Basehor, Kansas

2018, AD

5:20 pm

Nalani rushed to Helani's side as soon as she dropped to the floor.

"Lani, what's wrong?" She asked the panicking girl.

No response.

"Lani you gotta tell me or I can't help you," Nalani pleased once more. The lights all around started flickering like a light show inside a club at night.

The building's outburst could be seen for miles. To those not paying attention, nothing abnormal was happening in the town. But for Mino, from several feet away, the chaos was overwhelming. Against his better judgment, he ran into the pandemonium.

"Everybody in here except Helani, out!" He commanded.

"No," Nalani challenged, "I'm not leaving her!"

Sparks flickered off of Mino's hands. The sparks faded as he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

"Go." He commanded once more as the others filed out, Kai's arm around Elly's trembling shape, "You being here is just making it worse. Nalani didn't want to listen to him.  But she hated seeing her friend in agony, so she left without another word.

As more people left Helani's panic subsided until the noise that had invaded her brain only felt like radio static.

"Helani," Mino called in a hushed tone while walking over to kneel next to her, "Focus on me. Ignore the outside chatter." Helani happily complied turning her eyes to look at his blue ones. Radio static turned to radio silence. Her hands stopped quivering and her heart rate steadied as if nothing had happened.

"How did you do that?" She asked him in amazement.

"I didn't do anything, Helani. That was all you," he said with a smile.

Helani smiled back at him.


-----------------------


Upon seeing each other Nalani and Helani ran into an embrace. Mino watched the two friends from the building entrance door frame.

"So, are we going to ignore the fact that sparky over here has powers?" Eddie asked eyes wide like a mad person.

"Well as of today I'm not the only one," Mino replied becoming unfazed by everyone's disorientated expressions.

"As of today?" Elly asked from her position of the Earth's dirt floor, "What do you mean by that?"

"Thanks to Eddie, you six idiots now contain different powers. That's why Helani was freaking out. She could hear everyone's thoughts and didn't know how to stop hearing your voices. It's obvious as to why this sent her into having a panic attack."

Helani's breath caught in her throat. She could read other people's minds. That was currently scientifically impossible. Whatever gave them these powers had nothing to do with science.

"Helani, maybe you shouldn't ever look into my brain. For your sake as much as mine." Kai blurted out. The girl nodded solemnly.

"I don't know much detail about what each of you can do. There's a friend of mine that understands these power fragments more than I'll ever be able to."

"Where is this friend? Nalani asked.

"Gone, for now at least. She should be back in the next day or so. She's handling her other commitments."

"Then start explaining what you know," Aaron demanded becoming more unentertained by each passing minute.

"Fine. You're practically Jacob Black, Eddie can breathe under and manipulate water, Elly is the ultimate nature hippie, Kai is an edgelord that can break people's bones with his thoughts, Nalani is Rapunzel, and as I said before, Helani can read people's thoughts."

All the teenagers went silent while processing Mino's words.

"I'm a fucking mermaid." Eddie declared to her gifted friends. Mino rolled his eyes thinking to himself that of course Eddie would react that way. Stepping out of the door frame he headed off following the river downstream.

"Wait!" Kai bellowed out to the blonde boy emerging from his shy nature.

"I told you what I know," Mino pointed out becoming annoyed, "I have other crap to do than teach Mr. Popular how to turn into a wolf. So why should I stay?"

"I'd like to think I'm the only one that isn't confused." He replied once again returning to his naturally timid state at Mino's tone.

"Yeah, you can't just leave after dropping a bomb like that!" Elly said trying to appeal to the guilty part of his conscience. The others overlapped each other in agreement.

"See, everything about you intrigues us all," Kai said hoping to justify his curiosity.

"Well, nothing about you intrigues me. I'm leaving." He declared.

There was no changing Mino's mind, that much was clear. But what wasn't clear was what the gifted teens should do now.