Powers.

A thing of reverence, a mark of strength, a symbol.

Some preferred the term Gifts, a few who still stuck to old beliefs called them Blessings. A very... niche group called them Skills, but we don't talk about them.

*Ahem* Anyways, Powers were known by many names, but they were all one and the same, a cake that came in uncountable flavors. Powers were an anomaly, an impossibility, a contradiction, a magical thing in a world of hard rules and science. Even Mutative ones, despite tending to follow said laws and rules, were unexplainable in the way they suddenly manifested and seemingly created mass and energy from nothingness or, in less cases, made them disappear.

And so, Powers meant much, much more than a simple rise in personal strength or the ability to do something others couldn't. It was mark of status, a source of pride for one self, and offer of reverence or fear from others. A pedestal which made one stand out from the common people.

"Waaaah! That's so cool! What the heck, so you can just think about it and blam, teleport small things anywhere around you!? Do it again! On top of that dresser over there now!"

A pedestal that was now being utterly defiled.

I sighed, depressed by the distinct lack of shock and awe my sister had presented upon me breaking the news to her, but chastised myself for having thought it would go different.

'You should've known better, Leon. Kate is... Kate. Of course she took it in stride.'

"Yeah, It only works within five meters of myself though, only for things that would fit within a rubik's cube, and even if the Power doesn't cost anything to use I still need to focus to use it, and eventually I'll probably get too tired to continue or get a headache."

Shaking my self-deprecating thoughts off, I responded to my sister's excited inquiry as best I could, all the while letting the coin appear and disappear all around the room. Gravity was an annoying factor though, as I had to constantly keep moving the coin upwards to counteract its effect until I gave up and let it collide with the floor.

I also had to keep turning my head to look at the next spot to send it to, since I could vaguely sense where something I'd just teleported was without looking and 'grab' that feeling to teleport it perfectly, but the same couldn't be said for the destination, and I didn't want to teleport it into a wall or shelf or, gods forbid, my sister. I still wasn't sure if I could teleport things into other living beings (It worked with the small needle of air I switched with a sliver of my finger), but I certainly wouldn't use my sister as a test dummy.

I hadn't told her about my big discovery yet though, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to. I mean, of course I'd like her to know, so we could brainstorm ways to use my Power together... but who knew if a listening device was hidden in the apartment or just outside it, or a someone with super-hearing or clarivoyance was spying on us? Sure, it was a long shot, but still...

I suppressed a sigh.

'Alright, Leon, you gotta stop making up dumb excuses. Just fucking tell her already and get it over with. Why the hell am I so afraid of telling her, anyways? It's not as if she would start treating me differently just because I could potentially end her life with a moment's thought... Ah fuck. Let's just get it over with.'

"There's something else, Kate. But you gotta promise me you won't tell anybody about it."

She stopped her curious analysis of my coin when she heard my words and l, immediately sensing the degree of seriousness in my voice, her excited expression suddenly grew more serious.

"Alright, I promise. I won't tell a soul, Leon." She responded, her earlier bubbliness all but gone.

I nodded, fully trusting her word, before proceeding to explain how I could move an object into another, and then how said object could just be some air I could shape any way I wanted, though it took quite a bit of concentration and brainpower to imagine the shape in detail and maintain the mental image sharp as I selected the destination. For the millionth time since I'd become a programmer, I wished I had some sort of mind-enhancing Power, even if it was Mutative... until I realised that I already had a Power now, a much better one at that, and thus my wishes were outdated.

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As my mind wandered, my sister's did too, her brows furrowed as she processed the implications and potential of my Power just as I had when I'd first found out all it could do.

I'd been keeping my brain busy on purpose, not wanting to add to my nervousness by dwelling on the fact that our relationship may take a serious turn for the worse from today onwards.

'What's done is done. She may begin to fear me, or even hate me, from today onwards, perhaps she'll never even want to see me again, but I'll still always—'

"This is incredible!" An excited statement rudely extracted me from my contemplation.

"You probably already know, but this opens up so many possibilities! Does the Krayner Effect apply to your Power? It probably does... but still, even if you can't just teleport part of a person's brain out of their head, it would still be deadly!

"You could just remove the earth below them and trap them in a hole before burying them in dirt, replace the air around their face with water, teleport pepper spray just in front of their eyes to effectively blind them, or just let a stone or something fall until it reaches terminal velocity by teleporting it up over and over, though you would need to focus your full attention on it, then drop it on top of someone's head! Or even more deadly, a pointy metal spike! Also—"

"Wait, wait, wait! You're going to make my head explode! Firstly, I have a feeling... for some reason, I don't think the Krayner Effect will apply to my Power. I can certainly swap parts of myself with air just as easily as blinking the coin around, and though the Krayner Effect does say that many Powers are able to affect both the user and their surroundings but not other people directly... I just don't think it's the case with mine, Kate. I feel like it it more... absolute. Everything that occupies a portion of space can be moved and replaced with something else, simple as that. I may be wrong, but... I believe I might indeed be able to teleport part of a person's brain out."

She did look at me in shock and awe, then.

Then, without a word, she ran to her computer and began frantically typing out notes. I followed her, fearing the worst, but then I saw what she was writing. It was a list of ways to use my Power, and she was already on the ninth entry. More often than not in violent, bizarre and... disgusting, ways.

She didn't say a thing until a good while later.

"Okay, phew, so there's the 83 ways I found to use your Power to incapacitate and temporarily or permanently cripple enemies. After all, if you want to just kill them the brain strat is probably your best bet, quick and effective.

"Now, for defensive measures. The first and most obvious on would be TPing bullets away, though it would require extremely good reflexes, perhaps even superhuman... how fast do bullets go, anyways? Let's write it down as a maybe..."

"...and so, if when you teleport an object it keeps its energies, that means you can also teleport things like fire and lightning, probably light too, though it would move away too fast for out eye to notice. This means that, to erect a defense against pyromancers..."

"...Finally, we should think about ranged attacks. Guns being banned for civilians as they are, we'd need an effective way to use your Power, perhaps in conjunction with some kind of gadget, to shoot projectiles out at high speeds.

"Oh! Maybe something to redirect an object that you make fall to terminal velocity to go on a horizontal trayectory? Some kind of diagonal spring or elastic strip, maybe? Or just a curved tube with a very low friction coefficient..."

By the time we were done, it was already dark out.

"That was awesome, Leon! Just... well, try not to use any of the methods we brainstormed today against other people, alright? I don't want to have a criminal for a brother..."

I had to chuckle at that.

"Of course, this is all purely theoretical. Plus, the fact that I can swap strands of your hair with air doesn't mean I could do the same with anyone's brain..."

"Oh, shut up, you party pooper! Anyways, I was thinking... perhaps we should turn the camera system back on."

I was stunned for a moment upon hearing that, but I soon understood her motive.

"Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll turn my camera on so you can know if something happens to me. I don't think my Power is attractive enough to kidnap me over, since they shouldn't know all it can do, but—"

"Cool, but I meant both ways, you know?" she said casually, matter-of-factly, even. I started.

"But... why would you do that? It's not like you'll be in danger, right?..."

She shrugged.

"Probably not, but who knows? Someone might go for me if they wanted to get you to cooperate or something, since I'm a... softer target" she responded, running her hands over her waist as if suggesting her words had more than one meaning.

I snorted, but gave in and agreed to us both turning our cameras on, to be able to watch each other's backs.

And so, I headed home. I did use the subway, then, capitalising on the fact that it was pretty much empty at that hour, and a bare few minutes later I was already opening my apartment's door, telling my home AI to recommend me what I should have for dinner.

I failed to understand why my sister had refused to get one of these. They were so convenient! Plus, she also worked with computers, so she should know that better than most.

Sure, she was a graphic designer, not a programmer, but it wasn't as if she didn't also use an AI to help her smooth out her designs and finish up the little details.

It was with these thoughts that I drifted off to sleep, my exhaustion finally winning over my excitement for what the future might hold.