Micheal

I was at Micheal's house the day my dad had died.

Sleepovers were common in the community between friends, as there weren't many ways that kids could keep in contact with one another so staying at each other's houses was seen as a fun way to get around the issue.

After a night of hanging out and staying up far too late, we were in the living room of their abode and were enjoying breakfast.

That was when the knock at the door came.

My Mum was there with tear-stained eyes, barely holding it together. She broke the news there and then, and we both broke down together.

Before I left I remembered Micheal shedding a few tears as well. We were so close at that point in time.

The months after that day were some of the darkest that I could remember.

I didn't eat for almost a week after receiving the news, both because I didn't feel like eating and because my mum had been so distraught that she just let things fall to the wayside.

When it had become apparent to Micheal that I wasn't eating, he told his mum, and she offered to let both me and my mum come over for food. After that, she started pulling things back together a little.

A month after my dad had died, Micheal and I were sitting on the swings in one of the community play parks early one morning.

The air had been crisp, and our bums were wet due to the morning dew that had formed over the wooden material that made up the seats. We didn't have anything to do, school wasn't on and we were both too young to help out in the reclamation yards. We had just been wandering about, the park was where we ended up.

"I think you're pretty cool, you know," Micheal had said, idly swinging back and forth on the chair.

It had come out of nowhere, "Why?" I had asked, a little bit shocked that he was opening up like that.

"Well, your dad only passed on a month ago but you've already become so much stronger. I don't think I could do that, I think I'd be in pieces forever," He admitted.

"Ah, I dunno about that mate," I dismissed, "I'm alright now, but you wait until I go home, I'll be crying like a baby again."

And now Micheal had thrown that secret told in a time of weakness right back in my face.

Micheal's smirk reached its widest point. He knew what I'd start thinking about if he threw that one in my face, and he'd decided to turn our past into a weapon to use against me. How long had he been holding onto that chestnut?

I couldn't say it hadn't worked, either, because it had.

A single tear tracked its way down my cheek, and my power rose up unbidden. Designs raced across my mind's eye begging to be built, schematics and equations passed through my thoughts and my fingers twitched at my sides. It was all I could do to bury it deep down into my subconscious.

"He is as well! Pathetic Tristan is actually crying!" Decker snorted.

I was even angrier than before now, not at any of them, but at myself. At my inability to keep myself under control. I cursed that fact even as more tears welled up in the corner of my eyes.

"It's like you're a Powered or something Micheal," One of the others praised the bully.

I'd had enough. I needed to leave, and fast.

I pushed through the crowd and broke out into a run, sprinting through the halls until I broke out onto the street.

I didn't care that it was the middle of the school day. I didn't care that I still had more classes, or that everyone had seen me have a nervous breakdown. At that point in time, I didn't care about any of that.

I just wanted to escape. Needed to escape.

My powers were raging like an inferno inside of me, begging me to build something, to make upgrades to the things I'd already built. Like, I could double the output from my Gauntlet without even requiring another taser stick to power it up if I just routed a building power feedback loop around my fingers before channeling that energy into the central emitter. Oh, and those finger sections could have little emitters all of their own, that could channel smaller and more accurate beams so that I could take out multiple people all at once.

And then there was the suit.

From the very beginning, the very first design that had popped up in my mind, a suit of mechanical armour that would enhance just about everything. It was a Crafter classic, a power suit, and I wasn't about to start breaking the tradition now.

But to let any of those thoughts break free from the boiling pot in front of my peers? That would be as good as outing myself to the world, and that was something that I didn't want to do in the slightest.

I didn't trust myself to not give them any obvious hints that I was a Crafter, I didn't want to ruin my secret identity. Even if it would be great to see the looks on their faces when they realised that the person they had been tormenting for years had become honest to god superhero.

Would they even care, though? They'd stop bullying me, that was certain, likely in fear of retribution. What normal would attack a Powered? But would it actually change their opinion of me?

I found myself realising that a large part of me didn't actually care.

The most important thing of all was keeping the world of my Superheroing and my school life separate. Being a hero was a bit like escapism, and what use would that escapism be if it was marred by everyone at school becoming involved in it?

I wasn't about to let that happen.