New Delta High School

June 5, 9:51 A.M.

My brain was fuzzy as I tried to pay attention to the words the teacher was spouting. It was futile in the end. I knew this stuff, after all. As I lounged back in my chair, Mrs. Peser glanced my way and waggled her pointer.

“Well, Roman, would you like to answer a question, seeing as you’re so relaxed right now?”

“Eh,” I shrugged, “I’d rather not. But if you want…”

A few kids snickered, more because they knew what was coming than to laugh at my joke. Mrs. Peser slapped my desk and snarled, “Tell me. Where do an Amp’s powers come from?”

She was trying to trick me, asking a question that didn’t have a certain answer. Sure, there had been speculation, but nobody had a way to confirm anything. I sighed. “That’s a highly debated topic, but most people think they are a gift from God, giving us the power to change our futures. But of course, some people use those powers for evil. Hence, villains, and heroes to stand up to them.”

“Hrm. Well. I don’t disagree, but you didn’t cover nearly enough points. Class, turn to page 214. We’ll be looking at Professor Detlan’s theory on powers, and how they may be a genetic mutation due to the nuclear war. Now, if you…” I tuned her out and rested my hand on my cheek, peering out the window.

The sun was shining, and I could see a few students who were on their lunch break. I had mine after this class, though it seemed as if it would never end. It looked like a nice day too…I wonder how it’s possible for the people who ordain schools to not understand the innate desire to be moving, doing things. Not sitting in class, hearing information spewed at us that we all already know. Literal superheroes exist, after all. What kid wouldn’t spend time learning about them? The existence of this class was basically pointless.

When the bell rang, I quickly hopped up from my seat and made a beeline for the hallway. Thankfully, Mrs. Peser was occupied talking to another student, and didn’t notice me leaving, otherwise I imagine I would get really chewed out. I paused as I entered the hallway, waiting for my friend, Isaac, to make it out as well. He was a bit slow to leave a class, meticulously putting away each paper in his binder. Yeah, he’s a nerd. But it’s not all that bad, we get along just fine.

He exited the room, and I grinned at him. “Exciting class, huh?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t befit you, Roman. But yes, it was.”

I shrugged. “What’s the point, anyway? We know most of this stuff…”

“It’s really here to make the adults feel better about themselves. Make sure we kids know how dangerous the world is nowadays.”

“True…” We made it to the lunchroom and took seats in the left corner of the room. Both of our families packed us lunches, so we had no need to stand in line.

“Hey guys! Did you hear about Alex Fei?” I glanced up to see our other friend, Penelope, walk over to us.

“No…? I don’t even know who that is, Pen.”

She tossed a quick frown in my direction for using the nickname, then sat down next to us and started chattering excitedly.

“Okay, so apparently a few of the guys on the football team were beating him up-”

“If this ends in a suicide, I really don’t want to spoil my lunch,” Isaac said quickly.

“No no, it’s nothing like that. He was getting beat up, and then suddenly Sam bursts in, starts taking them down. And then, all of a sudden, Sam’s punches start not hurting the guys, and Alex starts getting bruises, while just sitting there!”

“So, he awakened a power?” I asked.

“Right! He’s in my Amp 101 Class, and he wasn’t there today, so I wonder if he’s gonna join the Array!”

“Man,” I sighed, “If only that was me. Imagine it, being able to skip school, just be a hero all day. I’m so jealous!”

Isaac shook his head. “Trust me Roman, you may think it’d be exciting, but imagine the danger you’d be in, basically all the time!”

“Nah, New Delta is totally safe. We have like, two villains that occasionally commit small-time robbery. Besides, having a power would be way better than not having one!”

“Not necessarily.” Penelope said, “Think about Alex. His power is taking hits for other people. That sounds pretty awful to me.”

“I guess…” I frowned. “But still, it’s a power. Shouldn’t it work for you? Not the other way around?”

We all sat in a contemplative silence for a bit, as we continued eating. Suddenly, the school bell began ringing.

“Hey, what gives?” I complained, “Classes don’t start for another ten minutes!”

All around the lunchroom, students glanced around, confused. A few started packing up, when suddenly, an announcement came over the loudspeakers.

“Students, please find the nearest teacher and stay near them. Follow lockdown procedures, there may be an intruder in the school.”

Isaac’s eyes widened, and he started breathing heavily. I quickly patted his on the back. “Hey, bud, you’re fine. They said maybe, it’s probably a false alarm. No worries.”

Penelope chimed in, “Right! Let’s find a teacher, it’ll be safer that way.”

Isaac calmed his breathing down as we made our way towards Mr. Silas, the nearest teacher. He barely gave us a glance as we joined the group of kids crowding around him, and kept glancing around the room, as if he was expecting a monster to leap out from any corner or shadow.

He wasn’t looking at the main door to the lunchroom, but I was.

As the door creaked open, I wondered how the same action of opening the door could be so terrifying when an intruder did it, as opposed to when I watched a random kid do it. It made no sense.

Three people waltzed into the room, wearing fancy costumes. Amps. But not ones I recognized. Had they just recently arrived at New Delta?

The middle one, obviously the leader, wore a domino mask, allowing his mouth to still be seen. His costume was weird, a black and white jester’s outfit with what looked like black and white plant decals. It didn’t ring any bells for me. He was about my height, with short black hair. He instantly swept the room, taking stock of everything way too quickly. He was far scarier than either of the two next to him. Still, looking at them, I could see why. Two girls, one of them not wearing any costume but a facemask, one you might wear to stop a viral infection. Her clothes were raggedy, and she was staring blankly at the ground beneath her feet, practically soulless. The other girl was dressed in a black dress, with a fancy mask that wrapped around her face like shadows. Her hair was black, long, and only added to the dark and shadowy theme. Still, she was short, and very skinny. None of them cut an imposing figure, but I figured the leader was the one to watch out for. He scanned the room too fast to have comprehended what he saw fully, and yet he had a satisfied smirk playing on his lips as he turned his gaze to Mr. Silas.

“Oi there, Teach. Pretty bunch of students you’ve got here.”

Mr. Silas’s voice shook as he responded, ”Wh-who are you? Wh-what do you want?”

“Wow, I’m impressed by your ignorance. I thought we made a nice statement a few nights ago. Guess those heroes didn’t want to let their incompetence get out too quickly.”

The shadowy girl giggled. “And we didn’t even have these costumes when we beat them up!”

My eyes widened, and I glanced over at Penelope. These guys had beat the Array? They were supposed to be pretty strong heroes, so how did these three do it?

“Well now, don’t boost our egos too much Promenade. We have more teammates, but they’re currently dealing with the very same heroes, so we have a nice and easy time here.”

Another teacher spoke up. “I-if you’re going to hurt the children, you’ll have to…to get through us first!”

The domino mask concealed the eyes, but not the vulpine smile that came over the leader of the group. “Unfortunately for you, I don’t believe that will be hard.”

The three of them, on some pre-determined cue, started walking forward. We all shrunk back, a fear sweeping over us. These weren’t normal villains, not for New Delta. We were a small city, with few villains, and even less danger. Why were these people here?

I cursed in my head. If only I had powers! If only someone here did!

And then my vision was filled, consumed, by the smallest of things. A butterfly. Nobody else seemed to notice it- in fact, when I checked, nobody else was moving. Even the villains. Only the butterfly, whose iridescent wings seemed to be every color at once. It floated down to land on the back of my hand, and I stared at it for only a second, before my eyes flashed white, and the world was moving again.

What was that? Had there been a power used on me? I tried to shake off the grogginess I suddenly felt, but as I glanced around the room to try and find the perpetrator of this strange scene, my head began to fill with words that I hadn’t thought as my eyes landed on the leader, who was still advancing menacingly.

Ingrain. Power allows him to place thoughts into people’s heads, making them believe they thought that information. Mental shields granted, preventing him from affecting you.

Shove the two nearest to you forward, distracting the enemies. Rush forward, vault over Ingrain, and elbow backwards. Has a weaker lower back, due to a previous injury.

In the same breath, a yellow trail appeared in the air, showing me the path that had just been laid out in my head. I shook my head. What was this? What was happening to me? As my vision swam, my eyes darted to the blond girl with the blank stare, almost inadvertently.

Jabberwocky. Mutated. Can mimic human voices. Hides her true appearance.

Cannot fight in close quarters. Super speed granted, to escape. Leave the nearby people to die and cover your escape.

Now a yellow trail led out of the room, showing me the weakest point in a window to smash through it and run away. But this…didn’t make any sense. Had I just gained a power? Is this what they were like for everyone? A constant stream of information in your head? In addition, I didn’t feel any superspeed. What was happening? Could I only use the information I was being given to follow the path that my new power was telling me to follow? Well, there was no way I was leaving all these people to die…

Suddenly, information flashed into my head, without glancing at anyone new.

Enemies entering through windows. Superspeed to make it under a table, reaction time to avoid getting hit by glass shards. Pull the nearest student in front of you, gaining a shield from the glass. Reaction time removed. Move to center of group, short term teleportation granted, superspeed removed.

The words wouldn’t stop showing me an innumerable number of actions, paths to take, looping through them, telling me in one moment to dodge left, then right in the next moment. How was I supposed to use this? As soon as one power and path came, it went, and another followed. Besides, none of them helped me save Isaac and Penelope, at the very least. This power seemed focused on simply getting me to the best situation I could be in, at least with the current situation.

Suddenly, just as my power warned, three more villains in costumes burst through the windows, throwing glass everywhere. My body reacted instinctively, pulling on the path my power was currently on. I dived out of the way a second before the glass hit our group, letting the kids closest to the windows take the hit. I glanced up, and saw several students lying on the ground, groaning in pain as inch-long pieces of glass stuck out from their appendages. I felt sick.

“Right,” the leader in the domino mask, Ingrain, if my power had been right, said. “I suppose we’ll be leaving soon. One last thing, though. We need the heroes to feel some real shame, for failing again here. So…”

One of the people who had leaped through the window held up his hand in the shape of a gun and pretended to fire it into the bulk of the students. In the same moment, the shadowy girl walked up to Mr. Silas and reached her hand up to his mouth and pulled. He screamed, a choking, wet sound, as what looked like a shadow grew up out of his mouth, human sized. As the girl giggled, pulling this shadow man out of a teacher’s mouth, I heard a slight distortion in sound next to me, and suddenly, the group that had been fake shot at practically evaporated. One second, they were there, and the next, the people in the center of the group were gone, and the people on the outside were missing limbs, chunks taken out of their bodies. Blood flowed, and screams grew. I was in shock, something I had heard about. In situations like this, you go into a state of almost calm. I couldn’t keep from retching, however, when I looked over to see Mr. Silas standing, slack-jawed, as a shadowy version of his stood next to the little shadow girl, who was giggling incessantly, a cruel grin forming her expression.

Ingrain took a little bow, to what remained of his terrified audience. “Well then. We’ll be on our way. My condolences to you all…for having such weak Amps protecting you. Or, failing to, in this case.”

My power let me know I could chase them, gave me an enticing set of powers that it promised could beat them. But I couldn’t focus on that over the sound of crying, screaming, and the sudden stench of death that permeated the air.

New Delta was not the peaceful city it had been two days ago.