Chapter Three

Timedate: Present Day, Present Time

The next day, the sun had already risen well up into the sky, and very few streams of cloud could be in bare naked sight. Kamala laid back with her feet up on the soft yellow pillows and the light-grey corner sofa, reading through the pages in the latest issue of Marvel Science Stories, specifically the article on The Unstoppable Geniuses of Ant-Man & Wasp. She was seemingly alone in the vast room in a rather high floor within a tall building, with one corner comprising of a fairly normal kitchen, table, fridge, and wardrobe, while the other corner was completely comprised of full wide windows that gave a vast, clear, and sweeping view of the city and ocean.

"Kamala, breakfast is served!" Razia called, causing Kamala to look over and see her cousin standing next to the table, dressed in the same shirt and jeans she wore yesterday and with a white plastic spatula in hand. "Okaaay. Maybe I went overboard, but I promised Aunt Muneeba you wouldn't just eat junk food all weekend".

"This is the brunch of my dreams, Razia baji", Kamala replied. "I'm giving myself an open invite to visit you... often". Closing the magazine, Kamala hopped up from the sofa and skipped on her way over to the table. "So how did you and Enola sleep well last night?"

"Well..." Razia started blushing a bit as soon as she was asked that. "...We certainly slept allright".

"Sure you have", Kamala teased with a certain look in her eyes.

Once she approached the table, Kamal was able to closely observe the range of food that Razia had set forth for their breakfast. A block of cheese, ringed doughnuts, a few metallic cups filled with fruit-flavoured drinks, crumpets, fairy cakes, muffins of both English and American variety, and of course a whole bowl of fruits.

"Amazing!" Kamala spoke in astonishment.

"The food or my science magazine?" Razia questioned with a light chuckle as she set aside the spatula and took a seat by the table.

"Both really", Kamala answered before she too sat down, placed the magazine on the table, and helped herself to one of the four drinks.

"Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are a genius couple", Razia brought up while stirring her cup of coffee, easily smelling the warm bittersweet vapours.

"And an avenging power couple who can totally kick butt together too", Kamala added before swigging her drink through its straw.

"Their quantum entanglement work could have huge implications for my Polchinski experiments", Razia explained before she too took a sip of her own beverage.

"Wait, whaaa?" Kamala tilted her head to the side. "You're doing secret experiments with the jam doughnuts we had yesterday? Because test-tasting doughnuts in other dimensions would be honestly be my kind of science".

"Hunh? Doughnuts?" Razia said in confusion before realising how Kamala misheard what she said and correcting her. "Oh! Ha! No, not paczkis, Polchinski. Enola and I are working on the possibility of wormhole travel to other dimensions".

"My friend Bruno would enjoy that", Kamala commented while she took one of the muffins.

"Oooh," Razia perked up with curiosity before teasing Kamala like she did to her the other day. "Is he a boyfriend or a 'boy friend'?"

"Oh absolutely, hundred percent definitely, only a friend", Kamala stammered shyly before munching on the muffin and moving back to an earlier topic. "So... Wormholes, huh?"

"Oh yes, we could be close to a breakthrough", Razia continued. "If this works, the Polchinski box should create a controlled, stable wormhole, like a bridge to other dimensions, or even other alternate parallel universes".

"Oooo, multiversal travel, huh?" Kamala lit up with intrigue. "I could get an inter-dimensional passport and a stamp on it, if that's a thing. Maybe we'd be able to meet other versions of ourselves, like a superhero version of you".

"Theoretically, it could be possible, but even then, there are still the risks of disaster", Razia tried to address cautiously. "Physics dictate that mass or energy can't truly created, destroyed, or even replaced, only transformed or transferred. And even still, that's in a closed system, a single universe..." Razia paused as she took both a longer sip of her coffee and a good deep thought about it, especially Kamala said about a possible 'superhero version of Razia'. "...so the implications in a multiverse..."

Just then, as she was drinking up the rest of her coffee, Razia looked to see that Kamala had already got off from the seat and walked over to one of the big windows, watching over the outside world and all the peaceful going-ons at the moment. Kamala herself was already just as deep in thought as well, about all that had come before in her past, and whatever may come beyond in her future. She remembered when the Terrigen bombings happened around the cities of the world not too long ago, releasing those misty clouds that spread outward. She remembered how one late night, she found herself caught in the path of the mist, and exposed to it.

She remembered the memories and feelings of inhaling it, the cocoon forming from under her skin, ripping through her clothes and wrapping round her. She remembered the sensation of floating within the chrysalis and its fluid, drifting like a curled unborn child in the absence of gravity. She remembered finally breaking through and free after what felt like an eternity, only to find her body morphing, stretching, and inflating into frantic proportions before she eventually learnt to control it all. And then deep in her mind, Kamala started to wonder, if she had always contained a certain gene within her that the mist triggered ever since she was born, what if anyone else in her family, at least biologically related, had the gene as well?

"Kamala?" Razia spoke before she put aside the emptied mug and too got up from her chair and walked up to her cousin. "Hey, cuz, you okay?" Razia snapped Kamala out from her daze with a light touch of her hand on her cousin's shoulder.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Uh...uh...sugar coma", Kamala looked back and tried to come up with some kind of excuse, no matter how silly it would sound. "Standing-up sugar coma. It's like a new Gen Z affliction. You know what we Zoomers are like".

"Sure, I guess", Razia nodded slightly.

"And besides, since you and I are technically related, you think it's possible that you might be part-Inhuman too and carry the gene?" Kamala suddenly switched the topic. "Especially since that's how I got my powers".

"I- Uh umm- I mean, I never really thought about it..." Razia paused awkwardly, knowing deep down that she too had considered such possibility. "...too much at least. I still do remember being told about what happened with you a while back".

"And see where that got me?" Kamala said. "Imagine if somehow, you managed to get a superpower of your own. Maybe something simple like being able to control elements or see into people's thoughts. Or perhaps something unique and different. What kind of power would you like to have?"

"Uh, hmm, well I suppose I-" Just then, a familiar ping sound went off inside one of Razia's pockets before she could give a choice, not that even she made one in her ever-curious mind.

"What is it?" Kamala questioned as Razia pulled out her phone, causing the screen to automatically light up and reveal a message.

"It's Enola", Razia recognised. "She says to meet at the lab, but it shouldn't take too long anyway. I'll meet you and the rest this afternoon for family dinner". She then slipped her phone back into her pocket before walking over to her wardrobe, briefly opening it, and pulling out her long white lab coat. "I know the place that serves Italian beef, changed my life, and could change yours too".

"You just had me at beef", Kamala grinned giddily.

"I'll text you the deets when I finish. You should check out the Bean", Razia recommended as she slipped into and buttoned up her lab coat before heading off. "Watch out for pigeons though, their poop aim is impeccable".

"I'll keep that in mind", Kamala waved.

Once Razia had walked out and closed the door shut, Kamala returned her full attention to the rest of the food still remaining on the table. But even still, as she finished off her muffin and snacked on the fruits and sugary treats, the questions and possibilities she thought up in her head and asked her cousin about never truly left her mind.

Flashback

Location: Unknown

Within what had felt in some way like a long stretched out eternity, the punkish woman continued floating and levitating in this catatonic state of half-sleep inside the chrysalis fluid like a child yet to be born from the womb of its mother. Something within her and out was already changing, changing into something beyond human, and soon, that metamorphosis would reach its completion. Her curled in body sparked and twitched, as if in reaction to a reflex, her once strawberry-blonde hair already started glowing up, and the cocoon housing her began to tremble and crack.

Soon enough, the chrysalis bursted and cracked open, as the woman inside quickly moved from her foetal position and into an arched back position with her screaming face parallel to the night sky. She then stumbled forth, down to her knees, before she crawled away from the remains of her cocoon and took a good look at herself. Her clothes remained, albeit fully drenched in freshly oozing fluid, but her skin had turned a pale-grey, her eyes became a fully deep-blue, and where her long hair once hung and laid was now an ever-flowing stream of lightning in the shape of her hair.

"Be not afraid", a deep male voice spoke from out of the silence, startling the woman as she looked up to see, standing right in front of her, a tall muscular bare-chested man with darker grey skin and black spiky hair that ran down his back. "I had found you and brought you to safety while your transformation would conclude". The man continued.

"Who the hell are you?" The woman demanded.

"I was once known by another name, Andrew Garner", the inhuman man introduced himself. "But ever since I learnt of my true unlocked self, I came to be known simply as Lash".

"Lash, huh?" The woman remained sceptical. "Okay then, what the hell just happened to me?"

"Like me, you were subjected to the Mist, and it found a special birthright contained with you, passed down from those before you, and awakened it. It shed away the lie you were forced to live in by the rest of humanity and unveiled your true power", Lash explained, letting the young woman take this all in. "What do you wish the world to know you as?"

As the woman took her time to think of a new name for herself, she also thought thoroughly about what this 'Lash' person had said. If what he had said would be true, she must've had this special gene unknowingly passed down to her by either one of or even both her parents. She looked at her gloved hands, closing and opening as sparks formed round her fingers, before aiming her right hand to the sky and fired a bolt of lightning from her palm, much to her shock and astonishment.

Then with a subtle grin, she finally decided on her new choice of name, "Kaboom".

To be continued...