Tadeus and Lena feared that if they reached out directly to the government without enough data they would dismiss them, or, worse, take them in to experiment on them. Cameron's concerns were not unfounded.

Speaking of, he was the first person to exhibit permanent physical changes. Upon closer inspection, they realised he could eject the spikes his left hand fingers became. After a while he became quite adept at shooting them, to the point where he could hit a target up to 15 meters away.

Cameron wasn't the only one whose body was scrutinized. While Tadeus didn't want to test his capabilities, since to activate his power someone had to injure him and he was worried he might develop self-harm problems, he couldn't ignore the problem he ran into during exercise. When his boyfriend joined him in working out, his body slowly was becoming more toned. However, Tadeus remained looking as skinny as usual despite being much more active than David. He soon realized why.

Muscles are grown by damaging them through exercise. When the body repairs them, the damaged strands of muscle are fused together, ending up increasing the muscle's size.

But his regeneration apparently restored the muscles to their previous shape instead. This meant his body was constantly being restored to a set previous state. Though not entirely, since if it affected his brain he would not be able to form new memories.

The silver lining of this predicament was that other Cordians wouldn’t have such problems, since it depended on his unique power. Unless someone else had regeneration, of course, though from their limited knowledge it seemed that powers varied wildly.

Since the Cordians started appearing more and more, there was no way they could keep it under wraps. they had to be the first ones to publicly announce their presence in society, but there was no news outlet that would accept “superheroes” as anything but a crazy, desperate grasp at fame.

Well, except one.

“Hello everyone, this is Hard Truths with Hank Baker, and I have a real treat for you today. You remember when I talked about the invasion of demonic forces with powers? We have two of them in our studio! Don’t worry, we have armed guards behind the cameras, so I am relatively safe.” There weren’t any armed forces in the studio, but Tadeus and Lena decided against pointing that out. “So, what do you guys want on Earth? Why do you invade our beautiful nation? We won’t give you our children to eat, I’ll tell you that much!” Baker’s face already started turning red with indignation.

Tadeus took a deep breath. “Okay. First of all, I lived in Nebraska my whole life.”

“I’m sure you want us to believe that.”

“Second,” Tadeus refused to comment, “we have no interest in eating any children. I’ve never eaten a child, and I don’t plan on changing that. We call ourselves Cordians, and our powers come from a microbe known as Floyda concordis. It is completely harmless, but in some people it can awaken in a situation of extreme stress, causing them to develop extraordinary abilities.”

“So you’re tellin’ me this thing can infect anyone?!” The host asked, a note of fear joining his usual anger.

“Yes, but as I said, the vast majority of people experience no changes. I would bet you are already a carrier, too, as it spreads extremely quickly. If it was dangerous, the whole country would be in a state of an epidemic.” *Oh no, why did I say that? He’s gonna freak out now.*

“YOU MOTHERFUCKERS INFECTED ME?! You won’t have me without a fight, fuckers!” Then Hank Baker put a hand inside his suit and pulled out a handgun.

Everyone else froze for a moment.

The first shot came toward Tadeus, catching him in the throat. The second hit him in the chest, throwing him off the chair he was sitting in.

The third, last shot came towards Lena, but before it could hit her, it fell harmlessly on the ground half a meter before her.

The studio’s staff ran towards Baker, restraining him and taking his gun away, and Lena knelt by Tadeus’s side.

“Tad! Can you hear me?!”

In response, The shot man gurgled incomprehensibly, his throat too damaged to speak. When no words left him, he opted to just lightly nodding instead.

His gunshot wounds were covered in blood, but no more was pouring out, as his body already started mending itself.

“Will you be alright?!” Another weak nod.

“This madman used actual silver bullets on us. Good thing my body spat them out, I would have some serious poisoning otherwise.” Tadeus said. They were riding back home, David behind the wheel, and at this point the wounds had healed completely.

“He probably thought he would block our powers. Like we are werewolves or something.” Lena replied.

“So, what now?” David asked.

“Now you drive us to a fancy restaurant and pay for dinner.”

“What? Why me?”

“You’re the one who suggested we go to that shitshow. You gotta pay us back now.”