Frame 1.1

A dark alley was not a good place to sleep. It was cold and dark, there was a chance you would wake up without your stuff or just not wake up at all. But when Leviathan showed up and the docks closed, James Coleman had been one of the first laid off. So, an alley was where he slept now, sure he had thought about joining one of the gangs but he wasn't white or Asian so that canceled out 2/3rd's of them. The Merchants were an option but his father had been mugged and left to die by the Merchants so that was out. So, he spent his days begging for change, avoiding cape fights, and sleeping in a box like he was now.

In a world with parahumans when you heard a loud sizzling noise followed by a bang, you either ran like hell or curled up in a ball and hoped not to die. Since the sound was coming from the mouth of the alley James curled up and hoped to be ignored. The silence that followed was nerve wracking and eventually, James uncurled and peeked out of his box. About ten feet from the end of the alley was a humanoid shape laying on the ground, glancing around in case there was anyone else around James crawled out of his box and scurried over to the downed figure.

Now close to the figure, he could see it was a man, maybe a bit above six foot and dark haired. It was dark in the alley due to both the tall building and the late hour so he couldn't pick out much detail on the man but James could tell he was wearing nice clothes and was white so maybe the unconscious man was an E88 member and had pissed off a cape. But where was the cape? Taking a more thorough look around the alley revealed nothing special about it, no damage to the walls and no other people in the alley or on the rooftops.

Going back over to the man he used his ragged shoe to poke him in the side but all that got him was a low groan. Kneeling he shook the man trying to wake him, the man's eyes suddenly snapped open and he rolled to the side attempting to spring into a crouch but failing that and stumbling onto his ass against the side of the alley. The man (pretty much boy now that he focused on him, he couldn't be more than 20) threw a punch but was short by about a foot. And that's when James' head flew one way and his body flew the other.

-POV Change (Kevin Wright)-

I was a rather normal if very smart young man if I said so myself, from a normal household of a mother, father, and older sister.

In my 18 years of life, I had done normal things and had normal experiences. When I had decided what to do for a carrier and I had decided that I wanted to help people so I decided to be a surgeon and help fix people. I had spent the summer reading dozens of biology books and trying to figure out what my specialty should be.

Getting into HMS was a trial but I had been accepted and as I folded the letter back up and set it on my desk, I thought about how my life would be from now on. I laid down on my bed and stared at the ceiling until I felt my eyes close, and my mind expanded.

They were living entities, lifeforms.

There wasn't anything I could relate to any biology I knew or understood, nothing even remotely recognizable, but they were undoubtedly alive.

They were enigmas of organs that were also limbs and the exteriors of the creatures, each simultaneously some aspect of the entity as it flowed through empty space. It didn't help that the things were the size of small planets, and the scope of my perceptions was so small. It helped even less that parts of them seemed to move in and out of the other dimensions or realities where the mirror images were.

The pair moved coordinated, spiraling around one another in what I realized was a double helix. Each revolution brought them further and further apart. Innumerable motes drifted from their bodies as they moved, leaving thick trails of shed tissues or energies painting the void of empty space in the wake of their spiraling dance, as though they were made of a vast quantity of sand and they were flying against a gale force headwind.

When they were too far away to see one another, they communicated, and each message was enormous and violent in scope, expressed with the energy of a star going supernova.

One 'word', one idea, for each message.

Destination. Agreement. Trajectory. Agreement.

They would meet again at the same place. At a set time, they would cease to expand their revolution and contract once again, until they drew together to arrive at their meeting place.

…and I woke to a man leaning over me.

Now I was a rather sheltered young man, I had grown up middle class, been in exactly one fight, and had never really seen a homeless man up close. So, when I woke up to a scruffy older man leaning over me in a dark alley when a second ago I had been asleep in my bed, I could be given forgiven for freaking the hell out.

Throwing my body over and attempting to stand up, but failing miserably I drew up my inner tiger and threw a punch, completely missing the man in front of me.

My vision pulsed and gained an odd tint to it, and then my 'attackers' head flew off.