Young Writers Society

Note: This is the first story I'm submitting, it's really long compared to others I've seen. If you think I should split it up, please leave feedback. If you read through the whole thing and find parts I can improve on, I would appreciate a review. You can also just tell me what you liked. Thanks! 

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“No, Daddy! Don’t go! Where are you? I can’t see you! Daddy!” Myra screamed as she swung her arms in the darkness. Then everything went red. Blinded and unable to do anything, all she could do was shout for help. Everything was red, as bright as lightning and as red as fire. Someone picked her up, and she relaxed a little. “Daddy… I thought you left…”

Myra wakes up to the feeling of hard concrete underneath her. That dream she just had, it keeps coming back to her. It happened over a week ago, but it still doesn’t seem quite real. She opens her eyes and sees that she’s in a dark room. It feels like it’s made of cement, or some rough stone. There’s no natural light or any way to escape except for one small door. . It’s approximately the length and width of an average house, but with no inner walls. There are lots of candles everywhere lighting the room up, but it also makes it very warm and smell like smoke. The cement below her scrapes against her arm as she pushes herself up into a sitting position. A few other people are sitting on the floor, talking about a card game they were in the middle of. A few shouts of defeat and cheers of victory rise, while everyone laughs at the game. One of them, a girl with short black hair jumps up and sees Myra.

“She’s awake!” she shouts to the rest of them. All of them immediately drop their cards and look. Myra sees four people in total, all kids and all with weird colored hair and eyes. The girl that noticed her walks up to her and helps her stand up. “What’s your name? I’m Roxie, and these are my friends.”

Myra hesitates for a second, and quietly murmurs her name. A boy with blue hair and blue eyes goes over.

“Hi, I’m Tepe, and this is my little brother Tele,” he says, signaling to another kid with green hair and eyes.

A girl with blonde hair and yellow eyes walks up to Myra and holds her hand. “I’m Luminate,” she says with a smile. “I have the power of healing people.”

Tepe gasps. “Luminate! You’re not supposed to tell anyone!” Luminate shrugs.

“It’s okay. This girl has powers too.” Roxie says, pointing at Myra. Everyone stares at her again.

“I can use lasers…” Myra says.

“Whoa! That’s so cool! Can you show me something? Pleeease?” Tele begs, pulling on Myra’s arm. Myra self-consciously shrugs Tele off and decides to show them her new skill. She concentrates her lasers into the pupils of her eyes. She opens her eyes again and looks at them. The lasers make her eyes better than most humans, and it lets her see tiny details that you would need a microscope to see from miles away. Tele’s eyes go wide. “Your eyes are shining!”

“Yeah, they’re glowing a bright red, redder than your hair!” Tepe exclaims. Myra shuts her eyes and resets it. “Here I’ll show you my power now.”

Tepe holds Tele’s hand with one hand and Myra’s hand with the other. Suddenly, they were falling from thousands of feet up in the air, so far up that there was a helicopter flying below them. Before Myra could react though, they were back in the dark room with everyone. Illusions? Myra thought.

Tepe laughs. “You should’ve seen the look on your face! I can teleport.”

Myra feels like throwing up knowing it was real, and that they were actually there, falling.

“I understand what you feel. It was like that for me my first time too.” Tepe sighs in thought. “The first time I used my power was when I ran away from home with Tele. I felt in danger, so I held Tele’s hand and suddenly we were in a desert, but there was a snake that freaked me out so we went to a rainforest.” He laughs and puts his arm around Tele. “But there was a drop of water that fell behind my neck that made me teleport high up in the sky near the birds, and as I was falling I teleported a few more times and ended up back here.”

Myra smiles. “I found my power a few days ago, when I was attacked by thieves in the forest. They tried to attack me for no reason-” There was a reason. “-so I felt something deep inside me and killed them one by one.” Not one by one, it was a massacre and I was way out of control. “That’s also the reason I fainted and when I woke up I was here.” Why am I here? Who are these people?

“That’s cool!” Tepe exclaims. “Tele has the power of electricity, and he can make my power stronger and easier to control.”

Myra looks at Roxie. “Roxie? What’s your power?”

Roxie looks at Myra and smirks. “Copying, mimicking, cloning, whatever you call it. All I can do is what people around me can do. Any other questions?”

“Where am I?”

Luminate looks around. “Isn’t it obvious?” Myra holds in a laugh.

“No, like, where?”

“Ohh we’re in Tepe’s house,” she answers. Tepe smiles.

“My house has a secret sealed off room underground, so that’s where we are. This is our base until we find another one.”

Roxie walks up to Myra and wraps her arm around Myra. “I came up with the idea by the way.”

“So Myra,” Tepe starts. “Do you have any family members or other friends?”

A picture of her dad and the red lightning comes up. “No, my dad died in red lightning.”

Tele looks down at the ground, and tears start to form in his eyes. His green hair falls in front of his face. Tepe shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. “A few years ago, I lived outside of the city. Me, my mom, my dad, and my little brother Tele.” He looks at Tele, who hasn’t moved. “We all lived happily together, but suddenly one day, they disappeared. We never knew where they went.” He looks at her. “Then the police came. They wanted to separate me and Tele and send us to different families, and that’s when I found my power.”

Roxie cuts in. “They teleported to where I was at that moment, which was in the park. I was crying because I was so scared about that flash-”

“-What color was the flash?” Myra cuts in. Roxie thinks for a while and gasps.

“R-red. It was a bright red flash.”

“That’s what happened to me…” She mutters to herself. “What happened to your parents after that?”

“They… disappeared.”

Myra decides that it’s best to share her thoughts and experiences. “When I was little, I was a single child, and my mother died before I passed elementary school. My dad was always there for me, but one day, right as he was about to go to work at the police station, there was a flash of red lighting and he was gone. Soon after that, I was just walking around town, and suddenly a red beam shot out of me and set a strand of a police officer’s hair on fire. I ran away, but the police were chasing me.”

“I might remember a flash, but it was far away,” Tepe starts saying. “Maybe I didn’t see it as clearly because her parents weren’t home!”

Luminate finally straightens up. “My mom also died. I remember finding her powers of healing right after she died, and I felt so guilty because I felt like I could’ve saved her,” she lowers her head a little. “I still feel guilty…” she says in a quiet voice.

“Wait, Myra, did you say your dad was a police officer?” Tepe asks. She nods. He starts thinking hard about something. “My dad worked at the mail. He almost got fired three times because he was always almost late for everything. My mom has some mood swings and always starts arguments with her dad because he procrastinates so much.”

Roxie looks at Tepe. “My dad worked at a puppet theatre. He was the best ventriloquist in my town and he was great at mimicking other sounds.”

Roxie’s dad was good at mimicking. Tepe’s dad was a procrastinator.

“Luminate, what about your parents?”

She smiles. “My mom was an animal lover. She worked at an animal sanctuary and helped all the poor animals in need of assistance.”

Roxie looks at each of them in the eye.

“Our parents died,” she declares. “Someone is behind this. Someone killed our parents with red lightning, and the gods above have given us powers to avenge them!”

Suddenly, something clicked in Myra’s head. Tepe can teleport, and his dad was always rushing everywhere. Roxie mimics other powers, and her dad worked at a puppet theatre. Luminte’s mom loved and helped animals, and Luminate could heal. But what about me? And Tele? My dad was a police officer. I could say he was always very attentive and focused, which gave her lasers? And Tele. His dad is like Tepe, so Tele’s probably like his mom. She shakes her head. From what I remember, his mom got into arguments with his dad, and she has mood swings. Apparently Tele controls electricity.

“No.” Myra holds her ground. “We got our powers from our parents’ deaths. All of our parents disappeared right before we got our powers, so our parents might be in our powers. Our parents might be trapped in our powers. What we have to do is find out how to free them.” Everyone nods in agreement except for Roxie. Roxie thinks for a little, then scratches her head.

“That could be possible, but you don’t have any proof, do you?”

Myra blinks at Roxie. “That’s true, I don’t, but do you have any?”

“I don’t exactly have proof, but I stated more facts, and I think it’s more possible than your claim.”

“That’s true, I put together the clues and found a pattern, but I guess there’s no way of telling the truth,” Myra says.

Roxie thinks for a second, then slowly nods. Luminate rests her hand on Roxies shoulder.

“I think both of your thoughts make sense, but let’s talk about this.” Luminate looks at Roxie, then Myra. “Myra, what exactly are you saying?”

“I’m thinking that it might not be a coincidence that we discovered our powers right after all our parents died. Also, all of our parents died in similar red lightning, and the fact that we have powers means that magic exists.”

“Which means evil-god killed our parents and good-god gave us powers! I knew there were two gods!”

“But why would “evil-god” kill our parents? Our parents sound like average people, so maybe something went wrong somewhere and our parents were accidentally killed.”

“I got it! God tried to kill a bunch of criminals, but he messed up, so our parents died, and he gave us powers to… um…”

“This doesn’t make sense.” Myra knocks on her head a few times. “Unless it wasn’t god, but a mad genius with an ulterior motive.”

Roxie goes still. Everyone turns to her as she starts breathing hard and looking shocked.

“No way… could it be?”

“What is it?” Tepe interrupts. Roxie stares at him as everyone holds their breath.

“When we found Myra, I sensed another power, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Their power was super light and hard to figure out, but while Luminate was healing Myra, I saw a kid in a house nearby. I’m sure he was the one with the power, and there was an old man next to him playing with a machine or something.”

“Should we go observe them tomorrow then?” Myra suggests.

Roxie nods. Everyone starts lying down, getting ready to sleep. Then Roxie remembers something. She stood up, and cleared her throat.

“Tomorrow is September 11. Tomorrow we strike. Today…” she said while sitting down. “We sleep.” and she lay down comfortably and slept. Myra looked at Tepe. He looked at her. She looked at Tele. He still wore his hood, and faced the other way. She walked over, and tapped his shoulder. He immediately turned and glared at her, his alien green eyes glowing. Luminate came over and touched his shoulder, and a yellow glow emitted from her hands. He relaxed, and fell asleep. Myra pulled off his hood. He had green hair, obviously, but his hair was all staticky, and when she touched it, she got zapped a little. Luminate went over.

“Tele can be grumpy sometimes, but don’t mind him. He’s gone through a lot for a kid. ” Myra nodded her head in understanding, and lay down to sleep. She was tired, and it was already midnight.

Myra wakes up, and Roxie is still asleep. She stands up and paces around the cement block. Tepe was already awake, lying on his back and looking at the ceiling. She walks over to him, careful not to wake any of the others. He turns and looks at her, his unnaturally blue eyes unmoving.

“What?” he grumbles, not taking his eyes off her.

“I don’t know. I can’t sleep.” she says, fidgeting with her fingers. He pushes himself up to a sitting position.

“I’ll show you something,” he stretches his hand out to her. ”Take my hand”. She cautiously walks forward, holding his hand in hers, and he looks up. Roxie sits up and looks at them, so Tepe holds her hand too. A little spark runs through his body and onto theirs, and before she knows it, they’re on a hill overlooking the sunrise. The warm autumn wind blows her red hair to the side, and with the sunrise peeking over the city, her hair looks almost orange. In the city, no one is awake except for one little boy bringing a bag of groceries home. He has brown hair and eyes, which she can only see because her lasers give her perfect vision. The sun rises to full view, and the rest of the city wakes up, hiding the little boy from view.

Roxie perks up and squints at the city. “I sense another one of us,” she says excitedly. She signals Myra and Tepe to stay there, and she teleports behind a tree at the bottom. Myra takes a step forward, but Tepe holds his arm out and stops her from following.

Myra watches as Roxie tails the little boy she was watching before, and as the boy walks into an old, small, wooden house.

Roxie peeks through the window of the house, making faces every once in a while as she watches. Finally, she shakes her head and starts running up the hill. Tepe teleports down to her and teleports her back.

“I’ll explain what happened with everyone else. Let’s go back.”

“Ok, ok. Lets go.” He holds their hands and she feels the spark again, then they’re suddenly back in the place where she woke up. Everyone else is awake now, fixing their tools and talking to each other. Tepe starts gathering stuff as well.

Roxie brings everyone together, placing one big map of the city on the table.

“Let’s start with the beginning. Mr. Snick.” Myra opens her mouth to say something but Roxie answers her before she can ask. “He’s an old guy that’s always with this kid called Jeffrey. Anyways, he used to be a great man. Scientist genius, actually. He made all sorts of inventions, like the automatic cookie maker and the auto-delivery system people use every day.” She uses her hands to imitate Mr. Snick crouching over a desk and doing things. “Great man. Great man. But greatness got to his head. He sealed himself somewhere no one could find, and didn’t appear for a decade. Some said he was kidnapped, and some said he invented a teleporting machine and accidentally teleported into a volcano where he and the machine burned to ashes, never to be seen or heard of again. Very detailed, I know, but that’s why people believed it. After he came out of hiding, he presented a small machine to the world. It was the machine I saw in the little house.” She takes a sip of water from her cup and takes a few breaths before starting again. “That machine is what created us. Our powers. It is an evil machine because it steals the soul of a parent, converts it into a random power, and gives it to the child.”

Myra’s hands squeeze around the arms of the chair. A memory slips into her head.

She was 4 years old. She lived in a big house with her Mom and Dad. They had a pool, a big backyard, and everything she could ever dream of. She stood at the edge of the pool, looking at her reflection. She watched as her Dad walked up to her in his business suit, about to go to work. He kissed her on the head and said goodbye, and she laughed and ran after him when he stood up and left. Mom was tending to her flower garden in the front yard, and the nanny was doing laundry. She kept following her Dad. In her memory, all the faces were a blur, and all she could see was her Dad’s black pants and some of the flowers.

Suddenly, right before her Dad got to the car, a storm formed straight above them. Mom came running over to them, but she didn’t reach them in time. Red lightning struck them, and she was blinded. Myra heard her Dad scream like he never does, and it sounded inhuman. Following his scream was Mom’s shout-crying, followed by her scream. Myra didn’t feel a thing, but they certainly did. When the red finally faded away, she collapsed. In her memory, the electricity of the lightning made her twitch a lot. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw bones. Skeletons. And blood. And ashes.

Myra gasps and screams, pushing herself out of her chair. Roxie pushes her back down and sits next to her. Tele rubs his eyes on Tepe’s shoulder.

“I need to finish telling you everything quickly. We don’t have much time left!” she blabbers. “To put it simply, we need to destroy that machine, but to get to it we must get through or kill Mr. Snick and Jeffrey. Destroying it will either kill us or take away our powers, but it’s better that way. It will rid these powers from the world and set the souls free. There are many others like us, with powers, all over the world, some good and some evil like Jeffrey.” She touches a point on the map. “I found that Mr. Snick and Jeffrey currently live right here. Soon, we will go there and complete the job.” After explaining the rest of her detailed plan of attack, she stands up. “Ok that’s enough. Let’s go.”

Ten minutes later, everyone gathers near Tepe, hoods on and weapons ready. Myra pulls her own hood on. Tele holds Tepe’s hand, and Tepe looks up. Something about Tele’s electricity boosts Tepe’s teleportation, and a flash of light blinds her. Suddenly, everyone’s back in the alleyway where they all met. They sneak as a group behind buildings and over roofs, until everyone halts. Myra crashes headfirst into Tepe, but regains her balance right afterwards. The house they’re looking at is an ordinary one-story house, but something deep inside her buzzes at the sight.

Myra focuses her power on her eyes, hitting the exact location in the middle. She shuts her eyes and opens them again, blinking a few times before looking at anything. She scans everything around us. Two blocks down the road there’s a little girl pouring tea for her grandmother while her brother kicks a soccer ball against the wall. Across the city a father kisses his daughter goodbye as he heads off to work. She lingers on that family a little, watching as the mother comes out and hugs their daughter with so much affection it brings tears to her eyes. She can’t tear her eyes from that. What would I be if I were her? What’s it like to have people that have eyes for you, someone who can look at you without only seeing a living bomb waiting to explode? When the father leaves that house, she looks away, not able to see anymore without bursting into tears. Instead, she focuses on the house in front of her.

The windows are shaded, but she can see through. Inside, an old man sits in front of an object that looks like a satellite. It has wires going all around it, covering everything except the bowl on top. A little boy comes into view, carrying a backpack on his shoulders. He says something to the old man, who crookedly smiles and stands up. The little boy swings his backpack off, turning to the window. Myra can see his face now, and she can’t believe it. It’s the boy she saw from the hill with Tepe! He unzips his backpack and pulls out one gold bar, and drops it on the table heavily. Just one bar should be heavy enough that the boy wouldn’t have been able to lift it, but he continues to pull out more and more, stacking them into a pile on the table. It seems like there’s an invisible force helping lift those bars, but she shoved away that thought. Next to her, everyone else starts moving. They can’t see what’s happening, but it’s like they already know.

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Jeffrey runs up to his grandfather, hugging him. The cramped, two-roomed wooden house creaked under Jeffrey’s feet, and the cracked and shaded windows gave off a faded and distorted glow to the room that always made Jeffery wince. The grandfather hugs him back, pride shining in his eyes from Jeffrey stealing the gold. Jeffrey sits down on the chair across the table from the grandfather.

“What do we do next?” he asks his grandpa.

“We’ll target this bank next,” he points at a spot on a map. “It’s a little farther north than the last one, so your escape will have to be fast.” Jeffrey nods his head, taking note of the distance between where they are and the bank. “Also, we have to move.”

“Why?” Jeffrey looks up and tilts his head.

“If the police find any traces or clues you left behind, they could trace us here. We could go over here next,” he points far east of their location. “Or here, but preferably not,” he points at a location right next to the bank.

“I have an idea.” The grandfather looks at Jeffrey. Jeffrey takes a breath. “I could rob the bank, then you could come pick me up in a car like most people do, and we’ll drive over here,” he points at a spot on a hill west of the bank, “where there’s a house that I saw once. It’s completely abandoned and isolated from everywhere else.”

The grandfather thinks for a second, then nods his head. “That’s a good idea. Let’s do that,” he says, clapping Jeffrey on the shoulder. Jeffrey leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, smiling.

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Myra watches the dark windows. She watches as they discuss something, and the boy smiles, making her jealous. Once upon a time she could smile up to her parents like that. The grandfather puts his hand on the boy's shoulder as they smile at each other, and Myra starts to feel a little bit guilty and sympathetic. The bricks on the roof wobble a little as the others start moving, and the cold wind blows across her face.

Everyone except Tepe jumps from the roof, but Tepe just stands at the edge, signaling for her to go. She shakes her head, waving at them to go on. He jumps down, leaving her alone on the roof. Myra watches as the boy finishes with his backpack and runs to his grandfather. They embrace each other with love in their eyes, and they let go of each other. The boy hops to the back of the house and goes through a door that seems to lead to his room.

She takes a deep breath, drawing on her power from deep inside her. She blanks out the parts she saw that made her feel regret so that she wouldn’t hesitate. He’s the enemy. Enemy. Enemy. The wind encourages her, pulling some of her hair out of her face and helping her concentrate. She takes the power from all around her, feeling the laser shards forming around her. She stares at the door of the boy’s room, and throws her hands forward. All the lasers form into one beam, shattering the glass and demolishing the door. A line of fire forms where the beam was, and as she looks around, she realizes that the grandfather and all their stuff is gone. Immediately after she starts the attack, the front door collapses, and the rest of the group comes running in. She looks back at the room that the kid was in, and catches a glimpse of brown hair flying off in the distance.

Immediately, she focuses her power on enhancing her eyes. It stings for a little and everything is suddenly out of focus, but she quickly recovers and looks. It’s that kid, but the wind around him blows unnaturally. Very unnaturally. Instead of the wind bending treetops and flags in one direction together, carrying leaves and bits of debris through the air from as far as you can see in one direction to as far as you can see in another, all the wind is concentrated and centered around him, completely in his control. The ashes in the fires from the burning house behind her follow the wind and make everything smell like smoke. The birds in the sky fly in circles above him, thinking a storm is coming. It pushes him forward, making him soar across the sky. Myra jumps off the roof and lands softly on the concrete of the sidewalk. She throws a hand toward his direction blindly, and red lasers emit from her palms. She looks up to see him stagger slightly, but regain control almost instantly. She starts running after him, jumping over burnt logs and dodging occasional uncontrolled lightning bolts. One lightning bolt barely misses her eye, and she can’t see anything but white. She keeps running, but bumps into a passing old lady. She falls over, and quickly shouts sorry. The kid flies up to the top of a tall building, spinning around and looking back at the direction he came. His eyes glide over everything, and right before he would have seen her, she ducks into the shadows under a roof. She peeks her head out, looking at where he was, but he isn’t there. He could be anywhere.

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Tepe, Tele, Roxie and Luminate search the house where Jeffrey was, turning tables and looking through files. Tepe doesn't know how, but both Jeffrey and the other man escaped before they barged in. Tepe shakes the dirt off his clothes, seeing how everyone else around him looks like they were in the middle of an explosion. Everyone around him was annoyed because they didn’t get to finally eliminate Jeffrey, but Tepe didn’t really want to in the first place, so he wasn’t as annoyed. We would’ve escaped if someone attacked us too. Jeffrey most likely flew away using his powers, but the other person… I have no idea. The line of fire Myra made still crackles and devours everything around it, making everything look evil and scheming. The wire Tepe holds sparks and twitches, so he puts it down on the table. Roxie goes over to him, a look of frustration clearly shown on her face.

“They’re gone,” she growls, looking up at him. “They’re gone!” She shouts again, bringing her fist down on the table. Tele waddles over to Tepe, reaching up and putting his arms around his shoulders. Tepe sighs. Little brothers always just want attention.

“Tepe, I’m hungry,” he whines. Tepe laughs at the statement. Of course he is. The rest of the group goes over, all shaking their heads. No one found anything. Roxie looks toward the sky and shouts in frustration, storming out of the room and sitting alone on a half-burnt chair. Luminate goes over to Roxie and sits next to her, comforting her. That’s what she’s best at. Tele lets go of Tepe and lies down on the floor, staring up at the sky.

Tepe lies down next to him, looking at the fluffy clouds and thinking of random things they might look like. He points out how one of them looks like a dragon, and how one of them looks like a heart. Everything that has happened to him in the past few years has all been so fast, it all seems like a blur when he tries to remember. His parents, his home, everything was so different. The only thing that hasn’t changed as much is Tele. He’s still the nicest li’l brother, and he’s the last piece he has of his family. A strong wind blows at them, knocking some of the weak and burnt wood down. Everyone jumps, making sure not to get hit.

Tepe looks back up at the clouds, but instead of seeing just clouds, he sees Jeffrey. He levitates in mid-air, gathering wind. Tepe jumps up.

“Jeffrey’s here! Take cover!” he shouts. Everyone immediately finds a table or something to hide under. Tele gets up and runs toward the group, hopefully finding a shelter. A hurricane starts forming around them, blowing the house and everything else over. Tepe clutches the leg of a table, keeping himself from getting blown away. The wind around him threatens to lift him off the ground, but he holds tight to the table. The hurricane finishes forming, putting them in the middle of the storm, trapped with Jeffrey. Jeffrey uses his wind to throw things at them, and everyone explodes with their own power. Tepe sits there, cowering under her table, trying but not able to concentrate enough to teleport everyone. He sees many flashes of lightning, but no lasers. The new girl’s not here.

Tepe throws his table away and looks around at everybody. He spots Roxie in the chaos, and weaves through everything to get to her. Right before he reaches her, he sees Tele behind her, a flying chair going straight at him from behind. His heart stops as the chair hits him right in the middle of his back. Tele screams, curling into a tight ball on the ground. Luminate rushes over to heal him. Suddenly, he throws his arms out and swings wildly. The wind around Tepe starts to lift him up, so he quickly looks away to hold on to something to weigh him down. Three thunderbolts barely miss him, and he hears someone scream behind him. Roxie. He looks back at Roxie, now clutching her chest and gasping loudly for air. Tele opens his eyes and freezes. He completely tenses up, every part of him shaking violently. Tepe gathers all his concentration and runs around, pulling everyone together. With one deep surge of power from within him, fueled by fear and adrenaline, he calls the space morphing down on them. A flash of blue strikes him, and he lets it pass through everyone before lifting it. Now they’re back at headquarters.

The cement around Tepe is comforting. It separates them from everyone else, and everyone else from them. Roxie collapses on the ground, hitting her head hard against the thin blue carpet. Tepe rushes over, but Luminate gets there before him. They kneel beside Roxie, and Luminate starts healing her. It’s gonna be okay, Tepe thought. Luminate can heal anyone. Luminate looks at him with a face he can’t decipher. She looks like she saw a ghost, but at the same time she has no expression.

“Is she… okay?” Tepe tentatively asks. She looks back at Roxie, who just opened her eyes and showed great pain.

“It’ll take a while to heal her. She has three broken ribs and her lungs are damaged.” She looks around at everyone else watching. “Get me a space where I can concentrate.”

Immediately, everyone starts patching blankets and sheets together, constructing a small room with curtains around it. Luminate gets up, signaling for her to carry Roxie. Tepe crouches down, one knee supporting him on the cement. He picks Roxie up in his arms, and she struggles to still maintain a straight position, but eventually she gives up and sags. Tepe walks over to the little room, and Luminate opens the curtain for him. He brings Roxie inside and sets her on a table. Then, he goes away, leaving Luminate alone with Roxie.

Tele sits in a corner, his eyes swollen from crying. Tepe runs over, sitting down next to him.

“Tele?”

He sniffs and looks at Tepe, his green eyes shining from tears. “I’ll never use my power again!” he shouts, standing up and running to the other side of the block. Tepe gets up, looking around at everyone else. They’re all tired and grumpy because their mission failed. Jeffrey and the scientist escaped, and the P0W3R wasn’t destroyed. Everything we’ve been planning for weeks failed, and now the whole world hates us even more. They might think we destroyed an innocent man’s house and created a hurricane in the middle of the city, which is slightly true, but what they don’t know is that we’re not all evil, Tepe thought. I know we’re a curse to the world, and these powers we have are not meant to be. Who knows how many other evil powered people there are out there. As he looks around the block, he realizes that a head’s missing. He counts himself, Tele, Roxie, Luminate, and… Myra’s not there.

Thinking back, he realizes that she wasn’t even in the house. She could be anywhere by now. Roxie and Luminate are busy, so he runs to Tele on the other side of the block. Tele hits his head against the wall, crying and murmuring to himself. Tepe lightly taps him on the shoulder, and he swings around, facing him.

“Myra’s gone,” Tepe whispers. “Let’s go find her.”

He wipes his tears and nods. Tepe takes his hand, and they teleport to town.

Tepe rounds the corner of another block, shaking his head at Tele. They’ve been at this for hours, and they still can’t find her. Everyone’s been giving them weird looks, disgust and confusion written everywhere. A kid with blue hair and a kid with green hair, walking together downtown is a rare sight to see. Most people around here are nearly penniless, and don't have the money or a reason to throw weird colors into their hair. A crowd comes from in front of them, blocking their view of the square. Tepe squints at the crowd, hoping Myra might be there.

Finally, he finds her, aimlessly wandering around. She turns her head multiple times and looks at a donut shop with hunger for half a second then turns away. She seems like she has no sense of direction and she’s tired. Tepe weaves through the crowd, dodging a group of people talking about new shoes and a blind man trying to go somewhere. He reaches her, holding her arm. Myra jerks her head back to look at him, eyes shining with alarm for a little then relief once she realizes who it is. They both smiled, looking at each other and feeling relaxed since they were both safe. Someone bumps into Tepe, causing him to stumble sideways and bump into another man, whose big beard and mustache with his bushy eyebrows make him look intimidating. The man grunts and turns around glaring at Tepe. Myra quickly pulls him into the crowd and he teleports them to a nearby park.

She turns around and hugs Tepe, almost squeezing his lungs out. He gently taps her on the head, and she lets go. Suddenly, he realizes Tele’s not with them. He quickly teleports back to where he was when he found Myra, and looks around. He’s nowhere to be seen. Pushing through the crowds, he goes up to a tall man.

“Excuse me sir, but have you seen a little kid with green hair and-”

“Green hair!? No I ain't seen none aliens ‘round here.” He pushes him away. “If you lookin’ for trouble, I suggest ya look somewhere else.”

Tepe teleports back to Myra, letting his frustration out.

“What’s wrong, Tepe?” she frowns.

He looks at her and prays she doesn’t see the fear in her eyes. “Tele’s missing.”

They teleport back home. Roxie and Luminate are sitting on the carpet, pointing at spots on a map. Roxie seems healed, but they never quite know for sure. She could be healed on the outside, but broken on the inside. Tele’s electricity is really strong. They walk over to Roxie and Luminate, and Myra sits down. Tepe stays standing. He can’t keep Tele out of his mind. What if he’s hurt? What if the police caught him? What if Jeffrey got him? All the questions fill his mind and crowd his thoughts. Tepe tells them that Tele’s missing, and that he’s going out to find him. Myra says she wants to come, so Tepe teleports them outside.

After a few minutes, the sun sets and night settles in. The warm air turns to cool air, and the nighttime predators come out. A slight drizzle starts, making everything smell damp and slippery to Tepe. They sit on the grass overlooking the town, lights turning off one by one as people go to sleep. The rain pulls a lock of his blue hair down in front of his eye, and rainwater drips off his chin. Myra uses her laser vision to scan the town, reporting anything weird. Everytime she sees a police car, she shuts her eyes and shakes violently for a second, then returns to scanning. Once or twice she closes her eyes and starts to drift off to sleep, but Tepe slightly bumps her to keep her awake.

Suddenly, she jumps up, and Tepe can sense the energy rippling off her. He jumps up too, standing in a pool of mud. A small figure runs up the hill toward them, sprinting at full speed. Myra lights up and starts slipping and sliding down the slope. Tele’s back. Tepe sprints down the hill, but his foot hits something and all of a sudden he’s rolling down. His entire body turns brown from the mud, and when he hits Tele, Tele’s feet go flying backwards and he faceplants. Tepe laughs at the look of him, wet, dirty, and happy. When Tele looks back at Tepe with the look of revenge, it looks like he’s been crying, but Tepe can’t be sure because they all have water dripping off them. He holds everyone together and teleports them back to base.

Luminate watches them take one step toward her and gasps.

“No no no!” she frantically waves. “I just cleaned up, and now you’re getting the floor dirty again! Look at you guys! This is crazy!” She gets up and grabs three towels from a cabinet, throwing it at them. They each catch one and drape it over themselves. “And after you wash yourselves, come here and we'll discuss some stuff.”

Tepe laughs at her. Typical.

------------------❇-----------------

Jeffrey uses his wind to push himself toward the cliff. He hopes that his grandpa is okay, but he’s also very worried. He spots the house at the top, and pushes himself up, landing on the wood of the roof. The bricks underneath him wobble a bit but stay in place. Smoke from the just-put-out campfire blew into his face, causing him to cough a little and his eyes to sting. Mr. Snick walks out of the front door, looking up at Jeffrey. His expression loosens, and he smiles at Jeffrey, arms open for him to jump down. Jeffrey jumps down and lands next to Mr. Snick easily.

“I’m not a baby anymore, Grandpa, I can jump off of roofs myself now.”

“Ok, fine, you’re all grown up and you don't need me anymore,” Mr. Snick huffs.

Jeffrey laughs a little. “If only my mom was here, she would be proud of me.”

Mr. Snick stares at Jeffrey, anger rising up at the mention of Jeffrey’s mom.

“Your mom would not be proud of you. Your dad would be proud of you.”

“Well that’s only because he’s your son.”

“Stop talking about that. We need to focus on the next job.”

Jeffrey sits on the first step of the front porch. I have to rob another bank? Why? He crosses his arms over his legs. Mr. Snick walks over and sits next to Jeffrey.

“Those kids might be a problem,” Mr. Snick says. “We can’t let them stop us. We can’t let them win.”

Jeffrey turns away from him. What are we trying to do anyways? He wants to ask his grandpa so many questions, but he can’t. Mr. Snick would never forgive him if he knew that Jeffrey sympathized with the enemy. Mr. Snick wraps his arm around Jeffrey’s shoulder.

“Let’s get away from here. Start somewhere else, far away, where there are no people in our way.” Jeffrey nods his head.

------------------❇-----------------

Tele, Tepe and Luminate come back from training, with Tele panting and covered in sweat. He immediately lies down in his bed, but doesn’t cover himself up. He lies on his side, breathing hard. Tepe walks over to him, concerned. Luminate goes over to Roxie and Myra, also tired.

“I used so much power trying to heal Tele. I think he pushed himself too hard, his power level is going overboard and he has a fever.”

Roxie holds in her disappointment and just shakes her head. She had a plan to split into groups to looks for Mr. Snick and Jeffrey, but with one person sick, it wouldn’t be as effective. Everyone walks over to Tele.

“Ok, new plan,” Roxie starts. “Us four split into two groups to look for them, and Tele can come if he feels better. I’ll go with Myra, Tepe goes with Luminate.”

“How do we tell each other if we find them?” Tepe asks.

“If you find them, teleport to us and we’ll all go. If we find them, we’ll send beams of light up so you can come.” Roxie claps. “Ok, now meet back here in an hour!”

Roxie and Myra walk the perimeter of the city, looking all around for any clue of Jeffrey.

“I have an idea!” Myra realizes. “There’s a spot up on a hill that Tepe brought me to before, and we can see the whole city from up there. If I use my laser vision, I would be able to scan a lot!” Roxie agrees, and they start climbing the hill.

------------------❇-----------------

Mr. Snick sits at the bench, looking over at the city and imagining controlling it. A cool breeze sweeps across his face and the pine trees lean in unison. Jeffrey sits down next to him, spinning a coin between his fingers.

“Grandpa,” he said, catching the coin. “I’ve been thinking about what we’ve been doing, and it doesn’t seem right.”

Mr. Snick grunts.

“Why are we doing this, Grandpa?”

Mr. Snick humphs. “You’re too young to understand, but you will when you get older. This is an important time for you.”

“But what we’re doing is hurting others. We shouldn’t steal from innocent people.”

“Jeff, this is only temporary, when we get what we want, we’ll stop. Okay?” Mr. Snick sounds annoyed, still trying to think of a new plan. Jeffrey doesn’t say anything for a little, then continues spinning the coin.

“What do we want?” Jeffrey asks.

Mr. Snick looks at Jeffrey with pride in his eyes. “I want you to be respected and honored. I will make you the conqueror of the world!” He smiles at Jeffrey, expecting him to be excited.

Jeffrey frowns at him. “But why? Do I have to?”

Mr. Snick sighs. “I just don’t want you to go through what I went through. You don’t know how it feels to lose everything you had.”

“I won’t lose anything if I don’t have anything in the first place...”

“Don’t say that. With all the power in the world, how could anyone take it from you?” Mr. Snick declares. “Don’t worry, I only do what’s best for you.”

“But Grandpa,” Jeffrey complains. “You only lost Dad because you killed Mom!” he shouts, standing up and looking down on his Grandpa. Mr. Snick slowly stands up, raising his height and showing who’s in charge.

“She was not loyal! She abandoned your Dad for selfish reasons!” he shouts. “I do not regret what I did.”

“What about Dad? How did he die?”

“Your Dad married the wrong person. He loved the wrong person. A few days after I got you back, he committed suicide.” Mr. Snick sits back down, staring into the distance with his eyebrows furrowed a little. Jeffrey glares at him and sits back down on the bench, back turned to Mr. Snick. “Jeff, your whole life you’ve been running, and running, and your life has never been peaceful. I used to be famous. I could make anything I wanted and the people would do what I said. But when I made the P0W3R, people thought of me as evil and heartless. No one ever respected me again.”

“Grandpa,” Jeffrey said. “What does the P0W3R do anyways?”

“The P0W3R takes the soul or souls of parents and converts them into powers for their kids. The power you get usually depends on the parent’s personality. Your power is your mother’s soul.”

Jeffrey looks at Mr. Snick. “Is she stuck?”

“Well, yes.”

Realizing what his grandfather had done, he clenches his fists, hating Mr. Snick for twisting his thoughts. Others probably hate them.

------------------❇-----------------

Myra and Roxie reach the spot Tepe showed her, but they hear voices nearby. Roxie looks at Myra, wondering why there would be people here, and Myra shrugs.

“Maybe we can ask them if they’ve seen Jeffrey,” Roxie whispers.

“Sure.”

They start walking to the voices, and as they get closer, they can hear that those people are arguing over something.

“Excuse me!” Roxie shouts from behind them. One of them turns around and looks at Myra and Roxie. Myra gasps. Jeffrey’s right in front of them and they’re knocked unconscious.

------------------❇-----------------

Tepe and Luminate teleport back to HQ, but find no one there.

“Where are they? It’s been an hour,” Tepe asks.

“I don’t know, should we go look for them?”

“Roxie’s never late to meet up. Let’s go.”

They arrive at the spot on the hill, and Tepe turns around to see Jeffrey swinging a knife at him. Tepe ducks, barely dodging the hit. Jeffrey takes advantage of the fact that Tepe can’t see everything to knock out Luminate. Then, he turns around and starts attacking Tepe again. Tepe sees the knife coming straight towards his face, and puts an arm up to shield himself. The pain shoots from his forearm to his shoulder, and he stumbles backward while bracing the pain. Jeffrey comes at him again, but Tepe kicks him in the stomach and sends him backwards. Tepe sits on the grass, trying to tie a piece of cloth on the wound, and Jeffrey coughs a little. The leaves on the trees rustle a little. Tepe’s shirt is wet with sweat, and his nose wrinkles a little at the smell.

At that moment, Roxie opens her eyes. She reels in some of Jeffrey’s power and makes an anti-vortex that cancels his wind out. She hops up and rushes over to Tepe, but Jeffrey uses his wind to try to get there first. Tepe teleports a few feet behind where he was, so Jeffrey attacks again, and Tepe teleports again.

Roxie tries to concentrate on where Tepe is so she can heal him, but all she can see is bursts of wind everywhere at once, sparks of teleportation, and a few drops of blood staining the grass.

Tepe’s teleportations start to slow down. Roxie counters Jeffrey’s wind, trying to give Tepe a break. Tepe teleports next to Roxie. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jeffrey rush toward Tepe.

“Tepe, look out!” Without thinking, she jumps in front of him and gets hit by a sideways tornado, but she doesn’t move, even when she starts feeling numb. Jeffrey redirects the wind to take the air away from Tepe, and Tepe faints from lack of air. Roxie makes a shield of wind to keep herself from suffocating, but she still starts to see stars. She frantically looks around for help, but no one is there. Everyone else lies on the ground unconscious.

Suddenly, thunder cracks overhead, and a blue lightning bolt strikes the middle of the field, right between Roxie and Jeffrey. The light blinds her, and she squints to try to see what’s happening. The air flows back into her lungs and her heart beats fast. The grass on the field leans away from the blue lightning, blue cracks of static running through them. As the light fades and Roxie’s eyes start to adjust, she sees a glowing figure in the middle. The grass all around it sets on blue fire, and the heat makes Roxie drag Tepe away. The light fades, and the person who stands in the middle is Tele. Jeffrey starts slowly backing up to Mr. Snick, who stares at the fire and mumbles. Jeffrey holds Mr. Snick’s hand, and Mr. Snick looks at him.

“Get out of here, now!”

Jeffrey nods, and starts lifting Mr. Snick off the ground, into the sky, but in a flash of light, Tele punches Mr. Snick multiple times and Jeffrey struggles to keep holding on to him. Mr. Snick buzzes with blue static. A laser beam cuts Jeffrey off, and he accidentally drops Mr. Snick. Jeffrey shouts and struggles to get past the laser, tears welling up in his eyes. He shouts as he watches Mr. Snick fall. Mr. Snick looks at Jeffrey, then closes his eyes and relaxes. He falls through a tree, the leaves swallowing him and blocking him from view. All the birds in the area immediately fly away. Jeffrey dives to get the P0W3R, and Myra concentrates all her energy into making a web of lasers so Jeffrey can’t escape.

“Stop protecting that thing!” Myra shouts at him.

“Leave us alone!” Jeffrey shouts back, holding back tears and struggling towards the P0W3R.

Myra looks at him in the eye, with no intention of hurting him, only sorrow and pity. “My parents died for this, and I have to set them free!”

“They already died! Accept the truth and move on!”

“They never died in peace! That thing needs to break for them to go to the world beyond!”

Jeffrey desperately reaches for the P0W3R. “It doesn’t need to break! Don’t you understand? Our power is from our parents! It’s our last present! It’s proof that they will always be with us!”

“Would you really chain their souls to yourself just so they can’t leave?” Myra’s lasers flicker in and out. She shouts even louder over the roar of the wind. “Would you hold them back because you always want to be with them? If you truly love them, then set them free.”

Myra can’t hold the web in place anymore, and it falls apart. Jeffrey shoots up into the sky, holding the P0W3R in one arm.

Minutes pass but it feels like hours, and Jeffrey just floats in midair with the machine. His eyes closed, and his breathing has sped up and he keeps shaking his head. Myra feels bad for him. She can’t control the tears that well up in her eyes, so she closes her eyes and lets them fall. The tears slide down her cheeks, forming together at her chin and dripping down onto the floor. When she looks back at Jeffrey, he starts floating back down to the ground. Everyone moves aside and makes a big circle for Jeffrey to land in. He lands lightly and kneels, a small cocoon of wind swirling around him. Myra’s hair gets blown behind her and the world is soundless. Jeffrey opens his eyes and looks at the machine.

Suddenly, he yells at the sky and a column of air surrounds him. He stands and starts floating upwards again. He shuts his eyes for a second and opens them, his eyes shining white. Something deep inside her understands. Myra also yells at the sky, and everyone gets away from her as she pours all of her power into the columns of laser beams around her. The strings that were tangled up inside her come loose, shooting upwards like a beacon. She shuts her eyes and opens them, her eyes glowing red now. Around her, everyone else does the same. Tele has a column of lighting and green eyes, Tepe has copies of himself around him, eyes glowing blue, Roxie has a rainbow around her, and Luminate has beams of light. From other places elsewhere, other colors come too. All of their powers come together at one point in the sky, forming something incredibly bright and powerful. Jeffrey takes a deep breath and throws the machine there. The machine vibrates and shatters into a million pieces. Each piece sparkles like stars as they fall. Myra feels all of the power inside her vanish, leaving an empty hole inside of her. She clutches her chest and takes deep breaths. Each breath seems to fill her body with energy. A new type of energy, but it also seems to pass through something that used to be there. It’s gone, and there's an emptiness inside her, like a hole through her chest. Every breath is a little shallower than before. We did it. We freed our parents’ souls and helped the world.

Everyone looks at Jeffrey as he walks up to Myra and stands an arms length away from her. Myra looks at him and realizes how young he actually is. He looks so small and lonely and innocent. Jeffrey looks straight at Myra, and Myra looks straight at Jeffrey.

“Sorry,” Jeffrey quickly says, then turns away and says it to everyone else. Tepe forgives him easily, but Roxie isn’t as convinced.

“Don’t just say you’re sorry,” Roxie grumbles, looking at Jeffrey with a predatory gaze. “Do something to prove it.”

“I think he helped us enough,” Tepe smiles. “We wouldn’t have gotten here without him.”

Jeffrey plays with his thumbs, looking at everyone and slightly leaning away from Roxie and towards Myra. Everyone is taller than him except Tele.

Myra smiles. “We’re all in the same situation here, so why don’t we figure it out together?” She walks up to Jeffrey and pats him on the head. Jeffrey looks down at his feet.

“Fine,” Roxie says. She looks at Jeffrey, who acts more like an innocent kid than a villain, and smiles.

“I’ll make it up to everyone,” Jeffrey quietly says. Luminate smiles, her blonde hair acting like a halo, and embraces Jeffrey.

“Don’t worry, I forgive you,” Luminate says to Jeffrey. Jeffrey weakly smiles.

As Myra watches everyone hug each other and cheer, a weird feeling comes through to her. She missed her mom. She missed her dad. All of their parents were set free, but they went somewhere no one could reach. She wanted them back and wanted them to go at the same time. Now more than ever, they’re gone, only living in her memories. She wanted to go home, but it felt like she was already home. Her family was gone, but it felt like they were still there, living inside of her. It felt like she found what she had lost: this is her family. Roxie is like an older sister, she leads the group and everyone follows her. Luminate cares for everything and protects everyone. Tepe acts as the co-leader and keeps everyone calm, and Tele works hard and tries to gain everyone’s approval. Jeffrey smiles with everyone and laughs as he talks with his new friend, Tele.

Everyone sits in a circle, relaxing and watching the sunrise. Tepe winces as his bleeding arm touches the grass. He instinctively turns to Luminate.

“Hey Luminate! I got cut here, can you heal me?”

Luminate laughs. “I can’t heal you anymore remember?” Tepe looks surprised as if this was the first time he heard this, then blinks and accepts it again.

“Right…” Tepe bites his lip. “I have to wait for it to heal by itself now.”

“What do we do now?” Jeffrey asks. “Where do we go?”

“I guess we could go to my aunt and uncle’s place.” Tepe flinches again as Luminate wraps his bleeding arm with some cloth.

Tele perks up. “Auntie?”

“Ok, let’s go there then!” Roxie claps.

Jeffrey jumps into the air but falls on his face when he realizes he can’t fly. Everyone laughs with him, and they walk down the hill together.

Myra feels a new warmth within herself. This is where she belongs.