They came to a medium-sized house that stood on what appeared to be a large flat area. As they landed, she let go of him, and he got his balance after a couple seconds. Then he got a chance to look around. He saw that the roof of this place and much of the walls and ground was brown. He ran his hands across the floor, and it was fairly tough and appeared to be rock. However, as he looked around, he saw many houses and what looked like whole communities. He even saw what looked to be several stores in the distance. There were likely even areas that he couldn’t see as well. He looked over at Allison to ask her where the heck he was, but she looked focused on something else, looking up and past him. He looked up where she was looking and saw the tube he had fallen out of. Much lower in the same area was what appeared to be two streaks of fire shooting downward. As he looked closer, he saw a man, the fire coming out of his hands propelling him up. He appeared to be headed in the direction of the tube. Andrew looked back at Allison as she said to him, “I’ll be right back.”

She ran toward the edge of the rock, and as she jumped, she suddenly shot forward like a missile and headed straight for the man. He continued to fly up, and as he noticed Allison, he raised one of his hands up launching a fireball at her. She adroitly flew sideways to dodge it and continued to fly toward him, dodging several more fireballs he threw. All the while, he continued to fly up with one hand shooting a stream of fire downward to propel him. Eventually, as she got very close, he shot a stream of intense fire straight at her. This time, instead of dodging it, she was hit head-on. However, as Andrew thought she was in bad shape, he looked closer and realized what was actually happening. She appeared to be taking the stream of fire into her hands as if she was absorbing it. He stopped shooting the stream of fire and continued to fly up, Allison following alongside. She suddenly put her hands close together and threw them up at the man. An intense stream of fire, much like the one before, shot out of her hands, even more focused and larger. It hit the man directly and knocked him back hard. As he was blown back very intensely, the streams out of his hands stopped. He began to fall, arms flailing. Allison promptly dove down, grabbed him, and proceeded to fly to two men who she handed him off to. They walked away with him, putting handcuffs and restraints on him. She flew back toward Andrew, and he felt a gust of wind as she stopped and landed in front of him. Allison walked past him toward the house, “Come on in,” she said. “I realize you need a bit of an explanation.”

The house was pretty nice with a fairly simplistic design; white walls and floor, a TV and couch, table, kitchen, etc. He sat down at the table as she grabbed a cup of water in the kitchen for him. “What’s your name? Where are you from?” she asked.

“I’m Andrew,” he replied. “I’m from New Hampshire…I would tell you how far away that is, but I have absolutely no idea where I am.”

As she sat down next to him at the table and gave him the water, she began to explain: “We call this place the ‘City of the Supers’. You’re currently very far under the ground. This is a city where people with superpowers live, like me. Long ago, a small group of supers tried to help people on the surface but were constantly called freaks and largely criticized. An incident occurred where a super hurt a normal human. The other supers decided that in order to avoid something like this happening again, they had to separate themselves from the surface world. It was best for everybody. Using their powers, they dug far into the ground and hollowed out this whole place. They decided that if they were to ever have to reach the outside world for whatever reason, they should make a passageway out. That's why they built the pipe, and it was years later that your house was built on top of that passage and you arrived. Now you're here. I don't know why, but I have a feeling about you. Maybe you were meant to come here for some reason. Maybe it's your destiny...” She paused and looked off to the side, like she had zoned out, before snapping out of it and looking back...“or maybe I'm just crazy, I don't know.”

“Wow, this is nuts. What was going on earlier with that fire guy?”

“Well, some don't agree with the ideals of this place, we have some insurgents. Some supers try to escape in hopes of invading the outside world and taking over. They see humans like you as inferior and weak. I'm one of the Defenders. We're the people who stop others from escaping and generally keep the peace down here.” Andrew was exhausted trying to process all this information. “You should get some rest,” Allison said. She showed him to a room and he went to bed.

Andrew woke up the next morning and sat at the table eating breakfast. He decided to walk out and take a look around. As he walked around the city full of relatively medium-sized buildings and houses, he was intrigued by all the people. He saw a man phase straight through a wall to get into a building where he worked, and then a man who appeared to be a construction worker turned his fist into rocks to punch through a tough wall of rocks. He felt a gust of wind as a figure shot right by him, and he saw that it was a man with super speed far ahead in the distance. This place was so interesting and intriguing. He went back to the house, and Allison was making herself some breakfast. “You’re up early,” she commented. “I guess you wanted to get a look around. Well hey, you can come along with me today. I’ll be walking around keeping the peace as usual.” Andrew liked the idea and later after breakfast departed with her into the city. As they walked around, he saw even more sights. He saw a gym where a man was bench-pressing a car, a man on his porch casually opening a package with long sharp blades coming out of his knuckles, and a man turning a pool to ice simply by touching the water. Suddenly, they heard a ruckus up ahead. They looked and saw a crowd surrounding two people who appeared to be about to fight. One of them had metal hands that had lit up circles on each of the palms, which he had up and pointed at the other man. The other man had a bow with five arrows all knocked on it at once, and he had it drawn back and aimed. “That’s Iron Fred and Quiver. I think you can guess which one is which,” she joked. “Break it up!” Allison yelled at the men as she swiftly walked toward them.

“Oh, it’s you again,” Iron Fred exclaimed. “Man, forget the money you owe me, let’s just teach her a lesson,” he said to Quiver. Quiver aimed his bow at Allison and fired five arrows. She pushed Andrew down to the ground and then flew up, the five arrows missing them both. She quickly touched back down and continued toward them.

“Come on guys, let’s make this easy,” she said.

Iron Fred chuckled “Yeah, it will be easy to take you out!”

He raised his hands as they lit up and then shot out what appeared to be two spastic and unstable balls of energy. She just barely dodged them as they hit a small building behind her, colliding with the building and exploding, causing massive damage. “Allison, those things look pretty powerful, you better be careful!” Andrew said.

“Don’t worry kid, watch this,” she said confidently. Iron Fred shot another ball of energy, and Allison didn’t budge this time. She threw up her hand and stopped the ball mid-air with her hand. Iron Fred looked in disbelief as she closed her fist as if crushing the ball which appeared to fuse into her hand and arm. She then raised her hand up and suddenly shot a ball twice as large at him. It exploded on impact, knocking him back hard, right into a building. Looking back at Fred and then at Allison, Quiver quickly put down his bow and knelt down with his hands up.

“I thought your power was flying,” Andrew confusedly said.

“Flying and energy absorption,” she told him. She called for some men that appeared to be agents of some kind, and they took the men away.

“Over that way is the prison,” she explained as she pointed in the distance toward where the agents were walking. “That’s where we keep criminals and people who try to stir up trouble, like these guys. We also keep Escapists there.”

“Escapists?”

“People like the guy earlier who try to escape to invade the outside world,” Allison explained. Suddenly, Andrew felt a quick gust of wind go by, and a figure came out of nowhere right behind Allison and grabbed her shoulders. She was startled as the man ran around her and in front of her in less than a second.

“Didn’t see that coming Allison? Ha, it gets funnier every time.” The man shot away at super-speed, going miles within a couple seconds and leaving a trail of dust behind him.

“That’s Bolt,” she said, clearly annoyed. “He’s been running around messing with people for a while, including me. He hasn’t done anything bad enough to warrant being arrested yet, but we’ll see.”

“Man, this place is crazy,” Andrew said.

As much as Andrew loved the city, he realized that he had to get back home. He didn’t want his parents to worry, and he had a life up there that he had to live. He explained to Allison, and she understood, agreeing to bring him back up the pipe.

They stood on the edge of the rock as she was about to fly him back up. “Remember to hold on tight, and get ready to go real fast, ok?” He got on her back, and she began to fly. Everything was going smoothly as they headed toward the pipe. Suddenly, all he heard was a loud booming sound, and he saw huge flashes of light. Out of the corner of his eye he could see what was happening and saw that someone on a nearby cliff was shooting them with lightning. Allison couldn’t react in time to absorb it, getting hit out of surprise. She began to fall from the intense hit but quickly came to, got Andrew re-secured, and flew back up. “That’s Elementus! Things could get messy here Andrew!” She flew toward Elementus and dodged more bolts that he tried to send her way. He sent a huge strike, and she took the hit, absorbing it and firing it back at him. The hit sent him flying back. She continued to head toward him and, as she was about to reach him, a force came out of nowhere and smashed right into her hard, knocking Andrew off her back. As Andrew looked around, all he saw was a trail of dust left behind. It must have been Bolt. As Andrew got up, Bolt suddenly ran up in front of him, and Andrew stepped back frightened.

“What? You didn't see that coming?” Bolt said sarcastically before shooting away.

Andrew rushed over to Allison, who was knocked out. As he was trying to get her to come back to consciousness, Elementus approached. Andrew saw electricity emitting from his chest but also saw a bit of fire coming from one of his hands and strange green particles from the other hand. He appeared to have elemental powers. “I guess the name makes sense,” Andrew thought. Andrew backed up as Elementus got closer to him. Elementus shot a fireball, and it hit Andrew square in the chest, harshly knocking him back. Andrew landed right at the edge of the cliff. He frantically got up and caught his balance. He looked down the cliff and then back up at Elementus. He shot a beam of energy at Andrew, but Andrew narrowly dodged it. However, the way he dodged it was by quickly leaning back...and off the cliff.

Andrew began to fall, and it felt like time was at a crawl. “So this is it?” he thought to himself. “This is how I die? Deep under the ground in a city full of people with superpowers? Huh, I guess it’s not the worst way to go.”

As Andrew descended, he looked down at the ground and pondered what Allison had said to him, “I have a feeling about you…maybe you were meant to come here…maybe it's your destiny.” “Destiny.” Something stirred in Andrew as he kept hearing it in his head.

“Destiny.” He felt something inside himself.

“Destiny.” He became less frantic.

“Destiny.” Andrew closed his eyes, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Just feeling.

Suddenly, a surge of energy shot through Andrew as his eyes flew open. He instinctively threw an arm in front of his chest, and it began to fidget and distort. His arm began to change its whole shape, and it morphed into what appeared to be a circular shield. As Andrew smashed into the ground, the shield hit first, breaking the fall. Andrew felt little pain as the shield was able to absorb the collision. As he rolled over to sit for a second, his arm morphed back to normal. He looked his arm over, analyzing it in confusion. Suddenly he heard a voice nearby. “Shapeshifting, huh? That’s a fun one.” He looked up to see a man standing a few feet away from him wearing a hooded robe. The man put the hood down to reveal his face. He looked to be about 60 or so. He had a bit of hair but was clearly balding, and he had a scruffy looking-beard. “I was wondering what your power would be, Andrew.”

“How do you know my name?” Andrew questioned.

“Oh I know lots of things Andrew, lots of things…” he paused. “I can foresee the future. I saw your coming and foresaw this very event. Your destiny was to come here. The city is in a dire time right now. Escape attempts have been on the rise, and the Escapists, as we call them, are getting stronger as you just saw. You almost died, but the power within you unlocked. There is much powerful energy flowing through this city. Your distress caused the energy to surge throughout you and activated your powers. You’ve always had them, but it wasn’t until now that they were unlocked.” Andrew realized Allison had been right, this was his destiny. He needed to save the world from the Escapists. 

As Andrew looked up, he saw Elementus swinging from vines that he was shooting out, and he was heading for the pipe. “You need more training before you can try to use your powers more,” the old man told Andrew. He didn’t fully understand his newfound power, but he needed to stop Elementus.  He focused on his feet and thought of what he wanted to do. Concentrating on it intensely, his feet suddenly morphed into rocket boots, which were like tiny rocket propulsion cannons. He did it! He got his feet to begin to launch, and he shot up into the air. He had a bit of trouble balancing at first, so he was flying all over the place. He managed to morph his hands into rocket propulsion cannons as well. He shot up with both his hands and feet and became balanced. As Andrew approached, Elementus shot a large fireball at him, much like earlier. Andrew then quickly morphed one arm into the shield from before, deflecting the fireball and launching it back at him. The fireball hit Elementus, knocking him off the vines. As he fell, he attempted to shoot another vine up to catch himself, but Andrew swiftly morphed his arm into a large blade and cut the vine, leaving Elementus to fall. He could see Elementus quickly create a small bed of water to catch himself in on the ground. He flew over to Allison, who was waking up. He explained to her what had just happened and explained that he needed more training with his newly discovered powers. He felt that she should be the one to train him, and she agreed. “Don’t you have to get back home?” she inquired.

“This place is pretty special,” he replied with a grin. “I think I’ll stick around for just a bit longer.”

Over the next couple months, Allison taught Andrew to harness and hone his powers. She taught him how to become an expert shapeshifter, and he became more and more powerful each day. The two became great friends.

“You ready, Andrew?” Allison walked back and forth in the training room, watching as Andrew stood, preparing. Her training room was very large and had many different interesting machines and devices for training. 

“Ready as ever!” Andrew said. She had what appeared to be a ball of energy in a case on a shelf behind her for these practices. She reached her hand in and absorbed some of the energy. They both stood a good yard or so apart. She shot at him with some energy, and he threw up the usual arm shield. When he put it down, she was flying right at him. He morphed his whole body into a pile of slime, quickly slid under her as she was in the air, and reformed behind her. He clenched his fist and turned it into rocks. He threw a punch at her, but she swiftly ducked and threw an uppercut at him. He threw his legs together, morphed them together into a big sledgehammer and threw them up out from under him, hitting her arm and sending her flying upward. She slammed into the ceiling and fell down as he got his legs back to normal and stood up. “Man, these powers can be really weird sometimes,” he said as he extended a hand to help her up.

“I've got to give it to you, that was very creative,” she said, impressed.

“I try,” Andrew said with a smirk.

Andrew sat on the edge of the rock looking out at the city. It was truly beautiful, such an amazing place. He began, however, to think of his family. He hadn’t really considered how they might be doing in the outside world. He thought of how they were likely worried about him and wondering where he was. They might even think he was dead. Before he could think much deeper about it though, he saw an object in the distance that was getting bigger. It kept getting bigger and bigger as he watched it. He realized it was coming toward him…fast! As it came into view, he realized it was a missile. “Allison! We've got trouble!” As the missile sped toward him, he morphed his chest into an extremely strong, elastic, trampoline-type material. The missile hit his chest and went quite far into the material, but it stretched back and then, much like a trampoline, bounced the missile back. He noticed more missiles coming. As the first one deflected back, it hit another one mid-air, both of them exploding. He looked to see several more coming at him fast. “Allison!” He ran into the house to see Allison at the bottom of the stairs, looking tired but alarmed.

“What?” she said urgently. He tackled her down to the side as missiles smashed through the walls and windows, exploding within the house. Right as they all came in, he expanded his body like a blanket, covering Allison as he morphed himself into a strong metal structure. The blasts were all over and were quite destructive. As the booms died down, Andrew morphed back to normal and looked around. Much of the house was charred and falling apart. As she got up and stood beside him, he heard a sound of cracking and rumbling. He looked up to see the ceiling about to collapse. As it collapsed, he quickly threw up a small brick platform, blocking the falling debris. He put his arm down and looked around more. Not much house was left. He saw a few fires, which he quickly put out by morphing his arm into a fire extinguisher. “This must have been the Escapists, they’ve wanted to take me out for a while,” she explained. “They’re going big this time.”

“They sure are!” Andrew replied worriedly as they both looked out at a truly frightening site. There were about fifteen to twenty or so people all heading straight toward the pipe. “This is where the fun begins,” Andrew said as he ran toward the edge of the cliff. As he jumped and turned his arms into wings, Allison followed, flying alongside him.

All sorts of people were heading toward the pipe: People flying, people riding on rockets, people riding on others, and some people just moving from a strong jump. Just as they were about to get close enough to start fighting, Andrew and Allison felt a strong blow from the side, knocking them off course. They both could suddenly barely think, but Andrew was able to look up and see Bolt falling with them. He couldn’t fly, but he could probably jump off a cliff so fast that he could practically fly…and he could surely smash into people. Through the intense pain, Andrew was just barely able to turn his chest into a large, thick mattress. He turned his other hand into a spider web, shot it at Allison to grab her, and pulled her onto the mattress as they landed. Andrew had learned how to shift even internal body parts and could heal himself in a sense. He got the pain to stop and got up. “I bet you didn’t see that coming!” Bolt remarked as he ran over and up the side of a large cliff. He got all the way up and pushed off the top, propelling himself upward toward the pipe. Andrew looked up to see the Escapists ascending into the pipe and into the darkness. He looked over and saw Allison. As he ran over, he saw she was clearly in terrible pain.

“Allison, are you okay? Please tell me you’re ok,” Andrew said, worriedly.

“Andrew, I’m fine, I just can’t fight anymore right now. You need to stop them. I believe in you.”

“I can’t fight them alone, Allison.”

“You don’t have to,” said a voice out of the blue. Andrew looked over to see the old man from earlier standing in front of a large group of people. “I foresaw this conflict. I gathered these supers to help you,” the man explained.

“I don’t want to put these people at risk,” said Andrew.

“No, we do want to,” came a voice from the crowd. The man Andrew saw earlier with long sharp blades coming out of his knuckles stepped forward. “We want to help you and defend the outside world.”

Another man stepped forward and walked toward Allison. “I’ll take her to the hospital and fix her up in no time.”

“Thank you so much,” Andrew said to the man. “Ok, let’s fight.”

All the people who could fly carried others on their backs, while some people who had other ways of getting up also held a few each. Altogether they had about 20 people. Andrew had a few people holding onto straps that he had formed in his back. He had his rocket feet and hands ready. He looked over at the old man. “Thanks, for everything,” he said and the man nodded. “Ok everyone, let’s go!” Andrew launched and shot up, everyone else alongside him. As they went up, Andrew marveled at the beauty he saw around him. It truly was an amazing place. They plunged into the darkness of the pipe.

When they began to see light, Andrew quickly realized there was a lot more light than there should be. The small hatch that Andrew had originally dropped through was now wide open, and much of the area surrounding it was also very damaged. They all landed on the steps and ran up. When they got to the top, there was simply a large hole where the secret door had once been. They walked through into Andrew’s room, which was now a mess and had a large hole in the wall. As Andrew walked in, he looked left to see his parents. “Andrew!” they shouted out as they ran over to embrace him. He hugged them but then said,

“I have a lot to explain, but right now we have to save the world, so talk to you later!” They all ran through the hole in the wall.  

They ran into town where the Escapists were wreaking havoc. He looked at the array of them and noticed Elementus. He seemed to be leading them. They were destroying buildings and cars and terrorizing the people. Andrew and his team needed to stop them. “Let’s go guys!” Andrew yelled as they all ran forward toward the carnage.

Andrew ran over to a small building being torn apart by a man with telekinesis who was hovering above it. Andrew morphed his arms into machine guns, but the man simply stopped all the bullets with his mind. A man with wings came from behind and tackled him out of the sky. The man with telekinesis fell to the ground as he launched away the man with the wings. Andrew ran up and morphed his foot into a large, silver hammer as he kicked the man far off into the distance. Andrew ran up to a man who appeared to have frost breath and was wreaking havoc, freezing cars and people. Andrew darted forward and quickly broke open the ice to free people by morphing his hands into large pickaxes. While he saved the people, the man was getting away, but suddenly he looked to see a woman running straight toward the man from the side. As she approached, her entire body suddenly morphed into a wolf that appeared to be covered in flames, a fire wolf. The fire wolf lunged at the ice man and withstood his attempts to freeze her. She slammed him down and continued to scratch him up. Andrew looked around and was amazed by his team. He saw the man with knuckle blades tearing through multiple enemies. He saw a man jump up, catch a car, and then throw it back at the man who launched it. He was so proud of his friends' bravery and heroism and their willingness to fight to protect this world. The Escapists were dropping, one by one. Andrew looked through all the wreckage and saw Elementus looking back at him. They had fought many times and had both grown strong. This was it, it was time to put an end to this. They both ran toward each other.

Elementus began with his usual fireballs, which Andrew deflected. He shot vines, which Andrew cut by morphing his arms and hands into blades. Andrew was used to this guy’s tactics by now, but Elementus had gotten stronger. He suddenly shot down a bolt of lightning at Andrew. He was able to quickly morph his body into metal as he was struck, and grounded most of the electricity, but was still pretty hurt by the little that did hit him. Elementus suddenly rose up on a gigantic tsunami-sized wave. He came barreling toward Andrew, who instantly transformed into a shark as the water hit him. He swam upward in the wave straight at Elementus on the top who jumped away, letting the wave fall as Andrew morphed back.

“When will you understand?” Elementus started to say, filled with rage. “Normal humans are inferior!” He shot a fireball that Andrew blocked. “Weaklings!” He shot a lightning bolt. “Worthless!” He shot a large rock. 

“You won't win this Elementus,” Andrew said. “My friends and I understand that normal humans are good people. They're just like us. Who cares if they don't have special powers? I didn't even have my powers until a couple months ago. Normal humans are not worthless or weak. There's no reason to slaughter them like this.” Elementus appeared to be getting angrier and angrier. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning came down and struck Elementus as he began to rise up. He began to hover in the air as the lightning continuously energized him and struck all around him in sporadic bolts. His body began to surge with energy, and various elements started to shoot out from his body in all directions: bursts of electricity, fire, intense vines, water, boulders, streams of ice and more.

“This is where you die!” Elementus screamed as all the energy around him suddenly assembled in the center of his body, forming into a large ball and getting brighter and more intense. He suddenly shot it forward in a fierce, continuous beam. As it advanced toward Andrew, he figured this was the end. Elementus was too powerful for him. He couldn’t defeat him. This was it...

Suddenly, a figure came flying out of nowhere directly in front of Andrew, and was struck by the beam. Andrew looked up in amazement to see Allison. She was taking the full force of the beam and was not even budging. The beam stopped, and she hovered for a second, looking down. When she looked up, her eyes were glowing yellow. She hovered in the air, silent for a moment. Elementus looked in confusion but also fear. Suddenly, she screamed as her entire body lit up, and out from her body emitted a gigantic beam of energy. It was colossal and headed straight for Elementus. As the beam came upon Elementus, he was consumed by it, disintegrated. The beam stopped, and Andrew rushed over to Allison as she fell to the ground. He knelt down, and she looked up at him, clearly exhausted but fine. “I figured I’d join in on the fun,” she said, making Andrew chuckle. Andrew heard a familiar sound and could see something strange out of his peripheral vision. He expanded his body upward into an arch, holding Allison on top. Out of nowhere, through the middle of the arch, appeared Bolt. He ran straight through the opening and slammed into a nearby wall. As Andrew morphed back and walked up to Bolt laying down on the ground in pain, he couldn't help but snicker as he remarked,

“Bet you didn't see that coming.”

All the Escapists that were left were taken to a high security prison in the City of Supers. The other supers helped rebuild all the damage. After these events and after Supers had been revealed to the world, a lot began to change. Many Supers chose to stay in “The City,” but some actually began to co-exist with the surface humans, and some surface humans even visited “The City.” The passageway between worlds was no longer restricted. Andrew's room became a transport station where people could travel between the two worlds. Andrew continued to live his life on the surface world but frequently visited “The City,” especially Allison. He was sure there would be more adventures to come, but for now there was peace. He had experienced the journey of a lifetime. He realized that everyone has the potential to be great. It's just about unlocking the power within. Sometimes the key to unlocking that power is closer than you think. It may be right under your nose.