It was mid-morning, and I was working on some complicated timings on my drums when an incoming call alert appeared on my HUD. A little indicator showed that it was Taylor calling, a little unnecessary given the number of people that could call me via the system.

Aria had popped up a little note that told me that no one was in hearing distance and that I could speak freely so I answered immediately, "Good Morning Taylor. How are you?"

"Good Sparky. Good." Taylor's said though the half sob and broken chuckle contradicted her words.

"Ahh.. Taylor. Are you really okay?" I was imagining some sort of hostage scenario where was being forced to lie to me though I shook the thought away. Aria would have been on top of that.

"Yeah. I really am. I told dad everything… Well not everything but a lot. I didn't tell him about you being Quartermaster or your powers."

I could hear sniffling over the phone.

"Okay."

"Sorry, happy but been crying a lot too."

I nodded to myself, I had seen similar emotional outbreaks from my mum and my sister. Usually ended up with my getting smothered in uncomfortable hugs and I was okay with being able to handle this over the comm system. My first thoughts went to the mission tonight.

"Right, what do you need? Do we need to change our plans?"

"No. Dads concerned about our plan, but he is all for the rescue and supportive of me being a hero. He wants to call a few friends in to help but I told him that I had a contact that knew Coil had spies in the police and I needed to run everything past my allies. Would you be okay meeting him as Quartermaster?"

My thoughts started racing. Now I was starting to think about Taylor telling her father that she was a superhero. Did he know that she was spending time with me at school? I mean he knew about the bullying and the suspensions. Would he approach my family and tell them, or would he just assume they already knew?

"Sparky?" Taylor called my name softly.

"Ehh. Oh sorry. Thinking." I said still thinking things over.

Taylor spoke again, "How about you give me a call back a bit later and let me know?"

I nodded then realized she couldn't see me, "Sure. Hey, I'm glad to hear he is being supportive and more help sounds great. Just got to work out if we need to change anything. Give me a few minutes."

I could hear the smile in Taylor's voice, "It's fine. Sorry to spring this on you but this will make things easier. Talk soon."

She cut the connection and I stared blankly at my drums for a moment.

'Aria, is there anything we can do to make it less likely that my family will discover that I am a parahuman?'

'I am sorry Robert, but I don't believe that is an option anymore. Your parents are already sure that you are a parahuman.'

This time my thoughts just ground to a halt. What?

After what seemed like ages where one thought would start, then stutter then be pushed aside by another that would suffer the same stuttering fate I finally managed to get out, "How?"

As Aria started to answer I was already wondering if Taylor's father had already called them, 'I believe it was your changed behavior. They started doing some online research on Tuesday. Wednesday had them visit the library and then later purchase a few books. Thursday, they posted a few questions to online forums, support groups and accessed a number of other online resources.'

"Online? Oh no." I could feel my face go pale as the blood left it. I barely noticed that I had forgotten to subvocalize my words.

'I have ensured that there is no trail or personal information linked to any of their enquiries. I have also modified the library and bookshop records to prevent anyone connecting loans or purchases of related books to your family. Names in logs and emails have also been modified to point to accounts that I now monitor, adjust and forward using the model we set up for your father. There is very low probability that some of those logs could have been downloaded to physically disconnected storage or printed prior to my recent upgrades but the probability that they could be used to connect the enquires to your family or yourself before I was aware of an investigation is even smaller.'

I exhaled loudly as I let out the breath I hadn't realized I had been holding, 'Oh.. thank you, Aria. That's good.'

I closed my eyes and went through some of the breathing exercises that Doctor Russell had taught me.

'Robert, do you want additional details of the research your parents have done?'

'Not…' I cut myself off and lifted a hand as my vision doubled and for a moment, I thought I was falling.

I was in the air flying forward towards a floating island with a tower on it. There was a moment I thought I was just recalling a music video by Gorillaz I had seen some time ago, but it was no windmill on this island. This tower was dark and menacing and really belonged in a gothic horror movie.

As the vision of the island approached and grew larger I started to grasp the scale. The tower was as big as an office building. It was soon overtaking the side wall of my bedroom and I could feel that it was preparing to materialize in the real world, floating above my house.

"oh no…" I uttered in stunned horror.

This was so much worse than anything else I could imagine.

"stop…" I whispered as I winced. There was a tiny stutter in the movement vision, and I instantly recalled my previous and partially success efforts to slow down the progression of my powers.

"Stop!" I commanded much louder and I threw my entire will at stopping this. This was for my family's safety. This had to stop right now. I felt as much as saw the vision judder to a brief halt. That was new.

'Sparky?' Aria asked but I ignored her as I pushed back against the vision.

It was stuttering now, pushing a little and then pausing. It almost seemed uncertain and tentative, confused. Not aggressively fighting me but exploratively reaching out to work out why it wasn't able to progress.

I couldn't seem to push it back, but I could prevent it progressing. And the longer I held it the less it pushed and prodded. Then I felt it lock into place and I relaxed. I had prevented it from appearing though I knew that with a moment's thought, or possibly careless inattention, I could call it into being.

I took note of my surrounds and realized I could no longer see my room. It was like the tower island and I were floating in space or rather something that seemed at first to be like space but felt much too comfortable to be any sort of cold vacuum. Looking away from the massive gothic tower I saw constellations of glowing points that almost looked like but were not stars. Most were dim but a scattering glowed brightly. All the lights were close and at the same time so far away. Small yet large. There was something very strange about size, scale and distance in this place. I choose one of the brighter distant points at random to examine in detail and discovered that it was close enough that I could reach out and touch it. Which to my surprise is exactly what I had just done.

As my finger brusher the glowing point of light I knew it was 'Super Max' from 'The City of Adventure'. I recalled the power that I considered my architect power and felt my comprehension of it expand. It was the ability to seamlessly integrate various materials into architecture and whilst before I could pull on the power to gain a benefit, now I knew how to apply it with ease and had a much better feel for its strengths and limitations.

I paid scant attention to the other points of light that made up its constellation as they were all dim. Instead, I eagerly looked around for another bright one. There were thousands of the dim points but only a mere twenty-eight were lit and these I knew were mine. A few of those that were lit shared a constellation, but the majority were the single lit point amongst twenty to seventy unlit points.

I reached out to a pair of lit points. The lesser of the two coming to me first and as I touched the point knowledge of 'Thread Magic' from 'Fairy Tail' expanded in my mind. The experimentation I had done with this power had only just touched on the simplest part. Now I had a path to learning and developing this until I could do anything with thread that I could imagine. Swinging through the sky like spiderman, creating webs to catch villains and summoning golems made of thread were just a few of the things I now knew this power was capable of. There was a lot of practice in my future.

I had finally found my manual. Then as soon as I realized I also knew my time in this place, this 'Celestial Forge' was coming to an end and sparing only a moment to decide to postpone thinking about that name, I let Thread Magic and its partner retreat away as, I hastily reached out to touch another one more of the glowing points.

I had only a moment to brush 'C Cube' from 'Artemis Fowl' before I was back in my room. But that brief touch had been enough to know that Aria's last upgrade was all of what she had said it was and more. Providing unlimited storage and being able to connect to, hack and control any computer system, it really was the be all and end all of computer technology. It seemed to be incapable of being second best and I had a sudden image of the Borg Cube from Star Trek assimilating new technologies to become stronger and better.

I sat staring at the wall overwhelmed by it all.

'Robert, are you okay?'

Aria spoke and I blinked and tried to bring my thoughts under control. I was having a lot of trouble focusing on anything.

My mind was skittering between thoughts of Taylor telling her father, my parents already knowing I was a parahuman, almost having a floating island appear above my house now knowing that there were thousands more powers just waiting for me. It was all a bit too much.

'Not really Aria. I have no idea what I am supposed to do.' I put my head in my hands almost poking myself in the eye with a drumstick. I half chuckled at that and returned my sticks to their stand.

'What do you want to do?' Aria asked gently.

'I don't know. I mean… well, I really don't know. Lots of things I guess but what should I do?'

Aria brought up my short list of goals and I stared at them for a moment before nodding.

'Thanks Aria. That helps.'

I opened the notes attached to the third goal, 'understand my powers' and corrected the titles for Thread Magic, Super-Max, and C Cube. Then I changed the title from Power List to Celestial Forge Powers.

I then corrected and updated the summary of powers for each of those three powers. I took my time doing that but eventually I found I had nothing else to add so I closed the document and stared at the other two goals.

It felt like a long before I finally spoke as I stood up.

'Aria, please let Taylor know that I will need to call her a bit later. I am going to talk to my family about being a parahuman. Let her know that to.'

I repeated my breathing exercises before leaving my bedroom.

Mum was reading a journal in the lounge room. It was something to do with geophysics but I didn't recognize it. I glanced at the large bookcase behind her that was packed full of science journals and briefly wondered what I could learn from reading those.

"Mum. Can I talk to you and dad?"

She raised her eyebrows and gave me a warm smile as she nodded and got up, "Sure Robert. Take a seat I'll get him."

I sat down on my armchair and tucked my legs up in the same pose I used when watching movies.

Mum returned with dad shortly after. I spotted a few leaves and a tiny twig in his hair which, alongside his choice of clothing, told me he'd probably been outside working on the garden.

"Robert." Dad greeted me as he grabbed the piano chair and pulled it over and sat down so he'd be facing me. Mum returned to her normal chair which put her at right angles to me.

"Yeah so. I guess you already know so no point in me trying to keep it a secret anymore. I got powers last Saturday and now I'm kind of like a parahuman."

I gave them a hesitant smile.

Dad and mom shared a glance and smiled at me.

"I very impressed that you are telling us this though unsure why you think we already knew." Dad stated.

"Well, I only just found out. So, this is Aria." I subvocalized a request to have Aria appear and she appeared as a small obvious holographic doll sized avatar on the coffee table. "She is an extremely intelligent artificial intelligence that is part of my power and has been protecting our digital identity. She's been making sure all your queries regarding parahumans has been unable to be traced back to us. Something I only just discovered."

My parents were both staring at the small representation of Aria.

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Henke. I am very pleased to meet you and I want to assure you that my main purpose is the wellbeing of your son and by extension that includes the two of you and your daughter." As Aria said the last, she turned to look to the right and I followed her eyeline to see my sister standing at the door.

She barely paused before striding into the room and and turning to me, "Oh good. Let's start the show and tell for your power."

Mum and dad gave her startled looks.

My sister rolled her eyes at mum and dad, "Oh, come on. It was so obvious, and you did a terrible job of hiding those books and pamphlets on capes."

I put my head in my hands.

The questions soon started.

I got through about fifteen minutes of how I triggered and the first few powers I had gained before I realized just how hard it was going to be to discuss anything more without mentioning Taylor. So, I asked for a break, and told them I needed a glass of water. Mum offered to make me a milkshake which I readily agreed to.

Using sub vocals I asked Aria to ask her what her thoughts were on us sharing each other's parahuman status with our parents.

Her reply in the positive, the subsequent additional reveals to our parents, and the follow-up questions and answers culminated in Mr. Hebert and Taylor coming over for Lunch.