Home?

Phillip slowly walked out of the auditorium, but he did not stop there. He looked as if he was going to leave the entrance to the school.

James suddenly moved Phillips shoulder back to him so he could face him and said, "Look bro i didnt know what was going to happen earlier, I didnt mean to embarass you then." Phillip replied softly with a "I know."

He turned around to leave again when this time Jordan stopped him and said to him "Hey man, wanna go ditch and go to the rock quarry again to throw rocks at angry squirrels?" He looked at him with a smile expression but you could tell he felt bad about it too. "Nah man, mom said i have to be home after school," to which James replied "But school isn't over right now youre just about to ditch," and Jordan said "Yea and how come you always come to our house but we cant go to yours, how come weve never met this 'mom'?"

Phillip stopped for a minute, but kept going. "She doesn't like company." Jordan and James stood still silently after that. He sounded even a bit more sad as he replied a little bit hoarsely than last time. They were gonna go with him but could tell he wanted to be alone. They knew more than anyone how much he wanted to fight and how much this meant to him. After all this was his dream.

Plus they themselves still had to be assessed. Back in the auditorium the man was trying to get the process over quickly. He had to console that boy to make both himself and him feel better. One after another student came after the other and he started to tell them their power. Usually hed be more excited but what transpired early left a bad taste in his mouth. "Water low level beginning mouse, Ooh yours is a battleaxe, fire, very cool, hmm you have a slight increase in strength and you have a little parakeet thats ironic," then he got to the girl with green eyes.

"Yes miss what is your name?" To which the girl replied, "My name is Danielle you can call me Dani if you want." The man felt grateful for the reply and told her to put her hand on the orb. As this was happenimg James and Jordan was going back in line. Then suddenly a colorful golden light reached every corner of the room, with a startling screech an owl formed by the golden light particles and was about 1 and a half feet tall. It looked around the room and decended back behind the curtains.

Everyone was like whoa cool. Then suddenly it turned its head 180 degrees to the man and blinked a couple of times. The man instinctively shuddered and he looked at the girl before him who was also protruding golden light from her eyes, the same as the owl and a slight golden line forming between her brow. "Mister, why do you have another orb in your sleeve?" The man suddenly himself got flustered, "Oh uh well, this one is just in case something happens to the other ones." He said scratching the back of his head with the arm that didnt have the orb up its sleeve, he was suprised by the girls question.

No one noticed it, he had usually just pressed his arm on the table to use his body to hide the bulge the orb caused in his sleeve. How could she notice? Could she have x ray vision? A slight raise in elevation of the arm? Astuteness? How did she know. He used the cover of the curtain to give the orb back to Ms. Viola and told her to hold on to it. He then grabbed a sheet of metal and put 2 fingers up.

"Okay Dani how many fingers am i holding up? Confused she said "I dont know." Okay he said, not xray vision. He then sat back down and took a series of pictures of numbers in his bag and put it before her. "When i say now im going to quickly place the numbers down, you remember them and repeat them back to me." She nodded in reply. "Now," it maybe took 2 seconds for the pictures to fall down barely being able to see the numbers. "Now repeat them to me."

Dani suddenly fluttered her eyelashes and said excitingly "I could see them i could really see them!" "It was 47, 21, 6, 543, 10, 42, 53,673, 800, and 7373," she replied proudly. "Interesting, riddle me this, What 8 letter word can have a letter taken away and it still makes a word.  Take another letter away and it still makes a word. Keep on doing that until you have one letter left. What is the word?"

The girl looked to the left for a second before she replied with "The word is starting! starting, staring, string, sting, sing, sin, in, I.  Cool,huh?" The man was a little suprised she got it so fast. "I see, miss your power is wisdom. Use it wisely hehe, there isnt a lot of it out there." She nodded in reply again and then ran off to tell her friends.

Later on the final students were coming up, they were James and Jordan as they had left momentarily earlier. The man noticed and asked the both of them seperately "oh yes, you fella are that kids friend from ealier right?" They both had nodded to the answer. He asked them both the next time they see him to tell the kid to come back and talk to him and they both thought it had to do with him not having a power earlier. They both agreed.

He was also pleasently suprised that both the youths before him had rare attributes as well. But they were both similar in nature. One was able to produce gold while the other one could produce silver and while at first they thought they struck it rich he quickly told them there must be a catch and sure enough they could not sustain the form for very long.

As all they had produced was was flakes of gold and silver and it soon dissipated. He also noticed that both of them had great increases in both power and speed as James with the golden power was able to lift slightly more than Jordan but Jordan was slightly faster than James. What fascinated him more was the fact that they werent related by blood and only met each other due to circumstance and meeting Phillip.

After he told them "Dont use your power willy nilly outside, it may look harmless but you can do more than you think, also it looks pretty, people will either be jealous or they might be greedy even though its not real gold and silver." They nodded seriously as they understood the importance of his words.

Then after school was over and they went to go look for Phillip. They weren't going to tell him what their powers were, well unless he asked, they knew how passionate he was when learning about peoples power. But they felt bad that they had one but he didnt so they were going to cheer him up. They looked all around their usual places. The arcade, the pizza joint, the quarry, the burger joint, and by the beach. They asked around and no one saw him so they decided to just go home for the day. It was almost dinner time and they needed to be home by sundown.

5 hours Earlier. Phillip started to walk to the direction of his house. Well his house was actually an orphanage, and his 'mom' was actually a woman in her 40s named Gertrude. And she was a total bitch. Before he had found out that she didnt really take care of him and his boardmates because of how nice she was, but after some snooping around he saw her letter to a friend about the government money she was receiving because of the kids and how she talked about stuff she was buying for herself instead of the kids. He thought she didnt like him after that.

Well you could say that she liked him even less. Shed always made the kids do chores instead of hiring or doing it herself because they were placated in a pretty big 16 bedroom orphanage. And shed always made him do the hardest chores. Ever since he came as a baby no one wanted him, and even her herself got tired of taking care of him. Shed spend her time on the younger ones because they were cuter and didnt mouth off to her as much as he did.

Hed actually been there the longest, he was always a cute boy but no one wanted him. Why? She mustve thought it was because he had no back bone, as when she always told him to do excruciating chores for a kid his age hed just shut up and do it.

Why? Why would he do all of those impossible chores was it because he respected her that much and wanted to make her happy? No way she knew how mouthy he could get. "Why are you here so early? What not going to school now? If youre going to make yourself worthless clean the pigshit outside," she was expecting some lip in reply but to her suprise he just kept walking past her and didnt say anything.

He walked straight up to his room. "What first youre late to school today and now you are even skipping? No wonder no one wants you," she knew shed get a reaction this time because she hit his weak spot. She looked at him triumphantly when he suddenly looked back at her and said with tears falling down his face, his face still red from earlier, "Why? Why does no one want me? Why am i forced to be no better than the pigshit that i clean up? Why did my parents not leave me here with any clue but my first name, why?"

At this point the woman said "aw shit" how could she not reply this was not like him at all usually hed just tell her to fuck off. Out of all her orphan babies hes the only one who never really liked her she thought. Most of the other ones who grew up or was adopted always called her mom even though at times she could be mean. Was it because he thought she always took money from them? No that car was a one time thing after all she needed it to get places for them.

He then suddenly ran up and hugged her initiating a reaction of confusion. Shed never let the older kids hug her only the younger ones. She then asked "kid what the hell happened,?" To which she brought him to his room and sat on his bed with him while he told her everything he was feeling. How could any person not feel a shred of humanity after what he told her. After which she felt that they bonded a little after that. But she couldnt show it.

She didnt know many ways to console him after that so she took a shovel and handed it to him after and told him "The pig shit still needs to be cleaned. Go to the back and talk to the animals itd get your mind off shit." Afterwards he just thought really? i tell you how i feel and thats how you respond? He didnt even glance at her after that as he walked out side pissed off. He wasnt sad now atleast, but he was mad. But is it better than being sad? Gertrude thought as a single tear ran fown her face.