The Red River Institute for Gifted Children operated on a schedule that was as rhythmic and unforgiving as a heartbeat. At eight years old, Vaun Meyer had already begun to lose the soft edges of childhood. His face was becoming a study in sharp angles—a Meyer trait, his mother would say—but it was the violet-green swirl in his eyes that marked him as something else. He was no longer just a boy; he was a Tier-3 developmental asset.
In the two years since he had arrived, Vaun had learned that the sterile, white-tiled reality of the Gamma Wing was governed by a single, inescapable truth: Visibility is Survival. He sat now in the center of the "Vanguard Conservatory," a massive glass-domed structure filled with genetically modified flora. To the public, this was a sanctuary of nature; to the students, it was another arena. Drones hovered in the high canopy like metallic dragonflies, their lenses constantly seeking the "Hero Shot." Vaun didn't look at them. He didn't have to. He could feel the tiny displacements in the air as their rotors spun, mapping the atmospheric pressure of the entire room with a sensitivity that bordered on the divine.
His fan count sat at 12,400.
The "Pulse" was constant now. It was a low-frequency thrum in his marrow, a biological tether to the thousands of strangers who watched his training clips on the Vought-internal "Rising Stars" feed. Every time that number ticked up, Vaun felt a surge of energy that was better than any meal his mother had ever prepared. It was a caloric high of pure validation. It made his blood feel like liquid lightning and his lungs feel like they could hold the weight of the sky.
Across the conservatory, Reggie Franklin—the boy the scouts were already calling the "Speedforce Prodigy"—was a blur of motion. Reggie was nine now, and the blue sparks trailing his sneakers were becoming more violent, more erratic. He was obsessed with hitting Mach 0.6. He lived in a state of perpetual motion, his sneakers leaving scorched rubber marks on the stone paths.
"Aero! Watch the pivot!" Reggie shouted, his voice reaching Vaun's ears a split second after he had already passed.
Vaun didn't move his head. He reached out with his mind, sensing the chaotic wake Reggie left in the air. He visualized the air as a thick, viscous fluid, governed by the laws of fluid dynamics.
As Reggie skidded into a turn, Vaun flicked his fingers. He didn't create a gust of wind; he manipulated the pressure gradient. He increased the air density on the outside of Reggie's turn, creating an invisible, high-pressure bank that kept the speedster from sliding.
Reggie skidded to a halt, his chest heaving, his grin hyperactive and desperate. "Did you see that? The drones caught it! My engagement just spiked three percent! They love the 'Teamwork' tag!"
"They love the spectacle, Reggie," Vaun said, his voice flat. He was hovering a few inches off the grass, his feet never touching the dirt. "Don't confuse their entertainment for their affection."
Kevin Moskowitz, the boy they were branding as "The Deep Sea Prince," was sitting by a decorative fountain. He looked miserable. His skin was always clammy, a faint shimmer of iridescent scales starting to form along his ribs—a biological adaptation he tried to hide beneath his high-collared jumpsuit.
"The fish in the fountain are screaming," Kevin whispered, his hands over his ears. "They say the chemicals in the water are burning their gills. They want to go to the ocean."
"There is no ocean, Kevin," Vaun said, drifting over to him. "There is only the tank. And if you want to be more than a 'Diversity Hire,' you better start learning how to make that tank look like a kingdom."
The weekends were the hardest. That was when the "Family Calls" happened.
Vaun sat in the communication booth, the violet-green ring in his eyes pulsing in the dim light. The screen flickered to life, revealing his mother, Elena Meyer. She was in a new kitchen—a Vought-sponsored penthouse in New York City. She looked radiant, her hair a perfect blonde helmet, her smile a masterpiece of expensive veneers.
"Vaun! My little hero!" she beamed. "The 'Aero' merchandise is testing through the roof with the 8-to-12 demographic. The 'Silent Storm' hoodies sold out in ten minutes!"
"How is Emma?" Vaun asked. His voice was a low, vibrating hum that made the glass of the booth rattle.
Elena's face shifted—a flicker of annoyance before the maternal mask slid back into place. "She's... she's making progress, Vaun. She's reached her 'Miniature Milestone.' Look."
She turned the camera. Emma was six now, but she looked like a delicate porcelain doll. She was sitting on the kitchen counter, inside a literal crystal bowl filled with rose petals. She was less than a foot tall, her skin nearly translucent, her eyes sunken and hauntingly large. She was holding a tiny silver spoon, miming the act of eating a single, glistening pomegranate seed for the camera rig hovering inches from her face.
"She doesn't eat much, but the followers think it's a miracle!" Elena whispered, her eyes fixed on the engagement metrics off-screen. "They call her 'The Spirit Child.' The less she eats, the smaller she gets, and the more they donate to her 'Nutrition Fund.' We're going to be billionaires, Vaun!"
Vaun felt the air in the communication booth plummet in temperature. A frost began to form on the interior glass. His Aero-kinesis was reacting to the raw, jagged hole in his heart—the one place the followers couldn't fill.
"She's starving, Mother," Vaun said, his voice dropping to a whisper that was more terrifying than a shout.
"She's a star, Vaun! Just like you!" Elena snapped, the mask slipping. "Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep this life going? If you don't stay at the top of the Gamma rankings, Vought reduces the stipend. Your sister's 'miracle' is the only thing keeping us in this penthouse. Now, smile for the screenshot. I need to post a 'Proud Mom' update."
The screen went black.
Vaun sat in the dark. He felt the hunger—the deep, jagged void that was once filled with the hope of a mother's love, now filled only by the cold thrum of his followers. He looked at his hands. He thought of his mother's kitchen—not the one she had now, but the old one in Baltimore. He remembered the only things she ever allowed to grow: her herbs. Basil, rosemary, thyme. She would talk to them, nourish them, and then cut them down the moment they were beautiful enough for the lens.
He looked at the small potted plant on the desk of the communication booth—a stunted, neglected fern.
Grow, Vaun thought. Grow so she can't reach the top.
He didn't use wind. He didn't use pressure. He reached into the life-cycle of the plant itself. He found the capillary action, the slow, rhythmic pulse of the sap.
The fern didn't just grow. it mutated. The green fronds became jagged, serrated blades of hard cellulose. The roots cracked the ceramic pot, digging into the mahogany desk like claws. It was a violent, emerald surge of biological command.
Vaun gasped, pulling his hand back. He felt a new kind of power—not the light, flighty energy of the sky, but the heavy, grounded strength of the earth.
[NEW EVOLUTION DETECTED: CHLOROKINESIS (NATURE)]
[SOURCE: BIOLOGICAL TRAUMA SYNTHESIS]
[FAN COUNT: 15,000 MILESTONE REACHED]
The surge was overwhelming. It felt like his veins were being filled with liquid emerald. He realized then that he didn't have to choose between the sky and the earth. He could be the storm that brought the rain, and the forest that drank it.
The "Nature" reveal was a viral sensation within the Red River internal network. The scouts were fascinated. An "Aero-Nature" hybrid was a marketing goldmine—"The Natural Protector."
But the utility of the power was much darker than the Vought PR team realized.
A few weeks later, during a "Survival Simulation" in the Conservatory, Vaun was pitted against a rival—a ten-year-old with minor super-strength named Brutus. Brutus was a bully, a boy who thought the "Blessed" hierarchy was determined by the weight of a punch.
"You're just a pretty face for the cooking channel, Meyer," Brutus sneered, his fist glowing with a dull, kinetic light as he charged through the undergrowth.
Vaun didn't move. He didn't blow him back with a gust of wind. That was too noisy. Too obvious.
He reached into the dirt. He felt the root system of a nearby "Vought-Wood" tree—a genetically modified oak designed for rapid growth. He didn't make the tree grow toward Brutus. He commanded the roots to move under the boy.
As Brutus lunged, the grass beneath his feet turned into a trap. Long, corded vines of high-tension ivy surged out of the soil, wrapping around Brutus's ankles and dragging him to the ground.
Brutus laughed, his muscles bulging as he prepared to tear the vines apart. "You think some weeds can hold me?"
"The weeds aren't holding you, Brutus," Vaun said, landing softly a few feet away. "They're feeding."
Vaun concentrated. He used his Nature power to trigger the Parasitic Drain. The vines didn't just bind; they began to draw the moisture and the metabolic heat directly out of Brutus's body. To the drones watching from above, it looked like a "stunning" maneuver—the hero using the environment to "calm" the aggressor.
In reality, Brutus felt his lungs beginning to dry out. He felt the very water in his cells being sucked into the root network of the Conservatory. He tried to scream, but Vaun used his Aero-kinesis to create a vacuum-seal around the boy's mouth, silencing the sound.
Vaun watched as Brutus's face turned a mottled, dehydrated grey. He didn't kill him—Vought didn't like "Product Loss"—but he left him unconscious and severely malnourished.
The drones buzzed with excitement.
[AERO: +25% ENGAGEMENT SPIKE]
[TRENDING: #ELEMENTALKING]
The "Minor Boost" hit Vaun like a shot of adrenaline. He felt his lungs expand, his vision sharpening until he could see the individual spores on the underside of a fern. He was eight years old, he had fifteen thousand fans, and he was already learning the most important lesson of the Seven: Power isn't just about what you can do; it's about what you can take.
That night, in the silence of Room 104, Vaun sat on his top bunk. Reggie was already asleep, his body twitching in a hyper-kinetic dream. Kevin was staring at the aquarium, his eyes unblinking.
Vaun reached out and touched the wall of the dormitory. He felt the air. He felt the microscopic moisture in the concrete. He felt the pulse of the earth beneath the foundation.
He thought of Emma, sitting in her crystal bowl, a thimble-sized product for their mother's greed.
"I'm coming for you, Em," Vaun whispered.
He reached into the air and, with a tiny flick of his mind, condensed the oxygen in the room into a single, glowing sphere of high-pressure gas. He didn't breathe it; he absorbed it through his skin, a forced biological evolution driven by his hunger for more.
He didn't need tartlets. He didn't need rosemary lamb. He needed the world to look at him until the weight of their gaze turned him into something that could never be broken.
He was Aero. He was the Vanguard. And the air was no longer enough.
The soil was hungry, and so was he.