The first known studies of biokinesis were discovered in the medical journals of nazi doctors, most prominently Josef Mengele, ever interested in the concept of genetic superiority. One of psience’s most curious and potentially world-changing branches had its foundation laid on the bones of the innocent by cruel experimentation.

Study into biokinesis continued during the cold war. Alongside the infamous MK-Ultra project, the CIA used the at-the-time classified information of biokinesis in an attempt to create super soldiers under the working name: Mixology-22, or M-22. The project was swiftly shut down after the initial batch of test subjects developed a series of aggressive cancers and suffered organ failure from psionic tampering.

Biokinesis would then be classified as the first forbidden psionic discipline–later to be joined by Domination–until notable psientist Dr. Mildred “Molly” McCollough was given official permission to study the field further in 2005. Through her efforts, along with financial support from the Zhou Ping Psychic Foundation, Dr. McCollough managed to restore some dignity to the discipline by fully removing any traces of cancer from former president Jimmy Carter, an accomplishment that has held up to this day.

In recent times, Dr. McCollough has worked to coordinate the efforts of medical organizations and aspiring biokinetics. Notable advances in the field have not only assisted in the nullifying of cancers in otherwise healthy bodies, but easing the likes of tumors, teaching an anemic body how to form platelets, and, though not officially endorsed by the World Psionic Council, gene therapy and manipulation in an early showing of designer babies.

“Madeline, honey?”

“Yes Auntie?”

“What the fuck is BTS?”

Madeline whirled on her aunt in total bewilderment. Anna was staring at her looking deeply confused.

“You don’t curse like that around Taz.”

Anna sighed, conceding with a nod in Madeline’s direction. “Tasha isn’t here and you’re seventeen, love. What is BTS?”

“Why do you ask?” Anna pointed past her and Madeline stared at a wall of the shop they were perusing. “Oh.” Madeline stared at the wall filled to the brim with CD collections, DVDs, hoodies, hats, backpacks, desktop statues, and far, far more merchandise depicting a batch of handsome young asian men.

Madeline took Anna over to fill her in on the vast world of K-pop, showing her videos on her phone of the group’s performances.

The first place Madeline and Anna had decided to stop by was one of those shops full of music and merchandise from TV shows, video games, and anime and what have you, and smelled heavily of cologne, a little bit of weed, and had the lighting and atmosphere of a basement rave.

Anna had insisted that she wanted to find some more gifts to send Taz off to PA with; Madeline assumed she was overcompensating for her own worries with her wallet. Madeline was just happy to stop in to grab a Demon Slayer wall scroll; the wall behind her computer desk would be distractingly bare no more.

“Do you think she’d like them?” Anna asked, plucking a CD case off the shelf that advertised carrying the band’s biggest hits.

“Not sure, her music tastes have been all over the place. Does she have any BTS in her music library?” Madeline asked, leaning against her aunt to read the back of the case.

“I don’t know.” Anna pursed her lips. It would be easier to get her daughter a gift card to buy the music off the internet, but thanks to Robbie, she’d grown a particular fondness for CDs, even touting the man’s philosophy that the physical version of music was better than the downloaded version.

In a few years, her daughter would be collecting vinyls, and Anna was mildly intrigued at the idea of owning a vinyl record player, and she could imagine pulling Randy over to help her dig out an entertainment center to sink the player in, with speakers set in the compartments, and the top could have a little series of stands for their own vinyl library…

… assuming Tasha came back from PA and didn’t immediately move on.

Anna breathed out through her nose as she examined a ceramic mug depicting seven admittedly handsome young men, and put it back before she could even begin to question if Tasha would like it or not.

“She saaaays… she’s heard of them.” Madeline said, staring down at her phone, shaking Anna from a short, panicked stupor. “Maybe she hasn’t heard them play? They’re absurdly popular, she’s probably heard them over at NPH. I’ve heard people playing their stuff at PA.”

“Well, like you said, her tastes are everywhere.” Anna mumbled, pursing her lips as she took down one of the two vinyls up on the big display. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s avoiding pop because she thinks she’s above it.”

“Oh she fucking wishes.” Madeline snorted, only to feel a bead of ice go down the back of her neck from her aunt’s sharp glare. “That’s not fair, Annie!” Madeline huffed, and Anna simply shook her head and put the vinyl back. “Anyways, girl still goes gooey over Taylor Swift and Gaga, she’ll never be as cool as she wants to be.”

“I don’t want to buy her more Van Halen, and I can’t keep up with her anime—”

“Literally anything My Hero Academia with the green-haired kid.”

“...—so maybe I’ll just send her off with some of this BTS stuff. Or… gosh, will she even listen to it? Maddy?” Anna looked so lost, more so than Madeline had ever seen her, and with a small, pitying chuckle, squeezed her aunt’s upper arm.

“Hey, I’ll make sure she throws it on while I’m around. Heck, we gotta decorate her dorm room, right?” Madeline smiled encouragingly, and Anna gave a small, unsure nod, but kept the CD in hand as they crept towards the register. “Speaking of, I never thought to ask, but where are you putting her up?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well PA has two different dorm buildings for the girls and the hotels; where did you put her?” Madeline repeated, and comprehension dawned over Anna.

“She’s never really spent time sharing space with a lot of other girls, so I put her in the…” Anna wracked her brain for a moment, “the Puellamas?”

“Ah, the good dorms. That’s where Noelle and I are posted up, too!” Madeline bobbed her head. “Good, she’ll be in pajama-walking distance, then.”

“Your mother mentioned that’s where you’d be, and if there is anybody on that campus I trust to have Tasha’s health in mind, it’s you.” Anna squeezed Madeline’s shoulder, giving her a small smile.

“Yeah, no worries, I’ll keep her out of trouble and focused on her studies and her practice.” Madeline chuckled.

Anna nodded, the two moving in line towards the desk behind a small batch of boys. “So, there are bad dorms, then?” She asked in a suspicious tone, and Madeline shook her head.

“Nah, I was just poking fun. The P-Minor is fine, but, like, they’re four person dorms; they’re a mess.” Madeline shrugged. “The two person dorms at the Llamas, though? I mean, at least we get more space to decorate and more quiet time.”

“That is true.” Anna sighed again; she’d been sighing all day...

“And if she gets a loud roommate, she can come spend time with me and Noelle; we both get pretty quiet during study time, and if Nelly has a phone call where she’s gunna get loud, she’s nice enough to take it to the roof.” Madeline smirked, drawing another nod.

“Loudly flirting with her classmates’ mothers?” Anna asked dryly, getting a quick, snorting laugh in response, and a shake of her head.

“Not as far as I know. She just tends to shout where her family’s concerned, but thanks to timezones and stuff? They usually get tired out before it can drag out too long.”

“With how wealthy you claim she is, I’m kind of surprised she’s not put up in the European hotel.”

“I thought the same thing.” Madeline shuffled forward alongside her aunt as the boys ahead of them got checked out, and she quietly wondered if they recognized her from Petersburg. They looked about the right age to have gone to school with her, and were glancing over their shoulders at her… she tried to give a friendly smile, but then they faced right back forward. “Err, anyways, apparently she wanted a roommate. An American roommate.”

“Interesting.” Anna said, her voice suddenly a little disinterested as she eyed the boys suspiciously.

“Yeah. Oh, yeah, speaking of interesting, Auntie, I wanted to ask you a question.” Madeline pointedly stared right at her aunt to ignore the boys, and Anna eventually glanced her way after a moment of thought. “Since when did you know French?” She asked, her brow furrowed, her lips pinched together. “I’ve never heard you speak a word of it in my life.”

Anna’s expression flickered a moment, an unknowing thought passing through her head as she distracted herself looking at the BTS CD again, before she answered. “I’ve known it since I was a teenager. I travelled overseas as a foreign-exchange student, and found I had a gift for the language.”

“Really? It’s almost nothing like English…”

“Really. I know it might sound strange, but it’s true.” Anna cracked a small smile as they wandered up to the desk, setting the CD and Madeline’s wall scroll on the counter for purchase. The pudgy young woman manning the register scanned their purchases, they paid, and left with a single bag, leaving the store and passing by the young boys they’d been standing behind earlier.

They walked past crowds of folk enjoying the mall’s atmosphere and amenities, and Madeline stared after a pair of girls eating from ice cream cones. She glanced back at Anna, who met her eyes with a knowing smirk, and a few minutes later, they were sitting on a bench, Madeline with a scoop of butter rum in a waffle cone, Anna eating neopolitan out of a small paper bowl.

Tucson was the closest place to Petersburg to sport an actual mall, so of course Madeline and Anna made it their destination for a full-fledged shopping trip, and they were far from the only ones. Just days after Christmas, people were out in force to spend the holiday cash they’d gotten and enjoy their holiday with some curious window shopping looking for end of the year deals.

The two women hovered close to one another as they made their way through the crowds, and as usual, Anna was getting attention everywhere she went, eyes following her and tracing her shape through the crowd, but she wasn’t alone this time.

Madeline was a young woman just starting to enter her prime, but it was easy to mistake her for an adult woman rather than the young lady she was. The two of them together drew curious glances and longing looks, both ignoring the stares and sharing an unspoken agreement to assist the other if somebody got too bold.

Of course, some of the looks Madeline got were suspicious ones. Her hair didn’t cover her privacy band over her forehead, and the pretty little gems in the tiara-like design did little to dissuade eyes. It was obvious she was a psychic, and though the band gave other folk a sense of safety and security, she couldn’t help but notice a few nasty looks thrown her way.

Whether it was prompted by her privacy band or her skin color, she couldn’t tell, but she eased the sinking feeling in her stomach by clinging to a woman she could trust, and her aunt had a talent for promising unspeakably horrid retribution with nothing more than a small frown and a glorious glare.

“You visited France as a teen, you said?” Madeline asked after swallowing the very last of her ice cream cone, and Anna gave a little nod as she let some strawberry melt in her mouth. “What was that like? Noelle tells me it’s a beautiful country.”

“It absolutely is if you travel outside of Paris.” Anna cracked a smile at Madeline’s confused look. “Oh, yes, Paris has its charms, but it is a city, and cities are cramped, smelly, and ugly as a rule.” Anna shook her head, and Madeline gave her aunt a mystified stare.

“I will never understand your love of the countryside, Annie.”

“You might when you grow older. Speaking of, I loved the French countryside. Some of my favorite things to do were visiting the vineyards, or the little cafes and restaurants in the areas; so much less touristy when you go further out.”

“Huh. I wonder what Nelly’d say to that.” Madeline hummed.

“She’s a city girl, I’m sure she’ll have a different opinion. Personally? I enjoyed the country more the further I got from the city. Same for everywhere else I visited; London was a travesty, but I adored those little English villages. Folksy, cute, pleasant.” Anna smiled to herself, savoring the memories more than the ice cream at this point. “I remember stopping by the Rhine back in the year of 2000; the smells, the sights, the people enjoying the end of the summer…”

Madeline, however, stiffened, her face tightening a little as she parsed the information. “Like, August-September time?” She asked, and Anna, with a blink, nodded.

“That’s correct. I’d arrived around August in time for the September semester. See, they start a bit earlier than we do in the States, and end a bit later in the year. Mid-summer, I think.”

Madeline had stopped listening, as something stirred in her head. Late summer in the year 2000… “Didn’t something big happen around that time? When you arrived, I mean?” She suddenly asked her aunt, her curly hair bouncing as she tilted her head in thought.

Anna frowned. Her expression was nearly unreadable other than a mixture of dread and discomfort, making Madeline twitch in thinking she’d somehow hurt her aunt, until Anna answered in a lowered voice. “The president of France was assassinated by the Brain Scythe not too long after I arrived.”

Madeline’s mouth opened wide. “President Claude Forsythe! I remember now! Jesus, auntie, that’s a hell of an introduction to the country!”

“It created an enormous mess and I was almost sent home not even two months into my exchange.” Anna groused, glaring down at her knees angrily. “It was awful.”

“Right, right, sorry.” Madeline pinched the bridge of her nose, and Anna furiously stuffed a bite of ice cream into her own mouth to chew. “Sorry, auntie, just… with all the stuff going on with Brain Scythe today, people are talking about the old Brain Scythe around campus.”

Anna sighed deeply, and shook her head, stirring the melted ice cream pooled at the bottom of her bowl with a frown. “I understand. I don’t want to talk about them anymore, however.”

“Why not?” Madeline sounded genuinely confused. “I mean, they’re super relevant right now! You have a bunch of terrorists borrowing the name—”

“Of course they’ll talk about the Brain Scythe!” Anna hissed, her expression darkening. “But this day isn’t supposed to be about them! I want to get my daughter a gift to send to school with her, and I want to spend time with my niece, not talk about that fucking monster.”

The mall was a full and busy place, and even with winter fully kicked up, Arizona still sat in a comfortable high-sixties. That did not explain the sudden chill that went down Madeline’s spine, and she gave her glowering aunt a flabbergasted expression.

“... Auntie, did they do something to you?”

“No, not directly.” Anna murmured. “But I don’t like people talking so trivially about them. It’s too soon to forget what they did, or start idolizing them because they were ‘strong.’” Her voice dropped into a low snarl, and Madeline’s frown grew. “Did your mother ever mention somebody by the name of Ernesto Reno?”

“Yeah.” Madeline answered with a gentler tone. “He taught her everything, right? He was her senior.”

“That’s right, and the FBI was getting his help in hunting down the Brain Scythe.” Anna gave her niece a deathly serious look. “And then the Brain Scythe murdered him, not even thirty feet away from your mother.”

“I…” Madeline stopped herself. Dozens of confused emotions flashed through her, but her face was frozen in shock. “I’ve never heard this story.”

“Of course not.” Anna growled. “Ernesto loved your mother like a daughter. He was your godfather, a brilliant man following in the footsteps of Zhou Ping himself, and when he was close to figuring out where the Brain Scythe was, they attacked.” She turned her furious expression on Madeline, leaving the girl stock still. “Your mother walked in on her father-figure doused in gasoline, holding a match above his head, begging her to run, unable to resist the Brain Scythe’s mind control. It’s how your mother got that burn scar on her ankle.”

“... The one she said was from a job accident.”

“Mhmm.” Anna stared into her empty bowl of ice cream. “All because of the Brain Scythe. They are a monster, and with any luck, they will never return, and these stupid copycat terrorists will be dealt with soon, and not cause nearly as much damage as the Brain Scythe did.”

Madeline gave a very small, slow nod, processing the information with some difficulty. The Brain Scythe was widely known, of course, but she’d never heard her mother ever mention anything about how Ernesto had been killed, or had been related to the Brain Scythe.

Actually, much about the Brain Scythe’s disappearance was still up in the air, the cause of much speculation amongst professionals and conspiracy theorists alike. Madeline assumed they’d been caught and killed, and nobody had taken credit because nobody was sure it was them. Plenty of people claimed to have killed criminal psychics that might have been the Brain Scythe, but a lot of other folk found that explanation too mundane for somebody as ‘mythically’ powerful as the psionic assassin that established the era of the 21st century.

After all, it was practically unheard of for a President of any first-world country to be assassinated so flagrantly, much less two presidents of two separate countries. The deaths of other politicians and other high-profile, well-protected figures only compounded on the reignited fears of psychics…

Madeline flinched as a hand touched her knee, and she glanced over at her aunt, who opened her eyes and stared at the floor with a stern look. “I’m sorry, Maddy, I didn’t mean to get so intense out of nowhere, I just hate the subject and hate the person.”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Madeline squeezed her aunt’s hand. “I never knew they’d done anything to you and mom…”

“Well, you deserve to know just how close you were to not having a mother because of them.” Anna gave her a serious look, and a squeeze to her knee. “How close I came to not having my best friend.”

With a slow nod, Madeline rubbed Anna’s knuckles with her thumb.

“Now, enough of this. Let’s keep shopping, okay? I’ve been enjoying myself and I don’t want it to end like this.”

“Pfft, yeah. That would be an awkward drive home.” Madeline laughed, though she quietly shelved a few questions for later.

One of the more charming aspects about Aunt Anna was her seeming ignorance in her beauty. One of her less charming aspects was the sheer amount of time she could spend ‘hmm’ing and ‘haw’ing over clothes.

Madeline was satisfied with her picks: she found a cozy little chemise for when the Puellamas AC was nice and chilly late at night, or during a laundry day when she had no intention of leaving the building. She’d also found a handful of belly tops that not only comfortably fit, but made her rack look incredible, and she was definitely looking forward to watching some jaws drop around campus when Friday nights out into PJ rolled around. Less exciting but still pretty encouraging was a new pair of undies to replace a pair that had gotten destroyed in one of the campus’ washing machines; those she got at her aunt’s auspices, who wouldn’t let go of that little story and insisted that her niece be spoiled with cuddly underwear.

“I don’t know.” Anna stated. Madeline gave the woman a small glare as her aunt turned to stare at her side-profile in the mirror, wearing a short dress that accentuated the older woman’s curves. “It seems a little… slutty.”

“It’s denim, auntie. You have to try real hard to be slutty in denim.” Anna had also been staring at herself in the mirror for the past five minutes going back and forth on it.

“Are you sure?” Anna asked, striking a small, pretty pose that made Madeline putter her lips. She was sure Anna could have boys around campus running ragged with that little move alone.

“Very. Besides, sluttiness is an attitude, I can’t imagine you being slutty.” Madeline noted, walking up behind her aunt to tug a few strings along the open-V back, tightening it around Anna’s chest. “Seductive, maybe.”

“It’s been over a decade since I last tried being seductive.” Anna noted. “Alberto, Gideon, Victor, Danny, and Robbie all approached me first.”

“Jesus, Annie.” Madeline peeked over her aunt’s shoulder and smoothed the material out in a few places, trying to picture where her aunt would even wear this sort of thing. She didn’t think Anna even needed something this showy to get a man following her home like a puppy. “That first name, Alberto? Sounds hispanic; I’m guessing he wasn’t Taz’s dad?”

“I never told you about Richard?” Anna asked with a small blink, and Madeline shrugged.

“I mean, I might have heard the name, but I don’t remember.”

“Huh.” Anna’s brow pinched in disappointment. “You need to keep up with your ‘sister’s’ history, Maddy, you’ve only known her all your life.”

“You sound like mom…”

“For good reason. Richard Montague, owner of the Tag & Bradley oil fields in west Texas.” Anna stated, shifting into another pose in the mirror, and Madeline gave a nod.

“Right, right, now I remember. He passed away early and you were his primary beneficiary?”

“Mhmm. He apparently thought very kindly of me and our daughter to be.” Anna leaned into the mirror to examine the skin around her eyes, a disgusted twitch going through her nose as she noticed a wrinkle.

“Certainly explains how y’all have such a good living without you working. Did he ever even get to meet Taz before he passed away?” Madeline stepped around her aunt and held her shoulder, and Anna shook her head.

“Cancer took him before she was even born. He’d lost the rest of his family before I came along; some to age, some to illness, many to their own greed, so he set his daughter up for life, and I’m along for the ride.” Anna gave a small, fond little smile to herself in the mirror, and Madeline snickered.

“Lucky, lucky, auntie, most girls would kill for that sorta set-up. How’d you meet, anyways?” Madeline tilted her head in curiosity, and Anna paused, staring at herself in the mirror for a nice, long time, taking a moment to evaluate herself before looking at Madeline with a small smile, then meeting her own gaze again.

“It was at a gala in Seattle.” She answered.

“Oooh, fancy!”

“Very, extremely swanky.” Anna grinned. “A friend of mine at the time was invited to come along because her father was the orchestra’s conductor for the evening; I was her plus one. I wasn’t quite used to anything that fancy, I’ll admit, so I stuck to my friend’s side, or the walls for most of the night.”

“Yeah, I don’t really see you as the schmoozing type.” Madeline admitted.

“I really wasn’t, but I was a thirsty sort.”

“Thirsty for drinks?”

“Yes?” Anna blinked at her niece. “Does thirsty mean anything else?”

“Nope! Continue!” Madeline masked a laugh with a smile.

“Well, yes, anyways, I was thirsty for something to drink, and there was this older gentleman at the far end of the bar. I recognized him as the man who’d spoken to, and introduced the attendees to the gala; I thought he looked a little lonely, and a little rich, and maybe he was just lonely and rich enough to buy me a drink, so I went over to put the moves on him—”

“You put the moves on him.”

“Yes?” Anna tilted her head.

“How does that look? How does Anna Cooper seduce someone?” Madeline asked, smirking, and Anna gave her a pointed look. “C’mon! You said you hadn’t needed to do it in over a decade, but I’m curious what worked for you.”

Anna rolled her eyes, and directed Madeline over to a bench. There, Anna slowly sauntered over, her hips rolling with a shocking amount of flirtiness for a woman as out of practice as she was, and with a little touch to Madeline’s shoulder, she bent down, breasts hanging before her eyes, smiling with half-lidded eyes and a few teeth showing, and with a tone Madeline had never heard, said: “Hi~.”

Madeline blinked, and nearly doubled over laughing, leaving Anna standing with an annoyed expression.

“That was weird, Maddy.”

Madeline barely managed to reign her guffawing in enough to give her aunt an amused look. “Y-yeah, but that’d do it! Hell, that’s how I got Einar obsessed with me.”

“Whom we still need to kill, by the way.”

“Yes, but, you walked up to this old guy and stole his heart for a mai tai?”

“It was a screwdriver, but effectively, yes.” Anna shrugged. “I sat down with him and enjoyed my drink; give him a little company as payment, you know? But he turned out to be a very fascinating man. He told me how he founded his oil business with help from his friends, and he was so busy managing his business that he never really had time to settle down with a woman. He was, of course, absolutely twitterpated with me—”

“Crushing on you?”

“—yes. He apparently had a weakness for blonde women, and, well, we were both a few drinks in, both bored with the gala, so we snuck upstairs and… well, conceived Tasha.”

“Oh, wow.” Madeline stiffened up, giving her aunt a perplexed stare. “I thought there woulda been more time between, y’know, meeting the guy and, uh, Taz.”

“What can I say?” Anna shrugged. “I was young, he seemed like an utter gentleman, and he proved, even post-mortem, to care about his family. Tasha and I have never wanted for anything thanks to him.”

“It’s tragic he passed away before he could see all of Taz’s potential, though.” Madeline frowned the slightest bit. “I mean, an evolink? One without the usual health issues? Taz is pretty well set to do some incredible things. I mean, you’ve heard her play, she won’t have trouble finding bands to take her in.”

“Maybe, but it was Robbie who gave her her love of guitar.” Anna’s tone suddenly soured as she went back to the mirror and considered herself. “If Richard were around… who knows. I’m going to change out of this. I think I’ll add it to the ‘no’ pile.”

“Picky picky, auntie…”

“Always.”

“Except when a rich guy buys you a drink.”

Anna stopped before she could shut the changing stall’s door behind her, and leaned her head out to give her niece a sickly sweet smile that made Madeline regret having ever back talking to her…

“Maddy? Dear? Love?”

“Yes auntie?”

“I love you~.”

Madeline swallowed loudly. “P-please stop smiling that way.”

Anna’s gaze lingered for a moment, and then she slid into the stall to change, giving Madeline the chance to breathe.