I looked around, then down at myself and froze in disbelief. “How—What’s going on?”
Cl–clatter.
Mar had shot to her feet, lurching forward a step too far and crashing straight into Tommy, sending them both tumbling to the floor in a tangle of limbs and chair legs.
“Mar!” Lacy shouted, rushing over to help untangle them. “Are you alright?"
Tommy grunted, forcing himself upright as Lacy hauled the guardian up beside him. “I’m fine too,” he muttered, dusting himself off.
My body began to lower with a thought, my will tugging gently toward the ground. With every heartbeat, my shape grew more solid, or at least less scattered. A mont ago, in my stunned state, I’d been nothing more than a cloud of dispersed green nodes of light; now they drew together, condensing into—well, slightly more sturdy green light in the vague shape of .
“That’s really you?” Lindsey asked, her voice choked and unsteady. “Peter?” Her lips began to tremble, and a sharp pang of remorse stabbed through my chest.
There was a part of —a large, aching part—that wished I could’ve been here to help them, to stand in front of them and protect them. But if I had, I wouldn’t have even had the power to do anything. “Yeah,” I sighed, absurdly grateful I could at least talk to her. “It’s … Um—how’s it going?”
I tried to ask it in a way that would remove any awkwardness, make this feel normal sohow, but it was obvious I’d failed by her sister’s reaction, who had just finished steadying a pale-faced Mar on her feet. “How’s it—It’s not! What kind of question is that?!” Lacy snapped. She didn’t scream, but her voice was raised, the words tight, not blaming exactly, but clearly not accepting that as an opening line.
My strange, shimring form drifted toward a chair and found purchase there. I reached out to pull it away from the table and… it moved, creaking faintly as I gently tugged it back. The wood scraped softly across the floor. “That’s… convenient,” I muttered. Possibilities rolled through in a dizzying wave. What I could do here in this state? How long I would even be allowed to stay? And underneath it all, the question of what had guided here in the first place.
Several flashes of mory flickered through my mind, but everything stopped on one image.
Harua. Her strange gesture. Even stranger than her usual behavior. But I didn’t feel anything then. If it had been her, brushing a wing above my head, shouldn’t I have felt sothing? Anything at all?
“Hello?” Lacy called out tentatively. “Peter? I—I’m sorry. Don’t leave.” She sounded genuinely worried that I’d vanished, or that my presence was slipping away, even though my glowing form still lingered right in front of them.
“Sorry, just lost in thought,” I clarified quickly, easing the tension in her voice. “Let’s just sit down for now.” I looked at their plates, the sll of food drifting faintly toward , a little spark of envy forming. But before that envy, a smile tugged at my mouth. “Looks good.”
Tommy kept his gaze locked on as I spoke, eyes boring into without pause. And before I could say anything in explanation, or even ask a single question, he said sothing instead.
“Happy Birthday.”
It ca out quiet. Nervous. He spoke to in a way I’d never heard from him before.
Not like I was a stranger, but... It was different. My head flooded with complicated, knotted emotions, and all I could manage was a strained, “Thank you,” in response.
The room went silent for several long seconds, the air thick, before I finally forced myself to break it. “I’m sorry. It must’ve been so hard. If it wasn’t for —”
I shut my eyes tightly, the rest of the words catching in my throat. I couldn’t say it. That all of this was my fault. That their calamity—everyone on this world’s calamity—was my mistake.
Mar blinked rapidly, as if clearing away a fog that had been sitting over her eyes. “Peter. Oh my god… PETER!” She ran at , this ti without tripping over anything, and grabbed onto my hand made of pure energy. “You’re alive!”
That was probably the most natural reaction here. Maybe Lacy, Lindsey, and Tommy were young enough to adapt quickly, to accept glowing people and impossible things, but it wasn’t like Mar was old. Just a few years older than .
Maybe we had just been together too long compared to her.
I could feel her. The warmth of her hand pressed over mine. The faint tremble running through her arms, the way her grip tightened like she was afraid I’d slip away. And still, my mouth failed , only managing a simple, embarrassingly small, “Yep.”
Lindsey groaned. “Well, we know soone’s not ssing with us. No way they’d respond like that.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, already preparing an elegant retort to wipe that smug tone off her face. “I liked your fireworks,” I said instead, letting the words land as plainly sincere as I could make them.
She went beet red just as I expected, color rushing up her neck and into her cheeks. For all the bluster both twins liked to put on, they were horrifically weak to genuine flattery.
“Stop it, everyone!” Mar ordered, her voice cutting through the mont. She snapped her gaze toward them before turning back to . Her eyes were tighter than anyone else’s, voice pulled thin with strain. “Peter, what happened to you? Where did you go?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
I clamped a hand over hers, fingers closing with a careful, glowing grip as I stood and gently drew her up with . “Sowhere far,” I answered quietly. “It’s… hard to explain, but I’m alright. For now, please—I don’t know how long I can stay, so let try sothing.” In this form, I wasn’t even sure if I could pull it off, but I still found myself giving her instructions.
“Turn around.”
She looked at oddly over her shoulder. “You’re really—”
I cut her off before doubt could root itself deeper. “Please. If we have ti, I’ll explain.”
My voice ca out firr this ti, steadier, and she seed to understand more than my words said, slowly following my instructions and turning away.
“Right, so, I want you to focus on isolating yourself,” I murmured. “Just you. Nothing else. Then, you’ll feel a heat. When you do, lock onto it.” I placed my hand on the small of her back, repeating the sa motion Thea had done to so long ago, the mory threading warmth through my chest.
My own eyes, or lack of them—closed, I focused inward on my body. The movent of it. The subtle currents, the fluctuations scattering through my luminous form. This was different from the combustion of Fire, the flowing pull of Water, or the steady stability of Natural Force. But even so, I could move it. I could guide it.
It was Air Force.
And with a single thought, a thin line of it extended from and pierced through Mar’s center.
She stiffened, breath catching, but only for a mont; the tension bled from her shoulders in the next heartbeat as she relaxed.
“Let yourself drift away,” I called out softly. “Just a little.”
The process unfolded in silence while the others watched, holding their breath. And by the ti she opened her eyes again, she spun around to face , eyes wide. “That was—You have a Blessing?”
I blinked. “No. No, no, no. Definitely not. Life probably would have been so much easier otherwise.”
She shook her head slowly, still staring. “But… that was like magic.”
I didn’t disagree, but I didn’t follow that line of thought either. Instead, I steered the conversation toward what she’d just experienced, breaking it down as clearly as I could. I cautioned her severely, taking extra ti to explain the very real, very literal body-explosion that could happen with recklessness.
For now, I left out anything about Body Refinent, but I added an extra warning anyway, just in case they sohow stumbled onto it themselves. “If you ever feel a force that you can barely escape,” I said, “sothing that keeps pushing you to continue gathering power, stop that thod completely.”
For so reason, I expected to feel a pull then. A gnawing tug at the edges of my being. Like I had when I saw Janus. A sense of task completed, ti running out, so cosmic hook yanking away. But… nothing. I was still there.
“Uh. So, yeah. Just teach the others later, but keep an eye on them,” I said, scratching at the side of my glowing head out of habit. I looked around the room again; everyone was staring at . “Questions?”
Tommy’s hand shot up imdiately, probably the most eager he’d ever been to raise his hand in his life. “Where are you?” he blurted, not even waiting for to call on him.
I sat down again and watched Mar walk back to her seat with a complicated expression.
Then, I started a long story.
First was the incident in the cafeteria—apparently sothing that had made national news. The entire wing of the school had disappeared as if it had been bombed away, but without residue or scorch marks or shattered debris. Only a vast crater was left in its place.
I explained eting Thea, Elric, and the others. The brutality of where I’d ended up, the harshness of the world I was thrown into, and our decision to leave—carefully skimming around the most grueso parts. Questions kept interrupting, littering the story at every pause, and I tried my best to answer all of them, one by one.
“You’re happy there?” Mar asked.
“Yes.”
“You have super powers?” ca from Tommy.
“Absolutely. I have more than anyone,” I said.
“What do you do for fun without a phone?” Lindsey asked, going straight for the crucial question.
“Worry about not dy—ahem—training,” I corrected, clearing my throat.
“YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND?!” That one was Lacy, practically detonating across the table.
“For a while now,” I admitted, trying and failing to sound casual about it. “I could ask you the sa thing it seems. Or, not the sa thing… Forget it.”
The story wound down with a deep, exhausted sigh slipping out of . And then ca a final question, voiced by Tommy.
“You have to leave, don’t you?”
I waited a mont before answering, letting the silence stretch. “I have to,” I said at last. “There’s too many people counting on now… I’m sorry. Really.”
He pressed his lips together, then let the fight go with a small exhale and shook his head. “It’s okay… You’re really a king?” he asked, his voice colored with a strange hope.
Naturally, I was very clear.
“Yes,” I said, puffing out my energy-chest as much as a glowing outline could. “A strong and powerful king!”
He huffed out a short breath, a half-laugh, half-sigh, and shook his head again, this ti with a hint of a smile. “You haven’t changed that much.”
I looked at them all again, letting my gaze linger on each of them in turn.
“I’ll find a way back,” I said.
Words couldn’t co close to describing the relief flooding through . The whole eting was so oddly casual on the surface, but beneath it was a solid familiarity. This was no illusion, no constructed scene.
These were the family I’d grown up with. The only ones who could rival my inability to read a room. They were real. And sohow, against all odds, all alive.
I heard it before I felt it. A faint, crystalline sound, like the twinkling of distant chis. With a glance down at my body, I saw the green nodes of light beginning to scatter, drifting away from my form in slow arcs until they dispersed completely with a pleasant ringing.
Sniffling broke the silence from Lindsey’s side of the table. “You promise?”
I looked at the girls I’d seen grow up from toddlers. Tiny versions of themselves running toward for protection during horror movies—which, admittedly, had usually been my idea in the first place—until they’d grown up enough to shove away.
I rubbed at my eyes.
“I swear.”
Just like that, with nothing more learned than that they were safe and still themselves, I blinked, and my new ho returned. Thea was in front of , leaning in with concern on her face.
“You alright?” she asked softly, bending down to rub my cheek with gentle fingers.
I pulled her close, wrapping her up like an anchor.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m alright.”
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