I toyed idly with my mechanical pencil as the teacher finally finished the lesson. Oh thank the lord, between doing all the homework, working on my job as a mechanic (something I actually liked), singing, dancing, and playing chess (another enjoyable hobby), I had always liked to keep ahead of my lessons. Well ever since I had gotten out of that godforsaken prison that was in Seattle. I gripped the strap on my bad and pulled out a small box with a lid. I stared at the pills that I was supposed to eat.

I hated them and refused to eat them I always dumped one pill into the toilet, things weren't worth eating and stuck in my throat worse than a persistent cough.

So, I was fucking depressed, thanks for the obvious doc.

I'd like to see who wasn't after what I had to go through.

After my incarceration, all of the idiots (better known as the general public) demanded that that wrongly imprisoned were given shrink therapy, and just my luck I got the most over-worried doctor who had graced the face of the planet. I glanced up at the teacher who was glancing at me out of the corner of my eye. The staff had been informed of my depression, not of my other 'problem'.

Thank god for small mercies, last thing I needed was too be feared or revered.

I shoved the box into the bag and stalked out of the classroom as soon as the lesson ended. Maybe if I was lucky, I could get some fast food, lounge about at the shop, and finally get a decent night's rest without the nightmares. I kept my head down and walked quietly as people made their way through the halls. It was an art I had long since perfected ever since the fifth grade, moving and becoming invisible (metaphorically). No one notices you if you stick to the shadows and try not to make a lot of a ruckus such as new clothing trends and crap like that.

Seriously, jeans and t-shirts are always in fashion, who cares if it's a – and I quote – a totally new shade of pink.

Ugh, popular people.

I slid down the railing on the stairs, barely attracting a glance, and moved out the doors.

I took a breath of the rain-scented air and sighed in relief, free at la –

"JAUNE ELIAS ARC!"

Fuck.

Bloody. Buggering. FUCK.

I held no shame in my actions and sprinted like the devil was after me, might as well have been, at least then I could have a legitimate excuse to fight back.

But no, my monster is the school counselor, who is hell-bent on making sure I don't go even deeper into my depression. Not to mention she is my age – which does not help since she doesn't even know why I was incarcerated and what happened to me in there!

I would like to introduce (drumroll please!)…

Pyrrha Nikos.

Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't hate her, quite the opposite I thought she was some sort of reborn saint maybe even the second coming of Monty or Jesus. Hailed as a prodigy in her field, she was given honors and degrees in psychology in a university at the ripe old age of 17 (she was fucking 20 now, by god! Listening to people and their troubles for three years straight would have driven me insane, even before the goddamn arrest and depression). She was kind, patient and always willing to listen, she even went out of her way to seek me out and see if I was doing okay. Many of the boys were jealous, not that I cared, but they were a lot less mad about it once I had made clear to her (publicly) that I didn't want to talk.

Or interact.

Or anything really.

Let me stew in my depression, for god's sakes woman! What part of 'I don't want to drag you down with me' do you not understand? You have been on my case for months!

I had yelled that at her at the last encounter when she wanted to sit with me under the tree that was MY spot. I flipped, sure I felt bad, but I was justified.

I had stormed off after chucking my meager meal at the tree and yelling at her to leave me the fuck alone, I screamed she never would understand, and she could do a hell of a lot more good if she left me alone to die alone or some crap. She tried to interrupt, but I grabbed my bag, my half-finished soda and stormed into the parking lot before I jumped on my motorcycle and left. I had glanced back to see if she would try to follow, but she looked defeated and hurt. I ignored the twinge of regret and sorrow in my chest.

…

Don't give me that look, you would have snapped too, I have the patience of the freaking Buddha, but she was relentless.

Anyway, it wasn't too much of a shock to see a woman – some blonde – appear at my shop later demanding I apologize to her friend.

"Screw you." I answered.

That was the wrong answer to that.

Lord, I nearly died. The blonde was the gym teacher name Yang Xiao Long, fitting name seeing as she was nearly breathing fire as she screamed at me. She had been a terrifying fighter back when she still did the whole fighting gig, and had little to no qualms with beating up a boy or girl for any perceived offense. She threw a punch, but I was no newbie to combat, Curdun Cay had made damn sure of that. Regardless the lady beat me nearly to a pulp and left before I got angry enough to unleash my powers on her. She was more-or-less there to have literally carry me to Nikos so I could apologize.

That was a week ago.

Oh right, I had mentioned powers, well you might as well know, I doubt you could misunderstand.

I am a bio-terrorist…well Conduit actually, the whole bio-terrorist thing was scrapped when the Delsin Rowe guy took out the head bitch Augustine and free the other conduits from Curdun Cay. Many chose to stay in Seattle, but not me. My family refused to turn me in quietly, and my mother and father both died trying to keep the goddamned DUPs from getting me. I was a teenager (barely 13), but I still remember the shots, the screams, rough hands grabbing my arms and legs and dragging me from under the bed – I shook my head.

Not thinking about it.

Back to the present anyway, I doubt Pyrrha would be as nice as before, she even called my full name.

Pissed off women are a bitch to deal with. I would know.

I jumped on my trusty bike, she was a sleek, and black beauty I had found, fixed, and repainted all by myself (hold your applause, it was nothing). My dad was an engineer, and I had inherited his love of machinery. He taught me everything he could and then some, he was a great man. My mom…well she was the purest most beautiful being.

Ever.

I was half-convinced she was an honest-to-god angel.

Anyway, I revved the engine and shot off into the street, swerving and speeding and breaking at a few laws I am sure. As if I cared, no one would have messed with me, not with the powers I possessed. I made it to one of my favorite restaurants, The Aura's Gift.

'God knows what is up with the names of this town' I thought.

Then again I had hardly moved to Vytal City with good names for places in mind, I had just wanted to run and never turn back.

Crazy and as mismatched as the names were, this place was a popular joint. Hot good food, a drink if you were of age, a regular joint where you could lose yourself, if only for a few minutes. One of my personal gold stars was the chessboards in the back. In Curdun Cay, when we weren't honing our skills or powers, we would either weightlift, loiter, or play a few of the recreational games. I chose the last option, hell, strategy was practically my bitch. I would always see if there was a person who wanted to have a quick match, and would win. There were a few times when a fight would break out over a particularly humiliating loss, but The DUPs had us down before you could swear.

I ordered my regular – a small salad with a glass of icy cola – and cracked open my books and began on the homework for the next month, a few hours a day of slaving away at this and in a few days, I would be done for the entire month. My auto shop isn't the most grandiose or famous, but it'll do a damned decent job of repair at a fair price. Although business had been really slow as of late, whatever I managed, the government reparation check allowed me to literally buy the small plot of land that the shop was on the guy who sold it to me was old and gave it to me at a steal.

Hell, I had plenty left over. The old guy probably knew it too.

Died a week later, I attended his funeral and everything, it was the least I could do.

Anyway with this plot of the whole 'Augustine was protecting the conduits' jail plan busted, many of the jails the DUPs had made were releasing conduits back into society. Many were just happy to be back. Some were not. At least once a month, some pissed, little prick conduit would get it into his head that the city would be his, and he would be a king. The idiots were shut down before he could even control a block, one thing the DUPs were still good for. Then the shrinks would work him over and bada-bing bada-boom.

One freshly brainwashed Conduit ready to be a productive member of society, yay.

I walked outside and glared at the sky. It was raining buckets. I used to love the rain, half of me was happy the other half was less-than pleased. I was subjected to hundreds of experiments back in Curdun Cay, none of them pleasant. They shocked me, trying to force me to become an electric man like Cole Mcgrath, the first conduit God. They say he could level a city, fought monsters the size of skyscrapers, and even defeated a demonic conduit called The Beast. He apparently gave his life to cure a disease that was plaguing the human race. It was supposed that all conduits and humans with the conduit gene were killed, but lo and behold, here we are.

In a moment of utter insanity or lucky brilliance (depends on how you look at it), they injected me with rocks.

Fucking rocks, tried to make me like that bitch Augustine.

God knows why, but some guy decided to try pounding a meteor into dust and mixing it in my bloodstream.

Some different properties or some scientific BS I guess.

I swear the rush in that moment was like heroin, or cocaine, or some sort of drug that lit up the world.

I felt like I could lift mountains, break cities like toothpicks, I felt UNSTOPPABLE.

GOD-LIKE.

My powers were suddenly emerging like a storm. I was codenamed Celestial, because it was my source of power. Celestial bodies, the sun and moon, even the stars. It had clicked, after my awakening as a conduit, I felt weaker during rainy, overcast days, and I could barely use my starlight bolts. After some time of soaking in the sun or nighttime basking in the moon, I felt like I could go on a boxing match with the champs and not break a sweat. My body began to mass-produce the meteor substance in my blood stream, hence my quick healing and abilities to fight seemingly endlessly.

But alas, even I had my limits, I can't fight forever and the down side to my power, my charging takes time and is slightly slow, I usually can keep blasting out heavy attacks like a gattling gun but it becomes more strenuous as I keep doing it. All conduits – from neon conduits or smoke conduits, hell it was rumored McGrath wasn't exempt from that limitation – needed sources to charge from. Delsin 'The Smoker' Rowe needed to have some sort of smoke to charge his initial abilities at first as well. Despite my own little celestial energy charged bloodstream, my endurance is limited to what my body can take. If I run out of energy, I am screwed, a little sunbathing/moonbathing can heal me up, but I need to be uninterrupted.

But enough about that, I am going home.

I pulled into the garage of my little auto shop and checked to see if anyone had come by.

Nope. Go figure.

I sighed and dumped my bag under the heat-lights to let it dry out. I pulled my books out of the water proof bag I had placed them in.

What? Rain ruining my textbooks as a kid sucked, so sue me for planning ahead.

I flipped open my computer and began absently typing in the last few finishing touches on my homework. A few typed assignments and a bit of research wasn't hard for me to do. I hit the save for the last few files I had neglected to finish up at the AG (Aura's Gift) and leaned back on my couch. I checked my tools in case there was a late repair and headed into the basement to get a little more polishing in on my powers. My hands lit with radiant sunlight and starlight as I let the power flow through my body and soothe the ever-present irritation simmering under my skin.

"Okay so far, so good." I muttered.

I began to channel my energy into my hand and it sizzled for a second before it began to grow. I looked at the three foot bar of pure energy in my hand.

"Not bad, not bad at all…" I muttered, "But let's see what this puppy can do…"

I tried to restructure the energy into a sword. Delsin Rowe had used neon into a lightsaber or something, and his video powers gave him a freaking broadsword, so I tried applying that concept to the energy flowing out of my hand. The energy wavered and reshaped the edges becoming sharp and very stabby.

"Yippe for me then." I commented as I took a few practice swings.

Lighter than air, force of a super sword?

Sweet.

A few hit targets later and some starstorm movement later and I felt much better, I had discovered that when I don't use my power for long periods of time, I get jittery and fairly aggravated. Working out helped strain some of that excess feeling from me but nonetheless, it was like there was a prickly sensation that I could quite scratch running under my skin. It wasn't healthy for conduits to shut themselves off from their powers, hence me setting up a practice area in my basement.

Ah, weekends. God bless whoever made them.

I was lounging about on my couch in the morning, watching the news while I ate a few strips of bacon. It wasn't anything really substantial, a few new developments on Delsin working on kicking the DUPs out of Seattle, he was making progress, but then again I am not all that surprised. The guy had four major player powers to fight with, any of the cheap knockoff attacks the DUPs could throw were like flies that need swatting. Not to mention the entire DUPs enterprise was under vicious attack from the media and public. Families were separated because of lies, lives were lost, no one was happy about that.

I took a shower and put on my workshop suit, which is just a slightly ragged pair of jeans with a fresh wife-beater out of the wash and set up my toolbox. I wished I could have had a more productive way of using my powers, but the last thing I wanted to do was go gallivanting around like some vigilante, the DUPs weren't too picky on who to shoot; you were a conduit, you were going down. I opened my shop and stayed in my chair, only to wish I had taken a day off.

Pyrrha Nikos.

You would be surprised how goddamned persistent one person could be in getting her way.

"Good morning." She called out cheerfully.

The audible *crack* as my head slammed into my desk was the only response I deigned to give this woman.

Unruffled, she walked forward and sat down at the opposite side of my desk, staring at me intently.

Goddammit, I have to talk don't I?

"Why – in the name of all that is holy – are you here, Nikos?"

"Just here to see how you wer –"

"Good you're not here on something you need fixed, that means I can afford to be rude. Get out." I growled and motioned towards the door.

She frowned, and a spark of angry determination lit in her eyes, "I don't see why you're being such a child about this."

I sat up straight and glared at her, "You look here, Nikos" I spat, "I don't need your help, and even if I did need help, I wouldn't go to you if you were the only other person on the planet. As for the why, that is none of your business."

She blinked, the spark in her eyes dimmed.

'Okay,' I thought, 'time to drive it home.'

"You think I am a bad actor, Nikos? I could have played you like a fiddle and left with you being none the wiser. Hell, if I had known that you were going to be such an impossible and annoying bitch about this I would have acted as if I were okay."

I had barely finished and a hand whipped across my face.

Kinda shocking but it didn't even sting, so whatever.

Pyrrha stood up eyes flashing with anger, "Where do you get off calling me an impossible bitch? If anything, you are the one being impossible! I am trying to offer you some help, anything to make you feel happy, and you throw it right back in my face you, you –"

"Prick?" I offered mildly, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

She gulped and flushed but nodded mutely, embarrassment and anger warring to be the dominant expression on her face.

"Wouldn't that be my choice? But on a more amusing note, I didn't know a catholic schoolgirl like you had it in you! You actually hit me, wow, I am shocked! I may just starting whipping out my heartfelt feelings and secrets!" I laughed sardonically.

"Shut up!"

I smirked, but continued, "You have been hounding me to talk to you for at least the better - or in my opinion worse – part of a year. You would've thought that a genius like yourself would have known when to cut your losses and just quit."

Pyrrha would have turned up her nose if she were that arrogant, "I don't quit, and frankly I don't think anyone is incapable of help."

I opened my mouth to respond when a shrill alarm sounded out from a speaker box in every building.

A recorded voice began to blare, "Please stay inside your homes, a conduit has been attacking people and the DUP have been sounded to dispatch and capture the Conduit."

I bit back a growl, those idiot DUPs were always more trigger happy nowadays, and with a conduit attacking the city, they would be painted in a good light no matter if they killed the poor bastard. The more this happened, the more the DUPs would still rise in the social class, might even get back what they lost. And then we might have someone who will definitely hate the Conduits and try to eliminate them, or something along those lines.

History will – invariably – repeat itself sooner or later.

I hate having the ability to see a strategy several steps down.

I knew stepping in would be the best bet, and as much as I didn't want to admit it, I cared what happened in this city.

I changed out of my 'working' clothes and changed into my jeans and a white shirt before I picked up a leather jacket with an eclipsed moon on the back (it was cliché but whatever) and finally tucking that under my arm. Pyrrha had seen fit to stay here and was closing down the doors. I snorted (the simple act would only hold back a person who just barely figured out how to be a conduit, it would barely slow a real conduit) and made my way out my front door as the gates closed only to have Pyrrha yank me back inside.

"Where the hell are you going?" she hissed.

"The thought of having to spend any amount of time with longer than I absolutely have to is torture enough. I am leaving." I said calmly, smirking.

She ignored the insult, "And what about the conduit?"

I threw up my hands, "What about the conduit? I die, I die. Besides it's not like he is actively looking for me."

Pyrrha opened her mouth but I beat her to it, "You stop pestering me right now and I'll agree to you sitting with me during lunch. Once."

She blinked and stood silent for a moment, her emerald eyes locked with mine. She pursed her lips and nodded.

"Be safe."

I rolled my eyes, "As if I need you to tell me that Nikos."

I walked briskly down the road and around the corner, I yanked the jacket on and pulled on the hood so no one could make out my features (hopefully).

I dissolved into a starstorm and raced over to the plume of smoke in the distance, I had a feeling this would be a big deal.