Chapter Text
"Have you ever wondered," Will asked, swirling his fork lazily through a mound of mashed potatoes, "what it would be like if everyone just *knew* what everyone else was thinking?"
Across the dinner table, Sabrina Garder paused mid-bite, her knife hovering over her steak. Avery, his father—or rather, the man he'd called father for sixteen years—lowered his glass of cider with deliberate calm. The silence stretched just a second too long.
Avery cleared his throat first, the sound like a key turning in a rusted lock. "Will," he said carefully, "people's thoughts are messy. Private. Imagine if your math teacher knew you thought her haircut looked like a startled poodle every Monday."
Will's fork clinked against the plate. "But what if there were no secrets?" His voice had that strange, lilting quality it got when his powers flickered under the surface. The salt shaker trembled, then slid three inches toward him without being touched. "No lies. No politicians smiling while they plan to gut healthcare. No kids pretending to like you while they text about how weird you are."
Sabrina's steak knife clattered onto her plate. The air in the dining room thickened, charged with something beyond the usual tension of a teenage boy's existential musings. Will felt it too—the way their heartbeats stuttered, the sharp citrus tang of their fear cutting through the aroma of rosemary and seared meat. He hadn't meant to push the salt shaker. It had just... happened. Like when he'd accidentally teleported onto the roof of the school during a particularly boring history lecture.
"Will," Sabrina began, her surgeon's hands pressed flat against the tablecloth as if bracing for impact, "we've talked about this. Your abilities—"
"—aren't human," Avery finished, his voice low and steady. The senator's eyes flicked to the salt shaker, then back to Will. There was no accusation there, just a quiet resignation. "Sabrina, maybe it's time."
Sabrina's lips pressed into a thin line. For a heartbeat, Will thought she might argue—she always did when Avery suggested revealing more about his origins. But then her shoulders slumped, and she nodded toward the hallway. "Basement. Now."
The basement door groaned open, revealing stairs that descended into shadows thick enough to swallow the light from the hallway. Will followed his parents down, his sneakers scuffing against the wooden steps. The air smelled of damp concrete and something faintly metallic—a scent that prickled at the back of his mind like a half-remembered dream.
At the bottom, Avery flipped a switch. Fluorescent lights buzzed to life, illuminating a space that looked nothing like the storage area Will had imagined. Instead of holiday decorations and old textbooks, the room held a single object: a sleek, ovular pod resting on a raised platform, its surface etched with swirling glyphs that shimmered like oil on water. Will's breath caught. He'd seen this before—not in real life, but in flashes behind his eyelids when he pushed his powers too far.
Will's fingers twitched at his sides as he approached the pod, the glyphs pulsing faintly in time with his heartbeat. The metal hummed under his palm, warm despite the basement's chill. "You kept this from me," he murmured, not an accusation but a quiet revelation. The pod wasn't just a relic—it recognized him.
Avery exhaled sharply, stepping forward. "We were waiting until you were ready. Your abilities... they're not just developing, Will. They're *unlocking*." He reached into his pocket and produced a small, hexagonal device, its edges glowing cobalt. "This came with you. It responds to you."
"You mean I'm... an alien?"
The hexagonal device pulsed in Avery’s hand, casting jagged blue reflections across the basement walls. Will reached for it instinctively, his fingers brushing the cool surface—and the moment he made contact, the glyphs on the pod flared to life, burning crimson. A holographic projection erupted from the device, coalescing into the towering figure of a man with Will’s sharp cheekbones but broader shoulders, his eyes the same unsettling indigo. The man’s lips moved, but the sound that came out was a garbled, staticky mess, like a radio tuned between stations.
Sabrina grabbed Will’s shoulder, her grip tight. “That’s—that’s impossible. The linguist we hired said the language was untranslatable without—”
The holographic figure’s voice crackled, then snapped into sudden, chilling clarity. "Jon-Gall," it said—no, *he* said—in a voice that resonated deep in Will’s bones. "My son."
Will’s mouth went dry. The man’s lips were moving out of sync with the words, as if the hologram were piecing together language from fragments. "If you are seeing this, then Syrinx has fallen." The figure—Jak-Gall, Will realized with a jolt—gestured broadly, and the projection expanded to show a planet wreathed in fire, its crystalline cities shattering like glass under an onslaught of warships. "Our enemies feared what we could become. They called us monsters for the power in our minds. And so they burned us."
Jak-Gall’s holographic form flickered as the projection zoomed in on the burning cities—spires of iridescent alloy collapsing under orbital bombardment, streets filled with fleeing figures whose skin shimmered like Will’s did under certain light. "You were the last to leave," Jak-Gall continued, his voice tightening. "The escape pod was programmed to seek out a world where your gifts could flourish unnoticed. Earth was... suitable." A pause, heavy with unspoken implications. "But you were never meant to stay hidden."
Will’s fingers clenched around the hexagonal device. The metal warmed against his palm, responding to his pulse. "You want me to come back," he said, more statement than question.
Avery motioned his wife to follow him upstairs, "Give him time to process this."
They left unaware that Jak-Gall's message to his son was not done.
"Jon-Gall, the planet you inhabit is full of the weakest, most ignorant, most pathetic lifeforms in the universe. Take advantage of this. I beg you, claim this planet as New Syrinx. Build yourself a harem of women and repopulate the Syrinxian race. You are Syrinx's future. I know you'll do whst you must."
The hologram flickered out, leaving Will standing alone in the basement with the echo of Jak-Gall’s voice still ringing in his skull. The hexagonal device cooled in his palm, its blue glow fading to a dull pulse. Will exhaled sharply, his breath misting in the chilly air. *New Syrinx.* The words coiled in his mind like smoke, thick and suffocating.
Upstairs, the murmur of his parents’ voices drifted down—Avery’s measured baritone, Sabrina’s sharper cadence. They were arguing. Again. Will pressed his forehead against the pod’s smooth surface, the metal humming faintly against his skin. It felt like coming home and waking up in a stranger’s body at the same time.
The pod’s hum synchronized with Will’s pulse, a quiet thrum of alien machinery recognizing alien blood. He closed his eyes, and the afterimage of Syrinx burning seared itself onto his eyelids—crystalline towers crumbling, his people screaming. When he opened them again, his reflection in the pod’s surface wavered, the edges of his silhouette bleeding into something sharper, hungrier. *Jon-Gall*, he thought, testing the name like a knife between his teeth. It fit better than "Will" ever had.
Upstairs, Sabrina’s voice cracked like a whip. *"—not a weapon, Avery!"* The floorboards creaked under pacing footsteps. Will’s lips curved. They’d spent sixteen years sanding down his edges, teaching him to pass, to *pretend*. But Jak-Gall hadn’t asked for a human son. He’d asked for a conqueror.
The pod’s hum synced with Will’s pulse, a rhythmic thrum that drowned out his parents’ muffled arguing upstairs. He pressed his palm flat against its surface, feeling the alien metal throb as if it were alive—or recognizing something inside *him* that wasn’t quite alive in the way Earth understood it. Jak-Gall’s words coiled in his mind, venomous and sweet: *Claim this planet. Repopulate. Conquer.*
Will’s reflection in the pod’s surface twisted, his features sharpening into something predatory. The basement’s fluorescent lights flickered overhead, buzzing like angry insects. He didn’t need to *think* about his decision—it was already there, coiled in his gut, a certainty as cold and precise as a scalpel. Earth had spent years grinding him down, punishing him for being *more*. Now, he’d return the favor.