The Elements

[Raven]

"I'll start with what we have in common," Lily said. "I mean, we're both in the same year at the same high school."

[Gifted]

"Which means we're the same age. Or maybe you've hit sixteen already, I don't know your birthday."

[Raven]

Lily shook her head. "I'm fifteen," she confirmed. "So do we think that all of those things are a coincidence? Or that one of them connects everyone who's going to have these abilities? Because I guess if there are hundreds it could just be an accident, but even then I'll probably find more searching that way."

[Gifted]

"I'd say school is probably a coincidence, but age might not be. Unless geographical location is a factor, in which case school is connected to that.. there could have been some great cosmic event over this particular part of the planet way out in space we don't know about." Josh suggested.

[Raven]

Lily squinted at him, trying to tell if he was joking or not. "So some meteor floating by gave us super powers?"

[Gifted]

"Well, if it was a meteor it was most likely an irradiated meteor." Josh said logically. He frowned at her expression. "What?? We have superpowers, this isn't something that happens in normal everyday life. Don't look at me like that for suggesting comic book origin stories, it's our best frame of reference."

[Raven]

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Lily admitted. "Just... I don't know. This shouldn't be possible."

[Gifted]

"It shouldn't, it's fantastic, which is why the most likely explanations are also going to be fantastic. The general precedent is that superpowers tend to come from space somehow. Some kind of cosmic radiation, intervention from a divine being or being from space, a crashed meteor or artifact from space - which is also often emitting cosmic radiation - I mean we could be like the X-men and just born with it for no reason because genetics but I think science has debunked that possibility pretty thoroughly?"

[Raven]

"Plus, we're fifteen, Josh. They just appeared four months ago, I'd say it's a little late for being born with it..."

[Gifted]

"Well sometimes powers lie dormant and then 'manifest' in some continuities. But you have a point."

[Raven]

"Anyway, once we find another person or two, we can probably figure out what the connection is."

[Gifted]

Josh nodded. "I wish you lots of luck."



Lauren never showed up at Fredrick's house that day, despite the fact she generally worked her mail route every day. It wasn't like she could have called in sick either, because Fredrick never got the paper she was supposed to bring him, from her or anyone else.

[Raven]

That made Frederick more than a little bit sad. After waiting a couple hours, in case she was late, he called up the mail office to see if he could get an answer.

[Gifted]

The mail office answered, but they just ended up telling him that they'd been getting complaints from that route all day and they had no idea where Lauren was.

[Raven]

Frederick frowned in worry. "Alright, thank you." He went to his phone book, seeing if he could find any Rileys, while looking up on his dinosaur computer if there had been any accidents in the area.