Hello, hello! Here's chapter 3 of Convergent Fates, coming right atcha! Hm, now that I think about it, is "atcha" a word? Nevermind. I really don't have that many announcements to make this time around, except for one little thing. I'm relatively new to this, so if you have any suggestions, critiques or comments, please post them in a review and I'll do my best to oblige. Oh, before I start, one last thing. I'll be needing some OCs soon from you guys. I could just make them up myself, but where's the fun in that? Plus with your ideas this story will also have more creative variety, which of course makes this all the more fun for me to write and all the more entertaining for you to read! Well, I've said my piece. Without further ado, like read and review!

Convergent Fates, Chapter 3: Potential

Tony's POV

"Two California rolls, three volcano rolls, four spicy dragon rolls, a large bento box, and a sashimi dish. Make it rain out there, Maddie." I said to my co-worker with a wink, handing her the large platter of Japanese cuisine. Chefs and waiters bustled around the kitchen like a beehive. The noise was deafening, but definitely not unbearable. After all, I came here three days a week. I was used to this.

"Gotcha. Here's the next order list, work your magic." She remarked, sticking a post-it-note to my apron. Messy but legible handwriting was scrawled over it. I gave her a thumbs-up and rushed to the table to begin.

"Let's get this party started." My mind seemed to activate a state of autopilot whenever I cooked. I glanced at the note for a fraction of a second, then grabbed everything I needed. Against my better judgement telling me to pay attention, I thought about what Jay was doing right now. If he'd watched JoJo continuously like I predicted he would, he should be near the end of act one right now. His attention span wasn't that long though, so it didn't seem likely. I looked down at the now-finished sushi orders, and carried them out to the serving table for the waiters to dish out to customers.

"Hey Torrey!" I heard over by the chopping block. It was Aiden, whose shift began in about 30 minutes. We all labeled him as a mind-reader, because he had an incredible sixth sense, and he seemed to know exactly what was going on.

"I had a feeling I should come early. I'll finish your shift for you if want."

"Wow, thanks Aiden! I really appreciate it!"

"Don't worry about it. You looked like you had something important to take care of anyway. It's your roommate, right? Is he sick or something?" He asked.

"Wow, you picked that up fast, even for you. Yeah, I guess you could say that. I'm worried, I'm not sure if he'll make it through this."

"Don't worry," he smiled, "I'm sure he will. I have a good feeling about it." That was reassuring.

"Nice. Well, see you later I guess." With that, I walked out the back door and hurried to my car, an old gray Subaru. As I pulled out of the back of the store, I decided I'd listen to the radio.

"This is 103.7, coming at you live and bringing you the latest news on what's going on in the area! A dead body was found just a couple hours ago in an alleyway by Nails Street." I was just about to change the channel to some music when I froze. Jay and I lived on Nails Street.

"It's not a sight for the faint-of-heart, as blood was splattered all over the place, suggesting he fell from the rooftop above. There were no rooftop cameras on the building, but cameras from a building a few hundred yards away caught a blurry video of three figures attacking each other. Speculations state that one of these men threw the other man off the rooftop, but the camera was too far away to get any specific details. Regardless, the picture of the dead man, as well as the video of the fight have been posted on our website, so if anyone knows who this man is, contact us at -" I turned off the radio. Even if there really was a murder near our condo, it wasn't like I had anything to do with it. I had nothing to worry about. Despite that, I still felt a worrying suspicion about Jay after hearing that. I floored the gas and headed home.

Jay's POV

I was relieved to find that there were not very many pedestrians as I walked home, lost in thought. Seems like everyone knew better than to stay out at night in a big city. Nevertheless, I'd cringe in fear whenever I saw someone out, hoping they'd avoid glancing at the shady hooded guy with the bloody wound and the tail. After what had just happened, I couldn't think straight. My mind swam in a pool of guilt, pain and confusion. Who could blame me, I had just killed a man. I let that go through my head a few times over. I had punched a man off a 11-story building. I made him scream as he fell through the air. I looked down as he splattered in a large red stain on the pavement. I couldn't take it back. Everything from the bottom of the fire escape on the building was a blur to me. After a while though, I realized there wasn't any point. Yeah, that's right! Thinking about this wasn't going to accomplish anything! I'd done something horrible, that much was true. But I'd only make myself feel even worse if this kept up, so I might as well think about something else to take my mind off of it, and focus on something I can change for the better. I looked up from the ground and was surprised to find I was already in front of the door to my apartment. Weird, I swore I hadn't been walking that long, only a couple minutes. Ignoring the awkward timelapse, I entered my door. Everything was how I liked it which pleasantly surprised me, although I don't know what I expected.

I collapsed on the couch ready to take a long nap but winced in pain as I quickly remembered the knife wound I'd sustained earlier. I carefully took of my shirt and hoodie. The damage was worse than I thought. There was blood caked up as a huge scab, while more blood suddenly dribbled down my side, probably from the sudden removal of my upper garments. I quickly yanked a fist of toilet paper from the roll on the wall and pressed it on the wound, watching as it quickly turned blood red. After grabbing bandages and other medical supplies, the blood got a lot less messy and I slowly felt the pain fade away. The tight squeezing of the bandages felt awkward, yet soothing. I thought of Tony and started to feel uneasy. He told me to stay in and I completely ignored him, and look where that got me. I had no doubt that he'd be mad at me, but how would he react to the wound I'd sustained? If I knew Tony he'd definitely overreact somehow. Then again, I'd been stabbed. "Overreact" wasn't exactly a word I could use here. I began to feel a pulling sensation in my head. I realized I'd been feeling this all day, but it was only now that I could feel something noticeably… different. Don't get me wrong, it didn't feel bad at all. It felt pretty good, actually. I noticed I was getting distracted, so walked out the bathroom, only to freeze in shock. One of the chairs by the table, along with a few cups, were floating in the air for no apparent reason.

I stumbled back in a mix of confusion and terror. The chair immediately stopped levitating, clattering onto the floor with the cups, in which two of them broke into pieces. For a second I stood there, wondering what had just occurred in front of me and what had just occurred. What caused that? Did it have anything to do with the time the other chair was split into pieces? It couldn't be. Then again, with what had been happening, I suppose anything was possible. I gingerly scraped up the pieces of shattered cups and threw them away. As I set the chair back, a sudden realization came to me: what if I was doing all these things subconsciously? It was a stretch, but I decided to test my theory. If this worked, I could make my life as a giant lizard so much easier. I steadied my breathing, beginning to feel the familiar pull I'd been feeling since the morning get slightly more intense.

"Alright," I said to myself, "here goes nothing."

Tony's POV

I pulled into the parking garage. As I walked towards the elevator leading to our condo's hallway, I heard a voice from behind me, maybe twenty or thirty feet away.

"Hey."

I began to turn around, but I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't turn around."

"Um, okay, who are you and what do you want?" I asked, confused.

"That's not important. As for what I want, see… it's about your friend." My eyes widened at that.

"Before you ask, yeah, I know about his little problem. How do you think it happened in the first place? Now, I'm gonna keep this short and simple, aight? I'm in a bad mood today so I don't want to put up with any bullshit. The thing is, me and some guys are gonna be coming over soon. You're the only one from here who knows about him, and that makes you a problem. Now all I want you to do is one simple thing. Think you can handle it?" His voice was sort of hoarse and deep… sort of like Jay's new voice, but older. Either way, he was serious, but I wasn't going to take his shit either.

"Depends on what it is, man. Now are you gonna say what you wanted me to do or are you really only here to waste my time?" I smirked, but I also expected to be punched across the head or something. However, his reaction was surprising.

"Hehehehe. I like that attitude, reminds my of a friend of mine. Anyway, all I need you to do for me is stay out of the way when we come to do our… business. Don't contact anyone about this. As much as I don't want to, I will kill you." I looked over at the car nearest to me and could see a blurry reflection of the man behind me. He was wearing a grey hoodie and blue jeans from what I could tell. It was to blurry to see his skin, but I thought I could make out… a tail. Could this guy be another dragon person?! I looked again, but it wasn't there this time. Maybe I was just imagining things, but I wasn't sure...

"All right man, I won't. Just please let me go." I said, bored of this situation.

"Fine. But I find you've fucked up-and I will find out-then…" he seemed to trail off. As I was about to ask him what he would say next, I felt like a burst of lightning had just coursed through my shoulder.

"Aaaah!" I yelled in surprise, reflexively turning around to face the man, but he'd disappeared. I looked down at my shoulder and watched as new small greenish crystals on my shirt seemed to dissipate into thin air…

I put the lock in the door and entered the condo.

"Jay? What's going on?" I called.

"Tony, you're back! So much shit happened while you were gone and I'm sorry but I had to go out and there were two guys and-"

"Woah woah, calm down. You went out? Why?! I told you to stay in!"

"Yeah, but I had the worst stomach ache, and a medicine container appeared on the windowsill which said I needed to eat something with it or I'd die. There wasn't any food in here so I had to go out and buy a hotdog from the hotdog vendor outside. I went to do it but time stopped so I just grabbed one from his hand, but then time started again and he noticed and his bodyguard friend and him ran after me! And then I went to the roof and… um…" Jay seemed to stumble on his words a bit at that point.

"Okay. I have so many questions right now, but first, What happened?"

"I… I outran them. They lost me. But, um, one of them threw a knife at me and it got in my side. I bandaged it." I had a feeling he was leaving something out, but I'd ask him later. He seemed pretty shook up about

"You got fucking STABBED?! Let me see, I work in a kitchen so I know how to deal with this." I said proudly.

"Until a few days ago I worked in a kitchen too, you know."

"Shut up. Lemme see." I gingerly unwrapped his bandages and checked the damage. There was a noticeable scar but it looked like the cut had been made days ago.

"B-but that's impossible, it was huge and spurting blood everywhere a couple hours ago!" He shouted.

"Hmm. Lizards are better at healing, right?" I said sarcastically.

"Ohh. Huh, that sort of makes sense. Anyway, after that I walked home and that's when the chair started floating."

"Wait. What? Now you're just fucking with me."

"Nonononononono! I'm serious! It floated, and then I had a hunch that I might've been doing that. I tested it out, and it was amazing. Watch this." Jay suddenly intensely focused on an eraser on the nearby table. For a moment nothing happened. Then, slowly but surely, the eraser began to levitate in the air. It went about two feet before falling on the floor. I stepped back.

"Jay, this is… this is incredible. First you're a lizard, and now you have telekinesis… you're gonna be a superhero or something, do you realize that?!"

"Oh hell no. I'm definitely not going public with this. Besides, right now I can barely lift a pound. People won't pay to see floating office supplies."

"Yeah, good point." I said. I still couldn't shake the thought of that guy from before. Those crystals on my shoulder had freaked me out before they evaporated. Who knows what else that man could do.

"You seem upset. What happened?" Jay asked.

"It's… it's nothing. Don't worry about it." I sighed and looked out the window. As the last rays of sunlight illuminated the buildings, I could see a figure standing on the roof of a building across the street. A figure wearing a grey hoodie and blue jeans, with a tail sticking out the back of his pants. My eyes widened, but before I could react, he'd walked away.

Dalia's POV

Packing up my things after working a shift at Sushi-Yama's was my favorite part of the day. I got my lipstick, phone, a few spare boxes, and other accessories. Before I left though, I noticed I'd left Tony Warren's paycheck on the table. Tony was probably the best cook here, and he was definitely getting a promotion. I should know, I'm the boss of the store. I decided I'd put my employee's check in my purse until he came tomorrow. As I walked towards my car, I thought about Nathan. Ever since he'd been hacking and coughing this morning I'd been worried so. He sure wasn't faking it, Nathan was too well-behaved for that. My only complaint was that he spent all day on that laptop of his. It just wasn't healthy for him. I hoped he'd get over that sickness soon, he'd already missed a whole day of high school.

Aaaaand that's that! Chapter 3, folks. Sorry about the delay, balancing art, stories and gaming is harder than you'd think. I've been thinking about making illustrations for parts of the story. Tell me what you think! Was this a bit too cliche? I'd like to know. In other news, I've switched the alias "JackalRaptor" to my gamertag. I'll be going by Xyveon from here on out. Well, this is Xyveon signing off for now! Ciao!