I rock up to the café we agreed to meet in for lunch at exactly 1:08pm. Timekeeping has never been my strong suit. As I approach the entrance, I look through the window into the café and almost instantly spot Hanna. She’s sitting at a corner table at the back, wearing her signature leather jacket over a red crop top, with leggings and frayed denim shorts completing the ensemble. Her red hair is tied up into a high ponytail, yet still comes down to almost halfway down her back.

  As I enter the café, she looks up at the jingle the door makes, and her face immediately brightens as a smile blooms across her face. And she beckons me over. As I approach her, I wave, a similar smile filling my face.

  “Hey, Hanna,” I say by way of greeting.

  “Robyn. You’re late,” she says, trying to be serious and absolutely failing, a laugh escaping despite her best attempts to contain it.

  “It’s like 10 minutes, you should be used to it by now. Also, I’m totally worth the wait, right?” I say, pouting and giving her my most cutesy look, and also failing to stop my laugh from escaping as I sit at the table.

  We make small talk for a little bit, as our laughter dies down, while someone comes over and we order something to eat and some drinks. I can tell that Hanna is dying to ask me about last night.

  “So, spill the beans, Ro, what happened last night?” she says, staring intently at me.

  I flash back to the events of last night, trying to decide if I should mention my new powers. I decide not to right now, let's get her Extra—Human fangirl stuff out of the way first.

  “Well, I’d just dealt with some visitor at the museum being a transphobic d-bag to me,” I grimace seeing the anger flash across Hanna’s face before continuing, “and I was just doing the final walk around after my boss left when I heard a noise coming from that new exhibit room and I went to go check and I saw some guy in there.”

  “Jesus, so you went and called the police, right, Ro?” She says, giving me a look that says she knows I did not, in fact, do that.

  I clear my throat before continuing, “So I called out and confronted him, and he tried to attack me. I managed to escape to the main foyer and hide behind the reception desk, and as he came after me, some people burst in through the main door, shattering it, I might add. I’m sure this is the part you actually wanted to hear about, right?”

  “You betcha, Ro! You met The Weird Sisters!”

  “Oh, is that what they’re called?” I ask, a little surprised, it’s a bit of a weird team name, although at the mention of the team I can’t help but think of Shelter again, gods she was so fucking cute. Yep, I have it bad.

  “Yeah, there was a whole thing when they first started, they weren’t keen on the name the press gave them. I think the guy on the news was a raging sexist. But! The name is because their powers use traditionally witchy things. Shard can manipulate and see through glass, but she usually has a small mirror she breaks, very witch-coded if you ask me. Efflorescent can basically control any plant.”

  “Okay, yeah, I’ll give you that one’s witchy. What about Shelter?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound too excited, I really don’t want to get teased about another crush. That isn’t what this is.

  Today is however not my lucky day. Hanna quirks an eyebrow at me. “Shelter, eh? Got ourselves a favourite, do we? I can see it. Well, her powers are generating and complete manipulation of force fields.”

  My eyes widen in realisation, “That makes sense, given what I saw.”

  Just then, the waitress comes over with our food and drinks. I had a tuna melt panini and a large strawberry milkshake, which I will for sure regret later and Hannah had a cheeseburger and a Diet Coke. Before the waitress leaves, she gives Hanna a flirty look that I am 100% sure that Hannah pretends she didn’t see on purpose, before turning back to me.

  “Well, continue your goddamn story, Ro!” she exclaims.

  “Okay, okay, okay. Calm your tits, Hanna!” I say, laughing. “Where was I? Oh yeah, so The Weird Sisters come bursting through the door, and this dude, who they called Sucker Punch, gets real mad and charges at them and won’t listen to them. The Shelter, her outfit is so good by the way, steps forward and I saw the air in front of her shimmer and when he hits the shimmering bit, it’s like he hit a fucking brick wall and he drops to the floor.” I say, laughing out loud at the memory. “Then Shard, she seems the leader-,”

  “Ooh, Robyn, Shard’s pronouns are they/them, or at least they were a month ago when she gave a statement about some crime they stopped.” Hanna tells me.

  “Oh shit, okay, well, then Shard breaks a little hand mirror and the shards all hover over Sucker Punch’s body to keep him in place and that was kinda it for the action.” I look at Hanna, hoping my story was good enough, it was kind of over really quickly, although based on the look on her face, it was more than enough.

  I think of the last thing that happened, “The only other thing was Shelter came and spoke to me for a bit, and I went home. I don’t think I was a good conversationalist, I was so out of it,” I say, sighing forlornly.

  Hannah perks up at this, “Oh, hoping to get questioned by her real good, were you?”

  I blush a deep red, “Stop it, Hanna, jeeze. For a self-described celibate, you sure have a dirty mind, you know that?”

  “Just cause it’s not for me doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it, especially if it makes my bestie blush like that.” She says, smirking at me. “And you never know, you do live in the same city as Shelter, the chances are not zero that you’ll run into her again, although with the whole secret identity thing, I guess you’d never know…” She trails off, giving me a contrite look.

  “That’s great, thanks Hanna,” I say, eating the last of my food.

  “I’m sorry, Robyn, you’ll find someone eventually.” She says, putting a hand on my shoulder, reassuringly. “Anyway, I’ve gotta run, got band practice in like half an hour, text me later, yeah?” she asks, as she turns to leave the café.

  “Yeah, sure thing,” I call after her, watching her leave. Then I grab my stuff and leave the café myself, wondering what to do with the rest of my day.

  Not having anything particularly pressing that needed doing, I decided to go walk around the local park for a bit. I can’t help but think about my powers and what they mean for me. I know that I don’t really have to do anything about them, or even use them, but even now, my enhanced sense is active, making me aware of much more of my surroundings than normal if I focus on them. I don’t really think I can turn that off, at least it doesn’t seem that way as I think about it. The only other thing I know for sure I can do is essentially teleport, which I used a bit this morning in my flat.

  I take in a deep breath and focus on my enhanced perception, then when I think of moving to an area within it, I feel like I easily can, although that sensation stops as soon as I hit the edge of my perception, so the teleportation is limited to that?

  As enlightening as this is, I’m not going to openly practice teleporting in public, and it also does not really help with the main issue of what to do with my powers, as doing nothing just seems wrong to me.

  It wouldn’t be the first time my life has had a major upheaval.

  I think to myself, remembering how volatile my egg was when my egg first cracked. It happened when I was 28, and suddenly my whole world was upended. Previously, gender hadn’t really been a thing I thought about too much, aside from a vague disgust with masculine things and a brief flirtation with identifying as non-binary a few years before my egg cracking, and then suddenly it was everything, and everything about myself felt wrong. Reinventing myself was no mean feat. Even now, 3 years later, my transition is mostly social. I’ve only had 2 years of hormones, but I’ve been living as myself for the whole three years. Suddenly changing a fundamental part of yourself is inherently chaotic, but I managed it. At least, enough that I’d regained some kind of stability in my life despite still being a work in progress.

  Now all I have to do is see a therapist to be mentally stable and get bottom surgery so I can date girls!

  So, do I wanna help people with my powers and if I do, how the hell do I do that? I think that I do wanna help people, it’s always been a thing I’ve enjoyed in a non-extra-human way. Guess it’s time for some research.

  I sit down on a nearby park bench and pull my phone out of my bag. Firing up the web browser, I Google the first thing on the subject that comes to mind, The Weird Sisters. The first result seems to be their official website, with a bunch of promo stuff, biographies, a bunch of the stuff they do for and around the city and some contact details with the address to their HQ. Which is in the city centre, apparently?

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  Nothing that really helps me too much, though. The only thing is a snippet at the bottom of the page, which has a little legal disclaimer about some Extra-Human Protection Contract (EPC) that the team operates under. No actual information on it, though.

  Although thinking about it, I could just go see them and ask. That seems very daunting, though. After a bit more looking around the web, I don’t really see much online about the practicality of joining.

  Biting the bullet and realising I’ll have to go ask someone about it in person, I fire off a text to Hanna, telling her where I’m going, just in case something awful happens. Then, ignoring her teasing reply, I head off to The Weird Sister’s HQ.

  By the time I arrive at The Weird Sister’s HQ, it’s almost 3pm, and the city centre is still full of people going about their business. The crowds give me a burst of confidence when I approach the HQ, a rather intimidating building, without the knowledge of the powerful people that reside within. The building looks like the other office block buildings in this area, but all of the glass is opaque. There are no prominent logos or signage, unlike what some of the major teams seem to have from looking at their websites online on my way here.

  As I approach the main door to the building, I do see one logo that I recognise, though. I’m not sure who wouldn’t recognise it. It’s double helix shape with the section that crosses over in the middle emphasised in a way that makes it look bolder.Underneath the double helix shape are the letters EHF. This is the logo for the Extra-Human Foundation, the organisation that legally represents any extra-human that signs up with them, and was originally the lab that discovered the extra-human gene.

  Taking a deep breath, I push open the main door and walk into the building. Inside, I see a relatively empty reception area, just a single person behind the desk, looking intently at the computer screen in front of them. They look up at my entrance, a look on their face I recognise all too well, the look of a receptionist who’s just been interrupted with work.

  I approach the desk, looking around the area as I do, it’s very sparse, not much decoration or anything, just some benches for people to wait on and a singular glass coffee table.

  “Uh, hi,” I say nervously once I reach the reception desk, mostly meeting the lady’s eyes. “I was wondering how I’d go about talking to The Weird Sisters?” I ask, cringing a little at how unsure I sound.

  “Talking to them? May I ask what it’s about?” she asks me, sounding a little confused.

  “S-sorry,” I stammer, “I was involved in a thing that they dealt with, erm, yesterday- last night.”

  “Right. Okay, hold on,” she says, picking up the telephone next to her. I step back and look around the room again, trying to give her space to make the call. I hate the idea that I could be seen as listening in.

  Just a few minutes later, after the receptionist, whose name is Emily, told me to take a seat, I could sense someoneapproaching, and I stood up, getting ready to greet them. The receptionist gives me a look with a quirked eyebrow until a door to the side slides open and Efflorescent glides out, giving me a curious look once we make eye contact. She approaches me, still wearing that green dress from the night before, which I realise now is not just any dress and is her official extra-human outfit.

  “Hmm, I don’t believe we spoke last night…?” she says softly once we’re face to face.

  “Oh! My name’s Robyn, I only spoke to Shelter before leaving last night.”

  “Well, Robyn,” she says, as if testing my name on her lips, which I now notice are also slightly green. “I understand you wanted to talk to us about something related? I’m the only one in right now, the others are preoccupied, shall we say. If you follow me, we can go to one of our meeting rooms and talk in private.”

  I nod in agreement, trying to figure out how to broach this topic and coming up empty. She leads me through the door she originally entered from and a short way down the corridor as the door slides shut behind us.

  Once we’re situated in the meeting room, a sleek room with a long table with seats around it and a big TV screen against the wall opposite the entrance, we sit on opposite sides of the table. She looks at me, for a second, head cocked.

  “So, what did you need to talk about?” she asks me.

  Unsure how exactly to start this conversation, I pause for a moment before saying, “So, when that guy broke into the museum, I, uh, didn’t exactly tell you guys everything. Something happened to me…” I pause again, not sure how to explain what happened, because I don’t even understand it, especially the part with the display cabinet and then that freaky dream. I see Efflorescent still watching me, patiently waiting for me to continue, so I do the easiest thing I can think of to prove something happened and simply blink into the chair next to me.

  Efflorescent almost doesn’t react to my sudden and jarring change in position. “Interesting…” she says, “so you Awakened?”

  “I think I did, yeah. Unless you know some other way to get freaky abilities that you definitely didn’t have before?”

  She grins at this. “No, I guess I don’t know of any, although humans have never been my area of expertise,” she says, gesturing at a plant that sits in the corner. As she does so, it moves a little of its own accord and grows a noticeable amount.

  I laugh nervously a little at this. I’m not sure she means it this way, but this is definitely a display of her power, and the only abilities I’ve manifested so far are good for running away.

  “Well, I guess you’ve come to discuss being an Extra-Human then? Have you thought about what to do with your newfound power?”

  “A little? I feel like I can’t just do nothing, and I’ve always liked and wanted to help people, but I’m not sure how to go about that. My powers aren’t really very helpful either. I can just sense things around me and teleport around in that same range?” I look down a little, disappointment clear in my voice.

  “Well, while it’s true that some people do stay with the abilities they Awaken, it’s an open secret that that number is actually the minority. Most Extra-Humans do develop in abilities they have and power they can exert.” She smiles at this last part, “Why, I remember when I first awakened, I had just run away from the house my parent lived in, straight into the woods behind their house. All I could do was sense where the plants were and make them grow a little, not really very helpful at all. Nowadays, I’m pretty sure a wood like that under my abilities would be a national security threat.” She grins as she tells me this, a glint in her eyes making me think she’d care much more about the plants in the wood than the nations that might label it a security threat.

  “So you think I might get new powers?” I ask, shocked at the concept. “If it’s a secret, won’t you get in trouble for telling me?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t particularly mind, though,” she says, laughing softly. “As for using your powers to help, there is an official process where The Weird Sisters as an entity can anonymously sponsor you to the EHF, and afterwards you can do the helping thing either with or without anonymity. But I would suggest having a serious think about your path before committing to this. Although the anonymity will help you back out, there will still be people who know. I trust my sisters, but the more people who know, the greater the chances of failure there are. If there’s someone in your life you can trust, get their opinion on it. Take your time, and I will not tell a soul. If you return to us, sure, this is your path, then we can all talk about how to go about it.” She finishes, smiling softly.

  “Okay, thank you so much for talking with me about this… Efflorescent. Is- is that what I call you?”

  “Yes, I abandoned all pretence of my human name with my awakening, although I think I am relatively unique in that regard.” She tells me, chuckling.

  “Well, thank you, Efflorescent. I will go and think about things now. B-bye for now.”

  With that, we both get up and she leads me back out to the reception, and as I head out the door, Efflorescent gives me a little wave goodbye before going to talk to Emily, the receptionist.