Mmm, strawberry!
This time I awakened my powers much earlier and did so consciously. However, the latter applies not only to my abilities; my life as a whole is now much more meaningful. As for my superpowers. It was enough to think about why in my past life as Mark Grayson, it happened so late. The answer turned out to be surprisingly simple: I didn't have the necessary push for it. I waited for it, dreamed about it, thought about what I would do when I gained superpowers—there was actually no question here, I always knew I would become a hero like my father—but I never did anything to bring this moment closer.
I mean: I have two childhoods to compare. And I clearly see that my childhood as Mark Grayson was too... rosy, perhaps. Damn, I never even got into a fight until that fateful day when I decided to stand up for Scott—and by the way, I did it precisely because I hoped the fight would serve as a trigger... and I was generally right, because everything happened that very evening.
But in my father's homeland—Viltrum—such a calm and serene childhood is hardly the norm. A race of conquerors, a militarized empire that holds entire galaxies in an iron fist, a cult of strength above all else—I highly doubt that under such an ideology, Viltrumites raise their children to be delicate little flowers, which I was until graduation.
This time I tried to persuade my mom—and it was quite exhausting, annoying, and difficult—to enroll me in a sports club. I was fourteen then, and I suffered a crushing defeat in the clash with my mother's prejudices. She actually even had some arguments about this, saying that if I awakened my abilities, there would be no point in all this, and if not, then it wasn't necessary anyway; besides, my origin automatically gives me an unfair advantage over ordinary people, which means the road to sports is closed to me. I couldn't tell her that I needed sports only to put my body under stress and provoke earlier maturation, and consequently, have more time to prepare for the battle with my father.
In general, the club thing didn't work out, and I started training on my own. Even then, Mom wasn't thrilled, but she didn't forbid her son from going for a run and exercising in the yard. I conned my parents into buying good and expensive semi-marathon running shoes with nice shock absorption, a waterproof sports player, and a kid's punching bag, and started daily training. Mom was demonstratively against it and pursed her lips in displeasure, but didn't forbid me from engaging in self-development, and my father just watched all this with mixed feelings... seriously, who the hell knows what's going on in the head of this alien!
It turned out that even without a full awakening of the Viltrumite... um, bloodline, I guess you could call it that, I possessed significant advantages over humans. Seemingly nothing extraordinary or eye-catching—not even the lowest bar for supers, of which we have plenty on our planet—but running over ten kilometers every morning and after that being able to do push-ups, pull-ups for half an hour, and pound the punching bag as a break? And all this at fourteen years old. Oh, and I also never got sick, no cold, no flu, nothing. The only time in my life I had a fever was when I was teething.
The training worked even faster and better than I dared to hope: at fourteen I was practically a normal kid—who admittedly never got sick—and by sixteen I was already descending to the bottom of the Mariana Trench to visit local extremophiles to train and test the limits of my body. The actual awakening of abilities happened during a run three months after I started training. I always finished the run with a sprint, when my lungs were already burning from a lack of oxygen, and my muscles were at their limit from fatigue, but instead of slowing down and stopping, you, on the contrary, accelerate more and more. Back in my past human life, I always ran the last kilometer or so like this—it all depended on the music, because it guides me during workouts—and this love for music and running transferred to the new me to the fullest. There are some songs that I just can't stop to, and there are some to which I can't help but accelerate, squeezing everything out of myself to the last drop.
That time, I was finishing my early run as usual—at about six in the morning, when there are no cars yet and everyone is asleep—entered the final stretch and was busting my gut to Goya no Machiawase, when it finally happened.
First, all the accumulated fatigue disappeared somewhere, as if my muscles finally woke up from a long sleep and began to work at full strength, and as if there hadn't just been an exhausting ten-kilometer run in twenty minutes.
Second, the neighbors' house began to approach too fast, dangerously fast. Not for me, of course, for the house. Fortunately, my reaction speed and thinking didn't lag behind my strength; I even had time to think that if I tried to brake, I would leave marks on the asphalt, so I didn't do it, but simply jumped up. The feeling of falling into the sky, familiar from my past life, picked me up and carried me upward. And when I say falling into the sky—it's not a beautiful metaphor, as one might think, on the contrary—it's a very accurate description of the process. It was as if the center of gravity of my body shifted, ending up slightly outside my organism, and began to attract me to itself with a force many times greater than Earth's gravity. This is exactly what I felt, even though I understood that it was utter nonsense. Well, I can't really possess such mass... Moreover, I can change the direction of this gravity with the power of thought in the blink of an eye; I decide myself what position my body will be in space, and in fact, I could comfortably walk on the ceiling all day if I had such a desire! Last time, being Mark Grayson, I practically never thought about it—I took it for granted: Viltrumites can fly, and I can too, because I am one of them. But the other part of me, which understood from a scientific point of view how difficult it is to overcome Earth's gravity, was in hysterics. It's one thing when you create lift and fly because of it, as Atom Eve does, for example, with her jet streams of altered air, and quite another, like me, to simply ignore Earth's gravity—this requires energy comparable to the gravitational influence of our planet!
"This can't be!" screamed the rational part of me, the one that was an astrophysicist and astronaut in a past life. "Such energy cannot be hidden in such a tiny volume without consequences!"
And yet it is there, a fundamental force of the universe capable of stopping even light and time, as if it didn't affect me at all. And because of that, I felt invulnerable!
However, if not for the memory of my past life, this experience—the first independent flight—could have become much more painful, even dangerous. I remember how scared I was the first time, realizing that I didn't know how to stop my fall into space. How I swallowed in panic the increasingly thinning air as I ascended into the stratosphere, and how I eventually passed out, starting to fall back down. I would have certainly survived such a fall, but the neighbors' yards definitely wouldn't have fared well if I hadn't woken up in time and flown up again.
This time there was nothing like that. I already had flight experience, including in outer space, so I easily took the flight under control and returned back before anyone noticed a flying boy in the sky. Not that it would be some incredible sensation—there is enough supernatural wildness in the world, including in children's form—there's Eve who has already put on her pink costume and is playing superhero, and she's my age, but her father isn't hatching plans to conquer Earth, just waiting for the moment when his child's powers awaken.
Checking that my jump hadn't left any marks on the asphalt, I returned home. Right from the threshold, a strong smell of pancakes hit my nose—Mom was already making breakfast, she always gets up shortly after me... I think she even started getting up a little earlier than usual to chat with me right after my run. And in general, about a month after I started them, she stopped giving me such disapproving looks and accepted my new hobby.
"Good morning, Mom," I say, faking heavy breathing. "Mmm, pancakes?"
"Good morning, son," Debbie replied from behind the stove and, casting a sympathetic look at me, added. "Still nothing working out?"
"Alas..." I lied, hanging my head dejectedly.
"Don't be so upset about it." She comforted me and immediately added. "Maybe it's for the best."
I rinsed my hands in the sink and swiped a set-aside burnt pancake from the table, which I had noticed as soon as I walked into the kitchen.
"Hey!" Debbie indignantly said, but seeing that my catch was a reject, she calmed down a bit.
She had a thing about this. She didn't let anyone eat until she completely finished everything, set the silverware, and called everyone to the table. This especially applied to pancakes and any pastries that weren't cooked in a single batch and yet spread their sweet aroma throughout the house.
"Even if you are young and healthy, you shouldn't abuse your liver like that," Mom still grumbled.
"Then maybe at least a shocked liver will help me awaken my superpowers," I chuckled and crunched on the hard piece of fried dough.
I did throw the completely charred black edge into the trash can though—I'm not completely crazy, after all.
"So, how is it?" Debbie chuckled.
"Not clear yet, maybe another one..."
"Just go already!" she waved her spatula in my direction.
Throwing my sweaty clothes into the laundry basket, I got into the shower and turned on the hot water, which didn't burn at all now.
So, the awakening of powers is only the first and easiest part; now I need to train, keeping this secret from everyone and primarily from my father. Because if he finds out that I have already gained my powers and starts acting prematurely, everything will only get worse. I need time to prepare.
Yes, hiding superpowers from your family when your father is the strongest hero on the planet is a very, very non-trivial task. Fortunately, I have a significant advantage over my father: Nolan is always busy saving lives all over the world, and is constantly in the focus of the press. But the most important thing: I remembered when his adventures as Omni-Man turned into long disappearances, which Mom and I explained away as trips to gather material before writing his next book. And some of them dragged on for months—once he disappeared into another dimension for half a year; unfortunately, that was before I turned ten, and I couldn't get any use out of it.
But now everything will change. Before graduating high school, I have a head start of a few years to become better than my former self. Besides, it's worth preparing in case this still turns out to be not enough. Maybe the Guardians won't be so helpless if they are ready for my father's attack? But I don't want to tell my story to everyone I meet either...
After finishing my morning routine and tidying myself up, I returned to the kitchen. Father was still not there—even Omni-Man needs to get proper sleep sometimes—and Mom was puffing over a jar of strawberry jam; holding the latter between her knees, she was trying to conquer the lid using a kitchen towel. She looked quite funny while doing it, and as soon as she noticed me, she immediately stopped her fussing.
"We'll have to wait for your father," putting the strawberry that defied her strength back on the table. "It's about time he got up; the agent is supposed to arrive today."
"Let me do it," I took the jar and, for appearance's sake pretending that I experienced some resistance, twisted off the lid.
"Oh, you got your superpowers, son!" my father's voice suddenly rang out behind my back, and my heart instantly sank into my boots.
How did he know?! Did he see me flying? Damn, how unfortunate! And what do I do now?!
"Nolan!" Mom's indignant exclamation interrupted my panicked thoughts.
"Very funny, Dad," understanding the joke, I hurried with a reply. "Hitting where it hurts? Well, well..."
"They'll appear soon, son. Any day now." I had heard this a thousand times in my past life. And with each time, Nolan himself believed it less and less. Even now... fourteen years is already quite a late term, judging by what my father had told before. From his stories, it appeared that ten to thirteen years is the age at which most Viltrumites awaken their powers. Of course, you can't believe everything my father says, but there didn't seem to be any reason for him to lie about this.
"Sit down for breakfast!" Mom interrupted the side conversations, pouring coffee for Dad, black tea for me, and green tea for herself—how can you eat pancakes with the latter?
"Alright, alright, whatever you say, honey," the formidable alien conqueror capitulated before his wife... damn, this is all so weird; even knowing what my father is capable of, I still can't completely believe that all this, our whole life, our family, is just a lie and pretense.
"Exactly, whatever I say," Mom entered dictator mode. "And I say no talk about superpowers and superheroes at the table!"
"Mmm, strawberry and pancakes. I love you, darling!" Dad pulled Mom to him and kissed her.
They are, of course, crossing the boundaries of decency a bit by flirting in front of their child, but I'm no longer a boy to be indignant over such things.
We sat down to breakfast like a normal happy family... is there a chance that it will stay this way in the future... that our Viltrumite heritage won't destroy this family?