AAOOOSC! Junior Powers!

Kale has his back pressed against the corner of the seat and the door, his hands clutched onto the door handle and the backrest with wide eyes at the interior of the dark car.

He spots five grown men sitting in the car: the driver, the passenger, and three other men to his right.

Kale swallows, attempting to control his slamming heart and heavy breathing from the adrenaline of the chase he just went through and the fear stirring inside him.

Shifting comes from the passenger’s seat; the passenger cranes his head to look at Kale, the fleeting light of the rushing scenery displaying his dark hair, full eyebrows, and defined cheekbones.

"Glad we could get you," he tells him in a deep, yet surprisingly amiable tone. "We knew you were coming out soon, since the doctors were telling us you were beginning to wake up."

Kale shifts his eyes in bewilderment. "Wh-wh-wh-what?"

"He must’ve just gotten out from his comatose," the man in the back on the far right points out. "The poor boy’s confused." In the shadows he is in, only his voluminous hair and small eyes can be made out.

Kale leans over to catch sight of the passengers. "Wh-who are you guys?"

The man next to him peers down at him. He has light brown hair, faded freckles, and stubble. "You don’t know who we are?" His face is filled with sadness.

The passenger in the middle leans forward, looking at Kale. "Wait, you seriously don’t recognize us?" He has matted dark brown hair, naturally-narrowed eyes, and stubble as well.

The driver directly in front of Kale lets out a hearty chortle. "Are we really that old?"

"I’m asking you guys…," Kale mutters, scanning each man warily.

The passenger in the front answers him: "We’re your sidekicks from that society we were in, y’know, the supernatural one for the junior leagues when we were still in them?"

Kale’s eyebrows shoot up as a sense of understanding comes to him. "GJHP?"

"Yes!" The passenger on the other side of the row, who is Kailer, exclaims.

Kale then gradually pushes himself up to a regular sitting position. "Hold up a sec…" He takes a glance at each man. "Really? But you guys look...old."

The man in the middle of the row, who is Jeremy, smirks at him. "That’s because we’re thirty years old." He pauses, realization comes across his face. "Oh yeah, that sounds old."

Kale’s eyes fly open in shock. "Wait, what? You guys are thirty?" He shoots his hands to his chest. "But I’m the same age as you guys! What year are we in?"

"2028," Kailer replies promptly.

Kale’s jaw drops. "Oh my gosh… I-It’s not 2016…?"

"Nope!" The man next to him, Jake, shakes his head with a small smile. "You’re…" He points at him, his voice fading off as he mentally attempts to do the math.

"…twelve years off," Kailer answers for him. He peers at Kale. "You were in a comatose for twelve years."

Kale gawks at him. "How on earth was I in a coma for that long?"

The passenger in the front, Matteo, lets out a heavy sigh. "You ran away from the HQs the day after we became a society, the junior one. You went missing for days until we found you on the news."

Kailer continues on: "From the news report, you were found in a comatose in a manhole. People rescued you and treated you and found out that you had powers. Therefore, scientists began searching for other power players to experiment on and discover more of the supernatural universe."

Jeremy finishes it off: "Now, there’s like no power players since all of them have either been exterminated due to their harmful abilities, experimented, or on the run incognito, like us." He gazes at the others. "All the leagues had to drop the power player program since it was risking their business due to so much discrimination and hunting."

"Wait…" Kale knits his eyebrows in confusion. "…so there’s no more powers players? Except for you guys and me?"

"There can be, but we’re not sure," Matteo replies with a shrug. "But the power player count has dropped dramatically."

"And you guys are on the run?"

"Yup." Jake nods his head with pursed lips and wide eyes ahead. "Authorities want us, dead or alive. Dead to worry less, alive to experiment on." He peers down at him with a weary expression.

Kale places his hands on his chest with disbelief. "And all because of me?"

Kailer rubs his chin while peering up. "Mmm, thinking about it, yes."

He lets out a massive sigh, worry written all over his face. “Ohhh man.”

"But we have a solution," the small man continues on. "And we need you for it." He faces him with a small, smug smile.

Notes