Kaja Lando April 1st,20XX

Destia bounced on her new shoes as Joyce went over our information with the scientists. The bright metal shoes that the new scientist had made specifically for her reflected the lights from the ceiling and made it hard to catch exactly how fast she was moving, even though she wasn’t using her powers.

Aaron had gotten a set of convertible glasses that expanded into goggles when he pushed into their frames, Archer and Eva had gotten panic buttons and Tillo and I had gotten cool hoodies that could expand into large cloaks that we could duck under to change our bodies under.

Our powers that had skyrocketed in both potency and variety had settled down for the past few days. They were still as powerful as ever, and the mutations had remained, but they were now controllable.

Out of everyone’s powers, Tillo and I had definitely gotten the most in the way. From our powers randomly deciding to multiply things, to our bodies deciding to shrink and swell on a whim.

Another new development was that the transformations of our things were now permanent and they didn’t need our constant contact to remain permanent. When I changed how people looked, I had timed it and it had lasted exactly seven hours each time, but the phones that Tillo had multiplied were still under a timer and their effects had yet to fade. I had also transformed them into another color, and that effect had persevered as well.

“Remember kids. You cannot, under any circumstance, use your powers. We’re just going for a short visit to the studio so you can film your episodes for the week, but if anything happens, call for us so we can get you out of there. Do I make myself clear?”

We all nodded as seriously as we could, but Destia couldn’t hold back an extra excited bounce on her heels. Then again, it made sense that she was so excited. Her powers had been the first to go haywire, so she’d been stuck indoors for a while.

This would be the first time she was leaving the building in over a week.

She moved closer to me and gently nudged me in the side. It still sent me sideways by a few steps, but I decided not to make a fuss and to wave off her enthusiastic apology. She’d been really good with controlling her sudden increase in sturdiness, but sometimes she lost control.

“Aren’t you excited?”

I nodded and linked my arm around hers. This wasn’t the first time I’d initiated an act of closeness like this, but this time she didn’t flinch away.

When ever Tillo and I paired up and Archer naturally paired off with Eva, she usually just went off on her own and ran out the soles on her shoes. It wasn’t like we isolated her on purpose, but we were naturally the closest and Aaron usually worked on his own. He had spent the most time with the scientists, so they had the most solid grasp of his powers.

There had been a moment last week, when he had suddenly flipped out and spent practically the whole day on the roof and slamming back into the ground, but thankfully he quickly got back into control.

It had been scary at first, but he’d continuously made jokes, and even though his powers were out of control, he made sure that we didn’t get hurt.

Destia had worked overtime, running any of us out of his impact zone.

Any ways, I was glad that we had gotten closer. Aside from Eva and Joyce, we were the only two girls in the group. Eva was too young to really consider as a friend, and Joyce was more of a guardian figure than someone I could talk to.

Joyce finally finished her safety checks and unlocked the doors from the basement. Although it only led us into the main building, it still felt like it had been forever since I’d seen my room.

For various reasons, we had all needed to sleep in the basement. There were still cleaners and staff that worked on the upper levels of the building. If Destia accidentally went invisible, or someone walked in on either Tillo and I in the middle of our transformation powers going haywire. It made the most sense for the three of us to stay in the basement where no one that didn’t already know about us might see us.

Then Archer and Eva had chosen to stay with us instead of going up on their own. That was another thing that had changed in our week of isolation.

We had all gotten a lot closer.

Sometimes Eva would come to sit by me for no other reason than my company. Archer would ask me for small favors and Destia wouldn’t shy away from my attempts to be closer to her.

All of these small moments hadn’t felt significant at first but putting them all together soothed my mind in ways I hadn’t known needed soothing, and I no longer woke up and felt the need to touch everything around me and make sure it was all real.

Even Joyce, who I’d worried the most about, had stayed calm and caring, even as our powers had exploded. She was worried about us for sure, but not once had she ever made me fear she would decide this was all too difficult and put us back out on the street.

I didn’t know what the future held for now, but for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel the need to plan any more emergency escapes.

“Kaja! Get in the car, please! Mrs. Mantas was practically out of her mind with worry when I told her you were all sick. Remember to act a bit lethargic when you get there! And avoid any specific questions about your illness.”

Aaron locked in the last buckle on Eva’s car seat while Joyce lectured us and I heard a bit of his one sided conversation with the youngest of our team.

“No Eva. You’re not old enough to get in the car without the seat yet. When? I don’t know? Maybe in a year or so? It depends on how well you sleep and eat from now on. You have a lot of growing to do. Ahaha. I don’t know if you’ll be tall as I am when you’re older, but you’ll definitely be tall enough.”

On the other side of my ear, I heard Tillo and Archer locked up in an intense conversation about the latest show they had picked up watching together.

I was so proud of my twin brother for finally reaching out and making friends. It probably counted for a lot that they lived together and were closer in age than either of them was to Aaron.

Of course, there was Ember and Thelma as our school friends, but between the incident with the terrorist and the debacle of the last time my brother and Archer had been to school, it would only be a matter of time before they started asking questions. It was admirable enough that Thelma had seen herself on the screen during the hostage call and hadn’t asked questions.

Archer had confessed to being able to mess with people’s memories, which was sort of scary, but when put against the backdrop of any of our powers, it definitely wasn’t the worst of them. I mean between Tillo and I who could commit fraud on a whim, Aaron that could flatten buildings with a wave of his hand, Destia who could run faster than any car out there and Eva who could now manifest illusions and nightmares into reality, there wasn’t much point in fearing any one of us. Instead, we just needed to trust that he wouldn’t invade our privacy like that.

But when we returned to school tomorrow, we had decided on a plan. Tillo and I would draw Ember and Thelma into a secluded area and hold them down until Archer could wipe out all of their memories concerning our powers.

Of course, it likely meant that they might not think of us as friends anymore, but that was a sacrifice that we would have to make. A sudden wave of regret washed over me as I thought of how much lonelier school would be without them, but I waved it away.

In the end, the only people we could trust and rely on were each other. Anyone else would just be a large liability.