Initiation (Warriors: S1B1)

Chapter 8

Earth date: 08/20/11, 10:42

Jay was fast. He sprinted all the way back to our street, with me close behind him.

Jay rounded the corner. I cut across a lawn and clapped a hand on Jay's shoulder. "Jay!"

Jay shrugged a shoulder, and I spun all the way around. Jay kept running, and I followed after regaining my bearings. 

Frazz took a running leap from a driveway and tackled Jay. They fell into the grass, grappling. Max ran to the two of them, circling and trying to find a place to break them up. Frazz rolled over Jay, laying across Jay's side. He lifted Jay's arm and closed his elbow around it. 

"OK, what's going down?" Frazz asked.

Jay grunted and rolled. Frazz yelled as he did a front flip and landed on the sidewalk. Jay stood up, and Max grabbed his arm and held it behind his back. "Say uncle," Max said.

"No."

"Say uncle."

"No!"

"Jay, say uncle and let's talk," I said.

"Fine. Uncle." 

Max let his arm go. "Now what's going on?" 

Jay blew out a breath. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Frazz's eyes widened. "Jay, you got a girlfriend?"

I snorted a laugh. Jay glared at Frazz, but a smile broke his scowl, and he laughed, too. 

"No, numbnuts," Jay said once his laughing subsided. "No, that's not it." His face grew serious again. "It's not that."

He looked around at all of us and then said, "I have superpowers."

Silence.

"Heh, that's a good one, Jay. I'll teach you to make jokes sooner or later," Frazz said.

"You don't believe me?" "Your stairs aren't proof enough for ya?" 

Frazz said nothing.

"OK, fine. Frazz, that old car still in you guys' driveway?"

"Yeah. What are you about to do?"

"You'll see." 

Jay walked down the street until we reached the house where I'd first met him and Frazz. He turned and walked up the driveway. There was one car parked in the driveway, and Jay weaved past that. He walked further up the driveway. There was an out-of-commission Mazda with no license plate in front of Frazz's garage.

Jay walked over to the car. He grabbed it under the trunk and lifted. The car creaked as it lifted off the ground. I looked down and saw webs of cracks running across the sidewalk under Jay's feet. He lifted and lifted and lifted, straightening his arms and lifting the car all the way over his head. All of this with no sign of strain or the weight being too much for Jay.

"Believe me now?" he said.

I nodded. Frazz and Max did as well. 

Jay knelt and lowered the car back to the ground. He turned back to us. "It all started with a rock," he said.

My eyes widened.

"It was about a week ago. The night of the meteor shower. I was in my backyard, watching the meteor shower with my family. I heard something hit the side of the house and break a window. I ran inside with my dad and Jason to see what it was. We found this black rock on the kitchen floor. Dad went to get a broom and dustpan, and while he was looking around, the rock called my name."

I flashed back to hearing someone call my name in the hospital, right before the red rock with a mind of its own rolled to a stop at my feet.

"I thought Jason had said something, but he didn't know what I was talking about when I asked him if he'd said something. I yelled to my dad, but he hadn't said anything either. The rest of the family was outside, and it sounded like whoever said my name was right next to me. I knew rocks talking was crazy, so I  poked it.

"I blacked out, but Jason told me there was a crackling sound and I fell backward and started having a seizure. My dad heard the banging and ran in to see what was going on. He thought maybe one of us hadn't seen a piece of glass and stepped on it. Jason told him he thought it was a seizure, so he got out his wallet. When someone has a seizure, you're supposed to stick something in their mouth so they don't bite their tongue off.

"Jason tried to hold me still so my dad could bite my mouth down on the wallet, but he says I grabbed his arm so tight he had to back up because he thought I'd break his arm. Then, he says it's like I gained super strength. I smacked the floor with my elbow and cracked a hole in the tile, and I banged my head against a cabinet door and cracked a corner off."

"You know why now," I said. "Because you do."

Jay nodded. "My parents took me to the doctor, and I got a brain scan, but I guess I was fine, so the doctor said people seize sometimes and let me go. But for the last week, I've been breaking things. I broke my toothbrush in half a few days ago, and all I did was pick it up. I crushed a cup when I tried to pick it up, I pulled the top of our trash can off when I opened it to throw in a bag of garbage, and a few days back I made dents in the sidewalk when I tried to stand up from sitting down." He nodded at me and Frazz. "You guys were there for that."

"So you're not a clod? You have superpowers?" Frazz said.

"Yeah, I think so," Jay said.

"Cool. Then I can show you guys this."

Frazz's feet exploded with green light, and he floated off the ground.