Young Writers Society

Nathaniel had always had trouble believing Skull on how old he really was - he knew part of it was because accepting that Skull was really 157 would mean accepting that the oldest member of their group was the most immature.

But he didn't say anything about it.

"We've been here a few months," Nathaniel admitted. "We all arrived at the same time."

Bo would've blinked. Instead, he just stood there.

"Oh," he said before a laugh started building up on the inside. He cracked a smile. "I thought you were all ancient souls," he continued, laughter leaking into his voice. "But I guess that makes a lot more sense."

Nathaniel cracked a smile, too.

"I'm only seventeen," he said, "and Asmira turned twenty last week."

“You could be my kid, if I’d married younger,” Bo said, still smiling wide.

By the time we got back - and our shadowy friend was taken care of - Bo and Nathaniel seemed to somehow be even friendlier with each other than before. I wasn't really sure what had happened while we were in the jewelry shop, but Nathaniel was actually smiling. When had I ever seen him do that?

Whatever had happened, it really didn't matter.

Our next order of business was getting Bo used to his powers. Nathaniel and Asmira didn't get why I wanted a nice, tall building close up to the sky, but I knew a thing or two about how electricity worked. When we got up to the very top floor, there was a very conveniently placed chair, too - but I quickly realized how weak its legs were when I went to sit down on it.

"Okay," I said, "this is where you'll finally get to use your power, Bo."

Nathaniel and Asmira gave each other confused looks.

"...What exactly is his power?" Asmira slowly said.

I grinned.

"Lightning," I said. "Bo can control electricity."

Bo could feel the breeze. The air was cooler, and a bit thinner, high above. It smelled cleaner, too. He didn’t know how that worked.

He turned towards Skull’s voice, listening with anticipation when his power was announced.

Electricity?

“...How do I even know how to like, start using it? Is this one of those ‘search yourself and feel it in your soul’ things or do I need to do a training montage.”

"The first one," I offered. "You just have to feel it. That, or get emotional. When your emotions spike, your powers usually pop out - that's why I saw it earlier when we were on the beach."

Well, Bo didn’t really feel like intentionally working himself up emotionally for the purpose of doing lightning stuff. That just sounded dangerous and irresponsible. He didn’t want to get anyone hurt, so he guessed he had to go the meditation route.

“Ah. Okay,” he said softly, before sitting down on the ground beneath him, and putting his hands together in his lap.

“Time to connect with myself,” he said, trying to sound spiritual - half serious, half joking.

He took in a deep breath, and decided to focus on breathing and thinking about electricity and energy. He wondered if this was anything like fantasy characters attuning to magical objects or magicians when they tried to do spells. So many universes had different rules and limitations for powers and magic and things like that. How would this one feel, now that he was actually in one?

He felt a tingling in his hands. The kind where your hairs stood up, and you knew if you touched someone you could shock them. Oh what he would give to be able to see Asmira or Nathaniel so he could poke them.

Then, there was a surge of energy. He could feel it buzzing through his veins, from his heart and through his chest, down his arms. It was the strangest sensation - feeling such raw power flowing through him.

He kept taking steady breaths. Focus.

Slowly, he stood up. He couldn’t see it, but the veins in his arms were glowing a vibrant blue under his skin and streams of bluish lightning were sparking around his arms. He could hear it. The crackle.

He could hear the crackle in his ears - just like back on earth, right before lightning would strike.

He grinned, and then figured the best and safest place to aim was up.

With a focused deep breath, he spun his arm and pumped it in the air, almost like aiming a gun, or one of those little toy rockets. But instead of a rocket sputtering, he felt a sudden rush of life that he’d never felt before and it was like a crazy, sweet release.

Though he couldn’t see it, he could feel it. He’d just sent a massive bolt of lightning straight up into the overcast sky. When it hit the clouds, the lightning seemed to spread like little veins before fading. And then, not even a second later, there was a deafening roar of thunder.

But miraculously, it didn’t hurt his ears at all.

It had been cool seeing Bo use his powers before, but it was awe-inspiring to see it now. The lightning practically danced up his arms before it shot off into the sky, and the thunder was loud enough to hurt my ears - it looked like he had gotten a power that fit just how physically strong he was, too.

"That was great!" I said, a little too enthusiastically and louder than I normally would have. My hearing was probably shot for a little bit, but I could handle that.

"I've never seen anything like that," Asmira said.

Nathaniel was just straight out speechless.

"You should do more of it," I encouraged Bo. "Just to get used to it. Our powers are different, but you can probably change how much you use it - like making the lightning smaller."

In the meantime, I was going to get myself a better chair. If I was watching him show off his powers, I wanted to be comfortable.

I slipped off back downstairs.

Nathaniel and Asmira didn't notice me leave.

And with the three of us distracted, and Bo blind, not a single one of us noticed how the rickety old chair shook a little even after the thunder stopped rumbling.

Bo stood for a moment, smiling as he stretched his arms, wiggling his fingers. “It’s so weird,” he marveled. “It’s like... it’s like moving a muscle. I don’t even really think about it, I just feel it. It really is like the movies.”

He laughed a little, his laughter deep and booming, as if mirroring the thunder (though hardly a loud).

He tried again, this time trying to shoot a smaller stream into the sky. It felt more like a whip that resulted in sparks, than anything, but it was a start. He kept playing with it, like the stream of lightning was a string. Energy on a leash - at first - until it got too big, and then there was no leash. There was just... giving it a push in the direction it should go.

He felt giddy. It was so strange, and so new, and so magical.

Nathaniel and Asmira both watched as Bo made what almost looked like a whip out of lightning - it really was one-of-a-kind. In the back of their minds, though I didn't know, both were suddenly grateful for the fact that my power wasn't a physical one.

That was when the chair fell over.

The noise was loud - loud enough for even Bo to hear. Nathaniel and Asmira both turned to look at the source of the noise. All they found was a chair near the stairs without anyone near it.

And the chair was moving.

"...Is that chair moving?" Nathaniel asked.

Asmira just gave a slow nod.

A moment later, she offered, "I think it's heading for Bo."

Bo’s playing with electricity came to a sputtering halt when he heard the clattering noise of a chair falling over. He turned to the source of the noise.

“A moving chair?” he asked. “Why would Skull be messing with ghostly powers again? Did he want to join the power-practice party?”

"Why would I want to do what?" I asked - finally having gotten back up the stairs with my new chair in tow.

There was a pause.

Nathaniel and Asmira just slowly turned to look at me.

I opened my mouth to ask what I had missed, but then I saw the chair flailing on the ground - which was not a sentence I had expected to think when I got up that morning.

"...Is that chair moving?" I slowly said.

Nathaniel and Asmira just looked back towards the chair.

"...If you're not moving the chair," Nathaniel started, "what is?"

"...And why is it going for Bo?" Asmira added.

Bo, in all honesty, did not know how to respond to an animate chair coming towards him.

“Well. I guess it just really chairs for me.”

"...Did he really just make a pun-"

"I don't think the pun is the problem, Asmira-"

"Hey! Who thought it was a good idea to copy my power-"

As if this day couldn't get any worse, our shadowy buddy had apparently figured out how to get out of the jewelry store. He wasn't exactly silent this time around, probably from all of the pain he was in. The three of us turned to get a good look at him - he was standing right in front of the stairs.

Nathaniel's hands turned to shadows. The air got a few degrees cooler. I prepared to lunge for him to take control over his body.

But then he just...froze.

The chair froze, too, but that was the more normal thing to freeze.

Then the guy started moving again, turning his head like he was looking around where we were. I waited for his gaze to inevitably fall on me or Asmira, but it didn't.

It landed on Bo.

He took a step forward.

I went to intercept him, but he easily dodged me. Which was weird, because this guy wasn't exactly good at the rough and dirty kind of fighting from what I had seen. He even dodged one of Asmira's knives when she thrust it towards him, and sidestepped an awkward punch from Nathaniel.

(The last thing wasn't nearly as impressive as the first two.)

And then he was right in front of Bo.

"B-Bo?" he whispered. He reached up a hand and pressed it against Bo's chest, just...holding it there. "I-I can't believe I...I actually found you-"

He suddenly winced and curled over.

"Oh, sh*t," he swore. "Everything hurts. Why does everything hurt-"

I didn't get a chance to question why he was suddenly questioning his pain. His balance was so shot by it that he suddenly went stumbling right into Bo.