The field house was pretty empty this early in the morning. I threw a bro nod to Carter on the hack squat machine. He was a junior and as focused on a basketball scholarship as I had been on wrestling. He hit me back with one of his own. The only other person present was the lacrosse chick who always looked angry powering through the stair master. I nudged T with an elbow and indicated her with a look.

"What about Meghan, she's a senior too right? Think she got powers? I kinda want to see how many people actually took the offer. "

"Her? Nah, bro she's a total butterface."

I couldn't help but look back at her lycra covered ass as I followed T over to the free weights.

"You're shallow as fuck, T. How much weight you want on it?"

"All of it"

I have him an incredulous look and he shrugged.

"Super strength bro, had to upgrade my tendons and bones and shit too just to handle it. You've got no idea. "

"Well I can't spot that. " I looked over at the weight tree and did some quick mental math. "Do 6 of the 45s, that's like 315, and you can do multiple reps if you're so badass now."

"Bet."

We loaded up the bar. He slid into place before I even made it around to the head of the bench, and started pumping out reps with perfect form. He smirked up at me and spoke smoothly without a trace of effort.

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"Did I forget to mention the super strength? 315 is cake dude. "

"Fuck me."

"Not even in prison. " He racked the weights and sat up before swinging around to straddle the bench. "So let's see some magic already. Pull a rabbit out of your ass, dude."

I looked down to break eye contact, suddenly self-conscious.

"I forgot my sharpie. "

"Huh?"

"I do runes and stuff instead of spells. Check this out. "

I raised my left hand to show him the drawing on my inner wrist but he zoomed in on the carnage.

"Dude, what the Fuck!"

"Don't worry about it man. I told you I made it Hella far in the trials. It got...dangerous towards the end. I'm pretty sure the runes are gonna make it grow back. "

"So like, you know any runes that shoot fireballs or levitate something or like glow or do anything a person could like see?"

"Awwwh, man, I'm sorry. Are my cosmic powers not visually striking enough for your simple mind? " I shook my head in mock disappointment before I confessed. "All my visualizing was for growth type powers. I can empower runes and layer them. I've got a video game style inventory that only handles like a BB right now, and I've got a connection to the Akashic field. "

"What the hell is an akasmic field?"

"Akashic, it's like Indian mythology, the dot not the feathers. Supposed to be a store of all knowledge. I'm jacked in so I get some kind of intuition or something. "

"This is so fucking cool. "

I just stared at my friend for a second. T had always been genuinely a pretty good dude. I mean like any teenage boy, he could be a little selfish, a little misogynistic and a touch of a pRick in response to the slightest social pressure to be so, but basically a good dude. If anything I was the one who leaned a little sociopathic, but he was taking this way too cheerfully for me.

"You re not the least bit put out by the whole down side of this trial thing?"

"Downdide? I'm a fucking superhero. "

"And earth is gonna get invaded. "

"Fucking what?"