AAOOOSC! Junior Powers!

The sharp, cool breeze.

The increasing radiance of the sun.

The crunching echoes of footsteps.

The wide, empty sidewalks.

The towering buildings casting cool shadows on the two-way streets, parked vehicles, and Kale as he is ambling down the sidewalks of the Chicago Loop.

His head is dipped with his hoodie’s black hood over his head and his hands stuffed in its pockets. He has his eyes locked on the slowly moving concrete-made sidewalk.

Yet his focus is in his mind, in his emotions as he mentally lists all the right reasons to run away from the society:

I have the right to, I deserve to run away. I do not need to put myself in a group that makes me feel inferior or mocks me. I have the freedom to leave and I’m taking that right.

Besides, if I stay, what good would I do to the society? I can’t fight with my powers; I don’t even know how to bake. I would just be the laughingstock of the group. That is not a position worth staying for, which is why I am running away. Running back to a place where I am actually appreciated—

He catches his breath in his throat as he feels the ground disappear below his feet. He immediately plummets through the air, darkness engulfing around him.

“WHOOOAAA!!!”

SLAM!

Darkness takes over his vision as all of his senses and thoughts become numb. Just black. No thoughts. No touch. No smell. No sound.

After a few still moments, the sensation of a rough surface underneath him grows into existence, hinting his position. Then the atmosphere of the scenery begins settling in: Thick, moist air with an odorous stench. Dripping noises of water then echo into focus.

Kale gains his sensation and control over his body, fluttering his eyes open. He adjusts his blurry vision, recognizing a gray concrete slate sliding out from underneath him and stretching into the darkness ahead of him.

He spots a soft spotlight shining down feet from him. He flicks his eyes to find the source of the spotlight: a hole in the ceiling, which is displaying the Chicagoan buildings expanding upward toward the beautiful morning sky.

He slowly pushes himself from a lying position to a sitting position. He then gazes around his surroundings:

In front of him, a few feet away, is a brick wall. To his right is a seemingly never-ending stream of dark waters. Behind him and to his left is pure darkness.

“Ugh…,” he starts off under his breath, “I’m in a manhole.” He pushes himself to his feet, craning his head up at the hole above. “I gotta get back up here.”

He takes another look at the walls he can see, finding them bare with no aid to climbing upward. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Kale peers up at the bright hole and bellows, “HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! I’M STUCK!!!” He then cups his mouth and continues shouting: “I’M DOWN HERE!!! ANYONE?!”

His cries for help echoes eerily down the sewer, fading into silence.

“Fine,” he spits out. He then shuffles to the brick wall.

He plasters his hands on the rough surface and peers down, searching for a crevice to stick his foot in. He spots a shallow one between two bricks, yet when he places his the tip of his tennis shoes in there and pulls upward, he immediately slides back to the ground.

“Arugh!” Kale swipes his stinging hands away from the wall, staring at his scraped hands. He then gazes back up at the hole. “Maybe my powers could finally help.”

He steps backward to face the edge of the light from the hole. He then holds his scruffed hands toward the light and mentally commands his powers to conjure wheat. He feels the surge course through his body and to his hands.

Immediately, stalks of wheat begin falling gently from his hands, gingerly landing on the coarse ground. Stalk after stalk, the ground is being littered by wheat as Kale attempts to create a pile to serve as a ladder.

Yet he could only create a few inches of wheat before feeling fatigued. He drops his tensed hands, breathing hard with weary eyes on the sad pile of wheat.

With a flash of frustration, he swings his leg at the pile, busting it with stalks of wheat fluttering in all directions.

“There’s gotta be another way around here,” he mutters bitterly.

He turns to the dusky waters, observing them from the dry concrete slab.

Then with a determined expression, he then marches up to the edge of the waters. He lowers his tennis shoe-clad foot into the stream, immediately feeling his sole hit the hard surface.

With a small smile, he places his other foot into the shallow waters.

After taking one good look around his surroundings, he begins wading through the water, kicking up the murky waters with each step he took.

With observant eyes, he spots a never-ending stretch of shadowy brick walls, mentally concluding that the end of the tunnel is not near.

He peers to the left brick wall, then turns away from it just as white light flashes in the corner of his eye.

His eyebrows shoot up at the odd sensation; he instantly halts in his tracks and whirls his head back to the left wall.

Sure enough, there is a horizontal strip of sleek white light in between two bricks.

"Whoa!" Kale turns his body to face it and plods toward it.

He halts in front of the light, curious eyes on it. "What on earth…?" He reaches his hand out toward it and lightly taps on it.

Suddenly, the wall begins to shift and tremble as electronic glitches pop out from it, switching from translucent to solid. Each brick blinks away as the glitching intensifies, revealing a room behind it.

A cool light shines on Kale’s face as he takes in the hidden room. "Whoa-hoh-hoh!"

Being displaying in front of him is a pure white room made out of lustrous, white tiles. It is completely empty with the exception of a glass sphere hovering in the middle, glinting in the light.

Kale warily steps into the room, his shoes making squishing sounds while leaving wet footprints behind. "Oh man…" His eyes roam over the room in awe as he halts in front of the sphere.

He peers down at it, noticing that it has nothing inside it. "What’s this?" He holds his finger out at it and faintly presses his pad against its smooth surface.

(click on this link for background music)

Suddenly, the whole scenery shifts in a snap: Kale is now lying in plush, green grass of an extensive meadow surrounded by majestic mountains. The skies above him are a deep red with splashes of orange, pink, and yellow, indicating is it the evening. A refreshing breeze flies by, fluttering the blades and whipping his thick hair.

Kale quickly scrambles to a sitting position, hasty eyes darting around the beautiful scenery. "Where am I?"

"You don’t need to know where you are," he hears someone with his same voice say from his other side. "It’s okay."

Kale swiftly whirls to his right. His eyes immediately widen as he yelps.

Sitting next to him is himself: same physique, same outfit. It’s Kale.

"Whoa…!" Kale eyes himself warily. "I—" He looks away. "—uh—" He turns back to his apparent doppelgänger. "—wha-what is going on?"

"I’ve heard about our powers," Kale’s double starts off cordially. "Not the best, eh?"

Kale eyes him, his mind scrambling as to how he knows about his powers. How does he know about my powers? Well, he does look like me, so maybe that’s the reason why. And he doesn’t sound too happy about them either. Is he experiencing the same thing as me?

"Yeah, they’re terrible," Kale starts off, letting out a huff. "Everyone has the coolest, useful powers and I’m stuck with the power of what, baking?" He shrugs. "I can’t even make a cake! I don’t even know how to process wheat!"

His apparition rolls his eyes. "Tell me about it. It’s so frustrating—" He places a hand on his chest. "—it makes you question ‘why me?’"

"Yeah, why do I have these powers?" Kale questions harshly, bringing down his guard. "Are they considered powers?"

"I really don’t know why." The other Kale rolls his eyes while turning away from him. "They seem so pointless."

Kale throws his hands in the air. "Yeah! If only I can swap powers, that’d be amazing!" He brings his knees to his chest and peers up at the dimming sky as he begins to tell his fantasy: "It’d be so cool to control the oceans like Maîtriser, or teleport like the Doc, or break anything like the Brick Wall, or be skilled with any weapon like Flame Wave, or even have great instincts like Jake Dog." He turns to his double. "Just any one of those powers I’d be happy with! Any!"

His double turns to him coolly, his hair waving in the wind. "But you know what?"

Kale nods to him. "What?"

"What if I told you that there's a power much more epic than all of those powers combined?"

Kale stares at him with knitted eyebrows as he mentally processes what he just told him. "Whoa, whoa, wait, what? There’s such thing?"

"Yeah." He nods his head. "It's called 'vocifery.'"

Kale gives him a bewildered look as his hair flaps in the breeze. "What’s that?"

"It’s the ability to have everything you say automatically become true." A smirk begins to grow on his face.

"How would that work?" Kale appears hesitant with shifty eyes.

His doppelgänger fully faces him. "Let’s say you left your gear at your house and you’re at the rink. Then you can say, 'I have my gear' and you do! Because what you say automatically comes true."

Wonder fills Kale’s eyes. "So I can say I have the best powers in the world and I would have them?"

His twin pulls away from him with a cocky look. "Yes, because with vocifery, whatever you say is true."

Instantly, Kale’s eyes blink open.

He finds himself back in the white room, still standing in front of the floating sphere. Yet this time in the glass is a black, small circular device levitating.

Kale cocks his head at it with curiosity. He then places his hand on the top of the sphere and twists his wrist, feeling the object loosen underneath him.

He twists the top half off, exposing the floating circle in the air. With his free hand, he snatches the object and scrutinizes it.

"You wanna get the best powers in the world?" he hears his twin ask him from his right.

Kale immediately perks up to his right, spotting not only his twin but now a change in the scenery.

The two are now in the mouth of an opened cave. To Kale’s left is a rushing waterfall, serving as a curtain to avoid seeing what the cave leads out to. The scenery is almost completely dark due to twilight settling in; the air is infused with moisture, mist, and gurgling sounds from the waterfall.

"Vocifery?" Kale asks to confirm the type of power.

A grin appears on his face. "Yeah!"

Kale’s eyebrows shoot up. "Sure! How?"

Kale’s doppelgänger nods at his hand. "See that device in your hand?"

Kale peers down at his hand, spotting the device in his grasp. He holds it up for him to see. "Yeah."

"Place it on your inner wrist."

Kale turns his left tattooed hand over to reveal his inner wrist and places the circle on it. He feels a small sting for a moment.

"See?" He has a smirk at the wrist. "Not bad."

Kale cautiously eyes him. "How does this work?"

His double has his hands in his pockets, smiling at him.

Immediately, the sound of the rushing waterfalls intensifies and mist creeps onto Kale’s back as the waterfall glides closer to him. It instantly closes in, crashing against him and engulfing him out of sight.

In the white room, Kale already has the circle on his wrist, which sends twisting, harsh surges throughout his body. He lets out a yell of agony and squeezes his eyes shut as he stumbles backward.

In the illusion, the waterfall knocks Kale over, sending him into the crisp body of water below.

Kale throws himself onto the tiled flooring in an attempt to stop the sharp pain spanning throughout himself.

The waters swish around Kale, pushing him down as he sinks.

Kale rolls himself around on the floor in another attempt to cope with the suffering.

Once his back thuds onto the water’s bottom, everything turns black.

The pain finally subsides, leaving Kale still on the floor, curled up in a ball.

His breathing is heavy as his heart thuds against his chest and his fingers quiver against his knees. He gains the courage to open his eyes in fear of the pain returning.

He finds himself back in the white room, the nightmare of drowning in the water gone.

With shaky breathing, Kale pushes himself to a sitting position. He takes a look at his left wrist, noticing the circle is gone. He then gazes around the empty, white room, noticing the sphere is no longer seen.

Finally gaining the strength to stand up, he rises to his feet and straightens himself up.

Immediately, he senses a warming, powerful flow surging through his body. "Whoa…"

He holds his hands in front of him, opening and closing them as he feels the rush coursing through him. "Okay…" He looks ahead, remembering how the power of vocifery works. "I am holding my stick."

Instantly, Kale’s black hockey stick with dark grey, white, and blue designs materializes in his two hands.

His eyes widen at the sight. He lets out a chuckle. "Hah! It works! Oh man…I actually have this power…" He transfers the stick into one hand and looks ahead. "Therefore, I’m out of the sewer."

With that, he disappears in a snap.

Notes