Seth opened his eyes. Or at least started seeing again. They were dry, as if they had remained unblinking for hours. So he closed them, never wanting to open them ever again.

  He was on the cold ground, curled up in a ball in the dark of that basement floor. He didn’t know how he got this way, how he got here, but he didn’t care. He was crying. Trying to. Dried up eyes soaked away any tears he tried to form, but inside he was sobbing. He wanted to go back, he wanted this nightmare to stop. He wanted his parents back. He wanted his life back. He tried to remember what it felt like to be hugged by them again, tried to remember their faces again. But all he felt were those claws wrapping around him instead.

  And all he saw was teeth.

  An hour passed. Two. The Garkah didn't dare try and talk, didn’t dare say a word. They knew now what had happened, what they had done. Because their guilt was the only other thing he felt. So in turn they felt everything he gave back. All the pain that they had caused.

  He finally stopped crying after three hours in that basement. What scraps of resolve left telling him he needed to get up, to get out of this place. Even as his sorrow had caked into fear and resentment. The screams, the sounds, they all played again and again in his head. Burning deep and dying down with every repeated flash. At last allowing him a chance to feel anything else. For how little it was worth.

  He sat up and scanned the basement he’d been sheltered in. Bits and pieces of Speaker’s lessons eking through his want to just fall back on the floor. There wasn’t any food, it was mostly camping supplies along with several generators, batteries, and radio equipment. Some storage space for an electronics store above.

  Shakily he picked himself up and walked over to the batteries still packaged. The mission he’d come out here to do grounding ever the more jagged pieces of his resolve. Clutching a few in his hand he felt their weak charge, but it wasn’t enough. He grabbed a car battery on the shelf by the nodes, there was juice still in it, but he needed more. He ran his hand over every battery, every power stack thrown away down here in the dark. But it was still not enough…!

  Not enough to call this worth it.

  He fought back wanting to curl up beside the shelves and kept looking. Seeing the generator that was out of place yet more than likely needed here more than ever. It was gas so it would get noisy, which meant he had to break the silence. Fight back what seemed to ooze out of him.

  ‘Are… Are the countermeasures back?’

  “…yes… We-”

  Seth stopped listening, realized pain lashing out the only way it knew how. Blocking them away so he didn’t have to feel this way anymore. He just grabbed the starter pull and yanked it off. His shoulder turning that pain physical, pulling too hard but needing this to be real. But the generator sputtered to life before he could receive another dose. He covered his face in his scarf to keep back the exhaust, and put a hand to the socket. Waiting.

  The charge was just as weak at first, but it started flowing. Small sparks prickling his palm as the basement filled with smog and monotonous rumbling. He could feel the electricity pass through his skin and soak away into wherever the voices sequestered it.

  Away from him…

  After half an hour he cut the power, he didn’t know if it was enough, but he just didn’t care anymore. He was hungry.

  A bag of cereal in his backpack became his sole focus, suffering the bleak wrath he was left in. He sat on a sleeping bag the couple had rolled out against the far wall and judgingly eyed a few of their things, while pitifully scooping handfuls of cereal into his mouth. Loudly crunching to fill the void he was left in and keep the voices away. To keep the pain away for as long as he could take.

  Which wasn’t long enough.

  He dropped the bag at his side, curled his knees in and simply asked the question he had been dreading the answer to.

  ‘Why?’

  “We… We tried to start up the sensors when… When it was clear what we were dealing with. But the signal emitter… the countermeasures were baffled. The emotions were too strong… from…”

  A beat passed. Seth’s eyes stuck fixed on the stairs ahead. The red light of the smoke coated sky keeping back what was undoubtedly worse. But forcing him to ask the other question he truly didn’t want the answer to.

  ‘What were those things?’

  “...The culmination of our sins. We could only speculate before. We’d been only speculating this whole time! We knew what we brought with us, but… its effects on your people were…”

  Seth’s eyes shot wide.

  ‘Those things…’

  “Are the people from your town.”

  ‘Mom…? Dad…?’

  “Yes… they are more than likely among them. We’re-”

  Seth stopped. He didn’t want to hear anymore. He didn’t want to see anymore. But he didn’t try to cry. He knew he couldn’t. He just curled up tighter on the sleeping bag and just blocked the world out. Blocked it all away so it wouldn’t hurt him anymore.

  The next morning came on sudden but with all that time brings. The light outside bright, no longer a hazy red hued hell as before. But still the darkness had found its hold. Seth got up from the trash he slept on. Not whole, he would never be whole again, but healed enough to move. To want to just get out of this place and let it burn.

  He scrounged the basement again, trying the radio in some vain attempt at calling for help, but its circuits were fried for some reason. A distraction, or at least a better question to focus on. He didn’t bother with the generator, he just wanted out of here. Climbing the stairs he was unworried of what was up there, unworried of the blood sprayed across the stairwell walls. Because he knew full well the countermeasure signal was never going to stop.

  Ever… again…!

  Sure enough the alleyway was empty. Save for that fresh coating splattered on every surface. Seth didn’t stop to take it in, just continued on out of the alley, past the mattress torn to shreds, past the dumpster caved in, back onto the street he’d been ripped from the day before. He could still hear the powerlines jolting, the mission still a better focus than everything he knew now. Everything pressing down on him. So he pushed toward them. Nothing had changed, the streets were just as bad as yesterday. Nothing had changed… except for the new pit of resentment that wanted to swallow him whole.

  The line finally came into view past a junction box scattered to pieces. The end of a chain of high yield towers that stretched into the forest, following a path of least resistance. Without hesitation Seth marched up to the bucking lines, the sudden jolt of its contents spewing forth no deterrent. His foot slamming down on it before it could kick itself away.

  He grabbed down at the exposed wiring without fear or mercy, but the line jolted in defiance. Swiping at his hand and cutting it across his palm. He recoiled, reeling and gripping his gashed hand like it was just taunting him for everything he’d already gone through. But this fresh pain wasn’t going to stop him. He tackled down on the end of the line like it was an alligator, putting both hands over the end in hopes of strangling it to death. He was fed up with this, fed up with everything!

  The charge in the line became apparent as soon as he touched it, there’s no more than a few jolts left so he slammed his bleeding hand down on the wiring with all the grit forced upon him. The result was instantaneous, electricity flowed straight into him, just like the lightning from the first day. Like it was his and his alone, a part of him forever and always. And this time he felt it all so clearly. The jolt of energy being disseminated throughout his body without stops and without anonymous drain. A trickle taken off the top to feed the signal, but no more. Nothing else allowed.

  A few seconds later the line was dead, siphoned of all the power it had been alternating with. But Seth could feel down the line as it drained away. Switches, transformers, more high yield lines. He was siphoning a substation. But it wasn’t destroyed like he would have expected. Like the rest of Brighton. Something was cutting it off, isolating it, isolating this whole area from the rest of the grid. He didn’t know what, but something about it felt good. Made him feel better about it. He chalked it up to the Garkah speculating out loud in there, mixing up his thoughts. But…

  “Hgrrr!!”

  He took a breath, a long seething breath. He couldn’t help feel this way. This unimaginable resentment for his new ‘friends’. For what they did to his life. For what they did to his family. For what they did to everything he…

  He didn’t even knew anymore!

  Or ever knew in the first place.

  He knew he didn’t want to feel this way. To keep all of this going and drown. He knew they were victims just as much as he was. As everyone else in his life had been. They were guilty, but nothing could have been done to stop what happened.

  Stop what he almost became when… when everything was going dark.

  They’d saved him. Stopped him from becoming… like everyone else. They stayed with him, even when they could have just stayed quiet. He was alive, hell he had powers now! They’d made him a super! He could be a hero! Like Tlatoani, like the rest of the League! He could join the League outright!! He… he just had to stop this. To stop this pain from controlling him. To stop from hating those already suffering with him. To just…

  ‘…Was that enough?’

  He addressed Speaker with an unfortunate hint of disdain tainting his mental tone, but it was hard enough as it was.

  “Y-Yes, we have enough to run the countermeasures for… for as long as we need.”

  ‘Do you… Am I one of those things?’

  “No. We will never let you fall to such a fate. You are a part of us… You are one of us. And we are a part of you. Always.”

  “…Always.”

  Seth could feel that feeling again, like those clawed hands were hugging him. But it was low, knelt down behind him, and so unimaginably sorry for all that had happened that it could only be Threat refusing to let him stay this way. And like a wave, a breath so deep he never even knew he was holding it, Seth let out it all out and almost spun on that phantom grip. Trying to hug back what was too far from his ability yet so very much wanted. Because they were all he had left.

  That disdain, that resentment gone to the wind. The panging of his cut hand meeting his releasing sob, as the worst washed away in tears of a better source. He looked down at it, wide and cross cut layers of flesh screaming at him for the same relief he felt.

  Feeling the edges of it close and mend till there was nothing left to pain him but that which would always be with him. Another reminder that he had power… He had something no one else had. What no one else should be burdened with. Something he could use, something that could make him a hero. But it meant more than that, it was something so much more than turning on lights and healing away wounds. More than forcing coat hangers away and cooking beans. It was something he had to use. Something he promised he would use. For so much better than this…

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Nothing had changed as he walked away from that powerline, passed that alleyway, back out into the beaten and burned road that was Brighton’s main. Nothing but him.

  Seth stopped and turned to look back down the road, toward his home. Toward Frigateville. He knew it was safe there, that all he had to do was stay put and someone would come eventually. Someone… someone like that couple. Someone that would look at him the same way, with the same fear. That would wonder, ask questions, demand answers he… he didn’t want to give. He knew he couldn’t stay there. He knew… he knew he couldn't handle being blamed like that. That none of them deserved to be blamed like that.

  He turned to the road out of Brighton, out of this obliterated town into more than likely more devastation. More death. More of what he’d already seen and more of what his family, his town had done. But also an escape from all this… A chance. He felt the Garkah try to rise and dissuade him, felt Speaker try to say something. But they stopped themselves, Threat stopped them. He was right, he couldn’t stay. So...

  So Seth walked on, passing the rubble, the smoldering fires, the death his town had caused, that his new friends had caused…

  That he had caused.

  They were all a part of him. Their sins were his. But he wasn’t going to let those sins damn them both.

  His resolve found its way back up, found him a path forward so bright it hurt. He was going to find a way to make things right, to be a hero with all this power and make this hell mean something better. Or at least prove that he wasn’t a monster. That… that blaming him won’t make the pain go away.

  He didn’t know how, but he had to fight this somehow. Heal this somehow. Like…

  Like his hand.

  He had to heal this away so no one else would feel this pain. So that no one else would have to suffer under what had happened. So that all of this destruction would be the past. So that whatever his family was now, it would be the past. That was his promise, to himself and to his world. He would heal this scar away so no one else would have to feel it. He’d try to stop this, try to return things to how they were. Try to get back what was lost. What was denied.

  That was his promise.

  So he walked on, head kept high in spite of what may come.

  On his way out of downtown he passed a tourist shop. Its tatters all but scattered to the wind, and its wares fluttering everywhere. Failing already to keep his head high, Seth looked down. Spotted a Brighton Blinders baseball cap. A symbol, something to say… to make it hard to say that he was from Frigateville. From where all those monsters came from. So he picked it up and put it on. Over his shaggy brown hair left barely washed and uncut.

  Hair that had begun to lose its color and turn white.

  And so he kept on, into the doubtless miles of ruin and horror that awaited him, but with hardened resolve to survive… to atone…

  For everything…

  For that emptiness. For that cold empty loss. Maybe not so cold, yet missed even as it wisped away. Like it was taken from him. And replaced by the current, better experience. The warm soft covers of his new bed. At the Hill, on the Periphery, with the League. With the feeling like that of the past reaffirming the future.

  The Garkah must have taken over, pulled him out of his stupor so at the very least he wasn’t cold and wet after drowning away his sorrows. His trainers drying over the shower with the towels. At least the dust was easily washed away.

  He got up, he still had to, and pulled out a fresh set of training clothes. Tight fit shorts and a heavy t-shirt that could be zipped together. Provided attire so no one would be left out. All colored plain grey because they hadn’t earned aesthetics just yet.

  His room still as aesthetically sparse as it was when he first walked in, he never cared much in terms of personalization. Only ‘officially’ having a highschool education, and having things that you would rather not remember, certainly leave one bereft of choice in this regard. The only real decorations being a framed sticky note with the word “dent” on it and a small compact box he kept by his bed.

  The note was how he got into United Armors in the first place. Can’t just waltz on up to a floor foreman and say their suit had a dent hidden in the back of it, have to be subtle. The box was something he’d bought not long after getting the job. It was simple, he bought it with his first paycheck so it wasn’t about to be extravagant. But inside he stored the only thing he could ever hope to keep from that time. His mother’s red scarf, tightly folded down and protected. He looked at it as he groggily rubbed the memories down and went to grab up his suit.

  But his hand stopped once the good was out weighed in bad again. By the black stains clinging to leading edges like iron filings. The black dust of everything left of his old life. Tearing at him, pulling at him, demanding he see. Demanding he remember it all again and again and again-

  Without even thinking he swiped the air, the lights of his room flickering as power draw followed unconscious action. But he stopped himself, stopped from going so far as to burn it all away.

  Because he could feel the dust clinging in his hand, balled together by all the power he’d forced upon it. Could feel it pull at him, want more of him. And the longer he felt it, the harder it was to keep the pain down. Like something in it was wanting to feel everything he had.

  He gritted his teeth, stomped away, and threw the ball of long dead flesh into the shower. He was desperate to push all those memories back, to get back his already hard won optimism. A short spray of water washing it all away with the rest.

  He took a shaky releasing breath, nowhere near enough to get it away, and finally grabbed his suit. Folding it back up and strapped it to his back. He was dressed and as ready as someone forced to relive their darkest moments all over again could ever be. For whatever else this place wanted him to face again.

  Everyone else seemed in equally shaken spirits as Seth passed them in the hallway, except of course for Ohm who was beaming. At least he had some fellow wounded to sulk alongside amidst the arrogant jaunting. Though no one was about to voice sympathy. Para and Aegis met the trainees with the sphere as they trudged into line. As did several other heroes sat in the stands, more than likely here to observe the proceedings. Para stepping up to clear the air.

  “You’ve noticed we have an audience today, they’re not just here to watch Ohm break his hand. They’re here to watch our training sessions from here on out. Next month you will be scouted by heroes of every shape and shade. They are all here to see if you’re worthy of training under them. They are power instructors, seeking to share their understandings of their types with you. But you’ll have to earn their instruction. For now ignore them, no sense psyching yourself down just because you’re being watched. Without further ado. Ohm, take your shot so we can get the rest of the day started.”

  Para stepped to the side, relative safe distance apparently warranted. Aegis walked in behind the sphere and a halo of orange energy formed around the back, wrapping around just enough to keep the sphere in place.

  But Seth noticed something else, a slight pull over his shoulder. He turned and was met with a matte black panel advancing up where Ohm had once stood. He stepped out to the side, seeing the panel had a whole apparatus joined to the back. And pushing it was… Technomancer? He was obviously struggling, the wheeled cart the panel was on not meant for sand.

  “Excuse me, out of the way.”

  He continued to push the apparatus closer to the sphere, startling the trainees as he made it through to the other side, but stopping short suddenly next to them. He tried to keep pushing, not budging it an inch, as Para peeked around the panel to his surprise.

  “That’s far enough Techno, you’re barreling through my recruits.”

  “Sorry, can’t really see through metal you know.”

  Seth looked the apparatus proper over. Batteries, specialized energy conveyors and converters, some kind of computerized sensor system, and all of it wired into that matte panel.

  “Why are you bringing in such a massive electromagnet?”

  Techno and Para turned with mixed surprise and curmudgeon respectively. The former rather more than indignant that a trainee was speaking.

  “It’s not just an electromagnet recruit, it’s a high powered magnetic sensor array… that doubles as an electromagnet.”

  Para put a hand over Techno’s unexpecting head and turned him back to his apparatus, stepping around him to address the other trainees' confused looks as well.

  “We still don’t know enough about this thing, what it’s really made of, or how the hell it was put together. Every piece, no matter how minute, needs to be collected. We also need to study every effect we have on it. So…”

  Para turned back to Ohm from around the magnetic array.

  “Even if you fail to even scratch the surface of this thing, we will still get something out of you shattering every bone in your hand Clarence!”

  Ohm sneered back.

  “The only thing shattering today is this spherical abomination, you understand that! Just watch!”

  Seth stepped around the magnetic array to get a better view while Techno looked up from the apparatus’ keyboard to measure the levels on its screen.

  “We also put every ounce of material we get off this thing to use. You’d be surprised how conductive this thing can be, even a sliver is enough to enhance an entire system’s throughput. Just imagine what we could when I finally find a way to shatter it. Now back up! Your suit is distorting my readings.”

  Seth reeled and backed up behind the array.

  ‘Well… I guess that’s at least a good thing. A bit of technology sharing could open some doors. Once we get passed telling people what a Garkah is.’

  Seth could feel a mixed bag of emotions from them, though clearly a resonating smugness from Matterist as Ohm stepped up to the sphere. He was carrying a battery pack at his side, but dropped it once he got close enough. Seth could feel the electricity he had taken in, his nerves lighting up like high yield power lines were wrapped around his muscles. He pulled his arm in and the electricity stored up became visible to everyone else, sparking and glowing beneath his skin.

  ‘How he doesn’t light on fire from that much resistance is beyond me. Unless that’s the whole idea.’

  Lining up his attack with his other hand, Ohm set his sights on a blank part of the sphere. Seth felt a tinge of apprehension from the Garkah, not so much in the force about to be projected but in the electrical energy that was behind it. He knew a little about the Ark from what they had taught him, but was pretty sure Ohm wasn’t going to cause a second crisis by slamming a few hundred kilowatts into it.

  Ohm held his stance for a full minute before pulling his aiming hand back like a counterweight, adding its force to the now released punch. Electrical discharge coated his fist as it screeched into the sphere, a final arc seen jetting out his elbow adding propulsion. Surging his fist in like a lightning strike.

  Mixed with a gibbing.

  A sickening snap heard under the thunder and screech of the electricity. And the regular screech of-

  “AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

  Yeah, he broke his hand.

  “FUCK!!! FUCK FUCK FUUUUCKK!!!”

  Ohm recoiled hard off the sphere, curling up around his shattered fingers, blood dripping through from whatever was left. Mediknight was already prepped behind the trainees, pulling around them and calmly bee lining, while Para just watched on with only a tinge of-

  “Told you. Let this be a more concrete lesson. It takes more than brute strength to deal with things and move forward. You’re all going to have to learn where to strike and how to strike, else you’ll just be pounding sand. Heh. Or breaking your hand. Ha!”

  Seth kept his eyes on the Ark as the smoke and ozone from the impact cleared. The electricity that Ohm imparted into his attack had merely danced over the surface ineffectually. He couldn't sense any power from inside the Ark, though that seemed standard fair. The only mark left on the surface being red stain in the shape of a fist.

  ‘Sheesh, Ohm really fucked up his hand on this. But at least I know how his power works, he’s like an ion engine just without the propellant. Or the safeguards.’

  Cringing back, he caught sight of Techno’s sensor array, as it showed no signs of material collection or interesting readings. His disappointment clear as day as he grabbed the cart again and started pulling it back out of the arena. Seth though turned back to the Ark.

  ‘What the hell could even hurt this thing anyway?’

  The silent murmurings from the crowds apparently affording him some measure of silence as he felt Speaker’s quiet answer.

  “Not so much a force but a specific kind of energy. It is a lock and knot so tightly wound, yet beholden to a key almost benign. To us anyway. Just hit it with just the right variables and it will shatter like glass. Anything else would just result in… Well what you saw here. The surface scarring already inflicted are clear indications that these heroes are getting close in other regards, small scale matching of resonance or nearing the output needed. But they are not going to have enough raw power to do much else. Let alone the right abilities to judge our Ark as anything but solid metal.”

  Seth stared at the Ark a little more. A juggernaut like this undone by just a specific variance of electrical force seemed an odd choice. He focused and tried to look closer, trying to feel through what amount of the Ark he could.

  A guiding hand drew his focus to the right spot, Speaker at least helping him along. The systems still seemed dead on the surface, empty and burned out. But he could just barely feel… No, see something. Like a small current, completely unnoticeable to even the deepest of scans he knew how to do. Seth couldn’t even make out what it fully was, just that it was there. Like a mesh screen seen from a distance.

  With a better picture, and a better path as he followed Ohm’s energy down, he deepened his focus. Getting a bit more resolution out of it than just abstract feelings. A sight for the power seeping within. He could actually feel every joule of it as it flowed down the Ark’s wiring, but… it felt so small for some reason. Like it was farther away than it really was.

  Then, as he followed it along, his sight almost shifted, lensed. Like the Ark had a hold over even his focus. A pull all its own. The Ark… was like a black hole.

  The energy was only small in a relative sense. Trapped in a fossilized gravity well meant only for energy, for electrons freed of their atoms by chance and force. Pulling and swallowing them up with little outward notice. It was deep, almost too deep. There was no question why Techno’s sensors didn’t pick up anything, it would just suck away anything given off anyway. And that miniscule current was everywhere, binding and condensing everything down. It stopped short of singularity, but the picture was so very much clearer despite its infinitesimal parts. The hand on Seth’s focus relenting as he truly saw.

  “The issue is not the force alone. It is the scale. The ones who scarred the surface could see the Ark as a puzzle, pieces formed together, saw minute weaknesses and exploited them to the best of their ability or found a means to ring it correctly. But to really damage the Ark you would need to effect it all at once. Disrupt the current that keeps it together. And to do that you would need to be able to directly match the variables of a far grander amount of energy than can ever be realized from just looking at its surface. And I can say with certainty this is beyond much of your species’ abilities. At least so far anyway-”

  “Oh thank gods!!”

  The silence was broken by Ohm exhaling in relief, his hand reappearing fully repaired from Mediknight’s clutches. But Speaker’s words still rang clear and meaningful. Seth had found a bit of his resolve again, a new goal to reach on his path. But he had a ways to go before he could challenge this titan. Yet despite, that he felt better than he had before. Even as Para retook his place in front of his recruits with a rather evil smirk on his face. Leaving Aegis to, once again, push the super heavy sphere of alien metal back into storage. Alone.

  “There. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ve still got you for the rest of the week. So now let’s see if you’ve got what it takes to control all that strength.”