"We talked about this! What in the world were you thinking, Charlie!"
Charlie winced under the onslaught of his dad's words. A mind-reader. It was confirmed. "How did you even figure out about it, dad?"
The older man in front of him, athletically built with long, brown hair glared at him. "Do you think I'm some kind of idiot, Charlie? I know you. Trouble always seems to follow you as if it were a long-lost lover." Charlie would have been angry about that characterization, but only if it weren't true. He'd been on the scene of the last Traitor attack, though he hadn't been forced to use his powers then.
"I'm sorry dad," Charlie looked down, finding his feet very interesting. His dad sighed, placing a heavy arm on his son's shoulders.
"The government doesn't know about you. If they catch so much as a glimpse – a blink – of your power, you'll be taken into their custody and I'll be sent to prison or worse. If you want to be one of those mindless Supers doing what the NAUG tells them to do, be my guest. But I promise you, it's a life I wouldn't wish on anyone," his dad hugged him close. "I saw on the videos. You saved that family. But I cannot have you get noticed, you understand me? Leave the heroics to the government Supers. One of them would have gotten to them in time, I'm sure"
"They wouldn't have" Charlie mumbled, balling his fists in anger.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, dad," Charlie replied, letting his anger dissipate as quickly as it had come. He couldn't expect his father to understand everything that was happening at the time. Nothing short of Charlie's intervention would have saved them.
Taking him by the arm, his dad led him into the living room, where the television was showing reruns of the news shows that had taken Boston and the entire NAUG by storm earlier in the day. The room was spartan, lacking many personal affects but leaving Charlie plenty of space to move around. Blackout curtains were installed, but they were only closed when Charlie was training. That said, when they were open, the room was brightly illuminated and pristine. Sinking into one of the well-worn couches, Charlie turned up the volume on the TV as his dad flipped through the latest newspaper.
"Today's attack left several NAUG operatives dead, and even more injured. Their Boston Security Office was bombed, destroying much of the government's infrastructure in the area. The Traitors have been apprehended, the leader of this terrorist group being Nathan Bellard, formerly a lieutenant of the NAUG Special Forces. He and his two accomplices are awaiting military trial in Washington, where we suspect they'll be sentenced to indefinite imprisonment."
Charlie shook his head. The photos they displayed on the screen weren't terrorists; they were kids. The world had turned these children into weapons, and they were sick of that treatment. Charlie couldn't say he didn't sympathize with them, but their actions were reprehensible. Not only did they endanger a family of innocent civilians, but they destroyed a large chunk of the city. When he had walked back from school, he'd noticed far more rubble than he had initially remembered. Boston would be feeling the effects of this attack for months to come.
"So, I hear you had a test today?"
Of course, nothing ever slipped by his dad. The world could be ending again and Walter Kingsworth would still remember if his kids had taken their vitamins. "Yeah, dad. We had a test in Chemistry. It wasn't that bad, honestly. A bit confusing when it got down the molecular interactions, but I'm pretty sure I'll get at least a B."
"A B?" His dad looked up from his paper, staring Charlie down as if it were a contest. For the second time in as many minutes, Charlie found his feet to be more thought-provoking than normal.
"We win some, we lose some," he responded, to which he got an angrily thrown newspaper in his face. Looking up, Charlie saw his dad struggling to maintain a façade of anger. At once, father and son began laughing.
"I guess you're right. Hungry? We've got leftover Chinese food," his dad offered, but Charlie shook his head.
"I'll eat in a bit. I've got some training to do. If I get drawn into a situation like this again, I need to know I'll make it out," Charlie responded, to which his dad nodded. Without a word, his dad closed the blackout curtains and turned on some dim lights, clearing the space in the center of the living room. Charlie grabbed a workout mat from the closet, placing himself in a push-up position.
Then, as if an invisible giant were sitting upon his back, he felt his body grow heavier. Slowly, he lowered himself down. The strain was more than he had ever ventured in the past, but he still wasn't strong enough to take down a gravity-type Super. If he wanted to be able to work in conditions where his body weighed almost twice its normal amount, he needed to be strong enough to at least lift twice his body weight.
His father watched from the side, though Charlie couldn't imagine what he was seeing. From these years of him clandestinely practicing, Charlie had learned two things: only he could see the forces he moved, and he had control over a power never before documented.
He was a Dark Super. While typical Supernaturals harnessed the power of the visible universe, from heat and flames to gravity and energy, Charlie's power came from his control over dark matter and dark energy. Were he a little more comfortable in his position, he might have come forth to help the scientific community confirm both of their existences. For now, though, this was a secret he had to keep. Though he had far less practice in his powers than even the greenest NAUG Super, today had proven that, without a doubt, he was powerful.
Back at the coffeeshop, he had used dark matter to counteract the flames by building a miniature shield, deflecting it. Now, he piled dark matter on his back as if it were one of those teen movies with a dude lifting way more than he should.
Still, he maintained the strain, finishing a set of twenty pushups before scattering the dark matter. Contrary to popular belief, dark matter and regular matter weren't all that separate. Still, it was rare on Earth, and Charlie had spent a great amount of time summoning it from all over the world, building his collection. Together, it was enough to fill a small swimming pool. Though it was heavy, light didn't interact with it.
That meant that it was invisible to everyone, allowing him to just place blocks of the stuff around his house. There was always one block in his backpack or on his person, just in case he needed it for situations like today. To him, though, dark matter was more than just visible… it was vibrant. It glowed all the colors of the rainbow, tending towards white and shimmering with an almost magical sheen. He wasn't sure why it looked the way it did, but it made it easy enough to identify it.
Holding a cube of the stuff, Charlie placed it in the corner of the living room, a place his dad and mom knew better than to walk into. Imagine stepping onto an invisible supersized LEGO, and then tripping into another invisible supersized LEGO. That's what his mom had to learn the hard way before it was established that no one was to venture to that corner of the room, lest someone else need to be taken to the ER for smashing their head on the dark matter cubes.
Opening the shades – a needless precaution given that dark matter was invisible, but a protection his dad insisted on anyway – Charlie gazed out at Boston. The snow covered everything, but it was serene, a stark contrast to the morning earlier. He wondered what would have happened had he utilized his dark matter to trip a Traitor or two. Would they still have caused such damage?
Turning away from the view of the city, Charlie prowled through the kitchen looking for a Tupperware holding a bunch of takeout Lo Mein. It was his favorite, and boy, was he hungry.