My name is Gonzalo Lopez, I’m from Williamsburg, New York City, and my powers first manifested themselves when I was fifteen, in high school.

I mean, I was literally in high school when they first showed up.

I was standing on the white ceramic tiles of the Science corridor, flanked by a concrete wall on one side and blue lockers on the other, under a fluorescent strip light.

A crowd of my peers flocked around me, cheering and whooping, including some girls. I always hated it when the girls watched.

They were cheering and whooping because Bill Jackson had just challenged me to a fight.

“Come on, Lopez,” he said, jabbing his finger in my face, “you puny little faggot weakling! What are you gonna do about it? You gonna stand up to me or what?”

Bill had blonde hair, wore the insignia school sports jacket and he was a white kid. He cracked a wicked grin and looked over each shoulder at his audience.

He had already taken my lunch money. Next to me, my locker door had a fist-shaped dent in it and the word “WEAKLING” had been spray-painted over it in pink. From inside I was fairly sure I could smell, wafting up, the pungent aroma of a turd.

“What’s the problem, Lopez?” said Bill. “You scared? You gonna cry? Why don’t you run on home back to your Mommy? Know what, even better, why don’t you run on back to Portugal or Iraq or wherever it is that you came from?”

“I’m Hispanic-Jewish, you idiot,” I muttered under my breath. Geography wasn’t Bill’s strong point. Actually, I wasn’t sure if he had a strong point.

“What was that?” said Bill, nostrils flaring. “You disrespecting me, Lopez? I think you’re in need of a good pounding!”

My peers agreed, cheering all the louder.

Of course, I wasn’t the only kid Bill Jackson bullied, but as the least physically strong and the nerdiest, and brown to boot, I was his favourite. In fact he bullied me so badly that not even the other geeky kids would make friends with me in case they got caught in the firing line, so I was pretty much on my own at school.

Normally at this point I would close my eyes and take what was coming to me. However, for some reason that day, I didn’t. Maybe it was because my body somehow knew before I did what had happened to me.

Maybe it was because, at that moment, I caught a glimpse of Ali Carter at the back of the crowd, the new dark-haired girl who had been assigned as my lab partner in AP Physics.

Ali actually spoke to me like I was a real person, unlike basically everybody else in school, and of course I had developed a crush on her. Ali wasn’t cheering like the others, but she was watching, the sides of her eyebrows pulled back in concern. I couldn’t let myself get pounded into a paste in front of her without even putting up any kind of a fight. I selected my words.

“G-g-get bent, Bill,” I said. It probably didn’t help that I stuttered them. “W-why don’t you go and pick on someone your own size? O-or how about your own waist size?”

Bill’s eyes nearly popped out and for a moment I thought he would hit me there and then, but instead he threw back his head and laughed.

“Ha! Do you hear that, guys? Weakling’s trying to talk trash! Talk me some more smack, weakling!”

“Weak-ling! Weak-ling!” The others started to chant my nickname in mock support; Jackson’s teammates, their girlfriends, other random assorted passersby all joined in.

I saw that Ali wasn’t chanting. She was still watching, but she was biting her lip as she clutched her Physics folder to her chest.

This was my chance not to be a complete weakling, for once. I could say something intelligent, I could talk back to Jackson, and at least I would go down with some pride. Rather than just being beaten to a humiliated pulp as usual while I cowered or sobbed or begged, this time it was happening in front of Ali Carter. My fist clenched.

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“I just don’t get why you’re such a bigot, Bill,” I said. My stutter had gone and the blood was rushing in my ears. I couldn’t believe I was actually saying this. “This whole country is a nation of immigrants, dumbass. I mean, your family probably only came over here from Europe a few generations ago. Or did you just emerge from a swamp like the rest of your evolutionary siblings?”

The audience went quiet.

“OooOOoo,” said Bill’s right hand man, Donny Vickers, signalling that I’d made an effective diss.

That was enough. Bill gritted his teeth, snarled and pulled back his hand. I shut my eyes. I’d tried dodging out of the way or running in the past, but it only prolonged the inevitable: eventually Bill would catch up to me anyway and give me an even worse beating, so I’d learned that it was better to stay put and take them, to minimise the damage.

He hit me in the face this time, so he must have been really angry. Normally he only beat me on my arms or legs, or on the chest.

Except, this time, when he hit me in the face, something different happened.

I felt his fist connect with my cheek, but where I expected my head to snap backwards, it stayed perfectly still. Instead, Bill’s hand give way against my jaw and I heard the crack of something breaking.

“Arghhhhh!”

I opened my eyes. In front of me, Bill was clutching his messy, bloody fist with his other hand. I could see some white bone protruding out of the mess. His face was purple and water was leaking from his eyes. He was screaming.

“What the hell did you do, you freak?!” he screamed at me. “Is this some kind of Science trick or something?!”

I found it quite funny that even in his agony Jackson thought I could have used the Power of Science to make my jaw break his hand.

The crowd had gone quiet again. People stared at me, at Bill, mouths hanging. A few of them muttered. “What the hell?” “That’s messed up.” “How did that happen?” Nobody came to his assistance.

Donny turned to me with wide eyes. “His knuckles are broken! What did you do?”

I had frozen too. I had no idea what was happening. My eyes searched the crowd for Ali Carter, but I couldn’t see her any more.

“—kill you!” Bill was saying. This time his other hand flew through the air at my chest.

On reflex I shut my eyes and put my hands up to defend myself.

I was dimly aware of something thudding into my arm, my stomach, my arm again. But only the faintest of vibrations rippled through my body, just enough for me to register that anything was making contact with me at all. It was a bit like being repeatedly hit with an extremely soft pillow. My body did not move an inch.

I opened my eyes to see what was happening. Bill was punching me in the stomach again with his uninjured hand. His face was purple and he was gasping for air. He didn’t seem to be hitting me quite as hard as the first time, but even so he began to let out little yelps of pain when his hand connected with me and I could see blue lumps starting to swell around his knuckles. He kept on punching me.

Eventually, when he saw that his blows were not having any kind of effect, he stopped, like a big truck rolling slowly to a halt. He just stood there, covered in sweat and tears, blood dripping from his crushed and bruised hands, a look of exhausted bewilderment twisting up his face.

The crowd had been yelling encouragements at his renewed assault, but now they went dead silent. Brows furrowed and lips curled in horror.

“What are you?” said Bill for everyone to hear.

I didn’t know what I was. I was as shocked by this as anyone.

I supposed that the expected thing to do, the poetically just thing to do, was to hit Bill back. I looked down at my right hand and made a fist with it again.

I put every beating Bill had ever given me, every moment spent choking for air with my head upside down in a toilet bowl, every racial slur he had ever called me, into that fist, those four fingers and thumb. The veins on the back of my hand stood out.

“Weak-ling!” Someone in the fickle crowd had started to chant my nickname again. “Weak-ling!” Only this time, the tone of the chant had subtly changed. “Weak-ling!” They weren’t chanting it in mockery of me anymore. “Weak-ling!” It had a note of joy to it, an uplift in the second syllable. “Weak-ling!” They were chanting my nickname in support of me. “Weak-ling!” They were egging me on to hit Bill in return.

What a beautiful moment this would be, hitting Jackson back. What would my body do to him in this strange new invincible state I was experiencing? What would he feel as my knuckles collided with his face? What would be left of him, if anything?

I opened my hand and let my hatred dissipate into the air.

Who was I kidding? If I hit Bill back I would become just as bad as him. It was what he deserved, sure, but I wasn’t going to be the one to give it to him.

The chant tailed off. Several boys in the front of the crowd scowled in disappointment.

Then, without warning, they scattered. A teacher had appeared at the other end of the corridor.

“What’s happening here? Has there been a fight? Get outta here, the lot of you!” The voice belonged to Mr Oswald, my Physics teacher.

In a breath, only Bill and I were left in view, staring dumbly at each other, each as unsure as the other as to what had just passed between us.

Whether from the injuries he had sustained to his hands or because he was overwhelmed by it all, I did not know, Bill fainted. He just crumpled up, his legs giving way underneath him, and fell awkwardly to the floor, donking his head on a locker as he went.

Mr Oswald broke into a run, his suit jacket flapping to either side of him, his face a picture of concern above his blue necktie.

“Boys!” he said. “Gonzalo, what’s going on? Who did this to Bill? Did you do this?!”

I was trembling all over and very cold. I told the truth.

“Actually, he did it to himself, Mr Oswald.”