Tugging sharply on Shadow Hands, Sami pulled Boli on the two shadows cuffed tightly around his wrists. Excitedly, he was speaking into his phone,
“Yeah, we’re bringing him in now. Should be easy, he’s not even Awakened. You should have seen what Gutshot did!”
“Gutshot?” Darius asked skeptically.
“Hey, Darius! How’s it going?” Gutshot said, hearing his name over the speakerphone.
“The others from HUE came back, and they’re not lo...
2025-11-24 17:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Hannah felt like a fighter jet in the middle of aerial combat, spinning between volleys of bullets and sending out wave after wave of blinding blue energy to any Pete she could find. The Underground was cramped quarters for flight, but there was at least twenty feet to zip up and down every time she spotted another clone attempting to shoot her.
Using her Air power was more like violent bursts of propulsion rather than seamless flight, her body launching and lurching with e...
2025-11-21 17:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Gutshot’s body blasted backwards and Sami had to use all the force of his Shadow Hand just to prevent being smashed into by the flailing human-projectile. Easing him down, Sami hesitated before looking at Gutshot’s face. Flashes of the Silent Scream passed his mind, the dead looking anywhere from at ease to grossly disfigured. Mutilation was the last thing he wanted to see on Gutshot’s face and chest after such a heroic sacrifice. Breathing in to spur some bravery, Sami leaned th...
2025-11-17 17:00:24 +0000 UTC
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(Next Time)
__________
Bullets flew like torrential rainfall, coming from seemingly everywhere in the dark underbelly of Indus. Dozens of macabre silhouettes of a man in a cowboy hat flashed with each muzzle flair, blinking into existence all across the tunnels within. Bullets swarmed them and it was all HUE and EUE could do not to die as soon as they reached the ground.
Apex blew...
2025-11-14 17:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Sami, Claire, Gutshot, Francine, Kutso, Dawson and Wingerella looked down a dark alleyway, the dark overcast exacerbated by the lack of street lights to show the way. Holding up his phone light with an extended Shadow Hand, Sami scanned the area to make sure there weren’t any traps before they entered. Outside of some overflowing trash bins and cracks running through the pavement, it looked totally innocuous.
“Are we sure this is the right place?” Sami asked. “Gutsh...
2025-11-10 17:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“Where’s the Antiserum?” Apex demanded, Goldshine enveloping his forearms.
“What are you talking about?” one of the black-goggled criminals asked.
Without missing a beat, Apex stepped and struck with bone-jarring impact, sending him cartwheeling across the ground, a gritty scrape marking his path. Coughing, he rolled to a stop dozens of feet away.
“Nero!”
“Anyone else wanna play dumb with me?” Apex asked, venom on his to...
2025-11-07 17:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Present Day
Flames melted down the front door to the Steele Mill, causing an immediate panic from those in the lobby, scrambling to the secretary’s side. Inside stepped a man swirling with a tornado of fire, a manic look on his face as he laughed to himself erratically.
Rolling his eyes, Pinn realized he recognized him. It was the same guy that attacked Cousin Connie’s wedding. Pyromaniac. But this time it looked like he had actually Awakened. The swirlin...
2025-11-03 17:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Hours After the Silent Scream
Boli knocked on a screen one last time and finally smashed his fist into the desk. The blinking NO SIGNAL taunted him, flashing on all of his five monitors.
Boli groaned, rolling his head on the desk. “NIS? Did we get any good footage?”
“All of it was scrambled!” NIS reported spritely. “Not a single iota of data or bot made it through that! But, there’s always a brightside!”
“And what’s that...
2025-10-31 16:00:10 +0000 UTC
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The Day of the Silent Scream
Grunting with effort, Pinn pulled up and flapped a piece of concrete like it was a tarp. Flowing, the hard material rose and froze into a slant leading into a building. A stray side effect sent a long crack into the concrete, but nothing that would trouble the integrity of its material. Kicking the surface to make sure it stayed frozen, Pinn nodded his flame at his handiwork and turned to the owner.
Slowly making his way on crutch...
2025-10-27 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Minutes Before The Power Went Out In Hammerton
Pinn’s stroll down the sidewalk was punctuated by an unsettling, eerie feeling that started at the base of his spine and bloomed outward, causing him to shiver. The notion of something big coming. He was almost certain it was inspired by one of his powers, but he couldn’t pinpoint its validity. The maddening sensation had only taunted him once before.
Was Boli about to launch an assault like what brought on the Sil...
2025-10-24 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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(Shut It Down!)
__________
“Can we acknowledge how cool it is you’re talking with a chicken?” Sami asked. “I think this is a sign we should keep it.”
“I’m not talking with it,” Claire dismissed. “It’s a one-way communication. I can’t talk to it. But apparently its handler, The Chickenero, can speak bird. Chickenero sent us Wingerella to inform us of Boli...
2025-10-20 16:00:15 +0000 UTC
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A Week Before The Silent Scream
“Pinny! Wake up! Now!” Pinn’s mother rushed the door, slamming it open and jolting Pinn to sit up.
“What? Where’s Pa? What happened?”
“Excava district just erupted in flames and it’s spreading fast!” She showed Pinn a live reel of Joanna Slattery reporting with Channel 34, plumes of smoke towering behind her.
Pinn rubbed an eye and activated his Lightcrown simultaneously. With all his training, he ...
2025-10-17 16:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Stoically, Gan Wen stared and hid his bafflement as he tried to make heads or tails of the pandemonium. Chickens flooded the main gathering space reserved for the members of Ying Xiong Hui Ju. Equally surprising, it seemed Sa Mi was at a loss for words. Senior Sister Claire stood equally stunned beside him and Brother Gu Te Sha approached them very nervously, wringing his arms under his white flowing robes. Do Son was not far, raising and lowering his recording construct as he battled ...
2025-10-13 16:00:17 +0000 UTC
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Cracking the door open slowly, Steve slid his way inside the room, flinching when he heard the beep of a heart monitor. He should have expected it, but it was both wrong and mortifying to see in person. It was a small office space with concrete as both the makeup and decor, and the desk and chairs replaced with a bed on wheels. The drab room was maybe eight feet in either direction, barely enough for the bed and a few side tables.
Naomi lay on the bed at the end of the room...
2025-10-10 16:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Entering a small home, Gutshot looked up and stopped midway through pulling his keys from the front door, confused by the sight. A heavyset man leaning heavily on a cane stood in the kitchen, smiling at him. Squinting, Gutshot tried to place him. He was very familiar in a deja-vu kind of way.
“Who are you?” Gutshot asked.
Sighing, the man moved away from the dishwasher he was clearing out and hobbled into the living room casually.
“Hello?” Gutshot ...
2025-10-09 16:00:11 +0000 UTC
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“What is going on, guys? It’s your boy PowerGainz with a real, serious way to get yourself Awakened! As my viewers know, I’ve been running i
“What is going on, guys? It’s your boy PowerGainz with a real, serious way to get yourself Awakened! As my viewers know, I’ve been running investigations and conducting a lot of research into this field and this time, I have one crazy trick that’ll work for pretty much everyone.”
Isabel raised an eyebrow, pausing from taking a...
2025-10-08 16:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Two months before the Silent Scream Drumming fingers loudly against his desk, Boli sent out the Chirpper post with a sinister twinkle in his
Two months before the Silent Scream
Drumming fingers loudly against his desk, Boli sent out the Chirpper post with a sinister twinkle in his eyes. Months of anonymously sharing clips with Joanna Slattery and posting to ViewCube had finally come to fruition. Funding for the next generation of drones had gone perfectly. Defeat after de...
2025-10-07 16:00:17 +0000 UTC
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Before the Silent Scream “Pa, what are you doing?” Rockwell hesitated, arms hovering over the trash bin, shotgun in hand. “I heard your inte
Before the Silent Scream
“Pa, what are you doing?”
Rockwell hesitated, arms hovering over the trash bin, shotgun in hand. “I heard your interview. We’d be better off without these.”
Pinn watched in shock as Rockwell simply plopped the gun into the bin. Despite his father’s aversion to guns, he possessed ...
2025-10-06 16:00:22 +0000 UTC
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Before the Silent Scream
“Anything?” Pinn asked, checking the time. Two minutes to noon.
Nothing came from his earpiece. Pinn frowned, but his mother came to his rescue before he had to say anything.
“Rocky, you have to answer him when he talks to you!” Serena hissed on the call.
“He knows I would say something if there was something to say. There’s also all the prying ears around.”
“The only reason I’m not ther...
2025-10-03 16:00:29 +0000 UTC
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Sitting upon his throne of information, Apex’s right hand man rested his eyes in his secret lair. The air was musty with smells of hay and b
Sitting upon his throne of information, Apex’s right hand man rested his eyes in his secret lair. The air was musty with smells of hay and bird remains, all clever camouflage to protect the most important asset in HUE. So crucial to keep under wraps that not even the front desk were aware of his existence, despite deployment information almost ...
2025-10-02 16:00:13 +0000 UTC
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“I’m telling you, this is gonna be a breakthrough,” Sami said excitedly, Shadow Hand holding out a notecard to Gutshot.
Grasping it, Gutshot flipped the blank card around four times in confusion. “What does this have to do with my dad?”
“I’ve just been thinking a lot more about your Anomaly, and I think this has some potential.”
“I thought you wanted to drop this subject?” Claire asked, but she seemed equally enthused.
Sami ...
2025-10-01 16:00:16 +0000 UTC
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Apex entered the scene and boomed with a combination of a Sonic Wave and Point of Interest, radiating with golden energy. Five heads turned his way, all wearing the black goggles, but some were grappling with another. Trouble in the ranks of the criminals? Or maybe someone got greedy and tried taking a bigger cut of the loot.
The bank vault hung open, one of the Awakened likely an expert lock picker. It was about the size of an elementary classroom with several of the lockb...
2025-09-30 16:00:22 +0000 UTC
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Present Day
Lips firm, Pinn walked through southern Indus with his head down. Shame ran warm down his spine as the decrepit smells of the district washed over him. Once a bustling part of the city, now it was a miracle anyone stayed around. Tough to separate a man from his home, even after a tragedy like the Silent Scream. So some remained, holding on to what life they could find.
South Indus area was the worst part of all of Hammerton. Broken and empty. What...
2025-09-29 16:52:46 +0000 UTC
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Before the Silent Scream Pinn sat casually at a cafe across the street of an empty diner for sale. Chewing his lip slowly, he scanned the st
Before the Silent Scream
Pinn sat casually at a cafe across the street of an empty diner for sale. Chewing his lip slowly, he scanned the streets through sunglasses, watching closely for the mysterious bot creator. He was a block away from the intersection of Westin and Main, but had a perfect view of the area from his seat outside. ...
2025-09-26 16:00:15 +0000 UTC
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Hannah locked eyes with Dawson’s immobile head. Breathing erratically, she looked up to her opponents, eyes burning with rage. Blue energy d
Hannah locked eyes with Dawson’s immobile head. Breathing erratically, she looked up to her opponents, eyes burning with rage. Blue energy danced in sparks at her fingers, approaching an explosion.
“Are you out of your mind!?” She was shaking now, ready to fight everyone in the room, no matter the odds. “He was just a kid!”&...
2025-09-25 16:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Hannah pinched the bridge of her nose as she glanced between the two standing before her. Magnus levitated a handkerchief atop his hand and the newcomer spoke to his phone like he was on a video call. Apparently, he had thousands of viewers on the other end of the line, but Hannah wasn’t familiar with exactly how it worked.
“You know I asked for Apex, right? I wasn’t just asking for backup, I wanted a specific person to help out in Indus,” Hannah spoke into her phone. ...
2025-09-24 16:00:15 +0000 UTC
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(Who Are You People?)
__________
Approaching a pair of younger HUE members chatting, they stood up straighter when Sami walked up to them. The girl on the left, Beth, half raised her hand like she was going to salute him, then lowered it in awkward hesitation. Sami was pretty certain they should have already been comfortable and on a first name basis after their deployment toget...
2025-09-23 16:00:15 +0000 UTC
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Striding into HUE, Sami could feel a strange energy coming from Darius and Lilly, who were murmuring to one another conspiratorially. Interested, Sami made his way over, placing Darius’s coffee on the counter. He grabbed it on the way back from deployment, hoping to feel just the slightest bit less useless about his outing.
The extra time allowed his Shadow Hand to reform before he returned to HUE. Sami timed it to be about an hour from loss to reformation. To his delight...
2025-09-22 16:00:19 +0000 UTC
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(I Am Steve)
__________
Eyes racing, Steve collected the number of approaching enemies. Three incoming, all looking stunned by his sudden explosion of power. That was good. Last time, the black goggled monsters got the drop on him because he hesitated. This time he was ready before they were.
One was a massive man, towering over the other two and standing in front of them defensiv...
2025-09-19 16:00:22 +0000 UTC
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“I’m not going in blind on any missions if I can help it. What are we doing this time?” Sami asked Steve through the window in the truck.
“It’s a parking dispute. We need to sort out something about some cars in a car park.”
“Great, more jobs on the street,” Sami said sarcastically, slouching back into the truck bed.
“Kinda hard to avoid cars when this whole city is just one street,” Claire said, presenting the pavement to him...
2025-09-18 16:00:15 +0000 UTC
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