The Mercer family believed in three things.
First, breakfast was a serious matter.
Second, no one was allowed to experiment with superhuman abilities inside the house.
Third, Noah was the only ordinary member of the family, and therefore the only one who could be trusted to remember where the spare batteries were kept.
The third belief was particularly irritating.
“Noah,” his older sister Mara said, pointing her fork at him, “did you move my headphones?”
“No.”
“They were on the kitchen counter.”
“Then perhaps you should ask why you left them on the kitchen counter.”
Mara narrowed her eyes.
At twenty, Mara Mercer had the unnerving confidence of someone who could throw a person across a room without touching them.
She possessed a form of kinetic control: short, explosive bursts of force that allowed her to repel objects, increase the impact of a punch, or send an unfortunate intruder flying into a wall.
She was also incapable of accepting that her younger brother might occasionally be correct.
“I am asking a direct question.”
“And I gave you a direct answer.”
“You could be lying.”
“I could also be secretly responsible for the moon disappearing, but I don’t think either possibility would help you find your headphones.”
Their father made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
“Both of you.
Eat.”
Daniel Mercer was a broad-shouldered man in his late forties with a weathered face and the patient exhaustion of a parent who had spent too many years dealing with extraordinary children.
His ability was straightforward compared with the others: exceptional strength, durability, and a remarkable capacity to remain standing after injuries that would hospitalise an ordinary person.
Their mother, Helen, had a different gift.
Her senses could detect changes in living bodies, emotional disturbances, and traces of energy invisible to normal people.
She could sense fear before a person began to tremble and recognise an illness before the first obvious symptom appeared.
Their youngest child, Owen, was fifteen and still learning to control his adaptive biology.
His body responded unusually well to stress, becoming more resistant to conditions that had previously harmed him.
He considered this a wonderful excuse to do stupid things until everyone else disagreed.
All four of them had acquired their abilities during an accident at a private research facility eight years earlier.
The family did not discuss that night in front of strangers.
They had been visiting the facility because Daniel was considering a contract involving its emergency systems.
A containment failure had occurred during a demonstration, flooding part of the building with an unknown energy field.
The official report described a chemical fire and a structural collapse.
The public believed the facility had been shut down because of safety violations.
The truth was considerably stranger.
When the family awoke in hospital, every surviving member showed abnormal physical or neurological changes.
Their abilities appeared over the following months.
They had learned to hide them out of necessity.
Noah had been there too.
He had returned home uninjured and apparently unchanged.
While the others struggled with abnormal strength, sensory overload, and unexplained bursts of power, Noah developed no outward abilities that the family could detect.
Medical checks showed no alarming changes.
His body seemed normal.
He did not break furniture, sense emotions, or send chairs flying across the room.
He became the family’s exception.
The fact that he had received V at eight, years before the accident, was not part of the family history they understood.
Neither the original boy nor the system had left behind any obvious evidence that could be examined.
And Noah had no intention of enlightening them.
“So,” Daniel said, setting down his coffee, “school starts again next week.
Any problems with your schedule?”
“No.”
“Any problems with your grades?”
“No.”
“Any problems you haven’t told us about?”
Noah looked at him.
“Are you asking as my father or as the strongest person in the house?”
“As your father.”
“Then the answer is no.”
Daniel gave him a long look.
Mara leaned back in her chair.
“He really is our most boring child.”
“Thank you,” Noah said.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“I chose to receive it as one.”
Owen grinned.
“At least he doesn’t accidentally break the microwave.”
“Once,” Mara said.
“Three times,” Helen corrected.
“One time was already broken.”
“Because you put a metal spoon inside it.”
“It was an experiment.”
“It was a spoon.”
Noah listened to them argue and felt something inside him loosen.
This family was absurd.
They were also alive, warm, imperfect, and familiar in a way he had not expected to experience after waking in another world.
He knew their histories from the memories of the original Noah, but familiarity in memory was not the same as sitting at a table and watching Mara try to justify a dangerous experiment with household equipment.
For a few minutes, he forgot that their world contained vampires.
He forgot that werewolves might exist beyond the town limits.
He forgot that one day, the Salvatore brothers would walk into Mystic Falls and begin an elaborate chain of disasters.
He was simply Noah Mercer, the quiet younger son sitting at breakfast.
Helen glanced at him.
“You look different today.”
Noah kept his expression neutral.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know.
More rested, perhaps.”
“I slept well.”
She studied him for another moment, not quite satisfied.
Her abilities could detect subtle changes in living bodies, but psychic energy did not belong to the familiar biological patterns she understood.
Noah’s physical powers were under perfect control, and his new psychic ability was still too weak to leave an obvious trace.
For now, her senses told her nothing alarming.
“Good,” Helen said.
“Keep doing that.”
Mara stood, took her plate to the sink, and paused beside Noah.
“You know,” she said, “when you finally discover your power, I’m going to be unbearably smug about it.”
“Why?”
“Because I told you that you’d be late.”
“Those two things have no connection.”
“They will when I’m right.”
She walked out before he could answer.
Noah watched her go.
Four superhumans in the family, and not one of them can locate a pair of headphones.
He almost laughed.
Then he remembered the system.
The psychic energy he had felt in the garden was still there, faint but unmistakable.
It rested somewhere behind his thoughts, like a muscle that had never been exercised.
He could keep it to himself.
He could become stronger in secret while his family continued to regard him as ordinary.
Or, eventually, he could share it.
The system’s wording had been precise: recipients could cultivate psychic energy, and their progress would contribute to his collective advancement.
More users meant a larger foundation, while talent determined how quickly that foundation could develop.
That was a long-term possibility, not an immediate plan.
Giving supernatural power to his family without understanding the consequences would be irresponsible.
He needed to learn the system’s limits before involving anyone else.
Noah picked up his glass.
He had years of preparation ahead of him.
For now, he would let his family keep their assumptions.It was safer for everyone.