<(Caleb)>

The trees pass by me in a soft blur as I run through the forest, but I barely take note of them. At the same time, I observe every single one of them. If I wasn't alert at all times, Teacher would take me down in an instant with one of the traps he set up throughout the woods.

The air this early in the morning is crisp and cool, the moon large and unmoving above us. Calmness fills everything in this peaceful realm. No war or fighting, only minor arguments and an occasional bit of crime in the city where I live.

But there are too many voices there for me to be comfortable. I want them out of my head, and Teacher provides an out. When everyone sleeps, we visit the ruins or these woods and he trains or tests me. I only wish the voices in my head derived from a psychic Ability. That would be far better than my murderous, primal power that shows no mercy to anyone. At least I would be able to shut it off if it were just a psychic Ability.

Teacher wants to teach me how to use my power, but I refuse to use it ever again. The last time I activated it, a lot of people died. I was six then and I'm twelve now, and I'm still terrified of that repeating that day even by accident.

Many times, I have asked Teacher to bind my Ability, but he refuses. He tells me that if it binds it, then I will regret having it bound in a time where I desperately need it.

We argue about it a lot. I will never want to use this cursed power of mine ever again, yet he continues to insist that I will change my mind. I do not want to fight, and I most certainly do not want to use a power that can devastate an entire city.

Snapping out of my thoughts, I disassemble the trap that nearly caught me due to my distraction. I finish my task at the last moment and pass between the pair of trees a barrier was placed upon, grateful to have caught the trap after pausing for only a moment.

The spell would have spawned a temporary homunculus that would have fought me. Teacher has taught me to fight, but mostly through the use of dummies and inanimate objects. Every now and then, however, he creates a homunculus in an attempt to help me get over my dislike and fear of combat.

The pause lasts for only a moment as I'm immediately moving through the woods again after, watching out for other spells. Teacher has been pushing me to fight for real more and more lately, not against training dummies that can't fight back. He started that a year ago and now tries to encourage me to nearly every training session.

It's getting annoying.

Grant's grown worried, too. I know that my other mentor has some sort of military background, but neither of them strike me as people who worry. They both try to hide it from me, but I'm twelve, not a child. I'm almost thirteen. I can notice when they're on edge about something.

Teacher wouldn't be increasing his attempts to help me over my fear of fighting if he weren't worried about something serious, and Grant was on edge today and constantly reached to his side, as if reaching to grab a sword or knife or something.

Shaking those thoughts from my head, I continue to travel, moving like a breeze through the woods through the utilization of my aura. As far as I can tell, only Teacher, Grant, and I can use aura in the area. I know Grant can because he conceals it, hiding it within himself to avoid leaking it out. It's a basic technique all aura users are taught if they learn to use it through a mentor. It slows aging and speeds healing, retaining within us the life energy that is our aura.

We replenish aura over time, so using it up does not put us at too much of a risk unless we burn it out quickly or someone forcibly removes it from us.

I know Teacher can use aura because he taught me how to use it better than I could back when we met, though I have always had access to it. He calls me a prodigy with the use of Aura because of my talents for it, though I'm not sure if he's serious or just trying to bolster my confidence.

Sometimes, I want to smack him hard with all my might. The only thing that prevents me from doing that is the fact that he is older and more powerful than me, and a punch with the full power of my aura behind it would probably just glance off of him. Also the fact that I don't like violence in the first place, as much as he says I'll one day need to fight.

Before I realize it, the rendezvous point stands before me, a street of ruined buildings that nature chose to reclaim many years ago. I make my way to a piece of fallen concrete and sit on it, setting my backpack on the ground at my feet and pulling a bottle of water from within.

Aura is fun to play with. Unlike Abilities, the only variation that I know of within it is the level of power put in, though I also know I can shape it outside of my body. That's not a variation, though, just a technique.

I take a few sips from my bottle, then screw the cap back on and set it on the ground before I lean back and stare up at the moon, listening. Once upon a time, I could hear the moon speak. He sounded young, like a child. For the last year or so, though, his voice has remained silent. It worries me.

The moon is what kept me sane all those years. Ever since he went silent, I've struggled. I wish I knew what I did wrong, to make him stop talking to me.

Sighing, I wipe the sweat from my brow and drain the rest of my bottle, setting it back down and touching a finger to the top of it, forming a spell to turn it to dirt. The dirt contrasts with the soil around us, darker as it's rich with nutrients. Ever since the Calamity that occurred two hundred and some years ago, the world has been in a continuous state of ruin. Sure, there are cities and even farms, but nutrients in the soil are sparse. Forests manage to exist only because they feed themselves.

At the same time, however, forests are dangerous. The majority of forests in the world have monsters hiding within them, and the only reason this one is safe for me to wander about is because of its lack of monsters. Well, a lack of monsters that would bother me. A quick flare of my aura is enough to scare them off.

Most townsfolk would never enter the woods.

Looking up at the moon, I wait for something to change. A few minutes pass before I hear someone approaching from my right. Only one person other than myself would be out here at this early hour.

"You did well again, Caleb," Teacher stops walking a few feet from me. "Though your reaction times slowed down toward the end."

"I went for four hours straight," I look down, nudging the new dirt around the ground with the worn-out sneaker on my right foot. I'm surprised my shoes have lasted this long, even with my magic helping keep them good. "I'm surprised that I managed to complete your game tonight without stopping. We've never gone that long before. Three hours was our previous max, and that had a fifteen-minute break halfway through."

Teacher doesn't respond to me, and after a few minutes, I look over at him. He's watching me with his deep, blue-grey eyes. He says that his eyes are ocean blue. My eyes are almost identical to his, though my hair is only sandy blond, while his looks made of actual gold. His golden skin defies logic, as it takes about a day of travel to make it to sunlight here. This part of the world is covered in eternal night, even if our world continues to rotate as it spins around the sun. The Calamity had some odd effects on the world, effects not even the Sage himself could affect.

My mentor, ever since he found me here after I was brought to this new orphanage, has not aged a day. His hair, his eyes, his sun-tanned skin, his near-six feet of height – all of it remains the same. I asked him once if he were my brother, and he said he was far too old for that, that his own parents were dead long before I was ever a thought.

That isn't hard to believe, but I still had to ask him, since we look so similar. In a rare moment, I jokingly asked him if he were my dad when he told me he was too old. He thought I was serious at first, since I'm not one to joke.

Then, Teacher confessed to me that he has never been with a girl before. He only had one lover, and they died before I was born. I didn't press further about that since he looked pretty sad talking about them.

Still, though – there must be some relation. Our slender builds are even the same. We both have muscle from training, but slender in form, like someone who does martial arts and other non-weight exercises would have. Someone used to speed over strength. I bet that if I had a picture of him at my age, the only differences would be his tan and golden hair.

Him evading answering how we're related only makes me more curious about it.

"You're rather thoughtful tonight," Teacher says, interrupting my thoughts. "What fills your mind, Caleb?"

What fills my thoughts? Plenty of things fill them tonight. Aura, the games he played, his worry, Grant's worry, my fears, thoughts of what happened when I was six, what Grant suggested earlier.

"Grant has suggested that I join the GSDF," I finally decide on an answer.

Grant is the second of the three people I look up to and trust here. He's roughly fifty years old, tall, and well-built with salt-and-pepper hair and dark brown eyes. I eat lunch at the tea shop with him nearly every day and he has helped me out of rough spots. He refuses to let me work there for money even though I know how to do the job as well as any of his actual staff and the regulars all know me.

Grant is the only other superhuman I know of in the town. I'm not sure of his actual rank, but he can enhance his own physical defense and resilience.

"The Global Supernatural Defense Federation?" Teacher looks amused. "That would be a fun thing for you, Cay."

"Don't call me that," I glare at him. He knows I hate that nickname. "I've never even heard of them before today."

"GSDF," Teacher sits next to me, looking up at the moon for several long moments before he looks back to me and continues. "Is one of many organizations that help contain the monster and supernatural threat levels. In my opinion, the GSDF is the superior force. Some wish to harness the power for their own ends, some wish to simply eradicate magicians, superhumans, and monsters alike, and others simply want balance.

"The GSDF," he continues. "Fights to maintain that balance. They're very small, and they only accept superhumans. Their magical counterpart is the Global Magical Defense Federation, which takes in magicians, though of course, their power is nothing compared to before the Cataclysm. While I say they're small, they're also the most potent forces, united under the Council of Dreams.

"Back to the GSDF," Teacher looks at his pupil. "They train young superhumans in the art of combat and defense as well as their own powers. For the most part, they fight against monsters causing problems, hunting down powerful monsters before they can cause a problem, and against magicians and superhumans that attempt to disturb the delicate balance of the world. They work with the GMDF from time to time, and their resources are pretty vast."

I think about that for a long time, not a word said between us for nearly half an hour as I stare at the moon once more, my thoughts drifting back to his silence.

"I recommend," Teacher interrupts my thoughts once more. "That you listen to Reynolds' advice. Yes, you'll have to face your fear of fighting and using your own ability, but at the same time, you'll be able to make a difference."

"I can't," I shake my head, shuddering as the memories of six years ago come to mind. "If I use my Ability-"

"You don't need to use your Ability," Teacher hates interrupting me, but the few times he does it, it's always when I'm starting to relive what happened. I'm grateful he does this. "No, Caleb, you never need to use your ability. I was able to teach you to fight without you ever fighting. While you won't want to, they'll teach you how to wield those skills. Someday, you'll be forced into a combat situation. It's better to face your fears in training than in the situation where freezing up or panicking could result in a fatal wound."

"No," I shake my head. "I'll never be forced into combat, not here. The monsters don't dare come near our town."

"Not yet," Teacher says, looking up at the moon. "But with the Ability you possess, all manner of beings will seek after you, especially with the level of power you possess with that Ability. An ordinary superhuman would die of old age, if not killed sooner. You're not ordinary, though – you're a magician who knows magic beyond the norm, magic believed to have been forgotten. Should you continue your training in magic, you'll live hundreds of years. Should you live to be two hundred, and actively train your ability, our passive fields will likely match in size."

"So you're two hundred?" I can't help but interrupt him, knowing there's a mischievous look in my eyes at finally getting a clue about his age out of him. "Or thereabouts?"

"Perhaps," my mentor smiles at me, amusement in his eyes. "You never stop attempting to discern my age, do you?"

"It was worth a shot," I grin at him.

Admittedly, my mentor's age was something often on my mind. Teacher speaks of times long ago, when the world was different. I believed him to only be around a hundred and very knowledgeable of history, but he just accidentally slipped and let me know he was alive back then.

"If you were," I cannot resist pushing again. "That means you might have been alive during the Calamity."

"The Calamity?" Teacher laughs. "I'll give you this one: I was around during the Calamity. And before it. I am well over two hundred years old. What I was actually saying, Caleb, is that should you live to be two hundred, then at that point in time and comparing to my power now, your own passive field will match mine for size. That is, of course, providing you live that long and train in your Ability. Given your circumstances and training, you could even match my own field at it's current size sooner than two hundred."

I digest that information. I never believed I could match my mentor in power, not once, but here Teacher is, saying that I will, one day, do just that. Another smile forms on my lips, and I look at Teacher once more.

"So," I trail off, knowing that the few times I manage to do it and Teacher doesn't know what I'm going to say, it frustrates him.

"So?" Teacher raises his right eyebrow, a move that used to infuriate and frustrate me, but not anymore. I haven't revealed to him yet that I figured out how to do it, and so pretend to be annoyed by it. "Well, Caleb? What?"

"Are you saying that I'm stronger than you?"

"Not right now!" Teacher laughs again. "But your own potential means you could one day surpass my own. I was not born with anywhere near as much latent power and talent as you, Caleb, and hard work will only go so far against a natural, especially when said natural is a genius."

I look back up at the moon, my smile fading as I return to my thoughts.

As I think, Teacher walks away, examining the street. Now that I notice it, there are scars gouged into the street and the buildings, and dried blood. Teacher dips a finger into some for a moment, then touches it to his tongue, tasting it.

Ew. Why would he put that in his mouth?

I look back up to the moon, keeping my gaze fixed on there as Teacher continues to look around the streets. Some monsters probably went at it with each other here, though the fact that they could gouge the streets here is a little worrying, I know that it's nothing to worry about.

At least, not until Teacher returns to me and speaks with worry in his voice. He's not even bothering to hide it.

"Caleb."

"Yes?" I look at him, noting the furrowed brows and pursed lips. "What's wrong?"

"I believe I know why Grant suggested that you go," he answers.

"Why?" I ask.

"An entire unit of GSDF and GMDF soldiers were killed recently," Teacher answers. "I believe Grant wants you out of the way."

"Out of the way?" I pout. "I'm not in his way! We just talk every day at lunch, and he-"

"That's not what I meant," Teacher hastily interrupts me. "He wants you out of the way of potential fighting in the area, somewhere you'll be safe. There was a battle here yesterday, on this very street. One that killed twenty trained agents, all of them with A-Rank abilities or who were A-Rank magicians. At the training facility you would go to, the instructors are retired S-Rank superhumans. They might be retired, but S-Ranks are S-Ranks. Grant must know their target."

"Their target?"

"The monsters…" Teacher trails off as he thinks for a few moments. "The monsters here were after you. It appears you've gained the attention of an ancient being, one I thought I left sealed well enough we could forget about it. I need to investigate this. For now, your training with me will be on hold. Go to the training for the GSDF, Caleb. You'll be safe there. Learn to fight. Not just alone and against targets, but to actually fight. If that being is waking from his seal, then others will be as well. You'll be safe there. As soon as I'm able, I'll return to continue your training, and I will teach you magic that you could never handle before."

Teacher cocks an ear, then scoffs. At the same time, a monster roars in pain, golden flames bursting into the sky from the next street over. Teacher looks back to me, and I turn my gaze from the flames to him.

"Again," Teacher says. "Go to the training grounds, become a cadet. You will need the skills and resources that they give you there. I must be going, but before I do," Teacher places a hand on my head. "I've given you a charm that will protect you until you arrive at the training grounds, no monster will be able to trace you. The spell there will prevent any from getting to you so long as you remain on the property. Farewell, Caleb, and until we meet again, may the power of the ancients be your guiding star."

Teacher turns and walks down the street, a jacket materializing on him, a deep, rich navy in color, a thirteen-pointed gold star on the back of it. He turns the corner an immediately disappears from my perception.

I sigh, then look back at the moon.

The silent, yet powerful moon. I desire the day that the moon speaks to me again. As I drift back into thought, I think about my mentor's parting words. Everyone knows of the Sage. Nearly everyone swears by the Sage and bids farewell by the Sage.

The Sage, a mythical figure who ended the Calamity. Or, according to Teacher, a real being who halted the powerful fluctuations of magic that ravaged the world, changing its landscapes and environments, casting some places into eternal darkness and others into eternal daytime, one into eternal dusk, some into eternal frozen wastelands, and so on.

Teacher never swears by the Sage, he never parts by the Sage. His swears are by the ancients and his farewells give their guiding power.

Sighing once more, I zip up my backpack and begin the trek to the orphanage I call home, a walk that takes me thirty minutes. If I had really tried, I could have made it home in just a minute. I didn't feel like using my aura to speed my advance, and when honest with myself, I was really just dragging my feet.

The orphanage stands at two stories, with clean, straight lines in its construction, an eight-foot wall surrounding the lot with a hinged gate that squeaks when opened sitting at the entrance to the property. The gate is never greased so as to ensure the residents could not escape unnoticed.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Not that some of them don't scale the wall to get in or out to avoid the squeaking gate. In my case, I usually just use my magic to ensure the gate opens without a sound.

Today, I choose not to utilize my magic to simply cancel the sound of the gate. There's a more fun way in and I'm feeling like the kid I am right now. I look around before using my aura to boost me when I jump, using a touch of magic to let me perform a quick triple flip at the peak.

Landing in a crouch on the other side of the gate, I look around to make sure no one inside noticed me. The coast seems to be clear and I can only sense the forms of others within.

As I enter the home, I listen carefully. One small aspect of my gift that I actually enjoy is being able to know when others are around or awake. I do not hear their thoughts as anything but in sleep and so make my way upstairs, to my room.

Once there, I drop my bag by my bed. It's just a simple twin bed on the opposite wall of another, where my roommate, a boy three months my senior, snoozes under his blankets.

If one looked at the room, they could see the imaginary line that divides it in half.

On my side, neatness reigns. Books are organized neatly on shelves, clothes are folded neatly in the dresser or hung properly on hangers in my wardrobe that has its doors shut, my desk is clear and uncluttered, and not a toy or piece of trash or whatever is on the ground to be stepped on in a nightly bathroom trip.

My side is the one with the door.

A stark contrast to my half of the room, my roommate's side bears clothes and toys and trash all over the floor and bed, his desk is cluttered with junk, the walls are adorned with posters of characters from games and cartoons.

As I unlace my shoes, my roommate snores softly. A quick check shows that he's still asleep, and the annoyed part of me wants to wake him up. That would be impulsive and Teacher and Grant are always telling me not to be impulsive. I can't help if it he keeps me up at night sometimes, and he made it hard for me to get some sleep before it was time to sneak out to go meet with Teacher.

Annoying him would likely get me into trouble.

I sense a stirring within the house other than my roommate. Upon noticing who it is and gently use my magic to put the sixteen year-old back to sleep, knowing that, were she to wake, then her roommate would as well, and the two of them would claim both of the bathrooms on the second floor. Those are the good bathrooms and I'm covered in sweat from Teacher's games. I'd rather take a shower now than wait for them to finish in six hundred days for them to finish whatever it is that takes them so long.

What in the world do they have to do in the bathroom that can take an hour or more?

Grabbing a change of clothes, I exit my room and by the hall closet to grab a towel and a washcloth before entering the nearest bathroom. Remembering my shampoo and body wash, I quickly run to my room to retrieve those. With those retrieved, I hurriedly return to the bathroom and close the door. I the shower just as someone knocks on the door. I only eased her back to sleep so that I could make it in first, not so she would sleep through my shower.

I really should have forced her to stay asleep through the shower. Or at least, for long enough I would be in it and unable to hear the knocking. I really hate confrontation.

"I need a shower!" Tracy pounds on the door when I ignore her. "Let me in!"

"Sorry," I yell over the shower. "But the rules state that if someone makes it in first, they get it first. Try the other one."

"Erica's in there!"

"You snooze, you lose!"

That wasn't me.

"You're going to regret this!" Tracy yells at me through the door.

Probably not. In the past, I would have sacrificed my shower time and let her in once she started pounding. This time, however, I do not plan to be around to face her wrath, which will start once she finishes her shower, not before she takes it.

There are enough of us here that being angry has to wait until after your turn for something. Otherwise, you end up losing your chance.

Kind of by accident, I lose myself in thought as I do my best to quickly clean. Teacher gave me a lot to think about.

I do not want to fight, I do not want to learn how to fight for real. That happened once before, when I was six.

Four of my closest friends, other children that I considered brothers and sisters, were killed in a monster attack. I was powerless in the fight, and when I attempted to use my power, it acted differently than I wanted it to. That caused the deaths of my friends. Not just them, but everyone I was close to.

Teacher tries to tell me that it is fine for me to use my power, that all I need is to learn how to control it and wield it. He even went so far as to make sure I knew all of the laws of science and nature and magic, yet I refuse to ever use my power, allowing only the passive field it grants me to act as that is one thing I cannot control. It's active whether I want it to be or not, but at least it does nothing on its own.

Though sometimes it's a curse because I can sense the activities of everyone who's woken up in the area and it's giving me a headache.

I focus on the thoughts of the home's youngest resident, a boy of six years named Tommy, who sleeps, blissfully unaware of the commotion going on around him, dreaming of dinosaurs and magic, his dreams innocent and pure, combining the child's two favorite things together to create a fantastical adventure.

I am envious of Tommy's ability to sleep through anything. The child is small, slight of build, and easily scared, but also innocent and naïve, and such a heavy sleeper that the other youth wonder if their landlady drugs him in his evening cup of milk, something the child cannot fall asleep without. Another detail that baffles them is how the young boy manages to never wet his bed despite consuming liquids just before falling asleep.

Their landlady is just as baffled as they are, though I know the true reason behind it. The answer is that it is simply in the boy's genetic code. He comes from a long line of heavy sleepers, waking exactly once every night to use the bathroom, then passing back out within moments of returning to bed. I think I'm the only one who knows that he actually wakes up during the night.

I finish my shower and dry off, the full-length mirror on the back of the door unfogging as I move my fingers through my hair, styling it slightly as it dries thanks to the warm air I'm manipulating through it.

Once my hair is dried off, I get dressed as the mirror fogs back up. There's no reason to stay here longer and the only thing I needed the mirror for was making sure my hair was good.

I leave the bathroom to find Tracy standing against the wall across from the bathroom.

"You probably stole all the hot water," Tracy snaps at me. "I had to stand here and deal with Brody, as always."

One: she could have avoided Brody's annoying talk by returning to her room.

Two: I wasn't in there nearly long enough to steal all of the hot water.

Three: I only had the cold water on in the first place as I can just use my magic to heat the water as it comes out.

"Should have woken sooner," I hastily walk past Tracy and into my room, scanning my things.

My decision is made. As much as I hate the idea of fighting, both Teacher and Grant suggesting I should join the GSDF means I should do it. Knowing that monsters are apparently wanting to hunt me here only makes that feeling stronger.

The training center will give me some sets of their uniform to wear, so I don't need to bring much. Thinking about it, I don't really need anything from here.

I make my way downstairs to Jennifer, the landlady who watches over us orphans. She's currently in the middle of preparing pancakes in the kitchen for all of us.

There's no reason for me to stick around here, so I already have my shoes and jacket on. Grant told me yesterday that I pretty much need to leave today if I want to get to the facility before the next training session begins. If I miss it, I'll have to wait another three (or was it four?) months for the next one.

That's not something I want to do, not if monsters are hunting me and Teacher isn't in the area.

"Good morning, Caleb," she greets me as I'm trying to figure out how to tell her that I'm leaving. How did she know I was standing here? I was silent as night yet she still seemed to know. She's an ordinary woman, too. That talent of hers has always baffled me. "Chocolate chips today?"

"No, thanks," I shake my head, seizing the opportunity to tell her as an explanation. "I'm not staying for breakfast."

"Really?" Jennifer asks. "You never leave before breakfast."

"I've got an upset stomach," I answer truthfully. "I probably wouldn't be able to keep food down."

"Oh," Jennifer walks over to me, pressing a hand to the back of my head, though I know she feels a normal body temperature as a result of my magic keeping it regulated. "Well, you feel fine. Are you sure you should be going out, then? If you're not feeling good, then you should get some rest."

"If I stay and rest," I respond. "I'll never leave. I'm-I've decided to try security work. I'm leaving. The world's a dangerous place and it was suggested I join the GSDF to help out."

"You're not a fighter," Jennifer puts her hands on her hips. "In fact, you let the other kids pick on you and beat you up. I don't think you'd do very well."

"I'm going to do my best," I straighten up in an attempt to show more confidence than I'm feeling right nw. "I'll try to get over my fear of fighting. I'm going to train hard and help take down the evil people of this world."

"Then I give you my blessing," Jennifer wraps me in a hug. "I hope it works out for you and that you can get past what happened back then. I know the others here don't know about it, but I was told about it when you were brought to me. Should joining the GSDF not work out for you, your bed will still be here for you."

"Thanks," I dip my head to her.

I never knew she was aware of the incident, but thinking back on it, I realize that they would have told her. Why else would she have been so calm and patient when I first came here, quiet and scared and easily frightened? She had to what happened to me back then so that she knew what it was that made me so wary of people and frightened of everything, falling into a meltdown every time something went wrong.

"When are you leaving?" Jennifer steps back, looking down at me.

"I'm going to talk to the person now," I answer. "And find out when I need to leave and how to get there. He said I have to leave today if I want to get there on time for this session."

"How well do you know this person?"

"It's Grant Reynolds," I answer. "I've known him for years. He's apparently a retired member of the agency."

"Mr. Reynolds is a good man," Jennifer nods, smiling.

I know that she's interested in him, but she's never worked up the courage to ask him out. Her reasoning is that surely, a man as handsome as he is already taken – another factor in her decision to keep their relationship professional. It gives me a headache whenever she comes into the cafe to see him.

"That, he is," I interrupt her memories of them meeting. "I'll be going now. Goodbye, Jennifer."

"Goodbye," Jennifer gives me another hug. "And good luck."

I fight the urge to turn around and return to the home as I make my way to the tea shop, arriving just after it opens. The bell above the door rings upon my entrance, and a moment later, Grant Reynolds enters the room from a doorway behind the bar along the right side of the room.

"You're here early today," the older man says as I take in his appearance.

He stands at nearly six and a half feet tall, his fit body filling out the dark brown polo and black jeans my mentor chose to be the shop's uniform, his dark brown hair tinged with grey, his brown eyes looking at me with great concern.

I feel stupid for not realizing yesterday that he was worried about me. Now that Teacher has informed me that the monsters came for me, Grant's current worry is obviously about me. The concern lingers too long in his expression when he looks at me.

"I've decided to go," I inform him. "I wanted to know how I'll get there and where to go."

"I only presented it to you yesterday," Grant frowns at me. "I expected you to think a fair bit more on it before actually taking me up on it, if at all."

"I did enough thinking," I respond. "If I think about it more, I'll choose not to go. I want to do this. I don't want to delay. Plus, you said I'd have to wait for the session in a few months if I don't go today."

"I was going to have you on that session if you accepted," Grant tells me. "To give you more time to think about it. Telling you that the upcoming one starts in a couple of days wasn't meant to rush your decision, Caleb. If you catch the next bus out of town, you'll be there around lunch tomorrow and the session begins the day after that. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"No," I shake my head. "But Teacher believes it's a good idea."

Grant doesn't respond immediately, probably thinking about how we met and the mysterious being I call 'Teacher'. No one here has ever seen him. He tells me he's shy and I honestly believe he is. When he first started mentoring me, he was always awkward. Being six, I didn't notice it, but at twelve, I have a different perspective on things.

And I'm not suffering from events that just happened anymore. Those are in the past now, even if they still affect me today. So I can look back at those memories with a little bit more clarity.

"Very well, then," Grant takes a deep breath, then lets it out all at once. "Let me grab a piece of paper."

Twenty minutes later, I'm sitting at the bus station, waiting for the bus to come as I look up at the moon while listening to music through the headphones and player Grant gifted me. The bus arrives about ten minutes after I sat down, its brakes squeaking a little as it comes to a halt. I stand and stretch before I step onto the bus.

The trip is long and boring. A few people board or exit the bus at each stop we make, but not much else happens. As I'm starting to doze off at night, the bus stops at a service station to fuel up and let off the passengers so they can stretch. Most of them grab a bite to eat in the service station.

Once the other passengers have stepped off the bus, I step off and stretch for a moment before making my way inside the service station. The first thing I do is head to the restroom in the back, finding that I'm not the only one who needed to go and so need to wait in line.

Upon entering the tiny restroom, I scan the grimy room with its sole, dim light bulb, which flickers every few moments.

Using my magic, I ensure that the restroom is safe for human use. I do not trust a bathroom that looks grimy. Grant and Teacher have both instilled a sense of cleanliness upon me, even if they made sure I understand that certain types of being dirty are fine. I think the two of them have different definitions of that, though.

The soap looks shady and I don't trust it or the pipes here, so I use magic to clean my hands. It's faster and more energy-efficient, anyway.

I exit the restroom and browse the food the service station keeps in stock for travelers. Some plastic-wrapped sandwiches are set up in a cooler shelf near the registers and a roller grill with hot dogs and some other cylindrical foods cooking on it. Beyond those, everything is candy, chips, or needs heating or cooking or mixing with other things.

Not wanting to bother cooking something with my magic, I grab two hot dogs from the roller grill, pulling out buns from the warming draw. I squeeze ketchup onto the bottoms before adding the hot dogs, and this will be my dinner tonight.

I bite into one as I make my way to the counter, chewing it the snack slowly. To my surprise, the hot dog is actually fairly tasty.

At the counter, I pay for the two hot dogs with money that Grant provided me for the journey, then return to browsing the candy. When I finish the hot dogs, I throw my trash away, then walk over to the magazine racks and pull one out, beginning to read the latest gossip.

Magicians and superhumans publish magazines sold all over the world, and they are sold widely, despite the majority of people being mundane, even if aware of the world around them. Everyone, magical and mundane alike, wants to know what is going on in the world, after all. Except for those who'd rather be ignorant, and both Teacher and Grant tell me those people are among the most dangerous.

I have been fascinated by the superhuman and magical gossip since I was seven years old and read my first magazine.

With the music in my ears, I cannot hear the thoughts going on in the heads of those around me. Well, they aren't actually drowned out, but they're not as loud as normal. I regret not having looked into something like this before, I assumed it wouldn't work.

As I'm reading about a development in magical crystals, I feel a gun shoved into my back. I stumble for a moment, frozen up in fear, and the man spins me around, yanking the headphone off of me. My gaze fixes on the gun aimed at my head, my body frozen.

I can't move, all I can do is think about the gun, about a bullet shooting out and blasting me in the skull. About death and destruction, about-

"Empty your pockets," the masked gunman orders, interrupting my thoughts. "Give me everything you have."

I nod, afraid of what will happen if I don't. Complying with his request, I reach into my pockets. As I do that, the door to the service station opens.

----------------------------------------

<(Jared)>

As I step off the bus, which lingers only long enough to allow new passengers to board, I look around. We stopped at a service station where one other bus has stopped. That bus will likely rest up here for a couple of hours, then take off again. It's a long-distance bus, which means that three drivers are on it and they take shifts.

The Norvo Kingdom Transport logo, a falcon soaring above the moon, which sits on the side of the bus, tells me it's the one I'm looking for. It's the one that will take me to Alzir, where I will join other youth in basic training in the hopes of becoming a full agent of the GSDF.

Not that I need the training, I am already powerful enough on my own. However, the training is mandatory in order to join them, so I make my way inside the service station for a snack while I wait for them to get ready to leave. I'll show them my ticket when it's time to board.

They probably won't ask for it, if what I'm sensing here is true, but I'll show it to them anyway. After I'm done in there, the mundies around will be in awe at the power of the superhumans if they've never seen one before.

Just as I expected from what I could sense outside, I count ten armed gunmen, two frightened workers, and thirty terrified customers. One thing I notice is a gunman pointing a gun at another boy around my age. His hair is sandy blond and he's got nice, ocean blue eyes. Kind of cute, and his build suggests he's got a bit of training.

Chances are high that he's heading the same way I am, and despite the look of fear on his face, I get the sense he's actually rather powerful. Someone a bit more timid despite clearly being the superior one?

I hate those kinds of people.

"Hands up!" One of the gunmen aims his gun at me and the gunman holding up the other kid looks over.

"Why?" I ask, and the boy who looks terrified but powerful takes advantage of the distraction to disappear from sight.

Another superhuman, then, one with the power to weave light. That's an interesting ability. It not might be illusions, though. Light-weavers are rare enough, but a power that affects a person's perception would automatically be an S-Rank Ability. Straight-up invisibility that isn't either is at least A-Rank, too.

I hope it's perception-manipulation, though, as that kind of power would be useful on my team. Even if it's just light-weaving, I'll still invite him into my team once we form them.

I turn my attention back to the man pointing a gun at me.

"It's not as if you could do anything to me," I say.

He really can't. B-Rank superhumans like me are pretty rare and I doubt any of the gunmen, if there even are superhumans among them, would be higher than D-Rank. My power alone makes me a formidable force among mundies, even ones with guns.

Especially ones with guns.

"Fine, then," the gunman fires off a shot, causing everyone to jump.

Everyone save me, as the bullet stops a foot from my face. I smirk at him as I reach up and grab the bullet, examining it. The heat doesn't bother me, not when it originates from metal.

"Like I said," I look back to the gunman. "It's not as if you could do anything to me."

As the gunmen fire at me, I flex my Ability, the bullets all pulling to my hand, merging, heating up, glowing orange as they fuse together. They form a group of small blades that then float in front of me, the process taking me less time than it takes them to fire their guns.

It's really quite boring. Once I'm out of Basic Training and in full Training, I'll get to go on real missions, and threats like these would be absolutely laughable to my team.

I stand here, calm as the night, as the men realize that not one of their bullets touched me. I then sweep my arm out. As I complete the arc, the blades, of which there are ten, shoot out, piercing the chests of the men, and they drop to the ground, dead.

"As I said," I snort. "You can't do anything to me."

I scan the room before fixing my gaze on where the invisible boy is standing. He moved after turning invisible, probably to avoid being struck. With a power like that, he could really do damage to them. He must be scared of fighting. No matter. He'll get over it in training and become a formidable force and a useful member of my team.

"That's an interesting ability," I tell him. "Were it not for the change in your pocket, I wouldn't be able to tell you're there at all. Is it light manipulation?"

"Magic," he reveals himself. "I can do a little bit. I created a minor field around myself to prevent people's gazes from fixing on me. You still saw me, you simply couldn't focus on me, even though you knew I was there. To your conscious mind, there was no one standing there."

Magician? He's going the wrong way for training, then.

"So you're a magician, then," I grin at him. "Where are you going? I'm heading to get trained to be an agent of the GSDF."

"Same."

"That's for superhumans," I frown at him, hoping he understands what I mean. Maybe he's not as good as I thought, he can't be that bright if he's as powerful as I'm sensing and even able to affect perception with magic but won't use it to defend himself. "You're going the wrong way. Magicians have a different place to train."

"I'm a superhuman."

"That was magic."

"Superhumans can know magic," he retorts, finally meeting my gaze, and actually looking into them seems to be too much as he quickly looks away. "I'm both."

Unlike his timid blue eyes, my green eyes are always full of confidence.

"Nice to meet you, Both!" I grin at him. "I'm Jared!"

"Caleb."

"Look at the mundies," I chuckle, scanning the room of frightened citizens. "They're so scared, and the gunmen aren't even alive anymore."

"How can you just kill someone?" Caleb has a slight whine to his voice. "It's not right."

"It's easy!" I grin at him again. "They're worthless and weak, so it's easy to kill them. Besides, they had their guns pointed at me and were trying to kill me. It's not like I wasn't defending myself and all of these poor, helpless, defenseless citizens. As a soldier, you'll learn that killing is simply a fact of life. By the way, are you on the bus that's out front? I'm joining it – maybe we can sit next to each other?"

Caleb doesn't answer, and after the police have come and gone, everyone returns to the bus to sleep for the night as the drivers rotate and leave. I attempt to talk to Caleb, but he simply lets himself fall asleep.

I'm wide awake, brimming with excitement for the day to come. It takes me a long time to fall asleep as a result.

In the morning, everyone feasts on donuts and coffee provided by another service station, the two of us youths drinking hot chocolate instead.

I talk to Caleb until Caleb dozes off again. Once he's asleep again, I pull my handheld out and start playing, immersing myself in the game. We pass out of the realm of eternal night and it takes everyone a moment to adjust their eyes to the morning light, though it doesn't take me long. I switch between night and day all the time, coming from a realm of actual day-night cycles.

I wake Caleb up when we arrive at our destination, the same place the bus stops for lunch. He squints, covering his eyes, and I realize something about him. His pale skin should have made that obvious to me when we met.

"Never seen daylight before?" I ask, and Caleb shakes his head. "I grew up going in and out of daylight, it's pretty cool. Out here, night falls regularly, with it being longer in the winter and shorter in the summer. It's pretty cool, I'm sure you'll like it. Perfect for tanning, too. Get yourself a nice tan, a shorter hairstyle, and you'll look a whole lot more confident."

"Not interested," Caleb stands up. "Can we get off, please?"

"Sure," I grin at him, standing and walking off the bus.

Caleb and I stop for lunch at a small cafe, grabbing sandwiches and juice to drink, and when we finish our meal, we begin walking. I attempt to engage Caleb in conversation, but his quietness results in me rambling about my own training, the trouble I got into with the staff, anything to prevent silence from falling between us. I'm pretty sure he tuned me out. Maybe he's not a coward, just an introvert, and that was his first fight.

The training program will whip him into fighting shape.

After a few hours of walking, we have exited the town and arrived at a two-story building near the edge of a wooded area. The building itself is constructed of faded grey bricks, but the glass in the windows and doors are clear and polished, showing no signs of time's touch. Save for a handful of cars, the parking lot is deserted.

It's unassuming, and there's no sign indicating what it is, but we both know we've arrived at our destination, the Alzir Training Branch of the GSDF.

"We're here," I grin at Caleb. "Ready for an adventure?"