We Are
Running Away

As the two of them left our table and walked off, I joked, “They totally offered us a way out of this whole thing. We might end up regretting not having taken it!”

Khin didn’t seem to realize that I was joking, and furiously said, “If all of this is for real, those are probably EXACTLY the sort of people who Arelis wanted to insure DIDN’T receive the power.”

“I guess you’re right.” I conceded, “I’m sure hoping that we run into Shoma or someone before we run into them again, though.”

My wish was soon granted; because, as I was driving Khin home from school, Shoma popped up in my car again and said, “You two got paid a visit by some power holders. Who was it?”

We described them (and how the incident had gone down), and Shoma groaned and said, “Dammit!! Dammit!! Dam- … Well, you get the point. Those two are trouble. I feel kinda bad for them, because they got the power at a way younger age than anyone should receive the power at and it’s not totally their fault that they’ve gone evil, but NOBODY should be getting more than 1/2 of 1 power transfer. Their lust for power will either go badly for them, for a hell of a lot of other people, or for both.

They can’t just take power, though. Nobody has ever been able to do that, as far as I know. It has to be given. THAT means that they probably want to kidnap you and torture you into giving it to them, which means that we’re going to have to speed up the timeline here.

I’m really sorry to ask this of you, but you two are gonna have to start living with some other power holders who can protect you, which means that you’ll just have to leave letters for your parents saying that you’ve run away together and then you can call them from time to time too.

Trust me, it’ll be better for that to happen than for you to get captured and tortured until you give up your power.

And, look, I’m not forcing anything on you. Up to you! You’ll be sorry if you decline my invite though.”

Khin and I debated back and forth a bit about what to do, but ended up deciding to accept the invite.

And, soon, we’d left letters at our houses that said that we were so madly in love that we just couldn’t wait any longer and had to run away; and we were off to go live with some power holders who could HOPEFULLY protect us from our power hungry foes.

As we drove with Shoma, Shoma changed the appearance of my car so that (in case the police were called and told to look out for my car) it wouldn’t be recognizable.

Shoma also stayed with us for the whole trip, because he said that he was well-practiced enough with the power to protect us from pretty much anyone who might attack us while we were driving.

He told us that we’d be living someplace where there’d always be at least one well-practiced power holder near us, so that we’d be safe while we were trained to control our power better.

“How long will it take before we’re good enough at it to resume our normal lives?” Khin asked, to which Shoma answered, “Normal is toast for you, unfortunately, but you’ll have decent control over your power within a year if you commit yourselves reasonably steadfastly to learning and practicing.

I guess that I should give you a quick run-down about all of this power stuff. So, during the American Civil War, a woman named Amira (who was disguised as a man and was fighting for the Union) suddenly realized that she had some sort of unusual power because a Confederate soldier (who she discovered was her cousin) had shot her, but she hadn’t been hurt. The bullet had just dropped onto the ground and she could see a hole in her shirt where it’d torn her shirt.

Anyway, her cousin went in to kill her with the sharp end of his gun, but recognized her at the last moment, and said, “I ain’t gonna kill my cousin, ‘specially my girl cousin.” and knocked her out instead of killing her.

When she woke up, she was being treated by a medic for her head wound, and she was surprised that the bullet hadn’t hurt her but that her cousin had still been able to knock her out.”

“Quick pause!” I interrupted, and went on to tell Shoma about my fight with the @$$hole from the bathroom.

“There ya go! So, you get how someone who has no control over their power yet might have it bail them out or might not have it bail them out.

Anyway, Amira was sent home by the medic (because the medic had discovered that she was a woman), and she began to test out various ways of trying to use whatever strange power she thought that she might have.

After she felt confident that she could wield it effectively enough to be of use in the war, she started crashing battles and turning what would’ve been Confederate victories into Union victories.

I don’t wanna claim that the Confederates would’ve won the war if she hadn’t used her power to help the Union, but it certainly seems possible that the Union might’ve lost if not for the assistance that she gave to them.

She continued using her power to fight for what she believed in, and even thwarted at least one assassination attempt against Lincoln (though she obviously didn’t prevent the one that eventually happened); but, she started having strange functionality problems after she’d had the power for many years.

She’d freeze up sometimes, get bouts of hyperacusis, start hearing voices in her head that were really distracting and wouldn’t shut up, and the list goes on.

She decided to try to somehow transfer her power to her two kids, because she knew that they were both pretty decent folks and figured that if she only gave each of them half of the power then maybe the eventual side effects could be avoided.

After a long time of attempting different ways of trying to transfer her power to them, she finally managed it, and all of her side effects went away.

She then set about teaching them everything that she knew about how to control the power, and the two of them eventually became very good at controlling it and figured out new ways of using it that their Mom hadn’t discovered.

You can probably figure how things went after that.

They eventually transferred their power to more people, and (as Amira had done) each gave power to two other people.

When you keep on doubling things, numbers shoot up pretty quickly, and now there’re quite a lot of power holders out there.

Oh!, can’t forget this part though. Usually, the person who transfers the power trains the people who they transfer it to, just like Amira did with her kids.

So… are you two are down to learn from Arelis or not? I could see how you may not want to, seeing as she didn’t really do a great job of letting you in on what you were getting into. It sounds like she was kind of desperate to transfer it and she just gave it to you two because she thought that you seemed like good folks.”

I was about to respond that I’d prefer to have a different teacher, when Khin responded, “I’m down. I think that she did the best that she could, considering the situation that was at hand.”

Damn… What was I going to do? Demand a different teacher than my gf got? “I’ll also be alright with it.” I said, though I was not at all happy about this.

Why was Khin so fine with everything, but I was so discontented?

Hmmm… Well, it had been Khin’s idea to pick Arelis up, and she hadn’t been breaking a promise in us doing so.

Also, I had been ready to hold my breath and give up the power to our two lunch-guests, but she had been concerned about the power falling into the hands of people who Arelis wouldn’t want to have it fall into.

With all of that in mind, the truth seemed obvious. Khin loved this whole thing. She loved having the power, she loved the idea of being trained by the person who’d given us the power, and she loved the idea of me being her teammate through it all.

Me, on the other hand; I hated having this power, hated the idea of Arelis training us in how to use it, and (the only part of this that I liked…) I guess I had to concede that I liked being around Khin and was happy that it sounded like I’d be spending even more time around her than usual.

So, she was 3/3, in regards to liking our situation, and I was 1/3. An “A” for her, and an “F” for me, in other words. Hopefully, those numbers would shift over time, because I doubted that they boded well for our time with Arelis and the other power holders.

Suddenly, there was another person in the car right beside Shoma, and he said, “Hey, Isana!, glad you made it at last!” and the two of them kissed, and suddenly my car was flying!

“Don’t worry!” Isana said, once her lips were free from Shoma’s, “My husband had to wait until I arrived to have enough power to get your car flying so that we could get to where our base is. Also, the car is camouflaged now, so nobody can see it from the outside.”

“Did that kiss have to do with the power?” Khin asked, interestedly, and Isana laughed and said, “Yes. There are other ways of using the power to get the car to fly and be camouflaged, but we like to use love for it.”

Suddenly, Khin unexpectedly leaned over and kissed me, and the two of us were all at once in a strange room that seemed unappealing to me.

“Ummmmm, Khin? That kiss was amazing and all, but do you know where we are?” I asked.

“I was thinking about how glad I was that those two people who’d tried to take our power from us hadn’t succeeded, when I kissed you, which might mean that we’re near them…”

Suddenly, we heard voices through the open door, saying, “Did you hear that?” “How the hell did they find us???” “I thought that this mf was being protected!” and we also heard footsteps racing towards us!

I quickly thought of Isana and Shoma, and gave Khin the most passionate kiss that I’d ever given her in my life!, which (thankfully!) succeeded in sending us back into the car, though we were piled on top of them in the backseat instead of in the frontseat places that we’d originally been in.

We awkwardly moved into the frontseats, as Shoma and Isana chuckled at our little mishap.

Their chuckles turned to gasps and looks of disbelief, though, when we told them where Khin’s kiss had transported us to.

“Whaaaa?” Shoma managed, before Isana explained that, “We’ve been trying to transport to them for quite a while, and with no luck. This event could suggest that Khin might be unusually powerful…”

“One of them did say that they thought that their location (or “mf,” as they called it) was being protected.” I told them, to which Khin added, “But, “thought… …being protected” kind of sounds like they are working with at least one other person, and doesn’t really sound like they were the ones protecting it.”

“Oh yeah,” Shoma agreed, “they’re almost certainly working with at least one other power holder, though we have no idea who they/she/he might be.”

“All of this can wait a minute, though.” Isana said, firmly, “Dear?, are you ready to speed up this car so that we can arrive at home base within the next few minutes and hopefully avoid any other surprises?”

“You got it!” Shoma responded; and the two of them joined hands, looked like they were concentrating, and suddenly our car was going so fast that when I looked down towards the ground it was just a blur and I couldn’t make out any details of what was below us!

“Nice!” Khin exclaimed, excitedly, to which I joked, “Now, just remember not to get too excited and kiss-transport us anywhere!” and she grinned mischievously and threw all caution to the wind! by wholeheartedly kissing me again, which (to my great relief!…) both felt really good AND didn’t seem to cause any power usage to happen.

Before long, the car slowed down; and I saw that the ground was all white, but there was also an opening in the ground, and we were headed towards it.

“Oh yeah,” Shoma said, sheepishly, “forgot to tell y’all that our base of operations is at the North Pole. Makes it harder for power holders to track where we are.” to which Isana added, “”Harder” meaning “impossible,” as far as we know.”

“I hope so, but never say never…” Shoma added, ominously, and we were soon in what looked like a pretty normal garage.

There was a bear in the garage though!

“Oh no…” Shoma groaned, “how long do you think that this garage was open for, love?” to which Isana responded, “Too long, appa-“ but was cut off by the bear transforming into a human who was laughing her @$$ off at us!

“Very funny, Aleeza!” Shoma said in an annoyed voice, only to seem to become even more annoyed when he notice that Isana was laughing just as hard as Aleeza was!

He quickly shook off his irritation, though, and said, “Fine! You got us good, Aleeza!… Grrr… I’m gonna need a beer now!” and he stalked out of the car and grabbed a beer from a cooler that was in the garage and said, “Anyone else want one? I’ve got non-alcoholic beers for the minors.”

Khin and I shrugged, and said that we’d have one, and soon all 5 of us were having a beer and walking towards the study room where Arelis was.

“You two’re lucky to have Arelis as your teacher!” Aleeza assured us, “My teacher joked around and pranked me more than he actually taught me! Which is probably why I am the way that I am. Hey!, if ya can’t beat ‘em, join em, right?”

“Who were you trained with?” I asked, remembering that people usually got only half of a power transfer.

“Oh, he didn’t want nothing to do with the power, and so he transferred it to two other people asap.”

“And caused us a big problem by doing so…” Shoma grumbled, to which Khin asked, “Are the two who he gave the power to the ones who wanted Diago and I to give our power to them?” and Isana praised, “Aren’t you the perceptive one! Yup! Ppplllleeeaaaassseeee, if either of you ever wanna ditch out of being a power holder, just let us know and we’ll find you a couple of suitable people. Don’t just pawn it off on your younger brother and sister like he did.”

“Neither of us have any siblings.” I said, before adding, “I get the point, though. Ditch it responsibly, if we wanna ditch it. Btw, can we make phone calls from here? Our unfortunate abandoned parents probably deserve a call from us as soon as possible.”

Khin and I were given a phone, and we proceeded to make the calls, which went about how one would expect; and thus involved lots of uncomfortable emotions flying at each of us from our still-in-shock parents and us vaguely trying to assure them that we were being as responsible as we could be under the circumstances.

I’m not sure which call went worse, Khin’s to her parents or me to my parents, but I was dreading the call that I’d promised to make the next day and was sure that Khin was dreading the next call that she had promised to make too.

“I can almost see why your power-buddy gave his powers up to whoever happened to be nearby…” I grumbled to Aleeza, who responded, “Oh, our situation was nothing like yours. I may as well clue you in on it though.

So, I was working at a fast food joint, and it wasn’t very busy so only this guy named Medo and I were working at the time.

Anyway, Medo or I (who can say which) made some mistake that got the only customer who was in the place a chicken burger instead of chili fries.

Most people would just say, “Hey, can I give this back and have the chili fries instead?” but this pinhead decided that this was the last straw and that we’d have to discover that actions have consequences!

So, he dropped the chicken burger onto the floor, and said that maybe we’d be glad that we’d not given him those chili fries and maybe we’d regret it.

As he walked out, with a smug grin on his face, I wondered how in the hell we would ever be glad that we’d messed up his order. Did he think that we’d possibly like cleaning up his little mess or something?

I can tell you that there’s one thing that I’ve never enjoyed in my entire life, and it’s cleaning. I’m pretty sure that Medo isn’t a fan of cleaning either, though he may not dislike it as much as I do.

Anyhoo… So a couple of people showed up soon after, and were dismayed to discover that we hadn’t been informed about the fact that we’d received some sort of power transfer.

We obviously thought that they were crazy, and Medo called the police when they wouldn’t leave the building like he’d impatiently asked them to do.

Then, the power came into play, which was kind of thrilling to me but freaked Medo out.

They had transported us to a kitchen of some sort, and Medo was screaming that if they didn’t let him go home they’d regret it, even though they assured him that all they wanted to do was to help him get the power under control and that he would be able to continue living his life pretty normally except for just a few hours here and there of training.

They finally gave in, and transported him home without any training at all, but warned him not to transfer the power to two more people unless he got approval to do so. Before transporting him home, they gave him their number and told him that he could call them whenever he wanted to.

They then began training me how to use my power, but had to leave after just a couple of hours and seemed pretty panicked when they did.

I later found out that Medo had managed to transfer his power to his two younger siblings, which meant that I’d be training with them.

Unlike Medo, they were very eager to learn how to use their new power. Unlike me, though, they eventually decided that they wanted to go solo and not be beholden to anyone.

It seemed like they’d be fine, because they’d learned quite a lot and still seemed to respect their parents (who they were still living with) and everything, but when they became adults and went out on their own they kind of went mad with power.

It started with little things (like stealing from places that they figured it was harmless to steal from), but then moved up to bigger things (like executing people who were in prison and they thought deserved death), and then they decided that they weren’t powerful enough and decided that it was time to make other power holders transfer their power to them.

You two were their first attempt at taking power from people, as far as we know, and we’re also not sure about who else they might be working with. We have suspicions, but nothing concrete.

Oh yeah, and we’re super sorry that they got to live with their parents and you had to leave yours behind. If it weren’t for them wanting so badly to make you give them your power (and, thus, us having to protect you really securely), you could’ve just lived with your parents like they got to do. We hate separating families like this, but we didn’t see any other non-catastrophic option in this situation.”

Khin seemed pretty satisfied by Aleeza’s explanation, but I was still feeling pretty cranky. I got that I was in deep enough that I had to just see this out, though, and didn’t want to do anything rash that might hurt anyone. Let’s put it this way, though; if I had a button that I could press that would just erase everyone’s powers, I’d press that button pronto.

Well, maybe not quite immediately. I would want to be back home and away from the <?!/@ NORTH POLE! first, but THEN I’d press that button without any hesitation at all…

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