The next morning, none of the girls went to college. After the incident in the park, their parents had all agreed that they needed a week off to recover from the "shock." It was the perfect excuse. In truth, none of them could have focused on lectures or labs anyway. They were living in a new reality, one filled with a humming, restless energy and a terrifying lack of control.
The image of Rosy's handprint in the steel bed frame was all they could think about. It was a clear and frightening sign that their lives were no longer normal. They knew, with a certainty that was both scary and exciting, that they couldn't go back to their old lives until they understood what was happening to them.
It was Krishna who had a plan. He had spent the previous night thinking, his mind calm and clear while his friends were reeling. "I know a place," he had told them on their secret group chat. "An old construction site on the chhatrapati sambhaji road turn-off. It's been abandoned for years. No one ever goes there. We can practice there."
And so, as the afternoon sun began to warm the cool winter air, they met at the forgotten site. It was a concrete skeleton of a building, surrounded by piles of bricks, sand, and twisted steel rebar. To anyone else, it was an eyesore. But for them, it was a sanctuary. It was their proving ground.
They stood together in the middle of the dusty, open foundation, a circle of nervous teenagers facing an impossible new world.
"Okay," Krishna said, taking charge. His calm voice cut through their anxiety. "Simran and I have been thinking. We need to understand what each of you can do. We need to find the limits. And most importantly, we need to learn control."
Simran pushed her glasses up her nose, her super-charged mind already analyzing the situation. "Our powers seem to be instinctive. Rosy, you've always been the strongest, so let's start with you."
Rosy nodded, looking both excited and scared. "What do I do?"
"Control," Simran said, pointing to a stack of old, fragile terracotta bricks. "Try to stack them five high. But focus on being gentle. Don't just use your strength; guide it."
Rosy walked over to the bricks. She took a deep breath, trying to be careful. She picked up the first brick, and it crumbled into red dust in her hand. She had used too much power. She tried again, her face tight with concentration. The second brick cracked. The third one shattered.
"I can't do it!" she said, frustrated. "It's like the power just wants to burst out."
"Don't think about being strong, Rosy," Krishna said, his voice calm and encouraging. "Think about what you're holding. Imagine it's something precious, something that could break. Just hold it."
Rosy closed her eyes for a second, then nodded. She reached for another brick. This time, she didn't think about her muscles. She thought about holding a small bird, about being gentle. Her fingers closed around the brick, and this time, it didn't break. She carefully placed it on the ground. Then another. And another. Soon, she had a neat stack of five bricks, all perfectly intact. A wide grin spread across her face. She had found the switch, not just the 'on', but the 'dimmer'.
Next was Gunjan. "Your power is connected to touch," Simran said, "but it seems random. We need to make it intentional." She pointed to a steel rebar rod sticking out of the ground. "Touch it. But don't just touch it. Close your eyes and think about the steel. Try to invite that feeling into your hand."
Gunjan knelt and placed her hand on the rusty steel. She closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in concentration. She tried to feel the essence of the metal. At first, nothing happened.
"You can do it, Gunjan," Krishna said softly. "You've always been the most focused of all of us. Just feel it."
She took a deep breath and focused harder. She pictured the steel in her mind, and then, she felt a strange, cold tingling sensation spread through her fingertips. She opened her eyes. Her fingers had turned a dull, hard, metallic silver. She tapped them against the rebar, and they made a sharp clink sound. She had done it. She had controlled it.
Mahira was the most nervous. "I'm scared of it," she admitted, her voice trembling. "When it happened... I didn't feel like myself."
"That's because you tried to become a whole other person," Simran reasoned, her voice gentle. "That's a huge leap. We have to start smaller. Look at Rosy's eyes. Just focus on the color. Try to change only your eye color to match hers."
Mahira looked into Rosy's confident, warm brown eyes. She closed her own, her hands clenched into fists. She was terrified of losing herself again. But she thought of her friends, of their support. She took a shaky breath and focused on that one, simple thing: the color brown. When she opened her eyes, the others gasped. Her normally dark eyes were now the exact same shade of warm brown as Rosy's.
"I did it," she whispered, a tear of relief rolling down her cheek. "I'm still me." She had found a way to use her power without being consumed by it.
Finally, it was Simran's turn. "My problem is the opposite," she explained. "I can't turn it off. There's too much information. It's like listening to a thousand radios at once."
Krishna looked at the chaotic, half-finished structure of concrete pillars around them. "Don't try to shut the radios off, Simran. Just choose one station to listen to." He pointed at the concrete skeleton. "Don't analyze the whole building. Just answer one question: which of those pillars is the weakest?"
Simran closed her eyes, and her face tightened as the flood of data hit her—wind speed, material decay, weight distribution, soil compression. It was an overwhelming storm of information. But she clung to Krishna's single question like a lifeline. Which is the weakest? She forced her mind to discard every other piece of data, to focus its incredible new processing power on that one, single task.
After a long moment, she opened her eyes, a new clarity on her face. She pointed to a single concrete pillar near the back.
"That one," she said, her voice sure and steady. "It has a hairline fracture near the base that you can't see. It's carrying about 12% more load than it was designed for."
Krishna smiled. They had all done it. They had taken their first, crucial step.
The sun was setting, painting the sky in brilliant oranges and purples. They were all exhausted, covered in dust, but they were smiling. For the first time since the accident, the fear was replaced by a sense of hope, of power.
"See?" Krishna said, his voice filled with pride as he looked at his friends. "This is not a curse. It's a gift. We just have to learn how to use it. Together."
As they were about to leave, Simran, who had been quiet for a moment while she worked on her laptop, turned to them. A brilliant, excited spark was in her eyes.
"I've been thinking," she said, her voice buzzing with energy. "I've been running analyses and simulations. If we're going to do this... if we're going to practice... and maybe, one day, do more with these powers... we can't just be us. We need to be something else. We need to be a team. And a team needs a uniform."
The other girls and Krishna looked at her, intrigued.
Simran smiled and turned her laptop screen towards them.
On the glowing screen were four detailed, professional-looking design schematics. Each one was unique, beautiful, and powerful. One for a shapeshifter, one for a brawler, one for a guardian, and one for a super-genius.
They stared, speechless, at the first blueprints of what they were about to become.
[To be continued…]
Support me: vanshbosssrahate@oksbi (UPI ID)
Author: Vansh Rahate
Editor: Vansh Rahate
Story by: Vansh Rahate
Under: Alaukika Studios