You guys are probably a bit lost by how things ended up like that, so let's rewind a little bit back to the beginning of this particular tale. It's the Fall of 2023, summer break just came to an end and it's time to go back to school. In a colossal multi-storey house somewhere in Woluwé Saint-Lambert, we meet one of the main characters of this story.

"Sara, you're almost running late. Can't you eat any faster?" the girl's mother cautions her. "We Bloomaerts can't afford to come across as tardy."

Sara Bloomaert, the only child of Natalia and Marc Bloomaert—the cofounders of Bijouteries Bloomaert. Making use of their unique and well refined ice abilities, they produce marvelous jewelry that are arguably the best in the whole country. Like her parents, Sara also possesses ice powers and beautiful dark skin. She's of average height, for a 16 year old girl, and she's currently dressed in her school uniform and her hair in braids.

"You should listen to your mother," Sara's father supports his wife. "It won't look good if you're late on the first day back to school."

"Plus, if she insists on picking up her..." Natalia takes a short pause. "... boyfriend," she blurts out with a tint of disappointment in her tone, "she has to be ready in time."

"I'm already done eating," Sara defends herself as she hands over her plate to the maid and picks up her bag. "You don't need to worry, I won't be late."

She kisses both parents on the cheeks before leaving through the front door and walking into the back seat of one of the family's many cars where their personal chauffeur is waiting. The teen instructs the man to stop at her lover's home before taking her to school and he obediently agrees.

"Yes ma'am," he responds as he starts the car.

* * * *

A few meters away from the Bloomaert residence, in a much more 'modest' apartment, lives another relevant character—Aaron (Sara's boyfriend). Unlike his significant other, his family isn't in any way influential, so his last name doesn't matter. He's a zegen too and his power is shadow manipulation. I know, spooky, right? He's white with dyed black hair and he's 16, like Sara.

As Aaron gets ready to leave, his phone suddenly vibrates as a message comes in. He opens it to see that it's from Sara.

'I'm downstairs already.'

"Oh shit!" he exclaims as he looks at the time and realizes that he's running late. He grabs his bag and rushes to the living room fridge to take a bread bun, which he immediately stuffs down his throat. "I have to go, Rob. Sara's waiting for me downstairs," he tells the man in a suit that's reading a newspaper on the couch.

Rob is Aaron's foster father and sole care taker. Unlike his adoptive son, Rob is actually a normal.

"Ok, but don't forget that I'll be working late hours at the office tonight, so you can order a pizza or something as dinner if you get hungry," Rob replies. "I left some cash in the kitchen cupboard in case you need some."

"Ok, thanks." He quickly leaves and rushes down eight flights of stairs, completely forgetting the building has an elevator. When he gets down, he meets Sara waiting at the front desk. "I'm so sorry," Aaron apologizes as he gently kisses her on the lips.

"It's no big deal." She blushes as she turns around and starts towards the door. "Do we still need to pick up Mathéo?"

"No. He said something about finding his own way to school today," he answers as he joins her in the back seat of her car and they drive away. "I wasn't exactly in the mood to ask him what he meant by that."

* * * *

"Please. I need a ride to school," the boy begs his elder brother. "Can't you help your favorite brother anymore?"

This particular pain in the ass is Mathéo Badi. He's the normal foster child of the Badi family, which is made up of zegens. He's the same age as our other two lead characters, and unlike his adoptive parents and brother who are all white and blonde, Mathéo is Hispanic with soft brown curly hair. He's a bit in the middle in terms of height; he's too tall to be considered short and too short to be called tall.

"First of all, you're my only brother. Second, it's not my fault that you told your only two friends you could get there on your own," Lyam replies with his annoyance very noticeable. Lyam's a year older than Mathéo, so it's obvious he's in his 'I'm too busy for my younger brother' phase. "Just call an Uber or something."

"Come on, Lyam. It won't kill you if you helped your brother. You know he's not going to stop bugging you until you do," Aldéric (the boys' father) tells his son. "Your mom and I would do it ourselves but we're just too busy."

"Okay," Lyam finally caves in. "But under the condition that you don't act weird when I'm picking up Kate," he warns his brother. In case you don't understand, Kate is Lyam's girlfriend.

Mathéo agrees as he carries his bag and follows Lyam to his car, but there's a bit of a problem. The car fails to start because the battery is completely drained.

"Wait here," Lyam instructs his younger brother as he steps out of the car and opens the bonnet. He carefully places both his hands on the battery terminals as he transfers electricity from his body into the vehicle. This is his ability—electrolysis—in use, and the car instantly turns on as he does it.

"Wow. Cool trick. Have you ever considered working as a human battery?" Mathéo teases Lyam as he enters back into the driver's seat and begins to drive.

"Shut up!"

* * * *

A black Porsche drives into the parking lot of Collège Saint-Hubert, and after it parks, a beautiful girl steps out from the front passenger seat. She has seemingly perfect white skin and silky smooth brown hair that falls all the way down to her mid back. Despite all her beauty, she doesn't look like the over-confident type. If anything, she appears to be dying from bashfulness.

"Hey, Laura. I know you aren't really a fan of the whole 'new place, new school' routine, but you can try being optimistic this time. Maybe Brussels will be exciting," the man in the driver's seat tries to comfort her. It's her brother, Nathaniel. "At least promise me you'll try to socialize."

"I will," she replies sheepishly as she collects her bag from the back seat.

"I won't be able to come pick you up later, so you can take the bus or follow a friend hopefully," he says to her as he re-starts the car and drives away, leaving her alone in the parking lot.

While all of this happens, Sara and Aaron are approaching the entrance of the school's main building when they suddenly hear someone screaming their names from afar. They turn around to see Mathéo running towards them from his brother's car.

"So, did you guys miss me or what?" Mathéo jokes as he forcefully pulls them in for a hug. "I can feel a certain vibe between you two. Lemme guess, you guys had a lot of 'private time' together during the summer. Am I right?"

The couple's facial responses to Mathéo's very intrusive question makes it quite clear that they don't feel comfortable answering it, but the boy doesn't notice.

"Don't you think it's too early for your dirty jokes?" Aaron asks him, trying to urge him to change the subject.

"I was surprised you turned down following Aaron and me this morning. You usually insist on not taking a ride with Lyam. Did something happen?" Sara asks Mathéo in an attempt to get his mind off his bizarre, but very accurate assumption.

"No, not really. I just wanted you two to have some more couple t-" The sound of the school bell cuts Mathéo off. "Oh shit! Um... I have to get to class, but I'll see you two during lunch, right?"

Sara and Aaron nod as Mathéo rushes to class, very relieved that the awkward conversation is finally over. The three of them may be in the same year, but for the most part they take very different classes and rarely see one another.

* * * *

The first half of the school day goes by in the blink of an eye and the bell rings once again to indicate that it's time for lunch. The teacher dismisses the class as students begin to pack their stuff and head to the cafeteria. Mathéo isn't really a fan of the whole learning part of school, not because he's dumb, he's actually exceptionally smart, but 'cause despite his seemingly bright personality, social interactions aren't his forte at all. Aaron and Sara are pretty much the only people in the entire school he can talk to comfortably, and that's why lunch break is the only part of school he looks forward to.

After some time of wandering too much in his thoughts, Mathéo finally decides to join his classmates in the cafeteria. He gets there, picks a tray of food, but as he moves on to look for a place to sit, he notices that his dear friends aren't there. He paces back and forth mentally on whether or not he should just sit with one of the other students who probably don't want him anywhere near them, and then it happens. A jerk bumps into him from behind, pushing him to the ground and causing him to spill all his food.

"Don't you know how to walk or are you just stupid?" the blonde jock mocks him.

The name of this particular egotistical maniac is Aloïs and he's a zegen. As expected in a high school with a mix of zegens and normals, there's always that idiot zegen who believes he's better than everyone else (especially than the ones falling in the latter category), and in this case, that person is Aloïs. What our bully over here doesn't know is that Mathéo may be 'powerless', but he's also very erratic when pissed off. Without giving a second thought, Mathéo grabs the metal tray from the floor and slams it against the back of Aloïs' head as he walks away.

"I'm pretty sure I know how to move just fine."

The sound of the hit echoes around the whole cafeteria, causing everybody to immediately stop whatever they're doing and turn to watch the showdown that's about to take place. Aloïs halts his movement and slowly uses his hand to feel the spot the tray hit. There's blood. It's bleeding and he's instantly enraged.

"You son of a bitch!" Aloïs cusses as he turns around and punches Mathéo right in the nose, causing it to bleed. The whole crowd reacts with a unified gasp. "Do you still have those steel balls now, you piece of shit?!"

The tension that fills the hall is so dense that you can almost hear a pin drop. What Mathéo is going to do next is on everyone's mind. Will he stay down and accept defeat or will he be dumb enough to hit back? The second turns out to be the answer as Mathéo wastes no time to knee Aloïs hard in the crotch, causing him to fall to his knees in pain.

"You're going to regret doing that, you bastard." Aloïs places his right hand on the tray that's lying on the floor and absorbs the metal.

His hand begins to modify itself until it resembles some sort of metal mallet. He quickly stands up and swings his newly weaponized arm right at Mathéo, but he fortunately dodges and it collides with the pillar behind him, leaving a crack on it. Realizing the deep shit he's in, Mathéo instantly races to the door.

"You're not getting away that easily!" Aloïs shouts as he dissociates the metal from his arm, restoring his limb back to normal and forming a spear out of what used to be a tray. He flings the weapon at Mathéo, but he misses and it finds its way into a wall.

"Don't throw if you can't aim," Mathéo teases the brute as he successfully runs through the exit door. With the flame of his anger burning even hotter, Aloïs chases after him.

* * * *

In their now empty classroom, Aaron and Sara are enjoying each other's company as they make out on top of one of the desks. Don't worry, they're just kissing, not that other spicy stuff.

"Are you and Mathéo fighting?" Sara asks her boyfriend as she pulls away from his mouth for a moment.

"No. Why are you asking?"

"It's just, um, since we started dating, you guys have been getting more and more distant. Do you get what I mean? You two used to act like twins before, but it's like you can barely even stand him now," Sara explains as her facial expression saddens a little. "I just don't want to come across as that psycho girlfriend that makes the guy cut off every other person in his life. Mathéo's a good person and I don't think he deserves that."

"It's nothing serious or anything, I promise. He's still like a brother to me, but he's just a bit much most of the time and I feel like he over relies on our friendship," Aaron assures Sara she's doing nothing wrong. "I'm just trying to get him to branch out more. I'm not beefing with him."

Sara suddenly hears the sound of other students chanting in the hallway. "Do you hear that?" she asks Aaron but he shakes his head in response. She gets up and walks out the door to see if something serious is going on, and as she does this, a mysterious paper glows from inside the pigeonhole of the desk Aaron is sitting on. He pulls it out and opens it, and he is extremely confused by the message written on it.

'I know you're reading this note, Aaron. There's a crucial secret behind your existence that they dont want you to know out of fear of what you are truly capable of. Yo-'

"Aaron! You need to see this quickly," Sara rushes back into the class with her face covered in worry, cutting off his attention from what he's reading.

He follows her outside and what he sees isn't completely shocking to him. He witnesses Aloïs chasing Mathéo down the hallway in an attempt to beat him up. The former then uses what seems to be super strength to pull out a locker door and flings it at the latter, breaking his left leg and causing him to trip.

"Do you still think I don't have aim now?" Aloïs makes fun of his prey as he winces in pain. His knee is bleeding non-stop and ouch, it looks painful. The bully approaches the injured to give him a thorough beat down, but before he can even lay a hand on him, thick black hands emerge from his own shadow and restrain him. Aloïs struggles but he is unable to move, the grips are too strong. It's Aaron's 'handiwork', if you get what I mean. "What the fuck is this?!"

"What have you gotten yourself into this time?" Aaron asks Mathéo in disappointment as he comes closer to examine his best friend's wounds. He hears Aloïs incessantly ranting behind him but chooses to ignore him. "Guess I'm just gonna have to carry you to the nurse myself."

Mathéo climbs unto his best friends back and he takes him to the nurse's office. They get there, but the nurse isn't around, there's just a girl. It's Laura, the girl from the parking lot, but they don't know who she is. She's new after all. She clearly isn't sick nor injured. She's probably hiding out here just to avoid actually having to socialize in the cafeteria.

"Hey," Aaron calls the girls attention and she turns her head to face him. "Do you happen to know where the nurse is, or at least when she'll be back?"

"Um... um...," Laura stammers a little before gaining the courage to make an actual sentence. "She stepped out for a staff meeting a few minutes ago, but I don't know when she's coming back."

Aaron lets out a sigh of annoyance as he softly places Mathéo on the patient bed. "Just help me watch over this idiot til she returns."

The brunette nods in response to Aaron's instruction as he walks out the room. Mathéo tries to apologize to him but he's too angry to listen. Out of pure irritation, Aaron shreds and trashes the mysterious note he was reading since his curiosity has now been replaced by an even stronger emotion. This means he doesn't see the warning at the end.

'You're going to regret it otherwise.'

"I'm sorry if you thought he was acting shitty. He normally isn't like that, I assure you," Mathéo apologizes to Laura. "I'm Mathéo. You're new, aren't you?"

"Yeah. My name's Laura. I just moved here from the Netherlands," she introduces herself to him. "Can I look at it?" she asks shyly while awkwardly pointing at the boys damaged left leg.

"If you like scarring your eyes, be my guest."

Laura comes closer to Mathéo and gently rests her palms on his left knee. They start glowing green and all of a sudden, the limb is back to normal. He looks at her in awe as she gets up and caresses his face with her kind soft hands. He blushes a little, but she doesn't notice. Her attention is on the fractured nose she's healing.

"I didn't realize you were a zegen. I'm feeling kind of insecure now," the latino boy laughs.

"No, don't be," Laura replies, feeling a bit embarrassed and timid at the same time. "I dont mind at all if you're a normal, its not like being zegen is some sort of special privilege. I'm just happy I could help. It feels kind of good knowing I can be good for something at least."

And from there, the two begin to talk more and more, and even end up spending the rest of their lunch break together. At least, today isn't totally horrible. Laura now has some good news to share with Nathaniel.