Wanderlust (Worm Quest AU)

The sun hung low in the sky as the car sped down the highway, leaving Boston behind. Michael sat in the driver's seat, fingers anxiously tapping on the steering wheel, while Aaron sat in the passenger seat and Edgar sprawled across the backseat.

Michael's eyes darted very briefly towards his dad, returning only instants later on the empty highway lanes. After several silent minutes, filled only by the quiet hum of the car's engine, he finally spoke up.

"Are you sure Mom is okay with this?"

"Yes, Michael," Aaron said gently, waving Michael off with his hand. "Seeing me standing and walking about was a shock, but even without the aid of a superpower I know how to wrangle that sweet woman. She'll be fine."

Michael groaned internally. "I understand, Dad, but you know how she gets, right? She'll talk to someone about this, and we can't have that."

"Give your own mother some credit, Mike," Edgar spoke from the backseat, straightening himself up in the seat. "I'm sure she knows the gravity of the situation…?"

Aaron cut in at Edgar's comment. "Yes, that she does. If asked, she'll say that I'm going to Sonnesburg for a special treatment regimen that will get me back on my feet, if not better than before."

A weight of tension left Michael's shoulders, carried out by a deep exhale, at Aaron's reassurance. He'd been mighty afraid of this whole situation falling out in the open, leading to some definitely unwanted attention - the very fact that Michael had been out of Sonnesburg's relative safety for so long was already starting to make him more paranoid than he should've been,

A quiet, sleepy meow came from the trunk of the car.

"Mr. Tabbins woke up, Mike," Aaron commented with a slightly humorous tinge to his tone, causing Edgar to chuckle as well. "We might want to pull over and check on him, you know, one more time. Can't hurt."

Michael chose to ignore their very childish and obvious attempts at teasing, and kept driving.

The reason for this disgustingly unsubtle attempt at verbal jousting was that Michael had grown irrationally obsessed with the neighbors' cat, ever since he'd used his power on it to 'grant it superpowers.' It did not work, from the looks of it - to his simultaneous relief and disappointment - but he couldn't be one hundred percent sure without proper observation.

So he asked Aaron for some advice, whom could not figure out for the life of him why Michael had grown so interested in the neighbors' cat. Michael said that he tried to give it powers, and Aaron laughed, telling Michael that everything was fine and that he should leave the cat alone, since there were no powers to speak of in that tiny ball of fur.

Completely ignoring his dad's advice, because what the hell did Aaron know about super cats, Michael lured Mr. Tabbins into the car with some emptied tuna cans, and locked him in the trunk. Mr. Tabbins was relatively okay with it all: its opinion of Michael could be roughly summed up as, 'gives me food and pets, solitary, like me'.

More of Mr. Tabbins' muffled meows came from the trunk.

Michael pressed on the gas pedal and accelerated slightly, passing a slow-moving car and returning to his lane a few seconds later.

"We're still three or four hours away from Sonnesburg," Michael spoke, for the benefit of everyone in the car. "Less if I start speeding like a maniac."

"If by 'speeding like a maniac' you mean going ten miles below the speed limit, then sure," Edgar muttered under his breath.

"I am a careful driver, Edgar, damn you!" Michael barked at him, irritated by the comment. Michael's righteous anger only caused Aaron and Edgar to laugh.

"By the time we're in Sonnesburg, it'll be midnight or so," Aaron commented. "And you've been driving for a long time already. Though taking a pitstop feels… unwise."

"Is your power telling you anything?" Michael asked, worry seeping into his voice.

"The precognitive aspect of it is so rudimentary it might as well not be there. I'm working on limited knowledge, and that knowledge is what you yourself told me, which is that we're being chased by some nebulous hostile force," Aaron explained, his voice falling an octave as he spoke, shrouded in thoughtfulness. "Though that does feel unlikely with my power, my own sensibilities tell me that we shouldn't stop. Especially not in some motel in the middle of nowhere."

"Why?" Edgar asked offhandedly.

"Because I trust my son and his intelligence, and even though he's sometimes paranoid, he has reasons to think what he thinks," Aaron said, resolute and firm in his stance.

Michael felt a mote of golden warmth in his chest, at those words. But what his dad said did bring up a very real and pressing concern - lack of information. Thus far, Michael's point of view had been dreadfully stuck on his immediate situation, and the limited information he'd been able to gather regarding the general state of the world.

"We still have a few hours, and you two look pretty rested to me," Michael started, letting go of the steering wheel with one hand to gather his own phone. He handed it to his dad, and continued. "While we're at it, look for some info. Edgar, scour the news, browse social media for anything that looks weird. Dad, use my phone and look for obscure forums and image boards like 4chan anonymously."

"Won't Aaron get tracked if-"

"The phone's rooted and there are so many anti-tracking programs and algorithms of my own devising that I'd be surprised if the NSA could figure out my phone's resolution even if I clicked on a phishing link," Michael interrupted Edgar sternly, slightly irritated that he'd even think he'd be so careless.

"Even if that weren't the case, my power would help me avoid the dangerous websites - which, mind you, knowing what websites would get us flagged is already useful information by itself," Aaron added calmly.

And with that began the newsmaxxing.

It started small, with articles dating back around three weeks ago, describing small unexplainable phenomena, like people being stronger than they should be, apparent mind-readers, as well as some seemingly unrelated economics articles which covered some anonymous traders hitting it big on one too many fronts.

Those articles were followed by a large number of counter-articles by researchers, scientists and intellectuals worldwide, debunking these phenomena as little more than 'trends' and 'viral sensations.' Aaron helpfully noted that all of these 'debunkings' were often subtly backed by national governments, such as politicians retweeting or calling attention to these articles.

Then, more recently, articles of more violent incidents. Entire villages in rural Africa being wiped out with seemingly no explanation or reason, shootouts involving organized crime all around the world being twice as deadly than recorded previously, concentration camps in China being targeted by 'terrorist attacks' on the regular, as well as violence and crime in general rising in places such as India, Korea, Algeria, Turkey.

All places where natural disasters had happened quite recently.

"Holy shit," Edgar gasped.

Michael turned his head slightly. "What?"

"North Korea's gone," Edgar whispered. "Like, gone gone."

"What the fuck do you mean, gone gone?" Michael asked, as a pit started forming in his stomach. Aaron turned as well.

"I'll read you the article," Edgar said flatly, his face frozen with shock.

"Unprecedented Catastrophe Strikes Korean Peninsula: Pyongyang Vanishes Amidst Tectonic Chaos. In a shocking turn of events on the morning of July 22nd, at approximately 7:34 AM, the entirety of the North Korean capital mysteriously vanished from the map.

International sensors recorded a series of devastating seismic incidents originating in Pyongyang, radiating outward with alarming speed, leading to the unprecedented and abnormal rupture of multiple tectonic plates, causing a swarm of earthquakes.

The calamitous event not only consumed the entirety of the capital, but also damaged significant portions of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), as well as territories in China and Russia. Riots broke out in the entire country, leading South Korea to send aid in the nation, breaking the DMZ's no-cross rule.

Conflicts sparked as a result, as the North Korean government attempted to maintain control and keep the South Korean military out. The death toll is in the tens of millions, ninety-nine percent of them being civilians.

Authorities are issuing urgent advisories to the populations of neighboring countries, urging them to remain calm and to retreat from border areas as much as possible. The respective militaries of the affected nations are actively engaging with the crisis to mitigate its far-reaching consequences."

Silence lingered in the car for a very long time.

"What do you guys think it was?" Edgar asked meekly, putting down his phone with shaky hands.

"Superpower shit, definitely. This is not a fucking coincidence," Michael said, braking the car slightly. He didn't feel secure enough to drive at highway speeds when such a bomb was dropped on his head. "It can't be. The fact that not even whatever conspiracy is happening could cover this up is even more evidence. Too many uninvolved parties saw it happen."

"I'm surprised they did not blame it on a failed nuclear test," Aaron pointed out, as he clutched his chin in thought as he scrolled back to something on Michael's phone. "Ah, there it is. A user on some physics forum did ask about this eventuality, and other users pointed out that an explosion powerful enough to, and I quote, 'fuck up a nation and then some,' would've been visible from almost anywhere in the relative vicinity. And it wasn't."

"A kaiju, maybe?" Edgar proposed, looking between the two of them.

"Not a possibility I'd exclude, but if that's what happened then the kaiju can either retreat underground or has some way of concealing itself," Michael said snappily, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel as he drove. "Both terrifying things."

"Look, Edgar," Aaron started, calm and gentle."Let's keep researching on our own, note down anything relevant, and let's Michael drive. I'm sure he has much to think about."

Edgar hummed in acknowledgment and slowly picked his phone back up.

"Thanks, dad," Michael whispered. He pressed his foot on the gas pedal, and picked up speed once more. Hours passed as Michael drove, the night sky being a cold comfort after the shocking discoveries of today.

How could have Michael missed that? Such news would be world-shaking, and he hadn't heard of this up until a few hours ago. Michael had never been a very cosmopolitan person, not caring enough to inform himself about world affairs except for those that directly had to do with his interests.

But that was no excuse, was it? News outlets worldwide should've been discussing it twenty-four-seven, radios should've talked about it without end, and it should've been on everyone's mouth - at least as a fucking passing remark, like 'have you heard about North Korea? Scary, right?'

It wasn't. Nobody had mentioned it to him, nobody seemed to fucking know about it.

Michael abruptly pulled over on the side of the road, went off-road - causing both Edgar and Aaron to yelp in surprise - and moved to hide the car amidst a few trees.

"What are we doing here?" Aaron asked.

Michael ignored Aaron and got out of the car, walking around it with an anxious spring in his step and opened the trunk to retrieve his laptop, where a sleepy Mr. Tabbins meowed and pressed its head against Michael's hand. He pet the cat, and closed the trunk again, who returned to sleep soon after.

He sat on the ground next to the car, back pressed against the car door, and began typing away, browsing the internet.

"Dad, can you tell me the governments that 'backed' those debunk articles?" Michael asked without stopping. Understanding what Michael was doing, Aaron seemed to switch into business mode. He pulled out his phone and walked out of the car to sit next to Michael too.

"The USA, France, South Africa, Spain, China, Russia, and some other smaller countries," Aaron said, turning to Michael. "You got something, don't you?"

"Yeah," Michael replied, not turning towards Aaron but nodding towards the laptop screen. His fingers halted, frozen by an icy grip of fear. He was outside of a home, that much was true, so there was no IP address to track. Still…

"Is it safe?"

Aaron took a few seconds to reply. "It is if you start in fifteen seconds and finish by seventeen minutes and forty-three seconds from now. And you'll have to burn the laptop."

At the 'start' mark given by Aaron, Michael started typing faster than he'd ever remembered typing. He started by looking through all the astronomy and observatory records he could access. He cursed at his own internet speed - alas, this was the safest circumstance in which he could take a look at these things.

Finding what Michael needed was the work of seven minutes, so ten left.

Fuck. This is too slow.

"That one," Aaron pointed at something on Michael's screen. "That's what you're looking for."

"Thanks," Michael muttered.

Three more minutes, and several dozens of open browser tabs, and Michael's jaw dropped so low that it felt like it could've unhinged at a moment's notice. It all clicked together in Michael's head.

"The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory has recently started receiving funding by an international organization led by the top government research centers in… The United States, France, South Africa, China, and Germany. That…"

Confirmed that there was, indeed, an international conspiracy which was very interested in keeping powers covered up for as long as possible.

Aaron looked over his shoulder. "Edgar?"

"Yeah?"

"Come out here, please?"

Edgar got out of the car and walked around it. "Yeah?"

Michael stood up and closed the laptop, handed it to Edgar, and then said, "Smash it."

Edgar took the laptop without saying a word, grabbed it with both hands and slammed it over his knee. The impact was strong enough to cleave it cleanly in half, pieces of electronics flying higher and further than they physically should've been able to.

"Every action has its equal and opposite reaction," Edgar said, sensing the coming question from Michael. "I can feedback loop Newton's third law to a very limited degree to make my strikes harder."

Michael's eyebrows went up. "That…"

That was something that he could also do with his own new power. Michael immediately thought about sparring with Edgar, eventually.

"No," Aaron said instantly. "Not with him."

Michael turned towards Aaron in affront. "What- Wh- Dad!"

"He will break you like the twig you are, my son," Aaron folded his arms. "I love you, but your arms are the size of Mikado sticks."

"I'm not that weak!" Michael said, looking between Aaron and Edgar. "I-I could take him!"

Edgar scoffed. "I would absolutely Kit-Kat bar your ass, Michael."

"Fuck you guys," Michael said, getting back into the driver's seat. He sat down, and felt a little lighter than he'd been mere seconds ago. As Aaron and Edgar sat back in the car, Michael sighed and muttered, "But, uh, thanks. You are making this whole thing easier."

"Happy to help," Edgar said with a tiny shrug. "At least I'm useful for something. You know what my recent past is, so any change of pace is good and welcome."

Aaron put a hand on Michael's shoulder, saying nothing else.

This new world is looking scarier by the day.

But who knows? Maybe it's just the transition state that would be tough and difficult - maybe what came next would be an idyllic paradise, devoid of war, scarcity, disease, death.

Michael scoffed as he turned the car on and drove back on the road to Sonnesburg. Out of all the things he'd witnessed in the last week, it was this one hypothetical scenario that felt the most unreal.


Welcome back to your scheduled programming of Wanderlust! You're sitting at a comfortable 12 Charges, and you have just confirmed and uncovered the first hints of the conspiracy that is plaguing this new world order that's forming. And hell, North Korea's fallen! War is breaking out!

What will be of our heroes as we go forward, once returned to Sonnesburg proper? Pick one, or pick two for half efficacy each.

[ ] Societal Work - Your power works with relationships, and now that you know that it also gives you powers, finding more friends increases your odds of befriending a parahuman to get a power from. (+Abraham, +?, ---Stress)

[ ] Work Out - Your dad's right. You are a twig and anyone with any sense of what having muscles feel like would absolutely wreck your shit. Time to change that, with Edgar's help. Either sign up to a gym, or buy gym equipment to use at home. (+++Brawn)

[ ] Spar with Edgar - Ignore your dad's advice wholeheartedly. What does he know about superpowered combat anyway? He's only been to Vietnam. They used guns there, not extradimensional abilities. (+Athletics, +Brawn, +Dexterity, +Power Expertise, ---Guts for two turns)

[ ] Go Out With Dad - Go on a walk with your dad who hasn't walked in at least a decade. (+++Aaron)

[ ] Write In

Logos 2.2

Michael's vision was blurry. He felt himself about to pass out.

"Push!" Edgar exclaimed, his face and head an amorphous mass in Michael's line of sight. It was an eldritch sight to behold.

Every muscle in Michael's body was tense with effort, his back arched at just the right angle to allow for peak muscle group engagement. Every vein in his body was throbbing painfully, the blood within them rushing desperately, with life-saving purpose, as it headed for the lungs, to renew itself of oxygen.

"One more, Mike, come on," Edgar exclaimed forcefully, banging both hands on the bench's metal rack.

"Gggyyahh!" Michael screamed, drawing some eyes from the other people in the gym, extending both arms to their full length. A sensation appeared in his chest and forearms, like burning knives had been stabbed in them and rubbed back and forth.

His arms wobbled painfully, but Edgar caught the barbell before it could fall and crush Michael, inevitably killing him in the most atrocious of ways.

"Not bad, Mike," Edgar commented, as he watched Michael breathe in through his nose and out from his mouth, spittle coming out with each exhalation.

"How much was that? Seventy pounds? Eighty?" Michael asked with the faintest sliver of voice, breathless, barely clinging to the life that God had graciously granted him.

"Forty."

A groan escaped Michael's lips, his entire body limply slumping backwards on the bench, doing the worst impression of a dead starfish ever.

"I'm never going to get better," Michael complained, as he gathered all of his strengths to lift himself off the bench. "I've been dieting properly for a week, I've taken protein powders and caffeine supplements, and after a week, I'm still at this."

Edgar raised an eyebrow, looking at Michael with a faint skepticism etched in his features. "You may not notice it, because that's how gym works, but you have been improving."

Michael clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Give me hard data and I'll believe you."

"The first time you were here, you could barely go fifteen minutes on the treadmill without getting tired. Today, you went for an hour without complaining," Edgar listed. Michael opened his mouth to reply, but Edgar shushed him with a hand and continued.

"You've gone up at least thirty pounds if not more on every machine, you've been consistently doing harder sets on every exercise, every time you come to the gym. It only looks like you're not improving because you're constantly increasing the weights without giving yourself time to settle at the 'wow, I'm stronger' phase. Which is not doing wonders for morale."

Michael paused, his mouth slowly closing as Edgar vomited the cold truth onto him. Thinking back on it, everything he'd said was true. He had quickly started to become stronger, his endurance had gone up, and what he used to do as a full-blown exercise had become part of the warmup to the actual exercises, now.

The changes had started to become visible, too - his arms weren't as thin anymore, and he finally had enough mass to cover his ribs. The diet he was on was heavy on calories and really heavy on protein, because Michael desperately needed to bulk up; no amount of exercise could generate mass ex-nihilo, and food was the quickest way to do so.

Aaron and Edgar had both suggested taking performance enhancers in the form of steroids, given that Michael had a rather pressing need to get as strong as possible in a short period of time. Michael was against it, at first, but then Edgar suggested trenbolone, which is a natural steroid, and Michael gave in.

Aaron spent some time reassuring Michael that the only 'relevant' side effect was something known as 'tren cough', which was a violent fit of coughing that would only last for minutes after an injection. He had been taking the highest dose that was still safe for his body-weight, and after two weeks or so, the results had started to become very noticeable.

"I guess you're right," Michael muttered in admission, stretching his arms and legs, shaking the feeling of pins and needles off from his body with a few hops up and down. "Anyway, uh, what's next?"

"Take a ten minute break, we've been at this for a while. Drink some water, go around and look at other people and how they do their exercises, ask some questions, I guess," he said, waving his hand with each sentence. "God forbid you socialize, eh?"

"Tch," Michael exhaled, picking up his water bottle and taking a long sip.

The gym was quite large and peaceful, the only sounds being the frequent clanking of the machines and the quiet, high-BPM music in the background, and the occasional chit chat between the gym goers.

Michael and Edgar had chosen to come to the gym as early as possible, given the paranoid need on Michael's part to keep as low a profile as possible. Edgar had argued that going to the gym was a rather ordinary activity that ordinary people did ordinarily - quoted verbatim - and Michael replied with the debate equivalent of 'nuh-uh.' Edgar gave in and chose to come to the gym with Michael at eight AM in the morning. It was either that, or two AM.

As he walked through the gym, thinking about what was next on his table, Michael felt someone tap his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts.

He turned quickly, almost in panic, and immediately relaxed when he saw a short, slightly chubby dark-skinned girl, with her curly hair tied back into a high ponytail which looked as though it was about to burst from the tension. She was wearing an oversized black t-shirt that read 'Here's Papa!' with a picture of some weird priest with skull makeup imitating Johnny from The Shining

"Hi! I'm Kali," she introduced herself, tone high-pitched and bubbly. She extended a hand, which Michael awkwardly shook. "I've noticed you and your friend there are new around here, and I was wondering if you wanted to join me and my group in attending the calisthenics class?"

Cold sweat gathered at the soles of Michael's feet.

"I, uhm, eh…" Michael stuttered and stumbled over his own words, not quite sure how to answer. He looked towards Edgar, who was lazily approaching MIchael and Kali after noticing the conversation. "When… when is it?"

"In two hours, and it's on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays," Kali replied with a smile on her face. Her positive attitude was almost scorching, like the sun for a NEET vampire who barely even saw the moonlight.

Edgar arrived just in time to provide righteous salvation. "Hey, I'm Edgar. What's up?"

"She was-" Michael started, but was interrupted immediately.

"Do you wanna join our calisthenics group?" Kali jumped in, turning towards Edgar, her smile becoming even broader.

"I say why not," Edgar said with a nod, turning towards Michael. He subtly raised an eyebrow. "What do you say? Calisthenics will be good for practice, you know."

Michael took a moment to answer, a tiny ball of suspicion forming in Michael's gut. He focused his eyes in the direction of the girl, focused them past what his vision allowed, and began to see the formless cloud of thoughts and feelings coming into existence behind Kali's head.

Frequent splashes of deep, saturated green, some blots of sunlight-yellow here and there, and a scarlet-red undertone to the entire cloud. It took a moment to properly interpret the colors, but the awareness poured into Michael's mind as soon as the abstract puzzle pieces came together.

Kali found them both interesting, and was genuine and earnest in what she was proposing, but there was some ulterior motive that didn't seem to have anything to do with Michael, which made it hard if not impossible to scry with his power.

Although still suspicious, most of the actual worry that Michael felt had melted away, replaced by a faint sense of unease that he couldn't quite place. Though with that said, they didn't have much to do today, and calisthenics was one of the best ways to train a lot of muscle groups at the same time while training endurance as well.

"We'll see you in two hours, I guess," Michael agreed, prompting Kali to pump her fist in the air in silent cheer. Michael was already starting to regret saying yes as she walked away with a strut in her step. "Did I just sell our souls?"

Edgar chuckled. "One of her friends likes me. Or you. Could go either way, to be honest."

Michael completely blanked, all of the thoughts exiting his brain to make space for the red flush on his cheeks. He stared forward, feeling himself unable to even turn his head from the sheer suddenness of that statement. "What?"

"I saw them stare in our direction a few times, but did my best to pretend I hadn't noticed," Edgar explained quietly, an amused undertone leaking in his words. "It's kind of funny. I think you'd have noticed too if you hadn't been fighting for your life trying to put the weights on the barbells."

"It's you," Michael said with an eyeroll, turning towards Edgar.

Edgar sighed. "Come on, man, you're working on yourself, give yourself some cre-"

Michael groaned in annoyance. He had supernatural empathy, for God's sake! "I am eighty percent sure it's you, and it's not because I find myself conventionally unattractive."

"That's for sure one of the sentences of all time, Mike," Edgar said quietly, tilting his head. "And for what it's worth, you're not ugly. The fact you're working on yourself is making your looks come out, and let me just say, they aren't half bad."

The flush on Michael's face deepened very slightly, only noticeable by the increase in temperature he felt around his cheeks. "Look, let's uhm… let's finish the table, then go to this damned calisthenics class."

Edgar very lightly nudged Michael in the ribs with his elbow with an amused, hearty laugh, as he walked back to the machines. Their table would last one more hour or so, counting rests and one more ten minute break at the end of it, which gave them one more hour to rest before calisthenics.

It was probably a bad idea to do calisthenics after a day in the gym, but then again, it was their first time and they didn't need to excel - only see what it was about and whether or not it could be useful to building a better physique for the inevitable combat that Michael would see, going forward.

Michael's mind wandered, as he pulled down the bar of the lat machine, feeling his upper back and the front of his shoulders burn pleasantly with the strain of the exercise. Edgar's hand pushed on Michael's lower back to fix his posture, causing him to straighten up and tense.

Embarrassment aside, his thoughts flowed forward, to their probable future going forward.

After an unremarkable life spent studying and being a shut-in, Michael had already been through at least three high-intensity events, one of them being a fight which resulted in him killing a man in self-defense. One of those events, additionally, had him run into another person with superpowers.

Was it a coincidence that Edgar had gotten his powers the day Michael chose to arrive in Boston? Was it a coincidence that not even a week later, Michael and Edgar met and were involved in a fight for their lives? It couldn't be, it was too damn convenient to just say, 'Oh well, it's destiny!'

The theories were manifold, but most of them didn't make sense. There were only a few that were even remotely plausible, if that.

Theory one, the government knew of Michael and knew that he had powers and knew about the conspiracy involving the alien sighting. As such, they caused an incident on the highway, hoping that it would catch and kill Michael, but inadvertently gave someone else powers as a result.

That would mean that whoever is involved in the conspiracy has only cursory knowledge regarding powers and is unaware of how they work - which would rule out 'the government is the cause of powers' once and for all, despite evidence already pointing to powers deriving from aliens.

Theory two, powered individuals had some penchant for running into each other without apparent reason. That made more sense than 'ermahgerd it's the feds!', and gave more credit than it already had to the alien hypothesis as a result.

It wouldn't be too stupid to think that whatever alien force caused powers had a limited amount of 'resources' to cause these powers to happen in people, and therefore had some mechanism to ensure that people with powers were drawn together by some hyper-nth-dimensional magnetism.

But why? What reason would these aliens have to need superpowered people to interact? If one were to agree that these aliens were cognizant of the fact they gave powers to humans, another question would pop up - why give powers in the first place?

What if we're an experiment? What if Earth is just a huge petri dish?

No, that couldn't possibly be. Maybe the alien beings crash landed in Solar System for some reason, and due to some weird quantum effect, powers started popping up on Earth as a side effect, and since things with 'similar vibrations' tended to attract each other, maybe human beings that develop powers were bound to come together as a pure physical side-effect.

Not that he knew much about quantum entanglement or the theory of attraction - Michael had never been too interested in the heavily theoretical side of any scientific field, math excluded.

These thoughts made Michael deeply aware of the sheer size of the universe, and how insignificant humanity was. What was essentially the equivalent of exhaust fumes for some space whales ended up kick-starting a new evolution for humankind, leading to superpowers.

This theory brought some relief, and even some awe to Michael's heart. It even made sense if you thought that powers were kickstarted by traumatic events - maybe the extreme rush of hormones and neurotransmitters interacted with the cosmic radiation brought by the aliens and caused a sort of… trigger point that causes someone to develop powers.

"Mike, you've been staring forward for like a minute. Are you okay?" Edgar asked, snapping his fingers in front of Michael's face.

Michael blinked hard a few times. "Yeah, I was just thinking."

Edgar patted him on the back, making Michael get off the seat of the lat machine. "About what?"

"The nature of the universe," Michael half-joked, half-admitted. "Come on, let's finish up."

After thirty more minutes of exercising, Michael and Edgar were finally done. They both drank their protein shakes and ate some fruit to get their strength, and sat on the gym's couch while they waited for Kali and her friends to finish so they could go to the calisthenics class.

Michael wasn't as tired as he thought he'd be, which was a very good sign for the upcoming class he was about to partake in. From what he knew, calisthenics was all about lifting your own body's weight, which was actually kind of awesome because Michael was as close to a twig as you could get.

Though that meant he also lacked the muscles to lift what little weight there was, but he had been working on that for the past two weeks and a half. He was pretty confident, all things considered.

Michael lifted his head from his hands and saw Kali and her friends approaching them at a brisk pace. Their clouds were more or less gray, except Kali's and another girl's, which was bright pink with some splashes of light green.

Embarrassment took over his entire body. His buttcheeks clenched and his legs tensed to the point of cramping. The shyness he felt in that moment was serving as a faraday cage - nothing could get in, nothing could get out.

"Hi guys! These are Monica, Charles, Grant, Yara and Alex. Are you ready?" Kali asked, her signature smile never leaving her face.

The pink cloud was around Alex's head. A pale girl as tall as Michael was, with a black mullet and green eyes. She wasn't soft, but nor was she fit or lean. She wore round glasses which complemented her face's sharper features really well, bringing a sort of harmonious mellow balance to her face.

She was looking primarily at Michael, now that he had been paying attention.

Oh shit.

"Yep," Edgar replied, standing up. He grinned at Michael, as if to convey a message that Michael was too flustered to receive. "Come on, Mike."


Well well well… we're back after the holiday break! You're sitting at a nice 14 Charges, after you spent the turn getting those gainz by any means necessary. By doing calisthenics, you also get a +Athletics due to a particularly good roll! Your Brawn also went from 2 to 3! You are now in the average of human beings! Congrats. Additionally, you met some new people - Kali, Alex, and their group of friends.

What will Michael do next turn? Pick one, or two for halved efficacy..

[ ] New People! - You've met some new people and it'd be a good idea to hang out with them and foster relationships. You know, for your relationship-based power. Edgar highly favors this idea, as "Meeting new people will also help you get through the shit that's to come." (+Everyone in Kali's group)
- [ ] Focus on Alex (+++Alex, +Edgar)
- [ ] Focus on Kali (+++Kali)
- [ ] Focus on Edgar (+++Edgar)

[ ] Touch Your Roots - Hang out with Abraham and Aaron, introduce them to each other, and spend some time immersing yourself in Sonnesburg's Jewish community. This will lead to meeting new people, and possibly creating a support system that you can rely on instead of just having a few friends. (++Abraham, ++Aaron, +???)

[ ] Experiment Time - You've had your new powers for a while and you're yet to have a proper experimenting session. If you are to use these powers to fight crime or whatever, you'll have to know what they can do, how they can do it, and properly test their limits. (+++Power Use)
- [ ] Supercharge Learning Blitz (2 Charges) - Doubles the benefit of Experiment Time.

[ ] The Gains Never End - The path to being swole has just begun, and thanks to performance enhancers, Edgar's help and the time spent in the gym, your improvement has been immense. Keep going, don't give in. Keep attending calisthenics classes, maybe see if there are martial arts classes too. (+++Brawn, ++Athletics, +Dexterity)
- [ ] Supercharge Learning Blitz (2 Charges) - Doubles the benefit of The Gains Never End.

[ ] Hang Out With Mr Tabbins - Hang out with the cat you've kidnapped.

[ ] Write-In - Maybe you have some specific idea of what you'd like to do that isn't listed here. Share away.