Tyrio, Korio, and John concentrate their gaze to the man’s barely visible eyes. They were squinted and almost looked as if he was smiling at them. Even John could feel a thick cloud of deadly intent surrounding him. Tyrio and Korio stood up quickly, recognizing the belligerent energy from the waterpark fight was consuming them once again. 

“Well, this must be one of the bad ones,” John whispered with a nervous smile. 

Korio wasn’t going to wait any longer, he leaped over the couch and launched a Supersun-powered burst toward the cloaked threat. 

“Oh, so you can fight,”  mutters the man, casually watching Korio fly towards him without any visible reaction. 

Just when Korio’s fist should have slam into the man’s nose, he finds himself floating through an abundance of floating red particles. Suddenly, his target is standing right next to him with a destructive boot slamming into his ribs to send him flying out the door and onto the street. Tyrio and John had just watched their enemy essentially turn himself into a gas and back into a solid, nearly sending them back into their shock of first encountering the phenomenon of “star” energy. The man quickly shoots out of the door to continue his attack on Korio, and Tyrio instinctively charges after him with a thunderous flash. Korio was only just getting back to his feet and had been struck all the way across the street. Stealth stops walking towards Korio and slowly looks over his shoulder to shoot Tyrio a spine-chilling death stare. Tyrio pushes down the pulsating ball of fear in his chest, and looks past the man and at Korio. With a single nod from Korio, the brothers both rush toward the man from opposite directions.

“Can you two just listen for a moment?” the man says calmly while shaking his head. 

Tyrio feels every muscle in his body strain as he throws a passionate leaping punch, Supersun lightning trailing him and orbiting his fist. Korio from the other direction decides to go low, and look to deliver a fight ending shockwave attack to the liver. 

One way or another, they would critically harm their target.

The masked man finally seems to sense danger as both brothers closed in faster than expected, widening his tremendously exhausted, startled hazel eyes. He rockets at least eight feet into the air above Tyrio, and stomps him down into his brother head-first. Through the concrete debris splashing into his face from the brothers’ united plunge into the ground, the man once more mentally taps his invisible microphone. He takes off his hood, revealing disgruntled, wavy dirty blonde hair. 

“Just stay down there and listen. Since you’re actually willing to fight, I’ll follow directions this time. Even though we’re opposites technically, we may have a common interest,” he explained as Tyrio and Korio finally made their way up from the crater they’d been blasted into. 

“I’m only interested in beating the shit out of you,” Korio says, taking a hostile step towards their proposer. 

Tyrio grasps Korio’s shoulder. “Just let him explain, this fight isn’t going great anyway,” Tyrio insists, breathing heavily. 

“At least you have some sense,” the man says to Tyrio. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the White House attack? Yeah, that was me! But it’s all part of our goal. We wish to deconstruct this world and rebuild it with equality as the foundation. We’re the only ones with the ability to make this happen. It’s surely something we should do, we weren’t chosen for no reason, right?”

The man swaps moments of eye contact between the brothers, easily seeing their skepticism in their eyes. Korio and Tyrio looked at each other, verifying their mutual curiosity and confusion. 

“I think I can understand what you want, but killing random people isn’t the right way to go about it. And who is we?” Tyrio claims and asks. 

“Not you and me of course, but you should know I do not stand alone or lead this mission. As for the attack, it was simply a message. Anyone in there was part of the problem,” claims the man. 

“Okay, but what’s your next steps? How can you possibly go about creating equality? What does that even mean to you?” Korio interrogated. 

“Next steps? Well currently I’ve just been going around and taking care of any potential threats. If people like you were to disagree with us, it could cause problems,” he replies.

“Taking care of?” Tyrio questioned, feeling a burning ball of spite and unease rising in his chest and etching into his expression. 

The man’s smile could be seen spreading sadistically, in his sharp snake-like eyes alone. 

“I’m sure you’ve realized you were part of the schedule, haven’t you? I do care about the main goal, don’t get me wrong,” the man continued, nearly laughing.

He paused. 

“But I don’t mind killing some of you guys either,” he says finally, sending a swarm of poisonous butterflies to the brothers’ stomachs and cranking their hostility to full throttle; ready to leave burning skid marks in their trail. 

“How—”

“How many?” Korio interrogates, cutting off his hesitant brother. 

“So straightforward, but I don’t mind answering. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…” the man counted, mockingly putting up his fingers as he went along. “Ah forget that! Thirteen, it’s been thirteen of you I’ve killed so far,” he confessed calmly. “Nothing much, you can call me Stealth by the way, if you’re hoping to work together.”

It had been a windy day up until that point. The leaves of trees swayed, if a gust powerful enough came to visit the thinner branches would also wobble along with their offspring. You’d experienced tragedy if you styled longer hair before leaving for the day, strands of it had been cast astray by the torment of violent gusts. However, at that moment, it was as if an unseen black hole had come and abruptly seized all the air from the environment. 

Trees, still.

Hair, solemnly laid to rest. 

Tyrio and Korio, filled with an searing antifreeze of disgust, violence, and an empathetic wave of cavernous sorrow. Of course, the day had been hot, but the next gust of afternoon wind was unique. 

This wave of seemingly soul searing heat struck a match to their gasoline doused minds, and set their intent ablaze. 

Tyrio feels the breakers of every vein in his body activate and electrify as he bolts himself towards the evil before him, at a blistering speed his human mind could have never fathomed until now. He slams his knuckles into Stealth’s jaw, sending him soaring right into the lethal jaws of a pouncing Korio, who strikes his spine with an explosive right hook. Stealth feels the pain and shock of the blow extend through his body, but unsheathes his sword nevertheless as he stumbles back towards Tyrio. He swings his blade through the tense air with conviction, leaving an evading Tyrio with a shallow slice across his chest. 

The metallic scent of his own blood creeps into his nose, boldly reminding him of what was at stake. Stealth’s pupils are as constricted as ever as his arm transforms into an unexpected barrage of red, illuminated needles on a mission to impale Korio’s head. One of the main foundations of boxing was head movement, and Korio’s fundamentals were honed beautifully through years of training. He swiftly evades the attack, and charges in once more. Korio throws a punch straight to the nose of Stealth, and with Tyrio closing in once more behind him the fist violently finds its target, nearly caving his face in. 

The brothers’ battle chemistry and Supersun energy usage are becoming much sharper and dangerous at a rapid rate, and Stealth knows he’s now in true danger. He looks to his left, and beyond Tyrio’s flowing hair, determined gaze, and glistening lightning, a blue light speeds into his direction. Along with what was present in his vision, the feeling he’d gotten from other Supersun users before multiplied. After dodging Tyrio’s attack, everyone turned to acknowledge what they could feel barreling towards them. It didn’t take long for Korio to make out the frame of Carlos, who looked to be also reacting physically to all the “star” energy in the area. 

“Yo! What’s going on?” greets Carlos, making a skidding stop next to Korio and analyzing the scene frantically. 

“I’m sure you can feel something’s off about that guy,” Korio replies, pointing at Stealth.

Carlos also could feel an oddly recognizable sinister aura being emitted from Stealth, commanding his entire body to tense up and massively trigger his flight or fight response. From afar he had seen and felt that they were fighting vehemently, not entirely sure himself why he foolishly been compelled chose to approach the situation. Regardless, he had made himself a part of it. 

“Hey,” Stealth says, lifting his hood back over his head. “How about we just call it a day for now?” he proposed.

He knew that if Carlos joined against him, it would surely bring his chances of killing any of them to zero percent. He slips into particle form and speeds off into the distance. 

I’ve gotten a lot of intel on those two, and the other boy didn’t seem too shabby either, he thought. But what really worries me is that tall man in the doorway, he thinks to himself.  

The brothers and Carlos stand in the middle of the street still, unable to sense or see Stealth at all. Tyrio and Korio pant, feeling the fiery intensity of their bodies and minds begin to subside. The physical damage Stealth had left on them began to bear its true colors as well, as their Supersun energy and adrenaline faded. Carlos turns to look at the camp, where he also had been planning to go after seeing the same poster. John stands in the doorway, and beckons everyone to come inside the building. John tends to Tyrio and Korio’s injuries, conveniently having a first aid kit as if he were actually running a summer camp. 

“Another one of you, that’s cool,” John says, wrapping a bandage around Tyrio’s sliced chest and looking at Carlos. 

Carlos smiles. “Yeah, I guess so, but what the hell did I get myself into exactly?” he asked with a nervous chuckle, also having seen the poster and choosing to go to the camp.

John’s upbeat manner had shifted after the fight he’d just seen, adopting a new sense of urgency. After repeating what he already had once more to Carlos, he began to give new information. 

“According to the artifacts we’ve found, it’s clear that this isn’t the first time the world has experienced this,” John explains.

“So, how is it that people have never known about it? It’s crazy to think you’re the only one with this knowledge,” Tyrio says, thoughts of Stealth and his words still circulating around his mind. 

“Well, everything that’s ever been discovered, had to be discovered. However, the cave my father found these items in has been passed through for many years. In his writings he says, as he passed a section of the cave he could feel warmth seeming to emit from the stone. He curiously drilled into the area later on, and after seeing an open area on the other side he dangerously blew a hole open as an entrance. I tell you all this to say that it’s clear the things in that cave were beginning to react to these stars coming into orbit once more, and now that they’ve fully arrived a lot of the stuff in there now is genuinely glowing constantly. But the main reason this part of history became so lost, is because I believe these stars caused humanity to go extinct,” John states.

Tyrio, Korio, and Carlos all could feel a chill run its course through the room. Although it was disturbing to think about, no one could doubt his preposterous claims any longer. 

Tyrio adjusts himself in his seat. “I’m really gonna need you to explain that.” 

“It took me a long time to piece it all together since I haven’t been able to decipher their language whatsoever, but in that cave there was an abundance of what I can only call cave drawings,” he says, as he began pulling images from the box on the table and arranging them into a circle. “If you look closely, you’ll see that altogether they seem to tell the story of what happened.” 

Everyone looks at the pictures he’d lay down before them. The paintings inside the cave were of a mostly black pigment, and highly detailed. Shifting from what were splendid images of men and women holding flowers and frolicking in fields of flowers, quickly displays of men and women fighting were clear to see with various colors being painted around them to show what could only be the same flashes of light they’d become accustomed to. Specific star-like symbols recurred throughout the art, especially placed onto the bodies of the warriors. 

“Wow,” mutters Carlos. “This is unbelievable itself but, what about this makes you say they went extinct?” 

John rummages around in the box a few more seconds before unveiling the largest photograph yet. As he lays it smack dab in the middle of the others, every witness’s eyes widen in unison as their stomachs drop, their minds attempting to cling onto true comprehension of what they were learning. 

“As you can see, destroyed civilizations, remains of the masses, fire set to the world all by the might of the stars. The only reason this isn’t part of history…” John elaborates, leaning forward and slamming his finger onto the image of a mutilated corpse. “Is because humanity itself was created twice.”