A Rising Flame

Authors Note: This is my first Incredibles fan-fic. Of course, The Incredibles are owned by Disney and Pixar (lucky people). Enjoy the story, and feel free to review!

Chapter 1

There's an old saying that goes, no matter how hard you try, you can't escape fate. For me, that's all too true. No matter how hard I tried to escape mine, I knew that eventually I had to face it. I also knew that it would happen whether I was ready or not.

I guess that to tell this story, I have to tell you about myself first. My name is Jessica Wells, and I would be considered your very normal 14-year-old girl if not for one very important reason, but I'll get to that in a moment. I lived here in the city of Metroville for all of my life. I can definitely say that it isn't a boring place, as something always seems to be happening here. I can also say that it's basically the norm for living in Metroville, and for me it just doesn't impress me as much as it used to. My friends from out of town just couldn't understand why that is when they say that they would literally die to live here. I tell them that if they lived in Metroville as long as I have, it just isn't that exciting anymore.

Even that doesn't quite satisfy them. 'How could you be so bored living there when the city's brimming with superheroes?' they would say. I would correct them there and say that the city was brimming with superheroes. Back in the Golden Age, as everyone called that time, there was roughly an average of one super to every 50,000 residents. That might not seem like much, but since millions of people live in Metroville, that adds up a lot. You couldn't walk downtown and not see a super flying, driving, skating, or however they moved to get to a crime scene. They said that there was no safer city to live in than Metroville.

Then came the infamous lawsuit against Mr. Incredible by a guy that didn't want to be saved. With that, it seemed like everyone in the world wanted to file some kind of lawsuit against a super. Young or old, no super was spared. Some of the lawsuits were genuine, but most were fabricated, probably by people who just hated supers. The government was losing billions of dollars in the lawsuits. If that wasn't bad enough, a whole movement was started to ban all supers from ever using their powers again. Suddenly, the supers found themselves in a far more hostile place than even the lair of the most evil supervillian in the world, and all due to the public they swore to protect. A few were even killed. Finally in response to all that, the government enacted the Superhero Relocation Program. All active supers were forced to retire and relocate. Also, they would be given complete immunity from the lawsuits if they promised never to use their powers to fight crime again.

That would've been it, and the world would never have seen supers again. But fifteen years later, a guy by the name of Syndrome appeared. As a kid, he was known as Buddy Pine, or Incrediboy as he wanted to be called. He was the self-proclaimed number one fan of Mr. Incredible and the leader of his fan club. More than anything, however, he wanted to be Mr. Incredible's sidekick. He even created all these things such as rocket-powered boots to help him. I guess you could call him the ultimate uber-geek. Anyway, Mr. Incredible refused all of Buddy's offers, saying that he worked alone. Eventually, all those rejections drove poor Buddy off the deep end, and he grew up to come an evil, if not outright insane person who used his smarts to create virtually invincible robots in a plot to kill off all supers and become, in his own words, the greatest hero of all time.

What Syndrome didn't count on was a whole family of supers that were known as the Incredibles. It was, of course, Mr. Incredible, his wife Elastigirl, and their two kids who would be eventually known as Ultraviolet and Dash. Together they were able to stop him and in the end, he was killed. You know, in a way I felt somewhat sorry for him. I mean, he was once this super smart kid that invented all those gadgets for good use, and all he wanted was to be Mr. Incredible's sidekick. He obviously had a bright future ahead of him. If that type of rejection ever did that to me, then God help anyone in my way when I grew up.

With the Incredibles coming out into the light, a few more supers came back out of retirement, but there just weren't nearly as many supers as there were during the Golden Age. Sadly, Syndrome killed off all but a few, and many of those that survived were perfectly happy with their new lives and refused to return to fighting crime. Of course, the return of the supers had mixed reactions from the public. Some were ecstatic that the supers were back. Others were outraged, saying that they were violating the SRP Act and demanding that they be locked away for good. After a few years of arguments and counter-arguments from both sides, the courts finally dismissed the whole case. They then went a step further and said that from then on all supers would be immune to lawsuits. Like it or not, the supers were back.

That was twenty years ago. There are a few more supers out there, many of them new but some of the older ones are still around. Even today, they still feel the consequences of those actions years ago. They know that they now face a city vastly different than during the Golden Age, where you are both loved and hated by the public in equal numbers, where it seemed like you couldn't do anything even remotely good without infuriating someone. I can't tell you that I've experienced these things firsthand, but I can tell you that I know all about these things as well as all I've mentioned earlier, for one great reason.

I am a super.

Now that I've officially come out with it, you are probably bursting at the seams with questions. For starters, what's it like to be a super? Well, I could probably come up with a whole page of questions to describe my feelings, but I think that this one short sentence would say it best; it sucks. Why, you ask, when most of you would literally murder someone for the chance to become a super? It's something I'll get into later in detail, but I'll say that for me it's in reverse, that I would kill for the chance to be just a normal teen. I wasn't always like this, though. In fact, I thought that it was awesome to have special powers. For you to further understand I would have to explain my past.

For most of my life, no one knew that I was a super, not even me. My powers developed extremely late for a super. Before then, I was a normal but disgustingly cute little girl with long copper-red hair and huge ice-blue eyes and that everyone's grandparents wanted to hug and kiss. I was a bit tomboyish, but I still did some things a young girl would do at that age, mainly playing with dolls. I admit though that I sometimes played superhero with them. What kid in Metroville didn't do things like that, though? We all grew up hearing about what great things the supers have done. At school during recess many of us pretended that we were supers. Of course, everyone wanted to be one of the Incredibles. Everyone wanted to be Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Dash, or Ultraviolet. Some though chose to be one of the other supers, like Frozone, Electricia, Prototron, Meteor-Mite, as well as others. Sometimes we made up our own super or came up with a combination of two. For me it was a cross between Electricia and Ultraviolet, mainly because I thought female supers were so cool. We even took our games out into the neighborhood streets. I guess you could say that we looked cute in our bike helmets, safety goggles, rubber gloves, cardboard chest plates, bed sheet capes, or whatever we wore to look like our favorite super. Many of us had dreams at night about saving the day. It seemed like all us kids wanted desperately to be a super, and at most times even myself.

The one day I got my wish, or my curse as I think back on it. It was during summer break and just a month after my tenth birthday. It was one of those nice, clear, and warm mornings that just begged for you to come outside. As both of my parents were still asleep and no other kid was outside yet, I was alone. I went out into our backyard and sat down on our swing set. Closing my eyes I started to swing. With my eyes closed it was easier to imagine myself as a super flying over the city. As I swung higher and faster, I imagined flying faster and higher as well. Then, at the height of my swing, I jumped off and landed on my feet, imagining that I had landed at my destination.

"Never fear," I said out loud. "Super Jess is here!"

Yes, yes, I know, I know, but I was ten then, so cut me some slack.

Anyway, I decided that my good deed for the day was to rescue a small kitty from a tree. The kitty was pretend, of course, but the tree was all too real. It was a tall tree in our backyard, one that I've climbed dozens of times before. Reaching for the first thick branch, I pulled myself up into the tree and started climbing up.

"With nerves of steel," I said to myself, "the grace of a cat, and the intelligence of an elephant, our hero Super Jess climbs toward a poor, helpless kitty cat stranded up in a tree. Will she make it? Only time will tell."

Ugh, I still can't believe I said stuff like that back then.

I was just reaching out to rescue the imaginary cat when it happened. I slipped off the branch! Reacting quickly I was able to grab onto another branch, but it was too small and couldn't hold my weight. It snapped and I started to fall. It all happened so fast that I didn't even have time to scream. I was only aware of the branches and leaves slapping against my body and the ground rushing up to meet me. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.

And waited…

And waited…

And waited.

It took a few seconds for me to realize that I hadn't hit the ground. Or maybe I had and was so banged up that I couldn't feel anything. Was this what it was like to be paralyzed? Either way I was too afraid to open my eyes, scared of what I would see. I was also too scared to call out for help for the same reason. After a while I figured that I had to open my eyes and deal with what I would see. Slowly I opened my eyes and looked down at myself, and what I saw shocked me so much that I couldn't make any kind of noise even if I wanted to.

I was floating at least two feet off the ground! I wasn't snagged up on any branches or anything. I was just hovering there. And that wasn't even it. Surrounding my body was what I could only describe as a glowing aura of ghostly fire! It was like my whole body was on fire, but I wasn't burning up and neither were my clothes. It wasn't even warm at all. Whatever this aura was, it was definitely having an effect on my hair. It was floating around my face. It wasn't acting like it was caught in a breeze, but more like it would act as if I was underwater. It was just lazily moving about around my head.

My first reaction to all this was sheer panic. I actually thought that I had died in the fall, and that I was now a ghost. How else could I be floating above the ground and have this aura of fire surrounding my body. That question as well as a million others flashed through my head. How could I be dead at just ten years old? How would my parents and friends react? How was I ever going to deal with this? When would the bright light come for me and take me to heaven?

It took a while for me to calm down enough to realize that I wasn't dead. I came to that conclusion after really thinking about it. For starters, if I was dead and was a ghost, then how come I wasn't hovering over my own dead body? Second, if I had died, wouldn't I immediately have gone to heaven, or even hell for that matter? Finally, if I was a ghost, then how come I wasn't transparent and looked as solid as a living person?

So if I wasn't dead, then what was going on with me? I thought long and hard about that before it finally hit me. Could it be? Could it really be that I was some kind of super? How was that possible? How could I have lived ten years without knowing that I had powers? What exactly were my powers to begin with? Could I do anything more than just hover and glow? With that a smile formed on my face. This was so awesome! All that time pretending that I was a super when I actually was one! I only my friends could see me now! I was so happy I laughed then let out a whoop!

Just then I heard some footsteps from around the side of the house and then the gate unlatching. Suddenly, my aura vanished and I fell hard on my butt. As I lay stunned on the ground, I heard the gate open and then I was looking up into the face of one of my friends.

" Hi, Jessica," he said with a puzzled look on his face. "Why are you laying there on the ground?"

"I, um," I started. "I, uh, I fell out of the tree."

"Are you okay?" he asked as he helped me up.

"I'm fine," I told him. I then had a thought. Why did he come back here? And more importantly, did he see me? "Why are you here?"

"I was just coming up to your door to see if you can play when I heard you yell," he said.

"Did you see anything?" I asked with some nervousness.

"No, was I supposed to?"

"No, it's okay." I said, suddenly glad for the ugly and oversized privacy fence that surrounded our backyard. "So, what do you want to play?"

He never knew how close he became to discovering my new secret. If he came up to the gate more quietly or went through the house, he probably would've seen me floating there and surrounded by the aura. As for myself, I kept quiet about it. I didn't even tell my parents. I mean, I kinda knew that if I was a super, then they had to be supers as well. The reason was that somehow I still wasn't able to convince myself that I was a super, even with the evidence literally surrounding me.

About a couple weeks after my first experience, I decided to find out more about my abilities. Since I knew I could at least hover above the ground, I wanted to know where I could go from there. Once again I slipped out into the backyard early in the morning. To start it off I wanted to learn how to hover above the ground or at least produce that glowing aura of fire. Standing out in the middle of the yard, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, held my arms out, and concentrated. After a while I opened my eyes and looked down. Nothing happened. Sighing in frustration, I tried again, and again, and again. Still nothing happened. I actually began to jump up and down. I probably looked pretty comical just then. If anyone was watching me at that point, they may have thought that I was trying to do an improvised version of the jumping jacks.

I then wondered if I had to be higher off the ground for it to work. After all, I was up in the tree the first time. Deciding that it was worth a try, I went over to the tree where it all began. I climbed just high enough so that I wouldn't be seriously injured if it didn't work. Taking another deep breath, I launched myself off the tree. Well, I flew, for about two feet, before I fell flat on my face. So much for that theory.

Groaning, I rolled over and looked up at the sky. What was going on here? How could I be able to float in the air and have an aura of fire around my body one day, then absolutely nothing the next? Were my powers some sort of on and off thing, and that they only worked when they wanted to? Did I even have powers at all? Maybe I was knocked unconscious in the fall and imagined the whole thing. I didn't see how that was possible. I was pretty sure I was awake through the whole thing.

Whatever it was, I figured that I had to stop before I killed myself. It was getting late in the morning anyway, and my parents were probably already awake. I sat up and stretched…and a fireball shot out of my right hand and blasted some of the bark off the tree!

I screamed and actually crawled away backwards from the tree like it was some kind of monster. I was absolutely terrified. I was sucking in huge gulps of air and my heart was trying to blast its way out of my chest. What just happened? Did I actually just see a ball of fire shoot out of my hand and leave a smoking burn mark on the tree?

It took a while before I was able to stand up on my two shaky legs. Cautiously, I walked over to the tree. The burn was no longer smoking but the smell of burnt wood lingered around the area. Slowly I raised my hand and touched it. It was no longer warm. I then looked down at my right hand in wonder. This was really amazing! Now I could actually shoot fire from my hand!

Both excited and curious, I wanted to know if I could do that again. Only this time I didn't want to leave another burn mark on the tree since the first one was probably already noticeable enough. I decided to test on a small metal bucket that was just lying in the corner of the yard. I picked it up and moved to the center of the yard. Then, standing about five feet away from the bucket, I stretched my hand towards it.

Again, nothing happened.

This was getting ridiculous! Did my powers only work accidentally or something? Why couldn't they work when I wanted them to? Sighing, I flicked my hand toward the bucket in frustration, and a bolt of fire came out and hit it, causing it to tumble across the yard.

I looked at my hand and this time smiled. That was more like it! I tried again and flicked my wrist, and again a bolt came out. I tried that with my left hand and again the same thing. I stopped then because I was starting to leave small burns in the grass. I then realized how amazingly easy it was to do, almost like when you learn how to ride a bike. It was like I knew how to do it the whole time. Maybe the reason I couldn't do it before was that I was just trying too hard. If that was the case, then maybe that was why I couldn't hover as well.

Unfortunately, I couldn't test that out right then because my mom came outside then to tell me that breakfast was ready. I still didn't tell her or my dad about my powers. Maybe I was just afraid to since I seemed so normal for so long. Even though I thought it was kind of stupid to even think it, maybe deep down I was terrified that they would reject me. In my heart I knew that that would never happen and they would always love me no matter what, but my brain was overriding that and saying different things.

Amazingly, my parents never noticed the small burns in the grass or even the large one on the tree, or maybe they had and just didn't say anything to me about it. Even then, I figured that I had to start being more safe than sorry. I stopped testing my fireballs outside in the backyard. I also didn't attempt another hover test. Sure, it was killing me inside as I desperately wanted to know what else I could do. I just didn't want anyone to stumble across what I was doing.

A month later, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was surprised that I lasted that long to begin with. I just had to know what else I could do. So once again standing out in the backyard in the early morning light, I told myself that this day I was going to do. I was going to learn how to levitate above the ground. Sure, I might or might not be successful, but I would do it or die trying, hopefully not literally. I remembered how easy it was to launch fire from my hands when I just let it happen. Maybe levitation was the same way, and I just had to let it happen.

I moved out further away from the tree in case I flew up into it if I was successful. I then looked around to see if anyone was watching. When I was confident that I wasn't being watched, I prepared myself. It was now or never. I told myself that I was could do it, was going to do it, and to just let it happen.

Suddenly, the aura of fire appeared around my body, and then I felt my feet begin to rise off the ground. I was levitating! I've done it! Again, I was surprised how easy it was to do when I knew how to do it. I really wish I could tell you how I could do it, but I can't. It's not because I'm not allowed to. I just didn't how it was possible. It seemed as natural to me as breathing was.

Now that I knew how to levitate, I wanted to know if I could actually fly as well. I mean, what good was hovering if you couldn't go anywhere? I wondered how high and fast I could go, if I could fly anywhere at all, that was. Could I only just hover and glide to places? And how was I even hovering in the air at all? Well, the best answer I could give you for that last question was one I came up with later on. It may not even be accurate, but I settled on that I could hover because 'heat rises'.

So there I was, hovering about two feet up in the air and wondering if I could do more than just that, when suddenly I felt a powerful sneeze coming on. I couldn't even stifle it, and I sneezed hard. It would've just been an ordinary sneeze if I was on the ground, but since I was up in the air, somehow it sent me shooting across the yard and smashing against the fence with great force. With that, my aura vanished and I tumbled down onto the ground in a heap. Luckily, I wasn't seriously hurt and didn't break the fence in the process, but I did make a mental note never to sneeze while I was airborne. I then realized how warm my clothes were. Apparently, I produced heat as I flew. I then wondered if it was possible for me to burn my clothes off if I flew fast and far enough. Needlessly to say, I wasn't willing to put that to the test. I figured that I should stop here while I was still in one piece and had clothes on. I would learn how to control my power to fly later.

I never had the chance to learn after that day, however. Just two days later, my parents and I had to go out of town for a family emergency. There was no way I could practice my powers there. By the time we got back, it was time for me to get ready to go back to school. I was extremely busy during that time up until school started. I was also extremely disappointed as well. What else could I do, though? I didn't even have time on the weekends. I did find it interesting, however, that during recess we started up our superhero games again. It was both exciting and frustrating not to be able to tell them that I was really a super. Everyone knew though that a super never revealed their secret identity. I found myself eagerly awaiting the day that I would be able to join them in the fight against crime. I even thought up of some names I could call myself. Then, a little more than a month after school started, the day that would completely change my thoughts about that happened.

I'll always remember that day vividly. I was walking home from school and ready to relax for the weekend. A light rain was falling, but my mood wasn't dampened along with it. In fact, I was happy because I passed my first spelling test of the year and couldn't wait to tell my parents. I was just a block away from home when I felt a hand tug on my long ponytail and heard a familiar giggle. Groaning in disgust, I turned around and looked into the face of Chris Andrews, the class bully. Actually, that wouldn't be quite fair as he mainly picked on the girls of my class, and that included me as well. Unfortunately for me, he also lived along the same way I did, so I had the double-whammy of him sometimes picking on me on the way home. I could feel my great mood evaporating quickly, despite the rain and my damp clothes.

"Leave me alone, Chris," I told him.

"Leave me alone, Chris," he mocked in a high-pitched voice.

I continued walking, hoping that I would get home quickly, but he was making it more difficult by continuing to pull on my hair and laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. I was getting angrier by the second, but I still managed to keep my cool. I pulled his hand away from my hair.

"I mean it, Chris," I scolded. "Stop it."

"Stop it," he mocked again.

I sighed heavily. He was really asking for it. I was still keeping it together, but only barely. He pulled on my hair again.

"Chris!" I shouted. "Stop it!"

"Or what?" he challenged. "You'll cry like a little baby?"

When he pulled my ponytail that one last time, I completely lost it. I turned around and slapped his face as hard as I could. He had that coming to him for a long time and I felt like I did all the girls in my class a favor that day. However, when he immediately let out an ear-piercing scream and covered the side of his face with both hands, I knew that I hurt him far worse than I intended to.

"My face!" he screamed. "My face! It burns!"

"Oh my God!" I yelled. "Chris, what happened? Let me see!"

I went over to him and after a lot of tugging I managed to pry his hands from his face. What I saw completely horrified me. The side of his face where I slapped him was burned an angry red and purple color! I thought I could even smell the burned skin! I was suddenly very sick to my stomach and felt like I was going to pass out at any second. I couldn't do anything more than just stare at the hand-shaped burn in complete shock.

"C-Chris," I finally was able to stutter out. "I'm…I-I'm s-sorry…"

"Keep away from me!" he shouted at me. He started to back away from me. "Leave me alone."

"Chris, wait!" I tried again. "I didn't…" I didn't finish the sentence as he turned around and ran away as fast as he could.

I didn't know how long I stood there in the steadily increasing rain, a look of shock still on my face. I was shaking, but that wasn't because I was cold from the rain. Tears began to run down my cheeks, although they blended in with my already wet face. I still couldn't believe what I actually did. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't even how I done it. All I meant to do was just slap him. He had pushed me to the edge and I just reacted, but in no way did I mean to burn him.

"I didn't mean to," I whispered, my voice shaking.

Slowly I started to walk again towards home. More tears started to fall. I never thought in a million years that I would be crying over Chris Andrews, but that was what I was doing at that moment. I could still hear and feel the hard slap I gave him and still see the ugly burn on his cheek. I still don't know how I managed to make it home in that condition, but eventually I staggered up to the front door. I was shaking so hard by that point that I couldn't even get my key into the lock. Finally I was able to open the door and walk inside. I must've looked like a zombie.

"Hi, honey," I barely heard Mom greet me from the kitchen.

I didn't answer her. I just stared down at the floor. Funny how you could notice patterns in the carpet you've never seen before that way. She must've noticed that something was wrong, because suddenly she was standing right in front of me.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," I mumbled.

"Jessica," she said a little sternly. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I told her.

She put her hand on my shoulder. "Whatever it is, I'm sure you'll feel better if you get it off your chest and tell me."

'No,' I thought. "I'll feel a lot worse, trust me."

I looked up at her. She had such a compassionate look on her face. I knew that all she wanted was to do was find out what was wrong with me and help me. But how could she help me out with something as serious as this? After a while I decided that I was going to tell her everything. Discovering my powers, testing them out in the backyard, burning Chris' cheek, absolutely everything. What was the worst that could happen? Sure, she might be upset that I hit Chris. She was my mother, though, and I still suspected that she was a super as well. She could help me through this.

I started to open my mouth to talk, but nothing came out. I was disgusted with myself right then. It seemed so simple when I thought about what I would say to her, but when I started to talk it was like it was the hardest thing in the world to do. I told myself earlier that I would feel worse if I told, but I felt worse by not telling. What was I going to do?

Eventually Mom backed off. "When you're ready to talk, I'll listen. Okay, hun?" I only nodded. "Dinner will be ready in about an hour." With that she turned around and went back into the kitchen.

I walked slowly up the stairs and into my room. I closed the door behind me, threw my bag onto the floor, and collapsed onto the bed. I then lost it completely, and began to sob uncontrollably. I truly hated myself then. To me it felt like it was the end of the world.

It took a long time for me to calm down enough to think clearly. I turned over and just stared at the ceiling. It seemed that right then the full impact of what I was hit me hard. I was a very dangerous person. I could seriously hurt other people and maybe even kill them if I wanted to. How could I ever have thought that these powers were so awesome over the past few months? I found myself wishing that I never had them to begin with. If I was just like any other normal kid, then maybe all that Chris would've had was a bruised ego rather than a burned face. I made a vow right then and there that I would never use my powers for any reason again. I also vowed that I would never reveal to anyone what I really was and what truly happened that day, and that included my parents. As far as I was concerned, I was no longer a super.

I don't know how long I lay there on my bed when there was a knock on my door. "Honey?" It was my dad. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," I said softly.

The door opened and Dad stepped in. He came over to my bed and sat down.

"Jessica," he said. "Your mother told me that something was bothering you. You want to talk about it?"

I studied his face closely. I knew that he wasn't going to back down like my mother had. I also knew that I couldn't break my own vow. I thought about what I would say to him.

"I…I slapped Chris Andrews on the way home," I finally told him. It was the partial truth, so I didn't feel too bad about telling him that.

He knew who Chris was, so he understood a little. "Why?"

"He kept pulling on my hair until I lost my temper. I just couldn't help it. I'm really sorry, Dad."

He gently stroked my forehead. "I know, Jess, but you know you shouldn't hit other people."

"I know, Dad. I was an accident and I just feel terrible about it."

"I understand." He smiled a little. "If it makes you feel any better, we won't punish you. I would like for you to apologize to him at school, though."

"I will, Dad," I told him sincerely.

"Good." He then planted a light kiss on my forehead. "Come on, kiddo. Dinner's ready."

Somehow, I always thought that my parents didn't really believe me, but they never said anything. As for Chris, I never had the chance to apologize to him. When I returned to school, a rumor was going around class that he burned himself trying to cook food. About a week later we learned that he moved away from Metroville. Many of the people in my class were happy that he was gone, and I would've been as well if I didn't hurt him like I did. I just felt like I couldn't get any closure by not apologizing to him.

I was no longer the same person I was before the weekend. I even stopped playing superhero with everyone because it just reminded me of that day. In time I learned how to live with it, but I never knew I would completely get over it. My friends and even my parents noticed my change in behavior and wanted to know what was wrong with me, but I never told them anything. In fact, I became more and more of a closed person, never really talking to anyone anymore. Eventually, one-by-one my friends began to stay away from me until one day I realized that they weren't really my friends anymore. It was sad, I know, but I began to think of it like this, as long as they weren't around me, then there wasn't the chance of me accidentally burning them. As I said before, I was a very dangerous person to be around. By that time, though, I preferred to be mostly alone anyway.

In the four years since then, I was still the same closed person, never really talking to anyone. I was branded as a very strange person to be around, but I found myself not caring about that, though. I still hadn't found any evidence of my parents being supers, even though my suspicions were very strong. I wasn't completely without friends. Out of the bunch of friends I had before the accident, I now had just one left. Her name was Allison Kim, and I thought it

was nice of her to suffer my close-mindedness and stick it out with me through both elementary and junior high. In time, I started to talk to her more and more, and soon it was just like old times. She became the only person keeping me from going completely insane. We were happy to learn that we would be going to the same high school together. If all we heard about high school were correct, then we would have to help each other out the best we could, otherwise both of us would go insane.

In spite of all that, though, I was still haunted by the memory of that day. It doesn't affect me as much as it used to, but it's still a very painful thought. I still lived by my vow of never revealing my powers or myself to anyone. Sometimes, when they were interviewing supers on the news and they would talk about how they foiled another bank robbery or saved another busload of children, I found myself wondering how they were able to deal with the fact that their powers could be deadly enough to kill. I figured that they were able to handle it far more than I ever could. I've always supported them, but I knew in my heart that I could never join them. That was how I planned to live out the rest of my life.

I had no way of knowing, however, that all that was going to change very soon. As I said in the beginning, fate sometimes rears its ugly head, and you can't escape from it, no matter how hard you try.