"Please… no more…" the poor man begged, his voice a wet gurgle.
"You don't need it," the elite sneered. "A waste of a decent telekinetic flicker on garbage like you."
Leon froze. [Ability-stealing.] Mr. Lee's words weren't just a theory; they were a horror happening ten feet away.
The elite placed a ring on his finger, its gemstone glowing a sickly green. He pressed it to the poor man's forehead. The man screamed, a sound that was less about pain and more about having his very essence ripped out. A visible wisp of light, like a trapped will-o-the-wisp, was sucked from his body and into the ring.
The light died. The elite stood up, brushing dust from his immaculate trousers. "You should be grateful I let you live," he said, and spat on the now-motionless man.
As the elite strode away, Leon's fear was incinerated by a pure, white-hot fury. This was the world's truth. This was what power did. His father's words echoed in his skull: [Your strength will show itself.]
Unconsciously, Leon's hands clenched into fist. A low crackle of energy, unseen but felt, whispered around him. The rubble at his feet shifted, a tiny fissure snaking through the concrete. His eyes, for a split second, flashed with a golden light he couldn't see.
The fury vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by a terrifying confusion. [What was that?]
He looked at his hands, then back at the man left broken in the alley. He turned and ran, sprinting the rest of the way home, his heart hammering with a terror that was now mixed with something else – something unknown.
He burst onto his street, needing the safety of his walls, needing to see his family. He scrambled up to his door, hands outstretched.
It was already ajar.
His blood ran cold. Lily always bolted it from the inside when she was alone.
"Lily?" he called out, pushing the door open. "Mom?"
The only answer was a low, shuffling noise from the living room. Someone was inside.
Leon's fear for his family overrode every other instinct. He charged into the living room, and the scene that greeted him sent a jolt of adrenaline through his veins.
Two of Tiger's thugs were there. One was casually overturning the rickety table, scattering the few pathetic belongings they owned. The other had his back to Leon, looming over Leon's mother, who was covering in her chair, her blind eyes wide with terror.
"The boss just wants to send a message," the thug sneered. "Make sure the painter's kid knows his place."
Something in Leon snapped. The grief, the humiliation, the fury at the man in the alley all merged into a single, explosive point.
"Get away from her!" Leon roared.
The thug turned, surprised, then laughed. "Look what crawled out of the gutters."
He threw a punch, a lazy, powerful swing meant to end the fight before it began. Leon, who should have been flattened, saw it coming in perfect, slow motion.
He didn't think; he moved. He ducked under the blow with a speed that shocked himself and drove his shoulder into the man's stomach.
The thug grunted, stumbling back into the wall with a crash. The second thug stopped his vandalism and turned, his face a mask of annoyance.
The fight was a blur. Leon fought with a desperate, feral strength he never knew he possessed. He took a hit to the ribs that should have cracked bone, but he shook it off, the pain a distant echo.
He moved, blocked, and struck not with skill, but with pure, undiluted rage. A wild swing from Leon sent a thug stumbling, and his fist glanced off the wall, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in the concrete plaster.
He wasn't winning, but he was holding them off, fueled by a power that flickered just beneath his skin. finally, with a combine effort of fury and fear for his mother's cries, he managed to shove them both out the door and slam the bolt home, his body heaving.
He slid to the floor, trembling not from fear, but from the aftershocks of whatever had just coursed through him. He tended to his sobbing mother and sister, his mind reeling. He looked at the black envelope, now lying on the floor where it had fallen during the struggle.
The exam was tomorrow. It wasn't just a hope for a better life anymore. Instead, it was a weapon, and he needed it.
That night, drawn by a need for answers, for some connection to the father he'd lost, he slipped out and walked toward the ruins of the Granum Tower. The crash site was cordoned-off nightmare of twisted metal and blackened stone.
The air still smelled of acid and death.
Picking his way through the debris, his heart aching, he saw it: a shred of familiar green fabric, untouched by the soot and fire, fluttering from a piece of rebar.
His father's cap. It was pristine, as if it had been protected from the inferno. As his fingers closed around the rough cloth, he heard it. A sound that didn't belong. A dry skittering chittering from the shadows behind a mound of wreckage.
Leon froze, the hair on his arms standing on end. He slowly turned.
From the darkness, two pairs of glowing, multi-faceted eyes blinked open, fixed directly on him. The creatures that emerged from the shadows were nightmare given form.
Insectoid limbs skittered over molten metal, and carapaces gleamed like oil under the emergency lights. They were nothing from this world.
Terror seized Leon, pure and absolute. He stumbled backward, tripping over debris. The creatures advanced, their chittering forming a horrifying, clicking language.
One lunged, a razor-sharp limb scything toward his head. Leon threw up his arms, a helpless gesture. And something responded.
A golden light, warm and fierce, erupted from his chest. It wasn't a beam or a blast, but a shield of pure energy that flared around him.
The creature's limb clanged against it, deflected with a shower of sparks.