“You’re familiar with the prophecy, I imagine?”

  I frowned, then gulped, not sure what my uncle was talking about.

  “Maybe break it to him slowly,” Snapdragon said. “Look at the poor kid. It’s like he’s just been told he’s going to become an Elder of the Citadel.”

  “Not likely,” Glaze chimed in with a laugh. “Not before the two of us, anyway. He’s just a baby.”

  “I—I’m the same age as the two of you,” I countered, eyeing them and figuring it had to be true.

  “Not quite,” Snapdragon said with a laugh. “For one, we’re slightly older, and don’t forget that for supers living in the Oram System, aging slows rapidly once you hit eighteen. We’re not quite there, but close enough. Second, we’ve been in a dimension where time works differently than here. So… not sure how this prophecy works exactly, given time manipulation.”

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Glaze said.

  “The prophecy isn’t the only reason we’re here,” Drew interjected. “We could have simply summoned you to the Citadel to host the discussion of the prophecy there, among the other supers and Elders of the Citadel. However, it’s… you see…” He actually looked choked up, and I shifted my weight from one foot to the other in unease.

  “Stop it. You’re making me nervous.”

  “I’ll come right out with it, then.” Drew cleared his throat and stood tall. “Kai, your grandpa is dying.”

  “Apollo?”

  “What?” Drew actually laughed at that. “No, of course not him! He’s damn near immortal at this point. I’m talking about my adoptive dad, your Earth grandpa. The one without superpowers.”

  I blinked, caught off-guard. Odd that I’d always expected my superhero grandparents to die, but was thrown by the idea of the mortal man who aged at a normal rate. It’s just that he was so much more of a part of my life that the idea of him someday not being around was unthinkable.

  “I’ve come to gather you and your father to say our farewells, spend some time together before the old man passes, and then… discuss the prophecy.”

  “Hold the hell up.” I stepped back, hands waving. “You show up here like this, when for all I know you an impostor pretending to be my uncle. I don’t know. And talking about a prophecy which I’ve never heard of, and…”

  As the disk on the table lit up, I found myself at a loss for words.

  “You need answers,” Drew said. “Allow me to give you those that I can.”

  The light swirled and then solidified into a holographic image of what looked like a space station with ships flying around it. A metal dome on one side, a platform with a glowing stone on the other.

  “Get ready, this is intense,” Snapdragon said, shuffling up next to me to watch.

  Rotating to provide a view of this place, a pre-recorded voice started up. “Supers from far and wide come to the Citadel to earn their place among the best of the best. But what they don’t tell you is that, as powerful as these supers are, they only play a small part in our universe. And in the multiverse beyond,” the image shot out, the Citadel growing smaller and then non-existent as massive space ships, other stations, and then worlds flashed across the holographic image, “the powers as we know them are minuscule.”

  Now the image faded to darkness, except for one glowing dot at its center.

  “A power exists that would put all others to shame,” the voice continued. “However, only one who is worthy to wield this power shall even hope to approach it. The prophecy speaks of a great savior, one who could wield this power against an evil that would fold the dimensions on top of each other until there is only one, in the process destroying an unspeakable number of worlds and lives.

  “There are lesser evils, too, though they would take this power for themselves and allow the ultimate evil to come to pass.” A figure in a cloak with red eyes and cracked skin appeared next. “A great evil that many in the Oram and Solar Systems refer to as ‘The Supreme Leader’ has begun to make a push for this power, but we must not let her reach it. We must find our savior, send them out into the heart of the multiverse, and see that the ultimate evil is put to rest.

  “To date, only two supers are believed to be capable of siring such offspring.” Again the image shifted, this time to reveal Drew and my own father, Breaker. “Their children have been chosen to make the ultimate sacrifice. They will be given the chance to become the ultimate powers of our universe and all those beyond.”

  With that, I saw my own face staring back at me, alongside those of Glaze and Snapdragon. Then the image faded, and I was left staring at the table, completely baffled.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered, then glanced over at the ladies assembled nearby and grimaced. “Sorry. I mean… wow.”

  “Don’t worry about us, kid,” the angelic woman said. “We’ve heard much worse than that.”

  “My name is Navani,” the one with purple hair said. “I first came to Drew with information on this prophecy long ago, before we even had your father on the radar. We didn’t know he was going to become the Tier One Super that he is today, let alone have a son that, by some technicalities, would be seventeen around the same time as Glaze and Snapdragon.”

  “And that changes something?” I asked.

  “It possibly changes everything. First, we assumed Drew would only have one child and that his child would be the one. He had two around the same time,” she gestured to them, then to the woman with pink hair, “by Threed and myself, respectively.”

  “Okay… And then there was me.”

  “Exactly.” She stepped around me, assessing me as she went. “You have as much chance of fulfilling it as they do.”

  I scoffed. “Except, maybe none of you all heard…?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Heard what?” Drew asked.

  “How am I supposed to save the universe, or even help in some way, without any…” I struggled to get the words out, but finally shouted, “without any powers?”

  “No power… like at all?” Glaze asked, then ran a hand through his green hair. “Damn, kid, I was only messing with you. If I’d known you were powerless I never would’ve—”

  “Of course he’s not powerless,” Drew interjected. “Navani?”

  Navani cleared her throat, then looked to the woman next to her. This woman had short, black hair that fell just below her ears, dark eyes that seemed to see right through me, and pursed lips.

  “Ah, right. Lamb—surely you can help us out here?”

  I gulped. I had heard plenty of stories about the woman named Lamb. She wasn’t only a super, she was one who they had all thought was out of the picture before Uncle Drew managed to save her from the other side. She wasn’t any old superhero, but one of the originals who set up the Citadel and its method of progressing the power of the supers as they advanced to Elder status. Because of her powers, the Citadel was able to enhance and level up supers as they proved themselves. They gave advancement to the pure of heart, those who sought to improve the universe.

  This woman was a legend among legends, and she stepped up mere feet from me, eyes unwavering. I refused to look away.

  “He’s not lying,” Lamb said. “The boy doesn’t show signs of having any sort of superpower.”

  I felt their eyes judging me. Pity weighed heavy. I hated that feeling, my mind reeling as I searched for a distraction. To my relief, one found us. Shuffling sounded in the nearby trees, and Drew turned, Navani’s eyes flashing at his side. They were ready for a fight, but Drew held up a hand to calm the rest. When I saw a brown wing, I understood why.

  “That you, Harp?” Drew called out to her.

  She fluttered down, eyeing him, then smiled wide and gave him a big hug. A second later, a gust of wind hit. I spun to see that my dad had arrived, landing at my side.

  Breaker put a hand on my shoulder, turned to look around at the assembled group with confusion. “A family reunion? Who died?”

  “Not dead yet, but…” Drew took a deep breath, eyes on the ground—not the type to be comfortable with emotions. “It’s our dad.”

  “Apollo’s dying?”

  “No, not our biological father. Our Earth dad.” Drew finally met his brother’s gaze. “We’ve come to pay our respects before returning to the fight.”

  I put a hand to my chest. All of this talk about not having powers didn’t really bother me, but the one constant in my life while my dad and all the rest of them had been off fighting supervillains had been the monthly visit to my grandpa’s house.

  CHAPTER 2: BREAKER

  Earth, The Old Man’s House

  The news that my Earth father was on death’s door hit me harder than I would have expected. As others made preparations to spend a few minutes with the old man for the last time, I had to excuse myself, stumbling off to his bathroom where I stood in front of the mirror and stared at my reflection.

  We had just arrived at the old man’s house and already I was regretting coming here.

  I put a hand up to the mirror, wondering at the image staring back at me. Before being taken to space long ago, I had looked older than I do now. Older, scrawnier, and less confident. The way that superpowers and the rays of Oram worked—the sun in the system I had lived on and off for some time—had that effect, leading to higher-powered supers living quite long lives.

  How could I face the man who had raised me when that man was on death’s door and I looked like I was in my mid-twenties and at the peak of my prime? The door creaked open, Shimmer poking her head in with that stunning white hair and matching white eyes.

  “I just heard the news,” she said. The woman had been a resistance soldier once, long ago, fighting back against those who had taken over her planet.

  It had been on that planet, when my team and I helped free it, that she had joined the team.

  “What is this?” Shimmer asked, entering and leaning against the wall with arms folded in front of her. “Were you close to the old man?”

  “Not really. But death has come so close to us over the years yet failed to take us… To hear that it’s taking the man who raised me is a reminder of how real it can be.”

  “We have many years ahead.” Shimmer nodded to the door. “Your son needs you. He’s not taking it so well.”

  “I’d think not.” I sighed, giving Shimmer a sideways glance and biting my lower lip at the way her folded arms pressed her breasts together to show off her cleavage. Any other time I would have been very tempted to wrap her in my arms, but at the moment she was right. Kai needed his father. I half thought about taking her right there in an attempt to distract myself from the moment, but knew it wouldn’t do any good. Plus, a glance at her breasts like that usually got my dick hard in an instant, but at the moment I was soft as a fresh marshmallow.

  She cleared her throat and lifted an eyebrow as my eyes rose to meet hers.

  “Sorry,” I said, then turned to the door.

  The handle turned from the other side.

  “Hello?” another voice said, and before I had a chance to exit, the door opened and Aegriss entered. “There you two are.” She squeezed in next to us. There was barely room for the three of us in his downstairs guest bedroom. “I know I’m the last person to be able to relate to this, but I wanted you to know I’m here for you.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, then wanted to kick myself. I had grown so used to her being part of the team, I barely registered anymore that she wasn’t biological. As an android, her acceptance into the team had been a challenge at first, but after a while nobody even remembered that she had started as an android. Her eyes showed as much humanity as anyone else’s. She attempted a smile, but it was mixed with concern.

  With that I turned away from both, doing a double-take at my reflection in the mirror. Every time I passed my reflection I expected to see an older man staring back my way, but this young man’s face never failed to surprise me. My eyes were full of sorrow and confusion, but otherwise I had the smooth skin of a nineteen-year-old and a full head of hair without a single streak of gray. As much as I loved being a super and appreciated that we weren’t going to age as fast as normal Earthers, this just didn’t feel right in the moment. Not with the man who had raised me so close to death from old age.

  If he’d had his wits about him, would he look at me and wonder why I hadn’t aged? Most likely. And I hadn’t had a way to explain that to him, so I had kept my distance more than I’d have liked to admit. At least Kai had spent time with the old man.

  Damn—Kai would go through this someday, too. All those little friends of his from school, those women he hung out with in his room… someday they would grow old, while he would age much in the same way I had, thanks to his genes.

  With a mother like Andromida, who wasn’t only a super but an alien, it was possible he would age even slower than I had. Maybe one day I’d be on my deathbed and he’d be visiting me in the same position I was in currently.

  That thought alone made me want to go find the boy and check on him. Not yet, though. Not until I could pull my head out of my ass.

  “You good?” Aegriss asked me.

  I was about to reply, but my throat felt dry and I let out a long sigh instead.

  “He seems to be taking it much better than I did when my parents passed,” Shimmer said, eyeing me with concern, then shook her head. “Stared at my tits for a good thirty seconds, but I think he was trying to convince himself of something… Not sure what.”

  “Maybe he just forgot what they looked like and was trying to imagine?” Aegriss suggested.

  “I’m positive that wasn’t it.”

  “Give him some loving, see if it helps?” Aegriss turned to face me, one of her hands moving along her chest. “If you’re not in the mood, I could certainly give it a go.”

  “Ladies, I’m right here,” I said. “And I’m fine.”

  “Well, you don’t need to be fine,” Shimmer reminded me. “Not at a time like this.”

  I nodded. “No, of course. The situation with my biological dad will take time to process, but it’s a weird time on top of that, huh? What with my son and this talk of the prophecy again.”

  “The prophecy?” Gale said as she tried to open the door behind me. This time there was no room. Gale frowned upon seeing how cramped it was, then waved us out. “Some of us were discussing it in the bedroom. Come on.”

  “Gale, I’m not in the mood,” I replied.

  She frowned. “Breaker, if I was trying to seduce you, you’d have your clothes off and have me up on that sink right now, and you know it. Seriously, we’re discussing. Come on.”

  The image of me tearing off her white and blue superhero outfit and lifting her thick body up to the sink to take her ran through my mind. She was right—I’d be powerless against her if that’s what she had in mind. She flashed me a grin, clearly guessing where my mind was at, twirled a finger through her black hair, and blew me a kiss.

  “Soon enough, I’m sure,” she said, then disappeared from view.

  “I’d take her up on that sink idea too,” Shimmer said with a wink, then squeezed her way out through the door as well.

  Great. Now I had the image of Gale—a large Black woman with curves for days—and the thin, white-haired Shimmer with their flesh together. Like an ecstatic meeting of day and night, or a brilliant glow of moonlight in the dark.

  And still my cock refused to move in the slightest. What the fuck? Focused on the prophecy and trying not to imagine Gale and Shimmer, I advanced to the spare bedroom to find my team waiting.

  Charm glanced up as I entered. She tilted her head and then jumped up, tails flailing out behind her as her expression melted to worry.

  “Oh no, our Breaker is broken!” she said, and then in a flash was at my side, arms around me and head on my chest. The weird part about a kitsune woman putting her head on your chest is that, depending on her height and the length of her ears, said ears might tickle your nose. That’s what happened in the moment, so I sneezed.

  “Bless you, as you Earthers say,” Gale said from her spot next to Twitch.

  Muerta stood from the chair behind them, taller than the rest. I was used to her wearing a scowl more often than not, so I was caught off-guard by the look of compassion in her eyes. Of course, she had lost at least one someone as well, as many of us had.

  I held up a hand to show them I didn’t want to discuss the issue of my dad, instead guiding the conversation by starting with, “So this prophecy… It’s still a thing?”

  “Navani’s as stuck on it as ever,” Laurel said, her large turquoise eyes watery as she read my emotions, antennae glowing. She stood off to the left, with Harp on one side of her and Andromida on the other.

  “He’s just a boy,” Andromida said. “A child where I come from.”

  “And powerless to boot,” I added.

  Her eyes narrowed as if I’d said something wrong, but the others were nodding, so she let it go. I wasn’t wrong, so I couldn’t fathom what had annoyed her. Maybe she was still hoping Kai would show signs of having powers, but I’d moved on from that long ago. His lack of any special abilities certainly didn’t change how much I loved him.

  The others had expressions of worry or even pity, to the extent that it was all piling up and starting to be a bit much.

  “Where I come from, prophecies don’t mean shit,” I said. “Why you all are giving this so much of your time and mind space is beyond me, but—”

  “Breaker,” Twitch cut me off, shaking her head.

  “We’re not all giving it our full faith,” Andromida added, ignoring the glares from a couple of the others who were. “But if there’s even a chance, don’t we have to take it?”

  I sighed, turning to look at the painting on the wall—one of an old man playing baseball with his son. A fiction I’d been raised with, always wondering about parents who spent time with their kids in that way. And here I was, not talking about whether or not I’d be able to play catch with Kai or miss his big game, but whether he could somehow be part of a prophecy that labeled him as the savior of our universe. It was absurd.