void so his space would get less cluttered before he teleported another blank rock into his grasp.
Imbue. He felt the rock become malleable. Almost a conceptual object ready to be charged with new meaning. A rock that was eager to become more.
Lumengust slipped into the rock with a bit more resistance until he drew on the light from his stores and supercharged both Imbue and Lumengust. He almost felt like the imbued state could handle even more...
Eli closed his eyes as he imagined throwing the rock and saying ‘Gust’ to release all the stored light and wind to propel it forward. Then he fell into his void as he expanded its size as far as he could until it felt endless with a small lake of floating spatial bubbles that he willed to gather out of the way behind him.
He wound his arm back with the rock held high before he threw it forward and commanded, “Gust!”
Light exploded in an incandescent flash as the rock flew forward with a thunderous clap. He floated back through the empty Voidspace from the backlash. The rock shattered as it crumbled as Lumengust streamed out of it while the seed of Body of Light consumed the light to strengthen Lumengust in a loop without end.
Until the rock couldn’t handle it anymore.
He popped back into place with his chin in his hand while he ignored everyone’s incredulous stares. What else could he do with this?
Another rock fell into his hand.
Thankfully, the ocean was full of enough stones for him to do this as much as he wanted.
Imbue. Body of Light to fill it with a spark of light, then an empowered snap of Lumengust to create the foundation of his loop. Then he filled it with Voidspace Mastery and winced as the rock instantly exploded into shrapnel.
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Fragments of rock scored bloody lashes across his palm. He teleported all the rock dust and residue out of his wounds before he yanked all the light out of one of his previously imbued rocks and watched as the gashes healed in a flash of light. Another teleport and all the blood was gone.
Hm.
“Do enchantment powers not work on powers that are stronger than it?” Eli asked as he turned to Roman, who had an assortment of his own tools laid out in front of him. Lana and Theo stared at Eli with abject horror on their faces. Lyra and Ava had left without him noticing. How long had he spent on this?
“Not very well. They’ll usually wear it down faster or break like that. What did you try using?” Roman asked while he fiddled with some sort of armor piece again.
“Spatial Mastery. I wanted to see if I could either teleport the rock somewhere or even make it teleport whoever holds it and says a keyword, but well... you saw.”
“You’ll have to level it more first. Better materials also make a difference.” Roman commented as Lana stood up to walk closer around the smoldering bonfire. Eli gathered light in a white molten bead to get the fire going before he experimented a little. He teleported one of the spare logs into his voidspace. Dry wood opened itself up as he willed it to be cut and quartered. Grain and seasoned bark felt rough, as if he had touched it with his bare hand. Heat flooded his voidspace until the last little bits of moisture that remained started to sizzle and evaporate.
“Oh.” Eli muttered as he allowed some air into his voidspace. Flames immediately darted and flickered. He teleported the burning logs into the bonfire and watched as it became a conflagration for a few moments before it dwindled. He watched the flames as Lana stared at him with wide-open excitement.
“Can other people use the items you create?” She practically vibrated with glee. “Dynamic Vitality to make me stronger? Rapid Recovery to make me heal and recover quicker? Teleportation?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not giving any to you... for free.” Eli beamed as he made his bones radiate light with a harsh, red glow. She flinched at his demonic shift in appearance before she narrowed her eyes.
“You’re really going to charge me for something you’re going to make anyway?”
“Why not? You can’t make it.” He frowned at her. He had grown tired of her always expecting others to indulge her. “So wait,” he turned to Roman, “does enchanting a different power level both?”
“Technically, but only a bit.”
“It’d be good for you too! Please, Eli?” Lana begged, to which he shook his head as he teleported another rock into his hands.
Imbue flowed into it as he mapped the structure of it out with the power before he flooded it with light from the campfire. He switched Lumengust out for Dynamic Vitality. Imbue snared Dynamic Vitality, then writhed in the stone’s structure as it emulated the power. It felt like it’d be able to draw and store Stamina, Perception, and Strength while also allowing whoever used the stone to dump all the gathered resources into their bodies at will.
But he’d seen how he could—with Body of Light—use his internal storage of light to supercharge his other powers.
Eli held the rock up as he studied it with his powers. He felt near to bursting melting pot of powers contained within boil with light like the essence of a breeze as it churned with Stamina, Perception, and Strength. He siphoned the power out of it and into himself.
Power ignited his nerves as his muscles twitched with growing strength. Gray wood smoke burned in his nostrils, but it didn’t bother him. Eli teleported in place so he stood with each of his wells of resources from Dynamic Vitality crackling with a radiant nimbus of power in each.
“Which is stronger, Silverlight or Theo’s new shield?” Eli’s voice rumbled a whole octave lower than normal. His breath glowed and sparkled with flecks of light.
“Silverlight. Barrier isn’t very strong still, but I maxed it out earlier today and unlocked Bio-Matter Generation!” Theo said as he lifted his hand, which wriggled with growing fibers that thickened at the end to become a white bone.
Eli nodded, then turned to regard Lana, who licked her lips nervously.
“Create a Silverlight shield.” Eli commanded as he shook his metal and flesh hands out to loosen them and his muscles swelling with strength. Dynamic Vitality felt stronger, even as seemed to tenderize.
Lana held her arm up which shimmered as metallic light appeared and wrapped around her arm before it elongated into a large curved shield. “Rea—”
Eli took a single step as he twisted his back foot, turned his hip with his motion, and drove his right fleshy hand forward with a clang of crushed metal. Knuckles crunched as his fingers bent, his hand wrenched to the side, and the bones in his arm fractured from his wrist to the middle of his forearm. Then his arm aligned with a blazing flash of light. He swung it experimentally and smiled. Stronger than ever.
“What the fuck?” Lana stumbled with a hiss of pain. Her shield crumpled with a massive dented crater in the center full of massive cracks that gushed silvery mist. It vanished entirely before streaming back into her. Her arm bent at a slight angle. “You fucking fractured my arm, Eli!”
“Make something better.” Eli checked the radiant haze of power in each of the wells of Dynamic Vitality. Their light and twisters of energy had almost entirely faded. He teleported another stone, Imbued with light and Lumengust, into his hand that disintegrated from his massive withdrawal of energy. He watched while Theo healed her with a quick brush of skin to skin contact. “I’m going to hit harder this time.”
“Harder?” Lana blanched, “How are you hitting so hard in the first place? You don’t have that many body boosting powers.”
“Just do it.” Eli focused as he siphoned out all of Perception out into Strength with only a third going into Stamina. Then he gathered, charged, and guided his internal storm of light to radiate down from his right shoulder to his hand. He wished he still had Lumengust equipped so he could get some extra momentum, but he wouldn’t need it.
Lana squatted on her heels as she conjured a massive shielded post that she braced into the ground. It was a rounded cylinder thicker than a telephone pole.
“Ready.”
Eli slipped into Voidspace, where he teleported himself right in front of her. He flexed space to blast him forward with more force even as he pulled and folded space along the path of his fist. Bone snapped in his ankles. Metal screeched as his radiant fist bent the pole around his punch. Silver beaded and melted where his radiant hand sparked against the misting metal.
“Sorry,” Eli muttered. He toppled over, his fist still held in the hole he’d punched through the metal.
“What?” Lana asked before he let the folded rigid coiled space expand. Her silverlight cracked, shattered, then burst into a glowing pall of roiling silver fog. Lana flew back in a shrieking tumble as she flipped end over end through the beaches dunes. Eli landed on his side as his vision swam from his overuse of Dynamic Vitality. Numb discomfort zipped up and down his tingling nerves while he gasped.
Noise buzzed and murmured in his ears. Rapid Recovery replaced Imbue. He groaned as heat flushed into his ankles, the tendons and ligaments around them, and even the bruised swollen skin around them. They shifted with little grating tugs. Bone rubbed against bone as the joint realigned and then healed with a cooling snap. Rapid Recovery dumped restorative energy into the rest of his body.
His hearing cleared. Strength returned to him as the pressure exerted on the wells of his Dynamic Vitality eased. Eli teleported back onto his feet with a yank of Voidspace Mastery and watched as Theo sprinted over to the prone Lana, whose hair was a gnarled mess. He teleported over to her in an instant and reached down to push Rapid Recovery into her.
Dynamic Vitality twisted in response to his push too as he guided some Stamina and Strength into her. She stiffened as his powers thrummed through her like a stallion with free rein on a racetrack. After a moment, Eli straightened and watched as Theo dove in a spray of sand where he healed her again.
“What the fuck is the matter with you? That was way too hard, man!”
Eli shrugged. “I thought she could take it since my build was so lopsided.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Eli teleported back to his spot by the bonfire where Roman glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “I got a bit too overzealous, I guess.”
“Looks like.”
“I really thought she could take it! She’s really strong, you know, and I didn’t expect that.”
Roman nodded.
“Fine, I’ll apol—” Eli said before Mom called out as she rushed over to them.
“Eli, Lana, come over here for a second.” Mom gestured while she walked back toward their cabin. Eli teleported over to Mom while they watched Lana stomp over to them. Her hair was a knotted nest full of sand now. “Wha... Okay. We’re thinking about going to a hotel after we leave tomorrow. Do you mind going with your dad tomorrow to pack up some more stuff, Eli?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. They wouldn’t even need boxes with his spatial bubbles, hell he could go right now. He wasn’t even tired. Turbulent light twisted in a closed system from Dynamic Vitality, Rapid Recovery, and his Body of Light. Whenever the light dwindled, Rapid Recovery recharged it into a crackling maelstrom of power. “I’ll go right now.”
“What, Eli, no. It’s your birthday, rela—”
Eli tuned her out as he slipped into his Voidspace. He prepared to chain a series of teleports back to Farbrook when he noticed something already tugging on him from that direction. He reached out with his spatial field and felt something resonate and echo. Faint silhouettes wavered in his room as if he were peering at the bottom of a murky pond.
That’s right, he had left a bubble out the night he merged Spatial Control and Voidshade Control in his bedroom.
It called to him like an anchor even as he yanked on it. Space warped and distorted in his voidspace as he shot through a spatial tunnel that seemed to stretch for an eternity. He glanced over at his status while he waited and smiled at his gains. While he checked, another level up popped up.
Before he could check out what his new power, merge, and evolution options were, he shot out of the bubble in a bouncing crash as he rebounded off his wall with a crunch as the plaster broke. He drained the light that streamed from his lights with a groan as he climbed to his feet. Eli sneezed before he teleported all the plaster dust off him and into his voidspace.
He spread his spatial field out as he created a bubble to pack up his desk, bed, dresser, and everything else that wasn’t already packed into it. A second later, it was clear. Maybe he should look into offering a moving service? Pretend to have a spatial storage power and super speed so he’d be valuable, but people would give him more of a tip since they’d think it was harder work for him?
That could be interesting. He mused idly as he stepped into the hallway to start on Lana’s before he stopped. All of the doors upstairs were thrown open with the lights on. Speaking of… why was his light on in his room? Eli threw his spatial field out across the house then recoiled as it wrapped around the silhouette of a short woman in a business suit downstairs in the dining room. She looked up right in his direction as if she saw him through the layers of the house and all the room in-between him.
A tremendous force swatted from her into his spatial field shattering it with a twinkle. Eli stumbled back as agony split into his head. Light twisted behind him before it was snuffed out. Tendrils of shadow snared out from behind him even as he dove forward.
Floorboards broke with a snap behind him as he rolled into Lana’s room and tried to teleport, but hissed in agony as that same force shattered his spatial field again.
Dave stepped out of Eli’s room with his hand hanging loose at his side where he held his sword out pointed straight for Eli. His body rippled and undulated with darkness.
“Jack, Jackson, look alive! We got our first visitor!” Dave called as his shadow rolled out from underneath him toward Eli who turned radiant as he forced all of his light into Voidspace Mastery even as pain boiled and split through his nerves and bones as he tried to teleport as far as he could above the house.
Eli’s spatial field cracked before he could escape. Space ripped as he stumbled out of voidspace to ram into the rafters of the attic with a crunch of broken wood. Eli landed flat on his radiant face. He stood up woozily as he tried to limp away. Glowing claws pierced through space above him, where he’d teleported out with a rasp.
A woman in a dress dropped from his teleportation point with a muffled thud. Her eyes gleamed with a gray light, her pupils slitted like a cat’s. She stalked forward with her clawed hands held to either side of her like she was a wrestler, but instead of choking him, she intended to maul him.
Eli’s spatial field quivered as he drew his voidspace around him. It spread out from him in fits and starts while he heaved. Rapid Recovery burned in his chest as his exhaustion eased, but as his spatial field pinged across the house, four blind spots gaped in his senses.
Only the woman in the business suit in the living room was visible, but the second his field reached her, that rending agony gored his spatial field apart.
Eli stepped back as the woman approached with a bestial growl low in her throat. Instead of being cringy or edgy, it sent sparks down his spine as the hairs on his skin rose. He whirled around as he siphoned Perception into Strength and stomped his foot straight through the floor. He turned into soft light and slipped through.
He landed in a puddle right on the steps as he snapped back into a rigid state.
Eli started to barrel down the stairs when a man in a burnt, bloody suit rounded the corner to block his way to the front door. Jackson Daniels reached up to slip his sunglasses off his face to stare Eli down with his burning twin sun eyes. “What’s the rush, Mr. Newton?”
Bands of darkness wrapped around Eli with a snap. Shadows hissed and sizzled where they pressed against Eli’s radiant skin, but he couldn’t break it. They were almost metal like Lana’s Silverlight, but with darkness instead. Dave clapped his hand on Eli’s shoulder. “Time for you to meet my wife.”
Dave shouldered past him as he walked down the stairs. His shadow trailed behind him like a series of ropes that drew taut around Eli’s body. Eli landed flat on his back before he slid down the stairs to slam into Jackson Daniels legs. Eli screamed as his hip popped out of place from where it cracked against Daniels’s shins.
“Sorry about that.” He chuckled as ropes of shadow dragged Eli toward the living room.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman in a dress drop out of the hatch into the attic. Her gray eyes met Eli’s with a tangible force. Eli turned away with a flinch.
“This is the boy that broke Daniel’s projection of you, Davie?” Sandra, Dave’s wife, asked as she stood up out of his parents’ loveseat to glare down at Eli’s prone form as if he were a cockroach she’d seen wandering away from a pile of shit.
Dave nodded.
“Pathetic.” She bowed to push his glowing bangs aside so she could peer at his face. “You have the misfortune of looking like your father. Pity. Want to play plastic surgeon, Jack?”
“I’d love to, boss,” said Jack, the man with bright blue eyes from the mall, who crouched down to squeeze his sparking hand over Eli’s face. Bolts of electricity arced into Eli with the galvanic wrath of a storm god... but Eli roared with laughter as the electricity filled him to bursting point with light. It hurt, but not nearly as much as it had in the mall. He overcharged Strength and Stamina with the stolen light as he swiped out with his arms.
Bands of shadowy metal snapped with a screech. His metal hand clamped down on his wrist with a brittle crunch as he ground his bones to powder. Eli lifted his right hand as he molded his hand and fingers into a solid radiant blade that he swung clear through Jack’s elbow. Light blasted from his feet as he turned into soft light again and skidded across the floor before reshaping into solid radiant light once again.
Eli wasn’t a reckless boy anymore who had sprinted into a fight in a mall. Space shuddered around him as he forced his power to work as he created voidspace blades and bolts that hung all around him. He filled each blade and bolt with a light and Lumengust Imbued stone. Everyone gaped as Jack howled as lightning crackled all around him as he jammed his dismembered arm into his elbow pointlessly as it charred from his lightning.
Elias Newton was an adult defending his own home. And he didn’t need to hold back this time. Voidspace bolts and blades shot forward in a barrage that whistled as they devoured their way through the air.