EJ's POV
I drive up to my house and walk towards the door. As my hand reaches out, I stop, I don't know what's gonna happen when I walk in, and for some reason, I'm afraid. Afraid of what I'll say, afraid of how this will all play out. I guess I should do what Mr. Mazarra says, I should just talk it out with them.
I turn the knob walk in. Ashlyn, Uncle Dennis, and aunt Debby. As soon as I walk in, they all look over at me, and I'm thinking of walking back out again.
"How are you, sweetie?" Aunt Debby asks.
"Good" I mumble, leaving out the part where Ricky helped me through a panic attack. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. "You said you wanted to talk?" I turn to Uncle Dennis. He grabs my shoulder and sits me on the couch next to Ashlyn. And there was another moment of uncomfortable silence.
"Listen, Eej, I know you're upset, but I know you still have questions, so please just ask them."
As much as I didn't wanna admit it, he was right, I did have a lot of questions. I just didn't know which one to ask first, so I stay silent for a minute deciding what to say.
"Did you try and tell them not to go in?" I ask, my voice cracks, and tears threaten to spill from my eye.
"I did try, son. I tried all I could, I told them they wouldn't be able to make it out, but they went anyway, they were able to save most of them, but they just-"
"Couldn't save themselves" I whisper, I feel a tear slipping down my face.
Uncle Dennis crouches down back to my level, he grabs my shoulder and I look up at him. "Everytime I look at you, I see your dad," he says, his voice shakes and I see tears forming in his eyes.
"You do?" I ask.
"Yes, you act so much like him. You're confident and ambitious like him, you both give people alot of sass. But most importantly, you both think of people first, your dad would always try to make people feel better, he could always put a smile on people's faces. And that's what's you do" he says with a smile, making me smile back.
"Were they thinking of me, at least?" I ask.
"EJ, of course, they were. You were their only son. They loved you so much" Aunt Debby says rubbing my back.
I wipe my eyes with my sleeve, but it's no use, then my hand starts phasing again and it can't stop. I just give up and drop my head, letting the tears run down my face.
"Oh, EJ" Ashlyn says, she wraps her arms around me and I lean on her. Aunt Debby places her hand on top of mine, finally getting it to stop phasing. Ashlyn rubs circles around my arm and shushes me as I hold on to her tightly.
"Wait here, I have something for you," Uncle Dennis says before going upstairs. He comes back down with a box. He digs in and hands me this dark brown journal. "What is it?" I ask.
"It's a journal, I used it to write down your parents powers, their weaknesses, and all the test I ran on them."
I flip through the pages, remembering all the powers my apparent parents had. "What's that/" Ashlyn asked, holding up a black ring box.
"It's for EJ, it's from both of them, she wanted you to have it," Aunt Debby says. I take the box and open it, it was a red ring. If it didn't have a red gem in the middle, you could mistake it for a red lantern ring. I pick up the ring and play with it around my finger, now I have something that connects me to both of them.
Uncle Dennis smiles at me, he goes into the box and takes out a VHS tape. He walks over to the TV and turns it on, making the screen turn blue. He puts in the VHS tape and puts it in. He sits down next to me.
The TV is black at first, but then we see it's some training room, and my dad, or Captain Power, fighting some big robot. He looks like a red and black Superman. He manages to dodge the first 2 strikes, the robot hits his right arm. He super-sped in front of it and uses his freeze breath to blow the robot away. This left no impact and when dad tries to fly to super punch it, the robot quickly intercepts. The hit knocks dad into the wall, the had dad cornered ready to end him.
Then, a woman looking like Marvel's Enchantress flew in, her hands generating green energy balls with green vapor, like mine, but only green. "Is that mom?" I ask Uncle Dennis. He nods his head and my waters become filled with water. He quickly wraps his arm around me and I lean in his chest.
My mom raises her green glowing hands, she picks up some debris on the ground and tries to crush the robots with it, but the robot is unfazed. She then lets out a long-lasting beam of psionic energy melting into the robot's core, shutting it down, and as she pulled her hands apart, the robot was ripped in half, cool. "You always need me to save you?" She smirks toward my dad flying down to my dad.
"I love it when you do" my dad smiles giving her a kiss.
"Can we not do this while I'm holding the camera?" The man behind the Camera says, making my parents laugh.
"Who's the guy recording?" Ash ask.
"Your dad" Aunt Debby giggles.
Hours pass and we watch all the tapes of my parents, watching them kick butt and learning more about their powers and what they can do. It's late at night, but I'm not tired, I just wanna learn more about them.
"We should get to bed now," Aunt Debby says
We're all about to get up, but I stay where I am. Uncle Dennis walks back to me and grabs my arm. "You okay?" He asks.
"I wanna be like mom and dad" I blurt out. "I wanna learn how to control my powers and use them to help people, I bet Ricky, Nini, and Gina do, too. It's like you said, you've been helping other kids, maybe we can bring superheroes back, please?"
He looks at me shocked at what I just said. There's a moment of silence before he speaks.
"EJ, I know you wanna be like your parents, but we already lost them, I can't lose you too, let alone your other friends."
"But please-"
"I'm sorry EJ, but my answer is no."
I'm not about to give up, I jump up from the couch as he reaches the stairs.
"Please, I wanna feel connected to mom and dad."
As soon as I say that, he freezes in place and looks at me.
"When my parents died, I felt like I lost them forever, and me feeling like I don't belong just amplified, I've never felt connected to them. But now that I know they were heroes, and that explosion gave me these powers, I just feel something that wasn't there before, and I want that feeling to keep going."
He doesn't say anything, he just looks at the floor, unsure of what to say. I just walk past him and go to my room, sitting on my bed, I should've known he would say no, why would I even ask. I just wanna be like my dad, that's what we both wanted.
Then I hear a knock on my door. "Come in," I say. Uncle Dennis walks in with a sad smile on his face. He sits on my bed next to me.
"I understand you wanna be like your dad. I can't imagine what your going through, to have that weight on your shoulder, and I want you to reach your best self. So, if your friends want to, I'll teach you how to use your powers and train you to become superheroes."
"Really?" I ask excitingly.
"Yeah, but if you want to be a superhero, I'm gonna train you and your parents the same way I train all superheroes. We'll have to wake up very early, practice for a long amount of time. Is that good?"
I nod my head at him. "I'll talk to the others."
He smiles and ruffles my hair. "Hey, uh, is it okay if I take the car out for a drive, just to clear my head?" I ask him. "Don't be out too late, sport" he nods his head. Before I leave my room, I give him one more hug. "Thank you for telling me everything" I smile.
"I love you, son" he squeezes me. He might not be my dad, but I sure do love him like one.
Here, EJ finally knows more about his parents. So the scene with his parents was inspired by Mr. Incredible's first fight with the Omnidroid. So, not to spoil anything, but the next chapter will either hate me, hate Ricky's mom, or just hate both of us, sorry not sorry. I can't for you to see the next chapter, for both good and bad reasons. Stay safe and have a good day or night, wherever you are.